Newcore Gold: Unlocking Value in Ghana with a Robust PEA at Enchi

0:08 Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining us today on what has been a very exciting and busy week with the announcement of a PEA for our Enchi Gold Project in Ghana. My name is Mal Khodvovska and I'm the VP of Corporate Development and IR for the company. I'm joined today by Nucor Gold's President and CEO, Luke Alexander, as well as Nucor Gold's VP of Exploration, Greg Smith. Both will be presenting today. Luke's going to walk through the results of the PEA, and then Greg is going to give an update on the ongoing 66,000 metre drill program, highlighting the more recent results that are not in the PEA to provide some context into the significance of those results and the growth potential at our ENSI project. Before we get started, I just want to highlight that we will be making some forward-looking statements today and encourage you all to visit our website where you can find the full cautionary language.

0:56 Please also note that there are some handouts for you. They're available under the handouts tab. As well, questions are highly encouraged, so please do ask them throughout. After the presentation, Luke and Greg will be answering your questions, and you can submit those using the questions tab. So with that, I'm going to pass it over to Luke to kick things off. Yeah, thanks, Mal, and thanks everyone for joining us today. We're extremely excited about the PEA that we put out this week. Ultimately, it came in ahead of what my expectations were. And I think one of the things I've liked to see the most is ultimately the market has really responded well to the PEA. The stock's up about 18% since we announced it on very good volume, about 2.5 million shares, which represents about 4% of our

1:43 free float. So at the end of the day, the market is ultimately the biggest judge of whether, you know, the economics of a PEA and we couldn't be happier with the result that we've had from that perspective. And ultimately, as we go through this presentation, we're going to highlight why we think there's a lot more room for our company to grow from here and our stock price ultimately appreciate. First thing I think I'll just touch on and we'll mainly focus on the PEA and and the resource expansion within this presentation so we won't take a lot of time talking about you know some of the corporate stuff but just quickly to remind people we do have a tier 1 management team. Ultimately, a lot of companies that we've been successful with over the years, 32% ownership, which I think is important in terms of the management and insiders are fully aligned with investors, as well as we've got very good institutional support. We're currently about 35% owned by institutional investors that spread about spread across about 35 investors and a few of them are listed here. These are groups that we've worked with for a number of years and are very supportive of our vision on this project.

2:51 The other thing is we've had very good capital market support. One of the things, as well as the increase in share price and big volume that we've seen on the back of the release of the PEA is 4 of our 5 covering analysts have increased their share prices and that's always a nice vote of confidence in terms of the value that we've ultimately added to the project and to the company. As well as we still have a very good tight capital structure, just under 100 million shares outstanding, $9 million on the balance sheet and a market cap of about $70 million Canadian. I won't spend a lot of time on Ghana, but Ghana is a tier 1 jurisdiction to be operating in. It's got 4 of the top 10 largest gold producers operating in country.

3:37 It is Africa's largest gold producer and seventh largest gold producer globally. Very good political system there, as well as a very low risk from a security perspective. So we're very fortunate to have amassed such a large land package in Ghana when we did. Getting into the PEA, one of the things that we've been kind of talking about for the last year is ultimately heap leach projects, they're lower capex, simple projects. And I think that's really been highlighted within this PEA that ultimately, you know, the value of this project as a heap leach project has really come through. Looking at some of the numbers, we used a base case of 1650 in this PEA, that gave us a $212 million NPV after tax. If we increase that to closer to spot, call it 1850, We're looking at a $302 million NPV after tax IRR of 42%.

4:38 Low capital upfront initial capital of 97 million. Always wanna highlight that that also includes a 30% contingency. In terms of production, the project will produce just under 1 million ounces over an 11-year mine life, with an average production through years 2 to 5 of 104,000 ounces. So a very large, robust project. But one of the things that we don't want anyone to lose focus of is the fact that our vision still remains to grow this to a 4 or 5 million ounce resource. And given the district scale opportunity that we've got at our Anchi project, we think that's very achievable. The PEA that we put out, it only includes 20,000 meters of our current 66,000 meter drill program. We've put out an additional 20,000 meters of results in 2021.

5:35 Those have not been included in the PEA and we've got another 26,000 meters of drilling that we'll put out over the next number of months, which will include about 18,000 meters of diamond drilling. And Greg will get into a bunch of the detail on where we think that's gonna add resource and ultimately add value for our shareholders. Looking at our project to be 216 square kilometers, I've highlighted it is a district scale opportunity. Getting into the PEA now in a little bit more detail. What we're contemplating here is a 6.6 million ton per annum key bleach project. So a total of just under 70 million tons. One of the things that really helped drive the economics of this project is the low strip nature of it. So we're looking at a 2.1 to 1 strip ratio. I talked about it just under 1 million shares of recoverable gold, as well as peak production of 121,000 ounces. I'll get into that production profile in a little bit more detail here. So after our year 1 ramp up, that's when we start to get into, for black, but a word, commercial production. And we've got a very nice 104,000 ounces of average production through that period with our peak production in 2021 of 121,000 ounces. One of the things from an optimization perspective that we're gonna look at right out of the gate is ultimately can we move you know some of this production further up

7:06 in the mining in the mining production schedule which ultimately you know would obviously add value in terms of bringing those ounces further up. The other thing is, you know, this does create a very nice kind of base, base study for us to grow off of. And as we continue to ultimately explore and find more ounces, What I would like to see is that we fill in all of these years with additional ounces and ultimately over time add ounces to the entire project. And that's what we're going to be looking to do. In terms of cash flow and payback, very quick payback period. So at 1650 gold, you can see that we're paying back the capital within 2.3 years, and at 1850 in less than 2 years. The other metric that I know a lot of investors that I've kind of covered for the last 15 odd years like to look at is your NPV to CapEx ratio.

