East Star Resources (LSE:EST) — Maiden copper VMS resource discussion

0:00 Good morning, and welcome to the ESTAR RESOURCES PLC Investor Presentation. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and will publish those responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. And I'd now like to hand you over to Alex Walker, CEO. Good morning, sir.

0:34 Hi, everyone. Thank you very much for, for joining us again today. My intention today is to have a a fairly short presentation, largely similar to the the previous ones, and just update the market on the JWT resource and then get straight straight into question time. There's obviously a lot going on with the company, and, and everyone's leading very busy lives as well. So we're we're very, very pleased to be providing this update. And and once again, really appreciate your time for joining us today. Right. Starting from the top again, ESTAR is is is very much going through the process of unlocking Kazakhstan's copper potential. A quick recap on the structure, just under 220,000,000 shares on issue. The two biggest shareholders are myself and a family office out of a supportive family office out of Australia called, the Flannery family.

1:21 And I've participated in every capital raise to date. We've been principally focused on on copper as most of you will be aware, for the last, well, certainly more than the last twelve months, about the last eighteen months, in fact. And that's really starting to pay, dividends, so to speak, for us in terms of our strategy at the moment. For those of you who have been tracking the copper market, we're now comfortably above $10,000 a ton. And, in my view, it shows no sign of of of slowing down. So we have a a new jaw conferred resource, 20,000,000 point 3,000,000 tons in our VMS, deposit. We have a copper porphyry exploration project with, through the BHP explore program, and we have a sediment hosted, copper exploration target. Both the porphyry and and the sediment hosted, offer the opportunity for what we consider to be tier one, copper projects, and that is the capacity for a long mine life and to produce more than 200,000 tons per year of copper production.

2:22 Just a little bit more about the copper market. Again, you know, our thesis that we've been sort of banging the drum about for for quite some time is that, is that there's a massive supply deficit. And, every little bit of news that seems to come out every day seems to to to reinforce that that deficit. Initially, we had supply disruptions from, well, even before the supply disruptions, we had a predicted deficit from most of the major banks out to that was anticipated in 2027. Now even that's, you know, three years away, but it's still quite significant because you cannot replace these tons easily. It takes many, many years to find big copper deposits and to permit them and put them into production. So even seeing that looming supply deficit three years or four years away was still a big incentive for for the ship for for the copper price to start moving.

3:13 Then we had some very big supply disruptions. We had Cobre Panama from First Quantum, coming offline with a repatriation process. We've had some supply disruptions in, in Peru and and Chile with Codelco not meeting their production targets, where there's a potential for more of those this year. In parts of Central Africa and Zambia, we've had droughts and most of their power comes from hydropower. And so we're expecting, although I don't think it's formally hit the headlines, but we're expecting to see potentially more supply disruptions from there. And, of course, the real indicators being Chinese smelters essentially looking to shut, and it's no big big, it's no main fate to make the decision to to shut a smelter. It's a very, very expensive and long process to both shut one down and restart it. And so typically, they'll even trade at a loss for a reasonably long period of time. So the fact that they're looking to shut some of these smelters is a real indication of the lack of copper supply. So we're very, very bullish on the price of copper and and certainly a potential concentrate producers like ESTAR, have have a real opportunity in this current market to to supply into these, these desperate, desperate smelters.

4:25 Okay. Just a quick reminder of where we are. Kazakhstan is, is a fantastic jurisdiction to be operating. It changed its mineral law in 2018 and since that to to resemble that of Western Australia's. And since then, companies like EAST STAR have come in, a couple of other junior companies, and now we're really starting to see some of the other majors coming in for for copper exploration. So Rio Tinto was here before that process, but but significantly increased their land package after 2018. And we've had Barrick come in for Quantum Fortescue at the same time as ESTAR. And now touch wood BHP with certainly through the BHP explore program. Very low operating costs due to power, low power costs, low diesel costs, and and fairly low labor costs. And it's already a massive contributor to to the world's critical mineral supply in copper and uranium and chrome and in a number of other materials.

5:21 So it's a very well understood mining jurisdiction, which means it's got the political will to to grow its mining capacity. And it also has a relatively good social understanding of mining, which you could argue is not the case in in a lot of other places, many places in Europe, for example. So those are the sorts of things that are a huge benefit to to operating in Kazakhstan. And, of course, has the opportunity for some for for some tier one deposits, which is the last point, and it's it's ultimately the reason why we're here. A very, very under explored jurisdiction. So the first of our copper strategies is our VMS exploration. Again, most of you might be aware. We had, two large tenements when we listed the company in in, January 2022.

