Rick Rule Series: Investing in Commodities During a Recession

0:08 Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Rick Rule. I'll be moderating 2 hours of panel discussions from notable CEOs of junior mining issuers located throughout North America. I have the extreme good fortune today to interview in the first session Rick Van Nuenhaus from Contango Ores, Julian Traeger from Kotec, Ali Haji from Ion Energy, and Doug Ramshaw from Manera Alamos.

0:40 These are people with a wide range of experience, and we're gonna talk to them in a very sort of varied sense About the opportunities and risks that they see in various aspects. Of the mining industry investments so I'm gonna cut right into it. The first question- it's going to revolve around commodities These gentlemen are all involved in searching for and potentially producing various types of commodities and I'd like each of them to give an overview of what commodity markets that they are in and why. Rick, I'm going to begin with you. Contango,

1:15 I know from experience, is mostly involved in the gold business and you have been mostly involved in the gold business for most of Your career talk about gold the opportunities the risks. Why now? Well, I think gold's a at a great place to invest in for investors You know, we're still printing money. We just passed the United States just passed a 700 dollar, 700 billion dollar bill. Printing money is what results in inflation. The Fed's got so many so many levers it can pull, but it's not just about interest rates. And so I'm a gold bull. We are going to see inflation. I know we're going to talk about that. But I think the moment we're at right now with The Fed already starting to moderate its language and the market wanting the Fed to moderate its language. I think gold's in a great place. It's going to take off to significantly higher levels. It's gone through a nice consolidation phase here between $1,700 and $1,800.

2:19 And so I think we're just in a very good position to see the gold price move up as not just the U.S., but the world still Figures out how much money we actually need in the system Julian throughout your career. You've been involved in lots and lots and lots of different metals You are basically now in the batteries metals business. Tell us why and tell us what you see in that business.

2:51 Seems like Julian's lost his connection. Let's move on. Ali, the same question for you. You've been involved in several commodities in your career. You're in lithium business now. What do you see as the outlook for lithium? Why are you in the business? What risks do you see in lithium? We've been in the business for ION in the last sort of 5 years, 2017, when I co-founded the company. I think to tackle what Rick was saying in terms of government expenditure and printing money, A lot of what we've seen throughout the pandemic has been governments printing money or incentivizing

3:21 a clean green energy revolution. And so lithium continues to be on demand. We see that there is a scarcity in terms of lithium supply. And being the lithium business allows us to somewhat close that gap, but also being junior explorers in the proximity, or rather in the jurisdiction that has a close proximity to large consumers, for us is a value proposition that we believe lithium can continue to play. Finally Doug Ramshaw, Monera Alamos, precious metals business focused on gold. Tell us why you chose the gold business. Is it because you think gold is going to go up? Is it because it lowers your cost of capital to be in the gold business?

4:03 Talk to us about gold and Monero Alamos. Yeah, I mean, to echo a lot of what Rick said, there are obvious points about gold. I think looking back to 2020, gold demonstrated that its exposure in your portfolio can stabilize a portfolio during very volatile times. We saw 2 very good years of gold price appreciation before last year's period of stabilization. I would think that gold this year, despite everyone thinking, well, inflation is running rampant, why is gold not moving, is actually done exactly why you don't know what and why you have some exposure to it in your portfolio. So I think current prices are very healthy for having good margins for well-run operations.

4:52 And the world is with the money printing that we have right now, you know, we're still probably 20, 25 percent below record highs in inflation adjusted terms in gold. And there's potential to see margin expansion if we see a move in gold prices. But in the meantime, these are pretty healthy levels. I think The real risk in the gold space right now is we're seeing the inflationary effects on costs, both capex and up costs, and we haven't necessarily seen it translate through to the gold price yet. So I think a lot of the sector are certainly going to be hoping for that second leg. Julian, can you hear us? Or are you still?

5:38 Apologies, ladies and gentlemen, Julian Trager, an important panelist, is having some connectivity issues. So we'll return to him when we have the opportunity. Gentlemen, I'm going to move on to a discussion, to the extent that we can, about capital markets and the economy. Obviously, capital markets are a concern of everybody. Julian, you're with us. Can you hear me?

6:03 I'm coming and going, but thank you. Yes, I can hear you. Let me try this then. I'm going to return to the former question, which is to say commodities. You've been involved in a lot of commodity markets in your career. Currently, you're focused on battery metals. If you could tell us a bit about why what you see the opportunities and risks being in that sector.

6:23 Sure I mean we're very keen on battery metals because we can see. 250 giga factories being built. To supply the batteries for the future, and they need lots more material and mines. Plus, you can see the breakdown of global supply chains, and a lot of the metals which China is controlling are now gonna be needed in other parts of the world. So there's going to be much more demand as the global just-in-time system breaks down. So we are very keen on this area, including obviously base metals.

7:00 So while we have you, Julian, I'm going to start the next question with you before we lose you, which is a capital markets question. Obviously with the TSX-V resource index off like a boulder off a bridge and increasing concerns about the broad economy, what do you see as in terms of both opportunities risks in either capital markets and or the broad economy and- Julie I want to start with you since we have you.

7:29 Sounds like we don't have it. Well I mean we see this as a buying opportunity. We think that it's a good entry point because we've had a great reversal. And we see this shift to a circular economy and recycling with technology, which we are occupying as a very interesting growth area. Jillian, do you see the sell-off in junior capital markets being reflective of things in the broad economy, or do you see it as an aberration given your longer term outlook?

8:11 I think the junior market looks relatively undervalued because people have been moving towards liquidity more recently. So I think it represents a very interesting buying opportunity. Ali, I want to ask you the same range of questions. There's turmoil in capital markets. Some would suggest there's turmoil in the broad economy. Talk to us about both the risks and rewards that you see in capital markets, mining capital markets in particular, and in the broad economy. Absolutely. In terms of the risk that we see today, I think we've had a number of companies, irrespective of jurisdiction, as well as a stage of either exploration, development, or ultimate production or production capacity, be overvalued to some degree. There was a fair bit of capital that individuals had either held on to or were able to accumulate on the back of the pandemic. The crypto

9:06 run obviously allowed a number of individuals to invest in the same remit, but I think today where we stand there are companies that have a value proposition that can be realized for investors. As far as the macro sort of industry or mining investment industry is concerned I think we're seeing inflows of capital. And that's a good thing for all of us that are involved in the resource space. But beyond that I think we just have to pay attention to the defining fundamental value in organizations and management teams that are executing- across- that their mandate. Do you think- Ali you again do you think that the turmoil that we're experiencing in junior capital markets is reflective of the broad economy or do you think it's unfairly discounting as an example the chances of recession relative to impending supply-side shortages

10:01 I would say it's it's across the board so it is what we're seeing in terms of losses across the market, the capital markets has been agnostic. So we're not looking primarily at resources. We've seen some capital flow back into resource sector, but we're also seeing individuals, like we stated, looking for liquidity. And so a number of exits across the industry, across various different industries, has resulted in an ultimate decline in the capital markets as we see them today. Doug, I'm going to ask you the same round of questions. Capital markets opportunities, capital markets risk, the broad economy. Do you think that gold shares have been, as an example, unfairly punished?

10:43 Do you think that companies that are on the exploration basis rather than large companies have been unfairly punished in the sell-off and tertiary markets?

10:54 No I don't think so Rick. I think you know we're almost 2 years into a decline. You know we probably saw well peak gold in you know August, September in terms of margins And it's been contraction of margins ever since. So it's not just juniors that are struggling right now with performance. I mean, we're seeing it amongst the major constituents of the of the GDX as well. So obviously the biggest differences when juniors are struggling

11:27 it can be harder to raise capital to execute on that plan. I think one of the biggest problems at the lower end of the market is we have too many companies. I've long lamented we have too little capital spread around too thinly. And then we wonder why do we not get anything done. I'd love to see a moratorium on new company creation. It will never happen. So no, I think it's across the board, but one of the positives is, I think from a global fund focus perspective, there is woefully inadequate investment in the commodity space at large relative to broader industries that all require the very commodities that we're looking at mining and developing. So I think as the world settles down,

12:22 we're obviously seeing this big decline in copper, for example, recently. But that hasn't changed the dynamic that's out there in a couple of years' time in terms of major supply issues facing the copper market. So I think we've all got to breathe a little and realize that commodities are the bedrock of so many of these industries out there. And there needs to be greater exposure, I think, to commodity investing. Rick, same question for you. You're a capital markets veteran of many cycles. Tell us what you see in terms of opportunities and risks, both in capital markets and in the broad economy. Yeah, I mean, obviously, the junior sector is struggling. I think the average value for an ounce of gold that companies are getting in their resource categories is $30 an ounce, which is, I don't know if it's at an all-time low, but it's pretty close to an all-time low. So obviously that's a good buying opportunity.

13:14 And to sort of follow on with what Doug was just saying about too many companies

13:19 in the space, I think we need to have consolidation in the business and that's one of the strategies we're going to execute. We have a very small amount of shares outstanding, we've been a well-structured company,

13:34 We're going to be in cash flow here in another year or so with our joint venture partner and so we're going to take advantage of that. We think it's you know like any buyer in a down market, you wanna take advantage of the situation. So that's our business plan. You know, guys, I'm gonna ad lib here for a second, because you've brought up something of interest. Some years ago, about 15 years ago, I assigned a young intern, that's financial speak for slave, to pull 25, in those days, VSE issuers at random, look at the balance sheets and the income statements and tell me what he saw that was interesting. With nothing particular in mind, I just wanted to see the way the young man thought, and I'm not saying that 25 is a representative sample, but the 25 that he pulled had median general and administrative expenses at 64% of capital raised, which is to say out of 25 the median spent 64% on GNA and

14:36 the balance on the property. So your comment with regards to a plethora of issues I think is probably the single greatest challenge facing the junior industry. Sorry for the editorial, but I couldn't resist that one statement, which I thought might bring some smiles to various lips. I want to move on to a discussion of inflation. Inflation has been regarded for years as the friend of the miners, in the sense that it raises at least the nominal prices that are paid for commodities. But inflation can be the enemy too. We're starting to see inflation in the supply chain drive, as an example, capital expenditures, mine construction costs crazy. And we're now beginning to see inflation in particular in the form of higher wages and energy prices impact the income statement of various mining companies.

