Altius Minerals Corporation (ALS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Altius Minerals Annual and Special Meeting Conference Call. Following the presentation, we'll conduct a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded on Thursday, May 18, 2023. I would now like to turn the conference over to Chair, John Baker. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and welcome, everybody present in the room here with me and online or by webcast to the 26th Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Altius Minerals Corporation. My name is John Baker, and I'm Executive Chairman of the corporation, and in accordance with the bylaws, I will act as Chairman of this meeting. Now shareholders have been given the option to attend this meeting in person, of course, by conference call or by webcast. And so I need to address persons particularly or online. If they're online by webcast, that allows participants to hear the meeting, but it is listen-only. So if anybody viewing the webcast would like to ask questions, either during the formal part of the meeting or after Brian's presentation, you need to dial into the conference call as all questions are received by phone, and the phone number for that is shown on our website. For those on the webcast or that have dialed in, who would like to view Brian's presentation, you can find it in 2 places on our website. From the homepage, you scroll to the bottom of the page under Corporate Presentations and you'll find the presentation there or if you go to Investor Information at the top of the page, you can click on the AGM field, and that contains all the material for this meeting, the proxy, the information circular and the presentation that's being made shortly by Brian. Now before we begin the meeting, I'd like to introduce Altius' senior management team who are in attendance here today. Brian Dalton, President, CEO and Director, Chief Financial Officer; Chad Wells, Vice President, Corporate Development, Project Generation and Corporate Secretary; Lawrence Winter, Vice President, Generative and Technical. There's Lawrence in the back. Thank you. Flora Wood, Vice President, Sustainability and Investor Relations; and Stephanie Hussey, Vice President, Finance, over here. We would normally have our entire Board of Directors here today, but because of some scheduling issues, we, in fact, had our Board of Directors meeting last week for this quarter and put out our release, of course, we released financial information last week. So we didn't ask Board members to make another trip to Newfoundland for this meeting, but they are present today by phone on the conference call or joined by webcast, but Lead Independent Director, Fred Mifflin, is here with us, and I think most of you know Fred. So I welcome all of those persons to the meeting. I appoint Florida Wood as scrutineer for the meeting and Chad Wells, our Corporate Secretary as Secretary of the meeting. Now the notice calling this meeting and all proxy-related materials were mailed to the shareholders on April 17 this year, and Canadian securities regulations require that we publish notice of a shareholders' meeting in a national newspaper, and that was done on March 3, 2023 in the Globe and Mail. Now a quorum for any meeting of shareholders is one person present, representing at least 5% of the shares entitled to vote at the meeting. I have the scrutineers' preliminary report on attendance, and it shows that we have represented at the meeting today by persons present or represented by proxy, 33,997,070 shares, being 71.39% of all outstanding shares, which I think is perhaps a record for attendance at a meeting. And this clearly meets the quorum requirement for the meeting. So a notice having been given and a quorum being present, I declare the meeting to be properly called and constituted for the transaction of business. Our bylaws permit a shareholder to participate in a meeting by telephone or other communication facilities but they do not permit voting to take place other than in person or by proxy. So any registered shareholder or proxy holder present in person or by telephone may demand that a ballot be conducted on any motion put before the meeting, either before a show of hands vote or following that vote. But unless a ballot is demanded for expediency, I will conduct all votes just by a show of hands of those persons present. And as is customary, in order for the meeting to flow efficiently, I've asked Altius officers to move and second the resolutions required. All our registered shareholders are present in this room. Now the minutes of the last annual meeting held on May 13, 2022 were filed in the minute book and I will entertain a motion that the reading of the minutes of the last annual meeting be dispensed with and that the minutes be taken as read, approved and adopted.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the reading of the minutes of the last annual meeting be dispensed with and that the minutes be taken as read, approved and adopted as presented.

Mr. Chairman, I take the motion.

Thank you. Any discussion on favor. Thank you. Those opposed, the motion is carried. I now submit and formally receive the financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2022, and the auditor's report on those statements as mailed to shareholders on April 17, 2023. The next item of business is the appointment of an auditor for the coming year. As you will note from the information circular, management is again nominating the firm of Deloitte LLP as auditors to hold office until the next annual meeting or until their successor is appointed and to authorize the directors to fix their remuneration. Deloitte has been the corporation's auditor since 2006. And I welcome here to Dave Rice, Bryan Rupright in the audience and Tim Fahey from Deloitte. Do we have a motion for this item of business?