8:12 And if we look at our project again at 1850 gold, which is closer to today's spot price. We're looking at a $302 million NPV relative to a $97 million initial CapEx. You're looking at a ratio of about 3 to 1. So for every dollar that you put into the capital on our project, you're getting $3 back. So that's a very good ratio. The other nice thing to highlight with regards to our project and part of the fact that it's a heap leach is ultimately we don't have a lot of sensitivity to operating costs or to capital costs, but we do have very nice leverage from a gold perspective. And I think that's something that ultimately investors are looking for is that as the gold price moves higher, am I going to be rewarded? And I think that's one of the things that our Enchi project really gives you is that nice leverage to gold price, as well as a quick payback.

9:11 Looking at the kind of mining profile here, as well as the strip ratio, You can see the average strip here of 2.1 to 1 with our lowest strip of 1.3 to 1 at Cium. As a result, Cium has become our largest deposit, recoverable ounces there or produced ounces of just under 520,000. And you can see that, you know, as a result, a lot of those ounces fall into the front end of our mine life. The other thing I would highlight is that we have also put the heap leach pad right beside Sium as a result of it being our largest deposit with the lowest strip ratio. I've talked about it before and I won't spend a lot of time on it, but we do have very good infrastructure to leverage off of and that ultimately helps with the cost of this project. The town of Enchi, it sits about 10 kilometers away from our project, so it's far enough away from our project that we don't have any issues from local community perspective, but also it means that we don't have to build camps. We can draw on the local population to hire people to ultimately push the project forward. This is where our core shack currently sits. It's about 5 kilometers outside of town.

10:33 You know, you got a paved road here that you can drive 100 kilometers an hour along, power line on the other side of the street, gas stations. You can see this little road, dirt gravel road in the background here. You drive 10 minutes along that, you're standing on top of Sium, which again is our largest deposit. Another 5 minutes from there, you're standing on top of Boeing. So very good infrastructure for us to draw upon and ultimately help reduce the cost. Looking at the site layout now in a little bit more detail. So again, our Cium deposit, it's our largest deposit. As a result, that's where we've decided to put the Heap Leach Pad. You can see that here on this slide. Boeing is our second largest deposit. You can see that sitting here. We have a 3.7 kilometer road, which we will build to basically connect those 2. And then we've got Niam, which sits up here about 10, 15 kilometers away. This one does have a public access road so we will only run operations during the day up there and over time as we build ounces up there one of the opportunities for us is to actually stick your own stick a separate heap leach pad up there which could have some optimization benefits for the overall project.

11:50 In terms of the heap leach, it is a 3 phased heap leach pad. What that does is it ultimately helps with the capital. So in years 3 and 6, we've got an expansion of that heap leach pad, which is about $6.7 million per year. So that's one of the things when you look at our sustaining capital in a couple of slides that you'll see is impacting that sustaining capital. So very simple process and that's the general layout for it. In terms of capital, I've kind of touched on it, but again, $97 million of initial capital. It's one of the real advantages of a heap leach project is the low capital intensive, as well as we do have a 30% contingency included in there.

12:36 From a costing perspective we did get quotes from a number of different suppliers which went into this analysis as well as we obviously looked at a lot of different projects in West Africa, as well as other heap leach projects around the world. So we are very comfortable and confident in the numbers that we've laid out here. The project contemplates a 15-month construction, And again, I've touched on it, but at a 1650 gold 2.3 year payback. And one of the other key things and advantages that we've got at our Enchi project is that in particular, both at Boeing and Seum, which are our 2 largest deposits, is the mineralization goes right to surface. And why that's important is it means we don't have any pre-stripping on our project.

13:25 That can be very expensive and capital intensive for a lot of companies. So we're very fortunate to have that ore going right to surface. In terms of the breakdown of the cost, so from an operating cost perspective we're looking at $923 an ounce, $1043 from a sustaining perspective and $1066 from an all-in sustaining cost perspective. As I highlighted, you know, not a big difference between our total cash costs and our all-in sustaining cost. And that's mainly because again, the heap leach projects don't have a lot of sustaining capital. And for us, it's really just the expansion of those heap leach pads that primarily affects that number, as well as ESG is very important to us. So we have allocated a budget for ESG, and that's something that we'll look to grow over time as well.

14:22 The other thing that was included within this PEA that we put out was a very small resource update. We've increased our resource from 1.22 million ounces to 1.41 million ounces.

14:35 And that only included 20,000 meters of drilling that we did. And now we're gonna look to ultimately look to expand on that as we continue to drill out this project. And that's something that Greg will be touching on in detail. So from a growth opportunity perspective, we will continue to look to expand resource at all of our current deposits and Greg will touch on it, but one of those areas, Boeing, he'll get into it in a bit of detail. We've already added 1.4 kilometers of mineralized material there, and that's something that we think will really feed into the resource over time, but then continuing to look to expand at Sioum, Niam, as well as I'll just highlight that we have also within that resource added a maiden resource at Kwachi Kroom. So that was one of the areas that we've talked about how we've had some very good drill results and We've now been able to add 55,000 ounces of resource there and we'll just look to continue to expand on that as we go. And then across our overall property, we've identified 25 different targets, anomalies of which we've only drilled on 6 of them. And a few of those we are going to be drilling for the first time ever in the next few months as well as going back to areas like Arati where we've had historically 10 drill holes follow up on that and look to do similar to what we've done at Kwachi Kroom, get enough drilling into these different areas to move them up into our resource category. And then once

16:06 they're there, look to continue to build on that resource over time. We think that's the best approach from an exploration perspective. We think it gives a lot of optionality for our shareholders, but at the same time, it builds in an element of conservatism in terms of stepping out is obviously a much lower risk way of adding ounces than just going after greenfield targets. So with that, I think I'll hand it over to Greg to get into the exploration and some of the areas where we think we've already added potential resource, as well as the opportunity at depth, which is going to be a big part of our focus for the balance of this program. Over to you, Greg. All right.

