Thor Explorations (TSXV:THX) — First Quarter 2025 Financial and Operating Results

0:01 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the THOR EXPLORATIONS LTD investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged. They can be submitted at any time via the q and a tab that's just situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Please just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, company can review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses where it's appropriate to do so on the Investor Meet company platform. Before we begin, as usual, we would just

0:33 like to submit the following poll. And if you could give that your kind attention, I'm sure the company would be most grateful. And I would now like to hand you over to CEO, Shagan Lawson. Shagan, good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon. It's a pleasure to be here presenting our most recent set of results for q one, and thanks. I will good good afternoon and good morning or good evening to everyone who's watching and listening at the moment. So I'll go through the presentation, and then I look forward to taking any questions after the end of the presentation. We have a disclaimer in here because there will be forward looking statements in the presentation.

1:17 For those of you who don't know us by now or who are new to the company, here's a brief overview. We are a West Africa focused gold producer. We're advancing projects in three jurisdictions in West Africa, Nigeria, Senegal, and Cote D'Ivoire. We're very well positioned with a strong pipeline of exploration projects, and we are well positioned for growth through exploration organically. Our shareholder value is underpinned by strong cash flow out of our flagship project in Nigeria, the Segalolo gold project, which is based off a a DFS reserve of just over half a million ounces of gold grading at 4.2 grams per ton. Our forecast for production this year is between 85,095 ounces for the year, and we are doing that at a very low all in sustaining cost of between $800 and $1,000 per ounce.

2:15 Our second project is the Duta project in Senegal, where which we have been advancing for a number of years, and we're advancing towards preliminary feasibility study. That has a global resource of 1,780,000 ounces equally split, half indicated, half inferred, the the last resource. We had to, earlier this year, defer our preliminary our preliminary feasibility study as a result of drilling two discovery holes in the southern portion of our new license called the Baraka 3 prospect. The these came up with very encouraging results, which we'll see later on, which we have released to the market. And we are now aggressively drilling this prospect so we can incorporate the results of this drilling program into our preliminary feasibility study.

3:08 We have three drill rigs active here drilling for a day shift and a night shift twenty four hours a day to get this done as quickly as possible. And the project is being advanced to a preliminary feasibility study. The most recent portfolio of licenses in our in in the group portfolio is in Cote D'Ivoire where we moved in last year. We acquired some very prospective ground, which continues to excite us. The Gwichu project, the Marahi project, and the Bundiali. These are all exploration projects, and we have been very encouraged by the results that have come out of these the exploration activities on these licenses since we started last year, and I will be going into a bit more detail in this presentation as well.

3:57 Lastly, we continue to hold on to our lithium exploration portfolio in Nigeria. We we have over 600 square kilometers of of ground there. We we are looking to push these forward using our own drilling rigs, and until then, we won't be using third party rigs, for this. So our product in Nigeria, produced 85,000 ounces, last year, and we've had a strong start to the year producing 22,700 ounces in the first quarter this year. We've been very happy with our share price performance over the last twelve months as we've continued to deliver and, you know, stayed on top of our costs.

4:42 Obviously, we're in a we're in a high prevailing gold price environment. And given the fact that we have such low costs, you know, every incremental dollar on the on the gold price is very beneficial for us. It just increases our margin. We have a our register is getting more and more institutionalized. We have no warrants outstanding, and we're capitalized about our market cap is just over $450,000,000 Canadian.

5:16 So q one, it was a it was a strong quarter, as we say. We poured just under 23,000 ounces of gold. We sold, you know, roundabout the same amount for a revenue of $64,100,000 whilst keeping our all in sustaining cost below $1,000 per ounce, which resulted in very strong cash flow numbers, you know, an EBITDA of 43 over $43,500,000, a a record net income for a quarter of just over round about $34,500,000. And, you know, if you look at our net cash position, you know, moving that from where we were at the end of December of round about $12,000,000 to over $24,500,000.

