Copper Mining in BC: Companies and Capital Markets

0:03 I will say good morning, good afternoon or good evening, depending on where in the world you're signing in from today. I've got with me today so far 2 out of 3 luminaries of BDC Mining. Charlie Gregg, CEO of Metal Energy and Stephen Stewart, founder and chairman of the Orr Group. We will soon be joined by Tony Moreau, CEO of American Eagle Gold. Just some very brief last minute technical difficulties, but I'm sure you'll join us very briefly. The topic today is copper mining in the province of British Columbia. And just as we're joined by Tony, which is perfect, I'll ask gentlemen, how are you doing today? Great, Thank you very much, Romeo. Romeo, pleasure to be here. This is my first time on 6, so let's go. Awesome. British Columbia, 2 of my favorite things. Yeah, exciting. There's a good number of people in the room, so I'm eager to get into the pro team, but I'll get through some of my boring housekeeping stuff first. I'll say here's how it's going to work today for people in the room. I've got some thought starters just to get the conversation going between the 3 executives we've got today. We do have some space for questions from the live audience. I know there's quite a few of you in the room, So please use that chat function at the bottom right of your screen to ask questions during today's event.

1:05 If we don't have time for your question or it's a bit off topic, if it's really specific to an individual security, I'll still make sure the relevant team gets it so they get back to you at their earliest convenience. If you entered your phone number or email on registration, that's how they'll get back to you. So please do ask those questions, even though I don't get to them today, but I imagine you'll be able to get to a bunch. Last piece of boring housekeeping, this is being recorded and will be available for replay likely about an hour after it ends, so pretty early in the afternoon Eastern time. It'll come right at the same link, but also be available on Six's YouTube channel.

1:34 That's the boring stuff over. I'm really eager to get into today's discussion. And Tony, I'm going to start with you here. Given strong copper demand, obviously prices are hitting a new fund spike driven by electrification, renewable energy transitions, etc. What do you see as the untapped geological opportunity in BC's porphyry districts? What do you see as most promising for new discoveries in the junior space? Well obviously with the price of copper going up there's more There's

2:03 more funds and ability for companies to raise money, have money and put the metal on the ground. And really, the discoveries are there to be made in BC. And I think with more drilling, there will be more discovery. So I think the big thing is now that copper's, you know, hovering around $6, there's a lot more excitement for that work. So I don't think it's a matter of if, it's a matter of when more of these discoveries are made. And I think the other big thing is the government kind of, you know, more actions rather than words, you know, facilitating, permitting, allowing companies to drill, allowing companies to develop projects. But right now, there's obviously a lot more geopolitical risk. And these projects like NAC can be someday, they're going to run for 50, 60, 70 years hopefully.

2:54 So I think what investors should really look at is, you know, would you rather take an extra 2, 3 years where it seems that it takes for Canadian companies to get permits in Canada. And then once you have them, they run forever. Would you rather get them faster in places like West Africa or South America, but you know, you might be mining sooner, but there's always that risk of losing that asset. And we know costs are going up a lot more, Billions of dollars to build this. So I think a lot of people that are lending this money for the development are going to have a lot more attractiveness to Canada. It may take a little longer, but those mines, once they're mining, they won't shut down.

3:30 So I think there's a lot of different things at play, price and the government getting involved. Awesome. It's exciting to see metals prices finally really outpacing inflation. Charlie, I'll throw it to you for what you think is the biggest opportunity in BC copper space right now. Yeah. You know, I'm a geologist. Tony's not. We're schooling him up, though. He's getting there. But, you know, from my take, there's a bunch of projects that they've been around and on the books, including NAC, for quite a while. But we've also had some new discoveries like Amark's Aurora, and then the neighbour's TDG hitting the western part of that. And those are actually in that district in a little bit younger rocks than were the typical hosts in that district.

4:19 And then NAC itself is in very much younger rocks. And then there's things like Sergesburg thing that they've been working on for a long time, but is kind of moving along and having more success. And then, you know, Vizsla Copper has

4:37 the thing near Houston there, Poplar. So that's kind of an exciting one. And those are all in younger rocks, or they're in a different ages of rocks. And, you know, I think that opens up a lot more exploration to the geotypes.

4:52 You can explore a lot of different parts of BC. Just because you're not in the Golden Triangle, late Triassic, earliest Jurassic Age rocks, doesn't mean you're out of the game. So there's a lot of good projects and a lot of good rocks. And there's still new things in the Golden Triangle too. Kingfisher's Highway 37 is good. So a bunch of different companies exploring in a bunch of ages of rocks. So it's a happy hunting ground out there, I think still, you know, that's that's my take. I like that. You hear that a lot this year. There's more to be seen beyond the triangle. So it's good that the investors are taking that. Stephen, I'll throw it to you for kind of last word on that topic before we go. Yeah, there's no question there's discoveries to be made in British Columbia.

