Robust PFS Results

0:11 Hi, everyone, and welcome to First Mining Gold's live investment summit today, hosted by 6. I'm pleased to introduce our speakers for today. We are joined today by Dan Wilton, CEO and Director, Ken Inquist, COO, and Spiros Kakos, Vice President of Investor and Investor Relations. Dan will kick us off by walking us through a company presentation, and then Spiros, Ken, and Dan will come back to lead us through a live Q&A. Remember, you can submit your questions at any time on the Q&A panel on the right-hand

0:42 side of the screen. The summit is being recorded and will be available to you to view afterwards on six.com. So without further ado, I'll hand it over to you, Dan. Dasha, thanks very much. And thanks to everyone for joining us this morning. It's been a very exciting last couple of days as we've been moving forward and putting out this, the announcement of our pre-feasibility study results, which we're very, very happy about. So without much further ado, we're gonna be making some forward-looking statements as we go through this presentation. Just in summary, I think we're very happy with the results of the Prefeasibility Study and the direction that this is showing with the path that our Springpole project is going to take. I think it very clearly outlines this project as a real strategic Gold asset in a Tier 1 jurisdiction.

1:38 And I think these studies are the result of this is in excess of a year of great work by a very big team that's helped pull it together. So I really want to thank all of our partners who had helped us do that. So we'll set the stage a little bit with SpringPool. We say here a unique strategic Gold asset, but this is one of the largest undeveloped open-pit Gold projects in Canada. And importantly, we're very happy to be declaring reserves on the Springpole project for the first time. 3.8Moz of Gold reserves. And Importantly, in terms of where this asset can ultimately fit in the Gold industry, there just aren't that many projects that can produce more than 300,000oz a year. We've scoped an average annual Gold production in the core years of the mine life, and we'll explain that as we go through, of 335,000oz a year. This is one of the largest Gold projects in Canada.

2:40 I think the economics that's come through really justify the moving forward of this project. After-tax NPV, just shy of a billion. We'd have loved to have been able to find another 5 million of NPV somewhere to have that number in the billions, but 995 million US is not a bad place to start. After-tax IRR of 29% at a $1,600 gold price, which is the current long-term consensus amongst research analysts. This is in Northwestern Ontario, Tier 1 jurisdiction located between Red Lake and Pickle Lake, in a place where they've been mining for almost 100 years.

3:24 And ultimately, I think the real strategic nature of this project is starting to get understood, particularly because of the cost profile of this mine. Upfront capital, and we'll talk about what's changed in the PFS, but upfront capital has come down to around US$720M.

3:48 That's really importantly, that with a really well thought out mine plan, which has brought some of the higher grades forward in the mine plant, has dropped the payback period on this project to after tax payback period of 2.4 years, which for a project of this size and scope really is exceptional. So yeah, I think we're delighted to be moving it forward and we'll talk a little bit about what the updated plan looks like. Now, this project, we've walked you all through this before a few times. The overall footprint actually has shrunk quite a bit, in large part because we've moved from a tailings dam, we'd scoped this before as a conventional tailings dam using thickened tails, to this combined tailings and waste rock co-disposal facility here.

4:47 And that is, we think, a much more sound environmental approach. It introduces some higher capital cost in terms of filtering the tails, so you have to build a filter plant up front. But interestingly, you don't have to build a ring dyke to contain tailings up front. So for us, I think this is a trade-off, one of the really important studies that we went through in this pre-feasibility study. And I think this actually shows that there are real options in terms of tailings management with this project. So more work to do on this, and I think we'll have Ken Inquist, our COO, talk a little bit about that as we round the corner here. But I think this sets the stage for a small footprint, relatively small footprint, and a very, very well thought out mine plan.

5:45 And interestingly, you know, as we go through here, these are the ore blocks in our block model. You can see here the grade estimations, the blue blocks are 0.3 to 1 gram. The orange blocks are 1 to 2 grams, and the red blocks there show ore blocks greater than 2 grams. And it's one of the questions people have always had about Springpole is what is the grade sensitivity? Are there areas of higher grade? And I think when we publish the report, you see the mine plan. There really are some areas here in this deposit that allow you to bring some of that grade up front. Just to give a bit of a sense of the grade sensitivity here, you can see This is kind of the core of what's greater than 1 gram in this deposit.

6:38 This is, you know, there is some real grade in this deposit, which we've been delighted to be able to show. So I think we'll, from there, just talk a little bit more about how this how this project all comes together in terms of in terms of values, so again at a 1600 dollar gold price after tax NPV of 995 million US Pre tax NPV of 1.5 billion US And I think at the bottom, obviously, we've always talked about the real grade or the economic sensitivity of this project to the Gold price. For those of us that believe that we are going into a higher Gold price environment, you can see the leverage on a pre-tax and a post-tax basis. Every $200 rise in the Gold price is about a $300M increase in after-tax NPP. So the project has really exceptional leverage to higher gold prices and strong after-tax IRRs.

