Cora Gold (LSE:CORA) — Sanankoro Gold Project – Optimised Project Economics

0:01 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the CORA GOLD LIMITED investor presentation. Situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Please just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company will review all of the questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I would like to submit the following poll. And if you could give that your kind attention, I'm sure the company would be most grateful. And I'd now like to hand you over to CEO, Bert Monroe. Good morning, sir. Brilliant. Thank you very much for the introduction, and thank you everyone for, joining today. Really looking forward to giving you an update on what CORA has been up to, and looking to the future and what we're looking to deliver, over the coming years.

0:53 My name is Bert Monroe. I'm the CEO. I've been CEO since January 2020. The last fifteen years of my career, I've been basically based in West Africa, focused on gold. So both involved in, I guess, junior private explorer explorers as well as developers and and, obviously, producers as well. So my focus is very much being gold in West Africa over the last fifteen years, which tally's well with CORA. So CORA is an AIM listed gold company. Our focus is very much in Mali, also in Senegal, so all in West Africa. Our main asset is called San Ankoro, but we also have a number of other assets both in Southern Mali and and also in West Mali. So our focus of today's presentation will be around San Ankoro, our recent study we've just published, and obviously looking to execute on that project and build it into a mine. But, also, I'll touch briefly on on some of the other exploration assets as well, which show very interesting and exciting potential as well.

1:47 Just skip forward. So as I mentioned, Salin Gold Project, it's located in Southern Mali, down near the border with Guinea. It's around four hours South drive of Bamako. Salin Cora is a package of five permits, over which we've now got nearly a million ounces of gold in resources, 920,000 ounces of gold in resources. Additionally, we've got an exploration target of up to 1,300,000 ounces over and above the 920,000 ounces of gold all within eight kilometers of existing pits. So you've got line of sight to to maybe 2,000,000 ounces worth of gold on the project area, which is very exciting. On the back of that, we on back of that those discoveries and that growth in resources, we completed feasibility studies over the course of the last year, which we published last week. We are planning to build, I guess, a conventional gravity CIL processing plant at San Ankara based on open pit, low strip ratio, oxide ore. The significance of this, I'll I'll talk about a lot more later, but, essentially, your oxide ore is a free digging material, which doesn't need drill and blasting and doesn't need multiple stages of crushing, so it has significant benefits around your sustaining capital operating costs.

2:56 The study has very strong economics, high IRR, very quick payback period, one point two years on total capital based off a six point eight year reserve life. As I touched on already, we see a huge amount of exploration potential in the project, and we think the the reserve life will grow significantly. But, ultimately, at this stage, we we've got it to you you still got a strong reserve life there, delivering very good free cash flow, offer manageable CapEx in our mind. So for us, it's it's a it's a great project. It's got low technical risk. It's got quick payback periods. It's got good free cash flow. So we're really excited to sort of got to where we've got to with the with the project as it stands. I'm really excited about what the future holds for Sam and CORA both from an expansion perspective, growing our reserves, but also in terms of of delivering and executing on on on the project.

3:47 Just diving into a bit of a timeline. Over the last two years, three years, our focus was initially on resource expansion. We've rapidly expanded the resources to where they are now at 920,000 ounces of gold. We drilled around 40,000 ounce 40,000 meters, sorry, last year on the project, tripling our resources. We again drilled further meters this year expanding it. Our focus was very much on drilling mineable ounces, so focusing on nearer surface oxide ounces. Talk about it later, but our strip ratio is under five to one. So we're focusing really on on predominantly ounces within within a 150 meters of surface. We've drilled deeper holes, and clearly, the deposits extend at depth. But we've got about 25 kilometers of of really untested mineralized structures of surface on our permanent area. So we've brought seven and a half kilometers into into resources. So our focus very much is on is on these oxide ounces near a surface in terms of expanding those in the future.