15:28 So I want to talk to you about your outlook for inflation and how you see inflation acting in the opportunities and the risks that you face. And, Rick, I'm going to start with you. Talk to me about inflation relative to Contango, a gold explorer and soon-to-be producer. Yeah. I mean, obviously, we just issued a feasibility study where our guidance had previously been a year plus, maybe a year, two-year guidance with $130 million of capital to execute on our project. I mean, it was low capital because we're not building a mine, or sorry, a mill in a tailing facility.

16:09 We weren't really building a lot, but regardless, you still see the effects of inflation. Our capital number is now 180. And, you know, there's always been a little change in scope. We had, you know, we're going to buy a bunch of highway trucks rather than lease the highway trucks. So that's, you know, there's some extra capital for that. But apples to apples, we probably saw close to a 30 percent increase in capital over a year, 18-month sort of period. So not like 10 years, but a modest amount of time. So that's real. And obviously, Newmont and IAMGOLD and all the guys who have been updating their capital numbers, you know, it's a real number. So it's not going away. It'll take time for it to go away.

16:55 We may be in a stagflation period where it takes 10 years. And we don't have a Paul Volcker in the Fed, so it might take longer. And then you combine that with what's going on

17:11 in the transition to alternative energy or non-carbon-based energy in transportation, That's just a big inflationary pressure that's going to be with us probably for the next. 20 30 years I don't know it's it's not- it's not going to be short lived so. Yeah inflation's here it's real- I think we're the benefactor of as a company. Because we have a low amount of capital to raise It's off of a low much lower base if we were building a mill at our own project and a tailings facility Our capital would probably be 6 or 700 million. So Yeah, it's there. It's real. I'm thankful that we have a relatively low amount of capital to raise. Julian, are you with us? Can you hear us?

17:58 It appears not. So Let's move on to Ali. I want to ask you the same question. The impact and perhaps the benefit of inflation with regards to both, well, you could do exploration expense too, exploration expense, development expense, and then finally operational expense.

18:18 What do you see with inflation? How do you expect to benefit from it? What are the risks that you're dealing with? The risks that we see today obviously have to do with very much what Rick mentioned, which is, you know, your exploration costs tend to increase. Your cost on the ground as far as de-risking your projects tends to increase as well. We've actually scaled back on a number of travel activities because let's be honest looking at airfares around the world you start to see increments that are really unaffordable and we're moving back to this pre-pandemic model which is Zoom related. And so we continue to explore opportunities to tell our story in market with various different mediums. But I think exploration for us will continue to press on. The fact that we have a team in country, as far as ION is concerned, allows us to execute in country without seeing those inflationary measures or costs really add up.

19:11 And beyond that, I think inflation, as Rick mentioned, is here to stay. So we have to be well prepared and ensure that that's built into our

19:22 financials going forward. It's interested me in looking at the lithium space at the impact that inflation is beginning to have in terms of inputs for the SQMs and the Alba Marleys of the world. It isn't just the upfront capital costs, but rather the operating costs too, increasing wages, increasing social rents. It would appear that inflation

19:46 is being a devil to us twice. Are you seeing that among your larger producing peers in the lithium space? Indeed we are, and I think the vast majority of EV manufacturers today have contracts that allow them to buy lithium and essentially battery metals at a price that is contracted. We're seeing today prices of lithium carbonate equivalent trading at multiples of what it would have been, you know, 3 years ago. And part of that is indeed that inflationary measure. So as you look to increase your

20:16 OPEX, you will also have an increment in prices. And I think that's why we need more lithium producers coming online to help us move towards this clean, green future. And Doug, talk to us about inflation. Inflation

20:33 in any aspect that you want to discuss relative to Monero Alamos?

20:37 Yeah, I'm actually going to start by, it's a mining panel, so someone's got to mention the Lausanne curve. We need a lot of metals in our future. And so a lot of companies focus on that front peak of the Lassonde curve. And I wish more traveled to the far peak of it. But when you actually look in this current environment we're in, you know, you almost feel like it's a fool's error. I would not wanna be a company having to think about committing 6, $700 million to a project with the uncertainty of costs moving

21:09 forward. You've obviously seen some that are kind of pot committed on those decisions like Argonaut, Magena or Kote Lake for Iron Build. You're seeing other ones that are at least able to determine, okay, we've got to shut that down like B2 did recently on a development project. From Monero's perspective, I think we're fortunate in that we're small enough and young enough that we can be more nimble. On top of that, we approach things from a very low capex perspective. We built our first mine in the middle of a pandemic for 10 million US, our next 2 projects are roughly 25 million capex projects and 35 million capex projects.

21:54 A banker at CIBC said to me at the beginning of the year, your business model actually might be perfectly suited for this environment. In fact, I often say I embrace the current challenges right now because I think it shines a spotlight on low capital intensity. You know, if we were to suffer a 30% increase in capex over our next 2 projects, it's annoying. Absolutely. But it's 20 million U.S. It doesn't create a funding shortfall. So I think we're fortunate that we can, we're small enough, we can be nimble. But, you know, inflation is absolutely there. In Mexico, where we are, at least fuel inputs are largely OK because the government of Mexico address fuel price movements with a rolling average of 3 years.

22:43 So we haven't seen major input prices, input changes yet. But as everyone has said on the panel and I agree, you know, these inflationary crashes are here to stay. So, you know, that's obviously an ongoing challenge for everyone in the sector. It's probably worth noting that people who operate in non-North American jurisdictions, even if they operate in Canada, perhaps, benefit from a stronger U.S. Dollar relative to domestic currency, which is to say that the United States has done a pretty good job of offloading inflation on hapless peers, where your inputs are, as an example, in

23:22 pesos, but you sell your product in relatively strong US dollar terms. I want to move on to probably the 3 most controversial letters in the English language right now. That is E, S, and G. I'll start by saying that my own experience has been that G, governance, is really a function of trying to moderate disputes between E and S, because everyone's definition of what constitutes ESG seems to be different. We used to call it corporate social responsibility.

24:00 I remember myself 10 years trying to change the focus to corporate social opportunity, largely unsuccessfully. So away from the editorials, I want to begin a discussion about ESG.

24:15 Where do you see the opportunities? Where do you see the risks?

24:18 What special challenges and opportunities do you face?

24:21 Rick, you've operated in Alaska successfully, I would say, in the context of ESG for a very long time. As an example, you're very close to indigenous and native communities in Alaska, which have a lot of power. So I want to lead the discussion of ESG with you, but you can take it anywhere you want. You don't need to confine yourself to the native corporations. Yeah, no, it's obviously very topical as you say. I think you made the front cover of The Economist. So I think it got ahead of itself. And I think there's been a lot of greenwashing that's gone on with the big corporations. And I think that's going to come back to haunt some of these groups that have really embraced it and tried to adjust their businesses around it.

25:13 Because a lot of it is, frankly, a lot of greenwashing. We like to argue, and I'm looking at this from an explorationist point of view, obviously. That's what we do. We like to work on the ground with local communities. And we have the good fortune in Alaska of being well-established here.

25:32 I know we're going to talk about politics as well, but regardless of the fact of you're in the United States and it's a rule of law, if your local community doesn't like your project, you're screwed. So our motto is always meet early, meet often, be transparent and listen. And I think those are the, again, I'm talking about an explorationist and an exploration company development stage company point of view, which is where we, that's what we do. You know, we typically would bring in the big company to, you know, to build the mine and execute the plan, which is what we've done with Don and on, on with Barrett. When I did with Trilogy and South 32,

26:15 and effectively what we've done with Kenross, which they just use their mill up the road and so we don't have to build a mill in a tailings facility. And so our share of capital is $55 million rather than a share of 6 or $700 million a year. So that all doesn't go anywhere if you're my view of ESG working with local communities

26:41 is off is off and going in a bad direction. So to me that's where we focus our efforts. I'm proud to say that in the context of the broader view of ESG and climate change and carbon emissions, our plan actually has about a 30% reduction in carbon emissions, CO2 emissions, than if we had built a mine at a mill in a tailing facility ourselves. So those are all things that are, you know, come with an overall, executing an overall strategy. But to me, it's all about working closely with the local communities. Doug, I want to pose the same broad range of questions to you. Obviously, Gold Explorer, Gold Producer in Mexico, various aspects of ESG. Feel free to take it wherever you want.

27:31 Yeah, I mean, it is important. One can't turn a blind eye to industry trends like that. It's also an additional cost burden, no doubt, which is going to be exacerbated in the current environment. I'm a big believer at least on the environmental and social.

27:55 The what's important is the people your local stakeholders how they view you. You know it's Mexico has a permitting environment where you're forced to start with social license. Now, you can lose that social license if you don't approach things on the ground properly.

28:12 But you're forced to. We're in a world where it's all about ESG scorecards on websites and PowerPoint presentations to appease people and you have to because it can impact your cost of capital. But but I still think the most important part of it is how you approach your stakeholders on the ground how you are seen as a corporate citizen in a country.

28:36 That to me is where you're making a real impact. When you, whether it's Mexico, Peru, Alaska, whatever, you have an opportunity to impact the local people in a very positive manner. That's what drives me, that's what drives Monera. That's what we'll be proud of. The funny thing is we're gonna go from 0 mines to 3 mines over the next 4 or 5 years, our carbon footprint has to increase. Our baseline was 0 mine. So I think we'll obviously do everything we can that's environmentally sensitive to the locations we're working in and sensitive to the communities at large.

29:21 But, you know, I can't pull the wool over anyone's eyes and say we're gonna be reducing our carbon emissions. The nice thing about open pit heat leaches, it's not, you know, a major energy intensive kind of operation.

29:38 So I'm open-minded to the fact that we have to embrace this ESG world. But I tend to scorecard ourselves internally rather than projected as some great thing we're doing. It's that relationship with local stakeholders, which is important to me. Finally, Ali, same question. I would echo CSR being around. Sorry, Ali, you're cutting out.

30:19 Gentlemen, can you hear Ali or am I the only one who is hearing him? No, he's fixed on my screen. Okay, I think we're going to have to move on. We'll return to Ali when he returns to us.

30:34 I just want to comment myself on ESG. I've had the opportunity to talk to some of the largest institutional investors in the world in the last 5 years about the topic. And I've asked them to consider things like, is the transfer of technical skills by a mining community to a local community a social good?