7:40 Again, one of the metrics that we've really looked at here is the payback period, pre-tax payback period of 2.2 years, after tax 2.4. That's exceptional for a project of this size that really is strategic. So we outline here the year 1 to 9 project metrics only because ultimately the project mind plan really involves primary mining for 9 years, and then processing lower-grade stockpiles for years 10, 11, and a fraction of year 12. So when you look at the average annual production year over the entire mine life, it's 287,000oz, but really in that core period, it's 335,000oz peaking out at 400,000oz of Gold produced in one of the years.

8:33 So by any metric, this is a really significant Gold mine. Upfront capital, as we said, $718M. Sustaining capital at $55M. And then there's a closure amount that comes at the end of the mine life as well, which is $29M. One of the important metrics that we looked at in this project is really

9:00 total capital. That's partly what leads to an all-in sustaining cost of this project that is in the bottom quartile of the cost curve in the mining industry. I think there's a pretty broad recognition that the cost curve of the mining industry is going to continue to shift north. This project shows this would be a very low-cost producer once it's built. And how is it a low-cost producer? We've talked about this a lot over the years. It comes down to the fact that the project is on grid power and we've scoped a power line connecting into the power grid in the project. And it's a very, we talked about a bit of a compact footprint that we showed before, but you're not moving the material all that far.

9:48 You're out of the pit and right to the mill, or you're out of the pit and right to the waste management facility. So short hauls, and it's a homogenous ore body. And it's one of the things that's always differentiated spring pole. This is not a series of veins that you're hunting and pecking to try and get grade. It's not strung over, you know, 8 kilometers long where you're trying to find pieces of it. This is 1 reasonably consistent blob of mineralization that's 150 to 300 meters wide and we're mining at 350 meters deep and a kilometer plus long and you're kind of taking the whole thing so it means you can mine it really efficiently. That translates into low mining costs and ultimately you know translates into very interesting all-in sustaining costs for this project. So we think that this is, again, pretty much by every metric going to show itself as a really core strategic asset.

10:48 This just kind of shows the production profile of the project and you can see here, you're peaking out in year 3 at 400,000oz a year. But for context, 300,000oz plus, there are not that many mines in Canada that are capable of doing that. Not that many mines in the world that are capable of doing that. Again, I don't think we can overemphasise the strategic nature of that. Interestingly, we show the Silver equivalent profile or the Gold equivalent profile here, capturing some of the Silver value. We obviously have our Silver stream with First Majestic and importantly, publishing this Prefeasibility Study has triggered the next payment, another 7.5 million US under that Silver stream coming to us next week, which we're very excited and thankful for our partners at First Majestic for that.

11:43 But, you know, on a Silver equivalent basis or a Gold equivalent basis, including the Silver, you can see where these production numbers get up to. It's a very meaningful number. The recoveries in the Prefeasibility Study came down a little bit as we got a better understanding through some follow-up test work of recoveries from lower-grade ore. It really is these last 3-years when we're processing quite considerably lower grades out of the stockpiles that ends up having that impact that kind of drags down the life of mine results. In any event, I think this shows itself as a very compelling project. Why is it important on that front? Well, I think this is a list that we've showed for quite a while of projects that are in production and projects that are being scoped in North America. You can see the peer list that we're in here today. Cote Gold with IAMGOLD, which is slightly lower grade than Springpole, is in construction right now.

12:47 You look around our neighbours, those are Meliodine, Laron, Bruce Jack, Detour, Canadian Malartic. Those are a list of the largest producing Gold mines in Canada and Springpole would be right up amongst those. So one of the things that's also really struck

13:06 us as we've come through this project, and we haven't spent a lot of time talking about this and thinking about it over the past couple of years that I've been here, but I think this is a very much an increasing focus for the company, is that this really highly economic project and strategic project is sitting on the edge or, you know, in the middle of what is becoming a very, very sought after exploration domain. This Bertucci Greenstone Belt, you can see it's basically the same big arc of rocks that runs from Red Lake to Pickle Lake, 2 very well-known high-grade camps. And as we've said, you know, you look at the amount of exploration that's gone into the Red Lake Camp, if that's $100, Pickle Lake Camp has probably seen 10, and that's where our Pickle Crow project is, our partner at Ateco Minerals, which I know a number of our shareholders who are on the meeting here today, follow ATECO closely.

14:06 They've been putting out some fantastic results, drill results at Pickle Crow, continuing to confirm that there's a lot more high-grade Gold to find in that camp. And this Bertucci greenstone belt in the middle, if Red Lake seen $100 of exploration, Pickle Lake seen 10, the Bertucci seen one. And there are a number of past producing mines here, polymetallic mines, high grade gold mines. And It just has never really seen the follow-up because the access has been a challenge in this area relative to driving on paved highways to Red Lake and Pickle Lake. We think this is an area of increasing focus for us, not just on the Springpole property. And we're gonna test a few targets on our Springpole property, which there's some historic drilling on, some really interesting areas and some really interesting geological curiosity that we've uncovered a little bit more as we've been doing our condemnation drilling, which I guess is why you do condemnation drilling.