5:40 Charlie's been making them. American Eagles made it, rediscovered, reinterpreted what Charlie had said was on the books, but it wasn't understood like we understand it now. We've invested quite a bit in defining it, both near surface and at grade. Obviously, you mentioned other big discoveries like the TDG and the AMARC, very interesting stuff. We hope to recreate that with metal energy and the project that's been under Charlie and his partner Alex's tutelage for a while. And now we're going to get the truth machine out there. So there's no question that the endowment is there in British Columbia. I have a broader thesis that porphyry deposits are going to increasingly become a major

6:28 or the major source of Copper and Gold over the coming decades, just because of their scale. And I guess you go back to the supply and the demand. Those are 2 separate things. I think BC has the supply that can meet any demand. And clearly, if you believe the experts,

6:47 Copper is the metal of the future. It's certainly one of the most utilised or has the most utility, arguably, than any other metal out there. Maybe Iron Ore could make a case for the higher utility, but look, it's top 1, 2 or 3 metals out there in terms of whether it's electrification or just traditional infrastructure. Everybody wants their hands on the red metal and BC's got lots of it. Obviously, there's some out in the East Coast there, talk other books like XXX has a bunch of Copper, but those are different beasts. Porphyry is a multi-decade, maybe century, 50 years at least, some of these Copper deposits, billion-ton deposits. They have completely different economic parameters and considerations.

7:33 And then I'll make another case why I think BC, but in the broader context or the broader envelope of Canada is that I made this argument in an interview I did about a week or 2 ago on resource talks about how I think Canada is going to bounce back. I think we have been not very competitive on resource development, you know, from oil to copper to gold to you name it. And we've had a—we've really shot ourselves in the foot in terms of, you know—or shot the golden goose, so to speak. Whereas I think a new regime and a new sort of theme across geopolitics is really focusing on what they call critical minerals. They're all critical minerals. We're going to take these things more seriously, I hope, to pay the bills that we've accumulated.

8:23 Look no further than DC, which is a wonderful place to do business. It has the infrastructure. All these projects have infrastructure, even if they do have infrastructure, you're talking about porphyries, they're big CapEx items, that's why you need the long life, but these things do. So as I go on and on, Copper is certainly one of the top metals in terms of investors' flavours, and it's got that sentiment. BC clearly got it. And then I think where we're going to slingshot is the fact that I think Canada is going to bounce back and reclaim our leadership crown in terms of resource development. That's not happening tomorrow. I think it's on the horizon. And so that's the bet that we have made at the old group with Metal Energy, with American Eagle, with all of our companies. We're nearly almost exclusively focused in Canada for good reason.

9:18 What else? The thing about copper that's really interesting for me is that I think it's undervalued in the sense of how it's moved if you look at the way that silver and gold have moved. But I think copper, unlike a lot of the other metals, there aren't a lot of, there are next to no development projects underway, big ones for copper, but you have a safety net. So everyone's afraid of a recession. So if there is a recession and some say we are in there now, you know, there's public works programs, people will need the copper. So I think I think copper has got a lot less downside risk than a lot of the other metals. And then you combine it with the stuff, it's just a moving locomotive, you can't stop with with the AI and electrification

9:59 that this copper demand has real fundamentals that it's going to continue to go and it it might not move as fast as gold but I think long term it has a lot of room to move. So we're very excited about that. Great. Yeah I'm always hesitant to say copper is recession proof but there's always somebody building somewhere so I think it's more than people think it is. Now somebody in the chat already wants us to get political and compare BC to Ontario, but I'll wait on that for a second, because I know we've discussed NAC a couple times already. I do want to get into it a little bit with you, Tony, because with American Eagle's ongoing 30,

10:31 000 meter drill program from started last year shows those new mineralized zones and the Babine porphyry stock with broad intercepts like 911 meters of 0.30 copper equivalent from surface. Curious just to get into the Pacifics, how do these results so far influence your broader understanding of that near surface copper gold potential in the district? Well those intercepts just show us that we're not bookended by the South. We had a meeting with South 32 the other day and NTECH as well and they said they had that whole porphyry stock as a 0. And the fact that every hole that we've drilled there has come up with something show that it is broadly mineralized and you know, like we, like it took a lot of holes in the South for us to really find those high-grade zones. We didn't hit that stuff at depth in the South until our 41st hole. So we have a lot of room to move. And I think when there's that much Copper, it's getting fed from somewhere. So I think there will be some high-grade stuff. There will be stuff near surface. It's early days. I believe we put 6 or 7 holes right in the middle there, but it just shows you what Stephen says. We have something at surface, something that we think that can pay off the mine in the capital, but with that stuff that we're seeing near the stock, we have something that can allow this thing to mine for decades and generations. So that's the exciting part, but it's still early days. I'm cautioning investors, but every drill hole we've put there has come with anomalous copper and gold and it's showing that we're really onto something. This is a lot bigger than any of our previous people that came on our

12:01 properties saw. What my uncle said, my late uncle that forced us to get now. He said, Tony, he said copper was 60 cents a pound, he said gold was $400 an ounce. And he said there were no roads, there's no logging in this area. He said if any of those 1 different things had changed if gold was higher if copper was higher if there are logs If there's logging there, this was just a factor putting more meters in the ground This would have already been a mine by now. He

12:27 said that he said we were very lucky that all those factors We're going against those previous owners So it gave American Eagle gold our company or shareholders kind of that opportunity to take that asset. So I think it's just about more drilling, showing that this thing has scale, showing that we can pay off this thing. And I believe hand to the heart that this will be a mine someday. But for me, it's just about convincing shareholders that it will be a mine because I'm sure Techers out there to probably be very happy to buy this at 60 cents a share. But our job is to convince the shareholders to get that price up, to get to a point where American Eagle Gold, any shareholder would be happy to let it go. But I think we have a lot of room to move and a lot of shareholder appreciation to come. Yes, I agree, Tony. I'll just add on that. It's still early days in defining what NAC is and what it can be.