16:51 Thanks, Luke. And yeah, we'll start here sort of zooming out a little bit just to put the Enchi gold project into some regional context. We are looking at structurally controlled deposits here. So here is Enchi in southwest Ghana. It's one of the 2 really well-known gold belts. The Ashanti belt, obviously very historic. Seppu Bibiani belts, where we sit. We've got the Chirano mine operated by Kinross about 50 kilometers to the north of us, and our belt also includes Bibiani and the giant AHAFO deposit. So really good neighborhood, just the other side of the border as well. We've got the FEMA project now owned by Endeavor. So important to keep that in mind as we start looking at some of the specifics of the deposits that we have on the Enchi Gold Project is this strong control by these regional structures, and that's what's allowed a number of very large deposits to be formed.

18:01 And again, we're building here at Enchi to be the next in line. So as Lucas mentioned we've now got 4 deposits that make up our resource, the Sium, Boin and Niam and the recently added Quachikrum. As we'll see in the three-dimensional model, these are open, a long strike and certainly to depth. And we'll look at a number of the recent drill holes that have already expanded these deposits outside of Even the resource that was included in the P a just this week again. We've got these other zones that that have been drilled tested, and we believe as we've now moved Kwaki crew up into the resource category have the best potential to be the next. Zones in the resource category have the best potential to be the next zones to have resources estimated on them and then real blue sky potential on a number of anomalies that.

18:56 Haven't been drilled, tested historically and where we're currently doing work program, So this is the overall project area. It's a large project. It's 40 kilometers in length. This is the regional sheer zone that runs through there. The Bibbiani sheer zone. What we're looking at is we're looking at mineralization that's associated with splays coming off of that shear zone. And these include the deposits that we'll be looking at in detail, boine, sium, niam, and kwachi krum. So again, important to keep that in mind, the structurally controlled nature of this, and as well, the relatively small footprint that even the current resources encompass. We've got lots of potential to continue to expanding those zones, and again, we'll look at these in detail. And I'll try to show you where that, some of that exploration potential exists. So first deposit we'll look at is CU. So again, it's the largest of the 4 deposits that we have now.

20:01 We'll go into the 3 dimensional model and look at this in a little bit more detail again. Important to note that outside of even the resource update that was included in the PEA this week, we've now completed another almost 4,000 meters here at SEUM. So here's the current resource. So again, a little over 725,000 ounces. So that's grown significantly since our last resource. Now 41 million tons available. And as we'll see when we look at it, some really low stripping ratios, especially here in the northern portion of Sioum, where we've got a number of subparallel shears in here, and it gives us a nice wide zone. Again, all of which come right to surface so that eliminates the need for that. That that pre stripping.

20:53 So this is the zone again when you sort of spin it around here and take a look at it. I'll note that all of these three-dimensional models have 3 main components in them. The gray area you see here is the pit outline for the resource. So that's the whittle pit that constrains the resources. These are pit constrained resources. And then the blue and red and yellow zones. So that is the resource itself at various different cutoffs. So that's one of the other zones there, the NIAM zone. So again, you'll see that all of these three-dimensional models have the same aspect to them. So again, the pit shells, the resource itself at the various cut-offs, the blue, the yellow, half a gram, 2 a gram, and the red, greater than 1 gram.

21:53 And then these are the drill hole traces here. So the black are the drill hole traces, and the yellow are the zones where we've encountered the gold values. So looking at it in a little bit more detail here at Siyum, again the structurally controlled nature, we see these structures that run regionally controlling the mineralization. Siyum's actually the most complicated of the zones that we have. It brings in a couple of other. Different aspects. One is a large, intrusive body that sits in here and again. That's one of the controls that's giving us the nice wide widths that we see there, But as well, we've got some secondary structures coming in. And where these structures intersect the regional structure, we've got another one coming in here. That's where we see some of these blowouts giving us some better grades and widths.

22:45 We'll zoom in now and look at a couple of these cross-sections. So this is in the central part of the Sioum deposit. The main takeaway here, nice wide zone again in here, number of subparallel structures. This is what results in this really nice low stripping ratio as we are able to capture all of this mineralization here in a pit. A little bit north of that section, about 100 meters north, this is the northernmost section now on this central part of the area here. You can see that we haven't done any drilling to the north of this, and that's very important because it. It shows the exploration potential there, so we're not actually getting the full value of this significant intercept that we see here. So over 100 meter intercept because there's nothing to the north of it yet. So we have now completed some drilling there along the Northern extent of this structure.

23:42 And this is certainly one of the, say with a low hanging fruit that we have for the expansion potential here at at at see him. As well, and this will be a theme as we scroll through the rest of these cross sections and models. We do have areas where we're starting to see some some better grade mineralization. So this is the seam extension, the southern part of the deposit at this point. Again, we see good definition, good consistency between the drill holes and the zones are open at depth and the plan is to do some deeper drilling there, especially in these areas where we're seeing some better grade material. Next deposit we'll look at is Boyne. So this is the second largest deposit. It's the longest deposit at this point. We've tested it now for about 4 kilometers. And as we'll see, that's completely open. Some of the recent drilling has actually extended it by over a kilometer, and we'll look at that in detail. In the 3 dimensional and this is the area where we've done the most drilling Since the cut off for the resource estimate that was in the P A. So we've done more than an additional 8000 m of drilling here. That was the southern end of the deposit. We've also done some some real good work in the in the northern end.