15:08 But we're actually scoping in total between metallurgy and some resource definition and some exploration drilling about 10,000m this year. And I think that's hopefully going to start giving us the ability to demonstrate that Springpole is an outstanding starting point for what we think is going to be an entire district that wraps around it. And we haven't really talked about this before, but I think we're starting to see a really increased focus on some of the geological prospectivity in the region. So the next steps for the project, we are, as we've talked about a lot, we're in the environmental assessment process and making good progress on that. We have submitted a draft terms of reference in with the provincial agencies and have been in consultation with our indigenous communities around those terms of references.

16:05 And ultimately, our goal is through 2021 to get an environmental assessment document, environmental impact statement completed, very well discussed and make sure we have our input from our communities before it goes into the regulators. So that, trying to get that input on really important things like traditional knowledge studies, understanding the traditional land use of our communities around the area.

16:34 But we need to work with our communities to move that forward over the, hopefully over the course of this year. And ultimately our goal is to submit the environmental assessment document into that process by the end of the year. Now, if there's, we all need to recognize there are, you know, our communities are having real challenges around COVID-19, and, you know, a lot of our communities have had priorities that have been the health and safety of their of their community members and that is absolutely paramount.

17:12 You know we're thankful that we have communities that have real goodwill in helping us move this forward. If there is some risk to timelines, I think primarily that would be that would be it. So but our goal is still aimed to submit that environmental impact statement environmental assessment document by the end of the year. And then in Ontario, it's been a pretty reliable 18 to 24 months as the project goes through that process. In the meantime, we are, you see the pre-feasibility study, but there we're starting some, another round of technical work around what would essentially be early works in the feasibility study, and that's going to include some more geotechnical drilling because we think we can potentially steepen up the pit walls, reduce that strip ratio even further.

18:01 We are going to do another round of metallurgical work, and we're optimistic that we're gonna be able to get those recoveries higher than where they are now through a little bit more investigation into both flotation technologies and potentially some more

18:20 optimized leach process. But ultimately, I think the important thing is we need to do the work in the next year to really get the project that we want to be submitted for this environmental assessment done, and then you really start your feasibility study of that. So there's more trade-off work to do this year, but you know, importantly, we've made some very, very important additions to our team to help us move this forward. And we announced in November, and he started at the beginning of December, it seems like a lifetime ago, but we hired Steve Lines as our VP, Environment and Community Relations. And Steve has now brought over most of the team that he had worked with at Greenstone Gold Mines, who permitted the Hard Rock project over the last 6 years. And I think that's a very comparable project in size and scope to what we are talking about with SpringPool.

19:18 Steve brings the relationships with the regulators. He's got a demonstrated capability of moving toward those win-win relationships with our Indigenous communities and really helping highlight opportunities for how we build those relationships going forward. So we're very excited to have Steve and the balance of Steve's team join. It's an enormous amount of work to move this forward, but I think we have not only the human resources, but the financial resources to move that forward. So ultimately, we are sitting with this real flagship asset, with the pre-feasibility study now done on SpringPool, declared reserves, strategic funding, really to take the company all the way through this process to those critical, de-risking milestones.

20:08 But let's not forget about what we have in the balance of the portfolio, and that is GoldLund Goliath making great progress with a new CEO at Treasury Metals, Jeremy Wyeth, who's doing an outstanding job, moving Gold London Goliath toward its own sort of initial PEA for the economics there.

20:31 But I think Treasury is moving forward on a great trajectory right now. TECO, as I said before, our partners there doing great work on exploration in the middle of a 45,000-meter drill program and having some really exciting hits in Pickle Crow. We've got the funding from First Majestic, which is now largely in, or as of next week, will be largely in. There's one last payment of $5 million US on receipt of our environmental approvals. So that's still a couple of years away, but that was a really critical piece of funding to allow us to get to the point where we are now. And obviously, we raised some capital in the summer last year that's really given us the financial flexibility to move this forward in a very strong way.

21:17 So some very exciting things coming there. And ultimately, we're still sitting today, this is probably a couple of days ago, but a market cap of $275 million. Listen, the important parts of this, the cash on hand and the marketable securities, you know, you can see there and the stream receivables about 55 million dollars. That leaves us very well funded for what we need to do with the project over the course of the next couple of years and then on top of that you look at the value of treasury that we have today, the value of our stake in Pickle Crow and our Auteco shares that are coming our way. It's another $140 million. So we've got the financial flexibility to get this project, SpringPool, key strategic project all the way to that critical de-risking milestone.