4:46 Concurrent with expanding our resources, we were also completed an environmental assessment, an impact assessment. We submitted that to to the government and received our environmental permit very recently, which is very positive. And, obviously, as I said last week, we we delivered our our feasibility study on the project, which which we're very pleased with. We're now going to a stage of of, obviously, financing and permitting, getting ready to move into into construction and delivery of the project next year. Our strategy as a business has always been to try and move into construction as quickly as possible. You know, our belief is that from cash flow, you can grow the company. So our focus has been on having a deliverable study that enables us to to finance a project and get into to get into positive cash flow as quickly as possible. For a manageable amount of of money, we think we can we can rapidly expand our reserves.

5:36 In context, we spent about $750,000 adding over a 100,000 ounces of of indicated material this year. So in terms of manageable amounts of cash, you can you can deliver increased reserves, we believe, over time from from from cash flow. We've also got a very good exploration pipeline. We've got a number of permits, some within touching distance of existing operating mines, which gives you good neurology and and also, I guess, a secondary strategy around around the potential there as well as obviously expanding our existing resources on our on our main license package at Salmon Curry.

6:16 Dipping into the study in a little bit more detail. In the early years, very good production and free cash flow. First full year production's nearly 85,000 ounces, nearly $72,000,000 of of free cash flow, hence, getting a very quick payback period on the project. Overall, it's it's a low strip ratio project under four to one under five to one, sorry, strip ratio, and obviously an of sub a thousand dollars. Life of mine free cash flow of of of over $230,000,000. So we're really pleased where the economics have come to. All those economics are based off of reserves. We additionally did an exercise where we we pit optimized our resources using the same parameters as our reserves, and that added an additional two and a half years of my life, over a 120,000 ounces of gold, and and $76,000,000 of free cash flow. So that hopefully gives people, a taste of of what can come in the future with further drilling.

7:12 So that was just that would that would be obviously, we'd need to do further infill drilling on those resources to bring them into reserves. But, ultimately, based on the existing, resources, we we we we could optimize them, and those were the those were the economic efforts from it. So for us, that would give you line of sight to to nearly ten years of mine life, which is very encouraging.

7:34 Breaking down what we're looking to deliver year by year, the start up year here includes around six months of production based off the model. Then, obviously, you've got a further six years of mine life. Obviously, the first years are extremely strong delivering high levels of gold production at a low all in sustaining cost and and very high free cash flow generation. The opportunity is obviously in the in the later years improving the reserve plan by expanding existing resources into reserves, also looking to convert our exploration target into resources and then reserves as well. No mines generally mind their their reserve plan from their study beyond probably the first couple of years. There's always further exploration. There's always improvements and optimizations being brought in. So for us, this base case reserve is very good. Obviously, clearly, 50% IRR, very good and quick free cash flow generation.

8:28 The bottom two lines on that table, you can see the impact when you include the pit optimized resources as well. Clearly, it takes a project out to to to nearly ten years, obviously, increases your life of mine free cash flow, and and obviously shows, you know, a much larger and longer mine life project. And I think that's I think that's very important for us. I think the reserve case is obviously strong, we believe, you know, shows, you know, a very good hopefully, a very good investment opportunity for people to look at. But I think for us, it's also extremely exciting to think of the positive benefits of infill drilling existing resources, so extremely, you know, extremely low risk, as well as obviously the potential of of drilling out an exploration target and looking to bring those ounces as well into into reserve studies in the future.

9:20 Here's a map of the project area. Obviously, the line outlines the permit area. The red blocks are the surface expression of our MRE pits. And then, obviously, you can see some of the infrastructure as well there, processing plant, solar farm, camp, and and tailing some of the key infrastructure. It's now in the top right, obviously, pointing towards Bamako, which is which is just four hours away. I think one of the bits I've talked about, obviously, the exploration upside, if you can see where it says in the zone b, zone a, there's sort of gaps between those pits. That's really due to a lack of drilling. So all deposits are open along strike. So, essentially, we haven't closed off any of those deposits. And as I touched on briefly earlier, we've had we've got proven from exploration targets around over little over 30 kilometers of mineralized strike length at surface, and we've only drilled around seven and a half kilometers of that into resources.