6:06 So, you know, the quarterly production was in line with our guidance for the quarter, and it's also in line with our annual forecast. We are now increasing our cash flows on monthly basis and also increasing our cash balances. We're completely unhedged. So we had a a hedge book position at the beginning of the year of about 5,500 ounces. We we completely unwound those positions during the quarter, and now we have full exposure to the gold price. We also announced in the quarter dividend policy and our maiden dividend policy. We have started returning funds to our shareholders. Dividend policy is 1.25 Canadian cents, per share, per quarter, which equates to 5¢ per year, which we are committed to giving back to our shareholders for a minimum of the for the next two years. Those numbers are minimum dollar numbers.

7:09 And we believe we have sufficient funding and a strong enough balance sheet to continue advancing exploration across our entire portfolio in a sustainable manner whilst returning these funds to our shareholders. So our production for q one, you know, one thing we did mention in our MD and A was that, you know, our fleet is aging. We we have, as a result, mined a lower volume during the quarter. However, we are we we have seen a a pickup in the grade, and we have seen that continue since the end of the quarter. So, you know, our grade in q one this year was the highest we've mined on average over the last five quarters.

7:59 And if you look at our stockpile, we have, you know, over one year's worth of processing material on the stockpile as well, which can soon start to be blended in with our ongoing production. The processing plant continued to perform very strongly. The last two quarters, we have seen we we have seen incremental increases in recovery quarter upon quarter. In q one this year, it was a 93.7% recovery on a a very high head grade of 3.24 grams per ton. So we are very pleased with that, and we look to continue that through the course of the year.

8:45 We've committed significant amounts of our focus as a top priority to exploring underneath the open pit at Segolola. We press release these set of results in early in q one. Drilling has been ongoing since. And once we we're we're looking to amass a significant set of results, we will be press releasing our next batch of results before the end of q two this year. One thing that the initial drilling has revealed is that this proof of concept of this gentle sloping mineralization continuing underneath the pit at minable grades and at minable intersections width.

9:32 So we we've stepped up this drilling. We're drilling at a faster pace. We are trying to get to a position whereby in the second half of the year, we can come up with an updated resource and a and an updated forecast of the the mine life. As we know now, you know you know, Segnoll is based on a on a shorter mine life, And, you know, we have every confidence there's additional gold to be found underneath the pit, and we are doing our best to to to, should I say, delineate this through drilling, which has been success to date. Even when you look at the results we have released from now and the the the percentage of success rates in terms of holes that have been drilled through the gold mineralization at mineable grades has been extremely high, and we can we believe this structure does continue. So we look forward to updating the market with this.

10:36 And same in q one, not just the underground has been a focus. Historically, we have drilled a number of discoveries within tracking distance of the Segolola plant. We we we have follow-up drill programs going on them, and we are looking to now look how we are looking now we are investigating how to aggregate these satellite deposits into an open pit mine plan that can be stockpiled at the mine site. There are a couple of things to note here. These satellite deposits we have discovered to date have been on the smaller side, but are very, very high grade, well north of five grams per ton, and we'll certainly have a a positive impact on the project economics of stockpiled at the plant. So that all that work is ongoing now.

11:28 In the period and just before the period as well, we we came across through our own regional sampling an anomalous area approximately 50 kilometers south of Sagaluila. We've spent a lot of time, doing some follow-up investigative work on this, which has included stream sediment sampling, source sampling, analyzing, aeromagnetic data. And we've put together another, assembled a portfolio here, which consists of various JVs and some of the land which we own ourselves. We're actually very excited about this, and, we are delineating drill targets here. Drilling is set to, drilling is set to kick off here, this quarter, and we look forward to getting, the results of this, drilling out to the to our shareholders and investors in the very near future.

12:23 Moving on to Senegal, a high level introduction. We are in the Southeast Corner of Senegal close to the Mali border. We have two licenses there that are contiguous and form one project, the Duta project. The Duta project is a project which we have been advancing over the last few years, and we've we're pretty close to getting our preliminary feasibility study out based on a global resource of just under 1,800,000 ounces. Most of the preliminary feasibility study work stream have been completed. However, and this was backed up by a final round of strong drilling intersections, which certainly enhanced the project.

