Ariana Resources plc (AAU) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Ariana Resources investor presentation relating to the final results for the year ended 31st of December 2019. [Operator Instructions] Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time via the Q&A tab situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company will review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it is appropriate to do so. These will be available via Investor Meet Company dashboard. I'd also like to remind you that this presentation is being recorded. Before we begin, we would like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand over to Michael de Villiers, Chairman and Kerim Sener, CEO of Ariana Resources plc. Good afternoon -- good morning, gentlemen.

Good morning, and thank you much for joining us. This is an opportunity for us to meet our shareholders and fellow investors via a new modern methodology, which very kindly Mark has put together. It's an opportunity for us to discuss the results, for Kerim, to give an up-to-date presentation and for us to take questions. As you all know, we're not able to meet in person, and we're not able to have an open AGM, which will be on the 28th of August. So I urge you to ask your questions now, which we will answer the best we can online and if not through other mediums later. I'm now going to hand over to Kerim and leave you to enjoy his [indiscernible] results. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Michael, and good morning to everybody. I'd like to provide an updated presentation on the company that brings everything right up to date, including the latest announcement that we provided to the market this morning concerning Salinbas project. This expands on the work that we've completed on that particular project over the past year in particular. So I'll go through the slides, and you'll see these slides move as we progress. So you don't need to do anything on your side. Usual disclaimer, firstly, we start with the financial review, and I'll go through this fairly quickly just because this is the summary that's provided, in any case, in the annual report, which is now being uploaded to our website. And of course, this is mirrored in the announcement that we provided to market the other day. So the headline is that profit after tax increased threefold from the previous year to just shy of GBP 7 million. That was primarily as a result of the JV that we hold in Western Turkey and JV turnover grew by 21% and that's partly as a result of the favorable moves that we've seen in the gold price over the period. And that, of course, resulting in significant JV profits, our 50% share of which amounted to just shy of GBP 8 million. In addition to that, if shareholders remember, we held a subsidiary in Turkey that was responsible for acquiring certain freehold land over the top of the -- primarily the Arzu South resource at the Kiziltepe mine. And that -- we used that to acquire the freehold land in the early years of the joint venture. That, of course, needed to end up inside the joint venture at some point. And that moment was resolved at the end of last year. So we're booking a profit of GBP 600,000 as a result of that transaction. The rest of it, I probably don't need to dwell on too much, save for the penultimate point regarding the Cypriot project and our earn into Venus Minerals Limited. We'd already undertaken certain expenditure on developing the Cypriot assets. Prior to those, that expenditure being reflected in a share transaction, which we actually completed post period end in May of this year. So in summary, then on the financials, the earnings per share increasing from last year from 0.21p per share to 0.65p per share in this last year. So a very pleasing end to the period. So that summarizes where we brought ourselves to the end of last year. But I think it's just important to just run through in a more general sense what the company is and what we represent. It is a sustainable and profitable business, and that is primarily as a result of the joint venture that we hold in Western Turkey with Proccea Construction, which is a 50-50 JV. That JV substantially paid down the primary debt for the construction of the Kiziltepe mine. That was a debt facility with Turkiye Finans Bankasi for $33 million. As at period end, we paid down almost all of it. And by the end of April of this year, we paid the full $33 million back. Well we have a small amount of JV debt remaining payable to Turkiye Finans and that's working capital that needs to be paid back between now and the end of October of next year. There's about $7 million left to be paid on that. Through the joint venture and indeed our exploration and development programs across all our projects, we've demonstrated a very strong track record as a company, growing from a grassroots gold explorer in Turkey with a large portfolio of exploration stage assets, greenfield assets primarily to a substantially derisked portfolio that comprises projects that are currently being mined in the case of Kiziltepe and are through -- going through the process of feasibility and EIA. And ultimately, we want to bring to production as is the case with Tavsan. And in -- with the example of Salinbas, that representing the largest single resource in the portfolio. And based on this morning's announcement, that resource having grown a further 50% to 1.5 million ounces. So we've demonstrated throughout the portfolio, the opportunities for growth, and we've identified those growth targets for the future. So the company is evolving rapidly. Turkey has represented a very solid foundation for the company. It's really been the cradle of the company, so to speak. But there are also opportunities that we're now looking at very seriously in immediate vicinity of Turkey, and Cyprus is a very good example of that. This next slide identifies some of the key metrics for the company. As you can see there, the share price, again, has healthily moved this morning as a result of our announcement. So even though I uploaded this only a couple of hours ago, this is already out of date. And that, of course, further reflecting very positively on the share price graph, which shows the last year of share price growth. So excuse the size of the font there. But from about 2p this time last year to we're just around 5.5p