10:14 So, clearly, we we think those pits will expand over time. That will probably hopefully continue to help reduce our strip ratio, which will have a positive improvement on mining cost going forward. But, look, it's a straightforward gravity CIL processing plant. Many of them have been built in West Africa. We benefit from having high gravity recovery, so over 40% gravity recovery, which is another positive for your OpEx. I said we're not trying to do anything new. We're not trying to do anything different. It's essentially a stock standard to grab TCI or processing plant. The big benefit being the very high proportion of of oxide material in our in our mine plan, meaning that you don't need to drill a blast when you're mining, so that reduces your mining costs. And also from a pricing perspective, you don't need multiple stages of crushing for this material.

11:00 It goes straight into your, yeah, it goes straight into your pricing plant, which is very positive.

11:08 Slide on the reserves. I think what this shows you clearly is is what I've been saying around the oxide material. There's absolutely no fresh material at all in our reserve plan, which we're really pleased with. Ultimately, that has been the plan. You know, we have up to 200 meters in places of oxide material, which is very rare, one of the big benefits of this project. On average, probably a 150 meters of oxides. So our focus is on on on mining those out. I think the easiest in some ways, the quickest way for us to add ounces would be to add fresh fresh rock ounces below our existing pits. But, ultimately, for me, that would be a more marginal ounce. My focus would really be focusing a long strike, focusing on near surface oxide ounces. We believe those will be higher margin ounces, lower technical risk, maintaining a ratio, you know, protecting you from from potentially inflationary impacts in many ways by by keeping a ratio and lower mining and operating costs.

12:04 Again, the drilling we did this year was really focused on infill drilling, so was adding indicated ounces. As well as last year, our focus was not just about getting the the largest possible MRE, the largest possible resource. It was about getting a resource that actually we could convert to a reserve and build a mine around. So from a marketing perspective, you could argue we should have just focused all on just maximizing our inferred ounces to get the biggest possible resource number. Now had we done that, I'm sure we would have, you know, a much larger to yeah, a much larger inferred deposit. But our focus has been about delivering a mine. It's been about executing on on on construction and then getting into cash flow. So so we very much have that focus where we've been drilling, and that has resulted in us obviously having a very high proportion of indicated ounces within our MRE. Two thirds two thirds are indicated, one third inferred. And, obviously, that's, you know, that that's what that's predicated on.

12:51 But I think clearly, you know, very recently, we just updated our exploration target, and clearly that those answers will come in time. You know, you've got up to 1,300,000 ounces of exploration potential, target potential over and above our MRE. So, you know, we're looking forward to drilling those out in the future, and, obviously, hopefully, our our resources will expand significantly. So this slide shows you a little bit more around the type of ore we have and one of the benefits. Think in the London market, the majority of projects are really fresh rock projects. You probably have to look to the TSX to see more of a comparator. At the bottom of your slide, you can see it's a group quarter of ex resources. It's listed in Canada. They have it will be perceived in London as a relatively low grade project below a gram a tonne I'm delivering 50,000 ounces a year of gold production, but it it delivers very strong free cash flow. And I guess their market cap has has moved on the back of that to show because they, you know, they've delivered strong dividends over the last number of years as well. So I think it's a different style of project to potentially people used to see in London.

13:57 The map we show the picture we show now of Siguiri is obviously being a very successful mine. You can see the deep weathering profile, and ultimately maintaining a low strip ratio with with good free digging material enables low operating costs. And this image, hopefully, will will sort of further bring that to light. So this is a series of core trays from one of our holes at San Ankara, and you can see the core, so essentially the drill material down to nearly 100 meters. You can see that the material is still this is weathered oxide material, so it's completely free digging down to those depths. So hopefully that's a visual illustration of the benefits of the material that we have of that oxide material at Salin Corro, and that's typical of of holes right across Salin Corro across the deposits.

14:46 In the north at Salin, the oxide zone is slightly shallower, sort of a 120 meters or so. But then as you get south into zone b, zone c, you know, you've got, you know, in some areas up to 200 meters of of this oxide material. So so so very, very deep, you know, relative to relative to other projects.