13:14 So far, so good. We've got a very strong Treasury and we've got years more to go in terms of drilling this out to discover. Obviously, there'll come a time when we want to start defining the size and the economics. Every project needs to get to that point. From what we see right now, we've got the scale. There's no question, It's a very broad system. We're still learning. It's a geologically complex system, as Charlie will be the first to tell you. He's the one that tells me that. Geologic complexity is something that you want. What has been demonstrated very clearly, though, is that it has a mix of very positive things. First of all, it's accessible. You can drive a car to it. The topography is pretty flat, very favourable. We're not in the mountains. And I think most importantly is that the mineralisation comes to surface, particularly in the South. And

14:02 we're seeing higher grades there. So that combination is going to allow you to pay back the billion-dollar plus. Obviously, this is a billion-dollar plus CapEx type situations like all porphyry zone, where you can pay back your capital at a reasonable timeframe and you can produce for decades, decades, generations. That's what that's all about. That's the promise that NAC offers. And some of the lower-grade stuff that we're seeing elsewhere in and around the peripheries, again, I emphasise In the South, we're seeing high grades at surface. Nobody seems to realise pick up on that. We seem to be connecting higher grade, like plus 1% stuff at depth. So this has surface depth potential and then it just has scale as it expands laterally and longitudinally

14:50 in lower grades. You look at a comparable, not that it's comparable, but just as an analogue project like a Tex Highland Valley. They're mining sub-3% Copper there because their capital is long paid back. So that's the type of project that I see NAC as, as a sort of a baseline. But obviously, we're always looking to unlock something. You find what Tony calls the jewel box. We're always looking for that. It comes to another Tonyism, it doesn't rain Copper, right? So it's coming from underneath and Charlie's in hot pursuit of it now. I'm gonna jump in right now On that one actually sorry about that Tony go for it You know initially I was gonna jump in and say Steve and Tony come on give us a bit better of a plug early on crying out loud, but Eventually got around to it sort of lower tier. I was a bit disappointed, but okay

15:46 you know what the guys both mentioned was that this thing was big, right? And yeah, there is certainly lots of lower grade around too. But remember, it's also covered by till. So you know, We don't have the advantage of having a good geologic map to help us understand the system. You have to put it together with drilling and that takes more time. It's big and takes more time, so how do you explore something big with drilling? A lot of time. That's why it's taken us a couple of years.

16:23 Every year we find something new and better, and we find higher-grade parts of it within that big cloud. Do I think we're going to find more goodies like that as we keep going? Damn right. I think we are. So, you know, that's a big point about, about NAC, I think, and an important one, this cover of till, you know, it's not thick, it's like 5 meters, 10 meters, maybe up to 25 in places, but it does mask a lot and means that the truth machine is really the only way you get the full understanding. If you look at what's going on with the market right now, you're seeing some of these other projects that were smaller than American Eagle now kind of get a lot higher value. I think one of the reasons now you see copper at the price where it is and people are like we need to mine this yesterday.

17:10 So some of the companies that I think have inferior assets all of a sudden they have a PEA or a mineral resource estimate. So all of a sudden they're a year, 2 years ahead of us, at least

17:21 the market sees. But we will get there. And we don't really want to show how small this asset is yet. We haven't figured out the bounds of it. So we want to at least give another year where we kind of put an MRE and work towards a PEA. But if you're talking about speed of getting things done, you talked about government, Romeo, like forget the BC government, forget the federal government. It comes down to the local government, which means the First Nations. And, you know, people from the outside,

17:47 they look at First Nations in Canada, they think there's 1 First Nation group. A lot of people outside of Canada think that. There's over 600 and there's over 300 in BC. So from my seat, there's over 600 different governments that look over these different projects. And the one thing that we have that's a real big advantage, the LPN, they're amazing partners. We've worked really closely with them. We've had a great relationship. And they really want a mine to be in their region. It's an economic driver. It brings people back to the land. It brings hospitals. It brings education. It brings skills. And the big advantage of our region, which was originally seen as not an advantage, is there are no other economic drivers, there are no other mines. And American Eagle is ahead of every other company in the region to be the first ones there. So if you're talking about permitting, we have First Nations support, and we may not have an Emory or PEA right now, but once we have that, I think we'll be leaps and bounds faster than the other ones that might have that difficulty getting First Nations support.

18:40 Like you talk about Vancouver Island, yeah, there's some great projects there, but good luck building there.

18:46 So if you kind of compare us to some of the other guys that might have a PA, I think we actually will come to a mind faster than a lot of our competitors, but a big plug out to LBN, they're amazing partners and that's what you need to be successful. Awesome. No, appreciate that. That's certainly good insight about just the number of governments that you actually do have to deal with their Canadian projects. Charlie, I'm going to throw you on for a geo question. So in the Tutugan district, how are synergies, in your opinion, between epithermal

19:12 gold silver systems and underlying porphyry copper gold targets shaping kind of exploration strategies for juniors in the region? I think they go hand in hand. Scientists, types of academics have known that for a while, explorationists obviously too. You see mineralization and there's got to be some kind of heat pump down there that's driving a hydrothermal system, right? Hydro, water, thermal, heat, medium, both. And I think in the Tutugon, I think Amark's discovery that we were involved in to some degree.

19:50 That Aurora porphyry is in younger rocks, but it's right next door to TDG's Shasta thing that Homestake developed as a mine, unsuccessful at the time, back in the 80s.