13:08 However, we like I mentioned at the beginning of this presentation, we we had identified a structure to the south, which has mineralized the surface confirmed by soil geochemistry and rock chips and geological mapping. And after having kicked off the drilling, you know, the drill holes confirmed what we we were seeing at surface. It's worth noting the importance of these drill holes. They're all in within the oxide. They're wide and relatively high grade. And, you know, a project like this of of this scale in the air parts of the world we are in where we do have experience of difficult metallurgy, these ounces are very, very material in terms of being able to process them very easily. So strategically, it made a lot of sense to hold press pause on the PFS, complete the drilling program here, delineate some mineable ounces, and incorporate them into the proposed mine plan for the Duta project. I'm pleased to say we are just about getting to the end of the 8,000 meters of worth of drilling.

14:24 We all these samples are being submitted to the lab on a on a fortnightly basis. We should be in a position where we we're able to update the resource with the updated drilling results and and update the market with updated drilling results and incorporate these into upgraded PFS, should I say, compared to the PFS we were we were positioned to release. So we're we're very encouraged by this. We believe it was a decision that was required to be taken by us as a company, and we look forward to updating the market with the results, updated resource, the and preliminary feasibility study, which we still aiming for in the second half of this year.

15:12 In Cote D'Ivoire, I mentioned earlier, this is our most recent addition to addition to our portfolio, which, happened last year. We have some very good ground, which includes the project, which we acquired from Endeavour, the project, is a grassroots exploration program, and the Bundiali project. We like Cote D'Ivoire. It's been a very good success story in terms of gold discoveries and gold discoveries being advanced from grassroots through to construction and production in in the last ten years. Exploration there has been ongoing. We are we have we're in a position now where at the Gwishu project where we've reinterpreted a lot of the structural controls and geology.

16:06 We inherited some very good drill results, and we're in a position now to start drilling. We as I speak now, we are preparing all the drill pads, and we have signed the drill contract, and drilling will be kicking off imminently. So drilling will have started in in q two this year, and we're we're looking at pushing that forward with an initial 2,000 drill 2,000 meter drill program, which will be stepped up based on the results. I'll finish off with our final project in Cote D'Ivoire, which I am personally extremely excited by. It's the Marahui project on in the Northeast of the country. It's a 250 square kilometer, license.

16:55 We have carried out soil geochemistry analysis across the entire permit. And during that, we we did pick up two anomalous zones. One, the top one being the Ecra prospect. This was a a soil anomaly, which was coincident on a magnetic structure and coincidence on this Burmian greenstone, which in West Africa is is where you want to be looking for for gold deposits. We delineated a a structure that was initially four kilometers long. We've now extended that to a five kilometer long strike length, and the soil chemistry has now been further backed up by some fantastic rock chip sampling for the entire five kilometers grading.

17:49 You can see some of these grades, 29.9 grams per ton 28, thirteen, twelve, 10, and these these are all from from the bedrock for the entire strike line. So we're extremely excited by this. It's now looking like this may leapfrog the Green Tree project to be our top priority in the country. Right now, we are actually scheduled to continue mapping the rest of the structure and continue taking the the rock chip sampling, and we were scheduled to start a drilling program here in q three. However, we will we we are strategizing now as to how we advance this accelerate exploration here vis a vis what we're doing at the Gwitri project further to the south.

18:38 So we we also look forward to updating the market here with with with the the the results and the progress we go here. And and this is the number one prospect in in the permit itself. And elsewhere, as you can see in the west of the permits, have also delineated some soil geochem samples, which we are following up on as we speak.

19:07 So to to round up, you know, I I would say it's it's been a very strong start to the to the year. We're on track for our annual production guidance of 85 to 95,000 ounces. We believe that will come in in line with our cost guidance as well of $800 to a thousand dollars. We're now in a position where we have robust free cash flow generation, and our cash position is growing on a on a monthly basis now. We are committed to returning funds to our shareholders in a sustainable manner, and we have outlined our dividend policy from which we have made our first payment, and this will be ongoing on a quarterly basis.