Mr. Chairman, I move that Deloitte LLP be appointed the corporation's auditor to hold office until the next Annual General Meeting and the corporation's directors to fix their remuneration to be paid to the auditor.

Chairman, I second the motion.

Thank you. Any discussion? If not, I ask for a vote on the motion by a show of hands, and I remind you that you cannot vote against the motion, your choice is to vote in favor or to withhold your vote. All those in favor, please raise their hand. Thank you. I declare the motion carried. The next item of business is the election of directors for the coming year. The Board has fixed the number of directors to be elected at the meeting at 9. May I have nominations for directors?

Mr. Chairman, I'm pleased to nominate the following for election as directors for the next year: John Baker, Nicole Adshead-Bell, Teresa Conway, Brian Dalton, Anna El-Erian, André Gaumond, Roger Lace, Frederick Mifflin and James Strauss.

Mr. Chairman, I second the nomination.

Thank you. As we stated in the information circular, these 9 persons are management's nominees for election to the Board. Our bylaw with respect to advanced notice requires that any person proposing to nominate a director for election must provide the company with advanced notice and prescribe details concerning any proposed nominees. As there were no advance notices provided in accordance with this bylaw, we may now proceed directly to the election of directors. The Board also has adopted a policy stipulating that any nominee proposed for election as a director who receives based on the shares voted at the meeting, in person or by proxy, a greater number of shares withheld than shares voted in favor, must tender his or her resignation to the Chairman of the Board to take effect and acceptance by the Board. Nine persons have been nominated to fill the 9 directors positions. Do I have a motion for this item of business?

Mr. Chairman, I move that the 9 persons who are nominated for election as directors be elected the corporation's directors for the next year to hold office until the next annual general meeting and that the shareholders authorize the election of the 9 nominees by single resolution.

Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.

Thank you. Any discussion? All those in favor, please raise your hand. Thank you. Anybody opposed? I declare the motion carried, and these nominees elected as directors for the coming year. The next item of business is to approve the renewal of the corporation's Omnibus long-term incentive plan, as is called the LTIP, the details of which are again set forth in the information circular for the meeting. As noted there, this plan was last approved by shareholders on May 12, 2020, and requires renewal every 3 years. The Board unanimously recommends that shareholders again approve the renewal of the LTIP, along with all unallocated options, rights and entitlements by adopting the full text of the resolution set forth on Page 23 of the management information circular for this meeting. Do I have a motion for this item of business?

Mr. Chairman, I move that the renewal of the Omnibus long-term incentive plan along with all unallocated options, rights and incentives under such plan be improved by adopting the full text of resolution set forth on Page 23 of the information circular for this meeting.

Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.

Thank you. Any discussion? All those in favor, please raise your hands. Those opposed? I declare the motion carried. The next item of business is to consider and if not advisable, pass an advisory resolution on the corporation's approach to executive compensation, known commonly as say-on-pay resolution, the details of which are again set forth in the management information circular. As noted there, the corporation believes that its compensation objectives and approach to executive compensation appropriately align the interest of management with the long-term interest of the shareholders. Under our policy, Altius provides shareholders the opportunity to cast an advisory vote on our approach to executive compensation on an annual basis at this meeting. This policy reflects our ongoing efforts to meet the highest governance standards and to ensure a high level of shareholder engagement. The Board, with myself and Mr. Dalton abstaining, unanimously recommends that shareholders vote in favor of the advisory resolution as set forth in the management information circular. Do I have a motion to this effect?

Mr. Chairman, I move on an advisory basis and not to diminish the role and responsibilities of the Board, that the shareholders accept the approach to executive compensation disclosed in the 2023 circular.

Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.