20:07 They're right side by each and pretty clearly more or less the same age. Put 1 plus 1 together and you got 2. A good place in the Teutogon is to look around all the other epithermal systems. One of them is in a company that I'm involved in and a big shareholder of, which is Evergold at Golden Lion. Is there a sniff of Copper around that thing? Yes, I'm not saying there's going to be a porphyry there for sure, but you want to be cognizant of that and maybe looking in at some of the rocks that you wouldn't have looked in previously for a Porphyry, namely the lower Jurassic Teutagon formation that the Aurora deposits hosted in. So those are all of a sudden more perspective. Certainly, you know, our neighbors are looking at that. Certainly Sun Summit is.

21:07 The Porphyry Pearl system next door is another one, you know, so plugs for some of these other outfits. But, you know, the potential's there and you might not have looked at that potential previously so the link between an epithermal system that's driven probably somewhere by an intrusive system which porphyry are more directly associated with the intrusive rocks than then epithermals have heretofore been you know viewed as is important great And I do want to talk about Evergold actually. I'm glad you mentioned it. And Stephen I'll start with you but then Charlie I'd love to get your perspective on it too. So following Evergold's recent the Jan 2026 or Group financing and sharpened focus on the Golden Lion project, 100% owned, including that Copper King inlayer acquisition. How do you think this,

21:55 just looking for your perspective, how do you anticipate this repositioning will advance Copper-Porphy evaluation alongside gold-silver potential?

22:04 What specifically? I'm not clear on your question. Is it specific to Evergold? Specific to Evergold, yeah, that's right. I think, you know, look, I'll explain the ore group's investment into Evergold. It's about one thing. It's an investment into Charlie and the team around him. It's as simple as that. That's part of my philosophy. As Charlie said off the top, Tony's not a geo, either am I. I rely very heavily on geologists

22:30 to make educated bets that we at the ore group get behind. We put a little bit of corporate structure on it and help it finance it on its way. That's how I built the business, is developing relationship with trusted people like Charlie Gregg, like Charles Baudry, who I started the ore group with 15 years ago and helped me build a lot of stuff out of this and probably met Charlie. I remember meeting Charlie for the first time at the BRIC. It's probably about 5 years ago, 4 or 5 years ago, Charlie, we sat down at the convention center. I don't know if you remember, but, you know, I do. It was the start of a relationship and it, you know, it's taken years to get to where we are. You know, we started off with American Eagle and it's not just Charlie and, you know, and I also- You know what it is? I'll just interrupt for a sec. It's Like the old saying, never met a Charles I didn't like, right? Yes, I do that.

23:19 My son's name's Charles. It's a very royal name, too, Charlie.

23:22 But I'll tip my hat to Charlie. It's not just Charlie and Alex at Walcott, who is not a geologist in my understanding, a geophysicist, but a very seasoned one. And his father was a very seasoned one. Charlie surrounds himself and has developed a wonderful team of the next generations of geologists, whether it's his son, PhD, Roy, whether it is Neil, who I am supremely impressed with. Tony's fortunate to work with an American Eagle and others, Dave and the list goes on, of the young talent that Charlie has harvested and mentored. So anyways, not to push Charlie and his team too much. They would probably say abused. They at times, at times, but that's, you know, where I was. It's kind of like he's in the Marines, Geo Marines at the CJ Gregg and Associates. But so look, that's why

24:15 I invested into Evergold, because Charlie said, this is interesting. It took a little bit more than that, but they walked me through the thesis. I like the zip code. The value is there. I mean, look at Evergold valuation. You get assets in the Teutogon and there's other assets, but as you referenced, the focus is going to be on the Golden Lion for now because I think focus is important, especially in a small company that's just sort of repositioning itself. The company rolled it back. I mean, look at the share structure. It's phenomenal. Look at the assets. Look at the people. It just needs a little bit of money, a little bit of direction and a refresh. I think we're off to the races. We're going to set it up for success. And then just like all of our projects, it's going to live or die on the success of the drill results.

25:03 We're going to get it there. We're going to define what the Golden Lion is or is not. That's the bet. It all starts with people, people who identify good quality projects and then continue to de-risk them along the path. Golden Lion is the next Newmont project.

25:21 It has enough chops to attract a group like Newmont over the years. Newmont buys and sells assets all the time and sometimes they just don't fit or they get a new CEO. You don't want to throw the baby away with the backwater just because it wasn't the right project for them at the right time. There are 1 million reasons people walk away, but we take what they've learned and apply it to us and then you apply a fresh set of eyes. Evergold has drilled it out.

25:48 That's the whole idea. Evergold is going to be in a nice financial situation when the time is right to go out there and execute on Charlie and his team's vision of what Golden Lion might be. It's surrounded by people like Charlie's plug-in TDG, who we have nothing to do with, although Charlie, I think, has worked for them in the past. But look, we're right beside them. And that went to a $400 million market cap. Whereas I think Evergold is a $4 million market cap. So those are the bets I like provided it's not just about the price discrepancy, but it has to have the foundation with an asset like it does. And the work that's been done by, again, Charlie and his group. I mean, that's a bet I'll take all day. Awesome. Yeah, I've worked with TDG for years.

