Aya Gold & Silver (TSX:AYA) Q4 2025 Earnings Call

0:00 Good morning, everyone. I will now turn the call over to Elizabeth Hamaui, Aya Gold and Silver's Director of Corporate and Financial Communications. Please go ahead. Thank you, operator, and welcome, everyone, to Aya's fourth quarter and full year twenty twenty five earnings conference call. Here with me today, I have Benoit Assal, President and CEO Hugo Lombry Tostchar, Chief Financial Officer Elias Elias, Chief Legal and Sustainability Officer Rafael Bourdoin, Vice President of Operations and David Lalonde, Vice President of Exploration. We will be referring to a presentation on this call, which is available via the webcast and is also posted on our website. We will be making forward looking statements during the call. Please refer to our cautionary notes included in the presentation, news release and MD and A as well as the risk factors included in our AIF.

0:57 Technical information in this presentation has been reviewed and approved by Rafael Baudoy, Aya's VP of Operations and Daniel David Lalonde, Aya's VP of Exploration, both of whom are Aya's qualified persons as defined under National Instrument 40 three-one 101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. I would also like to remind everyone that our presentation will be followed by a Q and A session. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Benoit Lassain. Benoit? Elizabeth, thank you. Welcome everybody to this Q4 twenty twenty five presentation and full year 2025 as well. I would like to remind everybody that for AYA, the year 2025 is a ramp up year. That's when we started the after the commissioning, which was in December 2024.

1:52 We did the commissioning of the new plant and then we went into the ramp up year. So obviously, each quarter saw some improvement. And today, we're pleased to report that the fourth quarter was an excellent quarter and that the year overall is finishing very, very strong. So in the presentation that you have, I would ask you to go to page four and you see here that we have record revenue, record net income and operating cash flow. So for the year 2025, our revenues are at $2.00 $2,000,000 always reporting in U. S. Dollars. So $2.00 $2,000,000 compared to $39,000,000 for the previous year. Our net income stands at $46,000,000 after tax and compared to a loss of $26,000,000 in 2024.

2:47 I also would like to point out that the $46,000,000 is after more than $14,000,000 of stock based compensation, which is our three year option program for senior management, which is being expensed. So when you look at it on an earnings per share basis at $46,000,000 after tax, it's an earnings per share of $33 $32 sorry, $3.02 or $0.33 per share. But when you look at it before stock based compensation, you need to add $0.10 to the earnings per share basis. The cash flow is very strong. We had a cash flow of operating cash flow of $72,000,000 compared to 9,000,000 negative on the previous year. So we have a very strong position. And we're ending the year with a cash balance unrestricted of $136,000,000 And to that, you need to include $16,000,000 of restricted cash, which is in an account for EBRD just as part of our long term $100,000,000 loan that we've obtained from EBRD for the construction of Zagunde. So globally a very strong Q4 and a very strong year knowing that it's a ramp up year.

4:14 Moving to slide number five, which is where the KPIs are, which I've been telling you about and how we manage starting on the left hand side on the mining tonnage. If you see in Q4, we've mined more tons than we've processed, which is a great sign, meaning that now the mine is putting through more ore than we need at the plant. Therefore, we are increasing our stockpiles. So you recall that in Q1, Q2 and Q3, were processing more than we were mining. Now in Q4, we are mining more than we're processing. If you look at it on a yearly basis, you can see that we mine a million ton and we process 1,100,000 ton. So for the year, we did eat up a little bit of our ramp pad, but for the quarter we have changed the trends and we're now building ramp pads, which is excellent.

5:16 The total mining came 62% from the open pit. You know, our goal is to be seventy-thirty. We're getting there. But for the year 2025, we are at 62% from the open pit. The milling rate, which is in the middle on Page five is you see the milling rate, how interesting it is. If you look at Q4 of last year, we were at 1,200 ton a day. You recall that historically we were at 700 ton a day. We were just commissioning the new plant. By the end of Q1, we were at 2,800 ton a day nameplate capacity. So it took one quarter and we were at nameplate capacity.