25:00 And we'll look at this in the three-dimensional image, but much like the one we just looked at at Sayum, this is an intersect that's right at the end of one of the pits that's currently modeled. It wasn't included in the resource, and it shows the sort of potential of, again, with the relatively short hole here, having a nice wide intercept and that's again already expanded the resource potential outside of the update that we just did this week. So this is the resource, So over 500,000 ounces currently at Boyne, almost 22 million tonnes, so again a very significant component within the current resource of all of the deposits.

25:42 Boyne probably gives the best representation of this structurally controlled nature, so again big straight line coming through here. Again, we do have some secondary controls in areas and where we intersect there, that's where we get some of the wider and better grade mineralization. So as well here, again, You can see the new drilling that we've done. So this is drilling that was completed. Post the cut off for the resource that's included in the P A. This has added more than 1 kilometer to the strike length of the zone, and we've actually got the RC rig working there now, doing some infield drilling. As well, we've extended the zone over 400 meters to the north. I've mentioned those holes that are sort of on the edge of the model and we'll look at some of those now. So you can, if you sort of zoom in there, you can see some of those areas where we've got some of that drilling. That's again, just outside of the update that we've done. We'll look at some of this and these are really important. You know, we see that we've got some sort of gaps

26:53 in the pits here, but as we do more drilling, we believe we'll fill those in and ultimately this will be 1 continuous pit. Again, we've got another over a kilometer to the south and another 400 meters to the north that we've already drilled tested. So first cross section we'll look at again is the one that we sort of touched on on the plan map there, the static map.

27:16 And again, the real significance here was that, so in the resource update, we had these holes on this and the block model sort of got interpreted here and didn't really continue going to surface. Obviously we knew that this structure would go to surface, We just hadn't drilled this area previously, so subsequent to the resource estimate, we've completed this and essentially now where the block model doesn't have any mineralization, we've intersected 69 M of 0.9 grams, including. 2 grams over 12 m so real positive results and then just sort of shows the impact of again relatively short holes, well-placed holes with the potential to expand on this resource. Touched on this gap area, so previously if you saw a presentation

28:03 about 6 months ago, there was no drilling at all in this area. We've now filled that in with first pass drilling. We've had some great success there. And you see it here, one of the holes. So again, these are intersects that are within the oxide horizon. So this is new mineralization that's been defined.

28:20 And again, with some additional drilling in this area, we'll be able to completely fill in those gaps within the current pit shelves. And then as well, we've started to do some deeper drilling here at Boyne. This is again on the southern end of the deposit, so it shows that it's basically right on the edge of the pit there, and you can sort of limit it by the fact that we haven't done a lot of drilling to the south, but as we complete that drilling to the south, we'll fill that in. And what we're seeing here is again, some good wide widths at higher grades, so almost 2 grams per ton over 19 meters, and that includes 3.2 over 7. So good to see those

29:00 higher grades coming in. This was the third of the 3 deposits, now the third of the 4 deposits that make up the resource. So this is Niamh, as well as the other zones. Again, a significant amount of drilling has been completed since the cutoff for the resource estimate. When we look at the expansion potential, we've got similarly the target areas here, so these are open along strike. We've got some of these areas that we still need to fill in. So these gap zones, as we call them, and as well, of course, the zone is open at depth. So that's, again, a theme that we see for all of these deposits is we've got the zones open along strike, areas within them that certainly we can optimize.

29:48 And as we've seen in some of the other areas, very significant upgrades to the model and to the resource. And then again, one of the focuses going forward, we're sort of transitioning now from, largely focused in the near surface environment to with the 3 diamond rigs that we have on site, starting to follow up on some of these better grade intercepts that we have in a slightly deeper environment. And I think that's important to remember is that when we talk about deeper drilling, for us, those are still holes that are 200,250 metres long, so 175 to 200 metres below surface. We've got a lot of potential to continue to expand these zones in a relatively near surface environment. So again, good strong structural control here at NIAM.

30:38 Similar to Boyne, we've extended the zone both to the north and to the south along strike. It is completely open and we'll look at that in a moment. And as well, again, similar to some of the other zones, and especially here at Niamh, we've now started testing the zone a little bit deeper. And as we'll see, we've got some really nice high-grade intercepts

31:01 associated with this sort of first set of deeper holes that we're now putting in. And of course, these again are all underneath the pit that is currently modeled. This drilling was completed after the cutoff of the resource update. So this again, NIAM, we'll look at a couple of cross sections here. These are highlighting some of that deeper intercept. So again, in sort of the central portion of the current deposit, you see the nice detailed drilling that's given us the resource up in the oxide horizon. Good consistency to the structure, structurally controlled, very well-behaved

31:41 zone here. And then as we're starting to get deep, we still see some nice wide widths of mineralisation, but we're starting to see again some significant upgrades to the grade. So almost 2g over 25m, 5.8g over 7m. The next section is 100m

31:59 to the north of that. Again, similarly, good detail drilling up in the oxides. And as we get a little bit deeper here now, again, 1.6 over 40m, so big wide zone there. And that includes 5.5g within a higher grade core structure. So very significant. And ultimately, that's what we'll look to do is to. You know, below the level of the ultimate pits focus in on these higher grade zones, get them in a couple of cross-section start connecting the dots and look to create a resource there at higher grades. This is about the southernmost section that we've drilled. So you can see just on the southern edge of the pit there, the zone is open. And again, we've drilled a few holes subsequent to the resource update, and we've got more drilling to do to the south. Again, nice wide zone in here, number of sub-parallel structures, so giving you again that nice low stripping ratio close to surface.