30:53 Is the fact that 1.2 billion people on Earth don't have primary access to electricity, and another 2 billion people on earth have access to only intermittent or unaffordable electricity, an S-factor. Should materials be produced in countries where there's a better form of environmental law than in other countries, it would seem that everybody's analysis of ESG is different. As an example, the World Economic

31:29 Forum talks about ESG. They don't seem to talk about the fact that 1.2 billion people on Earth don't have access to primary electricity. They don't seem to talk about the fact that 1.2 billion people on earth don't have access to primary electricity. They don't seem to talk about the fact that 800 million people experience periods of time during the year when their aggregate calorie consumption is less than 1000 calories per person per day. And my own 2 cents is that when we talk about ESG, we have to talk about ESG in its broadest possible perspective. Ali, you're back with us. I am, I apologize. You were talking about power and access to power and you know, the, the, the, I'm in downtown Toronto, just talking to you, sadly, you've lost power. So, I had to put it back on my cell phone and here we are so long story short I think you know I was covering off the ESG aspect of things or is what we've been doing in Mongolia I think we've been in country for about 13 years now My chairman's first foray there was a coal company. When he exited, we had 299 local employees, 1 expat.

32:28 The other company that I was involved with is Stepgold, another company that has a fair number of local Mongolian nationals working for the organization with 1 expat. And with Ion Energy in much the same fashion, you know, the vast majority, in fact, 100% of our people on the ground are Mongolian. We continue to meet with the local communities to ensure that we have the environmental sign-off. But you look at the carbon footprint, which I think was an overarching theme with respect to our other panelists here. China today imports the vast majority of their lithium from Latam and from Australia. Think about the carbon footprint related to this clean green energy revolution as opposed to being able to find lithium on the doorstep of the largest consumer. So I think that environmental aspect might be resolved as a result of where we are located.

33:17 But in terms of social license as well as governance, I think these are things that CSR sort of taught us. ESG continues to be a buzzword and does indeed, as Doug mentioned,

33:30 allow you to access capital. But it's sort of the ethos of how we have operated before this was a buzzword so without power on my cell phone in downtown Toronto over to you. Well since since I sort of have you still I'm going to start the next question with you for fear that that third world country Canada will fail you again with regards to power And I want to talk about political risk and jurisdictional opportunity Obviously you've operated around the world you're operating in Mongolia now Talk to us about the political risk or the opportunity that you see

34:06 and focus on Mongolia, focus on Canada, focus on whatever you want. I want to hear a discussion of how political risk and jurisdictional opportunity impacts your corporate thinking and strategy. Of course, I think that has a lot to do with where you opt to do business. And with Mongolia being the jurisdiction that we operate in over the last 13 years, we've seen governments change from the People's Party to the Democratic Party and then back again. We've been visiting country for, well, I have at least for the last 6 years, and I've met with different members of government on both sides of both political parties. We've also seen now that Mongolia has opened up their jurisdiction to foreign investment, not only from the Chinese, which is something they've never done historically. So in December they had an opportunity to invite Chinese investment.

34:52 Zijin invested in Xanadu Mines, a copper explorer there. We know that Rio Tinto is almost doubling down on their investment for Ory Tolgoi. So we see Mongolia as a jurisdiction that is opening up. Yes, there is risk, unlike every other jurisdiction on the planet. But I think Mongolia is well positioned now to bring in foreign investment, and they've sort of put their money or they're

35:17 behind everything that they say they are promising to our foreign investors. So with Rio Tinto essentially putting $5 billion back into the economy, that speaks to us as a jurisdiction that would be quite profitable as we progress. So you've been there 13 years, but you live in Canada. In terms of, as an example, social rents, fiscal terms, fiscal stability, how would you compare Mongolia and Canada?

35:41 I think Canada from a permitting perspective can be quite difficult to operate in. Mongolia, much the same, and I think environmental sort of sign-offs that you are required to have as an operating company in Mongolia, you sometimes have to get approval every quarter. I think Canada is at the forefront of mining and has been, despite it being a third world country that doesn't have electricity in downtown Toronto currently. But I think Mongolia is a nation that we can draw parallels with respect to Canada, but I think Mongolia is a Buddhist nation that values their environment. So you do have to, in fact, get approvals from the necessary individuals to operate in country. And how about the difference in fiscal terms, taxation, resource rents, things like that? Taxation, I think, you know, the good thing about Canada is the grants that you would receive should you have assets in Canada.

36:33 And obviously we operate in Mongolia and there have been a number of occasions in which I've been sort of approached by the innovation sort of ministry here in Canada for grants. But of course we operate in Mongolia and that's not something we can do. As far as the fiscal terms are concerned, taxation, you know, look at gold. They're currently paying a premium to spot because they want to ensure that their currency holds up well against the inflationary measures that are happening around the world, but also with respect to the Russian crisis. So I think taxation terms are quite favorable in Mongolia as far as operating. Doug, I want to move on to you. Political risk, jurisdictional opportunity. Yeah, I think the 2 biggest challenges facing our sector are water management and permitting risk. And so permitting speaks directly to the question.

37:28 Where we are in Mexico, I guess, when AMLO came into power right before COVID hit, you know, it was the start of what seems to have been a trend in more left-leaning governments throughout South America now. And, you know, in that regard, I'd look at Africa. It's funny, we're not exposed to Africa. Sometimes I look at Africa and I go, when they resolve things, it's done with a coup. And it's like business continues, the spice must flow to put my bit of a dude nerd hat on. But there's some disruption and things move forward again. And when you're dealing in Latin America and you're seeing a lot of these shifts to more left-leaning sides, you can be stuck with that political winds of change for 4 to 6 years.

38:18 That being said, where we are in Mexico, nothing much has changed under the AMLO government. I think he's got about 2.5 years left, so maybe there's still a chance that things will change. But, you know, there's been, whether it be Orla or Silvercrest or ourselves, we've all built mines under the AMLO government. And in that regard I think we're quite happy with where we are. One thing I'd say with regard to permitting and maybe making comparisons say between Canada and countries like Mexico that have a relatively short permitting window in comparison, when you're building your first mine there's that that old adage about being stuck in the orphan period of the development curve and no one wants to touch you because it's all boring, permitting, news, construction or whatever.

39:12 To me, you only live that orphan period once. So you might as well live it in a country where it's actually pretty rapid to permit, get up and running, you know, any, any, any producer and we're a producer should be looking to de-risk by being a multi-asset producer and further de-risk by being a multi-jurisdiction producer as well. Not getting crazy and being in 7 different countries at once, but you can approach a longer permitting environment somewhere else, because you're not really in the orphan period. It's just development at that point. It's just the future. So, you know, to me, when I go back to those 2 biggest challenges facing our sector, I mean, permitting is good in Mexico. Water, more problematic because we've been in 2 years of a La Nina event, which is, you know, we've seen obviously in Southern California and extends into northern Mexico, water is a challenge.

40:07 But historically speaking going back over 70 years virtually every La Niña event had maybe up to a 2.5 year period. So we're hopefully, and California is hopefully almost through the worst of it. Rick, same question. Political risk, jurisdictional opportunity. Yeah, I mean we're in the US, so you know, I think relatively low on the political risk scale. But I've worked all over the world. And I've enjoyed working all over the world as a younger geologist. But I'm an older geologist now. And I'm going to stick a little closer to home and I'm also going to stick on the road system. So we found Donovan and it's in the middle of nowhere.

40:54 It still struggles to get permitted and to, I don't know how it's going to get financed. Maybe it will, but it's a great deposit. But I'm sticking close to infrastructure. I like to work where I know how to work. We know how to work in the US. We know how to work in Canada. That's probably where we're going to stay. It's not without risk, but we understand the risk, I think, is the way I would frame it. And I also get back to sort of the ESG part of the discussion where you I think you can really improve your risk in terms of permitting and in terms of your social license by doing a good job with local communities and having local community supports, hearing their concerns, addressing their concerns.

41:41 In our project, the mine at Manchot was not hardly at all, there's hardly any truck controversy about the mine site itself. The controversy was about trucking. And so we've addressed that by, these will be the safest trucks on the road. They're gonna be fit for purpose trucks. So I think that's how you have to mitigate political risk, is understanding how there's going to be risk, understanding how to execute is kind of where you want to focus. Any comment on the Biden administration's Intercession with regards to trilogy on the road Yeah, I mean obviously unfortunate. I mean I would have thought 7 years of permitting was sufficient and you know literally hundreds of meetings with communities It's a disappointment to see that basically everything that happened under the Trump administration undone.

42:39 That doesn't sort of smell like rule of law, but we'll just deal with that separately. But I think it's important for that for the Ambler Road is that the permit wasn't revoked, it was just remanded. So that means more studies. Let's do some more studies. We haven't studied cultural impacts enough and we haven't studied subsistence issues enough. So it's not dead, it's just going to take a little longer, which obviously that's the, that's the MO of the anti-mining lobby is to, is to, you know, death by 1000 cuts. So yeah, disappointing, but it'll get done. And that's because of that, there is a lot of local support for the project and you don't hear about it because you know the the anti-mining communities it tends to be much louder than the than the supporters.

43:36 Finally, the one thing that none of us have talked about is the potential specter of recession. I think everybody sees on the supply side with regards to resources facing a supply cliff. What happens if we face a demand cliff? What are the probabilities very quickly that you all see with regards to recession? Is it part of your consideration, and if so, how? Doug, I'm going to start with you. Yeah, I mean, I think it's almost inevitable. It's a question of how long it lasts. But I think right now, heading into whatever this recession looks like, we were already dealing with a supply cliff. It's just, you know, if it's delayed, to me, it doesn't matter too much because most of these projects take 10, 15 years to develop anyway. I mean, so does it hurt us in the short term?

44:36 I think we've obviously seen that on the base metal side, perhaps more so than the gold side right now. I think gold actually can benefit from what's ahead. Copper, lead, zinc, all these other commodities, the demand for those is going to be coming back. It's just deferred a little bit. So perhaps there's going to be shorter-term pain in terms of we saw almost $5 copper, and now we're at whatever it is, $3.60. I think gold's actually, against all the headwinds this year, gold has actually performed remarkably well, especially when you look at the strength of the US dollar. So from a gold perspective, I have less concerns.

45:22 And honestly, if I was producing, looking at developing copper mines or the like, I would have less concerns either. We've under-invested in this space for so long that that supply cliff is still there. It's just been delayed by a few years, is my feeling on it. For the record, I certainly agree with that, although I am nervous about the near-term, by near-term I mean 3 to 4 year impact of a demand cliff too. Ali, I'd like to ask you the same question. What do you think the probability of a recession is, understanding that you have no crystal ball, And how does that impact your plans around the lithium market in your own company?