Thank you. Any discussion? All those in favor, please raise your hand. Those opposed? I declare the motion carried. Thank you. The next item of business is to approve the amendments to bylaw #1. In 2022, as part of our comprehensive review of policies and procedures of the corporation, which we performed to fulfill our sustainability mandate, a number of policy enhancements or new policies were approved by the Board. In addition, certain amendments to bylaw #1 of the corporation were approved by the Board, but require shareholder approval at its next meeting. The proposed amendments which require approval today are as follows: the definition of quorum at a meeting of shareholders has been amended to increase the quorum requirements. Any meeting of shareholders for purposes other than choosing a Chairman or adjourning a meeting will now require no less than 2 shareholders or duly appointed proxy holders personally present and holding or representing by proxy not less than 25% of the issued shares of the corporation. Secondly, the language allowing for meetings by telephone or electronic means was a little dated in our bylaws, so they have been updated in accordance with best practices. And further -- and thirdly, the provision allowing for the Chair of the Board to cast a second or tie-breaking vote at a Board meeting when an equality of votes has been received has been eliminated. The full text of the amended and restated bylaw #1 incorporating these amendments is set forth in full in Appendix 1 to the information circular. Do I have a motion in this regard?

Mr. Chairman, I move that the amendments to bylaw #1 of corporation as summarized on Page 24 of the information circular be approved and that the amended understated bylaw #1 set forth, beginning on Page 65 of the information circular for this meeting be adopted.

Chairman, I second the motion.

Thank you. Now the voting on this resolution has to be by ballot. Each registered shareholder who has not previously appointed a proxy and voted accordingly should have received a ballot as they registered with the scrutineer. And I don't think there are any registered shareholders here today that haven't already cast their vote. But if there is anybody present who has -- and they're a registered shareholder who hasn't previously voted, they should be given a ballot. Is there anybody in the room in that category? So each person would now cast their ballot. And really, the only ballot is going to be the one cast by the principal proxy holder for the meeting, which would be Brian Dalton, but we will still review that and tabulate any results and suspend this part of the meeting until that's done. And so we'll proceed now with Brian's presentation, and then we will come back to the last item of business is simply to approve the bylaw amendments following the ballot process. So again, as I mentioned at the beginning, if anyone online wants to follow Brian's presentation, please go to our website and either under Corporate Presentations on the homepage or under Investor Information, and you'll find the presentation that Brian is about to deliver here at the meeting. And following that presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions, either from those present in the room or those present on the conference call, and we'll open the floor at that time for meetings. So Brian, now I'm leaving it to you.