6:02 And then you see Q2, we were at 3,000 ton a day. Q3, we were at 3,300 and now Q4, we're at 3,800 ton a day average. So by one year of ramp up, we're 1,000 ton a day above the nameplate of 2,700. So it's about 40% higher than nameplate. Exceptional plant, very well built. And if you go to the right and you look at the recovery and the availability, well, that tells you everything. So not only are we operating 40% above nameplate, is the recovery for the year is at 88.4%, but the recovery for Q4 is at 91%.

6:48 Again, you recall that in Q1 twenty twenty five, we had issues with the oxygen plant, the recoveries were in the low 80s, we told you we would fix that. It was under design during the construction and the planning, we corrected it and now you have a recovery rate of 91.2 in Q4, which is exceptional. It's actually above the design when we did the feasibility study, our average was supposed to be around 88 and now we're exceeding that by three to four points. Plant availability, you see it on the right hand side of the slide, page five, plant availability in Q4 is 99.

7:33 I don't think you can beat that. It's extremely high for the year, we're at 96%. Obviously, it's a brand new plant. So we're comfortable with this. So but all in all, what this is telling us is the plant is absolutely running well. It was built, you recall a little bit under budget. We were we commissioned it on time. We ramped it up in one year or in three quarters, and now we're running above nameplate. So it's a very robust plan that we have. We produced in Q4 1,000,540 7,000 ounces, some of which came from Boumazil, because you know that Boumazil, we're processing stockpile. So globally, it was a very strong quarter.

8:22 Going to Page six, I think that is the summary of our industry. On the left hand side, you see it's all about now margin, it's all about margin. Q4 twenty twenty four, the margin was at the time because we were in ramp up, so in commissioning even, so the margins were very, very small. And then you see to Q1, we get into a margin of $13 Q2, we have well $13 margin. And then in Q3, the margin becomes almost $20 Now the margin is $38 in Q4 and the margin for Q1, because we're now done Q1, we know that the average realized price for the period of Q1 is more like $80 So we're about $20 above Q4, but that is everything. This is what our industry is all about right now is the margin. So the margin is very high. It's something that helps us manage the mining, the grade, the cutoff, but also is showing us and is creating a lot of liquidity.

9:38 So on the right hand side of the slide, you see the revenue from Q1 at 34,000,000 to all the way up to Q4 at $75,000,000 and that Q4 at $75,000,000 is based on a net realized silver price of $58 So you can imagine that going forward, we are a believer in the silver price. I mean, it's just going to get better. If you look at the net income, Q1 in the ramp up, and I said that in the previous quarters, how many times you see net income in a ramp up period. So net income of $7,000,000 in Q1, of $9,000,000 in Q2, 12,000,000 in Q3 and $18,000,000 in Q4.

10:27 So very strong Q4 again and within Q4 with an earnings per share of zero one two dollars and for the year of $0.32 Again, and this is after $0.10 of stock based compensation. So very strong quarter, the plant's running well, the profitability is there, the margins are there, and we have enough cash and that would take us to Slide number seven is we have a very strong balance sheet with $136,000,000 in cash. In Q4 of this year, we generated before working cap $68,000,000 of cash flow before working cap changes, 68,000,000 For Q4, it was 35,000,000 so 68,000,000 for the year, 35,000,000 for the quarter.

11:22 That pays for all of our expenses. So the CapEx, the capital expenditure for the year was 33,000,000 the expiration was $42,000,000 that's for 2025. Now for 2026, capital and exploration are similar, a bit higher on exploration, but you can see that the cash flow generated covers more than the capital expenditure and the exploration expense. So very strong year again, the cash position unrestricted is at $136,000,000 and we also have a little credit facility of $10,000,000 available with EBRD. It's a $25,000,000 We did draw on 15,000,000 on it just because we have it and we did not want the credit facility to end. And but we still have $10,000,000 readily available.

