First Mining Gold: 2020 - A Year of Transformation

0:11 Hi, everyone. Welcome to FirstMine and Gold's live investment summit today, hosted by 6. 2020, a year of transformation. We're joined today by CEO Dan Wilton, and we also have on the line Spiros Kakos, Vice President of Investor Relations, who's going to be leading our live Q&A segment today. Dan's going to kick things off by walking us through a complete presentation. As I mentioned, we will be opening up the floor for questions. Remember, you can always submit your questions in the Q&A panel on the right-hand side of

0:41 the screen. Today's presentation is also downloadable in the handouts tab, so make sure you check that out. And as always, this event is being recorded and will be available on SIX.com afterwards. Now, without further ado, I'm gonna hand it over to Dan. Thanks, Jane, and thanks to all of our partners at 6 for hosting us yet again and another one of these webinars. You know, we've had a few of these this year talking about, you know, some pretty significant changes in our business. And as we were reflecting as we're coming in toward the year end here, we just wanted to take some time to. Have an opportunity in this format to connect with our- wonderful group of investors again- and we really are blessed with the with the shareholder base is so active and engaged so thanks for thanks for joining us again today- I'm gonna make a few forward looking statements as we go through this presentation.

1:37 It's really important as we were taking a step back looking at what we've accomplished as a team in 2020, I wanted to highlight a couple of important things and that's, you know, that our team is continuing to change. And I think we continue to make really good quality additions to our team. And most recently, there's a couple of team members who joined that we just wanted to highlight, one of which is Steve Lines, who's just joined us as a VP Environment and Community Relations. Steve has a fantastic background in leading mining companies through environmental assessments and actually has a background as a regulator prior to that. But most recently, Steve led the permitting process, all of the environmental assessment process of the Hard Rock project, which is Greenstone Goldmines joint venture between Centara and Premier, which is a very similar size and scope of project to Springpole.

2:35 Actually probably the most comparable project to Springpole in terms of size and scale in Ontario. So Steve comes to us with great relationships really throughout the province And I think a real demonstrated ability to move the project forward, not just through the EA process, but also to build those really critical win-win relationships with the indigenous communities in the area. And also just wanna highlight here, we had Richard Wong join us as our new VP, Corporate Development. I think only a couple of months ago, but already making a huge contribution. So we continue to make some great additions to the team, which I think is really going to speak to really going to speak to the program that we'll talk about for us to continue to surface value for the company as we move into 2021.

3:26 Another really important addition to our team is on our board of directors with Leanne Hall joining us. And Leanne has an entire career, a background of really working with and forming partnerships with and working for indigenous communities really throughout Canada. So we're absolutely delighted that Leanne's joined us. And again, on a board level already making a great contribution. So some really important changes to the team that I think are gonna reflect in, as we'll talk about the game plan going forward, I think make sure that we have the right lineup of people moving into what is going to be a really critical year for 1st mining in 2021. So we won't spend too much time on the overview of the update. I suspect Most of the people who are here with us today are long-term shareholders.

4:21 But just to make sure that we do hit the highlights here, advancing spring poll, which remains one of the largest undeveloped open pit gold deposits in Canada. Pre-feasibility study, we are not quite but almost to the point of seeing our first glimpses of the economics of the PFS and ultimately aiming to have that PFS out in January, which we're very excited about. And continuing, and we'll talk about the game plan for 2021 and some of the catalysts, but really 2021 is a real focus on moving SpringPoll through the EA process and formulating, finalizing, and submitting that environmental assessment document.

5:10 And as you will know, we're very well funded from all of the capital raises that we've done in 2020. And I think in a remarkable environment where delighted to be in the office today, but much of 2020 spent working from the basement office at home. I think we've really in this pandemic have been able to do some pretty amazing things. And that's a real testament to, I think, the quality of our team and really the dedication they put into moving things forward. So absolutely delighted with that. On top of that, we remain the largest shareholder of Treasury Metals, which is making some great progress in advancing the development of the combined Goliath and Goldmund projects. So I think some exciting news coming out in Q1 around the first real PEA and scoping of those combined projects, which I think is going to give a good sense of a development path to the market. We're very excited about that.

6:12 And as many of you would know, We are still planning the distribution of a portion of our shares, about half of the shares and all the warrants that we got in the Treasury Metals deal. So very excited about that. And that, again, should be happening around the time of our AGM. We're just working on some of the finer points of that plan right now. And the balance of the portfolio, as we've sort of changed the degree to which the company is funded and changed our financial capability here, We've had a bit more of a focus on the portfolio assets and I think have a really well-developed game plan that we've started to execute on. And we saw that in the last couple of weeks with the announcement of our continued consolidation of our Cameron project and some really exciting opportunities around there as well.

7:05 We continue to trade at a significant discount to our peers and our number 1 goal in 2021 is narrowing that gap of that discount that we trade at relative to our peers. And I think we do that by continuing to focus on the fundamental value of the assets that we have. And we've already talked about the team. So, you know, as we've been coming to the end of the year and spending some time thinking and recapping what we've done. It's been a really busy time. And as you can see here, I think this just lays out what's been really the kind of the key strategic moves. You know, with starting the year with our Pickle Crow option and our agreement with Ateco Minerals, great partners. We were on another, we kind of have monthly meetings with Ateco on Pickle Crow and had our December monthly meeting yesterday and great to connect with them. I think team's doing a fantastic job moving that project forward. I think some really exciting things coming as they're getting a better understanding of the resource at Pickle Crow, and they're really excited about resource growth, which is exciting.