Thank you, John. Thank you, everybody, for coming to join us once again. There's lots of familiar faces here. There's a couple I'll certainly single out first off, I wanted to thank [ Ms. Irene Baird ] for showing up at our meeting again. So you can remember seeing me up here when I had hair and no gray whiskers. So that's a long time ago. Again, also [ Don Norman ] I see over here, is a shareholder for a long time. So good to see from some of our local retail shareholder base still hanging in there with us. So the title of this presentation is growth signals as Altius begins its second quarter century. So I think most of you know that we just went through our 25th anniversary year last year. I guess I'm here to say that by no means is to say that Altius is still on fire. I think it looks more exciting going into the second quarter century than it perhaps ever has. Forward-looking statements, you definitely want to read these very carefully. There will be forward-looking statements in this presentation. So this is what Altius looks like today. We've kind of organized ourselves, at least in our own minds, around 4 key areas that represent different segments to our business, where we've collected royalties and are building our portfolio holdings. So the 4 segments today would be in potash fertilizer, electrification metals, renewable energy, relatively recent additions and high-purity iron ore. We call these our sustainability-based growth pillars. And the reason we say that is that a number of years ago, I think we recognize that -- the sustainability issues. So in terms of potash, food sustainability, electrification metals, electric vehicle, power grade rejuvenation, renewable energy, general decarbonization of power generation. And then in terms of high-purity iron ore, this relates to removing coal from the steelmaking process, quite frankly. But what we saw here, obviously, were important issues from a global sustainability perspective that we felt it was important for us to be part of and can be contributing towards. What we also saw in the areas, some very powerful, practically unstoppable forces that would drive economics for a long time to come. These were transitions and changes that were going to be permanent and that we needed to align our business if we're going to be relevant as we go into our second quarter century. So there are good things to do, but they're also good for business. That's the key message here. So I'll touch first on how these different areas of sustainability, what they do and how we think what we do within these segments is making a difference in the world. So just a quick look at potash fertilizer. There's a chart here that has 3 lines and the middle line shows global population. And you can see that from 1960, global population has increased by about 150%. So they've gone from 3 billion people to about 8 billion people. The bottom line is really interesting. The amount of farmland that's available to grow food from has increased over that same period of time by 20%. So you've got a bit of an issue there. How do you feed that many people from obviously, land -- agricultural land base that doesn't produce all that much? The answer has been each unit of farmland now produces an awful lot more food than it ever did before. So any of these -- you could look at rice, you could look at wheat, so basically the same amount of land produces around 200% to 300% as much food as it did only in 1960. There are several factors behind that. There are several innovations, everything to do with crop streams and whatnot, but nothing more so than the advent of commercial scale application of fertilizers. That's the single biggest factor. Each time you grow food from land, that plant takes nutrients from the soil. And unless you replace that at the same rate that is depleted, that soil won't produce for you anymore. So there's no way that land can keep doing what it needs to do. And there's a really neat set I found when I was doing some work on this. It basically said without that adoption of commercial scale fertilizer application, 40% of the current population on earth would not be here today. That's the kind of difference fertilizer makes. You can't get much more sustainable than that. The mines that we hold royalties on from Saskatchewan today produced 25% of the world's potash fertilizer. I don't think there are any more important royalties in the natural resource world and these royalties that we hold on the potash mine in every sense of the word important. And then when I look at the other 4 -- 3 areas, electrification metals, renewable energy and high-priority iron ore, electrification metals is probably a little more widely known and understood. But these are things like copper and lithium and nickel that are needed to make batteries and electric vehicles and whatnot that the world is transitioning towards as it moves away from traditional gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles. The benefits there, you can see on the chart on the top right, the 2 bars on the left of that slide show the amount of CO2 emissions that come from using a traditional gasoline power electric vehicle versus on the far right, the amount of emissions over the whole life of the vehicle. So this is the building of the vehicle right on up through its final usage. This shows you the different -- the lesser amount of carbon emissions that happen when you use -- when you transition to an electric vehicle. On the renewable energy side, probably a bit of an under-told story, but what you see here is particularly that light blue line. Over the last decade or so, within the United States and in other markets, Europe in particular, there has been a steady shift. The amount of electricity that's generated from burning coal has gone down steadily and the amount of electricity that is being generated from renewable energy sources has really increased and ramped up. And the combined impact of that is that light blue line that you see there is now in total terms, a significant trend of net reduction in carbon emissions and power generation has taken place. We help that act. We fund and finance renewable energy projects that contribute to that. And then on the high-purity iron ore, so we're very specific in what we're saying here. We're not just in the iron ore, in general. We're very focused on high purity into the iron ore