22:08 And ultimately, I think as that gets recognized as the value that we brought, and I think bringing a degree of increased technical scrutiny, And I think reality to the project with our partners now at a PFS level, we expect that we're going to see our valuation start shifting to the right. Because when you look at the advanced developers in the space, Most of them are trading at $100 an ounce or more. We're trading at $14. And it doesn't really get any more complicated than that, any more simple than that. When you talk about where's the value coming from first mining, we don't need to hit hundreds of metres of 5g to get value in this company. We've got the deposit. It's just a matter now of continuing down the path of de-risking it and working the project through those processes.

23:00 Ultimately, I think this continues to show the value of SpringPool and all of our other projects, including Cameron, including Hope Brook, including our Quebec assets. You're getting all of that for a little bit less than $100 million Canadian today, and a project with a fundamental value of $1.3B

23:23 in Springpole at a PFS level, reserves declared. So I think this is still exceptional value for our shareholders. And Lots of activity coming forward here, obviously more technical work, starting some drilling in the area, advancing the permitting in the EIS in 2021.

23:46 Then with the balance of the portfolio, GoldLund, Goliath, big drill program, PEA coming out, I think that's going to really highlight some value there. And ultimately our goal to distribute about half of our shares and all of our warrants of Treasury directly out to you, our shareholders. That should happen around our AGM timing this year. And then in the balance of the portfolio, Pickle Crow, some great results there. And Cameron having consolidated the work program at Cameron, I think we're going to have

24:19 a small but meaningful drill budget there in excess of a couple of million dollars to test some initial targets and look at building resource in the balance of the Cameron project outside of the Cameron deposit. We think there are great opportunities to do that. We're really excited and I think we'll have a separate one of these sessions at some point to give the shareholders a sense of how Cameron's going to continue to evolve. But ultimately, I think this PFS is a real milestone for the company. I think it's a real milestone for the Springpole project and I think with the level of technical work that's been done on it now, the understanding of it, I think it's something that our shareholders and other potential partners can have confidence in that this is a real project that deserves to be developed and we're going to continue doing all the work we need to do to move it down that path, continue de-risking it and get it to that point where we can really understand the value. So just want to thank everyone for joining us today.

25:21 And I think from that point, we will move into question and answer. Perfect. All right. Thanks, Dan. Just a few questions this morning. So just to remind everybody, if you have a question, feel free to type it in under the Q&A and Dan and Ken will do the best to answer it. First question here coming up is from Warren. It says, good morning, Dan. What would be the first, what would be First Bindings approach or options to financing SpringPoll into production?

25:55 Well, Warren, thanks for the question. Listen, that's I think a question that's going to be best answered when we're in the position to actually raise development capital for the project. So we've got a lot of work to do to move it forward in the environmental assessment process. When we get to that point, I tell you there are a number of different opportunities that we would have to finance the project and they could be finding a partner to work with us, it could be just raising debt and equity to do it. Interestingly, when you look at the size of this project now, the capital scope, the quick payback, this is a very robust project that on a standalone basis we think will continue to be financeable.

26:46 But ultimately, we assess that at the time when we have the ability to do that. And ultimately, those decisions are made in the context of the metals prices and interest rates and capital availability at the time. Our real focus right now, our real focus is continuing to move this project forward, de-risk it and get us in a position to be able to surface that value. Perfect, thank you. Which actually leads to the next question here by Paul. The payback period of 2.4 was calculated using $1600 gold. What would it be assuming 18 or 2000 gold? I think my understanding at $1,800 Gold, it's 2.1 and a $2,000 Gold, it would be 1.9 years.

27:40 So, you know, you think about what the, you know, the kind of debt capacity on a project with a two-year payback would be, I think it gives you a reasonable sense of the robust economics that this would have. Perfect, okay. The next question from Robert, have the local communities shown any opposition to the project? No, not opposition. And particularly speaking about our indigenous communities, you know, we've got, say We've been in active consultation for a couple of years with 8 Indigenous communities, and I think there's still a lot of interest in helping us advance the project, but there are questions, and community members have questions. It's a complicated project in the end. So we still have a lot of work to do to make sure that we can understand what the real priorities are for our communities and understand if there are real sensitivities about the project, how we can assess that.

28:47 The PFS is actually an outstanding starting point for us to have those discussions. We've done enough technical work now and enough of the trade-offs, I think, to be able to really understand what the impact of various changes might be. And part of the changes that we've made with moving to a dry stack tail and waste co-disposal, part of those changes really were

29:17 around the opportunity to remove a tailings dam, because there was some real concern, given that the tailings dam is in an area with a lot of water, that what happens if there's ever a tailings dam breach? Well, I think we've changed that now. But this is still not the answer. There's still all of the, I think, the flexibility of us discussing with our communities what their priorities are and being able to tailor the project the right way that's that really is going to have the the buy-in and acceptance. So no, we've got supportive relationships with our communities, but we still have a lot of work to do. Okay, great, thanks. This next question is from John and maybe Ken might have a chance to kind of comment on this.