8:18 Our smaller equity financing, which we're very happy to have completed in late February, early March, which really gave us proper breathing room going into the pandemic. And that I think allowed us to take a step back and focus on a couple of the things that we thought we really needed to do in order to really surface the value of our assets and change the long-term sustainability of our business from a funding perspective. And so we did a couple of those things, our GoldLund-Goliath combination with Treasury and our SilverStream financing with 1st Majestic, both of those announced in the first half of June. And that led to, I think, once the SilverStream had closed, people started realizing that we actually had a proper funding runway to advance SpringPool through some really key milestones.

9:12 And that allowed us to complete our bought deal financing in August. So but on top of that, those are sort of, if you look at those as the key milestones, a lot of other, a lot of other work ongoing. You can see in the, in the key 2020 announcements, the PFS at Springpole, which is really rounding the corner to its conclusion. This recently consolidated the land package around Cameron. Big drill program going at Goldline, which will start seeing results in the new year. Very big drill program going at Pickle Crow. It's the increased Indigenous

9:51 background and track record with Leanne Hall joining us at the board level, and then continuing to add to our team with Steve, as I've talked about. So I think we're really, really well set up for a 2021 that's going to have us making some great progress on our milestones. Sitting today with just shy of 700 million shares issued and outstanding, fully diluted a little over 800, market capital around 300 million, cash on hand, I think that's probably ticked a little bit below 30 at this point. But still, the important point on this is between cash on hand, marketable securities and the balance of our SilverStream receivable, It's about $60 million of financial flexibility there, which we think gives us a really good, solid footing to be able to confidently move the SpringPool forward and make the investments we need to make to get Springpole through the EA process and to the finish line.

10:51 Current ownership, a small but growing institutional component at about 16%, but still predominantly 80% retail investors and a lot of our longstanding and really supportive investors who've been with us the whole time that I've been here since the beginning of 2019. And it's difficult for me to overstate how much we really value and appreciate those shareholders who are so engaged. And again, thanks for being here to join us today. So when we look at 2020, you know, the word, the word transformational is used a lot in, in business, but sort of joking aside, I think you can see here some of the change, you know, just in the cash position, and that's just cash, and you add on the marketable securities, that would be from 6 to 60.

11:44 The cash and other investments, you know, sort of starting, ending last year with about 8 million, today that number is 175 million when you factor in the attributed value of Pickle Crow and our Oteko shares and our ownership of Treasury and some of the other things we got in the Goldlund deal,

12:06 a real step change in the financial flexibility of this business. And I think answering what was one of the most pressing questions that we always faced, which was, how are you going to keep this company funded to go through a really expensive EA process? So I think we've finally put that to bed in 2020, and we're very proud to have done that. When you look at the change in the share price, nice reflection versus the GDXJ, I think that's just a reflection of how the market, as we've changed the risk reward profile of the business, how the markets actually come to understand that. And our market cap now increased to about $300 million from, you know, in the pandemic times, Canadian dollars, I think it got to, it was about $100. So this is a really meaningful change and I think leaves us very well set up to move forward through 2021.

13:04 Again, here are some of our key catalysts and why we're so excited. You know, we've got the SpringPool PFS, which we're anticipating having out in January. With that, we'll trigger another $7.5 million receivable from 1st Majestic, which again, continues migrating some of that stream receivable to cash. And then over the course of 2021, the real focus, prepare and submit the environmental impact statement document, continue in our consultation and really collaboration with our local communities. Continue the technical de risking on the project, so we've got some metallurgical and

13:49 some some infill drilling that we're actually just find just finalizing the scoping of now on Springpole and very excited about that. And I think that'll lead to basically the last of the technical work that we feel we will need as we advance toward feasibility. And then for the first time in a long time at SpringPool, actually conducting some regional exploration, which we're very excited about. We've got a couple of really interesting targets that we're going to test this year, actually in the next couple of months. So we hope to have some interesting news around there. And then on treasury metals, you know, I think we're gonna see this integrated Goldlund Goliath PEA in Q1. I think is gonna give the market a real sense of how that project is really going to frame itself up as one of the more robust development projects in the sector.

14:38 Big drill program, both infill and extension underway there. And we're targeting, again, that distribution of half of our shares and all of our warrants directly out to our shareholders, sort of by the end of Q2, which around the time of our AGM. So work on that is in process. At Pickle Crow, 45,000 meter drill program, which we're speaking with our partners at a tech go yesterday there. Driving toward having that done kind of by the end of Q 2, so we give them a little bit of a of a leeway here and on the back of all of that. Drilling and exploration. They're going to look at preparing a new resources are understanding. But as we think about the timing of when they are going to execute on their earn in spend. We think it's their phase 1 earn in, which was after $5 million of spend, I think will happen in Q1.