world, and there's a reason for that. There's a transition in steelmaking underway as well. Historically, most steel was made -- you must call the blast furnace. And that's something you just throw iron ore in and a bunch of coal, you heat it up and here comes the steel. But there's another technology as well, it's called the electric arc furnace, and that's the plant that you can put very high purity -- only high-purity forms of iron ore in as well as scrap materials, combined with electricity and make steel. Well, today in the world, and this is everywhere from China to Europe, you name it. There is massive amounts of investment going into building these types of plants. There is no investments going into building new blast furnace capacity. So a very under-told story in my mind. But the transition, green steel is very much underway. This is not a this might happen. When you look at the money that's being invested, if you follow the money, at that same as added, you can see it, you can already see it unfolding. And the reason or a driver of this, so again, that bottom right-hand chart shows CO2 emissions from the traditional blast furnace method on the far left and then take into its full extent the potential levels, relative levels of emission that would come from basically using electricity instead of coal. There are 3 arrows on these slides. We usually like arrows that are pointing up and to the right. But in this case, we're really proud and happy to be part of some down into the right chart. So your company makes a difference. I guess there's a bit of a movement or a political noise around these days that I guess you hear everything from [indiscernible] and there's this suggestion that all the ESG and sustainability is basically in the -- and what it's doing is diminishing shareholder returns, if you're sacrificing returns to pursue sustainability. Well, we call it bulls*** because for us, sustainability is not something that compromises the growth of our business. It is actually what has been driving our business for the last decade or so. What you see on the left is a quarterly royalty revenue, hardly a straight line, but I like drawing a straight line through volatility and over bigger enough time frames. We've got about a 40% compound growth rate in our revenue that accompanies this work that we've been doing over the last decade to position our portfolio. And that, in turn, has been translating into a very seamlessly increasing dividend as well as other kinds of capital returns, buybacks and that sort of thing over time. So sustainability is good for vision. That's the bottom line. It's a good thing to do. It's a good area to be focused and it's a good -- we're here. We've got people in the room today that are -- both have their fourth or sixth birthdays. So these things matter. But it shouldn't come at -- doesn't have to comment the expense of return. That's the message here. That's the key message here. In fact, this has been a growth accelerator. So quickly now, I'll just go through the 4 pillars and talk more specifically about what we're seeing at the business level, what's happening, what's driving things. We'll start with potash. The chart here, the green bars basically show the amount of potash that the world requires every year to do what I talked about earlier to basically feed this ever-increasing population from a static amount of land. We acquired our royalties in potash back in 2013, 2014. In that time, demand for global potash has grown from about a 50 million tonne a year market to about 70 million tonnes today, and that demand growth continues. By the end of the decade, that's 90 million tonnes. So this is a steady, reliable growth marker. There's a little orange line on the bottom here, and this is need as well. Within that broader global demand that is steadily happening, the operators of the mines that we hold royalties on have taken their share of the market from about 17% to 25% since we acquired our royalties. We've got strong broad demand growth. But within that at the individual asset growth level that we're exposed to, you're seeing these mines just gaining and gaining market share. So growth upon growth, very, very powerful. And this is all compounding by the way. And I don't know if anyone follows Berkshire Hathaway stuff, [indiscernible] did a great job this year showing long charts in compounding and now how those things translate. And he attributed it to -- his success to his long life. He's been around long enough for the compounding to really take hold, plus he started early. So lesson for your -- the young people here. But the thing about the potash royalties, they're actually really young as well. There are literally hundreds of thousands of years of remaining resource life in these assets. So those compounding fact that demand growth that we're seeing, the market share growth that we're seeing, you start multiplying them, compound growth rate there with that kind of duration. But we did some work in our Investor Day, and we did some quick projection work as to what that might look like over time. And I can tell you that it would -- these trends continue, it won't be long before value of these royalties will be apparent, and it will represent something that Altius' current market cap is a fracture and it basically just depends on people continuing to eat, the underlying force that we need. Beyond that, there's also another powerful compounding impact that's happening. Your potash prices overall for more than 20 years now, I've been compounding at least on a broad training line at almost 6% a year, of royalty, that's what we reflect a multiplication of the volume that's produced, multiplied by price, growth, growth, growth, right across the board. Not only that, all this growth, so these mines will expand, and they will produce more volumes. These prices will continue to grow. As shareholders here with interest in these royalties, we pay for none of that. I think we are full beneficiaries of all of that growth. So any offset, we don't have to fund our share of billions and billions that will get spent on these assets to grow that production rate. So again, it's pretty powerful stuff. That's the big picture, a little bit of the history, and that's the big picture why we love these things. But near term, there are some new things underway. There have already been announcements made by the