Kodal Minerals (LSE:KOD) — Post-AGM

0:01 Good morning, and welcome to the KODAL MINERALS PLC Post AGM Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded meeting, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged by the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself. The company can review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, we'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand you over to Bernard Elwood, CEO. Good morning, sir. Good Good morning. Thank you, Paul, and, good morning, and thank you for all people online attending our presentation this morning. Just as a quick information update, we've completed the formal part of our AGM, and we can confirm that all resolutions have been passed.

0:48 We'd like to thank our shareholders for their continued support, for our colleagues and other board members for their work with KODAL. I'd like to thank everyone in the room today and shareholders who've made the made their way here. Appreciate that. We had a small drama this morning with a fire alarm that made us evacuate the building and then a small hiccup with technology, but that's life when we move on. So sorry for a minor delay, but we're ready now. And we'd like to start what we think is a pretty exciting chapter for KODAL, and we've got an update that gives a full summary of where we're at. So I think you're all familiar with our board, myself as CEO, been with the company since 2016, geologist by background.

1:39 Steve Zaninovich sitting with me today who'll be, presenting the technical part of the project. Mining engineer joined us in 2018, and it's been a real driver in the development of the project. Other board members, Rob Waldrich, our chairman, Charles Joselin, nonexecutive independent director, and David Tang representing Hainan Mining. Very experienced board with a lot of knowledge and skill to impart to us from compliance, corporate governance, and technical. Why we're very pleased with the way KODL has been progressing over the last year or more is the introduction of our development partner in Hainan Mining or the Hainan Group.

2:27 Hainan Mining is a significant mining company based in the island of Hainan in China. Historically, iron ore miner expanded to become oil and gas producer and have made significant steps into becoming a lithium miner and processor and part of that long chain of the future energy. We'll hear briefly from David some comments about Hainan View and ongoing involvement and interest in expanding their involvement with us and with other opportunities in the lithium sector. Key thing for us was the investment directly made into the Burgundy lithium project. The $100,000,000 invested by Hainan by the Hainan Group was a a significant milestone for us. It was a key key moment where we were able to be fully funded for the development of our DMS opportunity that will bring us into production as soon as possible, and bring us into cash flow and allow us to continue to fully develop the project.

3:39 That was a real tick of approval for Boonie, the upside that that pro project has, and the work that our team had done to put that in place. A further part of that investment that Hainan made was actual direct investment into the PLC company. And, we believe a ticket approval for the management of the company and our ability to source, to explore, and develop projects. They're a very supportive, experienced partner, and we are learning from them. And we are operating well together with Burgundy and assessing other opportunities. Where we are at the moment in terms of final phase of things with Burgundy, we're negotiating the 100% offtake for the spodumene product with Hainan Mining. Hainan have invested considerable funds into building a lithium hydroxide plant and are looking for feed and are looking for us to be a key supporter of that.

4:37 This process plan has actually just been recently commissioned. And and, David, if you might wouldn't mind just a few words on Hainan, their interest in lithium, and and the process you're going through. Sure. As thank you, everyone. As Bernard just, you know, mentioned, Hainan is Hainan Mining is diversified natural resource company under Forsen, controlled by Forsen. And we are Shanghai's World Change, a listed public company. And in terms of diversity, we developed from a single metal, which is iron ore business. Up to now, we have three business segment, which is iron ore, oil and gas, and the new material segments.

5:33 And we are building a lithium hydroxide plant in Hainan, and we are aiming to grow the new material segment to become an important part of our, you know, whole portfolio. And so we regard lithium factor as, you know, future development, you know, past for Hainan mining. And and then we view KODAL as our preferred partner in developing upstream, you know, opportunities for Hainan mining, for forcing international as a whole.

6:32 So we are looking to, you know, expanding the processing plant, in China and also in other place, which is competitive. And now we find MOU with Saudi Arabia partner to build another plant in Saudi Arabia. So which means, you know, we need more upstream resources in secured. So we are we placed high, you priority in developing Mali operation first, which give us experience and prepare for our next step, you know, in terms of future opportunities in Mali and in West Africa.

7:20 Thank you, Bernard. Thank you, David. Thank you for attending today. Some key points we just like to make because, obviously, we are a business. We're looking to make a profit from our operation in Bokoonee. Obviously, joint development with Hainan, but significantly part of that is actually ensuring that we have a buyer for the product. And we are in the final stages of negotiating the offtake agreement with Hainan. It's subject to finalization. But what we are able to demonstrate is that we have a high quality spodumene concentrate grade varying between 5.5 to 6%. All our test work indicates that this converts to a high grade lithium carbonate product or lithium hydroxide product.