19:55 Our exploration has taken a step up. We've increased our budgets in Nigeria. The top end ran about $10,000,000 as a first pass. And in Senegal and Africa is up to $7,500,000. And this is going expiration's ongoing across the entire portfolio where we do have very material milestones to cross that we believe will translate into significant value for our shareholders in each country each each jurisdiction we're in whilst prioritizing exploration and my life extension in Nigeria. These exploration programs include the the the drilling and the infill program at Duta with the milestone of the PFS and also the the drilling in in Cote D'Ivoire on both the Guitri and the Marahui project, and we're aiming there to get to a maiden resource through the course of this year.

20:59 Thank you very much. I will now be happy to take any questions. Perfect, Shaken. If I may just jump back in there. And thank you very much indeed for your presentation this afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the Q and A tab that's situated on the right hand corner of your screen. But just while Shaikin takes a few moments just to review those questions that have been submitted already, I'd just like to remind you that a recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published q and a, can all be accessed via your investor dashboards. Shagan, as you can see there, we have received a number of questions, and thank you to all of those on the call for taking the time to submit their questions. But, Shagan, at this point, sir, if I may just hand back you just to read out those questions and give your responses where it's appropriate to do so. And if I pick up from you at the end, that'd be great. Thank you.

21:48 Okay. Alright. Let's start. The first question, the plan was to start processing stockpiled ore balance sheet LTD inventories in 2026. Do you already know if it'll be first half or second half of twenty six? Do you have cost estimates of processing these inventories? Yes. We do. So the plan is to start processing the stockpile in stockpiled ore towards the second half of twenty twenty six and then into 2027. We have incurred most of the costs of that already, which is the the bulk part of that has been the mining, the drill and blast, and, you know, stockpiling this ore. The processing costs is pretty much is very similar to our ongoing processing costs, so we don't see our all in sustaining costs at that time when we're processing this being above $450 per ounce.

22:53 Can we have clarity of how many ounces left to mine at Segolola from the initial five twenty ounce reserve? Okay. Look. I I I can't give the exact number right now, but it's it's essentially the five twenty ounces deducting the the three calendar years of production. This is without adding any official upgrade to the to the resource. So whoever sent that question, I'm happy to follow that up with a more detailed answer by email.

23:30 When will you start paying income taxes in Nigeria? What's the effective rate expected? So as a mining operation, we do qualify, and we have been granted a pioneer status. And that has meant that we have a an initial tax holiday up until the end of twenty twenty seven as things stand, after which there is a a corporate income tax rate of 30%.

24:05 Is the metallurgy of is the metallurgy different of satellite deposits? Does it require adjustment to the plan? For what we've seen so far, there's been no issues with any satellite deposit metallurgy. Are you confident that due to PFS will be out in 2025, can you estimate how long it will then take for final investment decision and hence, beginning of construction? Look. We've I'm I'm I'm conscious we've pushed back this due to PFS timeline on a number of occasions whilst trying to figure out the the correct process flow sheet. And then eventually, based on the discovery we made, It's to to provide some comfort. A lot of the work for the PFS has already been done.

25:03 And right now, it's all about incorporating whatever drill results we get in now into the updated PFS. So, yes, we're working towards the timeline of this year, and I I I don't see why we shouldn't be able to. If anything, you know, we we we will draw a line in the sand so we can incorporate the results into the into the PFS and then and then move on from there rather than if we keep drilling and getting more and more

25:40 success with the drilling and then a a larger resource, we won't delay the PFS for that reason. What we would do would would be look to upgrade the PFS and DFS at a future point in time. And on that note, we're, you know, we're we're here to build this mind. We're not doing this PFS for academic purposes. So a lot of the work we've done is very detailed. It's very advanced. We we will be looking to move quickly from the PFS through to the DFS and investment decision. The announced dividend policy mentions variable extra dividend as an option depending on cash position and cash flow. Are you able to add some color on what that cash level position would be how you would view this in relation to future CapEx.

26:39 So we we we have a pipeline of projects of organic projects, which we are going to continue to fund. We would like to put keep in our treasury, the equity components of what we do at Duta.