15:05 A bit more about financing and the project. Our major shareholders are a family called the CORAG family, and Lionhead Capital is is a group linked to the CORAG family. It's an investment group based out of out of South Africa. We've announced previously that we had a a $25,000,000 funding agreement with Lionhead, equity based agreement, half equity, half equity convertible. Alongside publishing our study last Monday. We also said that we were in negotiation of that term sheet and looking at looking at negotiating looking at discussions of it, moving up to $30,000,000 of funding. Obviously, our project CapEx is $90,000,000. You know, traditionally, you would you would finance these projects with a blend of of equity and debt. We also said that we were in discussions with a number of lending groups as well. So I've obviously been through this process before in West Africa in terms of financing a project and getting it built. Yeah. We're very pleased with the quick payback period on the project.

16:01 Clearly, it's had, you know, very strong support from a number of shareholders over the last few years. And, clearly, the fact that we're engaged with them around the term sheet and expanding the term sheet is very positive for the project. So I guess probably about as much as I can say on that at this stage, but I guess watch the space in terms of updates on that. But, clearly, we, you know, we're very focused on executing this project. We're very focused on getting into construction next year on this project and obviously work as quickly as possible towards being able to deliver that.

16:33 Now I'm gonna jump into a series of of other slides. Some of them are more details around the project, around the study, and other backgrounds on the projects as well as some exploration as well. As I mentioned at the start, obviously, an A listed company. For us, it's been a very supportive and strong shareholder register, you know, backed by essentially the CORAG family as well as, you know, Lord Farmer, who is a cofounder of a of a financing institution as well. She's very positive, always looking to expand the register, always happy to to engage with and and chat to anyone who's interested in in looking to buy shares or interested in the company. So always happy to engage with with shareholders in the future. I think from a from a purely share price performance, I think it's clear that the funded projects which are executing on on constructing and delivering a project generally perform very well in the market.

17:21 What we're trying to deliver at San Ancara has you know, has been done before. We're not we're in a jurisdiction that has got multiple operating commercial gold mines, so your access to good infrastructure and good people and executing on a on a project that has many similarities to other projects should should lower the technical risk. So for me, the location of the project and the the style of project is very positive in terms of lowering execution risk. Finding available groups to help support us in in that execution is very positive. And clearly, me, if we you know, as we complete the financing for the project, I think I think clearly, as you move through construction and as you get closer to that $70,000,000 of of free cash flow in the first year of production, I think I think, hopefully, our share price will will also perform more positively on the back of that.

18:12 So background of where our assets are, and this might be a bit back to front, but ultimately, our focus has been on the study. But just to just to reset the scene, our main project is is San Ankoro On the right hand map, I guess, due south of Bamako, we've additionally got a group of permits which go around the Amvelila Gold mine in Southern Mali. They offer, obviously, good neurologists. That mine, we've got we've got drilled gold discoveries within eight kilometers of that processing plant. I think not only do we have the potential, hopefully, for for stand alone discoveries on those projects, clearly, if you make a discovery which might otherwise have been seen as slightly slightly smaller. If you're very close to an existing operating gold mine, it gives you greater flexibility and greater optionality in terms of creating value on those permits.

18:57 We've also got permits in West Mali on the border with Senegal, Medina Phube, Sartafar Assud. I mean, this has been one of the most prolific gold belts across Africa, not globally, but in the last twenty years. As you can see, you're in the midst of of multiple other operating mines there. So there's a huge amount of of exciting potential in those permits, but they're at a they're at an earlier stage. Detailed CapEx breakdown on the project, including sustaining capital and closure costs at the end. I maybe won't dwell into too much detail on every single number. Again, if someone wants to get in touch, after this and get into sort of line by line on items, obviously happy to do that and happy to to engage more, but but, ultimately, you know, happy with the CapEx buildup. You know, we spent over a year on the study working on it, so so happy with the results of the study.

19:46 Again, process flow sheet, I probably won't go through every single area, but this is a a stock standard West African gold process flow sheet based on a gravity and CIL circuit. One benefit is is at the front end. You have you don't have the traditional sort of three stages of crushing you might see with a fresh rock mine. We have some mobile crushing which comes in to deal with transitional material in year two, year three, but, ultimately, this is a this is a straightforward ground TCR processing plant with benefits of of being outside focused. A little background on the MRE, a bit more background pit by pit. Again, as you can see, the focus has been on getting ounces into the indicated categorization.