8:11 It's ideal for the EV batteries, and this is one of the key reasons that Hainan joined us. We are looking to secure the 100% offtake of the product for the first three years of operation of the Burgundy Stage 1 DMS plant. The price that we have agreed is set to be market price based on the Shanghai metal market, CIF, with a floor price agreed between the parties. The offtake for stage two currently remains open. Of course, we have a preferred partner, and, of course, we'd like to continue negotiations, but we are looking to make sure we can secure the financing and the development of stage two. And we do note there's strong demand for high grade lithium products on the global market. And, yes, we're hearing a lot of news about a lithium market in decline indicated by a price drop, but we we have been long term involved in the lithium sector. We've seen it move from price below $600 a ton to quite an, you know, an extraordinary price of over $6,000 a ton for a short period and now coming back, probably overcorrected where it is at the moment, but coming back to settle around a thousand to $1,200 a ton, which is still an excellent price for us and will make our operation very profitable.

9:41 And, you know, I think we've said this for quite a while, and I think a lot of our long term shareholders are very familiar with the lithium market and, obviously, very familiar with our interest in the lithium market. And we do note that there's considerable commentary around a slowing demand for lithium EV vehicles, but it is actually from year on year consistently growing, and there's still a consistently increasing demand for lithium products. Whether the vehicles are pure EVs or hybrid, it's actually still an increase increasing uptake of lithium products for that sector. Again, we can see the market is dominated by the brine products from Chile, hard rock products from Australia.

10:34 Mali, you see heading down towards the lower sector there, we hope to increase its position in the lithium market worldwide through the expansion of the Burgundy project and through further discoveries in the region. So this is our development, and this is where I'd like to hand over to Steve for a brief update on where we're actually at Burgoonie at the moment. Thank you, Bernard. The story hasn't changed from our plans now two AGMs ago, the two stage process development project. So we're well advanced with our stage one DMS plant, which is actually the right hand side of that that map, and with the plan to use our cash flow to help fund the CapEx for a stage two flotation plant.

11:31 This is a three d of our DMS plant, but I think that with the where we're at with the actual construction, it's much better to look at real photos, and we've got a short video to show you soon. We're still on track with our $65,000,000 capital expenditure budget. You would have seen from our announcement this morning that with some delays in shipping, especially in very, very wet season, we we normally get average 1,300 millimeters of rain across the year. At the Goony, we've had 1,500 in this current wet season, so basically from mid June to now. So it's been quite wet. Our team has been really good at safely continuing the construction, soldering on. We've had to have a few half days off here or there. We had a a rain event of a 150 millimeters in one day. So we we talked last year that we're adept at working in this climate when handling the rainfall, which we've done reasonably well.

12:35 But without having any statistics on it, it looks like it's going to be one of those wet seasons that is a one in 30 year type event. So it's it is still very good that we're looking now at saying early q one twenty twenty five, and and our minds and then looking at our scheduling probably lost a month over the last two and a half months due to these delays. We're still pushing to try and get our first product in December, and we'll continue to push it. But we thought from a guidance perspective for the market that better to show you to announce now that there is a slight delay. With all that, the open pit mining is actually progressing ahead of schedule. We've had nine blasts already into our exposed rock.

13:22 Our local contractor EGTF and their explosive supplier, OXin, from China have been really impressed, working very safely, and that moved a bunch of dirt. So we're gonna have a a stockpile of already well in advance of our commissioning time. Currently, 25,000 tons of ore to ore grade. And And at the Boomin prospect, we've completed a bunch of diamond core drilling. We stopped that drilling around August 20. It was getting a bit wet, and the contractors' vehicles needed some maintenance. So we took that opportunity to start down tools on on the diamond drilling. Shout out to George Michaelides who's Michaelides who's here, our exploration manager, who spends his time making sure that stuff happens.

14:08 And with the rain, he's been able to have a break and join us. Welcome, George. Alright. So we're now looking to start a program for additional diamond drilling and some RC when the when the weather improves, which should happen in the next weeks few weeks. We had one issue with the CORSOR which slowed down our our production of samples for our diamond joint that was done leading up to August, but that's now we've got a new one, and we're moving forward and assays are are pending from our laboratory. So that's our construction schedule. Much the same as what we anticipated. DMS and crusher parts arrived on-site in September as as we hoped. We started our installation work, and I'll I'll show you some pictures of that soon.