46:08 I think recession, as Doug mentioned, is inevitable. It's something that's coming, but we've known through various cycles that when we do have a recession, governments tend to increase their expenditure. And that has translated during the pandemic in particular to the electrification of the world through their investment in clean green energy technology. And so in terms of recession and government expenditure, I think we'll continue to see a move towards electrification, oil and gas sort of taking a backseat relative to EVs. And as a result of recession and government expenditure, you can incentivize individuals to move over to electric vehicles through subsidies and what have you. So I think as far as lithium is concerned, I wouldn't call it recession proof. Nothing is, because people will start to really watch their pocketbook.

46:55 But ultimately, if governments start to increase expenditure to stimulate the economy and have one of those mandates being electrification. I think that bodes well for lithium going forward. Ali, do you think that a recession would impact government's ability to subsidize industries like lithium? And do you have any nervousness about the potential impact of recession on capital markets, capital availability, and hence your cost of capital? Absolutely, I think the cost of capital and access to capital today is quite difficult. So if you're in the junior mining space and you're looking to raise equity in today's environment, it's a difficult place to be in. Thankfully, as far as we're concerned, we are a funded company that was able to complete a bought deal last year, but I think in the junior mining space in particular, I think this recession will be quite difficult with respect to allowing anybody to access funds or capital to progress their projects.

47:53 I would point out to the people listening to this phone call that I'm now a retired investor and have capital available. So to the extent that somebody out there deserving issuer and is willing to compete for capital I'm an active check writer. Rick let's move on to you what do you see in terms of the probability of a recession does your crystal ball give you a sense of timing and severity and how is that impacting what it is that you're doing around Contango? Yeah, I mean I actually think we're in a recession already in the U.S. And I think we're in a global, I think we're headed to a global recession, which I think has more longer term impacts.

48:44 But I see that over the next couple of years. Governments will do what governments do and they'll bail the industries out and put more money to work, China probably being the leader in that. So I think all those things are really good for gold. So I think I think it's the recessions real I think we're already in it. I think we're starting to see the gold price Sort of disconnect from that strong dollar Opposition that's had recently, you know, it's we had super strong dollar For a whole variety of reasons and I think we're going to see- gold. Perform really well over the next- next 2 to 3 years. I think do you cover for base metals.

49:31 Do you have a concern about the potential impact of recession on the cost and availability of capital or the ability the governments might have to, I guess the phrase that they prefer to use is, assist the mining industry? Yeah, I do think that's going to be problematic for on the base level side. I'm talking more worldwide than you know, the new system. Again, for us, because we don't need to raise a lot of capital, I'm less, you know, we sold capital to raise, but it's not a big number in relative to our market cap, relative to the anticipated cash flow. I can see us getting to the other side. But I think we're going to go through a couple of years of tough times for the mining industry in general, and for the junior sector specifically.

50:21 You'll notice I didn't ask myself that question, given that my background is credit. I'm perpetually nervous, and I seem to have correctly called, absolutely correctly called, 17 of the last 3 recessions. So Dasha, if you're standing by, I can't see questions from the audience, but if you see any questions that you think are particularly appropriate, perhaps you could take over in the small time that we have left. And if there's a way to synthesize several questions in the one, ask it. Sure. But if you just want to click the Q&A button on the right-hand side, under Published, you should see a lot of questions coming in. I just want to make sure that we use the last 10 minutes appropriately, so whichever questions you feel. I don't see that I'm afraid. I see Q&A.

51:10 And then click published. Okay. Ah, thank you. There you go. Perfect. You see there's another risk, which is to see an inadvertent ludite as commentator. OK, yeah, let's take the first one. Nimbyism. This doesn't impact all of you. What about the circumstance? The questioner talks about twin metals, nouveau monde. What about the impact of nimbyism? The fact that the world needs more materials, But many people don't seem to want those materials harvested near you. This will be an interesting question in particular to ask with the 3 of you, given the sort of far-flung nature of where you are. Doug, let's start with you, NIMBYism. Are jobs more important than the unsightly nature of an open pit in Western Mexico?

52:09 Well, I mean, here's the thing. There's been a lot of really good disruptive technology that has helped mining. But in reality, we are still using 18th, 19th century technology, which is digging big holes in the Earth, especially when you look at something like copper. So I think what's going to be fascinating playing out over the coming years is that battle that the environmentalists, the NIMBYs, what are going to have to have in there with themselves almost, that for the very metals to be created that can provide technological, climate, societal change for the better, we're going to have to get used to the fact that there's going to be some small disruptions to the Earth's surface And it's incumbent on companies to be able to make sure that that disruption of the Earth's surface with these big holes that we dig is done in an environmentally sensitive way, as much as a big hole in the Earth can be.

53:16 So I think that that is a battle. We've kind of seen it play out with energy in Europe of late. I think largely the mining sector needs to have better clarity on permitting timelines. And the very people that are upset about mining need to be better educated, better informed by us as a sector as to why we are actually the solution for a lot of the problems that they're looking to have resolved. It just needs a few big holes. Many of you know I'm a recent refugee of the People's Republic of California which loves to drive but won't drill. The idea that This dichotomy might be resolved rationally seems problematic to me. But again, I'll stop editorializing.

54:08 Rick, I suspect that there's nobody in your backyard where you are proposing to build your mind. But Do you see NIMBYism as an issue in rural Alaska? Oh, very much so. And it's a weird kind of NIMBYism because the NGOs think that Alaska is their playground. And that's their view. They don't want mining. There's groups that don't want mining. But it's mostly funded from the outside. The Alaskans, by and large, are very, very supportive of all resource development and believe that you can have mining and have healthy fishery and have forestry and have tourism. Those are our businesses up here.

54:58 Alaskans believe that. And we do everything very well. We're one of the lowest carbon emissions, oil and gas operators in the world. So we can do it. The education piece that Doug was talking about, that's a tough one. It's hard to educate people who want to remain ignorant or just want to put a blind eye to it. It's what we have to do. I'm participating next week in a critical metals conference here hosted by the University of Alaska and Fairbanks. It's the third one that we've had in the last 6 or 7 or 8 years. And what's disappointing, it's nice that we're having it, but it's disappointing that when I look back at the first one we had 7 or 8 years ago, nothing has changed.

55:53 There are no new roads. There is no new power system in Alaska. We have plenty of green energy opportunities, but they always get shut down. And you can't even mention the word nuclear up here. And again, it's not Alaskans, it's outsiders. So yeah, it's a combination of energy. And quite frankly, I think it's all this dark money that's floating around financing, financing things, financing NGOs to have, to take a position. We have no idea where this money comes from. Is it just wealthy billionaires from California or is it China and Russia? I have no idea. I think we look into it, but big question.

56:41 Ali, NIMBYism in Mongolia, is it an issue for you or you could do Ontario too. I'm going to touch on a number of things. I think Doug and Rick both talked to education. I think that's a big part of the gap that we see in our industry. When we went to high school or university, we never learned about mining. Mining is an industry that we sort of fall into with respect to the potential for us to not only make capital, but Perhaps we were geologists or what have you but beyond that I think the vast majority of individuals that work in mining Never learned about it until they sort of happened to come across it as an industry So that's the education front beyond that I think NIMBY is a look at Yadar in Serbia That that was a lithium project that would have gone online, that would have helped to bring supply online in Europe, that would have helped Norvolt and a number of other companies have access to lithium.

57:30 But people didn't want that environmental footprint. Where we stand, Mongolia, Mongolia being a very nomadic nation, where individuals essentially move their livestock from location to location, feeding them or getting access to water, evaporation ponds would not be feasible. And I've said that from the onset. I think evaporation ponds are very environmentally damaging. It's not something that we would want to do as a company. And with the advent of DLE, you know, you can sort of avert some of that nimbyism and ensure that you're having a smaller footprint that doesn't have a massive sort of scar on the environment and that's what it might be. Gentlemen I want to thank and congratulate you. I gave you admonitions at the beginning of this session that you had to give me concise answers and amazingly we have acquitted ourselves fairly well with regards to that. We've dealt with 6 serious topics.

58:24 I think we've dealt with them in serious fashion and nobody I think went over budget with regards to time. So finally what I'd like you to do is I'd like each of you to tell our listeners how they might contact you and how they might learn more about your company. Doug, let's start with you. Sure, I put my cell numbers, stupidly or not, on the bottom of every one of our Monero Alamos press releases because I think it's really important to make oneself available to shareholders and potential shareholders alike. So at MoneroAlamos.com You can find that along with all our materials with regard to our new gold producer that we've we formed And I look forward to many a conversation on topics that might be Manera related or mining related as I said I think it's the sector we have to do a better job of educating people and that doesn't always mean talking about ourselves.

59:23 Rick same question how do people find you? Yeah so our web address is contango.org.com and like Doug I put my cell numbers at the bottom there so give me a call and ask questions. Love to share the story with you. We think it's a pretty unique story and I'd like to thank you Rick for hosting this and doing a great job moderating. Thanks very much. Always a pleasure And Ali, how do people learn more about you and find you? Absolutely. Much like Doug, I'm one of those rare breeds that answers my phone at all hours. And I do get my phone number out to just about everybody. It's on the press releases as well. So ionenergy.ca is our website. Get in touch and thank you very much Rick and my fellow panelists for this interesting conversation.

1:00:09 Always a pleasure. Ladies and gentlemen, that's the best possible answer. You want to hear about the company? Call the CEO. If he or she won't take your call, don't buy the stock. Pretty simple. Gentlemen, thank you so much. Dasha, we're done with the first hour. Let's move on to the second. But ladies and gentlemen, I don't think I need to reintroduce myself. I'm assuming that everybody's on, that is on for the second hour was on for the first hour. We're gonna have the same circumstance. We are going to ask these gentlemen a series of questions. We're gonna get fairly concise answers from them. So let's get started. Our panelists are as follows from Fireweed Metals, Brendan McDonald, from New Core Gold, Luke Alexander, from B Metals, Derek Inwanaka, from Bunker Hill Mining, Richard Williams, and from Orzone, Pat Downey.