operator over the past year or so to -- and they've committed these investments are underway. We're planning to, in the very near term, increase production rates by about another 25%. So this demand growth is market share growth. I'm not entirely just waving my arms here. You can actually look at the billions of dollars that are being spent to make it happen as we speak. And then in the big picture, as I said, I can't think of any good reason as the world just needs more and more of this product long term, why these particular mines in Canada, which have soft advantages over any major global competitors, who by the way, sit in Belarus and Russia, for the most part. Why these mines won't continue to at least supply their share in the market going forward, if not continue to grow their market share, they should because they have competitive advantages that allow them to -- for long term, we're actually very constructive as well as you might have already got there. Now base in battery metals, just point your -- draw your attention to a little chart on the left here. What this shows is -- are 2 lines. One is the light blue line shows the trajectory of global copper demand over time. So this is something -- copper has been growing in demand. It has similar dynamics really to potash. It's a function of population, but it's been steadily growing at around just over 3% a year for well over 100 years, so you can project reasonably well what the requirements are as you go into the future. Typically, there's periods where the amount of supply that the world creates gets a little out of sync with the amount of demand, but it always very relatively quickly adjust. And typically speaking, you're going to have a relatively balanced market over time. There's something unfolding right now that is incredible, it's truly unprecedented. The supply forecasts are steady, nothing exceptional there. You could actually get more aggressive if you really wanted to believe that EV adoption, all those things are going to really accelerate from here, which I believe. But this just assumes normal long-term steady demand growth. We're over 10 years now, at least 10 years now since there's been any significant investments across the entire copper industry in building new supply. Guess what, mines deplete. And you can see in that bottom dark line that there is already laid out in front of us, we know which mines are going to close because they're going to be out of the water. There is decline in the amount of supply in copper that are in the near term ahead of us, a couple of years out and what that does. So that decline in supply -- never mind, like investments that might match the growth that's required is opening up a gap that's really -- it's actually kind of scary. It would be very scarier. If I'm a buyer of copper, scary as it gets, but of course, there's an exciting element to it. If you happen to have copper holdings and assets that you believe will be an important part of the growth that eventually will come. The reason is there is a [indiscernible]. The answer is probably the reason is it hasn't any investments in growing supply to match what's going to be needed is the copper price hasn't been there. And anyone who looks at the copper price and says, I can't build that line at that price and make a return. So it will be the same solution has always been. It will be price. It's probably going to be pretty crazy, that's my hunch. Forward-looking statements, heavy-duty here, but I took a bet with someone the other day that we'll see $10 this cycle. And I don't even -- I'm probably going to look light on that as my hunch. Anyway, forward-looking statements. After 25 years, I thought you're allowed to throw a few numbers around a hole, right? So again, that's what the chart on the right shows here. The orange line is the price requirement. That's the number that's needed to make miners say, yes, I'll go ahead and build the mine. The blue line is the actual copper price. But what I've shown here is that when prices are higher than that line, it's called incentivization. Money is getting spent, mines are getting built. We've been in this period now with grid where prices been below that requirement for, again, an incredibly long time. We're 2 years away from that debt really opening up. Even if you've got the price you needed today, it would take 5 years before that money gets to the ground and turn into new supplies. Like -- the near term, it can be solved for a long-term price will fix it, but in the near term, we're in for one hell of a ride expect. Forward-looking statements. Some recent highlights across this part of our business and then just looking at some of the things that we're kind of excited about. We recently had an investment that we began almost around 5 years ago in a company called Lithium Royalty Corporation, been doing wonderful stuff buying up royalties on projects all over the world in the lithium space in anticipation of what's unfolding now in the electric vehicle adoption side of things. And that business is growing and growing. They recently completed an IPO. And so from that IPO and the pricing that, that generated, is daylighted that our holding in that business, at least from a current market price perspective, is we're close to $80 million. And I guess that would compare to probably investments on our part in the $10 million or $15 million kind of range. Yes, to really need business that's been created here and we're really proud to have been part of founding it and forming us. We've had a mine that we hold a direct royalty on in the lithium space as well, just reach to production. So this is the first mine that Altius hold or the first royalties that we will receive directly from lithium production. So this is a new event that just happened a month ago, that's kind of cool. Beyond that, we see 3 mines that are in construction that are expected to reach production probably within the next 12 months that are happening right now. That will be Voisey's Bay or deep mine and 2 additional lithium mine both which are in Argentina. And these are all very far along or big plants that are practically constructive now that are about to start generating revenue for our shareholders. And by the way, we had absolutely no share of the cost. I didn't mention that already. Curipmba is the world that we hold on our project in Ecuador. Adventus