30:02 It says, Dan, could you please speak to the Seeking Alpha article from yesterday that asserts even with the lowered CAPEX that the upfront costs of finding the financing for Springfield may be difficult. Can you address those assumptions, please? Well, maybe Dan can speak to how it's going to get funded, and I've got my ideas as well. But I don't think for a 30,000 ton per day producer, there's not a lot of mines and a lot of operations that are this inexpensive, I would call it the low cost, low capex for this kind of throughput.

30:48 You start going north of the 30,000, 40,000, 50,000 tons per day, and you're gonna be looking at that billion dollar capex. It's just a matter of the quantum. And also for a facility that's going to be using dry stacked tails, the CAPEX associated with the filter plant is significant. But we were able to offset that with the co-location and the proximity to the pit with lower haulage costs. So, I think we've got a well-structured CapEx and I think it's right in the ballpark there.

31:36 The other way to look at it, John, as we think about CapEx, you have to think about what's the CapEx for a project that can produce 300,000oz a year in that kind of critical strategic asset sphere. And there's a couple of comparables out there that I think have scoped really interesting projects, but it's a kind of a fashion from the holdback over the last 5 years when there was really no capital available, that, you know, this perception of a project, if it's over $500 million of capital, that it's not financeable. The reality is with a payback period like this project would have, there is a lot of capital availability to build projects and largely because there are no projects that are robust like this, of this size in tier 1 jurisdictions to build. So I think as we move the project down the permitting path, we ultimately get it to the point where we can make this construction decision.

32:43 And we'll assess at the time what the metals prices are like and what's the best thing for our shareholders to do. But, you know, we're going to have a number of opportunities. But for us, this is not an impediment right now. This is an opportunity. You look at the life of mine, capital efficiency, and upfront capital and sustaining capital, cause you gotta pay for sustaining capital at some point, expansion capital. I think when you look at what you get for SpringPool for the capital that we would be spending, I think it stands out in the industry as a really, really robust opportunity. Okay, great. Thanks, guys. Here's a question here from Richard. It says, please clarify, you feel currently you're undervalued, but despite acknowledging that assets need further de-risking?

33:37 Well, listen, I would tell you if you go back to the relative valuation slide and look at a number of the other advanced developers, they all need de-risking too, you know, until a project is built and producing, even when it's built and producing, it still has risk. You know, I think you can look at projects that are in varying stages of permitting processes and environmental assessment processes. And we are still multiples below where some of those other projects are trading. So I think, yes, there is still some risk to take out. That's why development projects don't trade at 1 times their net asset value.

34:23 But for a project that is shaping up as real as Springpole is, and as robust as Springpole is, we don't think that it deserves to be trading at 0.08 times its net asset value either. There's a lot of room for us just in reverting to the mean, which is still going to reflect development risk. It's still going to reflect time value. Reverting to that mean is 5X on the value that we see today. Perfect, okay. Here's a question here from John. It says, What are the 3 biggest takeaways from the pre-feasibility study? I think we can answer that in a couple of different ways. But Ken, why don't you talk about the takeaways from a technical perspective?

35:16 Well, we've had significant design improvements from what we did in the PEA. We didn't do much on the PEA and the mine plan. This time in the PFS, we took a deeper dive on the mine plan and really optimized it this time around. They also, some of the other ones as well, like we talked about the recoveries and Dan mentioned, We did see lower recoveries in the PFS than we saw in the PEA, but we did a better analysis in the PFS with more variability focused metallurgy work. And we have a better, more accurate recovery rate, recovery than we had previously. So we know better now what to expect. And so I think we've identified that really well, but going forward, we've also identified the next phase of MET work.

36:17 And we've got some significant MET programs that we're already started drilling. We're already done with the second hole. We're onto our third MET hole for collecting samples for multiple phases of test work at a pilot scale. So we're pretty excited about doing that. We're testing some new flotation technologies, or somewhat new. They're in operation, but newer in the scale of the mining life. And we're also gonna start taking a deeper dive as well on our transmission line and power to the site and everything and start advancing that work more with some of the stakeholders in the area that we need to engage for that.

37:06 So there's, you know, I think the CAPEX is a significant one. We have a really good, well-scoped out infrastructure, process facilities, understanding of the tails and the co-location of the tails and the waste rock. That is also another area that we wanna take a closer look at, but we do have a good understanding of the scope that we've laid out in the PFS, but we wanna take a closer look at that in 2021 and do some work with some of the equipment vendors and try to understand how we can maybe apply some different technologies on filtration and see if we can reduce it. And I think there's a real opportunity there to really lower the capex even further with that. So, those are some key things that we surfaced during the PFS, but also surfaced ideas for the next level of de-risking and optimizing.

