Akobo Minerals (Oslo:AKOBO) Q1 2026 Earnings Call

0:00 I will take you through the latest developments of the company and the operations. I'll just start with a short introduction for any new viewers and not familiar with Akobo Minerals. We're a Scandinavian based gold producer and explorer. You can see from the right hand side here on the map, we're based out of Ethiopia when it comes to our operating assets on the border of South Sudan called Segele Mine, the Akobo River area. Very nice and peaceful place to work. We've been there for fifteen years and still trying to expand and use this area as a hub for the future of the company.

0:54 So you can see here, we are operating a gold mine, a Segele mine. It's a high grade operation. Looking at the category here on the right hand bottom side, you can see a bit what we're talking about. The average grade of an underground mine is about five to eight gram per tonne. What you would call a high grade deposit is above eight gram per tonne, while our Segela mine is around 22 to 40 gram per tonne. So it's a really high grade Bonanza mine. It's a production that's been ongoing for one and a half year now. We have a steady production of around seven to eight kilos a month from current winces or tunnels that go from the surface into the underground ore body.

1:46 If you look at that from a revenue perspective, at current gold price around $4,000 per ounce, we're talking about around $1,000,000 per month. Our ABTA breakeven is around five kilos per month. Of course, that will vary with the gold price also. So we have some processing advantage here. We do gravity processing. You can see that we get 86% gravity recovery. That's without using a carbonate leach or CIL system. We also do have a very high grade or not grade, but purity of the gold we're producing. So we're around twenty two twenty three carat dory bars produced at site.

2:33 So we have a very good plant setup with a strong team that delivers high quality gold dory bars out of our own processing plant. So just on the corporate side, we have transitioned from discovery to production during these fifteen years. That's a huge milestone in itself. We are currently a flagship project in Ethiopia, being the first modern mine or national gold mine to establish itself in Ethiopia since 1993. And we're listed today on the year next growth in Oslo, the Stock Exchange. So more back to production and operations. Q1, strongest quarter to date.

3:19 We produced around 23 kilos. At that point, we had 96 kilos of dory produced year to date. That is end of March. And if you look at the graphics on the left hand side here, you can see that we've consistently improved month quarter by quarter. And if you look within the red square here, Obviously, gold price is affecting the revenue side and the EBITDA side. But also, you can see here on the development in the number of kilos produced, it's increasing quarter by quarter. And we get to the end here by adding a Q2 twenty twenty six estimate, which we expect to be another record quarter, beating previous quarters with quite a significant amount.

4:17 We're expecting around 35 kilos to be produced now in Q2. That includes eight kilos now for June. So for those of you who've been following us, knowing that we had a temporary shutdown of operations for a couple of months due to diesel and fuel supply issues in Ethiopia, This is a very strong quarter. And I must say that the team has been exceptional in producing and delivering this. So by the end of Q2, which is around today, we should have produced around 131 kilos all in all. We do still actually have a significant stockpile at site, six fifty tonnes.

5:04 It's a lower grade ore, but still very high compared to what you see normally, back to the previous slide, around 10 gram per tonne. When it comes to our cash position, we have around $4,200,000 which includes the June production estimates in cash and cash and liquidity positions. During the quarter one and quarter two, we started repaying monetary metals on the debt facility, and we have paid back around $4,100,000 during the last two quarters. We also see that given the development of the company and the production and the cash flow and what we see going forward with the new vertical shaft, there is an opportunity for us to restructure the current debt we have.

6:03 We have in each the process. We think it's possible to lower the interest rate and also extend the maturity profile so that will fit better with the current operations and our ambition and our interest in expanding our operations in Ethiopia and also within the current license area. Just to highlight, you can see here the average grade that we're producing at. It's consistent high grade, around 20 gram per tonne, seeing it up to 30 gram per tonne in Q2. And that supports the narrative and what we've been telling and saying all along and what we believe is in the ground.