14:57 And yeah. So we sort of moved that conditioning start sometime in December and Jan, Feb, so early first quarter, start our our first product. Okay. Just some images. Top left, that's a week or so ago. All the backfilling around the concrete foundations is done in all the areas. You can sort of see bottom left, the Angolana pit after heavy rainfall. The video shows that up quite a bit more. Top right is crushing equipment, which is being laid down because our focus is actually on DMS, which is the critical part of our installation work. And just to show we've got cranes on-site. We love cranes. This may or may not work. I have help.

15:47 Hello. I'm Mamadou Damile, associate manager, Bugoni Mining. My background is I'm socio anthropologist with master degree, and also I have a master degree in project management. I have a twenty years experience in the mining sector in Mali, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Senegal, and DRC. My first time to work on this project, Bugoni Lichom project of KODAL at this time is happened in 2016. I work with a company to complete the full Asia study, including the public construction process.

16:37 And after the Asia complete, I go to work. I continue with my company, personal company, and back work again for KODAL MINERALS in this project, the Gundelichung project, now as a employee in 2022 for one year. In this time, I work to prepare the operation phase. In 2023, I signed a contract with Bugoni Mining who will be involved in the service in Bougoune area.

17:40 Maybe I'm really, really excited as local employee to involve in the management team of this project. And, also, it is a good opportunity for me to start at the steady level in this project, possibly as well, and I hope I can continue to operational level. And one thing is very important in this project is the good relationship between the local team. For example, my relationship between my relatives between myself and my other colleague from Australian and Chinese guy is very good. We we worked over to improve this project.

18:26 And I want to say our of this project is to build top there, grow top there, and enjoy top there. Thank you everywhere everyone who for your support to this project and for Mali. Thank you so It took just two days ago from where our HSE head of department and looks after environmental social responsibility and all the community development as well, just the main road that we built driving up towards the the site and fully built 100% a local contractor.

19:15 It's about a kilometer in a bit from RN 8, which is the the national road to our site. This is a road here where when we had that rain event, we could see the flooding coming up to the bridge which we're passing here. We've got a small creek where we've installed a bridge, but it does recede very quickly. So on that particular day for about eight hours, we we weren't working on-site at all, so the rainfall was very heavy. Particularly grand this year. It is particularly green, which looks magnificent at the moment. Excuse the puddles. I haven't authorized the the pumping out of that water at this point. So we're just rolling up to the plant site area now. So the main access road drives into the main plant site. On the right hand side is part of the mining contractor's lay down yard and just over the right hand side. Their left hand side, you can see we've retained some of the trees there, a lot of shea butter trees, some cashews as well is where our admin block is. On the left side, you can see the blue items that's offloading of equipment and the other side there as well. So as we pan to the right, you can see the waste dump coming up.

20:30 Crushing system showing up now. That's the main control center and substation, the building, and the DMS plant site area. And the the wrong stockpile at that site. So we're building up our, oops, building up our stockpile area. There's quite a bit of waste that's been moved already. A lot of it was free dig, but as I said before, we've we've now done nine blasts into the pit. And so now we're driving stop driving. Oh, we're shuffling our drone. Sorry. Flying up to the actual Angolana pit, which we started first dig, July 3. So done a great job. You'll see as we come up to the pit, actually working in the pit, there's still a couple of sumps that we're controlling the water to make sure it's safe to work.

21:25 On the left hand side, you'll see soon where the outcropping area is, but that's the Balay River and the creek that leads into it. That's as high as we've seen it in probably well, since we've been there. I know we had one other wet season where it was quite close to us, but that's sort of shows how much water there has been in that that river. And that is flying towards where the explosives storage yard is, which is operational now, obviously, with the blasting that we've been doing. And I did look at the video earlier. Alasana, our surveyor sorry. So Alasana, our surveyor, is still finding his way around site. So you'll see a bit of the greenery for a while, and then we'll turn over to where the other white man.

22:15 We'll turn over to where the explosive mixing yard is, and and, basically, it circles back to the the main road that we came in on. So that's the the mixing area, and then we're back on the main road. So quite a compact site. We'll post this video on on our website as well so you can see it a bit better. And that should be it. This is steep z trucking truck. He's in his way to or Okay. Alright. Alright. I can confirm I do not have a trucking company in mind, and that's my guys just taking up the shoes and take fun at the boss when he's not on-site, but I'll get him I'll get him back. Okay.

