Thor Explorations (TSXV:THX) — Q4 2024 Operating Update and 2025 Operating Guidance

0:01 Good afternoon, and welcome to the THOR EXPLORATIONS investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and could be submitted at any time just by using the q and a tab that's situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all the questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand you over to CEO, Sheikh and Lawson. Good afternoon to you, sir. Hi. Good afternoon. I'm here to be presenting an investor update following the end of 2024 and what we have to look forward to in 2025.

0:50 So just to give an overview of who we are, there may be some new people attending. THOR EXPLORATIONS is a West Africa focus gold producer and explorer. We think we have a very compelling investment case. We have projects which are diversified in three countries and diversified by stage of development. We're We're advancing projects in three West African countries in Nigeria, where we have our producing Segolillo gold mine, where we've just completed another calendar year producing 85,000 just over 85,000 ounces of gold. We have a project in Senegal, the Duta project, which we are advancing to the final stages of a preliminary feasibility study. And in the second half of last year, we entered into the Ivory Coast into Cote D'Ivoire where we've started assembling a portfolio and kicked off exploration there.

1:42 We're very well positioned for organic growth through exploration in all three of these countries. And our shareholder value is underpinned by the high margin gold production we have in Nigeria where we are generating a very strong cash flow and strengthening our balance sheet. Our project in Nigeria is based on a DFS of 518,000 ounce gold resource. And we have set a guidance for this year of between 85,095 ounces for the calendar year. Hopefully, we will be in the top half of that guidance. In Senegal, we have a project where we have a resource of 1,780,000 ounces, which was which is divided between an indicated and an inferred resource.

2:27 We have a 70% economic interest in there. We are in the final stages of a PFS there where we have been doing a lot of detailed work and hence having to push it back a couple of times. But we are in the final stages and we'll be releasing that this quarter. In Cote D'Ivoire, we're very pleased with the project we acquired from Endeavour, the Gucci project. And we've also picked up additional ground where we have kicked off exploration. We look forward to updating the market in the next couple of months, starting off in this quarter with the results of our exploration. And lastly, we do have an early stage lithium portfolio, which we are advancing. We continue to advance in the background, and we will be updating, investors with the progress of that.

3:16 So, in summary, as a as a company, we are, present in three countries. We have strong cash flows and we are growing. We think there's a lot of, value to deliver through the progress of all our projects.

3:32 A corporate snapshot, we're listed on the TSXV, in Toronto, and we're also listed on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange. We have a cap market cap of about 216,000,000 Canadian dollars. Our share price performance over the last twelve months was north of 35%. I personally believe, you know, it have been even more had we not have those issues as you can see in, late September with, the the allegations by the Austin state government, but, we we continue to recover. And I think one thing that is very interesting and compelling for all our investors is that we're gradually getting more and more institutionalized, more long term supportive institutional shareholders over the last twenty four months have been taking a decent positions on our shareholder register. Our largest shareholders, Africa Finance Corporation, we have Ruffer, SSI Asset Management, recently, Conway of taking a decent stake, PrairieMite on aims asset management and so on.

4:42 Broker coverage in The UK by Canaccord and Hanuman Partners and Alternative Resource Capital, and in North America, a number of names including Echelon Partners. You can see by the target prices, it's not just myself who believes where undervalued have a lot of growth potential and deliverables to to unlock this value. Brokers that cover us also seem to see things over the target prices they've put.

5:17 So I'm gonna go into how we performed over the last twelve months, and, I will start off by just giving a a snapshot summary. The year ended very strongly. We're really pleased with that. We ended up pouring just over 85,000 ounces of gold, which was, just above our our revised guidance. It was our strongest quarter of the year, 24,000 ounces. We're poured during the quarter. We sold just under 25,000 ounces, some leftover from the quarter before. Q four last year generated record revenue for a period for any three months for us as a company, which was roundabout $62,000,000. And I think the most significant milestone for us as a company was we paid our final senior debt repayment to the Africa Finance Corporation.

6:13 And as a company, we are now completely delevered from our senior debt facility with them. We transitioned from a net debt position in q three to a net cash position. In q three, it was about $2,700,000. I'm pleased to say we have since built on that on a monthly basis over the last three months. We obviously don't this is not a financial update. All our numbers here are not unaudited, But, you know, the the direction has been in the right direction, and we're very pleased with that. And we are now with a clean balance sheet, growing net cash exploration ongoing in across all our projects, we are now very well positioned for a strong performance financially and operationally in 2025.