32:59 But as well, What we like here is that we're starting to see some really good grade material as we get a little bit deeper. So although it's one of the smallest resources at the moment, still lots of potential to continue to expand there at NIAM. So The newest deposit we have is Kwachi Krum. So again, we've done quite a bit of drilling here

33:23 and an additional 2200 meters since the resource update. Those are significant step out to the south. So we've almost doubled the size of the strike length that we're tested now subsequent to the resource estimate. So during the resource estimate, it was about half a kilometer. And now we've extended the zone for another half a kilometer to the south. This is a on trend from NIAM. So as we've seen

33:51 with these structural controls, nice straight lines connecting the 2. NIAM, we've got about 1.8 kilometers for the deposit there. Again, we've tested about half a kilometre here and we've got 3 kilometres in between where we've got gold and soil anomalies and geophysical anomalies that are yet to be tested. So although it's currently the smallest deposit, certainly lots of potential here to continue to expand at both Niamh and Kwachi Krum.

34:20 So again, we've got a number of these drill holes to the south here, which were drilled subsequent to the resource estimation. So we'll look at a couple of cross sections here again, similarly good detail drilling up into the oxides. We do like that we're starting to see some better grade material again as we get a little bit deeper. So 1.4 grams over 26, that includes 3.3 over 9. So again, it's very similar to the NIAM area. Again, good wide zones within the oxides. This again, similar to some of the other sections we've looked at right at the very southern edge of the model at this point. So again, with a little bit more drilling to the south will really start to exceed the pit expand and capture all of this additional material.

35:13 And similarly here at with this section that was hole 18. Again, multiple sub-parallel structures helps with the stripping ratio. And very encouraging to see some better grade material here as we get a little bit deeper. So just to step back, again, we take a good look at all of the deposits, but it is important to

35:37 keep in mind that we've only drilled 6 of the 25 targets that exist on the project. These are the 2 main tools that we have in the toolbox. We've looked at some of these geophysical images, again, these structures coming off the regional splay, very significant to hosting the gold mineralization. But as well, we've got these kilometer scale gold and soil anomalies, the largest of which on the property here at Siem South, we haven't drill tested to date.

36:06 You'll look at that in sort of our overall exploration strategy. Again, we've concentrated on some of these deposits, getting these drilled areas into the deposit category, and then as well again advancing some of these targets which we will be doing first pass drilling in this year in 2021.

36:28 A lot of what we've talked about is focused on the near surface. Again, this PEA is largely focused on the oxide zones, very near surface. But if you look at us in a regional context, a lot of the potential does lie following these zones to depth. And again, that's where the, for us, the 3 diamond drills will focus over the next number of months is following these higher grade shoots to depth which I've tried to highlight on some of those sections and ultimately build

36:59 a resource within the non-oxidized portion of the system. With that, I'll pass it back to Luke. Yeah, thanks Greg for running through that. So, I mean, hopefully that's kind of highlighted to everyone that ultimately, you know, a big part of the focus for us remains on the exploration side. Again, our goal is to grow this to a 4-5 million plus ounce resource. What we think this PEA does is it creates a significant fundamental underpinning of value for our shareholders. And I think we've seen that start to be reflected within the share price over the last couple of days, given the move it's had on significant volume. But what we're going to do from here on out is continue to grow that resource and look to ultimately beef up that initial study that we put out this week. So just to kind of recap, I mean, top tier management team who are truly aligned with shareholders through a 32% ownership in the business. Very strong capital structure under 100 million shares, outstanding and very well supported by institutional shareholders as well as 5 tier 1 investment banks from a research perspective.

38:17 Gone as a tier 1 jurisdiction to be operating in. We put out a very robust PEA this week, and now we're really focused on that resource growth. So over the next few months, continue to expect to see results coming out from us as we continue to drill out the project. So with that, it looks like there's lots of questions that have come in, so really appreciate that and we'll hand it over to you Mal to kind of stick handle those questions. Perfect and great job guys, very comprehensive presentation.

38:48 So I'll start with a question that Greg can handle in terms of who prepared the PEA and when will the full technical report be published on CDAR? Yeah, we worked with our consultants at BBA, and

39:06 we've just announced it, and then we have 45 days to complete the actual NI 43-101 technical report. So, you know, it might be a little bit sooner than that, but usually they take the majority of those 45 days to get that done. And that date is July 23rd, if anybody was looking for that additional bit of detail. So let's dive, I'm gonna do my best to kind of stick with questions on the PEA and then move to the exploration side. But on the PEA, it mentions that power will be derived from a mix of grid and diesel. Was solar considered even in a backup capacity? No, I mean We've seen and we've looked at other projects that have used solar. We did not look at this for our PEA.

39:51 I think that's ultimately something that we could look at from an optimization perspective, but there is a power line in close proximity to the project And then we do include a backup diesel power source as well. So we could look at solar, but the project has very robust economics with the kind of power sources that we did look at. So that would be an optimization thing down the road potentially. Great. And then there's a few questions around metallurgy and mineralization. So what is the gold recovery assumption? Let's recap that to start with. The overall recovery, I'll jump in there and look and you can expand on, in the model are 79%.