23:08 Thanks. I hope that gives an overview to everyone. Don't know how to do that. This? This? Oh, this one? Yes. I do know how to do that. Yes. Fantastic to see that development. I think there's often questions sent directly to me about any evidence of progress. I think it's very clear. We're making a lot of progress. We did put out our announcement today, and I think, as Steve said, you know, we generally over time, we've been quite conservative with our targets, quite conservative with our approach to people. We haven't overpromised.

23:59 What we did today was announce that the cumulative effect of the delays make us believe that there's a probability of first production in first quarter twenty twenty five. Our target is still December 2024, and our team is very keen to try and make that happen. But we want people to be aware that there's a possibility of a delay, and we we're working hard to mitigate that, but that's the way it goes in project developments, unfortunately. Obviously, Kee, and you would have seen with that video there, we have a workforce that's made up predominantly of Malian. We have people who've worked with us for many years and continue to work with us.

24:48 We're bringing a lot of benefit to the local community. And key to that is our sustainability strategy, our environmental approach, and our community liaison. We have taken a lot of interest, of course, in governance and governance not just at our corporate KODAL level or KMUK level, but actually in the community and making sure we're working with people who are able to speak for other people in the community. Of course, we have we're establishing an ESG group. We have a policy which is governed, obviously, by some compliance from companies' recommendations, and we're looking to further implement that strategy.

25:39 Risk management, environmental, social impact assessment was conducted early, part of our ESIA and a key component for us to get our mining lives granted. Construction of the plant, operation of the mine and production, and when we when we complete decommissioning and rehabilitation, I think that have all been taken into account, and we continue to monitor and ensure that we operate with best practice. We wanna create value for all stakeholders with a community development plan that should, we hope, improve the lives of people in the Burgundy community, in the Burgundy region, and villages around us. The AIs ESIA did develop a social management plan, and we continue to put that in place.

26:31 There's integration of project operation, job opportunities, and in bringing people into our our workforce. And we're developing that in line with Mali and the strategies that the government expect. We monitor the import, we monitor the performance. But to date, of course, we're in development phase rather than production, and some of those measurements are not yet finalized. We will be looking to provide further guidance towards our ESG strategy working with Hainan who themselves have a significant ESG strategy and protocol and through our joint subsidiary of KMUK looking to make sure we provide that guidance.

27:21 So in summary, we have a fantastic development opportunity with Burgoonie. We appreciate the support of the Hainan Mining Group, and you'll see that considerable development progress has taken place. We are fully permitted and financed for the stage one operation. We are seeing rapid development, and perhaps in some, we've had some delays, which we've worked as hard as we can to overcome, but the cumulative effect is reducing perhaps our confidence in 2024 a bit, and we acknowledge that there's possibility of a delay. But we do have a fantastic team who've worked with us at KODAL and George.

28:08 Michael had been with us since the first drill hole into Burgoonie. Steve with us since the first engineering assessment and environmental assessment. A lot of our workers for the whole time as well as the board has been intimately involved with this development. And now with Hainan over the last year or so, their team on-site led by Chai Yu Sheng and Jerry Gao have made a fantastic, progress at Bokoone. So I think you're seeing the result of a really strong team and a unified effort to make this happen. So we're finalizing for, you know, the actual profitability of the project. 100% offtake to be finalized with with Hainan Mining. That secures the buyer for our product.

28:53 Our modeling demonstrates strong free cash flow from the operation throughout 2025 as well as the significant upside that we have demonstrated in the project and our recent drilling at the Boumou prospect highlights the opportunity to increase the mineral resource base for Burgoonie as well as multiple other targets that continue to be highlighted and will be tested in due course. So it's a fantastic project and a fantastic opportunity. But importantly for KODAL, we do have more on our plate. One is we have some of the gold projects, which we're not mentioning today, but clearly, we want to advance those projects with the good opportunity of the FATU project in Mali and particularly the Nile project in Oktivwa.

29:43 We made an assessment earlier this year on some of our older, less advanced projects and less opportunity to move them on and allow us to focus critically on the key projects. And in addition, we're well funded. We're experienced in acquiring projects, and we continue to look for new projects. So that's further opportunities to grow our company. And I think it's quite clear, Steve and myself, we often speak to brokers, to investors through The UK, through Australia, through lots of different people approaching us. And we can just have a moment to think KODAL has actually been a success story. This last year, comparing us to other lithium companies worldwide, we would be the only company that is up in share price year on year, probably an increase of up to 35% with compared to an average of of down of 37% for other companies.