20:35 That's been very much our focus with a with a view to the feasibility study and making sure the feasibility study can deliver a strong reserve case. Clearly, there's a huge amount of expansion potential both from converting inferred to indicated, but also from the expiration target as well. Again, this this table is clearly also showing the significance of of the oxide and transitional zones, and the significance of the fact that, you know, that's where most of our gold is. As you can see, very small amounts of fresh rock. We have drilled deeper holes. We drilled the holes well in excess of 200 meters into the project, so the fresh rock does expand that does extend, sorry, at depth below our transitional zones. So that's certainly an area we could look to expand in the future, but I feel given we've only drilled out, as it says, about seven and half kilometers of 33 kilometers of linear strike length extension, I believe the lower one, the lower cost discovery ounce, but also a lower operating cost accounts for extraction is to is to continue surface is to drill out the surface expression of the deposits and focus on that that top 150 meters, maintaining as low a strip ratio as possible, insulating you for insulating you from from, I guess, higher technical risk, potentially higher operating cost impacts as, you know, in a variable fuel price environment. So for us, that that is very much the focus.

22:00 Again, just a map on the exploration target. I think the piece I want to pull out from this is all of this exploration target of up to 1,300,000 ounces is all within eight kilometers of the existing deposits, so very near to our existing deposits and obviously would give it clearly trackable trackable into the into the San Ankara processing plant. So, obviously, looking forward to getting a draw externally in the future and and looking to expand that and bring it to the mine life. But, you know, at the moment, six point eight years of reserve life, another two and a half years already of pit optimized inferred taking nearly ten years. I think clearly, there's this line of sight to getting into the mid teens and beyond from obviously knowing gold discoveries on the Permian area. So for me, that's an extremely exciting future step for the company.

22:46 And, Matt, hopefully, some of you have seen before highlighting some of our drills, obviously, over the last two years where we've had some absolute standout holes, with with big wide intercepts of of high grade at San Ankara, so which has obviously enabled us to expand our resources and obviously deliver our deliver our maiden reserves. Standard cross section at at San Ancorro, you've got ore from surface, so you're Australian to ore, which is positive, basic vertical ore body, open pit mining, low technical risk. The image in the bottom left sort of shows the surface expression of the deposit where it gets narrower, and where it pinches out is generally due to a lack of drilling, not because we've drilled out and sterilized it. So, again, that shows obviously the expansion the expansion potential. ESG, obviously, extremely important these days.

23:34 Look. I I I'm and that's sort of something I know well. I spent two and half years living and working on the ground on a project, I guess, nearly fifteen years ago now. So I guess, you know, ultimately, you know, stakeholder engagement and, you know, the social license to operate is is integral to all these projects. You can never take any host communities or or host countries for granted, and it's extremely important and integral that we that we operate to best practice and deliver from that. So, you know, I was very pleased we appointed a full time ESG manager over the last year as well as to to add to our ESG adviser and and other teams. I'm very pleased our our ESIA, our environmental social impact assessment, was done to World Bank IFC standards, and we received our very quickly, quicker than I was expecting. So for me, it's extremely positive that the project has been seen in that light.

24:23 I think today, our engagement with local communities both of the, I guess, sort of county and both of the regional and national level has has been very positive. So that seems graceful for the project, and we're in a a proven gold producing jurisdiction with with with mines multiple mines and other gold projects in reasonably reasonably near to us. Back on the team briefly, a very strong team with good relevant West African gold experience, which is great. They've helped us deliver, you know, very successfully over the last few years. Obviously, we'll be looking to expand the team and looking to grow the team as we move into construction. But as a basis point, very pleased with with the guys we've got on board. And and, again, in terms of our nonexecs and and ESG adviser ESG adviser as well, got a very good blend of both technical operational experience as well as well as financing and geological. So we've got a broad breadth of experience across the board within the advisory team, so very pleased with the blend there.