Mining is advancing that project. They're expected to make a decision on whether or not to go ahead with building that mine later this year. So that's the catalyst that we're certainly watching for. From existing assets, our Chapada royalty, which we acquired in 2016 and some really good news over the past year. A new discovery has been made called Saúva, much higher grades in the mine and new orders they're currently mining and really just add to resource growth that's been happening -- resources on that project, we bought it in 2016 and the amount of material that's left the mine. When we bought it, it was around a 20-year expected mine life. It's been mining for almost a decade since we bought it, and now it's about a 50-year mine life. So it's been a really neat story and asset for us. We're expecting news from Lundin over in the coming months around how that discovery is going to fit into a plan that you're advancing and expanding option from the Chapada district, I guess, is the way we have to describe it now. It's no longer a deposit, you're now dealing with the Chapada district. So that augurs well for growth on the copper side in the future. And closer to home, there's been some incredibly exciting drill holes. They announced -- we've become aware of some very exciting drill holes that have taken place at Voisey's Bay. There are hits that are happening to be meet the current planned debt. So the Voisey's Bay mine has got a planned debt right now that takes mining out to about 2034. But the drill holes that are happening right now and the intercepts that are being hit at great debt beneath anything that's currently contemplated the mine plan are very exciting. We're talking 90 meters of almost 3% nickel. These would have been sort of the original hole coming out of discovery back in the day. So we see a much longer light operation there in 2034. On the renewables side, so this business doesn't go back that far, 2019. But in that short period of time, I should point out first. So we formed this business to begin with, then we formed a 50-50 joint venture with Apollo, which is a big private equity group. And so that's -- whatever numbers I'm dropping here, really, you got to think about it in kind of in half when you're thinking about it from an Altius perspective. But yes, invested over USD 300 million to date that's gone into building -- well, to date, over 2.5 gigawatts of power generation, wind and solar across the U.S. and still to come and based on investments that have been made today, so it's not assuming future investment. This is just what we've invested in a market yet to ramp up. That will reach close to 12 gigawatts by the time we get there. To put that in context, 12,000 megawatts plus Lower Churchill 6% or 7%, something in that range, just to give you a sense of the scale that's possibly out there. The market is growing very fast. There's some recent IRA has called in Inflation Reduction Act, the weirdest name ever. But really what it is, is the renewable promotion act in the U.S. has recently passed through that investment in the renewable sector in the U.S. is expected to double by the end of the decade to about $90 billion. So you've got a very fast market growth dynamic. And what that's doing is it's really driving a lot of extra -- additional opportunity for all these renewables to invent at the royalty level in all of those projects. And meanwhile, again, we started this in 2019, royalty financing wasn't even a thing in the renewable sector. And it was hard work for just to get people to take your call and get past like this is what this spongy thing you're proposing. And it's gone beyond that now and the counterparties that we have on our new royalty projects are the likes of NextEra and an Enbridge. It's a thing, a known thing. And in fact, the team I know [ CapSure ], they've gone from just really working hard to get anyone to take a call that today, they're having to high-grade the opportunities that are coming in the door. So it's been a remarkable thing to watch and to be part of a really -- the map on the right shows you -- any of these little dots or triangles, these are projects that we hold royalty on. It just blows me away when we look at that, back in 4 years, how far we've come. Just the scale that's been building there to diversity by technologies and state, regions, pretty cool. Iron ore, I guess we touched on this already. So this just graphs a little bit what I'm talking about. So this is the electric arc furnace. This is a furnace that doesn't require coal. And it shows by 3 different markets, the blue would be North America, the gray would be Europe and the red here would be China. You can see how investments are coming to ground. And this is not when this happened. This is happening as we speak. The Labrador Trough is so well positioned for what's happening here. I would go as far as to say that all of the best states in the Labrador Trough, that's been in operation for 60-odd years are headed. It's one of the very few places in the world that technically, you can take that ore and upgrade it to the point that it's a high priority enough that it can even go into one of these electric arc furnaces. And to put that under way, the bulk of the world's iron ore today comes from Australia, it comes from Brazil, run by groups like BHP and Rio Tinto are gigantic household name. Practically, all of the material that they produce cannot go into an electric arc furnace, this is mind-bending stuff. But anyway, there's Labrador Trough, there's lots of resources. It's got that rare technical quality that it can go to that kind of a grade and as well as there's logistics' stability, and iron ore, you're moving bulk materials around the world. There are other places, notably and actually, in this case, it's Ukraine and Russia that have similar material, they've got their challenges. But more than anything, there's no rail capacity. Just to get at the ore bodies, you're talking about tens of billions of dollars in infrastructure usually. Labrador Trough, there's extra capacity on the rail, extra capacity at the port. It's really rare. So we're obviously very heavily invested in the Labrador Trough because we -- again, we think its best days are ahead. We have 2 main exposures, we do have additional earlier-state longer-term opportunities that we're pursuing. But our key exposure today from a cash flow