30:45 The other critical factor for us is to say, historically, exploration projects rarely convert to mining opportunities. In fact, of hundreds or more, less than 1% actually become resource, let alone mine. And that's a significant achievement for our team and recognition of actually a very good quality project. So I think in terms of KODAL, it's been a success story this year. We've had a lot of achievements with our partner in Hainan, and we continue to demonstrate the opportunity for KODAL to be involved with a very profitable lithium mine in Mali and a lot of growth potential. So thank you very much for your attention to the presentation, and we're now open to take questions.

31:35 Many thanks indeed for the presentation. And gentlemen, do please continue to submit your questions just using the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. To our team, take a few moments to review those questions submitted today. I'd like to remind you the recording of the presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published Q and A can be accessed via your investor dashboard. As you can see, we've had a number of questions submitted throughout today's presentations and I'm sure you may have some in the room as well. So if I may just hand over to you for those online, if you could read out the question and give a response where appropriate to do, that'd be fantastic. And just like to caveat, due to the number of attendees on today's presentation, the company may not be able to get through every single question that you submit, but they will have the ability to review those. So, back to you, team. Thank you. Sure. Thanks thanks, Paul. And thank you very much for a lot of the shareholders who have submitted questions, and we can just reviewing the presubmitted questions, I think it's very clear that there's a few key items that people are interested in. So I'd like to take the opportunity to summarize some of these questions into some simple answer.

32:43 Then to start with, we're all interested in the timing of the transfer of the mining license from Future Minerals, which is a 100% owned by KMUK, has a valid license that's been accepted by all government authorities and that we are continuing to operate under, but we would like to transfer that to the mining license. As we've, stated, we've had ongoing discussions with the Mali government about that. As we actually said in our RNS today, we're continuing those discussions. And some of the timing around that is still uncertain. However, we are coming closer to agreement with the government. Now some of the key changes will be that, previously, we've stated and we continue to operate our license under the 2019 code.

33:37 However, the mining license was updated in 2023 and passed in the parliament. The regulations for that mining code were passed in April 2024. That code is now fully functional. The government announced a moratorium prior to the introduction of the 2023 code, the moratorium on any dealings with licenses. And as such, we were unable to transfer our license and update, renew any other licenses. What the impact of this is that we are in our discussions, we are talking about the migration to the twenty twenty three code, the possible protection of our rights under the 2019 code of customs exemptions and tax exemptions and so on.

34:31 We're close to reaching some agreement with the government. We do support Mali's rights to change its mining code, to update its mining code, and to protect its rights. And as we've always stated, we like to work with the government. We've maintained good relations, and we're seeing that continue through through these discussions. We can't give a timing of the transfer. We're working hard to make sure that can be transferred as soon as possible. There's several questions about a resource upgrade. And what we have done to date, and talking particularly first of Boonie, is continue the drilling of the key prospects.

35:16 And, Boumou has become a focus for us over this last year, and Gwilana was a focus for us prior to the commencement of the open pit mining. We do not do a mineral resource update until we have all available data. We're still waiting on significant number of assays from our diamond core drilling over 2,000 samples in the lab at the moment. What we are expecting over the next few months is to have direction on further diamond drilling infill and expand extension of the Boumou prospect that will underpin a significant resource update when we are satisfied that we have enough information to support that. We're looking actually to try and move BOOMU into an indicated resource as quickly as possible to support an optimization and engineering assessment of the open pit mining potential there.

36:14 So the key for us actually is getting the data to support the upgrade, to support the future investment decisions. So we don't we don't do half baked resource updates. We have a significant target for Boonie, and we continue to aim to, reach that target. We also have some other questions in general talking about the stages that we're going through in terms of the development. And, clearly, we've stated that stage one is the DMS development. You've seen the video. You understand the process we're going through. Open pit mining has commenced. A stockpile is being built in place.

37:01 We expect to be commissioning November, December this year. We hope we aim our target is early is late December, but most likely now, we're prepared to be saying early quarter one twenty twenty five. That's stage one. That we need to get up and running in steady state, and then we'll be looking to undertake the assessment and the investment decision on stage two, which is a large scale flotation plant, which will allow us to then fully develop the Burgoonie mine with the expectation of potential production profile for up to 340,000 ton per annum for a few years where we were able to operate the two projects in conjunction, but looking to continue that growth and establish a long life mine in Bagoonie.

37:56 We're also being asked, and, again, this this has been answered through the video and through the presentation today. Have critical items arrived on-site? Yes. Are we continuing to receive materials on-site? Yes. The first two ships that we spoke about carrying the critical items arrived, unloaded, and have been delivered to site. Construction has commenced. We have another ship on, in transit at the moment and a final ship to leave in the next month that will complete the items to be delivered to Bokoone. So I think I think that summarizes pretty fairly all the all the presubmitted questions.