25:24 So that really concludes my slides. I think there are probably quite a lot of questions which will probably mop up anything I haven't So I guess looking forward to to taking any questions really because that concludes my my presentation. But that's great. And if I may just jump back in there and bring back up your camera, and thank you very much indeed for your presentation this morning. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the q and a tab that's situated on the right hand corner of your screen. But just while Bert takes a few moments to review those questions that were submitted already, I would like to remind you that a recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published q and a can be accessed via your investor dashboard. But we did receive a number of pre submitted questions ahead of today's event. And as you can see in the q and a tab there, we have also received a number of questions throughout your presentation this morning itself.

26:12 So thank you to everyone on the call for taking the time to submit their questions. And, Bert, if I could just hand back to you to run through the q and a tab to respond to those questions where it's appropriate to do so, and then I'll pick up from you at the end. Thank you. Sure. Thanks, Jake. Great. Thanks, guys. Clearly, quite a few questions being submitted, so I'll just do my best to scroll through them and answer them and and look to get back to you. So first question, there's six point eight years reserve life, the big exploration target. Does this mean we can expect the life of mine to increase further? Yes. Absolutely. Obviously, there's no guarantees in geology or in or in resource expansion, but clearly, today, we've had very good expansion of our resources when we when we stepped out and drilled further. As I mentioned

26:56 in the presentation, our exploration target is based off drill data. So, essentially, Goldfields who were previous owner of the project, they they kinda drilled the whole permit area in about 600 meter line spacing. So you have got drilled gold discoveries, on that sort of a grid, which enables you to give, hopefully, a more accurate exploration target than than companies might if they were doing it off the base of sort of grab samples or trenching their surface. So, yeah, we think there's great exploration upside, and we believe that will significantly expand the mine life in the future.

27:28 So Salmon Coro is a priority, but how do you see the regional exploration work fitting in alongside this? So we've announced some regional exploration, work in the last two months or so. So we still always have boots on the ground doing work at an earlier stage. So we've made some new gold discoveries, predrilling gold discoveries from various surface surface work. So keep taking over clearly when your focus is on building a gold mine. Your available funds for doing significant regional exploration is probably more limited. But in terms of a strategy, we certainly feel there's lot of organic growth potential from our existing permit package. So I certainly think it's something which, you know, as a board, they'd be looking to we'd be looking to invest money into when you have significant free cash flow generated for Southern CORA. So I think, certainly, getting a second project up and running would be a further way to derisk the company and expand our our potential.

28:19 What are our key bits of news to look forward to? Well, obviously, we've just delivered the study, which has been what we've been focusing on in terms of strategy and delivery over the last year or more. As we as I showed in the timeline, our focus now is on is on completing financing and permitting. Obviously, we've got active discussions going on with Lionhead and with various lending banks to look to finance it, obviously complete the permitting of the project before we can move into into construction. As part of construction, I guess, is broken down into into three phases. Suppose you've got your your front end engineering and design at the start. It should take two to three months. Then you've got between twelve and fifteen months of construction, and then you've got three months of commissioning. You should hopefully be pouring gold within a month to six weeks of the commissioning phase of the project. So that's ultimately your timeline from here till till then.

29:10 Clearly, can't give you an exact timeline on on the financing completion and kickoff from that perspective, but, obviously, we we've got multiple discussions going on and, obviously, looking to it as quickly as we can.

29:23 Question about the solar and benefits of the solar. I think, yeah, look, it's for me, it was very important. We we incorporated solar into the project clearly. You know, Mali is very, very good country to to have a solar farm there. As it's as it states at the moment, we'll have a both the diesel diesel hybrid solar power option significantly reduces our carbon footprint, but also actually offers a lower cost operating based off today's fuel prices. I think clearly, you know, energy is is is a big factor, it's on a lot of people's lives at the moment. And I think solar will obviously protect us from from potential future increases in energy prices as well. So I think for me, was very important as, you know, it gives us security and power and also reduces the impact of any inflationary pressure from heightening diesel prices.