6:10 And from there, we acquired additional data. We built better relationships with the local community, which allowed us to do things like applying for areas, that you need special consideration to apply for. So, what's called a spot social obligations agreement. So we have that and we're able to pick up several other licenses, one of which contained, what is today the Vekuba deposit. It's a tremendously, underexplored but infrastructure infrastructure rich region. Mining in in the East Region of Kazakhstan has been going on for hundreds of years. And essentially from a geological perspective, have mine mine where there's outcrop and then nothing where there's cover and then more mines where there's outcrop. And so initially, our concept was, well, that's typically not the case in these belts. So the cover is is hiring additional is is hiding, excuse me, additional deposits.

7:04 So that's what we've set out to find, and and in fact, for COBRA is the first of of what I hope to be many discoveries. A group called CAS Minerals and Glencore through a subsidiary, a 70% owned subsidiary called CAS Inc, are the two major players in the region. Kaz Minerals have the Artyomievski mine and the Artyski mine that you can see in that map and the Nicoloskoye Concentrator. The the Nicoloskoye mine that's labeled there is now closed and is is a tailings facility. Their concentrator has 800,000 tons of spare capacity today, and their tailings capacity has more than six hundred years of of their tailings facility has more than six hundred years of capacity. You've also got the Belzovka Concentrator to the south, which is towards the international airport of Wiskimoto Gorsk and our regional hub, as well as having a smelter in that region owned by Kazzling. So you could not want for more infrastructure that you need to build a mine, roads, water, power, rail, and infrastructure to cheaply process ore is about 1,400,000 tons of excess capacity today.

8:15 So it really does provide an an opportunity for any deposit ultimately to be put into production quickly and cheaply and arguably better than just about anywhere else in the world. That's not that's not Brownfield's extension from from an existing operating mine. Oops. So the the new announcement for us last week was our Jawkinferred resource. Again, for people that have been following ESTAR, that they'll know that over a year ago when we first announced our exploration target, which was in March 2023, we said this is no ordinary exploration target. And certainly what we meant by that was it was assessed from more than 42,000 meters of drilling. So it wasn't a spurious, you know, several 100 meters apart, generalized trends.

9:06 You know, there could be millions of of of ounces of gold or whatever concept might be to to come up with these targets. It was a very, very well defined and refined exploration target. And so what we were able to do over the course of 2023 was additional geological surveys over that license area. We found more than 70 of the drill collars that, went into that exploration target, which was initially done as a as a desktop study. We did a a detailed LiDAR survey, which gives you incredibly accurate topography over the region, which allows you to better assess things like your strip ratio and and, the altitude of color locations. And, of course, we did some drilling to confirm, the mineralized zones and and the trends and and that the lithology was the same as what we had logged historically.

9:58 And all of that work is ultimately a very, very cheap, and and quick way to for ESTAR to have come up with its maiden jock inferred resource of 20,300,000 tons at 1.16% copper, 1.54% zinc, and 0.27% lead. So that is incredibly exciting for us. It's, it's, you know, over 250,000 tons comfortably over 250,000 tons of contained copper equivalent. You know, we believe that a reasonable percentage of that will be open pittable based on our own drilling, and that of the historic drilling. We also have not done yet done our own metallurgical test work, but the historical metallurgical test work shows incredibly high recoveries from, copper from within this deposit to up to about 97%, recovery from from straight flotation.

10:53 So we are, as it stands today, very, very excited by the potential of this deposit, by the by the value of it, and what it might mean for ESTAR, and the, simplicity of being, comparative simplicity of being able to take it forward as a as a project through feasibility and and and hopefully into development either by ourselves, or, with a partner. And on that note, you know, we've publicly said that we're running a process for the Vancouver copper deposit. That process kicked off formally last month. It's ongoing as we speak. I'm pleased to say that that us publicly announcing the JawConferredResource had a couple of other parties reach out to us, which we, have signed NDAs with one and we are signing NDAs, an NDA with another one, and we expect them to, get into the data room and and hopefully participate in that in that process as well.

