West African Resources Limited (WFRSF) Q1 2026 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning and welcome to the West African Resources Investor Webinar and Conference Call. All attendees are in a listen-only mode. If you would like to ask a question directly to the company, please use the raise hand function within Zoom. I'll now hand over to West African Executive Chairman and CEO, Richard Hyde. Thank you, Richard. Thanks, Nathan. Good morning and thanks for joining us for West African Resources March 2026 Call to Call. It was a productive quarter for our gold operations at Sanbrado and Kiaka in Burkina Faso, but before I get into discussing our performance, I want to address the ownership structure changes at Kiaka in regard to the Burkina Faso government. This has been under discussion for a while now, and as we've announced this week, the Burkina government plans to acquire an additional 25% equity interest in our subsidiary, Kiaka SA, who is the operator of the Kiaka gold mine. This will take the government's interest at Kiaka to 40%, as it has an existing 15% free carriage stake already. This additional capital share in Kiaka SA has been valued by the government at 70 billion CFA francs, which roughly equates to 175 million Australian dollars. There has been no discussion with the government regarding the ownership of Sambrado or Tuiga, and Tuiga's obviously on track to start producing later this year, and they were not referred to in the decree that was published in regards to Kiaka. We are working with the government to finalise the terms of the acquisition for Kiaka, and we hope to have that completed by the end of this calendar year. At this stage, we plan to distribute any cash proceeds from the sailors the equity sale of Kiaka SA to our shareholders by way of special dividend and we'll keep you updated with any developments regarding...