30:16 I got a couple of questions around sort of politics and security from a couple of people just looking at it here. So just to try and answer the questions together more broadly. Mali is obviously a massive country. Yeah. North to south, you're talking, you know, kind of the length of Europe. Clearly, the Sahel region post the fall of Gaddafi, without getting into too much of a sort of history lecture, there has been there was a destabilization in that area. So that has impacted, I guess, the North Northern half of Mali where there has historically been the UN presence there. There's now, obviously, Russian security has been brought in to to provide security in the North Of Mali. For me, I've been traveling now. I've been there, oh, four or five times this year, twice in the last six weeks.

31:06 On the ground, if for me, I don't feel the security perspective has changed. Being in Bamako, you know, and then all the gold projects in Germany in the South or the West, from a security perspective, you know, there hasn't been a lost day of gold production in the last thirty years, fairly political or or security incident. And Mali has the Mali's gold and mining sector has not been impacted by security or politics, which I think is the important thing to state. Clearly, there is a higher risk of operating in Mali or in or in West Africa than potentially in some other regions of the world. But on account of that, obviously, there's there's just the huge geological potential of of the area and the ability to make virgin discoveries and expand projects. But the government outlook to the likes of a BT GOLD with that Fekola project or or or the operational success of of an Endeavor mining, which has got multiple lines across Frankfurt and West Africa.

31:58 And I think it's all about, you know, never taking security for granted. Obviously, it's it's on every weekly call agenda point right at the top to to be discussed as a business and making sure we're we're aware of the situation and making sure we're, you know, we're operating in the correct way to take to take it to life. Yeah, sometimes it doesn't always read that prettily, but I think you you need to take the context of the scale of Mali. It's an absolutely enormous country, and the instances are generally isolated to the very north of the country. And in the southern parts of the country where we're operating, which is over 1,200 kilometers away, you're operating in a very safe environment, which hasn't been impacted by any significant instances of late. Couple of questions around the financing, both, I guess, the timing on it, and also, I suppose, executing on it. Obviously, at the moment, I've gotta be careful how much I I say or don't say. As we as I said or as we said in the press release last week.

33:04 We're currently in discussions with potential lending banks, and, also, we're obviously in discussions with the Lionhead Group around their financing term sheet, which is an equity based term sheet. I mean, traditionally, projects are are financed sort of seventy thirty or sixty five thirty five debt and equity. In West Africa, I think you can you can look at a number of the projects in in West Africa, have carried out successful financings with West African francophone based banks. Generally speaking, they are, you know, reasonably vanilla debt packages without significant sort of, I guess, kickers on that side, whether it's sort of streams or or edges or anything like that. Look. It's been very we've got a very supportive share register, which has been very positive for the company. I think both the CORAG family and also, you know and then through the Lionhead Group as well offering us a term sheet is a huge positive for a junior company.

33:56 Many companies, you know, they could publish a feasibility study, you know, they're they're stood there, you know, starting staring around, you know, looking to get their first their first lead their first lead order into a fundraiser. So the fact that we've got a very supportive register, you know, with the term sheet we signed last year is extremely positive for us. Now as a reference to our market cap, I think, clearly, the whole sector has weakened this year, unfortunately. And I think, you know, market caps have reduced, which is frustrating for us. And, obviously, look, I think, clearly, projects which which get financed, generally speaking, from a share price perspective, you know, they perform very well through the period of construction up into cash flows as you derisk the project, as you get close to positive cash flow. So for us, our strategy has always been based about delivering on the project and about building and executing and getting into production. So I think if we can get this financing away, I think, hopefully, from a shareholder's perspective, that would be very positive for the share price.

34:56 Excuse me a sec. I'm gonna gonna read all the questions and also well, before I answer them, so give me a second. Just slowly just keep scrolling down. Someone asked a question about well, think if I say there's another company who up for sale and how can people be confident about CORA won't do the same. I think I think it's it's clear from the support of our major shareholders, the term sheet we've had. I think the way that we've, you know, delivered the study, you know, the wording we've we've we've committed to saying around the delivery of the study in terms of ongoing discussions around, you know, the term sheet completion with Lionhead as well as with the.