38:43 And just to be clear, there we we do receive emails and opinions from a lot of shareholders and some offering us advice on possible sale of our share of the project and indicating who might be a likely buyer. Great. But what I would say is that our focus is operating the company, developing the company, and maximizing the opportunity. And if if that opportunity becomes a sale, we will assess it on its merits, but that's not that's not our focus. Okay. That was the first one on the on the 18.

39:32 Yeah. Mining code, we've answered that. Yeah. Project viable. Look. And, again, sorry, there's probably a pretty consistent query about reference to the spot market price of Spodumene today versus our assessment and whether the project still viable, I think we've been very clear on that that our view is that it is, and our view is that we have a partner who we've negotiated the offtake agreement with. We have established that there'll be a floor price that we will be selling at. If if the price falls to that level, that supports a profitable operation. So, yes, our our project is very viable.

40:20 Frank, Jay Frank, regular correspondent. Frank? Yes. Hello, Frank. Frank's picked up a couple of issues regarding our cash balance. One being what we reported in our annual report and what we're reporting now. And, Frank, you're right. That does refer to some reimbursements that we've received from our work with Hainan and money that we spent on the project in the period that we were looking to finalize the transaction. No need to worry about that one. Again, Frank. Frank, asking about the gold, to be clear, we get quite a few questions about our gold projects.

41:08 Notably, this year, our focus has been on the Waguni project and assisting with the exploration and resource development there. We have had the opportunity to have our team go to both Nile and Fartu and develop the exploration programs that we are planning to put in place during this coming year. We have been clear that this year has been a very wet season. It may delay us getting to some of the field work, but FATU and Nile are out to advanced gold projects where we think there's the most likely opportunity to define a mineral resource, and that's where we'd like to do some do some work.

42:06 Perhaps perhaps we can move on. Interesting question from Neil here, Steve, which basically says share price. Neil, I think I've answered that compare comparatively worldwide, we've done a share price have been very strong for us this year and consistent. We're possibly seeing an effect that happens to lots of companies when they take up a development project, and you have a period of stagnation in the share price as you move through the phase of building through to then production. And this is very common. I think at least for us, we are maintaining that that price we have and at times increasing.

42:58 Richard, and again, probably something that we may have addressed with some of the earlier questions asking us about security risks in Mali. So this is a large question relating to West Africa and Mali in particular for obviously, for our interest. Yes. There has been continued issues of insurgents and possible hardest and criminal activity in Mali in the Northeast and in Burkina Faso in the neighboring country. The government of Mali is consistently tackling the issue and, in some instances, making some headway that demonstrates that the that there is an increase in security and safety of its citizens.

43:55 Where we operate in Boone, we find it to be a very calm, quiet location. Our team lives inside lives in Boone and has lived there since 2016. We've never had an issue. Both Steve and myself and David and Murphy were recently in Mali. And, again, no personal safety issue and no issue in relation to our operations. So I'm not trying to speak in general of the country, but trying to speak in terms of our operation and our people. We believe we're in a safe and secure environment. John, it's very very, very detailed question here, John.

44:46 65 so referencing the investment from Hainan, 65,000,000 is earmarked for the capital. John's asking the other 35,000,000. Well, that 35,000,000 is used for the development of Burgundy. That 100,000,000 was invested into our subsidiary company, KODAL MINERALS, owns the lithium projects in Mali, and that money specifically will be used for Mali Bagooni development. And I Bernard. Complete 65 doesn't include exploration work, which is ongoing to grow the resource. So that's one of the activities that comes from that investment. Yep. Exactly. And future future opportunities through exploration around the project plus engineering and development assessment.

45:41 Wow. Lot of job. Lot of a lot of things here, John. Tracking the cost we've we've previously announced in all our feasibility studies, we estimate the tracking from Burgundy to San Pedro to be a 125 a ton. Our costs are sensitive to diesel, but not excessively. We are a low power drawer. Yes. It will impact our mining fleet, but we're a bulk buyer. We've got an established discounted price. A lot of our job is to actually manage costs, and we're we're particularly focused on that. Stage two, we do expect that the cash flow from stage one will largely underpin the development of the flotation plant. We do expect that once we're demonstrating ourselves as a successful operator in Mali, the ability to future fund the development of the flotation plant either through debt or combination cash flow will become available to us. There's a question there on energy, Bernard, about whether Buguni will connect to the grid in Mali.