12:19 So these are the results, but we're looking at the year 2025. So we just talked about the financial results, the operation, the fact that the mine is producing more than what the mill needs. So the mine is running well, the underground is running where we want it to be, the open pit is running where we want it to be. The open pit needs to increase a little bit. It's throughput, but it's we're exceeding what we need at the plant. What we did as well in 2025 was a new resource, a reserve resource update at Gunda. So we reviewed the mine plan, we reviewed all the geological model, we've changed the mining approach going from selective, very restrictive mining where we would take the high grade zone and we went to more of a bulk mining scenario.

13:17 And the reason is because Gundair is very unique geologically, is it's not a vein system. You're not following a vein like most silver mine where you mine what you see and you mine the vein and you have most of the time silver, a little bit of gold, some have lead and zinc. Here it's not the case. Here, the Zagundere Mine is a loaf of bread. It's 200 meter wide. It's 1.4 kilometer long. It's 700 meter deep and it's mineralized. In there, you have some structures where the fluids went by and those structures are extremely high grade, but globally the envelope is mineralized. So we've changed the approach. We've reviewed what was there. Of course, with the new silver price, it's extremely important to understand the geology because we do not want to leave behind pockets of 100 gram per ton silver, though they're not in the model or they were deemed to be non economical four years ago. Today, this is absolutely economical.

14:25 So what we have is we now mine the entire structure. We have created stockpiles. So a lower grade stockpile between forty eighty gram, which is set aside for later. We have the regular stockpile, which we quantify of that we have 250,000 tons on the regular stockpile and we follow the mining based on our mine model. But what we are mining is not again, not a vein, but a really a mineralized loaf of bread, which is we've gone from selective mining to bulk mining, makes a big difference. And you see it on Page nine.

15:12 So on Page nine, you have the new mine plan. The new mine plan accounts for 6,000,000 ounces of production per year for eleven years. It has an average cash cost for the period of $16.26 and AISC of around $19 And if you look at the mine plan in the 40 three-one 101 document, you see that for 2026, we're forecasting in that mine plan 5,800,000 ounces per year with a cash cost of around $21 And the reason is because of the strip is we're at the beginning of the open pit. We have a lot of strip, strip ratio is between thirteen and fifteen. So we have a lot of strip and hence that increases the cash cost in the first few years and it reduces the cash cost will reduce in the later years as the strip is going to be coming down seriously.

16:08 So today's Gundair is done. It's build, it's debugged, it's running smoothly, it has its own team, it's accountable and we know and it's predictable. So it will be 6,000,000 right now based on what we know in geology, because of course we're always looking for more, but what we know it's 6,000,000 ounces per year, per eleven years with an all in with a cash cost of $16.26. Also this year and going to page 10, this year being 2025, we've completed the PA on Boumazin. Now that's been in the making for a couple of years. We've done a lot of drilling. We knew that this was a very robust project and we did it on the 2024 resource, which was available at the beginning of 2025.

17:02 And we did a very thorough PEA with a lot of the work done to higher than a PEA level. And what this is showing us, the highlight of the PEA is the low initial CapEx. That's the highlight of the PA, $446,000,000 of CapEx to build a company or a project that will be producing per year for the first five years 400,000 ounces of gold equivalent or 37,500,000 ounces of silver equivalent. Now we're showing it to you on a one to five years because year six and after will be compensated by putting in the 2025 drill program, which was not put in at the time and we are doing this as we speak and that will be ready for the end of June, beginning of July. And that's going to change the mine plan and it's going to change your production profile in the later years.