7:13 How did we produce, this amount of gold in q four? You can see in terms of mining, we mined, you know, 383,000 tons of ore, at the highest grade that we we have through the course of the year, 2.3 grams per ton. In terms of processing, we processed 200 and just under 250,000 tons of ore at three just over three grams per ton. It's worth highlighting that at the end of q two and at the beginning of q three, we went through some operational challenges. And the the plant upgrades we had made earlier in the year and the blasting and mining practices we had implemented began to come fruitful towards the end of the year. So we really enjoyed the benefits of this through the fourth quarter.

8:09 We should have seen similar numbers in q three. However, as we updated everyone in July, it was a a very tough month month for us. So, you know, this fourth quarter is a clear demonstration of what can be achieved. We would like to get our recoveries back above those 90% like how we were in q two, closer to 93, 94%. And with that and throughput rate that we were in q four, we should be generating more gold. One thing of note is that we did have a lot of gold locked up in circuit at the beginning of the twelve months. We have, over the course of twelve months, drawn down on that. You can see there was more gold poured than recovered during q four.

8:59 And we're now getting to the levels where we think we will sustain the amount of gold in circuit.

9:08 From an a social and environmental side and community development side, I think it's very important, particularly given the bad press we got in q three last year, just to highlight a lot of the good things we're doing in country. You know, we employ 98% Nigerian nationals, of which 37% are recruited from the local communities. We only have an expat number of 2%. We've increased our training programs by 64. We constantly engage with all our stakeholders. We've had 126 stakeholder meetings. And with over 2,500 participants, we really do have the social license to operate.

9:56 Over the course of 2024, even though we're not acquiring more land, we've established the land footprint. The work we do in exploration and around our tailings dam has required us to carry out more land crop compensation through the course of the year. That was $138,000. And since we started construction, it has been over $7,000,000. We've completed 40 community, projects in the course of the year as well and updated our community development agreements. Where we can, we try and procure it locally. 80% of all our procurements in 2024 was local. From an environmental compliance side, we've had zero chemical spills. We've reclaimed over 1,100 megaliters of water.

10:42 And in terms of our water intensity, we're extremely happy with the amounts of water we use per ounce to produce.

10:54 Going to exploration, one of the key trends last year was refocusing on extending the mine life, having knowing, in particular, we were coming to the tail end of our senior debt repayments. We spent a lot of time in the first half of the year carrying out structural studies with independent consultants, gathering data from our grade control programs, and using that to design an initial 12 hole drilling program, was designed to test the continuation of mineralization. The initial this was an initial program and had a proof of concept of some shallow dipping shoots, and this has proven to be successful. We're very pleased that well over 90% of the holes we drilled came back mineralized.

11:44 Some of our great intersections at 1.8 meters of nearly 40 grams per ton, three and a half meters of 4.8 grams per ton. You know, we had three and a half meters at four grams. We had intersections of three meters at 11.2 and a half 2.25 grams per ton. And, you know, what we're constantly doing is optimizing the pit shell. You can see in this image the bottom of the current design pit. We're optimizing at a high gold price, implementing and putting in these drill results and seeing how we can increase the mine life before that inflection point of transitioning to an underground. The success of the initial drill program has led to us and has justified the the the budget of the next phase of drilling, which is a 7,500 meter program.

12:40 And I'm pleased to say that has commenced. Now that will be targeting continuing to target these shallow shallow dipping shoots and also beneath these high grade areas which we we have drilled. As you can see on the next slide, the image of the left is a cross section of our most recent drill hole. You can see that is 140 meters below the final pit design current pit design. And you can see similarly on the image on the right hand side where we intersect, we have not closed out this resource at depth. So this resource remains open. We're excited about the drilling we're we're going to do. We're looking forward to updating the market with our progress here.

13:32 Before I move on to Senegal, I will just say a final comment about exploration in Nigeria. We're not just looking at the underground. We have other project areas and satellite discoveries, which we have made over the last thirty six months. We continue to carry out regional exploration in that regard, And we also continue to evaluate the ability and optionality to mine these and incorporate them into our mine plan. So that's all being constantly a work stream that's going on in parallel with the exploration we're doing underneath the pit. Moving on to our project in Senegal. Obviously, this area of the world is much more known for its gold endowment.