11:48 And so today, we still feel there's there's a lot of a lot of value in this one individual project, in a much, much, bigger and still very, very exciting exploration portfolio. Again, we we we haven't focused specifically on targets. This is designed as as quite a quick presentation. But, again, we've held these licenses for more than three years. We have been we've done a helicopter electromagnetic survey over the vast majority of the license area, which is a fantastic tool for for for targeting sulfides.

12:25 We have been done multiple geological traverses. We've done petrology on more than 80 samples across the entire region within our within our deposit proper. We are waiting for some results from ICPMS which is going to give us a technical understanding of of the rock types and compare them to the rock types of the producing mines in the region. We've done several lines of IP over a couple of targets. And ultimately, what that what that has resulted in is what we believe to have at least three drill ready exploration targets this year. So these are targets which we've, done everything in, everything in, that you can reasonably do to derisk something prior to drilling and and to increase the the quality of that target.

13:12 So some of these are are really looking fantastic. They're an EM target. They're an IP anomaly, and they're a few 100 meters from historical drilling, which showed mineralization in in the core. So we know that that that particular area is mineralized, and it's showing that we have the right alteration in at rocks on surface. So there's a little bit more field work we need to do to advance those, but I'm expecting to have at least three very, very high impact drill campaigns throughout the course of of, the remainder of 2024 on the VMS region. We were lucky enough to be the recipients of the BHP explore program, which is actually a fantastic program, you know, in the middle of it as we speak. Obviously, it it kicked off in January and finishes in June this year. It's a grant of of 500, thousand US dollars, but it's also, being described as a as a mini MBA for for explorers.

14:14 So we get access to, you know, unbelievable exit expertise from the BHP team, both from a technical expertise, capacity, helping supplement our work, but also from a man managerial capacity, mentor sharing, mentoring, leadership, various work processes, and so on, which is really, increasing the efficiency and the operating capacity of of ESTAR and, putting us in a position where we can scale really, really well. So this program has been fantastic for us for for all of those reasons. We've pegged two licenses within the area of, interest that that that makes up part of this program, and that's the algas and the snowy license. And we are just in the process of signing a contract for the soils, to begin on that, and I'm expecting them to mobilize next week.

15:06 So soils will be the first, part of the the field work for the targeting of those two licenses, But there's ongoing macro work that's being done from from a belt scale perspective to pick up, what we hope to be a significant number of other targets that we can we can progress, with porphyry exploration. And for those of you unaware, porphyries projects supply about 80% of the world's copper today. So they are a fantastic mineralization style for big tier one deposits. As I mentioned before, you know, that more than 5,000,000 tons of contained copper, more than 200,000 tons of copper production per year target, which groups like BHP really require to to to move the needle and and have it be investable.

15:55 So we're really looking forward to continuing on with that program and and providing updates to the market as as we have more information. Sedimentary hosted copper concept is is fairly new for us as well, Really driven out of our new technical director, Chris Van Wick, which I I still pronounce his name wrong, which he he he can tell me off for. And and his past expertise amongst many others, which included a few years heading up porphyry exploration programs for some major companies, was the head of said hosted copper exploration for First Quantum, who are arguably some of the best said hosted copper explorers in the world with their work in Africa.

16:41 And so that's been a real win for us, him him bringing GE Tech on board and and that agreement with GE Tech, which is means ultimately we don't have to pay for for the initial targeting work. And the work they're doing, I've seen, is absolutely outstanding. So I'm really looking forward to them being able to complete that work and us, applying that to the field and, and and hopefully pegging some some said hosted copper exploration licenses. And so you're aware, the people already looking for said hosted copper specifically in Kazakhstan, includes Rio Tinto, First Quantum, and the other, Kazakh Explorer that's part of the BHP explore program, they have a set hosted copper exploration license. And so it's a highly sought after mineralized style as well, and, and we're really really looking forward to adding, some of those licenses to our portfolio.

17:37 So there we are. About a month and a half ago, I said in a month's time, we'll have a jolt resource, and we did. What I what I'm really trying to or or what I'd like to get across to investors is, you know, we are a company that say we're going to do something, then we go and do it, and then we tell you that we did it, and we tell you what we're going to do next. And I think we've got a demonstrable track record of that now over the last couple of years. We have our first maiden resource in in Vekuber in in an infrastructure rich region, which has a very high potential for low CapEx and and quick to development projects especially with Vekuba being our our principal asset there at the moment. We are doing initial ta porphyry targeting with with BHP explore and initial sediment hosted targeting.