26:35 Super interesting story. One thing I wanted to do, because I know part of the conversation today is about financing. So I do want to get into that before we get too far into the weeds on some of the projects. So I got a question for each of you. And Tony, I'll start with you. Kind of a 2 part question, 1 broad and then 1 specific. That's how are explorers in BC adapting financing strategies? So you're looking at strategic investments for majors, flow through, etc. And what I really want is for you to tell me about your most recent financing and why you think it was good for shareholders. Tony, I'll start with you. Well, there's a lot of different companies in BC. Obviously, there's a lot of different financings. There's a lot of money floating around. So, you know, I think a lot of companies, they haven't had offers of money for a long time. So they're taking whatever they can. So still, I think the majority of financings, I don't think at first they're great for shareholders. A lot of them come at a discount. A lot of them come with warrants attached, obviously, which which creates a ceiling, I think, at least temporarily for your price. Got coupon clippers, etc.

27:33 And then there are some strategics involved but you know I like to think you know American Eagle Gold and I guess now Metal Energy have done 2 of the best raises shareholder friendly raises on the street not only BC but in Canada Like you're looking at strategics that have come in that have done the research, more research than any other investors put in, seen the data room and decided to do an equity investment at a premium with no warrant and with multiple different companies involved. It's almost unheard of. And American Eagle and Metal Energy are pretty much the only ones that did it. I think Metal Energy was the very first company to have 2 majors invest without a single drill hole in the ground, which goes to show you something about the prospectivity and the upside that metal energy has. So those are the deals that we've done. I think the big problem is, and kind of jumping back, the big issue I see in mining and exploration

28:29 moving forward, and the big problem we're going to have that there's going to be an awakening for the people don't realize is people. There are none. There's no the money that go into the projects it's it's it's not being supported by the right people to actually explore them and there's been a whole graveyard of companies that have gotten money that haven't been able to explore it properly. We're very lucky at the ore group and American Eagle Gold that we have really good technical geological people that are loyal to our group that know how to make discoveries that are sticking with us. Because I think a lot of these other BC properties, you know, they do have the money, but do they have the people to

29:04 make those discoveries? So I think we have those 2 kind of prongs with American Eagle Gold and the Orb Group that are kind of helping support us. But in terms of our deal with South 32, wouldn't ask for it a different way. We had enough money to fund us for 3 years. South 32 came in on a nice juicy premium with no warrants, the joint tech, and it allows us the time. Time is extremely important. It takes time to figure out what a deposit could look like, to put the drill holes in. And look, yeah, American Eagle Gold, I'm a little disappointed with the share price. I think it should be a lot higher.

29:34 But people that are paying attention to the story, it gives those people who are actually paying attention the time to actually buy us at what I think is a really good price, around 40 percent below the price that the South 32 decided to put $30 million into us. So I think the South32 deal that we did, one of the best in the industry and good for our shareholders long-term. Thanks, Tony. Charlie, since we've already talked about the metal energy raise, I'll throw it to you to talk about financing and how that worked on your end? Well, I just kind of sit and watch these guys work their magic a little bit. I mean, it is a little bit about relationships that go back quite a ways with the tech guys and the South 32 guys, and then Alex with Sentara. Alex is my partner on that NIV project and you know, staked it quite a while ago, like 2010 or so. So he has a good relationship with Sentara. So I think that's part of it. Again, coming back to relationships that you developed and some trust, I suppose, and that kind of thing. Yeah.

30:41 It is. I'll add on to that. It is about trust and relationships. And again, people.

30:49 Hats off to American Eagle and a man of mental energy for doing those financings. But it was all about the foundation. Like, you know, for example, I think we did the metal energy financing with those 2 big, amazing companies. You know, what? 1, we had the relationship with tech through American Eagle. 2, Charlie has relationships with tech and Cetera and there was, and South32. So, you know, there's just this foundation. Now a relationship alone doesn't get the job done but it makes everybody comfortable and say, hey, these guys are for real. They know what they're doing. Let's dig deeper. And then it comes down to the data, which is something that Charlie

31:26 talks about all the time. And I think it goes back to his experience with GT Gold. And when that was sold to Newmont, and Charlie can speak for himself here, but I'll sort of paraphrase what he's told me is like, you have to have that database structure. It has to make sense, they have to be able to read it, you got to invest time and energy. And that's something that I've always taken away and extrapolated across all of our groups is like, make sure that database is sound. And because these guys are counterparties on the strategic, who we've at the org group have done, you know, probably 6 to 8 strategic deals, like I'm not going to count but a lot and they need to have comfort, They need to be able to see what we see in that database. It's about trust of the individuals. It's about the physical structure of the database.

32:15 Then you have to negotiate too. And so that's maybe where Tony and myself come into play, is just sort of figuring out, again, a negotiation is just about 2 parties sitting down at the table and finding some common ground, which is just about listening and being patient

32:34 and sometimes standing your ground and knowing when you get a good deal. That's just experience. The stuff with Sentara, South32 Tech, with those 2 different companies, it's not just the money. The money is great, but it's also the technical expertise. It's given the market that credibility. But also I'll speak to American Eagle Gold, like South32, they're great partners and they're very involved in helping us kind of get American Eagle Gold to where we want it to be. They're helping us make these discoveries and put a lot of manpower pro bono

33:04 kind of behind it. And then touching on what Steve said about trust like we we trust Tech and Sentara. They're great partners and you know they obviously trust us to steward their money and put it in the right place. And I think combining Charlie's group with our group is kind of the perfect combination. Charlie knows the rocks, trustworthy on the geology side, and Stephen and his group, we've been shown that you can trust us on the corporate side. The money that we have, it's not going to go to these crazy things like trips. It's going to go to putting money into the ground. Because in the end, the thing that sustains your stock price in the long term is the meters you put in the ground to make a discovery. You can only fake it for so long. Yeah, no, appreciate that. Charlie, one thing before I get into some of the more broad questions, just for folks who aren't as familiar with metal energy or in the audience today, I wanted to just get into the specifics. So I know building on recent advancements, like your optioning and progression towards potential 100% control of the drill ready NIV, Copper Gold Project and Tutagan. What priorities do you see for initial drilling in 2026 and how do you see that positioning a metal energy within BC's Port Precluster?