38:02 So, I mean, one of the things that really, I think my biggest takeaways here through all of this work that we've done is we've done an enormous number of trade-off studies, which is a really important part of scoping a project. And very thoughtful and intentional, well-done trade-off studies. But that really gives us, I think, a good understanding and flexibility to move to really understand what's the right project. And we still have a number of discussions, you know, as I said earlier, as we're going into this EA process, we really need to have a number of those discussions with particularly with our communities about, you know, really what are the sensitivities? And what are the things that they like and they don't like, and what are the concerns, and how are those understood and mitigated.

38:52 But we've got a bunch of that work done to be able to understand and assess the impact of what some of those changes might be. So I think we're in a we're in a really good position. The other thing that I think I really took away from this whole process and Ken we've alluded a couple of times to the mind planning but this is an ore body that you know I think really benefited from the level of attention to detail and in some senses creativity in the mine plan that it needed in order to put a more robust production profile up front. And I think a combination of those 2 things, being able to ultimately reduce up front capital, have a really capital efficient project for the number of ounces that we're producing, and an ability to bring higher grade to the plant sooner, reducing that payback period.

39:53 Those are, I think in my mind, really the most significant changes here. Perfect. Thanks, Dan. Thanks, Ken. Mike's got a question. I'm going to slightly tweak Mike's question because I don't think I'm reading it right. Any indications if targets outside the identified resources at SpringPool are of the same type? In other words, are they homogenous to the deposit that we have to the open pit? One of the targets that we are going to be testing is actually the same host of the mineralization of the portage zone. So in Spring Pool let me see if I can bring the model up again here.

40:40 I'll just share my screen again. Here we go. So this is the block model coming in here. Hold on for a second. Probably gonna show up. Let's see. We may be our advanced technology may be taxing the network. Importantly, the Springpole deposit really is 2 different mineral types. There's the bulk of it right here, which is what we call the portage zone, and that's the big bulk target.

41:28 Then there's this the camp zone. The camp zone was actually a traditional kind of Archean high-grade gold target that was really how Springpole was first discovered. And there's a great story about how the portage zone was discovered there. But, You know, I think in the rest of the Greenstone Belt, we think there's a lot more camp zones to be discovered. The kind of curiosity and anomaly was this portage zone, but the portage zones hosted in, we call it a trackite intrusive. And there, you know, even going back a number of years, like back to the 90s, they'd mapped other trachytes in the area, but none of them have really been tested. So that's one of the things that we are going to be testing in reasonable proximity to the plant site is some of this trachyte intrusive, which we think has a decent chance of being mineralised and ultimately has a decent chance of potentially bulking out. So we'll see. It's exploration.

42:40 There's always uncertainty around it, but there are certainly other of the bulk targets like that around. And in addition to the, a little bit further South in Springpole Lake, some of our predecessor companies have drilled down there and they have gold showings, nothing really big or economic, but there certainly is mineralization to the south. I think that's for a discussion in the next phase of the project. I don't think that's something that we're really going to pursue right now. Just logistically, it becomes challenging. Ultimately, there's also mineralization right underneath our pit right now, which a change in economics and potentially a better understanding of geotechnical risk at the south end of the pit could allow us to go a bit deeper and get some more of that.

43:36 There's lots more to find, but a combination of different types of targets, some more like the camp zone, kind of traditional Archean Greenstone hosted load gold, and some more like the bulk tonnage targets that we have at Springpole. Perfect. Actually, that leads to the next question. It says, will you be drilling Springpole? If not, what other projects will you be drilling? We're drilling at Springpole right now. The first few holes are largely collecting an updated metallurgical sample. We're going to do some of the work that Ken had been talking about. Then again, some more geotechnical, some condemnation drilling and some exploration drilling at Spring Pole. So kind of a pretty varied year, but definitely I think getting really for the first time since maybe what, 2013, that we're doing proper exploration drilling at Springpole.

44:37 So that's exciting for us. And we are also gonna be drilling at Cameron this year, working on the assumption that we're gonna scope a drill program. We still need to make sure that we've properly discussed that with a number of our communities around Cameron, because our exploration permits, we'd still need to submit for that. And we're having some really supportive discussions with a few of our communities around Cameron and moving toward exploration agreements and have signed collaboration agreements. So, you know, we're going in the right direction, but we need to make sure we're doing things in a way that we can have the support of our communities moving forward there. But those for our company-owned projects, drill programs, that's the exposure and the game plan this year.

45:33 But our other strategic investments, don't forget about Pickle Crow. They've got a 45,000m drill program on and for any of our shareholders who don't follow it closely, you should bookmark www.oteco.com.au, our partners, and keep track. We sometimes have just due to disclosure requirements and regulations, we can't necessarily just publish what they put out. But they are doing some exceptional work and I think having some really, really exceptional exploration success at Pickle Crow. So I'd keep an eye on that. And then at Treasury Metals, moving forward with Goldlund Goliath, there's going to be a 25,000m drill program there.