18:09 But based on the 2024 results, we do have a project using 2,800 gold and $30 silver. You have a project on a pretax basis that gives us $2,200,000,000 of net present value. It's got a CapEx efficiency ratio of five to one, CapEx to NPV, an internal rate of return of 69% and a payback of one point three years, and that is using $2,800 gold and $30 silver. So you can imagine that at the current price and with the production that's going to be updated, this project is even more robust than what we're seeing. And all of that for year one to five, the AISC on a gold equivalent production will be around $920 So where do you have that kind of a project that can produce 400,000 ounces of gold equivalent on an AISC of low 900 and a CapEx of $4.46 extremely unique, extremely rare in a great jurisdiction.

19:20 And that's what is all about. So when we looked at Boumazin on page 21 on page, sorry, 11, it's a district scale project with low initial CapEx, extremely rare, extremely unique. It has a strong production profile with high grade material. The mining permit is in hand, Strong economics based on production of three marketable concentrate. Now that's very important is you have a lead concentrate, you have a zinc concentrate and then you have a pyrite concentrate. And out of the three concentrate, we will recover silver or gold, silver, lead and zinc. Now the pyrite concentrate, which historically people thought was a problem, well, it's actually now an asset because following the war and following what's been happening in The Middle East, sulfur has gone from $100 a ton to $500 a ton and is expected to go as high as $800 a ton.

20:28 Sulfur comes from the pyrite concentrate because we have sulfur in the pyrite concentrate. So the value of our concentrate has never been as good as it is right now and is expected to continue. So historically, when people were saying, projects like that are complicated and all that, sure, if you have low grade material, it can be more complicated. But in this case, with a project where the on a silver equivalent basis, you're at four fifty gram per ton or in a gold equivalent basis, you're almost five gram per ton. You're in open pit situation and underground, and you have 45% sulfur in your pyrite concentrate, this is really a valuable concentrate.

21:15 So we're fast tracking this. We're pushing now on the revised PEA, which to show you exactly how profitable this project is going to be once we've inputted the new resource reserve resource model and some of the new data that we have, especially on the marketing side of the concentrate. Again, to close the year 2025, we did a lot of drilling. As I always say, Aya is an exploration company, but it has one project in operation, one project in development and we do a lot of drilling. So at Gundar this year, we completed 28,000 meters of drilling. The budget was 25,000 and the average cost of meter is $144 So extremely good cost, very this is all core drilling. It's all diamond drilling. It's giving us a lot of information. We have many new targets. We have discovered extension to this Gundar main project and we also have many new targets that we will be drilling this year.

22:27 At Boumatsun, we've drilled 150,000 meters this year, this year being 2025. The target was 140,000. We exceeded the target. Our cost of drilling is also similar at $144 a meter diamond drilling. We have discovered we have discovered extension to the zones, the three mineralized zones that we have, and we've also discovered new zones in the Boumazin Complex. Boumazin is a very large piece of land. It's a district. We have this year, we've added 10 new permits. We have a footprint that is in excess of 300 square kilometer under the exploration permit, and we have an additional 500 kilometer under La Conessence permit, which is an exploration permit, but not yet turned into the exploration permit that gets transferred into a mining permit. So it's different steps in how they approach exploration in Morocco.

23:33 So we've had a fantastic year drilling almost 180,000 meters in 2025 with beautiful results at Gundair and at Boumediene. Moving just to the guidance, this is already public. We told you that this year we expect to produce between six point two million and six point eight million We know that in the mine plan, it's good there. It's based for $5,800,000 Again, just to be conservative, we've given a guidance of 5,200,000 to $5,800,000 and we've put in 1,000,000 ounces silver equivalent at Boumazil where we're treating tailings. The cash cost at Gundair is as per the mine plan. Again, I would refer to you to the 40 three-one 101 document of 21.50 and Boumazin is at $10 that is extremely conservative.