34:16 Well, it's, you know, we already know that it's a pretty old system, so it kind of fits in that kind of golden triangle age bracket. One of the older ones, I think it's roughly the same age as Shaft Creek, which is across the Bowser Basin in the Golden Triangle. It's a tech project.

34:37 It fits in geologically or geochronologically that way. In terms of drill targets, It's a trend that goes from one end of a North-South elongated claim block to the other that's between 4 and 5km long. Geochem is coincident with

34:59 the right look in the rocks in terms of alteration and also coincident with the geophysics as you go down. So, you know, this is a pretty long trend and if you're going in to drill something first time, I don't think you focus on 1 area unless that first hole just is a home run, which of course we'll hope it is. We'll go to the area with the best geochem that also has the best

35:26 coincident geophysical signature in the right rock. We know where that is and it's maybe toward the northern end, but I don't think we want to put all our eggs in 1 basket. So we look for a fairly sizeable drill program and we'll want to test various parts of that, you know, North, Northwest, South, Southeast trending system and not, you know, not get too focused on, you know, stepping out 10m from the previous hole. It's a porphyry. They're big, but they're also small. The systems are big, but where the juice is, is not always, you know, that big. And a great example was the, you know, the Saddle North Discovery we had in GT.

36:15 I mean, the actual center of that thing, if you step out 400 meters, you're out of there, you're missing. And if you step out 200 meters, you could be right out on the edge. So you want to stick pretty close because some

36:28 of them, you know, go down rather than going out. It kind of depends on the geologic history, but you got to be, you know, careful, but you know, you want to latch onto the thing too. So you don't want to, it just depends on the, on the, on the property really just got to be open-minded. There's good geo wisdom there. And one thing I usually talk about M&A on these kind of events, but today I want to talk about JVs and partnerships a little bit. And Stephen, I'll start with you here. What role do you think partnerships with major mining companies are going to play in de-risking earlier stage Copper and Gold projects in British Columbia? And how do you think that's going to change this year with the Copper price and Gold price going up for that matter? Well, I think, look, speaking from our seat, how we've always approached our majors, operating strategics has been, you know, multifaceted.

37:21 First, it's about what can they add beyond cash? As Tony and Charlie had referenced, we like them in the room.

37:33 That's important. From a strictly black and white perspective, on your balance sheet, they are in effect, I don't want to call it non dilutive capital because they may not be there forever. But I assure you they are more patient than your typical investor, whether that be retail or institutional, you know, they're there for much longer than 4 months plus a day, which is, you know, some investors are like that. So it's patient capital. And the last aspect is the fact that it's a stamp of approval, historically speaking, and it is. I mean, these guys are, while they don't walk on water, they have teams and they all cover their butts, right? They don't want to make mistakes. So they do their due diligence, the database, the people, you just go to site.

38:19 So there's an extra level of comfort that a typical investor who doesn't have the time or the ability to do that level of due diligence can say, well, if Tech or, you know, Cell32 or Centera or Numont invests in here, then I feel a little bit more comfortable. How are they going to play into the whole grand scheme of British Columbia exploration? Well, I think of the past number of years, they've been a very important contributor to supporting companies like American Eagle, like metal energy, they've given us capital, whereas, you know, call it the last 10 years, next 9 months, capital has been sparse, harder to find. We found it, but it's harder to find.

39:05 Now, let's say going forward in a status quo environment, there's more access to capital. I believe Tony referred to that. There's a lot of money sloshing around, which is a good thing and a bad thing. I mean, you get too much of it, then the wrong things get financed. But I guess what I'm trying to say is that they become less and less of a force because there's alternatives. And sometimes companies don't want to have a big company on their register, maybe because they can't get it, or maybe they just don't want those eyes looking upon them. But look, I think it's important to have a mix of both too because you don't want to be overly encumbered because you want to be able to, Really, the exit on these things is for us to do a trade sale. It's highly unlikely that American Eagle or Metal Energy is the one that ultimately puts the shovel in the ground to develop the mine if we're so fortunate to get to that point. The exit point really is about having one of these major mining companies, whether it's the ones on our existing treasury or new ones that say, hey, come over the top and buy it, you don't wanna be married too early, right?

40:11 So that's always a consideration. The point I'm trying to make is that you wanna mix of your capital structure. There is no perfect cap table. There is no perfect deal. So you have to balance, you have to blend, and you have to take what the market gives to you. But look, aside from that, I would say there is a lot of other, like Fortescue, for example, came out of nowhere and has made like huge land package, huge. I don't know if they're investing in juniors, but like they're investing in British Columbia. So we are seeing more capital come into the thesis I was talking about is that, look, porphyries are gonna be a major contributor to the metal profile, copper and gold in the coming decades. And British Columbia has got no shortage of it.