1:01:01 Disclosure of conflict of interest, which I should have done in the first session, but I didn't. I am, or accounts that I manage, are shareholders of Cantango from the first session or Zone from the second session. I don't think that that will bias the questions I ask, but listeners should know that I'm a shareholder of 2 of the companies which are presenting here. Let's begin by having a discussion around commodities, in particular, gentlemen, the commodities that you either produce and or are looking for why you're in those commodities what you see as the opportunities of the risks of course we have 5 of you to answer the questions and so the answers need to be fairly brandon I'm gonna start with you you are an evolving, we hope, zinc and tungsten producer.

1:01:55 So talk to us about those materials in the context of today's market. Yeah, you know, both zinc and tungsten on basically every country's critical mineral list, which is a semantic association, I guess, you know, and ultimately you have to question, you know, what does that mean, right? So for zinc specifically, this is primarily an infrastructure metal, you know, that this is used for galvanization. And we saw an opportunity in, it's just about 5 years ago now with the closure of Lachine and Century to pick up a zinc project. And, you know, the recent COVID and investment in infrastructure has stimulated zinc demand and we will continue to do so because we want to spend 1 trillion bucks to stimulate the economy. The only place to do it is infrastructure.

1:02:45 For tungsten, really that's about Chinese domination of supply of a critical mineral. They produce about 80% of the global tungsten. And if countries are serious about securing supply chains for essential metals, including ones that are used in aerospace and defense, tungsten has to be seriously looked at. So that was an intriguing opportunity for us. Luke, let's move on. Talk to us about what you see in gold markets. What makes you nervous? What makes you happy? Talk to us about gold. Yeah, I think the stage is set for a strong gold market. I mean, we've seen the price of gold, relatively speaking, hold up very well, despite a very strong US dollar. One of the things that I think was very encouraging was middle of July, we saw the US dollar start to weaken relative to other currencies globally.

1:03:43 On the back of that, we saw gold perform very well. August is typically a very strong month for the price of gold. And then I think when we look at real interest rates, obviously, we've now had negative real interest rates over a prolonged period of time. I think that's going to continue with the inflation that we're seeing globally and in that type of an environment it's typically very strong for the gold price. Recession, stagflation, we're seeing that in the news every day, predictions of that globally, those are both environments that are very positive for the Gold price historically. And on a longer term basis, money supply, governments printing money globally probably has the best correlation for the price of Gold. And I think that that's something that's going to continue.

1:04:29 So we'll continue to see a strong environment for the gold price. So dollar weakness, talk of recession and stagflation globally, as well as money supply, I think are all very positive for the gold price. Derek, same question for you. B Metals, I think, started off to be more of a base metals-oriented company. It looks like you may or may not have pivoted to gold, but certainly your group's historic prowess has been around the gold market. Talk to me about commodities and pick a commodity if you want. Gold is fine? Another one is fine too? We do kind of cover 3 metals, what we like, precious and base metals. But for now, I think we're most focused on gold. And I think it's probably apropos since inflation is kind of all around us that I could talk a little bit about gold since that's been on the headlines everywhere. So, I mean, I think you've said this many times before, Rick, you know, gold has always sustained purchasing power, despite whatever inflation we come upon. And so it's something that's going to be around for a long time.

1:05:35 And it obviously has been around for a long time and it will be continue to be, I think, a stable part of anybody's investment portfolio. It just has to be. Just out of curiosity, Derek, and you don't have to answer this if you don't want to. Is your pivot to gold more around the cost of capital? In other words, is it cheaper to raise money to explore for gold, Or is it about the fact that in your own mind that the gold market is more ready to move than other markets? For us, it was probably more about opportunity. We had an opportunity to get into Japanese exploration of gold, and it was a pretty rare opportunity as probably most of you know. There's not a lot of competition, there's not very many companies in Japan, so for us our move towards gold I think was just a matter of opportunity.

1:06:29 So commodity agnostic in this circumstance, It was property centric. Thank you. Richard, I want to move on. The Bunker Hill District traditionally has been a polymetallic district, but I would describe it more silver-lead-zinc. Talk about any of those commodities that you like, But humor me a little bit by talking about your outlook for the silver market. Thank you, Rick. Yeah, will do. As you know, Bunker Hill produced 165 million ounces of silver in its distinguished history before it shut down in 1980 for environmental reasons. And although we'll start the mine with a lot of zinc, we'll develop it over time. So we end up with a 50% zinc and 50% silver product. So on Silver, as you know, silver's got this split personality where its price is really driven as a result of its monetary value, rather like gold as an asset class, either held directly or via ETFs.

1:07:33 And it tends to benefit from an inflationary environment. So the same arguments that Luke presented for the future bull market in gold would apply to silver. But it also has this industrial dimension where 55% of silver is consumed for industrial uses, photovoltaic cells in particular for solar power. So while we have uncertainty in the economic world that provides a driver for future silver inflation. We also have a wish to invest in new power systems that also drive silver demand. So those watching anywhere in the silver space, but bunker as well, can see actually quite a bullish environment over both the short and the long term through the economic cycle for that metal.

1:08:27 Rick? Patrick, same question to you. You have a broad history in mining, although you seem to have gravitated to the gold industry in the last 2 decades. So talk to us about the gold industry. Why are you there? Is it because it's easier to access capital around gold and other commodities, or is it because of some fundamental belief in the gold itself? Well, you know, people have answered a bit of this, but yes, first of all, Rick, absolutely, it's access to capital. I think that, you know, gold is something that you can sell right away, you know, it's generally easier to develop in terms of capital cost per ton of development. There's simpler circuits and you can generally attract that type of capital to it. So that's really where I've always been. I do like copper, obviously. It's something I've been involved with in the past and successfully involved in. I do continue to like copper, as most other metals.

1:09:24 We can't function, you either grow it or you mine it, no matter what people think. It just doesn't fall out of the sky. And so you do have to mind about gold or something. I'm always happily involved in. You know, I think from the gold point of view, you know, the big key thing for me is the political instability that we're seeing currently in the world. And really do we know where that's going. I mean, we're in my opinion, unprecedented time. I'm not sure I'm the oldest guy here, but I think I probably am. But we're in unprecedented times in terms of political instability currently with Russia, China, Europe, the US. You know, we've got a leadership in the US, nobody knows really where they're going or what they're going to expect or what they're going to do. You know, Europe is breaking up, you're essentially got one person dictating what's happening in Europe, Van der Linden, you know, really and truly it's not a democracy if you look at it in the strict sense of the word.

1:10:24 And you've got what's happening in China and Russia broadly, really making a push against the U.S. In terms of global superiority. So for, you know, it's not great for the world, but from the point of view of gold, it is obviously quite strong. And the other key thing that I take out of this, we are the guardians of one of the key currencies in the world. I mean, gold is a currency and we produce it. We are the producers of that commodity. And the market cap of all gold mining companies is $300 billion. It's nothing. Yet We need to change the narrative into the gold sector as to what we do and what we're involved in so we really get more people looking at us as companies. You know, you're seeing now that after a lot of the badness of what happened in gold in the 2000s of overspending, overcommitting, overdoing things.

1:11:19 It's gold mining companies are producing the same type of dividend returns as the major blue chip companies. And, you know, and you see now Mercer, who managed $15 trillion of world assets, are putting 5 percent into the precious metals. That's telling you something about where you're going to see gold in the future, in my opinion. Let's move on to capital markets and the economy, and I want to deal with them as interrelated subjects. Obviously, with regards to the junior mining community, capital markets have been, let's be polite, in disarray for 18 months. Let's talk about capital markets, and let's talk about the broad economies, the opportunities that you see in capital markets, what your outlook is in terms of your ability to access capital, all those types of things, capital markets and the broad economies.

1:12:09 Gentlemen, remember, I need fairly short answers. Brandon, let's start again with you. Yeah, in terms of access to capital right now, it's, I said, maybe asymmetric, perhaps, is the way to put it. I feel like there's large mining-focused PE funds, et cetera, who have capital to deploy, who like projects like ours, and then there's retail investors who participate in our market. Who are quite honestly absent- or or at least in a risk off phase of their investing- and this creates a uncomfortable dichotomy where you have a bad valuation, yet capital is available to you. So, you know, you have to choose how much dilution can you stomach.

1:12:58 Because all the dilution, all the capital you want, at least I feel is there for us, but not at the price and the terms that we would like. You know, and does this recession we're heading into here and the market sell-off lead into a sector rotation into real assets and commodities? I certainly hope so. So we certainly feel patience is going to pay off here as the generalists come into our sector. We always have to remember sometimes that the cost of not having capital can exceed the cost of capital in trying markets. Luke, I want to move on to you. I want to talk to you about, again, capital markets in the broad economy. And do you think that the disarray of the broad economy, as an example, rising real interest rates, things like that, are having an impact on tertiary capital markets, like the capital markets for junior mining?

1:13:49 Yeah, so I mean I think from an interest rate perspective, obviously interest rates going up globally, there's been a huge rotation back into bonds and other interest-bearing assets. And I think, you know, in that environment, inevitably we've seen a significant sell-off in the broader equity market and inevitably small cap companies are typically going to bear the worst of any sell-off that we see in the market, especially if it's a liquidity-driven sell-off, which is I think what we've seen over the last 12 to 18 months. So in those types of sell-offs, the juniors are going to suffer the worst. For us specifically at Nucor Gold, one of the things that's very encouraging is we just closed the financing last month. It was a straight equity financing, no warrant, and projects that are world-class projects supported by deep-pocketed investors who see the long-term potential, there will always be capital available for those companies.

1:14:53 We currently have 40% institutional ownership and those investors recognize the upside of our project and as a result invested in it. So I think you know good projects will always be able to raise capital but without a doubt you know the environment we've seen over the last 12 months is a very tough one and probably the worst one I've seen in my career and I'd throw the question at you Rick Is it close to one of the worst you've seen in your career? Nowhere close. Nowhere close. If you go far enough back, if you really want to get sick, it can get much, much, much worse. I'm not saying it's going to, by the way. I joked with the last panel that because I'm a credit guy, I'm always afraid. And I have absolutely correctly identified 17 of the last 3 recessions. So I don't listen to myself anymore with regards to things like that. Derek, your group has been involved in mining capital markets for a very long time.

1:15:49 And it's worth pointing out that as one of the younger members of the group, you have still been involved in mining capital markets for a very long time and I'm yeah it's worth pointing out that is one of the younger members of the group you have still been involved in mining capital markets for a long time so I want to talk to you about the same issue the capital markets disarray the broad economy are they related and how do those 2 subjects interfere or aid your thinking at B Metals? Well, I guess Similar to the last panel, I think Doug mentioned that he didn't want to see more juniors come into the market. And so, I mean, with the, I guess, recession or vacuum of money or liquidity that's been sucked out of the market, In some respects, I think that's good. It probably will clear out some of the so-called riffraff out of the market, and it hopefully leaves some of the better companies remaining. And probably this panel is a good example, because all these companies have been able to raise cash.