14:20 Diesel project is down in that southeast corner close to the Mali border, approximately five kilometers east of the Massawa deposit. We've been carrying out work here over the last couple of years, where we have delineated a 1,780,000 ounce, global resource. The work streams in the in support of the preliminary feasibility study continued. We also carried out exploration work in the northern parts of the license. The feasibility study work streams are now coming have coming to a a close now, and they're currently being reviewed and refined.

15:05 It's worth making an extra point that, you know, we are doing the work we're carrying out and the preliminary feasibility study we're looking to produce is right at the upper end of what you would expect in terms of detail. And that we believe has justified the delays that we have we have made. And this would position us very well to quickly move to that investment decision after the preliminary feasibility study. All the points we're getting are correct in terms of suppliers, in terms of EPC contractors, and in terms of mining contractors. And we yes. We think this is a a material milestone for us and will be value accretive to the company as a whole.

15:56 Hence, the the need to push this into q one has been justified, and we look forward to getting these results out during this period. This project had a number of drilling campaigns carried out over 2024. And you can see from the highlights, a lot of them were from surface. In terms of grade, it's not it's not a second. However, we're looking at something that's much bigger, a lower grade, with wide intersections and, coming from surface, with a with a large oxide component, which is part of our objective of the drilling that was carried out in 2024.

16:45 In Cote D'Ivoire, we entered there in the second half of last year with a very low cost entry. Having looked in and done a lot of due diligence in the country over the course of the twelve months before, we the properties we have acquired are on the perspective Burimian Greenstone Belt, which is in over 30% of the country. Cote D'Ivoire as a jurisdiction has been a success story in terms of discovering gold resources, developing them, and building them on on budget. We're extremely excited about being in the country. We think the the projects we have there and the portfolio we've put together has given us an excellent platform from which to go from.

17:31 Our portfolio consists of the Grigi project, which already has you'll see in the next slide, a significant amount of drilling that's been carried out on, but not yet a maiden resource. And we have commenced exploration in this country, and we'll be advancing that through the course of the next few quarters. You can see the drilling that was carried out there has already got some very, very exciting drill results in all in the in the in the fresh and, you know, very compelling rates as well. So these exploration targets have given us a platform. They remain open. There are a number of prospects on each of our licenses.

18:20 We are we have set ourselves an internal target of a maiden resource this year, and we've allocated ourselves a drilling budget, which should hopefully commence as soon as these drill targets are are better defined.

18:41 So what are we, setting ourselves up for in the next twelve months, you know, our 2025 sorry. Or 2024 guidance range is at between eighty five and ninety five thousand ounces for the year. We are hoping to be at the top end of that for the first time. Now we have the plant running how we want. And if we can get the recoveries to the levels that we have achieved in the past, we believe this should be attainable. We still believe, our all in sustaining costs will land below $1,000 per ounce, so between 800 and $1,000 per ounce. This year, the strengthening of our balance sheet will continue.

19:27 We are projected to have very strong cash flows. This is all going to be on a completely delevered balance sheet, with also which I haven't mentioned previously, but significant progress made on our accounts payable, which will become current this quarter as well. So the cash generation and cash build up through the course of this year will be very strong. In addition to that, we expect growth organically through our portfolio, through the near mine drill targets, through the underground drilling that we're carrying out, and through the drilling we're carrying out in Senegal on our Duta and Duta West licenses.

20:12 And also the exploration we're carrying out on our lithium portfolio, which has been scaled back with gold taking and continuing to be our main focus and priority. This quarter, we'll see the completion of a detailed, due to preliminary feasibility study and accelerated studies subsequently to subsequent to that to an investment decision. And lastly, in Cote D'Ivoire, we have budgeted 5,000 meters of drilling. So, you know, in in summary, we think that, you know, the year ahead is extremely exciting for us as a company. We're underpinned by cash generation, which is very profitable at the moment, the current prevailing gold prices.

21:02 We think there's a lot of upside to come through our exploration and through through our our drill bit. And key for us is the extension of the Segolola mine life. Thank you very much. And I think we can move on to the Q and A. Jagan, thank you very much for your presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions. You can do that just by using the Q and A tab that's situated on the top right hand corner of your screen. But just while Shaken takes a few moments for you the questions that have been submitted today, I'd like to remind you that the recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published q and a can be accessed via your investor dashboard. Shaken, as you can see we have received a number of questions throughout today's presentation. And if I could hand back to you to read out the questions and give responses where it's appropriate to do so, I'll pick up for you at the end.