6:53 It's a high grade mineral resource and we see it every day when we're producing. So on the operations side, we've had stable mining operations and we have continued access to ore. It's not always the fact that you have access to ore when you're developing, But the nature of this ore body is in such a way that it's within the boundaries of the ore model and the ore body. It is gold spread out consistently through the deposits. So it's possible to access ore more or less everywhere. And as we said, we have a strong processing performance, high grades, recovery and purity.

7:43 And going then down to the development highlights, we have completed around 50% almost of the 120 meter planned shaft, the new vertical shaft, around 65 meters remaining. We have seven to 10 meters left to get to the first lateral drive, level one, that will give us access to the ore. We do not know when we hit the ore body, but we see that the ore body is extending beyond what the geological model is saying, so we might hit it sooner rather than later. Only time will tell there. We do have to do more ground support.

8:34 Now in the beginning of the shaft, we've hit some softer sections that will not delay as such, but it's part of mining operations. It means that you can't blast that aggressively while you're actually fixing and supporting these areas. As I said, we have indications of mineralization beyond the current model, so this is exciting. From the mining, we've gone beyond the current model and we see it. So we do have now an underground surveying on way to site to see what this looks like. So it'll be exciting to see what kind of surveying and results we get there.

9:22 So for the future, we do need our TSF, the tailings storage facility, and that construction is progressing well. So I'm very happy to see that. Before we can start any CIL production later, we need a TSF up and going. On the exploration side, trenching geological work is advancing, and that's what we'll call ahead of the next exploration phase. We do have some good indications that the GEOLO license is soon to be finalized. And you can see here from the bottom that the operations again resumed following fuel shortage. Production on-site has been normalized. And the GLO license here, it's been approved by the local administration in the area called Akobo, and it's just pending final verification to make sure that the coordinates are correct.

10:18 And then hopefully within a very short period, it will be finalized and approved. And then we can start really looking into how to attack that area and develop that over the next two, five, ten, fifteen years. We've also delivered a water supply system to the local village, and it's been handed over. That's been a big milestone, getting fresh water to the local village, something they've never had before. So just to summarize, operations are normalized and we do have indications of the mineralization extending beyond the current model.

11:05 So that will be exciting to see. Shaft development timeline, we're advancing. We split this into three phases. We're continuing the sinking. And as I said, we're progressing then depending on ground conditions. And depending on that, it will be a bit slower or a bit faster. We need to stabilize where we need to and we can't take any kind of risk when it comes to developing this shaft. We expect then to access the lateral one SeptemberOctober and get head gear and main winch installations done and the commissioning of the hoisting system. And at that point, we'll see initial ore hoisting from the lateral one access.

11:56 Where it will hit the ore body, we do not know. We think it will be sooner rather than later based upon what we've seen, but that's too difficult to say exactly. But this is the time frame we're working on. And then going all the way down and the lateral two axis and production ramp up will happen in October, November. And then this shaft will be in production. I think it's important to mention now that Akobo now has an established operating model with clear path to scale. We've been producing consistently for one and a half year.

12:44 We see stable grades, recovery and purity. We've also demonstrated the ability to convert gold production into U. S. Dollar cash flow by repaying monetary metals and international suppliers out of local currency converted into US dollars in Ethiopia. That says also something about the development of the financial sector and the reforms happening in Ethiopia. A lot of positive news coming out of Ethiopia these days. When you look at the shaft, the processing plant and the assigned capacity, there is no bottleneck there. The plant and the hoisting capacity system can do 4,000 tonnes a month. If you do 20 gram per tonne on average, that should give us a potential of doing 80 kilos a month of gold production.

13:38 And we do have the gravity recovery in operation with the CIL to increase the recovery from 86% up to maybe 90 plus, 90 something. So it's really not an issue with the technical side. The capacity is there. So what we have to work on and which is work in progress is to get the mining underground, to get enough areas to work on simultaneously. We need a number of active phases to support the tonnage to be hauled out. So that's the main work now is to plan for that. The financial performance, operating leverage, you see here an improvement on the sales and EBITDA side.