1:16:44 We are also in that group in that we just got some cash from B2 Gold. So B2 Gold, since you like credit, they lent us 5 million dollars US at 4.7 percent interest and that's we have 3 years to pay that back. So That buys us a fair bit of time basically to continue with our drill programs. While our stock price isn't great at the moment, we didn't have to go into the equity markets to raise that cash. So we're pretty fortunate in that respect. Access to capital is probably the most important thing, as many people have mentioned, in the exploration game. Do you have a sense in the next 12 to 18 months whether capitals would be more or less available? In the next 12 months? It seems like it's going to get green. Or it gets better. Yeah. I mean, yeah, as bad as it is, it feels like it could get a little bit worse.

1:17:36 It doesn't feel quite as painful as 2015 anyway, so I think that we probably still got a little bit of room to say that it's going to get a lot worse. But yeah, I feel like it still has to get a little bit worse and we haven't seen, at least I haven't seen a lot of capitulation yet. So I don't think we're quite there yet. But yeah, better things to come as well. By the way, if Clive wrote that loan till you had 4.5, you owe him lunch. You wouldn't have got 4.5 out of me over 5 years. I know you know that, you didn't approach me. Richard, let's move on to the same question to you. I want to talk about the disarray in capital markets and What some people at least suggest is a disarray in the broad economy, what relations they have with each other, and how do you see the next 12 to 18 months in terms of aftermarket and capital availability?

1:18:25 Thanks Rick. Yeah, the capital markets have been exceedingly tight, and so for a project like ours that we've had to reduce our capital intensity significantly. So we do a low CapEx restart and then unlock the future from cash flow. That's our answer. Where you can do that, lots of other people are doing it. Nick up in Alaska is a good example on the last panel. Do I think it's going to change on a go forward basis? Well, there's an interesting thing about our asset valuations, which are all crushed right now. It's a huge buying opportunity for people who are brave enough to get into this sector. Will those that made a lot of money in tech, if they got out before it crashed, and elsewhere, if they've got liquidity, move themselves into an industry whose assets are in general undervalued, looking for the fact what that industry produces is essential for the world. I'd like to think so.

1:19:21 Secondly, we are also seeing into the industry new sources of capital, well, relatively new, and Rick, you quite rightly will correct me, given your historical perspective, where you're seeing downstream manufacturers moving upstream into the mining finance business and quite clearly that. It is important in battery metals and that which is supporting you to automotive industry Things like that will will potentially start to change things. But I think we do have to realize that the current economic situation globally is unlikely to snap back into something buoyant in the short term. So we are looking at recession, stagflation even, but combined with the wish to ensure that governments can spend money on infrastructure, can transform their energy systems and also deal with this new phenomenon of a splitting of the supply chain from east to west created by West versus China competition.

1:20:29 So It's a very complicated question, Rick, and I've thrown a whole bunch of it, but I'd say that it's going to remain hard for a period of time, but there are some reasons why even in that hardship there is opportunity. Patty, You've been through a few mining cycles. Talk to us about capital markets and the broad economy and the strategies around ore zone, understanding that your high capital intensive period is just about over. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. And I agree with your comment about different eras and different times. I went through the nuclear winter as you did from about 98 to 2003 where you couldn't raise a thing. And it's not like that now but it's getting like that. I think it is going to be difficult for people to raise equity. I think a good project will always get something to keep it going as Luke said, I think that is true, but it's going to be very difficult.

1:21:23 Also the cost of debt capital is really, really difficult in our sector right now. I'm delighted to hear that, Betty. As a debt provider, I'm delighted to hear that, but thank you. Go ahead. It is very difficult. And, you know, we were lucky in a lot of ways. You know, we got our debt at very reasonable rates. It was a local bank in Afrio, so we don't have any hedging or gold prepays or streaming of royalty gold. We were lucky. That does provide opportunity. The other thing is I think you're going to see further cost overruns here. I think that that's going to happen. I mean, we missed it by the skin of our teeth.

1:22:10 Some of it was timing, some of it was good management, but we did miss it and we're under budget, which is sort of a rare commodity these days but I don't see that happening in a lot of bills that are going to happen in the coming years. It's going to be very difficult to manage that. So what does that do for other people in the sector where you should be looking for opportunity, well, now we're cash flowing, we're just a couple of weeks away from 1st gold and we're going to be looking around at opportunities to grow. And we see that as where we can provide debt or get access to debt better than a junior with no asset. And it's important for us to continue to look at that. We may end up, as you know, Rick, I've done a lot of M&A and it's generally I end up on the other side of it where I walk away. You know, but, you know, I can look at it either way. But again, people are looking at us and saying, well, there's an asset that's going to produce, that's built, the capital spent, there's no cost overruns.

1:23:16 But I think here for the next 18 months is hunker down, keep your treasury tight, you know, be careful with everything if you're a junior, advance the projects as best you can, don't get overambitious, and keep your shareholders informed about what you're doing and why you're doing it. Otherwise, I think you could get into a whole heap of trouble here looking for money. I think we have a consensus among the panel with regards to that. Patty, I'm going to start with you since I ended with you last time. Talk to us a little bit about the impact of inflation both on CapEx and OpEx. Gold producers look at themselves as a beneficiary for inflation in the sense that it traditionally has enhanced at least the nominal value of the product, but we're starting to see cap cost blowouts in development companies. And we're also starting to see the impact of inflation on the operating expenses, on the income statement of various producers.

1:24:14 So Patty, if you could talk a little bit about the impact of inflation by the way congratulations for on time on budget yet so look I think that's there's a differences of where you're going to and I look at this all the time I benchmark I look at you know the the the cap expert per ton of of material through the mail to take a minute is that my it is We're seeing a lot of it in developed countries. I mean, you know, the situation where we work in West Africa is a hell of a lot better. You do have a skilled workforce. They are willing to work. They're willing to – they do the 8 and 4 in construction as opposed to, and I'm just talking to somebody who actively was involved in West Africa, is now trying to build a mine in North America, and he's shocked by what he's facing with the sort of construction requirements of 2 weeks in, 2 weeks out, this type of camp, this type of food, this type of conditions, COVID-related issues that really are not truly COVID-related issues, I'll be frank with you. We had to live through COVID and we managed it quite easily. So I think that some of it is definitely supply demand. I mean, equipment has gone up, shipping is crazy, absolutely crazy, and it's not come down.

1:25:30 And container freight, flat rack, it's all very expensive. So if you've got logistics issues and shipping issues, you're going to face cost pressure and you're gonna face delays. And delays cause problems on construction. That's where the contractor goes, Oh, you told me these agitators were going to be here in June They're not here till August. Here's a change order and It's a big one. It's not a small 1 It's big and you've got to be on top of that managing it from an operational point of view We're all gonna face, you know the issues around cyanide you know fuel nobody escapes that the last quarter of people are firing, all of the same classes, they're all the best you know, Essex of their groups And the reason is a lot of it is due down to a skilled labor force that are again not demanding, you know, double-digit pay raises, are not demanding various work conditions, et cetera, et cetera. But we are going to face them. It's going to be tough. You know, the issue is we know what the price of gold – don't know what the price of gold is.

1:26:59 We have to look at what the input costs are and how we control those. And you've got to have a team of people that are on top of that, that are looking at all the time. Richard, same question for you. Inflation, impact on CapEx, impact on OpEx. Thanks, Rick. We'll be in production in the second half of next year. And what's allowing us to keep control of our capex and opex thereafter is a number of legacy investments that we're leveraging off. One of which interestingly benefits you, I think, Rick, because the power in the Pacific Northwest that we get for 6.5 cents per kilowatt hour was a result of US government investment in the 1930s. That helps us, along with other parts of the mine that ran for 100 years with existing infrastructure.

1:27:49 And then leveraging off other companies' closure sites, so buying techs at Pend Oreille Mill and being able to move that using local contractors, again, on time, under budget. All of those things are nice pictures for our perspective but when it comes into inflation all of us are going to have to deal with exactly what Patrick said is increased input prices be they reagent, cost of steel and labour. And we're going to have to ensure. That we're able to absorb that. At a time generally as a sector where grades have been falling over the last 40 years- so you know Patrick's right to sort of alert all investors to the fact that this is where you've really got to look into and see whether the structural cost bases of each of the potential investments you're making are robust in an inflationary environment.

1:28:47 So it's real- but each asset is different. At each management team is able to leverage the advantages differently- and I know that you know Brandon for instance inherits roads that have been built for him. That other projects don't have And that's what we've been doing too. Rick. Thank you. Derek, let's move on to you. At B, obviously your group has been a global operator. How are you seeing inflation? As an example, the median age of a mine worker worldwide seems to be approaching mine, which is to say senility or death. Are you beginning to see wage inflation for skilled labor? How do you see inflation and input costs like oil?

1:29:33 Yeah, I actually like the point that Patrick made. And in Africa, because we're diversified, we have projects in Zambia. And we haven't found any problems there getting skilled labor. And the costs haven't really risen too much. But in Japan, it is more difficult as a developed country. Getting skilled labor is more expensive. Certainly fuel, I think across the board anywhere is more expensive. So yes, From that perspective, we are seeing costs elevating. We're also kind of looking for acquisitions at the moment. And how do you do forecasts on CapEx for almost anything these days when you actually can't really forecast what the costs are going to be next quarter, never mind next year.

1:30:20 So that's making things more challenging, but that's okay. I mean, our group has a lot of experience doing this and we can take those factors into consideration. Luke, same question. How does inflation, both in terms of CapEx and OpEx, affect your business and your plans for the intermediate term future? Yeah, so similar to Patrick, we're also in West Africa. We're in Ghana. I mean, in Ghana, there's a huge amount of skilled labor in country which we're able to leverage off. The other big thing is, you know, looking at the currency in Ghana, it's depreciated by about, you know, a third relative to the US dollar. So, a lot of those kind of inflationary pressures that we that we would have if you know we were paying for all of our services in country with US dollars are partly offset or actually in a number of cases completely offset by the fact that the US dollar has performed so strongly relative to the local currency. So that's been a real benefit for us. But then also, I mean, Ghana, it acts as a hub for all of West Africa. So as a result, we've got lots of services in country and it's a priority industry So all of those things have really benefit us from a from an inflation perspective or an offsetting of inflation Do you think the talks between the Ghanaian government and the IMF are gonna change that in the near term?