15:36 And to get to the balance of that $10 million spend, it should coincide probably with the conclusion of that 45,000-meter drill program. So an important point on there is that that triggers some obligations for them to deliver us some cash and some more shares. So I think that's not to lose sight of that, but more importantly, it's just the value that they've been able to build and focus people on at Pickle Crow. And then the other portfolio assets, again, I think some interesting consolidation and moving forward on an exploration plan at Cameron, where I think we're getting a better sense of a real regional picture at Cameron. And what a lot of people don't appreciate about Cameron, we'll talk about this in a minute, but you know it's sitting less than 100 kilometers from Rainy River, but it's also sitting about 100 kilometers from Dryden if you go sort of the roads and sort of through the forest to the forestry trails to the north and east. So pretty interesting outcome there, but we're excited to get back to work at Cameron and get some exploration going there.

16:49 But over the course of Q1, doing some important consultation with our communities at Cameron as well, moving through there. And then on the balance of our assets, Hope Brook, Quebec, royalty portfolio, we still think that there's lots of value for us to surface in 1st mining in 2021. So lots of work going on on that front as well. And how does this all reflect in our current valuation? We think not very well. As we think about our value and really the constituent components of our value, this is how we've really been framing the value proposition for 1st mining for our investors. As we see it, we're sitting with about a $300 million market cap.

17:38 Strategic investments, cash and securities, and that Silver Stream coming totals about $190 million of the $300 million. So you are getting the balance of about $1.7 billion of asset value for about $100 million of market cap. And Important in that is the NPV at Springpole, which we show here, this is at $1,500 based on our PEA.

18:09 And I think that we're very, very excited to see how the economics are going to shape up through the PFS. But irrespective of that, there's been a lot of really, really good work and thought into how we define the most robust project that we can at Springpool. So a lot of really good technical work, important trade-off studies having been done over the course of the last year, our understanding of the natural environment, our understanding of the flexibility of the deposit, our understanding of the metallurgy, all really significantly advanced. So we're very excited about that. And then the other portfolio assets, Cameron, Hope, Brooke, Quebec. I mean, I think each of those should be reflected at 50 to 100 million dollars of value or more in our market cap.

18:59 And right now you're definitely getting those for free. So I think our view is there's some opportunities for us potentially in 2021 to move forward a few of these, a few of the other projects ourselves, or potentially find some partners for a couple of the other projects as well. So, but it leaves us sitting very clearly still at a very, very attractive valuation. And I think we see very few impediments from us going from where we are sitting today to getting up to a value that would be more representative of your advanced developers. You know, we're going to be declaring reserves at SpringPool in 2021, early in 2021. And I think when you look at the quality of our reserves, the quality of the project that SpringPool is, and how we are funded to move it forward, we think that we deserve to be certainly further over, if not really toward the far end of this chart here, over on the right side, not the left side. So that's our goal in 2021 is to migrate our value up toward and potentially past that at advanced developers average.

20:16 The impact that would have on the company would be a, you know, doubling, tripling of market cap. So how do we get there? The answer is very simple. We need to continue to focus on the fundamental value of our projects. We need to have great people moving them forward. We need to work in collaboration with our local communities. And we need to continue to advance the projects. And that's exactly what we're gonna do. And we're very well funded to continue to do that. So I won't take up too much more time here. I think I'll move pretty quickly. You don't need to go through all that much detail on spring-fall. I think everyone understands it, but only to say, you know, with respect to catalysts in 2021, PFS coming out, we're targeting for January. So you won't have to wait too much longer to See the progress there.

21:11 And again are really are critical time frames here, and I think if there's on this, this has been the timing slide. If there is 1 impact, and we're just getting to a point of understanding it now with Steve having joined us and really going back to reassess the timeframes on the environmental impact statement and the EA process overall, I think you probably end up seeing this EIS document pushed out later in 2021, but our goal is still to get that filed in 2021, start this federal and provincial review process and ultimately still targeting federal and provincial EIS approval in 2023. So in the back of that, PFS coming out early 2021, lots of sort of longer lead time technical work that we and it's really going to be sort of optimization work that we're going to look at sort of in advance of a feasibility study, but ultimately looking at a feasibility study.

22:12 We'll figure out when exactly we kick that off. You don't want to do it too early before you have your environmental approvals. And a big part of what we need to do in 2021 in consultation with our communities is make sure that we have really properly listened and understood their concerns and have a chance to reflect that ultimately in the environmental impact statement going forward. So there's some really important work that needs to happen in the first half of 2021 around understanding traditional land use and traditional knowledge of our key communities in the area. So we're very excited to get that work underway as well. But I think you don't undertake a feasibility study until you've really kind of with our communities, make sure we've locked down a scope and invest the time up front so that everyone's comfortable in that process as we move forward. So lots of work going on at Springpole and then on the broader portfolio again very exciting times at at Treasury Metals. The new CEO Jeremy Wyeth started last week I think, You know, seems strange that he's already making, I think, a really big impact.

23:28 Having only been there, well, I think he's, yeah, only been there a week, but we're very excited about how this program is being scoped up. And again, we think Goldmund Goliath is going to show itself to be one of the most robust development projects in Canada. I got our partners at Ateco again, this 45,000 meter drill program and ultimately a resource update, I think to come on the back of that, very well-funded. They've got 31 million in cash. And I think third drill rig, If it hasn't hit the site, it's on its way. And they're talking about even increasing from there. So very exciting times with the Teco and Pickle Crow. They're hitting it really hard and have been great partners to work with. And Cameron, this we announced a couple of weeks ago and just it fills in a really, really important part of our land package at Cameron. And, you know, the Cameron deposit, the resources that we have stated is really just at the main Cameron deposit. But the Cameron project is a much, much bigger regional package.