35:43 You know, our focus has always been about delivering this project. You know, I was obviously brought in in January 2020 having had a a you know, work previously with the company which had gone through development and into production. So, clearly, I I was brought in to to help try and take CORA through to that to that next stage and obviously leverage off my experience with the previous company I was with. So, yeah, clearly, that's been our focus. That's been our strategy. You know, the way we've the way we've delivered the project and the study in a way is is all about execution. So, yeah, you've got it from me. Our our plan certainly is to sell our planners to our planners to build these projects and to deliver that that free cash flow for shareholders. So I was asking a question about essentially sterilization. Has the plant, camp, solar farm, and tailings there been drilled sufficiently to ensure it does not contain potentially economic mineralization?

36:34 It's a great question. I guess the geologist hates spending money on sterilization drilling, but it is it is extremely important. So, yes, we we have sterilized the tailings. We've done sterilization drilling across both the tailings area, the camp. I mean, the camp's a relatively small footprint and also the solar farm area. So generally speaking, as you you would have seen from those maps, the infrastructure for the mine is is generally to the east of the east of the existing ore bodies. So our view is that, generally, the mineralized potential is obviously north south on the existing structures and also to the west slightly. So, yeah, I know we have done sterilization drilling as part of the drilling budget last year. We we drilled out quite a few thousand meters of sterilization drilling, say, to make sure we don't don't fall into that trap. Question around my my reference to gravity gold recovery.

37:37 Yeah. So I suppose this you know, what's the benefit of gravity gold? So, essentially, by the gravity gold recovery enables you to have what's, I guess, a gravity circuit, I e know, we can recover a portion of our gold through a gravity circuit, which essentially the benefit is a lower operating cost because you aren't having to put all of the gold through your full processing plant. So, essentially, you're diverting the gold, which can could be recovered by gravity, and it goes through the gravity circuit as opposed to the full circuit. So, essentially, it's it's the benefit is that you're help it's helping to lower your operating cost because you're lowering your reagent usage. You're essentially bypassing part of the gold plant. So the benefit is around lowering your operating cost. So that's one of the one of the advantages of that's the advantages of the gravity gold recovery and the benefits that you try and bring in.

38:32 I've got the following question. I just wanna scroll up to double check. Haven't missed any. I've tried to sort of a couple of quite a few overlapping questions, so I just wanna make sure I sort of cover those off. I think I've covered off all those questions, to be honest. Jake, I think Yeah. Think I'm answering my other questions. I think the the remaining questions there, I think I've answered them all. So I suppose if anyone's got any, obviously, on a pop up now, I could answer, but I think I've covered everything off. But that's great. And thank you very much indeed for being so generous of your time then addressing all of those questions that came in from investors this morning. And, of course, if there are any further questions that do come through, we'll make these available to you immediately after the presentation has ended for you to review to then add any additional responses, of course, where it's appropriate to do so.

39:18 But perhaps before redirecting those on the call to provide you their feedback, which I know is particularly important to yourself and the company, If I could please just ask you for a few closing comments to wrap up with, that'd be great. Sure. Thanks. I mean, firstly, thank you everyone for joining. It's been a real pleasure to be able to present CORA. It's a really exciting time for the company. We're really pleased with the progress we've made over the last year, and we're really excited to what the next year brings. So thank you all for taking the time to listen to us. Hopefully, it's an interesting story. Appreciate, you know, there's only so much you can say online, and virtually, so always happy to take phone calls, emails, have further discussions. I think at the bottom of the slide, hopefully, you can see, obviously, contact emails, phone numbers, as well as the social media as well on the website. So please do get in touch. Always keen to engage with with shareholders and potential shareholders. But but first and foremost, thank you for joining. Thank you for taking the time to listen to the story, and I hope you liked what you heard. Thank you.

40:10 Bert, that's great. And thank you once again for updating investors this morning. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations. This may take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of CORA GOLD LIMITED, we would like to thank you for attending this morning's presentation. That now concludes today's session, so good morning to you all.