18:26 What I expect to have with field season starting imminently, literally tomorrow, the guys are, getting in their cars and and starting to head out for their first, first geological transects, is we will be announcing the results of of the soils on, Snowy and Arugas and and and then what the next steps are for those assets assuming they are heading towards drill ready targets. We expect to be picking up additional porphyry and sediment hosted exploration targets. And, of course, some some more immediate high impact work being the drilling of of the VMS targets and the additional work we we continue to do on Vancouver outside, of course, of the corporate work being the process that we're running on Vancouver and and any updates we can provide on that in the next, month or two.

19:15 And within twelve months, as I say, really, really hoping that, that we will be on top of all of the field work results, we will be demonstrating that we're the partner of choice to some pretty major players in Kazakhstan. And, and hopefully that will will demonstrate to major investors and to yourselves and and and continue to to do to the governor of Kazakhstan that that we are efficient, effective explorers in Kazakhstan, and we can really get the job done. So, having some major players on on, in some form of joint venture would be a really great way for us to demonstrate and I I very much feel we're on track for that.

19:58 There we are. Thank you very much for your time. I think our three takeaway messages, which is the same as it was last time and and the time before, is Kazakhstan is an absolutely fantastic place to be. 2,650,000 square kilometers of of just wonderful exploration territory that's completely underexplored. Copper, is a thematic that you need to be in still today even with it above $10,000 a ton, I feel it's being underappreciated, from certainly a lot of copper, companies that are miners or explorers in the space, that have not started to to have that knock on value that that should come from an increase in the commodity price. And, of course, if the commodity price continues to increase.

20:43 And the final point being EAST STAR RESOURCES, the company is the best way to get exposure to those two fantastic thematics. So that's it for me. Thank you very much for your time, and, I'll pause for some more questions. Alex, thank you very much for your presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the q and a tab situated on the top right hand corner of your screen. Just while the company take a few moments to review those questions submitted today, I'd 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 investor dashboard. Alex, as you can see, we have received a number of questions throughout today's presentation. Please ask you to read out the questions and give responses where appropriate to do so, and I'll pick up from you at the end. Certainly. Many thanks. And, as before, I'll, read out all of the questions and, do my best to to be open and transparent about answering them as long as it's not, not not, wall crossing anyone, untoward.

21:38 So the first question is what is the most prospective area in the entire license portfolio? Does it have a drill permit, and when, is the plan to drill it? I guess ultimately that really depends on on on what you're searching for. It's very difficult to say what's the most prospective, you know, we if I take the VMS for example, you know, the EM survey that we did produced out of out of hundreds and hundreds of anomalies produced about 48 targets. Our field work from those targets refined it down to around 25. And since then, we've been trying to move and rank them based on a review of historical data. So the three or four that we've got, it it it would be a little bit difficult for me to to rank those, quite frankly.

22:26 You know, I like the look of all of them, but for different reasons. One that we've put out data on in the past is Teloskoye, for example, which has some fantastic, incredibly high grade geochemical rock ship samples taken taken from surface and from from Gossoms and from ore grade samples. However, it it ranks lower on some of the other targeting metrics that we have. So it's a bit difficult to to say which one I like the most. I might have to defer that one to to one of my technical directors. On the on the rest of the portfolio, sedimentary, we we don't have specific targets yet. And porphyry, we're still very much learning about. So I think the soils will tell us about iagas and snowy. I know both of them look very, very good on the spectral imaging that we've been conducting over the last week or so, and the teams will be out this week doing more detailed spectral work and and geological traverses to to help review those targets prior to the soil starting.

23:29 So yeah. Sorry. We can't give the that full detail yet. In answer to your question about permits, yes, we're going through that permitting process at the moment. So the only thing that you that you don't tend to have through the permitting process until you know exactly where you're going to drill is something called servitude or, which is basically land access, and it's something you sign with the landholder. Most of the time for us, it's the it's the municipality, the acumat, as they say in Kazakhstan. But some of them are private landholders. So some of the areas we signed last year and we didn't drill, and so, that that permit still stands, and some of them we're going through the process of of permitting. But to date, we haven't had any issues getting approval, specifically for any areas that we've wanted to drill. So I touch with that. That remains the same.