47:01 There's no national grid that currently serves the Boonie District. It is planned at the moment. We don't have a date on that. So it'd be great if we do get the grid connected, which is on in the plan, as I said, we will look to connect, and that would be a great advantage for stage two, which is gonna pull a lot more power than the smaller stage one plant. There's a question whether stage two disrupts disrupt stage one, quite the opposite really because the flotation plant is on the other side of the river. If you go back to the presentation, you'll see the proximity. It's actually quite independent, but there will be some advantages having built stage one first that makes stage two that little bit easier, especially with access and those sorts of things and and outstanding in the community, which is really strong.

47:53 I just think, John, really, you're taking up a lot of the question space here. So you're asking about our government relations. We've answered that. Twenty twenty three code, we've answered that. A question regarding perhaps our assessment of our technical team. We are very happy with our laboratory, with the reliability of the assays. We're very happy with our billing contractors and our geological team to provide very reliable expert information for our for for our for our future resource. Some of these questions, John, I think I might just move over because we yeah.

48:43 That's enough. That's enough. Jeez. Okay. All in sustaining cost, confidence on meeting what our guidance? Confident. Yep. Confident. We're very confident. Yeah. Look, there's a a comment here, Nick. And this is I will mention this, but it's basically just to reference the team. Referring to our presentation and the team, and I'd like to thank our PR group, Steve, and the team who've done an excellent job. You would have seen that video on that we presented today, and, actually, it takes a lot for some of our guys to get up and talk about themselves and the company.

49:32 So we do appreciate Dembele who is a fantastic representative for the company. And, you know, KODAL is actually a team a team achievement, and we'd like to recognize that through everyone. Joshua is asking, have the results for Boumou to date met or exceeded expectations? Well, I think George and myself often speak about this exceeding. Yeah. Exceeding, and we're very pleased. And I think it took us a while to actually understand VUMU. It's a little bit complex, but where we feel we are at the moment is the ability to track and confirm wide high grade pegmatite bodies, which from our view, have the potential to underpin a mining development. So, you know, we're we're exploration guys. Often, we're optimistic. We need to to put it in front of the engineering lie detector team and make sure we haven't been haven't been making up too much.

50:43 We'll move on from each. Thank you. Things I could say there, but I'm I'm just holding my my time. Just just by the way, we do have people in the room. Any of you guys want to ask yeah. Sue, you said? Yep. What is moment? Yep. What is your functioning and then during the rehabilitation stage? Talking about the Main Valley River of water quality? Yeah. High sediment. Very high suspended sediment. We we took some samples during this wet season because it's very turbid and obviously, and just by doing the old fashioned test we used to do twenty five years ago in Africa, fill a bottle and see how long it takes to settle, does not settle. And and we're we're so conscious of our impact and and our sediment that to keep it from the river, if we had a leak, we probably wouldn't even know it's it's really high in sediment.

51:39 But it is low in in in dissolved salts, so it's it's quite fresh. The h with test is showing plus minus seven. There is a few areas where the boar water is is less less of quality, and we're working with the community, especially Nguolana community, which is about three kilometers away from us. We've tested the bores there, and that they had a a Qatari group put a a bore in there, which was solar powered and wasn't working, and we got it up and running, tested the water. The pH was quite low. So we're trying to look at ways that we can maybe help them find a bit better water. At Colossoka, it's really good quality water in the bores. So most of the water that communities use are bores, but we'll use for our project, we'll have to apply a little bit of flocculant, which is environmentally friendly flocculant, of course, just to keep that suspended solids down.

52:39 Any is that the quality coverage you're I think perhaps you're asking if there's gonna be any impact of what our process is on the water. Yeah. Look. We actually, with DMS, with the process we're doing the gravity separation, we actually do know chemicals that will impact on the water. What we mine and and the waste dump will be just a lot of it will actually be previous alluvial sediments and and just sedimentary rock with no acid forming materials. It will be benign quartz sand as the final product from the DMS circuit. And when we actually do the flotation itself, again, very low chemical and very low risk to any water or environment.

53:27 We spend a lot of time actually with our ESIA independent group, Digby Wells, did the work for us and prepared a lot of the assessment. Clearly, it's important, the water and the monitoring and the security of the river, the farming that's depends on that as well as the community. So we we're very conscious of our role in protecting that, and what we've put in place should make sure that there's no impact from us. Ewan? I have another question for you. I'm fine here. Sure. To confirm our license to transfer on the 2019 code before they committed to the investment. Why does the 2023 code benefit go well, and what is the impact on our relationship in it?