1:31:51 I mean, I think they're positive talks that are happening at the moment. And there's a lot of support from that perspective. So we'll see how that inevitably evolves. And Brandon, same question for you. How does inflation and the specter of inflation in CapEx and OpEx impact your business and your plans? Yeah, certainly running a big exploration program these days, you're feeling the wage pressures. You know, if there's a skills and even unskilled labor shortage in Canada. But I think as management, you have to be careful while we're here championing the free market as companies, we have to not malign the free market of workers, right? And if someone's offering them a better deal, they're going to take it.

1:32:45 So we may moan about having to pay more and having to have comfier accommodations and better rotations. If that's what it takes to compete, you have to do it. Because the alternative is you lose people who are the carriers of your culture and knowledge. You can't attract new people and you don't get anything done and you fail, right? So whereas budget concerns are an issue, you have to actually execute, right? And the other thing I would touch on just quickly you know you know Richard talked about you know the road we have and and you know the the access they had to existing workings and a used mill A great insulator against inflation is sunk costs.

1:33:35 That money that's already spent is already spent. So projects like Hattie, he's almost at the finish line. So the inflation, yeah, it's going to matter to his OPEX, but not to his CAPEX anymore. That's done, right? So that we've had a couple hundred million spent on our project already is wonderful, because we don't have to spend that again. You know, I grew up in the oil and gas business, and it's certainly true that cost inflation benefits the incumbent like no other and listeners to this broadcast should understand that to the extent that capex in particular becomes inflated it increases the value of existing assets in ways that you don't always see on the balance sheet and the income statement.

1:34:21 Let's move on to probably the 3 most contentious letters in the mining alphabet, which is to say E, S, and G. I'm going to start editorializing by saying that the G part, governance, from my point of view, involves mediating disputes between various people's interpretation of both E and S. Irrespective of what our own points of view are, These are important considerations in terms of social license, in terms of access to capital, and in terms of the political environment that we all operate under. Brandon, since we picked on you last, we're going to pick on you first. Let's talk about the impact of ES&G on your business and where the trends are, both favorable and negative, from your point of view.

1:35:09 Yeah, you know, we're focused on critical minerals. So you're attempting to make the case to local First Nations and communities and other stakeholders that these are necessary and that they promote a broader environmental and social agenda, which I think you touched on in the last panel in terms of access to power, etc., in developing nations. The challenge is that may not matter when you're building something in someone's backyard. To kind of paraphrase former Mr. Olympia, Ronnie Coleman, who said, everyone wants to be a bodybuilder, nobody wants to lift no heavy ass weights. Everyone wants a green future, nobody wants a mine, the mine in their backyard, right? So that's the challenge we have to grapple with is that conflicting, you know, that a mine is locally destructive, but if it's promoting green metals, globally restorative, to lack a better term, right? So that, walking that line of communication to express that is a challenge and is the task before us we have to succeed at.

1:36:23 Luke, same question for you. ES&G considerations, what do you have to say on the topic? Yeah, I mean I think it's hugely important for the mining sector. I think the mining sector as a whole globally has been for the past number of years been very conscious to be good corporate citizens within the communities that they operate globally. And as a result, as everyone on this panel knows, a lot of these communities, the biggest employer and the biggest impact on those communities is the mine that ends up operating within those communities. I think one of the things that we're seeing now is ultimately that's getting highlighted through a number of the reports that are required, a number of the scorecards by the different rating agencies out there.

1:37:11 And I think globally, the mining industry is actually going to fare well because these are things that have been in place for a number of years already and have been benefiting the communities. Us specifically at Nucor in Ghana, I mean we've been operating in the community for the past 12 years. All of our employees in Ghana are Ghanaian. The heads of our ESG teams within the local communities all come from those communities. So I think having long-term deep relationships with all of the key stakeholders for a project is one of the key things and we're fortunate to have that with our project. I want to highlight certain parts of your answer. Beric has been a real commenter on this. The inclusion part of ESG, I think for us is a benefit not a cost. The fact that as an industry as an example we haven't included for the better part of 40 years women in the discussion means that we absented ourselves from the 50% of the IQ in humankind and the idea that whether force-kicking and screaming or not we have included people I think has made the industry better.

1:38:29 2, it's been pointed out to me that in Africa, as an example, Africanizing the industry, given the fact that there are limited opportunities for employment in some of those countries, often the best and the brightest in those countries are drawn to mining, which doesn't always occur in the United States. And I suspect that we're going to benefit an awful lot from the inclusion part of ESG. I suspect that 3 or 4 years from now, the panel that you see in front of us will look very different than the panel that's in paneled now, both in terms of, you know, ethnicity and in terms of gender. And from my own point of view, not trying to be politically correct necessarily, but that's a good thing. Derek, I want to move on to you in terms of ESG. Any sort of general comment you have, how it's impacting your strategy, what you see the opportunities as, what you see as the risks?

1:39:18 Well in going to various conferences say like the one-to-one conference that was recently down in Cape Town, I can feel it in that there are specific funds now that are geared towards ESG related mining companies and everything ESG related. So so we're seeing that that capital is focused on that topic. And for us, we have the benefit of working very closely with B2Gold, which has all kinds of policies regarding ESG. So we can see this coming down the pipeline for everybody. And for us, really, we don't have a huge impact, I guess, on the environment, because we're just an exploration company at the moment. Socially and governance-wise, I think we have some of the top people that are involved with their companies. So we do basically inherit a lot of those policies. But for us, really, it comes down to, I think, just humans and basic respect for humans. And that kind of drives everything that we do here at B Metals. And so that will ultimately, I think, improve us on all 3 of those letters.

1:40:22 Richard, same question for you, particularly in a legacy mining district. Thank you. ESG or however you're going to define it has been central to the business proposition. To actually be the first mine to restart in a US government Superfund site, which we'll achieve next year, has required us to put both the environment, the social and the governance issues central to everything we do, but that doesn't make us unique in the mining industry. Most companies who are serious about developing their prospects do that too. But it has been that which has unlocked the value in Bunker Hill. So it's been central. Derek's point's interesting to me because one of the things that I found in the capital markets, go back to an earlier point, is no one lowers our cost of capital for doing ESG well.

1:41:16 I'm not able to go and borrow money cheaper by having better ESG policies. Or am I getting more access to impact funds? And again, it may be my experience. But 1 challenge I think for the capital markets is if you really are wanting to drive change, offering a different cost of capital or making funds available to the industry in this area would be a good thing to do. But Rick, I'm interested in your perspective on that too. Well, interestingly enough, and I don't want to get into this too much, but 1 institution that I'm involved with has been offered a lower cost of capital if we will cooperate with the lender in terms of an ESG scorecard.

1:42:02 We've had some very interesting discussions with them about what ought to constitute ESG concerns. You heard in an earlier panel, I asked this particular institution if they considered the fact that 1.2 billion people on earth had no access to electricity whether or not that was a social concern and to the extent that we expanded the availability of materials needed for the electrification of the world whether we got points for that So from my own point of view, what constitutes desirable characteristics with around E and S is all a subject of debate. Should more cobalt be produced in Canada as opposed to say Russia or artisanally in Congo?

1:42:52 What are the E implications of jurisdiction? Those are all interesting things, but I do think that you will begin to see access to capital and perhaps even graduated commodity prices based on ESG concerns. Robert Friedland, my conference last week, said that copper eventually will be priced on world markets partially in association with where it was from and partially in association as a consequence of carbon inputs. Now, it might be that Robert said that because he's going to produce this with hydropower. Who knows? But I thought it was an interesting discussion that ES and G might ultimately impact commodity prices and will certainly I think impact over time both the cost and the availability of capital.

1:43:45 Finally Pat any comments that you might have around ESG? Boy, Rick, I could go on for days on this, but... Please, please don't, because we have lots more to cover. Why use one word when 1000 will do? Look, it's critically important, and thankfully the pressures on the mining industry has resulted in a lot of great changes. In regards to Richard's comment about capital, it actually was a factor. Our biggest shareholder is a big private equity group, Resource Capital, and they were absolutely insistent on doing a detailed analysis on our ESG policies and everything that was going on on the mine before they put the money in. And only then did they put it in and we had to have a monthly meeting right through construction into operations with an ESG committee on what we were doing and how we were meeting all those criteria.

1:44:41 So it was part of the cost of capital for us going forward. I benefited a lot. I mean, I think, first of all, you know, I think something you said, right, is critically important. Mining introduces infrastructure, health care, pensions, benefits, things that, you know, You don't see a Walmart springing up in Ouagadougou. It doesn't happen. It's not there. You don't see, you know, electronics companies or whatever, you know, or Bitcoin or what. It's not there. Mining is at the forefront. So we have a responsibility to bring things and raise that sort of level of local communities. I benefited from the previous group who were managing OreZone and what they had done, their experience in Africa. They started ESG and livelihood restoration right from the exploration stage.

1:45:35 And we took those over and continued to build on them, and they've been highly successful. And if you want to have a successful mine in Africa, because I don't care where you are in Africa, there's somebody there. It's not like, you know, other parts of the world. There's somebody there and you're going to have to move them. You're going to have to change the livelihood and you're going to have to benefit them. So you've got to set it up, have the right team of people. Rick has said something earlier on, which again is very important, is the people who are driving ESG in our company are local Burkina Faso and African people. I mean they're not some person coming out of London or Washington or wherever. These people are driving it, they've got KPIs and benchmarks for it. We look at each program and make sure that it is actually a benefit to the communities.

1:46:26 Our hiring policies, again, around women, and we say this, but I can tell you the best equipment operators, the best drivers are women. They love the trucks to be clean, they do not let crap in it. You don't open the door and find coffee cups, it's pristine and they talk about it and they love it. And it's critical to bring that in, but there's geologies. Well, Patty, you have to describe it then as affirmative action. You can't discriminate. No, it is affirmative. Well, they make it affirmative, I can tell you. They make it affirmative. So and I love that. And you do find in Africa that the big voices are the local ladies. And it's great to see, but we have to also understand that mining is a huge benefit here.