40:57 So we're not the only people that feel that way, clearly. Look at porphyries. Look at porphyries. They last 50, 60 years. And the way that I look at it is, do I think copper is going to be higher or lower 10, 15 years from now when these porphyries do get developed? 100% higher. I can say that. Now if these porphyries are developed, which countries can I be 100% certain that if they do get developed, they're not going to be taken away? There's not many of those. Canada, Australia, US. That's it. So if you're actually gonna make those 50, 60 year investments, spend billions of dollars, I don't think there's anywhere else to go. So you're gonna see a lot of money migrating to Canada. It's gonna come a lot quicker once the government starts putting actions into some of those changes in policy.

41:53 Great. One thing, I'm going to combine a question I have with 1 that's in the chat because obviously we are talking about British Columbia today and we've inferred a lot from the conversation already, but really what I'd love to know is in light of recent infrastructure advancements and seemingly very supportive policies in BC, a couple of easy questions for all of you. What is BC doing right? What could it do better? And how does it compare to other jurisdictions in Canada? Charlie, I guess I'll start with you, actually, if you don't mind. Oh my God, I was hoping I wouldn't get this one. Go straight to it. Actually, you know, what is BC doing different and better? What could it do better? You know, I mean, As a born and bred British Columbian, and someone who got into the business because I love being up in the mountains and out in the wilderness, basically, and tried to do that most of my life.

42:49 You know, I think you have to take care and maybe almost too much care to some degree has gone into that, maybe alienating too many areas. I don't know. Yeah, I think I just, I think I have to stay out of this question. I think you're also, I'll help you out there. I mean, I think British Columbia does a wonderful job of protecting the integrity of its nature. I mean, British Columbia is known for having natural beauty. That's what Charlie was saying. He's drawn the mountains and the snow and he's a mountain man and he loves it, right? And I think British Columbia takes that very seriously. So they do a good job at that, preserving the salmon and they do a wonderful job of liaising with the First Nations. Generally speaking, the First Nations of British Columbia are quite sophisticated.

43:37 Because they've had economic development and they participate, and they want these projects to progress as long as they're done with great care to the environment and they get a say in how things are done economically and sustainably and otherwise. I think what British Columbia can do better is faster the permits. And that's a blanket statement for everywhere. Let's call it Canada, but British Columbia is no exception, that's for sure. It needs to streamline these things in order to be competitive with the world. As I talked off the top, if Canada is going to bounce back, and I do believe it will reclaim its status as a world leader in the extractive industries, we need to get these projects to market faster. It's that simple. You can't go, you know, outside of the development challenges, you can't have a 20-year permitting process. You just can't do it. Money's gonna go elsewhere.

44:26 I mean, we've seen that very clearly. So, and it's not like I'm suggesting that we permit things unresponsibly. We can do these things responsibly in like 1 or 2 years, okay. We just have to have, you know, people coalesce and sort of get on the same page, Write the rules, have them make sense, make sure that they're top of the world because I think that's Canada's competitive advantage. Let's talk about our oil, which is more controversial than anything else. Who do you think is more sustainable and safely and invest the capital better in the oil industry, Canada or others in the Middle East. So we do it better, we do it cleaner and we know where the use of proceeds of those funds are going. So I think if Canada maintains those standards, at the same time, streamlines call it the red tape, the unnecessary red tape, because a lot of these permits are just permits for the sake of being permits.

45:23 You know, if you know what I mean, right? So that's what BC needs to do better. And I think it can without sacrificing quality. Right. 1, just there's a lot of questions in the chat and I want to get to as many of them as I can. But before I do so, I do want to give all of you an opportunity. There's more than 100 people in the room. Just want you to pitch your stock as aggressively as possible. I usually give the instruction here to not act too Canadian. Why should investors in the room give you guys a look? Tony, I'll start with you. Well, I think we were extremely undervalued and I honestly believe this is going to be a mine. I think that's the big thing. I think there's a big delta between what these major mining companies that invested us believe it will be and what the investors out there understand it to be so far. I think if I'm able and I think it's work that's not going to cost a lot of money that I can do. It's about communication to the market and explaining it to them.

46:20 And I think it's just a value proposition right now. Look at us right now towards some of our competitors. We're a $100 million market cap company. So, you know, my target for us, you know, forward looking statement, I don't think there's a reason why we should be under $500 million. So I think there's a lot of room to gain there. And that's important to say, because I think a lot of the capital, a lot of the investments you're seeing from different investors, it's fast money. People that want fast returns, 5Xs overnight. So if someone's looking at, you know, for example, AE or some 2 cent junior, that has a $2 million market cap, that money's kind of flying over there right now. And then they think they can come back to AE. I think we're a lot different position than we were last year. Our last news results came out January 7th. We're going to have news coming out all the way to March. So a lot of that capital is flying away from BC, going to South American catalysts. They're actually staying within the American Eagle investment right now. And I think by the time we our last results come out, PDAX is going to be coming on and we'll come back to Canada. So I think investors will stay in AE a lot longer than our other competitors. And we have some really amazing news to come. I'm telling you right that right now. So I just say, you know, wait and see, invest and take a risk on us. But Our stuff is big.