24:31 You'll see that in Q4, we were a lot lower than this. Sustaining and growth capital for the year is at $36,000,000 which is as Gundair mainly is to push the ramp down to the granite, to the contact of the granite where we see high grade mineralization. So we're going to be pushing this all the way down. We will also be putting in an ore sorter and we are working on increasing throughput capacity, though we are at 3,800. We're putting a little bit of work to bring our throughput capacity to exceed 4,000 ton per day. So very reasonable capital to be spent this year and the exploration program, of course, the $60,000,000 in exploration program and that is mainly 200,000 meters at Boumadinho, which we really hope to exceed. And I have to say that as of now, we are ahead of schedule there on our drilling and we will be drilling 20,000 meters at Gundeer as well. So going forward for 2026, the guidance is straightforward.

25:46 The costs are well under control as we are now in cruising speed at Gundaer. So just to close, what's the focus and where are we going? So the focus is to accelerate Boumazin. We do not need debt financing. We don't need new equity financing. We can do Boumazin with our own cash. We totally have $130,000,000 in cash. If everything stays where we are right now, we could be generating net net of all expenses $200,000,000 this year. So we can fast track the feasibility study in which we are fast tracking feasibility study, all the work that needs to be done, every chapter in the feasibility study is being worked on right now.

26:41 And we will start the construction of every element that is completed in this feasibility study as quickly as possible. The drilling as I've mentioned is ongoing at 180,000 meters of infill drilling on the main structures, which is to convert inferred resource into measured and indicated. And regional is really depending on what we see and what we find, but currently budgeted at 20,000 meters. But again, this is completely open as we're drilling some very high priority targets on the Boumazin regional play. At Gundane, we will continue to optimize mining operation. As I said, we want to increase the open pit a little bit more. We want to better control the grade in the open pit.

27:35 We still need to work on that. Of all the KPIs, the only one left is to really control the grade in the open pit a little bit better. The underground is done. The throughput is done with the underground. So we will continue to optimize mining operation. We have steady state production. Of course, our goal is to take the 3,700 ton per day and push it up to 4,000 ton per day. And we always look at other means to increase plant capacity. So the story is very simple, is you have an asset that's in production, that's built, that's debugged, that has 100,000,000 ounces of measured indicated resource, that will give you 6,000,000 ounces a year at an AISC of $19 let's put it 16 cash costs plus about three.

28:30 So let's say $20 So you have 6,000,000 ounces with a $20 all in cash costs or costs, not cash costs. And with that, it generates enough money to build the second asset, which is currently in development, which is called Boumazin. Boumazin today stands at four fifty million ounces of silver equivalent, but that is being updated because that did not take into account the 2025 drill results that's being put in as we speak. We'll have the revised PEA available for you in a couple of months. But on Page 15 to the right, that to me is the future of Aya, is you look at Aya and what kind of strength it has, well, it has a project that will produce 6,000,000 ounces called Gundair and it has a second project, which is discovered, geology done, metallurgy done, flow sheet done, water identified, power from the grid, people available, we're taking the same construction team, many suppliers are the same. And that project once built will produce 37,000,000 ounces per year of silver equivalent.

29:51 So as a company, we will be approximately 43,000,000 ounces silver equivalent as a company. So when you look at this and you compare this level to others, we're clearly the up and coming silver producer with these two assets, not taking into account Gundai Regional, Boumatsu Regional and the other assets that we have. So going to Page 16 to close is, I always say that to be successful, you need three things, and these are the three the end of each of the triangle is you need geology, which we have in Morocco. You need jurisdiction, which we have in Morocco because it is absolutely one of the best jurisdiction in the world.

30:42 And you need the people that have done it, that have built mines, have developed mines, have made discoveries, and we have that. So if you have geology, you have jurisdiction, you have people and you are disciplined in not issuing too many shares, this is the success to have the best return on equity, meaning you have strong production and we have here. So if you look at our triangle, geology is at the top, strong growth profile, absolutely moving from 6,000,000 ounces to 43,000,000 ounces of silver equivalent. Core asset strength, we have two districts and we're adding more districts to the story as we're putting in more permits.