24:35 So, and it's, it's geologically complicated. It's seen a reasonable amount of work, lots of drilling in different areas, but I don't think anyone's ever really put together a large, proper, large scale structural understanding of the area. And so I think we have some really foundational work to do here. But the leverage coming out of Cameron, I think is immense. And it's immense because it's in a great location. And ultimately, if you believe that Gold Lung Goliath is moving forward and you've got Rainy River, you know, less than 100 kilometers away, I think it just leaves you with a number of different options in terms of how a project at Cameron could develop over the next couple of years. So very exciting. And again, our main focus, I think, is to scope and ultimately get a drill program going at Cameron in 2021.

25:28 So we're very excited about that. And then the balance of the assets, again, never have enough time to talk about them, but our Quebec projects, it's a really, really interesting set of assets in Quebec that we've started to turn our minds to how we might surface some of the value there. Hope Brook is sitting with almost 844,000 ounces of indicated gold resource on the coast in Newfoundland in a very, very exciting exploration district. And then one of the things that we don't spend a lot of time thinking about, but ultimately we spend a lot of time thinking about, we don't spend a lot of time talking about it, is our gold royalty portfolio that we have in this company. Where, you know, as we've done deals on Goldland and Pickle Crow and some of our Mexican projects and the project we had in the US, Turquoise Canyon, it's leaving us with very interesting royalties that I think those alone could have a value in that $50 to $100 million range if you look at some of the comparables for advanced stage projects and million ounce resources in great jurisdictions. So all very exciting there, lots of work to do.

26:47 And ultimately, our real focus here is unlocking the value for 1st mining shareholders. So I think we've got a great plan to do that at SpringPool. We're going to see some of that value at GoldLund Goliath and at the portfolio assets. I don't won't spend any really any more time than that because it's important here. What we'd really like to do is take some questions from our shareholder base. And again, Thanks everyone for joining us and a very exciting 2021 to come. Great job. Thanks, Dan. Yeah, the first question here is, what is your current view on the M&A market? Are majors going to be making any moves? Yeah, listen, I think the M&A market is very early in the first period in this cycle.

27:43 If you go back to really the last peak, call it 2011, you've seen not just a lack of investment, but you've seen disinvestment from large mining companies in projects over that 8 or 9 year time frame. And that was never going to be sustainable. The larger companies have now come to realize, and I think they started realizing as the gold price started moving in 2019, that they need to start thinking about what the production profile looks like in 2025, 2030. So these are sustainable businesses that are running on depleting assets. That's fundamental to the gold business, to the mining business, is that your assets, every ounce you produce is an ounce that you don't have in reserves anymore. And so those need to be replaced. And I think when large companies have started looking at the end of 2019, they've come to realize that they need to focus on some of those projects. If they want production 10 years out, they need to focus on projects that can start being built in the next 5 years.

28:52 And that narrows down a certain scope. And then you look at what projects are available, what projects have size and scale, and what projects are in jurisdictions that you'd like to own them and mine them and that gets you down to a very, very small list. So I think we haven't seen a lot of activity largely because that the first real push from big companies started in late 2019, you know, early 2020. The corporate development people got budgets and then the pandemic hit. And so for a while, you know, no 1 really could go and see projects. I think collectively the industries all sort of solve that. We've now found a way, you know, with appropriate quarantines or whatever else we need to do to be able to go out to see projects. What's another differentiating factor for our project suite is the location of it.

29:46 You can get to our projects pretty easily from anywhere in Canada, for sure. So I think we are at very early stages and going to start seeing more M&A activity. I think you're going to see it starting on the larger producing assets, single asset producers consolidated into multi-asset producers. And then at some point, as has happened in every cycle in the gold industry, the larger companies start looking at their development pipeline and really trying to focus on where they're going to be able to add significant ounces. And that is difficult. And that's where our opportunity is to have our projects ready at exactly the time that the industry needs them the most. I think with SpringPool, we are spot on right there. We're very, very excited about that. Perfect. Thanks, Dan. Next question.

30:42 Do you have a timetable for the distribution of the Treasury metal shares and warrants? Not a formal timetable yet, although I think what we've been consistent in saying is expectation is it would be around the time of our AGM. So We have a commitment to distribute those by August, but I think our intention is it'll be around the time of an AGM, which would be mid-June. And so there will be a record date in advance of our AGM, like we would have for any AGM, where shareholders at the record date actually vote. We would need a shareholder vote to approve the distribution. And then once that happens, it all kind of happens automatically. You will wake up 1 day with the shares and warrants of Treasury metals and your same shares of 1st mining, which won't have changed.

31:42 And it all sort of happens pretty automatically. And those warrants, So Treasury's already listed on the TSX and OTCQX in the US, and they've committed to list the warrants as well. So the time those get distributed, those warrants are going to have in excess of 2 years of life on them. And sitting right around at the money, it'll be about a, I always get a bit confused because there's a 3 for 1 consolidation of the treasury shares. So I think back to the pre-consolidation numbers, but it's about a dollar 50 exercise price. So it's trading more or less at the money with 2 years of, you know, really 2 plus years of time value in those warrants, which I think are going to be very, very valuable. So particularly in the timeframe that you're going to see Treasury move forward. So I think it's, no, it's very exciting.