21:54 Okay. Okay. What is the target date to finish newly commenced drilling at Segolola? So the drilling at Segolola is on is always ongoing. We will we have 7,500 meters as the next phase. We would like to get that done as quickly as possible, looking like during this period, the first three months of the year. And then, you know, from that point, you know, we will put that data into an optimized study again and looking at how best to to increase the current open pit mine life before transitioning to an underground.

22:44 However, if that drilling is successful, again, we will increase our the next phase of drilling and carry out an additional drilling program there. So it's ongoing and the 7,500 meter program is aimed for completion during this quarter.

23:10 Is THOR EXPLORATION already looking at financing options for the Duta project? Is there a scenario this would be possible entirely out of cash flows or will external funding definitely be required? We are having those conversations internally. We do have incoming from various advisers and lenders. Obviously, we have a very good relationship with Africa Finance Corporation who have we've just repaid. We are now in a position where, you know, we believe that it should be a more compelling story for us to to to get leverage for in terms of project finance for the data project. The equity component, we would look to fund from our own cash reserves.

23:59 So the intention at the moment is not to go out and raise any additional equity. We don't see any shell dilution coming from the development of the Duta project. Obviously, it's still very early now in in the process. So, you know, nothing has been is concrete and set in stone, and that will be finalized over the course of the year and probably over the next six months.

24:31 Next question. The issue with the Nigerian government was a bit unexpected. How confident you that you'll steer away from legal conflicts in the future? Yes. It was very unexpected. And, you know, one thing I can say about operating in Nigeria is that we do have very strong support in terms of the Ministry of Mines, in terms of the federal government. The issue was with the state government. Mining is regulated by the by the federal government. You know, we said at the time, we and we continue to reiterate that we believe and we feel that all these claims are false and were not substantiated.

25:19 We've been completely transparent through the the whole process. We do expect to be completely exonerated from all these allegations that that were made as well. In terms of going to the future, what did we learn from this? You know, we will have a very open dialogue with the state and, you know, and we will bring in the the ministry in with and have them present in all our dialogue with the state throughout to ensure things like this don't don't happen again in the future. But, you know, whilst talking about this, it's probably it's very important to state that, as you can see, our operations were completely unaffected, by all the, issues that were hap happening with with the state. And we believe that, you know, the the jurisdiction wherein where rule of law does prevail, we're well protected as long as we continue to abide by the the the regulatory standards that have been set by the Ministry of Mines and Ministry of Environment.

26:35 When do you expect to make announcement on the extension or not of the Seguela mine life? It's premature to say that. What I will say is that we are carrying out another 7,500 meters of drilling. And after that program is completed, we will evaluate any optimization studies, and that might be a point to to update the market.

27:04 Financial Times recently had a piece on the terrifying crackdown on mining companies in Africa's Ku Belt. What is Nigeria doing to reassure and intensify investors? Why then is OSHIM going after THOR for taxes? Look, I think it's not really my place to say, but, you know, I can just speak about our experience in Nigeria. You know, it's not in a coup belt. It's a much more political politically stable jurisdiction. I don't think there's been a coup in Nigeria since 1984. We've had democratic democratic governments and opposition parties in in in government for a number of years without issue.

27:51 The mining act in Nigeria is extremely enabling unlike other jurisdictions in in the Ku Belt that's been mentioned in this question. You're allowed to own 100% of your projects. You have free movement of your your currency repatriation of your dividends. You have you have sorry. My mind's going blank. Yeah. You have free movement of your your currency. You have exemptions, on your on your capital equipment as well and your mining equipment as well. So, you know, it's a it's a very compelling jurisdiction in terms of the mining act. The federal government tries to make it enabling. They're trying to invite and attract international investors.

28:40 They're trying to kick start the mining sector to make more of a contribution to the GDP. We think that there was a misalignment between the ocean state and the federal government that is being resolved now. The regulatory body we deal with is a federal government, and they oversee all mining in Nigeria. Will there be a dividend in 2025? We have discussed this internally. Yes. The company has is looking to, return money to shareholders in some form during the course of 2025. That policy hasn't been finalized yet, but the high level answer is yes. We are looking to do that.