31:31 Exploration track record, I think we have the best in the industry having discovered five fifty million ounces of silver equivalent in the last five years. So you have a tight capital structure with only 141,000,000 shares outstanding, no need to increase that number. We have cash in the bank, we're generating cash and we're building a Tier one asset, which is Boumazin that will add 37,000,000 ounces of silver equivalent as soon as it's ready to get into production. So when you look at this triangle, this is the why you want to be with us in Aya because you have the three elements that really create success.

32:20 So this completes the formal part of the presentation. I will now operator open it up for questions. Thank you. And our first question comes from the line of Justin Chan of SCP Resource Finance. Please go ahead. Hi, Benoit, Rafael, Hugo and team. Congrats on a big year. And yes, my first question is just, you touched on sulfur today. I was just curious, I guess, both on both the positive and negative aspects of current events. Can you talk us through are you seeing any changes in terms of fuel pricing? And I guess, how do you plan ahead for that this year?

33:23 Then on sulfur, for the updated PEA, could you give us a sense of how the payabilities might look? I realize like today's terms might not be what you've modeled long term, but I'm just curious if you can kind of give us a quantum the payabilities Yes. From the prior Justin. It's a very, very good question and very current question. We're on that on a regular basis. I'll turn this over to Hugo and Hugo and Ralph are managing that part of, you can imagine of the PEA. So Hugo, you want to go ahead? Yes. So on sulfur, there's a few things. Obviously, sulfur pricing has gone from, I call it $150 when we did our PEA to close to $700 today. Also gold and silver prices have significantly increased since our PEA.

34:15 The second thing is that because we're selling our tailings, we also have a much better idea of the market. We actually have some guys in China right now meeting with some of our clients. And so we expect that the payabilities that we have in our PEA to go up pretty substantially. Will we get paid for sulfur? I don't think we're going to have that as a base case in our update, but we are looking at some stuff in Morocco. We do have one of the largest purchasers of sulfur in the world in the OCP, and with current price environments, obviously, us exporting a pyrite, which is very high sulfur content, I think they'd like to have some of that. So we're looking at that as well, but I think that's going be a kind of a separate thing from the main project.

35:06 But Justin, just in the PA, the payability was established at 73%. Since then, they had revised their offer to 75% payability, and there's no long term agreement yet signed because they're indicating to us that this will also improve, as Hugo said, considerably. So we're keeping all of the options open. We have an agreement that is signed for the Boum Hudson tailings, because that is being exported every quarter right now to the probably similar clients or the same clients that we're going to have for the Bumazin main production in a couple of years. That Yeah, so above 75 and potentially materially above that?

35:57 Exactly, yes. Okay, perfect. And yeah, just maybe the other part of the question was just in terms of, I guess, what are you guys seeing in terms of fuel prices, consumables? I'd imagine where you are, it's not a question of availability, but just curious how you guys if you have anything to manage with regards to price and protecting yourselves, I guess, in the long term. Yes, so on that, Luca, for sure what's happening right now is affecting fuel prices everywhere. Morocco is not special. Morocco's fuel prices have gone up basically $0.30 in the last by law, so the law states the fuel prices, and so they've gone up pretty substantially. So we have that, we have zinc and we have cyanide. Those are our three main aspects.

36:46 Our procurement teams are on it. We have quite a bit of cyanide and zinc on-site already. So I think on that we're quite fine. Then fuel, we have to manage and it's not so much a price, it's obviously going to affect cash costs like everybody else. And then on availability, we're keeping a close eye on it and we're working with our contractors and ourselves to see if we can get more storage locally. We have a pretty healthy stockpile as well, so even if ever we'd have to stop the mine, we don't run. We run our plant on electricity and so we can still run for a good while even if there was ever a constraint on fuel. Yeah, Justin, the big element here is our energy is from the grid. It's solar and wind, as we know, and unlike many other production assets in Africa where they have to buy fuels for energy, we do not have to buy fuel for energy. So our consumption is actually quite low when I compare that to what we were doing historically at SemaFO and what we're buying right now in Aya, it's much, much lower. So, the risk exposure is quite it's much smaller.