32:32 Okay. Next question. With the wheels turning on SpringPool and the other projects, Newfoundland has caught investors' interest. Any comments or thoughts on Hope Bay? Hope Brook. Yeah, listen, I think it's a great project. It really is. It's got a large and established resource. It's a past producing mine. So they produced almost 1 million ounces out of an underground mine at Hope Brook from the early 90s to about 1998. So the metallurgy is well understood and I think you know it's interesting the opportunity last year to go to one of the world's great mining conferences in Bayvert, Newfoundland. This is the Western Newfoundland Mining Conference and you know I really got a good sense of the community that is around in that part of Newfoundland, around mining and lots of really exciting exploration and development with marathon gold having really led the charge, but now with Newfound and others, some really exciting exploration potential in Newfoundland.

33:39 And I think Hope Brook has similar kinds of exploration potential as well. You know, there's something like 30 kilometers of perspective strike length at Hope Brook. So yeah, I think it's a project that deserves to be moved forward. The challenge we have is that We've got a lot of work to do on our other projects. So that's where we're scratching our heads a bit and wondering if Hope Brook would be a logical project for us to find a partner on. That's something that we're still considering at this point. But no, I think it's a great project and right on Tidewater already has a power line to the site that's still energized.

34:25 So there's all kinds of advantages I think that that area has versus some of the more remote or difficult to operate in areas in Newfoundland. But no, it's very exciting. It's a great jurisdiction. And we're excited to surface some value from Hope Brook. Perfect. I'm going to bring you back to SpringPool now. What gold price assumptions are you going to be using for the SpringPool PFS? That's a good question. I mean, I think we are ultimately going to look at something that's around, you know, the benchmarks would be 3 year trailing average and a long-term consensus. And I think when you look at the three-year trailing average and the long-term consensus, both are around $1,500, which is sort of in the same ballpark that a number of other studies have come out with over the course of the last few months. So I think, you know, as important as that point estimate, it's understanding the sensitivity of the economics to changes in gold price.

35:32 And that's something that we'll make sure that we have pretty well understood and described in the PFS, because, you know, a lot of us have a view of gold prices going significantly higher. And so understanding the leverage that the project has to rise in gold prices is almost as important as understanding the spot NPV at whatever the current long-term consensus is. But the one thing we're confident of is this is a really robust project. And for all that we believe in much higher gold prices, this project isn't going to need much higher gold prices to warrant a construction decision when you get it through the permitting process. So, that's just, I think it's going to speak to the robustness of the project and we're excited to show that as we come through the PFS too.

36:24 Okay, next question here. You have only 16% shares ownership from institutional investors. What strategies are you employing to get 1st mining gold, institutional radar and more? Also can you get included back into the junior mining ETF?

36:46 Well on the first part on institutional investors, that was a significant reason and side benefit of the financing that we did in August. About 90 percent of that financing was taken up institutionally. And it allowed us to get some great investors positioned in the company. And a number of those investors have continued adding to that position over the course of the last few months as well, which was exactly the goal. So we've got a great group of institutional investors and that group is is continuing to grow. Listen, I think we need to focus on a few different elements to continue to build that. Part of it is getting some broader conviction from the research community.

37:36 We're covered by a small number of great analysts and we appreciate all the work that they do, but I think you know some of our peers are covered by significantly more places, significantly more firms. So I think that's an area that we can continue to build. And part of it is, we just need to convince the institutional world particularly of the degree of urgency and value that we're seeing right now. So we often kind of face this feedback of, why do I need to invest now? And I think the answer of why you need to invest now is not really any more difficult than we're trading at $14 an ounce versus trading at, our peers are trading at $89 an ounce.

38:24 So you've got this kind of 5x leverage return, which is not, The theory is it might not move significantly before you have your environmental assessment approvals. And it obviously is pricing in some of that risk. But I think when we look at it, we have real confidence of our ability to get the project to those milestones. We're now fully funded to get the project to those milestones and we don't believe there are any significant technical hurdles for us to do that. So still lots of really important work to do to get there But that value doesn't tend to surface overnight in a jump. It tends to accrete over time as you make advances on demonstrating your progress in a reasonably well-defined permitting process and demonstrate progress in your community relations and ultimately your community support for the project. And so that's why this is going to be a really important year for us to make sure foundationally we're making really good strides on that to surface that value. So that's part of the institutional side. I think it will continue to grow as investors, I think gold prices are gonna continue to go up, investors looking for leverage to the gold price, I think we're a very, very attractive home for that. So that's that part. On the GDXJ,

39:54 you know, I've always kind of said that's it's an outcome of a strategy, not a strategy. So I'd love to be included back in. Being in was better than not being in and being taken out was made for a pretty painful 2019. But with all of that behind us, I think right now Spiros trade, we trade a couple million shares a day on the TSX. You know, at 40 cents Canadian, we would need to be 1 million dollars US trading volume on average over, I think, 0.75. So we're just slightly shy of that. Just slightly. That's the only that's the only box that's missing.