46:19 I'm hoping this kicking off this year, I think they've got 1 drill turning and about to hopefully ramp that up as that project continues to advance. I think there's lots of activity When you look at what we have exposure to in terms of drill programs, it's got to be one of the bigger exposures in the mining sector. So we're very excited about it. Okay, perfect. The next question here, actually, before we do this discussion, I've got somebody here that's, oh, here it is. I'm getting questions on my phone as well. So this is from Heiko. Heiko asks, can you talk a little bit more about the longer term outlook at $2,500 gold? Oh, fair enough.

47:08 Well, we haven't run the sensitivities quite that high, Heiko. I've got the model right here if you wanna know the numbers. I appreciate the perspective. Do you have the model right there, Ken, a 2500 model? Post-tax NPV at over 2.3 billion. IRR is 51.4% and payback is 1 and a half years. There we go. What's the pre-tax NPV at 2500? 3.5. That's pretty good. 64% IRR. Yeah, that's a pretty good project for something of that Eisen scale.

47:53 I can't listen to you. Yeah. I mean, my personal view is that the world in which we're seeing $2,500 Gold probably has some cost inflation in it too. I don't know that we'll see the gap up in Gold price not being matched by costs. But I think that just gives a sense of the direction of the optionality inherent in this deposit. Fundamentally, I think optionality of the value of an ounce in the ground is one thing, but the optionality of real economics to a real project like this, I think is something completely different. I know for a lot of our shareholders, that's a really important part of why they, our shareholders are first mining and why we'll encourage them to continue to be shareholders and increase their stakes.

48:46 I increased my stake yesterday. So yeah, we're just as an indication of how excited we are all about this. Perfect. Okay. Next question is from Chris. It goes, have you seen an increase in the institutional investor activity around first mining? I'm really interested in hearing any additional ideas you might have to boost your share price. He's referring to a question here by Howard, which he then asked, saying, great news on the PFS, but what are you going to do in the future to get the stock price up? Yeah. So I guess in terms of first, the institutional investor base, we had grown that pretty significantly last year from a base of sub 5% to above 15%. And in large part, that was one of the rationales for us doing our financing in August. And one of the benefits of us doing the financing was establishing some really capable and supportive long-term institutional shareholders.

49:54 And that's continued to bear out. We've got great relationships. But it's something that I think we are still broadly institutionally unheld. And I think that goes back to perceptions. It goes back to the perceptions of what first mining was when it was first created. It goes back to the perceptions of the company being a mineral bank where we're never really going to do any real work on our projects. At some point, the values are just going to go up. That's not the game plan anymore. We have recognized and I've been here for 2 years, Ken's been here a year and a half, a little bit more than a year and a half. We recognized at the outset that the opportunity here was the fundamental value in these assets.

50:47 It's not in a speculative promote. It's not in trying to move the share price tomorrow. It's in surfacing and advancing the long-term fundamental value of these assets. And I think when you look at how we've continued to shape the team, I think when you look at how we've invested the capital that our shareholders have provided us, and we're very, very thankful for every one of you who have been there for us over the last couple of years when we really, really needed the help. But this is not a process, I think, of trying to raise your share price for the next 2 weeks.

51:34 That's not the game plan here. The game plan is how do we take risk out of this suite of assets? How do we make them better? How do we advance them to a point where that $995 million US NPV is something that people have confidence in and believe this project can be built. And then I think the value will surface on its own. And In the end, I think we will continue to build. And I think this PFS should give institutional investors a sense of the direction that we're going in. The fact that we're very well funded to get this project all the way through to that, you know, through that environmental assessment process. The fact that we've got real strategic flexibility with respect to strategic projects that we hold over the longer term, and the fact that we've got $50 million of cash and securities and investments and other things that can fund all of the work that we need to do to get this project moving forward.

52:39 So listen, we need to get more people looking at the project. We've got all kinds of plans to do that. But I think there are no shortcuts, sadly. Ultimately, we think this share price goes up by us making sure that investors understand the seriousness with which we're advancing the project and they understand the probability of us getting to the finish line is greater than 10%. That's what it reflects right now. That's frustrating for all of us, but I think when you look at the team that we put together, the fact that we've now got the permitting team that permitted the last 30,000t per day mine in Ontario, most of that team is now working for us. These are Steve Lines and his team.

53:31 These are people who have spent the last 6 years permitting projects. You know, Steve's background prior to Greenstone Goldmines and permitting Hard Rock, he worked for De Beers, permitted the Gacho Cue project in the Northwest, Diamond Project in the Northwest Territories, which involved cofferdams and dewatering lakes. And prior to that, as a regulator, he permitted the Meadowbank Project, which involved building cofferdams and dewatering lakes. So from Steve's perspective, it's one thing that, we faced the concern of, and the legacy perception of, it's that deposit under the lake, right? It's different, I think, when you look at the fact that we've now had these cofferdams engineered by a group named Bauer out of Germany, who does nothing but build cofferdams.