54:18 We are now not not independently KODAL nor independently Hainan. We're working together as KODAL Mining UK. KODAL Mining UK owns the lithium projects in Mali, and we're both trying to make sure that we get the best result for it. Hainan have demonstrated in the past their commitment to communities and support and development of operations. We're obviously very keen to make sure that there's our our relationships in Mali are maintained. So in terms of our negotiation with the government for the transfer of the mining license, as I said earlier during the presentation and answering some of those questions, you know, Mali government has the right to update its mining code and protect its interest.

55:12 We're negotiating with the government to try and protect our interests and maximize the benefit we can achieve, and we continue to work with the Mali government. I was speaking directly as KODAL CEO. We're still happy with the way we're proceeding, and we're still very happy with Hainan. And not to put words in your mouth, David, but in our recent discussions, you've indicated you're still very happy with us. So and and the way things are progressing at Bikuni. Yes. We currently have folks not in this problem, but, yeah, I think we keep negotiating with the government. And, you know, we solve this dialogue first.

55:59 We keep the our priority to move the project forward. Yeah. That's our current focus. Yeah. Thanks, Dave. Yeah. Look. It's a good partnership. Couple of extra quick questions here. I think we've got time for. I don't wanna go over. Luke is asking share price predictions. Sorry, Luke. No idea. And just hope for the best. But knowing that your team, we don't rely on hope. We rely on our strategy, Bernard. Do know that? We don't rely on hope. We rely on our skill set to make it work. Joshua probably can't answer that one. Sorry about that.

56:51 Baseball caps. We love our baseball caps, Ian. And They're available on-site in the Goony. You find your way there. Well, bad. It's we've gotta bring some. So I'll make an effort to get some. Sorry. The guys who came today, sorry, we we we've let you down. And, John, well, thanks for your support, John. We appreciate your support of us. Good on your time. And I guess, probably take this question from David because, we we do get asked a little bit about communications. And, again, I do get regular recommendations on how frequently I should be presenting to the market and how frequently some people think some things are important versus we as a company and how we have proceeded to provide information regarding the development of as well as the other work we're doing to make sure that the market is informed.

58:02 Now we're very clear. We are involved with the development of the Burgundy lithium project. We provide regular updates. We don't think there's a need to tell you every time there's a bit of conflict poured or that there's any trucks arriving. We're very clear with the strategy that we've announced then on at least a process of at least six weeks to no more than two months have been regular announcements. And for the drilling updates, as the results become available, we update those as well. And just be assured, if there was any problems, that's we do announce those as soon as possible to keep the market informed. As we progress, we are progressing to a strategy that we're comfortable with, and you can see regular improvement.

58:53 So we continue that. We're happy to speak to people when we meet them and keep them informed of what we're doing, but we, at this stage, are looking to maintain that communication. And, generally, just again, all that communication is generally through RNS. It's clear for everyone, and everyone gets the same information. Shout out to my friends at, Buchanan. They taught me how to tweet this year, so I'll continue to try and tweet tweet a bit more as well. Excellent. I do have a few Excellent. You know. Hope you enjoy my editing. Please provide feedback if you don't.

59:40 Think are we about yeah. I think we're about out of time now. Are you still there, Paul? I think we've Absolutely. And and and thank you so much for answering so many questions. Of course, the team will have the ability to review questions submitted today and publish any further responses where appropriate to do so on the Investor Me company platform. Perhaps before redirecting investors to give you their feedback, perhaps I could just ask for a few closing comments and then I'll send you out. Okay. Thanks, Paul. And look, I guess, in terms of closing comments, I think we've had a very exciting this last year for KODAL MINERALS, and this upcoming year is, again, gonna be a fantastic year for us. We're looking forward to the first production from the Burgoonie project. We're looking forward to a very successful operation with our partner, Hainan Mining. In addition with KODAL, we're looking to grow the project. I've said this lots of times, and first opportunity may be with our gold projects in Mali and Cote D'Ivoire. We have exploration planned, and we look forward to putting that into action.

1:00:49 In addition, we're looking for other opportunities. And, of course, we believe we have a strength in lithium in acquiring and exploring and developing projects. So that is a focus for us. And with our partner, we believe we have support to look for significant projects, and we look forward to opportunities to work together there. We thank everyone for their support. Very good year this year. Looking forward to a better year next year. So thanks very much. Fantastic. Thank you very much indeed for updating attendees today. Could I please ask investors not to close the sessions? We automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete and is greatly valued by the company.

1:01:37 On behalf of the management team of KODAL MINERALS PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That concludes today's session, and good afternoon.