40:44 So I think there's, you know, as we continue hitting our milestones, our value accretes, you know, increased investor attention and increased trading, I think will bring that over the course of time. I think increased consolidation in that junior sector is going to help drive that as well. So I'd love for it to happen. Can't tell you when it's going to happen, but I think when we continue to hit the values, it's going to surface on its own. OK, Thanks, Dan. The next question here is, what is your strategy with a gold royalty portfolio? Do you consider selling it or expanding it or spitting it out? It's an interesting question. And I think the person who's posed that question actually has hit on 3 strategic alternatives. One is, do you grow it? One is, do you spin it out and surface value of it that way, allow it to continue to grow?

41:48 Or do you try and capture some of the value from some of these emerging royalty companies that are trading at exceptional values and ultimately sell the portfolio? I think there's a couple of different paths we can go down to do that. We're looking at a few of those paths right now. And it's reasonably well-trodden ground. I don't think we have to break any trail in doing this. But I think one of the things that people just don't appreciate from that royalty package is the quality of it and the location of it, assets that are actually in development, assets that are going to get to production in a 3 to 5 year time frame.

42:34 So I think ultimately if we were going to do something with a royalty package, you'd like to have something with some reasonable size and scale. You'd need some dedicated resources to moving it forward. So we're looking at all of those as alternatives now and ultimately, whatever we do with the royalty package is gonna be really designed to make sure that we can surface more value in the 1st mining share price to reward our shareholders and ultimately have that reflect some of the value of some of these other deals that we've done. OK. Next question here. How is the second wave of the Corona pandemic affecting operations? And what is the policy of the company regarding vaccines?

43:22 Strictly voluntary? Well, that's an interesting question. So in terms of the impact of the second wave, you know, The first wave largely left our main project area in northwest Ontario, largely left that untouched. There were a few isolated cases, but they did a very good job of controlling the pandemic in that part. We were deemed an essential industry really from the beginning of the first wave. So we have always had the ability to move people in and out of camp. As the second wave has arrived, our local area has become a bit more of a challenge, particularly around Winnipeg. Where some of our workforce comes from. There are certainly the area of northwestern Ontario between Winnipeg and Thunder Bay. There is a lot of travel back and forth, and so, it's just introduced more sort of need for more caution.

44:23 And I think the biggest impact that COVID-19 has had on our business has been not so much on our projects but more on our indigenous communities who have have you know obviously been very very focused on understanding and mitigating potential risks of COVID in their communities. And that's just had follow-on impacts for us. And where normally we would be in the communities doing community presentations as part of our consultation work, that's been more difficult because a lot of the communities have been opened or closed over the course of the last few months. But it can absolutely understand the health of the citizens of the First Nations.

45:15 It has to be the absolute priority. And so it's slowed things down a little bit on our side. And it's, I think, taken up a fair amount of the capacity that the communities themselves have in helping move forward other strategic priorities. And we're aiming to make sure that we have the kind of partnership where we can be seen as some of those priorities. But that's kind of been the biggest impact for us and coming as we're looking to kind of remobilize a reasonable winter work program up at Springpole. There's just more considerations around, you know, how do you deal with testing and how do you make sure you keep the camp operations safe. But we've had really robust COVID protocols.

46:04 And you know, so far, knock on wood, have managed to operate in a very safe and effective manner through those COVID protocols. So, you know, we'll see. We're all optimistic about vaccines coming. It'll probably take a little while for that to really work its way all the way through our workforce. But I'm hoping that there's going to be some, you know, government prioritization of those working in remote camps, much like there is in remote communities where, you know, if you're, if you're that much disconnected, at least having some support, whether it's on more frequent testing or whether it's actually an approach to vaccination which could which could help prioritize those as areas of spread.

46:55 Or areas of spread that you want to avoid. We don't have a formal company policy on on vaccines right now. So I think that's something that we'll have to discuss as a team as it starts to come toward fruition. I can only say on my own side one of my main extracurricular activities is vice chair of a health group here in in BC, Providence Health Care and you know we're very excited as are all the frontline workers in health care to have have access to it. So yeah I think we'll we'll wait and see on that one. Perfect. Going back to Springpole, this could be a two-part question here. The first part is, is Springpole under a lake?

47:43 And what infrastructure is in place at Springpole, such as roads, power, etc.? Yeah, so the Springpole portage zone, the main part of the deposit sits under a shallow bay of a lake on a northern northern bay of Springpole Lake. So that's that's one of the things that's been known since it was discovered, was that it's there. And listen, that's, speaking frankly, that's the reason, a big part of the reason why we have this value disconnect is because there are a number of people who've looked at the project who just haven't really looked at the data that we have at the project, which has been in more or less continual collections since 2010. So I think, you know, one of the things we're hoping with the pre-feasibility study and the level of engineering that we've achieved, the level of thought that's gone into the development plan, the level of thought and scoping around, you know, really making it as environmentally robust a project as we can.

48:46 You know, I think when people get to actually understand that, it's pretty easy to get their heads wrapped around. You know, so the development plan involves building less than a kilometer of cofferdams, which average, you know, 5 meters or 15 feet high. So, you know, those of you who are living in a house, it's not quite probably your house is higher than these cofferdams are going to be on average. And, you know, we've had them engineered at a pre-feasibility level by a group that really does nothing but engineer cofferdams. And when you look at the economic impact of it, relative to what would otherwise be a pre-strip in an open pit mine, it actually, in the grand scheme of things, it adds kind of 0.1 to 0.2 on your strip ratio.