40:37 So, we have done a number of additional studies in the last 12 months, bottle rolls and column tests, specifically focused on Boeing and Sium, which are, again, the 2 largest deposits, make up, I guess, over 90% of the resource. So we've done the testing there. Ultimately, the metallurgical recoveries in the model are separated by material type, oxide transition and fresh rock for each of the 4 deposits. So we've got definitely some more work to do and there's actually some good potential, I think, to with some additional optimization work, even maybe garner another percent or 2 in some of the big areas.

41:25 And- Yeah, I might just add to that, that we, you know, obviously oxide transitional fresh rock, but also within our current deposits, we've got multiple different areas. So at Boeing and Sium, for example, we've got, you know, samples from the northern end, the central end and the southern end. So a lot of work has been done from a MET perspective, but obviously lots to go from here on out as we continue to drill and expand the overall size of the resource. And I think to follow on that, sort of what the next things on the metallurgy side are, we have a question around column tests. So how many column tests were included in the PEA? Are they all on oxides? And what is the recovery rate for the sulfides? Yeah, so we've completed 4 column tests, again, focused on, 2 each on Seum and Boein, the large deposits. We've got additional columns that are being done now.

42:21 So for sure, it's a start. I mean, ultimately, we'll have dozens, if not hundreds of additional tests completed here. And Yeah, interestingly enough, the recoveries in the columns were actually better than some of the bottle rolls, but certainly in line with them in general. Now, again, in terms of the ultimate results from these bottom rolls, we've done a factoring, so we're not using the numbers out of those bottle rolls. We reduced them significantly to compare them to what the expected conditions in a heap are. So yeah, and largely, to answer the second part, yes, we focused on the oxide material. The oxide and the transition material for us, behave very similarly. And those are by far and away the largest component of the current resource.

43:10 So likewise, our metallurgical work to date has focused on the oxide and the transition material. There's been very little done on the fresh rock. We've done a bunch of bottle rolls on it. But as we continue to drill deeper and get into the fresh rock and get a significant amount of material out of that fresh rock, then yes, we'll be doing much more metallurgy on that style of mineralization. Great. And I think, Greg, something, a great question that came in kind of that ties into all of that is a bit more around mineralization and the difference between the oxidized zones and the deeper zones. You can comment on that. Sure. It's not a lot, actually, when you look at it. If you can keep those cross sections in mind, you know, they're relatively straight lines that come up out of the fresh rock and through the transition zone and into the saprolite. So really what you're seeing is through this weathering process that's forming the saprolite, this oxidized horizon, you're seeing the minerals that make up the rock break down and they're becoming softer. So it becomes a much softer material, which again, can be easily dug and that lowers your mining costs.

44:28 But within that, you've got these quartz vein structures and those are very important for hosting the gold mineralization and and largely those quartz vein structures don't break down as much as the surrounding rocks so you you know instead of having then a gray rock with a bunch of white quartz veins or a green rock that hosts the mineralization, then you end up with a brown mud that has a bunch of quartz veins that host the gold mineralization. So yes, there's a pretty significant change there visually and from a hardness standpoint, but in terms of the style of the mineralization, it's still all about the density of quartz veining and where you see the quartz veining, that's where the gold mineralization tends to be both in the sapper light and in the hard rock.

45:17 Great. And what is the oxidation depth, and how much of the 70 million tons are oxide? So the oxidation depth varies for sure. 1 good thing is that it's deepest in our largest deposit, so at Boyne and for most of Sioum, it goes down between 50 and 70 meters vertically. So that's how we're able to build that significant tonnage of oxidized material. Now it's a little less at Niam. And ultimately, in terms of the current resource, we're looking at about 80% that's in that, that's not hard rock at this point. Yeah, and then the other thing I might just add, if you look at our pit shells that Greg kind of went through in some detail, the average depth of those pits is 63 metres.

46:12 So that kind of highlights, and then depending on which deposit we're looking at, And part of it is it's rolling hills. So where there's rolling hills, obviously we're kind of getting up to potentially 70, 80 meters of oxidized transitional zone. And then at the bottom of those hills, you may be getting as low as 30 meters. So anywhere from 30 to 80 meters, but the study, the average depth of the pits is 63 meters. Great. And can we comment a bit on agglomeration? Why is it needed? Main reason it's contemplated within this PEA is ultimately there is some clay in the area. So when you do have clay, it's prudent to ultimately agglomerate. But one of the optimization things we could look at is some of the material being dumped straight onto the heap as well.

47:08 So again, that's an optimization, lever that will look at to potentially pull down the road as we do more work on the project. And Greg, one more question for you in terms of process on these drill results is do you sample the entire drill hole? We do. So yeah, in all cases, we're sampling right from top to bottom And with the RC rigs, that's done obviously right at the rig as the materials coming out, it's collected on a meter by meter by meter by meter basis. So that actually makes the whole sampling process pretty easy. And then with the diamond rigs, obviously we wait till we complete the entire diamond drill hole the core hole We obviously bring all of the core back to our core warehouse Which Luke showed a quick image of on one of those three-dimensional Drone images and And then all our experienced geologists do all of the logging, structural logging, everything that needs to be done, all the sampling, and then that's sent off to the lab.

48:15 Perfect. So shifting gears to cost now, your mining cost, dollar per ton estimate in the PEA looks low. What was the mining equipment fleet assumption? Did you receive contractor budget quotes in Ghana or was it an internal bottom-up cost build? So for the entire PEA, it was a combination of both quotes as well as bottom-up, specifically on the mining costs given it is a key driver for the project. We did get 3 quotes from different contractors operating in Ghana. We then took those quotes and compared them to a number of other projects in West Africa, as well as other heap leach projects globally. One of the things is When you look at that mining cost, it is a direct mining cost. It doesn't include the contractor contingency, which I was just looking at the other day, adds about 60 cents per ton, roughly.