26:57 When when we get to to build that, we certainly don't want to be going to the market to to raise money, and we don't think we will be. So so based on that, we are looking to put away minimum a amount of money before before increasing the the dividend. The dividend at this rate at a $3,000 share price sorry. At a $3,000 gold price enables us to do that. Any increase in the gold price, we we will have a look at what our treasury is looking at and see how much flexibility we have. I think the important thing here is we believe we can deliver value to our shareholders by delivering this these projects in our portfolio, which we believe are all excellent across the range.

27:51 We don't want to jeopardize that by any means. So it's it's hard for us to put any rigid numbers at the moment. You know? Any project at any given time could require increased funding or accelerated development, and we we don't see ourselves as going back to the market to raise money or causing any shareholder dilution for any reason. We believe we're we're very well positioned with a strong balance sheet, growing cash flow, and a very good pipeline of projects to develop, which we can do whilst giving money back to shareholders. Congratulations on the results. Could you indicate if recent rainfalls also influence production?

28:41 Last year, we we had a a very heavy July and early August, and that certainly impacted our q three numbers. We've made additional provisions this year to ensure that that isn't the case this year and different additional drainage, additional pumps in place. Whilst everything is in place, to date, the rainfall hasn't affected us this year, the the showers we've had. We don't know if it'll be heavier this July than it was last July, but we've certainly made additional provisions to evacuate any heavy rains. And we do have redundant capacity and spares in case this does become the case.

29:33 Are you considering hedging a portion of future production? At the moment, no. We are not. You know, we we think this is a very high gold price environment. We're making an excellent margin at this gold price. We've had a portion of our gold hedge for twelve months when we thought we were at the top of the the gold price and, you know, the gold price continued to to rise. I think at the moment, we were happy to be exposed to the gold price, and, you know, should it lose momentum or come off significantly, we we're positioned to quickly try and put some secure hedging products in place.

30:34 With multiple targets in Cote D'Ivoire, are you open to joint ventures with local or strategic partners to accelerate the development and derisk? No. I think, look, where we you know, the the beauty about these projects is that we've we've seen them from grassroots. We think there's a huge amount of value to unlock here, and we think we have the the bandwidth and capability to do this ourselves. So we'll certainly be doing this ourselves, and we we are very much looking forward to doing this ourselves. You know, these are very exciting grassroots gold exploration projects. And there's a are you able to apply to the federal government to extend extend the tax rate as singularly for the new finances?

31:23 Yes. The pioneer status is granted for three years. And then at the end of three years, you can apply for a further two years. However, you must demonstrate, you know, an an extended operating capacity and extended requirement for investment, and we believe we should be able to do that. So the hope is that that will be granted as well. Thank you very much. I think I've I've done all the questions. Absolutely. Shaken, if I may just jump back in there. Thank you very much indeed for being so generous of your time there and addressing all of those questions that came in from investors this afternoon. Of course, if there are any further questions that do come through, we'll make these available to you immediately after the presentation has ended. But, Shaken, perhaps before ReadyNow, just looking to redirect those on the call to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to yourself and the company. If I could please just ask you for a few closing comments just to wrap up with, that'd be great.

32:24 Yes. Look. I I think we're in a very exciting position. You know, we've we've paid off all our debt. We've paid off all our CapEx. We're building cash in a very high gold price environment on a monthly basis. We have a strong robust balance sheet. We're paying a dividend and returning money to our shareholders. We have a fantastic pipeline of projects diversified by jurisdiction and stage of development. Organically, exploration is where we believe we're going to add a significant amount of value for our shareholders. And most recently, we've just delineated a very exciting opportunity in Cote D'Ivoire that's already within our portfolio, and that's, you know, five kilometers long with some stunning, very high grade gold anomalisms in the bedrock.

33:25 So you look. We we have a lot of news flow to come. We we have to manage, get disseminating this news flow out. We have a a number of milestones to achieve this year. And like I say, we're we're our value is underpinned by a cash flow in this very high gold price environment where we're keeping our costs below $1,000 per ounce. So I think it's it's it's an exciting time for the company. We're very well positioned, and we look forward to delivering. Perfect, Shagan. That's great. Thank you once again for updating investors this afternoon. I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order that the management team can really better understand your views and expectations.

34:11 This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of THOR EXPLORATIONS LTD, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session. So good afternoon to you all.