14:28 It's driven by some higher production volumes, but also, of course, a strong gold price seen lately, especially in Q1. And you can see the EBITDA is achieved as revenue increased. We do have a relatively fixed cost, even though we have added some more in Q1 related to the development of the shaft, obviously. That is requiring a bit more money going into the operations. And just so that it's said, the sales figures do not necessarily represent the actual sale. It's the sale might happen the month or the quarter after, depending on.

15:15 But it's a fairly good estimate based upon what we've seen and what we're selling to the National Bank locally. On the equity and debt development side, it is what it is. The gold loan is developing and it's also fluctuating with the gold price. And the same goes also then for the cash flow of the deposit, the future cash flow deposits. So it's still a natural hedge there. And the negative equity reflects, again, the development phase on historic investments in building the Seagal operations. And now going forward, we will see that turning towards more positive equity as operations continue to deliver positive results.

16:04 On the corporate structure side, no major changes. Top shareholders still with us, long term supporters, and I don't think there's any changes in the top 20. We still have a Swedish holding company, a Norwegian operating company and Ethno Mining in Ethiopia that holds all the licenses and all the assets. We have around two thirty eight employed locally. We have a strong team in Addis, a leadership team there, but also a very strong operating team at site. Of course, they're the ones delivering all the results every day. So it's hard work, and we have a very, very good team here.

16:50 And we just got another strong asset to the company here through LMEA, Sachertou. He has been elected a new board member and he has joined the company. He has extensive experience from the African financial markets and the Ethiopian markets. And it's someone I've known for several years, and I'm very happy to have Emias on board, strengthening our corporate governance side, but also someone that is able to help us locally and help develop the company on a local basis. Worth mentioning, we have strong support also from the government, being we're seeing the Ethiopian sovereign fund as our fourth largest shareholder. So that's a very good thing to see.

17:42 In general, these days, very strong support to the mining sector. That, combined with all the financial and other economic reforms seen in Ethiopia, I believe that Ethiopia is going to be a very attractive place to invest and to take part of their future development over the next well, not even the next few years, but for a very, very long time. And with that, what are we looking at? How can we build value here? Well, we're scaling production. We're getting cash flow. We are going to increase that cash flow from the new vertical shaft. We're going to reinvest parts of that into growth and development.

18:31 And what does that look like? Well, we do have, of course, the lateral developments in the current mine and extend that, but also extend that at depth. We know the current ore body is open at depth. We see a continued geological upside and opimisential potential here. We do have a lot of targets still within the near area of the mine. But then going further, we are of course now going to extend the platform, especially with the new GeLo license that we expect to be awarded very soon, but also the Gingibill Joy Recorder within the existing license area. That's something we're targeting and we've been working on for quite some time now, and where we see a big potential.

19:22 So what will this look like in a few years? Well, it will be a multi asset company. GEOLO, as a second production hub, we are also looking at other exploration targets in Ethiopia and might have over time selective expansion into new opportunities in Africa. So this is not just about the next six months or not the next year. This is a long term development plan that will build value step by step. The financial side, I will leave that for you to look at. There is no cash flow this quarter, just due to time constraints after the annual reports were delivered here last month.

20:10 But let me know if you have any questions with regards to the financials. And let's see if there are any questions here. So I think I've answered most of them. The obvious one is of course timeline around the shaft, when we will hit the ore, when we will start hoisting and producing. So going back to the slide where I presented the timeline, we're progressing every day depending on rock stability, depending on how much we can blast every day.

21:03 We're looking at accessing this ore, as we said in September, October from the lateral drive number one. And at that point, it will be in production. And that, combined with the winces, until we shut those down, will give us an increased cash flow from that point on out. So it's all progressing. It's all there. We do not see any issues on the procurement side, on the equipment side. So now it's just a matter of blasting as much as we can within the limits of the rock and the safety side for our team.

21:50 And that's really it. It's moving every day. And no further questions, most of them were related to the shaft, so I think we've answered most of that. So I'd just like to say thank you all for joining and listening in. If you have any questions, please reach out and I will get back to you on that. Thank you.