24:20 How does the company plan to attract, high quality investors? Well, I'll I'll have a look at the polls. High quality investors is is is a is a question, isn't it? I mean, my my view would be that if you're a shareholder of ESTAR, then that makes you a high quality investor. But look, I I I appreciate the question. You know, the share register itself, as we've said, is is is principally myself, well, the two largest shareholders, myself and and the Flannery family. There's no doubt that they should be considered incredibly sophisticated and incredibly high high quality investors. You know, they've got a a very demonstrable track record of that. And now, albeit not on the share register, we believe that that, you know, being one of six recipients from more than 500 applications in the BHP explore program arguably makes us a recipient of some other high quality investors, in this case BHP.

25:16 So we'll see how we can, you know, continue that process with them and potential other parties. I think the on the register, there's a few varying interests in that, you know, in getting institutional money, for example, onto the register. And a couple of those issues are are are market cap and liquidity. Now both have have increased quite dramatically over the last three to four weeks, which is fantastic. But I'd suggest we've got a long way to go before you can get some of the major institutions, the likes of well, they back in the day, was it was BlackRock and and so on and and still is. But they as far as I'm aware, they still very much have sort of liquidity and and size thresholds. You know, the work we're doing should see us there. Would very much hope at some stage in in hope for the not too distant future.

26:07 So, you know, watch this space. How many years do you expect it could take to exploit, the open pit potential of a Kubi deposit? Is there a potential cash flow before the end of the decade? Yeah. I mean, certainly, I would say before the end of the decade. Absolutely. In fact, that's given me probably quite a lot more leeway than I would have given myself, to be honest. It look. It's a tough one to ask, to to to answer, you know, with any massive degree of specificity. I I would say that if we are in control of the program and and therefore can can run at our own pace, then towards the end of this year, as I've said in the past, we'll be hopefully putting a scoping study or a pre feasibility study onto this, so end of this year or or early next year.

26:59 And with that in place, then you can start going through the permitting process as you continue to do the work to derisk, you know, convert it to a bankable feasibility study or a DFS depending on on the level of work you need to do. If our partner is with a known mind builder, then they might choose to do less work that that we might otherwise do on feasibility work because they have very much, a lot of experience in that field. So, arguably, they could push something forward faster faster than we would if we're managing it ourselves. But I would say, it would be more than fair for twelve months of feasibility work initially and then twelve months of further feasibility work plus permitting before we'd be looking to before it's realistic that we'd break ground.

27:47 So I'd be leaning more towards 2026 than than 2030, which hopefully is is reasonable based on on what you've written there. Thanks, Peter. Considering global shifts towards electrification and a structural deficit in copper, how is ESTAR positioning itself to capitalize on these market dynamics? Well, I really hope that I've, I've I've made that a major point within my presentation. You know, if if I'm to try and elaborate on that anymore, it would really be about trade routes, which, you know, to be fair, might be a little bit early for me to to start discussing in any serious detail considering we're not, you know, we're not in production anytime soon. But, you know, we should note that that Kazakhstan is is absolutely, fantastically located in terms of market access. It it takes a third of the time to get goods from China to Europe, if it's done through the one belt, one road initiative through the middle corridor, the vast majority of which, is via Kazakhstan.

28:49 So Kazakhstan continued to invest in its infrastructure and looking to to do more work on the Caspian Sea to build out the port capacity there. And, certainly, we're seeing a lot of investment from groups like China, but also groups like European Bank for Reconstruction and and Development, which are building roads in Kazakhstan. They're gasifying some of the power plants here. And and so, you know, there's a heavy level of investment to increase that. So, you know, we're looking for the cod bump. That's our principal job. We're looking for it in the right place, the a place that we feel we can find it and find big deposits, but also the right place from a market access perspective. And and, certainly, you know, I can't remember where Kazakhstan is today, but, you know, the vast majority of its of its copper, is processed internally and then exported or and exported as well. There's three copper smelters in Kazakhstan.

29:43 So, you know, we would expect to be able to get access to to all of that existing infrastructure. Okay. Hopefully, I answered that, Andrew, but please fire another one if if if I've missed the mark. I understand that copper is the primary focus and for a very good reason, but shouldn't some resources also be put into the rare earth elements part of the company portfolio? Thanks for the question, James. We we've discussed this in detail at board level. And the the very short answer is we have decided to focus to to to not focus on the rare earths principally, and and we did put that in our last annual report. I I liked the rare earth initially. It had all of the hallmarks of an IAC, which was essentially an ionic clay.