49:14 But If anyone's looking for the specific breakdown of that additional cost that some people layer on top, just send us an email and we can get you the granularity on that. But just at a higher level, yes, we got contractor costs from multiple different contractors and then took those and compared them to recent, either PFSs or FSs from different projects in West Africa, as well as around the world. Perfect, and now Let's talk a little bit about strategy. So with the strong results that we've had from the PEA, has our strategy shifted at all from exploration to potentially development? No, it hasn't shifted at all. And I think as you probably saw in this presentation, half of this presentation was kind of dedicated to reiterating the exploration upside that we've got across the project.

50:08 Our view remains that ultimately we can grow this to a 4Moz or 5Moz plus resource and that's how we'll create the most value possible. We're extremely pleased with the PEA that we put out this week and the reaction that there's been in the market as well as the increased target prices that we've seen from a number of the analysts covering us. So that creates that further underpinning of value that I've been talking about for a number of months and the motivation we had for doing this study was ultimately to show the market the value that there is here, but we think this is a data point in time and that we'll ultimately be able to really build off of this and grow the overall size of the ounces, which will then lead to a much larger project down the road.

50:55 Great, and kind of on that theme still, a question here, do you intend to put Enchi into production, if so, when? No, so kind of similar, I mean, you know, from here where, you know, some people would go to a PFS and an FS and there is a standalone project here that's, you know, got very robust economics that, you know, someone else may be interested in putting into production at this stage. But again, our view is that given the district scale exploration opportunity that we're standing on top of, we'll be able to continue to grow the ounces and ultimately the overall size of this project and the economics associated with it. So we're not looking at putting this into production in the near term. That being said, you know, once we've drilled another 100,200,000 meters, whatever the number is, maybe there is a scenario where we go, okay, yeah, it does make sense at this point to put a small operation in production to fund the exploration.

51:53 But from where we sit today, we see that as unlikely. So really I'd look at it as a district scale exploration opportunity underpinned by a PEA with robust economics. Yeah, and maybe I'd just jump in there for a second and say that even again, within the exploration side of things, we've seen that we've, you know, We've already added a kilometer and a half to the strike length at Boyne. I've highlighted some of those holes that are outside of the current resource, but within the oxides that are, again, going to have meaningful impacts in some areas. So even in terms of the, if you strictly focus on the oxides, even the oxide is going to continue to grow. So we'll want to complete, you know, a significant amount of work and that a lot of that's going to be this 46,000 meters that's yet to go and test these zones. And that could have a real positive, meaningful impact on even an updated study focusing on the oxides.

52:54 Great. And, you know, we talk a lot about the exploration potential here and that growth from drilling, but What about other areas as we've completed this PEA? What other areas have stood out to you in terms of areas for upside? I think one of them I kind of touched on briefly is and with the exploration success that we've had up at Niamh and Kwachi Krum and Kojina Hill, call it the Niam, Kwachi Krum, Kojina Hill complex, but as ounces grow up there, and Greg's highlighted that there's a 3 kilometer gap there as well as remains open a long strike both to the north and to the south. As ounces grow up there you know there's a scenario where we could put a heap leach pad up there and where that really helps improve the economics is at that stage, we're not obviously having to truck it 10 to 15 kilometers down to see you. So that could be a real meaningful impact.

53:57 The other thing is, as we continue to explore and we start to drill deeper and get into the sulfides more, there could be a scenario where we look at going directly to a milling operation or a CIL operation and the real kind of benefit there is you know you then take your recovery from 79% to mid 90s. That additional call it 15% recovery that you get in a lot of cases can weigh more than offset the capital increase that comes with a milling operation. So those are the kind of things that we'll look at from a trade-off perspective as we continue to build the overall resource. And if you look at some of the operations along the Sefwi-Bibiani belt, including Kinross' Toronto 50 kilometers to the north of us, they initially contemplated a 13 pit open, 13 pit heap leach operation and ultimately went to a CIL operation, again, because of that resource growth at depth. So that's another thing that we could look at down the road.

55:07 Lots of areas to look at. I think lots of upside, which is nice. In terms of a question for Greg, if you include the rest of the drill meters into the resource? And this is a very forward-looking question, so Kathy added as needed. What would be the potential for the resource expansion? Yeah, again, I think you look at the drilling that's been done and factor that into the resource that we have. Again, the ultimate potential is, as we've stated, we believe this is a multi-million ounce potential. So as we drill all of these zones and expand them, But in terms of specifically the, you know, say the 20,000 meters that's been drilled but not included, we're looking at hundreds of thousands of ounces there that will potentially be impacted. And largely, the biggest driver will be that over 1 kilometer extension of the Boyne zone to the south. As I highlighted, that's essentially the length of the main pit that makes up the Boyne resource at this point.

56:11 So that's a real significant extension. But again, even these other zones that are just outside of the pits. The good thing about it is it's twofold. You get the mineralization that's in that drill hole, but as I've tried to highlight, you also get the pits expanding in the 2 directions, getting wider and getting longer. And then that captures a bunch of additional material that's currently sitting just outside the pits. So I guess what I say is every hole helps. And just to clarify, that's 46,000 meters that has not been included in this PA and resource update of the 66,000 meter drill program that we started last year. So one more question over to Greg, with the remaining meters to be drilled, can you comment a bit around the focus of those meters and any new targets that we're looking at?