1:47:15 We are the pioneers, we bring in things and you talk about stuff like make people, inside every African there's a capital waiting to burst out I can tell you. And make them understand what your business is and make them share in your business and share in the benefits of the business both on profits, on safety, on education, on providing bursaries, you know, schools, clinics, lifestyle, so that they can get going and get a leg up and, you know, And it doesn't happen in the first 10 years, it'll happen over time. The other thing that happens in our business in Africa, which we're suited for, is solar power. Solar power works in Africa. It's reliable.

1:48:00 The sun always shines, or mostly always shines. So we have, and I can see it now, B2, we model ourselves, by the way, Derek, on a lot of B2's ESG policies on what they're doing. I love what they're doing and how they've done it on mines and how they've benefited local people and how they're bringing in solar power and things of that, you're lowering your carbon footprint, you're using something that's useful and you leave a legacy. That solar power, the water, everything, it remains after the mine is gone. Think about it later, beyond where the mine is, what can I do for these communities when this mine is done that's going to be a benefit to everybody around the community? Gentlemen, we're going to move on to a related topic, but I want to talk about the juxtaposition between political risk and jurisdictional opportunity.

1:48:49 Talk about both in the context of where you all are operating now. And Brandon, I'd like to begin with you. Jurisdictional risk, pardon me, jurisdictional opportunity, political risk. Yeah, I think, you know, the challenge in Yukon and Canada broadly is the rigor of permits. Now, mining companies should not fear rigor in permits. You know, We're thankful we don't have coups, we don't have things like that, but what we do have is lengthy permits that are very involved. Time is money and permits are not a given, right? So that's one of the things that we have to manage and think progressively about is how do we, how do we get ahead of that? Because there's no perfect jurisdiction, right?

1:49:48 I mean, you could highlight a maybe Western Australia or Nevada or something like that as perhaps as close as you will get, but you ultimately need the deposit. The deposit is where it is and you wanna build it where it is cause you can't move it. So you have to work within your own vagaries of your jurisdiction. So we understand there's a high bar where we are, right, and that we need to meet that high bar. So that's, you know, at least how we approach it. My memory of the Yukon has been that indigenous people are an important political constituency there. Do you believe that having indigenous people on side helps you politically both in terms of the Yukon and perhaps more importantly federally?

1:50:35 Undoubtedly, right? And the big question in Canada and Yukon specifically and really I think almost every nation in the world is How are they each going to individually interpret and enforce a UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People and what free, prior, informed consent means? So this is not something that's been court-tested adequately in Canada yet, So you're working within a bit of a gray area, right? And that's the challenge. You know, whatever the equilibrium was before, you know, there was perhaps a bit of an uneasy truce in Canada has now been changed with UNDRIP. But that's in your head. So you work within it.

1:51:23 My own belief, based on 45 years of working with indigenous people in the United States around the oil and gas business, has been that the first 10 years of community engagement are tough. And then they become your best allies. It's odd, but my own belief is that local regulation is better than national regulation in the sense that as an example in Canada, something that worked well in New Brunswick might not work particularly well in the Yukon and somehow indigenous people understand that Caucasian people are more challenged. I also want to say before I move on personally that with regards to me Political risk is odd. The most most dangerous government for me is the one that's closest to me. I experienced my worst real realized political risk in the People's Republic of California where I'm a refugee from now.

1:52:13 I was involved in the discovery of the Castle Mountain Mine unfortunately 7 miles on the wrong side of the California-Nevada border. And more recently, of course, I was a property owner in British Columbia after British Columbia introduced the fascist, racist, and xenophobic Foreign Property Tax Act. We have some odd belief ourselves that money stolen from us by Caucasian people, according to the rule of law, is somehow less gone, which is one of the things that I really want set around political risk. Minors, as you say, because we're fixed targets, are more subjected to political risk. After that editorial, Luke, perhaps you can talk about political risk. Yeah, so, I mean, Ghana, it's a great place to operate. I mean, 200 million ounces historically discovered there. So obviously we're there because there's very large deposits in country.

1:53:08 But what I always say is, listen, don't listen to me, the CEO of a single asset company in Ghana, but look at what the major companies are doing. You've got Newmont, who's obviously the largest gold producer on the planet, operating there. They're in the process of investing another $800 million into Ghana. That will take them from 14% of their global production to roughly 20% of their global production coming from Ghana. So I think that speaks for itself. I mean, we could all imagine the size of the team at Newmont who's analyzing and assessing political risk as well as security risks. And for them to allocate 0.2 of all their production to Ghana, I think, speaks for itself. Very stable government, as well as the mining industry is very important for the country. As a result, I mean, you've got multiple mining universities.

1:54:01 Us, we get every month hundreds of resumes coming through our inbox. You pointed out earlier that, you know, for a lot of West African countries, the brightest and best go into the mining sector, and That's absolutely the case in Ghana. So it's a very good jurisdiction to be operating in and we're fortunate to have amassed such a large land package there when we did. Derek, talk to me about political risk around B metals and the broader B2 group. Sure. I mean, contrary, I guess, to our founding directors who have kind of forayed into perceived jurisdictionally risky countries, they went into Russia in the early 90s, or sorry, late 90s, went into Chile in the early 90s, South Africa, Nicaragua, so they've been in perceived jurisdictionally challenged places and yet they've been extremely successful operating in those areas. So for us we've taken that into consideration but for B Metals really as a junior we're operating in I would say much I guess more comfortable countries so we're in Japan right now where basically if you follow the law and you follow the rules it's the most regimented country you'll probably find but if you follow the rules you'll be just fine you'll get your permits as expected, and hopefully eventually mine there. So you know, Japan is very safe in that respect.

1:55:27 Idaho is a little safe distance, a little bit from California. So it's a very good jurisdiction for us to be in, for mining especially, and then Zambia. Zambia has counted on mining for so many years and it is one of the oldest democratic countries in Africa, so we're very comfortable in all 3 jurisdictions. And Richard, political risk around Bunker Hill and more broadly, if you care to comment. Yeah, Idaho is a great place to do mining and where our political risk existed and we've got to be humble about the fact that it can emerge again, was related to the fact that we're starting a mine in an environmental clean-up site.

1:56:13 So our partnership with the US Environmental Protection Agency and then the IDEQ has been absolutely critical. And Rick, you mentioned either in this or the last panel about allocation of capital, how much goes to G&A and so on. Let's be clear, the very early part of this, when we were allocating net of costs, money to geology or to water management, it was almost 50-50 in order to ensure that relationship got off on the right footing, and it did. On a broader sense though, Rick, I think it's pretty interesting where we sit right now, about interesting and disturbing, depending which way you wanna look at the world, that we've all benefited from the globalization of the metal supply chain and what it means to downstream consumption. And over the last 2 years, or maybe even it's only over the last year, we are actually seriously considering fracturing that supply chain.

1:57:05 So we're going to potentially have, our governments are going to have to invest in infrastructure and capabilities that up to now, they've been quite happy to have sitting in China. And specifically, I mean processing, downstream smelting. Where is that going to be done if it isn't going to be done in China? And I don't know the answer to all this, Rick, but when we're sitting and looking at geopolitical risk or political risk to our own asset. It's in that context I find myself scratching my head a little bit. And we'll see how it all plays out. Rick. Patti, you have 2 minutes to answer the same question. Well, Yeah, thank you. Well, Brandon said something about rigour. Look, the difference for me is we have the same rigour. All of our rules and regulations in West Africa, French West Africa, were set up by the Canadian government.

1:57:57 And we know exactly what the policies are. The issue is how quickly they get done. If you do exactly what you're supposed to do and you meet all of the criteria that's been set for you, you do get the permit and you get it and nobody blocks it. And off you go doing as long as you can find the capital, off you go and do what you're doing. Obviously there's political risk but in Africa, West Africa, I have never seen a mining operation stopped or taken over or lost in West Africa. I obviously sit in Burkina and people think, oh my goodness, there's terrorism. Yes, there is. And there's issues around that. And obviously we've got good security, we're in a great location, but we built a mine and operated it and brought in expats and equipment and people in and out, everything done during all of this and nothing's happened.

1:58:48 Richard might know where I come from because I think he's an ex-SAS guy. I come from a part of Ireland, so I saw more happening in the weekend than I've ever seen in years and lived through it and never bothered me in the slightest. But you just deal with it. But political risk, you know, some people just won't invest and you can't force them to invest in it. You really have to look at it. I think Robert Friedland said it. He's in DRC. He's still selling copper in the international markets at a great price. I'm still selling gold at the same price as everybody else is. I just happen to be producing it at a lower price in a place that I can build it quicker and faster and better than anybody else. Gentlemen, finally, in the very little amount of time we have left, to the extent that the people who are watching this would like to get in touch with you and learn more. How do they do it? Pat, how do they find you?

1:59:38 Easily found. Orzone.com and obviously my number is available to pretty much everybody. I get called all the time. As you said, Rick, you know, the CEO should be answering the phone Absolutely. The CEO should be answering the phone to anybody no matter whether it's RCF or somebody holding 20 shares They want to know about it call out, you know, and Sometimes I'll direct them to other people with a better answer, but it's always important to be there. And I think we all are these days. Luke, same question. How do people find out more? How do they find you? Yeah, newcoregold.com, all of our contact information's on there. I'd also highlight we're very active on social media. So Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, all of those different social media platforms, always keen to engage with people. So NewCoreGold.com or any of those social media platforms.

2:00:32 Derek? In the spirit of the inflationary period, we've canceled our office line and we just have a cell phone. So you can reach me on my cell phone. It's at the bottom of every news release and also on our website. Richard? Same as the other guys, Rick, via the website, social media and telephone number at the bottom of press releases and on the website. Brandon? Yeah, broken record perhaps, you know, fireweedmetals.com, info at fireweedmetals or Brandon at fireweedmetals, at UConnBrandon on Twitter if you want to talk about the project or argue about politics. You know, anything goes. Rick, how about you? I thought you'd never ask, Rick. Anybody who wants to reach me can go to Rural Investment Media as an added inducement.

2:01:21 If you enter your natural resource stock portfolio, I will personally rank them, Ruralinvestmentmedia.com, ranking 1 to 10, 1 being best, 10 being worst, comments on individual issues where I think my comments might have value. Gentlemen, thank you so much for participating. We finished, like Patrick did, on time, on budget. Thank you all. Dasha, back to you. Yeah, thank you so much, Rick, for taking us through the past 2 hours. And thank you for everyone who joined in today and asked questions. And of course, thank you to the panelists. And have a great rest of your day.