30:34 And, again, as some of you may well know, this you know, the the advisory panel on this was was probably one of the best geologists in the world on on rare earth deposits. So we certainly felt that we had all of the right indicators and all of the right information. It was an existing an old deposit. So from a geological perspective, the risk was very low, and our drilling reiterated that. So we drilled a thousand meters and hit absolutely fantastic, very, very high grade for IAC results. And then the metallurgical test work that we did basically for us meant that it, it wasn't easy. Not, impossible, but not easy. The board has discussed it in detail, and we came to the conclusion that, the market didn't give us a lot of credit for doing that deal.

31:25 You know, our share price didn't really move up at all. We didn't get any credit for, drilling fantastic drill results, in the rare earths, and yet we lost a market cap when we put out less than perfect, let's say, metallurgical results. And so the risk reward for ESTAR as a company became too high, basically. If we don't get credit for doing good work and and and we lose value for doing negative work for what could be considered negative work, then that makes it a much a much harder project to continue to invest in. At the time, we'd spent less than a $100,000 on that project, and we lost about 2,000,000 in market valuation due to the investment in that project, which is not the right risk reward that we need to be presenting to shareholders.

32:12 So today, it's very much I wouldn't even consider it on the back burner. I'd say it's when when we're not interested in progressing the rare earths at this stage. Albeit, I do feel that there is potential in that area.

32:29 There is a smelter in the in the Rumnal type. Do you see an environment where non Chinese smelter smelted copper will demand a premium in Western markets? Oh, that's a that's a very good question. No. No. Not really. I I probably don't know enough about the smelting market to to be really definitive on this front. But, know, there's a lot of talk of bifurcation of of of various metal prices. Copper's not particularly high on that list. One of the big ones that people are talking about at the moment is the nickel market, for example, because Indonesian nickel is is essentially shut down most of Australia's nickel production, including BHP and and groups linked to Fortescue because they're such a low cost producer, but very arguably arguably with lower environmental standards.

33:22 I don't understand that to be the case for Chinese copper smelters. I I believe that their standards are are probably on par from a global scale. Some smelters are good, some are bad, and it largely depends on where they draw their power from and and what sort of products that they're taking. And so it chops and changes, but no, I I I wouldn't be predicting personally, I wouldn't be predicting a a bifurcation of those prices. I'd probably need to defer to some people a bit more intelligent than I am on on the global copper market to answer that in more detail. Do you have a ballpark NPV for the Vekuba jock? Resource, appreciate that there would be lots of assumptions as such. Yeah. Yeah. There would be a lot of assumptions.

34:08 Look. We have internal models, but I'm I'm not really in a position to to discuss it quite honestly. The the the only number that was ever published, which was which was not our number was AMC, which published as part of the JORC exploration target, and that was largely because I think they they they saw an opportunity and and the person that worked at AMC is is very good like that. So he ran a bunch of nested pit shells completely off his own bat and and and and looked at the open pit potential, was also a non CapEx open pit. So that's the only number that's been published in the past on that. I wouldn't be willing to talk about it until we do our own internal feasibility work and actually go through the process of of a scoping study or pre phase, independently.

34:58 What I'll say is is that if we didn't think it was, a, worth a lot more money than our company, then we wouldn't be running a process to sell it. And, b, we also wouldn't be continuing to invest in it. You know, it it it does have a considerable amount of potential. And the resource we put out, don't forget, was done at $9,000 a ton for copper, and we're already at 10,200. So, you know, if you're profitable at 9, then every dollar above 9 is is is on the bottom line. It doesn't go towards paying your OpEx or your CapEx. So that's something to to be considered. Sorry. I can't give you any more detail on that. Is there a deadline for the partnership or sell data room access opening time? Yes. There is. We're running a process.

35:46 I I again, we're keeping that in house, the exact deadlines at the moment. You know, in certain times, in certain instances, if you really wanted to keep a party at the table, but they requested more time, for instance, then there might be an a degree of flexibility on that. But, ultimately, we started running a process because people were showing interest for a long period of time, had been in the data room for a while, and actually now it's time to say, right. Well, we've had an offer, so this is it. We need to, make a decision. So we're going to try and as as much as we can to keep to the time frame that we've dictated. And, you know, I've said to the market that I expect it to take several months, hopefully culminating by June. And today, I I I'm I'm still holding to that.