38:00 And as Hugo said, we have stockpile, but we don't see any issue at the moment, except for a small increase in the price. Got you. Thanks. No, that's really helpful. And just one last one is, we're almost through the first quarter now. I know it's Q4 reporting, but just curious in the I guess, with almost done a quarter, I'm just curious what you're seeing in terms of mining from the open pit and underground. So in Q4, did really well in grade from the underground, good on volume. The open pit had a ton of volume, a little bit lower grade. I'm just curious if Q1 looks similar to Q4 or quite different actually. Well, Ralph, do you want to take this question? Yes. Hi, Justin.

38:46 So the beginning of the year went quite well. Have continued to increase our stockpile. We have continued to increase our mining rate in the open pit. As I've mentioned before, with what we call the super pit and our change in mining strategy, everything is focused on ounce recovery to increase the recovery in the mine of silver, especially in this pricing environment. So this is what the team is focusing on, continue to accelerate the open pit, sustain the underground as it is, and focus on ore recovery. So if there's silver in it, we mine it, the head grade has been stable as what we've seen last year.

39:32 And we continue to evaluate what's the best way, the most cost effective and the fastest way to increase and to sustain plant throughput. So this year, we have several projects on the go to sustain throughput and to even increase it further, and that's reflected in our guidance. Now as for the grade, as you said, Q1 is almost over and it's been quite similar, but the strip is slowly decreasing, throughput is stabilizing and we continue our stockpile. And as the year goes on, we will also continue to at least sustain the throughput and find ways to improve it.

40:21 Okay. Thanks. That's really helpful. Thanks, Justin. All right. Thanks, guys. I'll stay up the line. Thank you very much. Thank you. And our next question comes from Don DeMarco of National Bank. Your line is open. Good morning, Benoit and team. Thanks for taking my call. So Benoit, you mentioned that a focus is to accelerate Boumediene and of course we're looking forward to the updated PEA later this year, but what are the levers or potential bottlenecks that you have to fast track the FS and then even looking at the construction beyond that, how can you potentially expedite that and how much wiggle room is there in a schedule in certain optimal scenarios?

41:17 Well, the fact that you don't need debt is major because, as you know, if we needed some debt, you'd have to complete the feasibility study, give it to the lenders, they would hire outside consultants that would come over for a couple of months, review the work, question the work, we'd have to answer. You're looking at six to nine months of time that is needed just to put the debt facility in place as we did when we did Gundere with EBRD, and we went through the whole process. In this case, assuming the silver price stays where it is and is or increasing, we don't need that. So the team is doing like let's take water. So water, we're putting together the strategy where the water is coming from. We probably will have to build some pipelines in between some of the villages where we're going to take grey water. We're also going to use one of the aquifer.

42:19 So, as soon as that's done, the team will look at what can be done immediately, and we will start that right now. Same thing for power. Power will come from the grid. Power is built, as you know, with the National Utility Company. We're not going to wait for a banker to accept the PEA and give us the depth, we will get going immediately. So every chapter that we do, we look at what we can do and how fast we can do it's, of course, it's not as nice as having a Gantt chart and you say, we'll be ready by the mid-twenty twenty seven, and then we'll do the debt financing, and then we'll do the construction. Our mind is let's get this done as quickly as possible. So we are not cutting corners on technical things. We're not cutting corners on the flow sheet or because it's still a eight thousandten thousand ton per day flotation plant. So not complicated, but you still have to build it. So, we're not cutting corners, but clearly the fact that you don't need equity or debt will accelerate the construction of this project.