47:31 We have great partners. We have high grade. And as Nate Smith says, a big investor and friend. We have all the ingredients for amazing recipes. So I think American Eagle Gold, like I always said, we sell dreams, not genes. And this dream will become a reality soon. Appreciate it. Charlie, I'll throw it to you to pitch your heart out. Which one do you want me to do, Steven? Go Evergold. I'll go Evergold. Well, we've been involved with this project since day 1. I think I staked the claims in 2007 first, so I've been there a while. But really, it's only had 2 drill programs, just Evergold and Newmont back in 1984. So we're going to focus on Golden Line. We're going to focus on the Gold-Silver system.

48:22 It has lots of open ground for testing, even with shallow holes, we can thoroughly test that. It's a systematic, focused drill program, revitalised management and cap structure. It's a good investment. I don't know how many shares are out, Stephen. I can't even remember. 4M, 12M, 13M shares. Yeah, so we rolled it back and I got rolled back in a big way, but I really believe in that property and I think we just go drill it systematically. It's great. We know where we're going to go and we know what we're going to do and I have confidence that we're going to produce some great results in a very, very hot district where there's a lot of other eyes on that district. We're right in there.

49:13 Great. Stephen, I'll throw it to you. Awesome. I'm going to do all 3. I'll make it easy. I'll start with Metal Energy, because that was in the news. Metal Energy, MERG, it's been a long road to get where we are today. We did this deal with Niv and Charlie. We are very well financed. We've got 2 of the most respected operators in British Columbia who saw exactly what Charlie saw. Our team at the ore group saw independently of Charlie. We've got multiple people saying that this target needs to be drilled. It was critical that you go there, you do it well financed. We're well financed. I think we've got $9.5M in cash and we're going to test the hell out of this thing in 2026. Look at the valuation. It's a $30M valuation and that's with $10M of cash, next, with beautiful neighbours. We know exactly what can happen there. Again, I referenced TDG, US$400M market cap. If we hit on some of those holes, boy, I think there's an awful lot of torque and metal energy. So it's going to be an exciting 2026.

50:21 For American Eagle, I'll pitch AE now. Of course, I'm the chairman of that company. Been there with Tony and since day 1. I think all in, it has the best shot at being the next developed Copper Gold port for Enbridge Columbia. The best shot at it. Obviously, we've got work to do, but when you factor in the fact it's topography, with its low-lying elevation, Of course, the geology has got to cooperate. The fact that we've got near-surface high-grade mineralization, we've got mineralization at depth and this thing is big. The system is so big we haven't defined its limits. We're learning every day. It's got, again, just like metal energy, it's got endorsements from South32 who made a big bet, so did Tech. We're well financed and we're drilling away. So I mean, that and look, look, look, relative to its peers, it's undervalued. And we've had some tax loss selling in December.

51:12 So, you know, get in, get in now. And then last, I mean, not but not least, although it's not officially an Orb Group company, it's a material investment that we've made. It's Evergold, again, a $5 million company with guys like Charlie Gray behind. It's absurd. It's been overlooked. A guy that sold a project for $500 million. Like these are quality people. You can't find too many shell companies for $5 million in the Toronto Venture Exchange. You know, after we've had a little frenzy last 6 months, They just don't exist. But then you look at it, you see Charlie Greggs in there or groups in there that got a project in the Tudor gone, my goodness. We've got work to do here, but it's all about risk reward and placing your bets based on potential outcomes.

52:00 Take a look at Evergold, take a look at Metal Energy, and of course, the big boy in the room, American Eagle. There's value there, guys, but just buy everywhere. But if you like to play the juniors, there's 3 great companies in British Columbia right there. Appreciate it. Thank you all for the pitches. I've got some really fast questions because I unfortunately have about a 3 minute hard stop here. So I'll just do some of the quick ones. DeMaro from the chat asks, Tony, is there any possibility of finding any rare earth minerals at NAC? Well, you go to your backyard and take a scoop out of the ground, you'll probably find some rare earths. So I think the big question is, you know, is the quantity there? Right now we're focused on copper, gold, we have molybdenum, we have silver. That's enough right now, but you know, if we hit a drill hole and all of a sudden, something's there, who knows, but our focus isn't on it isn't on rare earths right now. Great, appreciate it. Jekyll from the chat asked and Steven, Charlie, whoever wants to answer this, how important are DEM results and setting up financing for a major Golden Lion program?

53:04 Well, I mean, I wouldn't get my hopes too high up there. We drilled this thing right at the end of the season. The cores, I'm looking out and I can see the last core box there. So We're just in the process of finishing the logging and sampling that, and then we're going to send it off the samples. It's going to be a while yet before that gets through the lab, but it looks like a big dispersed system. I wouldn't say it knocks my socks off but the assays will tell the tale there. Yeah, you know an interesting system so far it hasn't really proven up for us but you know I'm not going to speculate that it's going to knock your socks off. Let's just say that.

53:53 I've been surprised before. That's why the focus is on Golden Lion. I know nothing about the assays at all, but I think the company has been clear that the focus is on Golden Lion. So we're going to set the company up to focus on it and see where the chips fall. And Dem is there if, as, and when we decide to allocate further capital to it. Awesome. D. Maro from the chat asked, Steven, is Org Group or any Org Group companies going to be at the VRIC or generally conferences? Yeah, we're all going to be there. So me, Tony, Charles, we'll all be there. Come say hello. Awesome. I'll be there too. Charlie, Steven, Tony, thank you so much for joining me today. It was a great conversation. Great companies for being in the room. I know there was a lot of you. I appreciate it. I didn't get to every question today. I will send them through to the respective teams. But Thank you.