54:21 And they've looked at this, we've got pre-feasibility level engineering studies, we've got geotechnical drilling under the footings. Technically, I think we can say it's de-risked. And the cost of it, I think, is all understood and rational. That'll all come through in the study. But I think it's just perception. And so the real question is, how do we change perception? I think we change perception with the people that we have on the team. I think we change perception by ultimately getting a really well thought out and supported project into the environmental assessment process. And if nothing else and people still won't believe, then we'll change perception when ultimately we get the permits to build the project. But there will be a number of steps along the way in that process that I think should be giving investors comfort that, you know, the comparable projects to us that are trading at $600 and $700 million a market cap that we deserve to be, you know, SpringPool deserves to be valued up in that range as well. Yeah, and it's getting all those things that you said, Dan, out to the market. It's having the market understand the message of the company. So by increasing, I guess the, what's the word, The broad, you know, the broad width of the corporate message out there to the public, to the markets in Europe and the United States, all that helps to bring the stock price up.

55:46 Doing all the work is great, but getting that message out just so people understand what you're doing is the real challenge. And I guess that falls on a lot of me and on you as well and everybody. Exactly. Perfect. Then actually, I think I've got time for 2 quick questions here. One is from Warren, just came in right now, it says maybe, Candace, might be for you as well. What could be the job creation numbers for the project during construction and production, especially in regards to the local Indigenous communities? You know, Dan, I've sent you these numbers recently and they've been jumped out of my head here. Yeah, I think in construction, it was about 450 jobs. And multiples of that when you start factoring in contractors and supply, but that would be kind of construction jobs, 450. And in operations, it was 350 or something like that. Do you recall?

56:41 It was in the round 350 for the operations and then it was approaching 500,450,500 for construction. Yeah, it's one of those things, and certainly, I think with the project scoped now at a PFS level, we can really undertake some of those socioeconomic studies and understand not just what the impact of this project would be on, you know, the, on employment opportunities for the local Indigenous communities, but really all of the communities around, you know, communities like Sioux Lookout, which could be really critical supply bases. I mean, a lot of people forget is that Sioux Lookout's got a great railhead, you know, in a place where imagine you're bringing most of what you need, you know, into the project at least within a couple hundred kilometers on rail, right? That can have a really, really big impact on your costs.

57:38 And we've had great support from the community there. So yeah, no, I think that socioeconomic part of it is something that is going to be a real focus of the work we need to do in the next 6 months. Perfect. Great. And this is just the last question here coming in from Tom says, what are your 2021 catalysts? 2021 catalysts. Well, this was a big one. So, you know, might as well start early in the year. I think we've outlined what the game plan is moving forward here. Technically on Springpole, I think we'll have some more metallurgical work that we will get done. We'll have some drill results, hopefully from exploration at Springpole, and then continuing to move the project forward through that environmental assessment process, but ultimately getting that EA document submitted that we're targeting for the end of the year.

58:32 That Spring Poll on Treasury, remember we still own 40% of Treasury metals, they're going to have a PEA on the combined Goldlund-Goliath in hopefully in the not-too-distant future. 25,000m drill program that I think with support might increase. That's both going to be infill and delineating new opportunities at that, which we continue to believe is a 5Moz plus district and a very exciting opportunity at Treasury. Pickle Crow, drill results coming. We'd like to get ourselves to a point where we're drilling at Cameron, have drill results coming at Cameron. And then still, I think a few things for us to think about on the corporate development side going forward, with still continuing to try and surface the value of some of the other assets in the portfolio, which I will tell you we're getting 0 value for, but we've got a royalty portfolio in this company that I think is as good or better than many publicly traded royalty companies. And we get 0 value for that. So there's lots of other assets in the company right now that I think we move from that, it's there, but we're not getting any value for it, Bucket, like we did with Pickle Crow, like we did with Goldlund Goliath, move them toward the visible tangible value segment.

59:52 So I think we're going to be very, very busy this year. It's the biggest budget the company has ever had. And we got a lot of work to do. We're well funded to do it. And we're delighted to have a great group of shareholders to come with us on this journey. So I just want to use that as the opportunity to say thank you to everyone who's joined in and really appreciate and value your engagement with us. And many familiar names and friends on the list of questions here. So really appreciate everyone spending the time. Well, I just want to say thank you so much, Dan, Ken, and Spiros for taking us through the presentation and the Q&A session. I also want to thank everyone who submitted questions. If you did not get a chance to get your question answered or if you sync with 1 after the summit, just remember to please fill out the survey right after the summit and leave your contact details and the First Mining Gold team will reach out to you directly.

1:00:49 And you can also find more information at firstmininggold.com.