49:40 And that's kind of the economic impact of dealing with the water. Now, there's the environmental impact is you just really need to have a very thoughtful plan. You need to understand the water movement around the site. You need to understand how quickly you might be able to move the water into, on the other side of a dam to dewater this part. But It's all part of a development plan that we've now spent another year thinking about and have some really, really strong technical work to back up our, at least our snapshot of a development plan. So, yeah, I think we're very excited about that. And hoping that the pre-feasibility study that we see is really gonna give people a sense of that technical confidence of how we're gonna move the project forward. And I guess the second part of the question on the infrastructure at Springpole, interestingly, the forestry road networks have been continuing to advance up towards Springpole, which is interesting. We have a winter road that goes in over Birch Lake that we had last year, hadn't had it before that for a couple of years. But the winter road, we're excited to get in and hopefully have access in January to be able to drive to the site, which is helpful for camp resupply and fuel and other things.

51:04 But we are about 40 kilometers from a 115 kV power line on the power grid and about 100 kilometers from a brand new 230 kV power line. So power in the area, forest road network in the area, and you know the road network ultimately is something that's really important particularly to one of our main communities at Cat Lake. And so I think it just opens up a lot of opportunities to potentially, for Springpole to play an important role in providing road connections to some of our more remote communities and particularly Cat Lake. So that's that kind of partnership, I think, that really ultimately can open up, you know, real support for the project amongst our communities.

51:52 OK. Dan, could a greater than expected reserve influence the valuation? Greater than expected reserve. Now, I would say it's pretty rare that in a conversion from resource to reserve that you get much that's greater than expected. Listen, I think in the end, every ton of reserve helps, extending your mine life. And I think as we have started to see final mine plans for the PFS, It's a very robust reserve that we're showing, but there's gonna be some opportunity for further resource conversion, which will be part of a plan that we'll have for some infill drilling on the edges as we kind of finish up the PFS and think about this work program going forward.

52:50 What I think could really add some interesting opportunity and should really add to the strategic value of SpringPool is some of the regional exploration. So we've got some really interesting targets that are starting to come together based on, as you're building out a mine, one of the things you do is called condemnation drilling. And that's where you go in areas where you don't think that there's any ore, but you drill just to make sure that you haven't missed anything. And so we've started over the fall doing some of the condemnation drilling around our tailings, where we think our tailings and waste rock co-disposal facility is going to go. And then we've started some of the condemnation drilling and sort of some geological prospecting in advance of that as we built roads out to the east. And we think that there's actually some pretty interesting, we don't know if we're gonna find mineralized zones, but there's some pretty interesting mineralization to the east of the Springpole Pit, which has a few holes into it, but has never been really thoroughly explored.

53:55 So we think that could be interesting. There's some other areas of past exploration around, you know, kind of within a 10 kilometer radius of Springpole. And I think, you know, any success on any of those other areas should really go to demonstrate that, you know, one of the things that is a really strategic element of this project is that you'll be building a mine in the middle of and adjacent to a really unexplored greenstone belt with 5 or 6 past producing mines in this Bertucci Greenstone Belt. Small high-grade mines, many of them produced in the 30s and 40s or 50s. But this area around Spring Pole is a really interesting geological curiosity And has seen, I always kind of say, if Red Lake seen a dollar of exploration, Pickle Lake seen 10 cents of exploration and the Bertucci Greenstone Belt, which sits in between 2 of them, has probably seen a penny.

54:58 So really, really under explored. So I think there's a real opportunity for us to look a bit broader regionally. And I think that would add some significant value as it then has potential to turn SpringPool from a really strategic asset to a critically strategic asset. Here's 1. Dan, does the company plan on doing share consolidation with approximately 700 million shares outstanding? The share consolidation question. You get that question a lot? Pretty much every time that we have this. And I think we don't have any plans right now to consolidate the shares. We hear, interestingly, from about half of our shareholders, everyone has a view, and the views are all reasonably firmly held.

55:53 And about half the people think that we absolutely need to consolidate the shares and about half the people think that if you ever consolidate the shares, I'm gonna sell all my stock because share consolidations are terrible. I'm personally, I think I'm pretty agnostic. I'm a believer in fundamental value. And so I believe every one of you out there is entirely capable of adjusting to the share price and a new number of shares. That said, we don't have any plans to do it right now. And I think you'd need a real catalyst or reason to do it. So, you know, it's something that comes up every now and then. No plans to do it now. Okay. I think we've got time for one last question. It says, Dan, what do you believe 1st mining is so undervalued?

56:45 And how do you plan to correct that? Well, listen, I think the undervaluation here stems from 2 primary things. Number 1, it stems from a perception of permitting risk and technical risk at Springpole that we just don't believe exists. And we believe it doesn't exist because we spend all day looking at the data. And when we look at the data, we are very confident that this project is going to be able to be permitted and ultimately developed and built and operated in an environmentally and socially responsible fashion. First and foremost, if you believe that, then we are trading at an irrationally low value. And that's demonstrated by the $14 an ounce versus almost $90 an ounce for our peers. So that says, we should be trading 5 or 6x higher.

57:43 And that's the average of our development peers. Not all those development peers actually have reserves, not all of them have pre feasibility studies, not all of them are, you know, as as far advanced in an environmental assessment process. So with all that said, I think, first and foremost, we keep going back to what is the real fundamental value of our projects and how do we surface that value. And first and foremost the single biggest lever of value that we have in this company is Springpole. 1.6 billion Canadian value on RPEA and after-tax NPV at $1,500 gold. So that would be 1.6 of the 2 or 2.1 billion that we think we have in the whole portfolio.