perspective would be through our holding in Labrador Iron Ore Royalty Corporation, which is an indirect way of owning the royalty on the IMC operations. The chart on the right here, in some ways, it really proves what I'm saying, Rio Tinto controls this operation, 8 or 10 years ago, it was widely believed that Rio was looking at this just marginal thing in Canada that doesn't fit with our Australian soft and you should just sell that and get it off our books. Well, it certainly changed our tune, and you can see that over the last few years, they've really been ramping up capital investments and they're putting this project in the growth model in a very big way now. So pretty exciting. And then I'm afraid to talk about it on [indiscernible], but we have a royalty on the Kami project, which is now within Champion Iron Ore. There will be a feasibility results come out later this year. Champion evaluate potentially building that project. To me, there was one key gating item that was a big uncertainty, and it was really the question of whether or not that particular ore body could, in fact, be processed and concentrated to the point that is made that high-purity pellet feed. And if it didn't, my excitement level sort of went down pretty quick. Feasibility studies and output champion has done as far recently to say that their early metallurgical results suggest that indeed Kami can produce DR electric arc furnace grade pellet material. It could be really important if this project gets project sanction and get to go ahead, it would immediately become our single largest royalty exposure based on if it happens, we shall see. This is a weird one. How many times we've been here talking about how Altius focused on diversified commodity base metals and bolts. And we don't do the gold side of things because there's too many gold royalty companies out there and it's too competitive and we are specialists here and here, we've got a slide showing exposure to a gold royalties. But what's different here is that really what we're saying back then is that we wouldn't try to compete to buy royalties on advanced gold projects because we knew we wouldn't be competitive and the return profile which just look too low. It never meant that we couldn't go looking for ourselves. That was the difference. We wouldn't go and buy something from somebody at prices that they typically transact at. But within our project generation business, which is the root of Altius, per Don, you've open here and talk about exploration for a lot longer than you have talked about royalties. So that -- in that business, we're not -- we don't limit ourselves to just base metals and bulk here, we have look for gold as well as whatever you're costing rocks. You never know what you're going to find, you don't limit thing. But we have a royalty on a project on a project in Nevada called Silicon that got optioned out several years ago to one of the big major gold mining companies called AngloGold Ashanti. And they've now gone on to make probably what's maybe one of the most significant gold discovery in the world in a decade or so. It's not even a positive. It's a brand new gold district. And for anyone who follows the space, you'll know that there's nowhere in the world anyone would rather find the gold deposits in into that. This is the top jurisdiction in the world. And there's nowhere that a royalty would be considered more valuable than on a gold deposits in Nevada. I guess that's the problem here. So far, AngloGold published resources. They said they made 2 major discoveries so far. The public resources on one that's over 4 million ounces and growing. And another deposit they haven't yet published on, the CEO recently gave me -- maybe these folks are better to get the actual resources. But we talked about this Merlin, which is no resource published yet, but he said, "That's the gym in the crown, lots of pretty neat push out of them there." So a really big gold discovery. We have a royalty on it. To be determined whether that's a royalty that fits within Altius long term, in many ways, it has the right hallmark. It's got a big resource, which means it will have a long life. That long life will probably translate into lots of opportunities for expansion and growth. These are the -- that's royalty hunting one-on-one at Altius. I guess if there's a bigger question as to whether or not Altius is the right home for this and whether or not some of the gold royalty players out there, which are a lot, we'll just check things out of mostly -- there may be a way to create a lot more shareholder value here by either selling that royalty or trading it for non-gold assets. We don't have to make that decision today. Either way, I think that all be it's safe to say that all the shareholders find themselves today holding a very valuable emerging royalty and our cost base on it, I'd say it's less than a month as [indiscernible] today. That's it.

Any questions?

I ask the operator if there are any questions online. Operator?

[Operator Instructions] We do not have any questions over the phone at this time.

Unless anyone has a question here, we're going to stick around. So we don't have to do it in the formal part of the meeting if anyone wants to dig any deeper, exploring any of these areas. But again, in conclusion, I hope I made the case that despite team, 25 years old, it is not an old and tired business. I think it's just getting a feet under [indiscernible]. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Brian. That is an indication of how exciting things still are after all the years. So I just need to resume the formal part of the meeting, just for that one item of business with respect to the ballot and I received the report on the ballot from the scrutineer, and accordingly, I can declare that resolution to be carried with respect to the amendment of bylaw #1. And that concludes the formal part of the meeting. Is there any other matter a shareholder wishes to raise before we formally adjourn? If not, I'll ask for a motion that the meeting be terminated.

Mr. Chairman, I move the meeting to be terminated.

Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.

Thank you. If no one's opposed to that, we will adjourn the meeting and then carry on with the social part of the meeting. Thank you all very much for attending. Thank you, operator.

Ladies and gentlemen, that's all for today.