29:31 Will there not be a press release to get closure on Ocean State allegations from q three? Yes. We do intend to make a press release once the minister has made his statements public and the reports of the findings of the committee have been made public. We hope that that'll be soon. The the we were hoping that would have come in before the end of last year, and it didn't it's dragging to this year. But as soon as that's made locally, we will be making our own press release. I think that's all the questions. Any more questions? Oh, there's some very long ones here, which I I can reply this one to a few paragraphs.

30:21 I noticed the selling price was below spot price. Does this mean forward contracts have now been closed out? Are there plans to enter in a new hedging strategy around an all time gold high gold price? Yes. The selling price was below the the gold price in the last quarter. At considering we produced more gold, we decided to unwind more of the as of the hedge book without denting the price too materially. So we do have, I believe, 4,500 ounces left. Average price of just under $2,300 per ounce to unwind. We would look at unwinding that at maybe 1,500 ounces per month.

31:16 If current economics persist, when do you anticipate the gold stream liability? Will it be extinguished? Well, that's a good question. We based on the last forecast I saw, it will be around about middle of next year. What is the level of sustaining capital anticipated in the near term at Securlona? I'm actually pleased to say we spent a significant amount on our plant upgrades over the last twenty four months. We don't envisage any material sustaining capital being spent above $5,000,000 through the course of this year.

32:08 How long after the PFS before DFS and construction of data? Could data begin build in 2025? The PFS, like I said, is going to be at the more detailed end, and it it's gonna position us to fast track to investment decision and the final outstanding items remaining for the DFS. Internally, we believe we'll be ready to make that decision this year. However, there are a couple of things outside our control, which would be the final permitting process in Senegal, how long that takes, and also putting the financing together. And, that shouldn't, you know, be anything out of the ordinary. So long as those two are within the course of the year, we would like to make that investment decision this calendar year.

33:07 I think I've got it. Anything else? Yeah. There's one very long question. I will I will I can we can respond following oh, investors need to know the net cash position. How much net cash do you have? The recent r and s just stated it has net cash. Yeah. I think it's probably important to note the recent r and s was not our financials. Our financials normally come in a couple of months after the end of the period, you know, once all the invoices have been settled and have been fully reviewed. That's why we only gave we we we said it was a an audited revenue number of just over $62,000,000. What I can say is we transitioned from net debt to net cash at the end of q three of $2,700,000.

33:56 We have since built on that on a monthly basis quite materially as well. So, you know, I I I will have to wait for the financials to be completed before I I do that. But, yeah, it's it's it's multiples above where we were at the end of q three. If that's I hope that answers the question without giving the exact number. Do you agree that as a flagship gold producer in Nigeria, it will be beneficial to up the investment into the local community and local schemes further to help build long term relationships and bring positive change to Nigeria.

34:43 Definitely, like I said in the presentation, we we believe we already have the social license to operate with our local communities. We have taken a long term view on Nigeria. We hope we're at Segolola for many more years, and we hope to find other gold discoveries in Nigeria for and and build mines for for many more years. One thing we have taken out of the experience with Ocean State is widening our CSR and seeing how we can be more interactive even at the state level in terms of our CSR and and projects we can jointly do. So yes. Does the ASIC drop assume less mining? What is driving this drop? It's a strategy to feed lower grade and higher mill throughput.

35:40 Look, our ASIC has consistently come in lower than than originally planned. You know? So I think we have based our ASIC on the on the mine plan and factored in our experience over the last, three years. Okay. I think I think I've answered everything. Perfect. Thank you very much for answering those questions from investors. Of course, company can review all the questions submitted today, we will publish those responses out on the investor meet company platform. But just before redirecting investors to provide you their feedback, is particularly important to the company, Shagan, could I just ask you for a few closing comments?

36:26 Yeah. My closing comments are the you know, we we finished q twenty twenty four very strongly. It was a record quarter for us. It will be a record year for us in terms of profitability. Now we've deleveraged our balance sheet completely. We're very excited about 2025. We think this is a year of significant growth for us in terms of cash and also in terms of value generated through exploration. We have some big milestones coming up in Senegal and also in Nigeria. Key being extending that mine life where every incremental year of mine life extension is probably cash generation of something similar to our market cap.

37:15 So we're excited about 2025. We look forward to drawing a line and closing the door on the ocean state issues. And, yes, we look forward to updating the market regularly on our drill results and our financial performance. Thank you once again for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations? This will only take a few moments to complete, but some should be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of THOR EXPLORATIONS, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.