58:31 We need to surface that value and we do that by moving the project through the environmental assessment process and by continuing to build strong relationships and ultimately win-win opportunities with our Indigenous communities. And I think if we do that, over the time frame there's going to be a portion of the world that's not going to believe that you're going to get your permits until you have your permits. But I think as you move down that process and demonstrate progress and see concerns being voiced or not voiced and see support or not support from local communities, then I think people can make those assessments along the way. But I think that's the single biggest lever that we have to surface the value.

59:18 And so, you know, there was certainly a big overhang on our valuation when we didn't have the financial flexibility to really invest in that process in the way that we needed to. And that is entirely why we've done what we've done in 2020 to deliver that financial flexibility to the company and to all of you, the shareholders here. So we now have all of the capital we need to get this project through an EA approval. Absolutely believe that. Now, do we have enough capital to build the mine? No, not today. But that's a discussion to be had when you've mitigated the risk and we have a lot of the capital, well, all the capital we need, we believe, to get to that key point of risk mitigation.

1:00:10 So that's, I think, the biggest disconnect on that front. The other real value disconnect, and I think we've proven this out this year with some of the other moves that we've made, is that investors just have a challenge attributing value to the portfolio assets. And I think if you look at the beginning of the year, people, investors looked at our portfolio of assets, call it 5 million ounces in 5 projects in Canada in great jurisdictions, 6 million ounces. I think investors looked at those as liabilities. All we ever were asked were not, where are the projects and what's the opportunity with them? We were asked, what are the holding costs? So I think we've demonstrated with Pickle Crow, these projects have real value.

1:00:57 We might not be the people to move them forward, But if we can find partners to help move them forward, we are going to be in a much better position to realize that value for some of the portfolio assets. And I think it's borne out very well at Pickle Crow. I think it's borne out very well with GoldLund and Goliath. I think it's gonna continue to bear out with Goldland and Goliath. I'm very excited about what ultimately what that project's gonna look like. Even beyond this first phase of a PEA, I think there's strategic value to that deposit and having a federal EA approval mill just outside of Dryden, Ontario, because I think there's a dozen deposits within 100 kilometers that could ultimately contribute as mill feed to a project that I think you're gonna be operating there for 50 years.

1:01:47 So very excited about that. But I think we've demonstrated that when, you know, if we just have ounces sitting on the balance sheet in our company, in some companies, it's great, you know, fine, you'll get your 10 bucks an ounce. For us, we've had to say, okay, there's ounces on the balance sheet, that's fine. Here's shares times share price. We own 20% of Pickle Grow, the other 80% is owned by this company, it has this market cap, so therefore, it's worth this. Ultimately, I learned from my time as a as a private equity investor, you can talk about these opportunities, you can talk about these values. It's not until you finally turn them to cash that you can declare victory. But you know, I think it's moving them along that process to be able to say, listen, there is real value in this portfolio.

1:02:39 So that's why when we look at what the focus is for 2021, 1st and foremost, it's continuing to advance SpringPool. And we've made really significant changes to our team and really significant changes to our resourcing to be able to move SpringPool through that EA process. Continued technical de-risking, there's going to be some optimization coming out of the PFS. And so still pretty exciting things to do there to add value to SpringPool, move forward on that. That's the single biggest value lever that we have in the company. We got to march forward on that as our number 1 priority. And the rest of the portfolio projects, I think it's a good opportunity for us to spend a bit of capital to make them better and or consolidate them and improve the strategic positioning of them, sort of like we've done with Cameron, with the acquisition of the Cedar Tree property.

1:03:35 And the other projects and the royalties, I think, you know, we're looking at a number of different opportunities. But once we can demonstrate to people what the value of those are, it's hard for them to say that the value is not there. And so I think that basically, in summary, lays out the game plan for 2021. And I just want to make sure, you know, we've had a number of our long-term shareholders here on the line listening, catching up with us. I can't express enough how much we appreciate the support that we've had from all of you. You know, there was a time when we were doing our financing in February. It really was in some senses, you know, the difference between us being able to get to where we are now, a 300 million market cap and a really strong treasury.

1:04:25 It was having the support of those shareholders who believed in the company and believed in a new team coming together and believed in our projects and in our assets in a time when not a lot of other people did that really made the difference. And a lot of you are here on the webinar right now and we never speak frequently enough, but just as we're sort of coming toward the end of the year here, I just wanna make sure that I say a really big thank you to all of our shareholders who've been here to support us. And we take it really seriously. We love hearing from you and, you know, we'll look forward to a 2021 that's going to be full of what I think are very exciting moments as we continue to surface value out of this extraordinary portfolio.

1:05:17 So thanks very much for those of you on the line here really you know wish you all a very happy holiday and hope you have an opportunity to find some some rest and some peace and some joy over the course of this holiday season which is going to be an extraordinary one for all of us but thanks so much for all your support and we're going to continue working doubly hard for you in 2021. All right thank you very much for your time, Dan. And everyone in our live audience, please stick around for a quick survey. You can leave your details where we can follow up with any additional questions that you have. And until next time, see you.