36:35 What did BNP get out of the tie up? BHP, I presume, Paul. Is the assumption that that will be partner of choice for any project identified? The structure of the agreement is as such that we've identified an area of interest that that makes up the agreement. And within that area of interest and as part of the program, they have, in essence, a right of first refusal to to, to simplify, what it's called, a right of first refusal. So that's, that's for for being a participant in the program. Now, and receiving the funds, of course, from BHP, what we hope is is is to be able to progress it further than that. So that will be a long conversation.

37:21 You know, they do quite a lot of due diligence on us before the program starts. They continue to do very, very intense, due diligence throughout the course of the program. I I guess they monitor our performance within the program as well and not just from a geological, concept, you know, how well we progress, the the the targeting and using the mineral systems approach, to something that that is of interest to BHP, but how well we perform in our managerial aspects and ensuring the company is up to BHP standards for for leadership, for health and safety, and so on. And so, you know, we've been working really hard at all those other metrics as well as as progressing the geology to to hopefully put us in a front seat on that. So the the only real, in essence, in answer to your question, what do they get out of it? It is it's the data that we produce and the right of first refusal to to to make it simple, the right of first refusal over anything that we do in that area.

38:22 Can you give us a high level percentage profit per ton relative to the current spot price for low cost? Average cost and high cost miners, please. If you want, you can concentrate in Kazakhstan. Sorry. Let me just read that again. Can you give us a high level percentage profit per ton? I can't. No. No. I'm well, sorry. Not for Vekuba. If you're talking about operating in in Kazakhstan, I can give you some examples. Kaz Minerals have two porphyries, in particular, Boschakol and Aktogay. Both are running at around point 3% copper, a little bit more and a little bit less, and and there's penalties and there's some there's some credits as well from both mines. But point 3% copper could be deemed quite low from a global scale perspective, and yet those two mines are in the lowest quartile producers on the planet.

39:14 So that is a real demonstration of how, well a good operator can work in Kazakhstan, how how low they can produce, how low cost they can produce, you know, a major copper mine. So I I think that's the question. For for the VMS stuff, yeah, it's it's a little bit hard to say at the moment, but, you know, I'd be hard pressed to think that we would be a high cost producer and particularly from from the potential that we actually hopefully won't be paying back much of a CapEx because, we'll be using some some existing infrastructure. How complex is the permitting process in Kazakhstan? Once you've feasibility plan, how long do you have to wait for approval? Paul, that's a good question. It's it's been going through iterations, the approvals process, as has the subsoil law the last couple of years.

40:06 I I I can't give you the full rundown on that, quite frankly, because I'm not, I'm not super familiar with it. What I do have is we've spoken to a number of advisers to to get an idea of how long it might take, and we think that twelve months is is more than fair, in terms of in terms of, being what what I've said to the stock market is I we believe we can get it permitted after the the feasibility work within roughly that period of time. You know, I hope that everyone knows I tend to tend to be conservative, relatively on that front, so there's a potential it could go faster. But I think it's fair to say that that would be, you know, maybe a reasonable period of time for permitting. Again, it depends on who's doing it. Is it is it EAST STAR RESOURCES PLC a lot of experience in that field? It also depends on what's being permitted.

40:59 You know, I'm assuming that we're not building a tailings facility or a or a processing facility in some instances. If we are building those, then I would expect the permitting to take take a bit longer. How do you think the Vancouver farm out process will be fine? Sorry. Do you think the Vancouver farm out process will be finalized by the end of June twenty twenty four? Yes. I hope so. I think it will be I I think the player will will be have been selected, and I and we will have announced who that is, and the initial agreements have been signed. There's a chance that there's additional paperwork. It's like signing a a binding heads of agreement subject to final due diligence, for example. You know, there might still be some final things that that need ticking off by that stage, but, but I would hope that that we've updated the market well and truly within that that time.

41:56 That's the end of the question. So that was great, everyone. Thank you. We've kept it to to forty five minutes, which was really good, very insightful questions. And and so if there's nothing else, I'll I'll I'll say thanks once again for your time, for the shareholders. Thank you very much for for sticking with us. We're really starting to to demonstrate what I believe to be a once in a lifetime opportunity here. And I'm feeling incredibly confident we'll be delivering more news to you in the not too distant future coming months from drilling new targets, joint ventures, and the like. It's a really, really exciting time to be an ESTAR shareholder. So thank you once again. Appreciate it. Alex, thank you for updating investors today. Can I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations?

42:43 This will only take a few moments to complete, and I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of ESTAR RESOURCES PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you all.