57:00 Yeah, so the focus is shifting a little bit to concentrating on some of this slightly deeper drilling. So again, keeping in mind that for us, deeper drilling is still within, certainly within 300m vertical of surface. And that's what the 3 diamond rigs, I've highlighted that we're following up on some of the high-grade results at Niamh in particular, drilling some deeper holes at Boyne and Sium. But as well, we've got the RC rig that's back at that kilometer extension at Boyne now, proving up and expanding on the discovery that we've made there with the extension of Boyne. And then that RC rig will then be moving to a zone that we didn't actually talk about a lot. I circled it quickly on the Geochem map, but it's Seum South. It's actually the largest Geochem anomaly on the project.

57:52 It's 3.5 kilometers long and 2 kilometers wide, and it doesn't have a single drill hole into it. So we've been doing a pretty aggressive trenching program there over the last 6 months. And we're basically now ready to plan some holes and do a first pass drilling program on that exciting target. Great. I'm very excited about all the potential here, not just with the PEA, but also with the exploration. So let's a couple more questions and we'll wrap things up. So in terms of the Entry Gold Project, are we using local Ghanaian or Canadian source drillers? So one of the real advantages we've got in Ghana is, I mean, because it's Africa's largest gold producer, there's a huge amount of mining services companies in Ghana, as well as our assay lab is based in Ghana. So we leverage off of all of the mining services companies that are based in Ghana and ultimately use them for our drilling at our ENCHI project.

58:59 Yeah, I think it's one of our strong focuses too, is making sure that we are focused on local employment as much as possible. And really just the 3 of us are the only ones I think outside of Ghana. I would go just half a step further on that. As I mean, I would say Ghana is actually an exporter of mining expertise. We've had a number of people come back to us who are Ghanaian, who wanted to live back in Ghana, who had been working in other parts of Africa. That's a real advantage for us and our ENCHI project is that there is a huge amount of skilled labor in country. And then if we go even further down, whenever we're going into a new area to drill, we always offer jobs to the locals first, in case there is interest from that perspective.

59:52 So yeah, we've got real benefits on that front. Yeah, thanks, Luke. I think that's a very, very important point. In terms of the largest management shareholders, can you just point out in terms of that 32% how that's held? Yeah, so it's broken down. I guess the 2 largest would be Doug Forrester and Blaine Johnson. They're co-founders of Nucor and have a very successful track record in the mining sector. We're involved in Newmarket Gold, which was a huge success story. It started off as a $10M company, bought the Fosterville asset in Australia, sold it 12 months later or 14 months later for $1.2 billion.

1:00:40 So those would be the 2 largest, you know, individual shareholders within that 32%. And one of the other things I think is important is that management and insiders have always written checks alongside investors. So, I mean, this isn't a company that we gave ourselves a whole pile of stock at a penny a share and then turn around to the market and start raising at multiples of that. We've all, you know, invested in the company alongside investors and I think that's ultimately important to be truly aligned and all our decisions are made as shareholders first. And just 2 questions and then we'll wrap things up. How much time does management spend in Ghana? This year has been challenging from a time in country perspective.

1:01:31 But one of the great things is, as we've kind of highlighted in terms of the expertise that there is in Ghana, I mean Dan Wilson, he's our country manager. Dan's worked on this project on and off for the past 25 years. And he's been directly involved with us for the past 10 years on the project. So he's got a huge amount of knowledge on the project and ultimately relationships with all the local stakeholders as well as at a government level. And yeah, so he's a key part of our management team, as well as obviously all our senior GEOs and other employees on the ground. So we haven't been able to get over to Ghana as much as we normally would given COVID, but we're very fortunate to have such a talented team in country.

1:02:23 And one final question over to Luke, in terms of financing, can you comment on the company's current finances and what if we'll need to be raising more money? Yeah, so at the end of March we had $9 million and from a financing perspective, the way we laid out our budget and as shareholders of the business, our view is that the way we'll create shareholder values by getting as many meters into the ground as possible. So we laid out that 66,000 meter program. We also wanted to update our PEA and make sure that that was fully funded and then leave ourselves with enough cash to run the business on the on the back end of that 66,000 meter program. So that takes us well into 2022.

1:03:10 Perfect. Any last words from either of you? Anything you want to say before I wrap things up? No, I think listen, I really appreciate all the questions that have come forward. We're always very keen to engage with shareholders and prospective shareholders. So please feel free, we've got to get in touch anytime, as well as we put a lot of content out on social media. So whether it's LinkedIn or Twitter or Facebook, we've got a YouTube channel. So we try to put content out there that's very digestible. So I would encourage you to sign up for any of those different platforms if you haven't already. And I just add that for the more adventurous, we've got everything on the platform there at Verify that you can jump in and take a look as well.

1:04:03 And yeah, have some fun with the model. Yeah, you do a full virtual tour there and play with all the models that Greg was spinning around. And I think that really does highlight once you get in there and have a look the scale of our overall project as well as where all of these drill holes sit in relation to the 20 in relation to the PEA. Pits that we just put out and and the real growth that we're we're going to see going forward. Great, thank you both. And if anybody does have any questions that were not answered, please do reach out to my email is mal at new core gold dot com. And I just want to thank everyone for joining today. And I also want to thank 6 for hosting us. We are out of time. We actually ran over time a little bit. But great questions and great engagement, so thank you everyone. And do reach out with questions. Visit our website. Both the presentation you saw today and our corporate presentation are on the website along with the verify versions that allow you to go into those models specifically and take a virtual tour as well on the verify site. And lastly give us a follow as Luke mentioned we are very active on social so give us a follow on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook we post a lot of great content to keep everybody up to date on development. So thanks for taking the time to learn more about our PA and the drilling that's ongoing.