43:41 Okay. Yeah, that's a good point. And on the debt, mean, you've got a little bit of debt on your balance sheet right now and looking at the cash flows that are coming in, are you thinking that maybe you might delever some of that ahead of as the FS get finalized and ahead of the Boumediene construction decision? Yes, absolutely. So, the debt, as you know, is with EBRD. They're very, very good financial partners. They've been great. They're important in the country. We don't want to pay them down. And if we have even small penalties to pay, which we do have, that's per the agreement. So we're looking at what we can do with them. On the other hand, the fact that it's a repayment over four years allows us we think of the CBRD facility today as funding for Boumediene.

44:40 We could pay it down almost today if we wanted to and be done with the debt, but we're also keeping it there while we see where the silver price goes, what's the cash flow per quarter, because think of it as being utilized whatever is generated is utilized on accelerating Boum Agene. So but we do have the flexibility. And yes, you will see over the next quarters and next year that the debt will be lower, knowing that if we wanted to at one point in time, in country, we could utilize Gundair to if we needed some debt, which we don't, but if we needed some debt, Gundair could be also the backbone of a special financing balance sheet financing, not project financing.

45:36 Okay, excellent color there. Thank you. And then just finally, as a last question, what are your thoughts on M and A at this stage? I I think over time there's been some discussion about there might be some smaller opportunities in Morocco, whatever stage that might be maybe even close to production. But is that part of your strategy going forward over the next few years or is it more singularly focused on Bloomingdine? Thank you. No, is and we do review opportunities all the time, but we're extremely, extremely disciplined. So we have something fantastic to district, Goulders and Boumazin. Often people say, what about what after Boumazin? I say, well, there'll be Boumazin two, Boumazin three, Boumazin four because of the size of the district. So there's a lot to come, but and we do look at things and if we don't like the price, because they're asking too much and we don't think it's justified, we are extremely disciplined.

46:40 You're not going to see anything outside of Morocco. We have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of potential in Morocco. So we're staying focused to this jurisdiction. We like it. We're comfortable. We have our team there. And so we are disciplined. Are we looking to buy in Morocco? Absolutely. But very small transactions that's not going to affect really and most of that is not for share. Most of it is also for small cash payments and payment over time. So yes, we are looking to increase the portfolio. We do want to have a third and maybe a fourth district, but it will I'm quite comfortable that something's going to get done in 2026.

47:32 Okay. Thank you very much. Congratulations and good luck with Q1. Thank you. Thanks, Don. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our Q and A period. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Benoit for closing remarks. Thank you, operator. Thanks everybody for being on the call today. Look, Q1 is done. It's done today. So what's coming for AYA in the coming few quarters is you will still see some Zgunder and Boumaden drill results. We have a very large program at Zgundaer and an extremely large program at Boumaden.

48:20 So you will see drill results on a regular basis. You will see, of course, our Q1 financial results mid May. I believe May 15, we'll be issuing our Q1 financial results. Also, we didn't talk about this yet, but we are completing our U. S. Listing. We were waiting to have our financial statements for the year 2025. Those are going to be filed with the American and with the NASDAQ Stock Exchange, and hopefully in a couple of weeks, we'll be able to announce that we will start trading on the NASDAQ in The States. Coming is the Bumadzin technical report, as we said over the summer.

49:08 As soon as we have that available, we will be putting this out to show you the strength of this Tier one asset. And as Don asked, for 2026, there's going to be in country consolidation of new districts that we like, that we see with and we believe that there's a silver component to it. Some may have silver gold, others that we look at are silver copper, but we definitely are looking to increase our land package with silver exposure. So look, that is the end of this call. I believe we had a very good year 2025.

49:56 The ramp up is a ramp up. It ended very, very well. We had a strong performance. We're getting into 2026 with a very strong view on silver, and we're very happy with our new mining method, Hagun there, where we go bulk mining because we believe that bulk mining silver is extremely rare, but it's also very appropriate when you have a strong silver price. Thank you all of you for being there. We will see you in forty five days in May for the Q1 financial results. Thank you and have a good day. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating and you may now disconnect.