now. So very healthy progress there. So moving on to the operations and the key parameters concerning the operation, the JV revenue to date since production commenced on Kiziltepe in April 2017 through to the last quarter that we reported in March of this year, revenue was $106 million at -- and produced at an average revenue per gold ounce to the end of that quarter, just over $1,500 per ounce, and that's by virtue of the fact that this is a gold and silver mine, so the silver is providing a by-product credit. I've already run through the debt, so we don't need to dwell on that any further. Production, again, the key thing is that the operation not only has provided significant revenue, but we've also undertaken that as an operating cost -- cash cost range that is market leading in -- so since operations commenced from USD 330 an ounce to USD 612 an ounce. At the moment, we're hovering in the 500 to 550 sort of range. And this is how we compare, albeit, this slide, this graph rather is a little bit outdated, but it certainly shows that Ariana is comfortably producing at the very lower end of the cash cost range in comparison to a number of gold mining peers. And we've been able to do this, as I said, based on our track record, not any of production, but also the exploration because at the end of the day the exploration cost adds to what can be referred to as the all-in sustaining cost. And bearing in mind what we've raised from the market since IPO being about $21 million. And if you look at that in respect of the ounces that we've discovered and with today's announcement, actually, we're maintaining industry-leading discovery cost per ounce of less than $15. In fact I redid the calculation just a little earlier, and we're just shy of $13 per ounce now. So that's a very healthy place to be for any exploration company, you want to be finding ounces at the lowest cost possible. So the company is clearly growth orientated. We have by virtue of our existing project at Kiziltepe and the mine there producing at an annualized rate of about 20,000 ounces of gold per annum over the course of its feasibility mine life, which was 8 years. We're obviously going through the process of expanding the resource base, which will lead to an expanded reserve base and, therefore, enhance life of mine. We've already demonstrated in the last couple of years production at a rate of up to 27,000 ounces per year. But the life of mine average will still end up being around 20,000 ounces. And through both the growth and longevity that we are demonstrating at Kiziltepe, we're also looking to expand operations to our other key asset, which is the Tavsan deposit, which is also housed within the JV that we hold with Proccea Construction. And Tavsan, we're expecting to produce at a rate of about 30,000 ounces per annum, ultimately taking the JV production to perhaps 50,000 ounces per annum. In addition to that, as I've already mentioned, Salinbas is absolutely key and the latest announcement further reinforces that. It is going to be a multimillion ounce asset. The trajectory on our resource is quite clear. We've gone from about 1 million ounces to 1.5 million ounces. There's plenty of additional scope to grow that resource in the vicinity across the 3 licenses that we hold as part of that project. But the project, because of its scale, we do require input in the form of a further partner. And late last year, we announced that we were considering a partnership with a large [Audio Gap]. We were more recently able to more recently able to announce the incoming partner as being Özaltin Holding. And the intention there is to not only fast track Salinbas to the mining stage, but they'll also be participating in expanded joint venture ultimately involving ourselves, Proccea and Özaltin. In addition to that and outside of Turkey, we are in the process of evaluating a series of copper-gold projects in Cyprus. And this represents -- was represented by a portfolio of copper-gold assets at greenfields exploration stage all the way through to JORC Resource stage. And there's further work that we'll be undertaking on that portfolio through Venus Minerals in due course. And also lastly, it's worth mentioning that through an Australian subsidiary, we've also kept ourselves fairly nimble looking out for any opportunities in the technology-metals space, and we've done very well with prior investments in that area. So focusing back on Turkey, this is the distribution of the projects across the country. The area A defines the joint venture that we hold with Proccea Construction. Kiziltepe being the operating mine, Tavsan being the development project. Within that area sits an asset that we hold 100% of and that's Kizilçukur. But by virtue of the joint venture, we're able to at the point of our choosing sell Kizilçukur into the joint venture at 3x the exploration cost. There's another example of an asset that sits in the vicinity of, but not within the JV area, and that's Ivrindi. So that just sits just outside of it. And Ivrindi is another project that we hold outright and we demonstrated a small resource on. And if you look at current gold prices, that resource despite being relatively low-grade starts to look very attractive in the context of the JV. Then in Northeastern Turkey, we have the 100% held Salinbas project and they're just on the south the position of Cyprus. So moving on to the Red Rabbit joint venture to run through this in a little bit more detail. As I've indicated, this is the 50-50 joint venture with Proccea Construction. They are both partners and managers of the joint venture. We were successful some years back in securing strategic investment status from the Turkish Ministry of Economy. So we've got strong government level support for the project. In addition to that, we've got very strong community support for the project, and we employ a very large number of people that -- from local areas, nearby villages and nearby towns. A lot of those have been -- a lot of those individuals have been able to seek employment and be employed at the mine site. And so it's a very beneficial operating environment for us all. Now because of our involvement with Proccea Construction, they've had a specialization in design and processing plant, gold and silver processing plant EPCM. So the process plant that we have established at Kiziltepe is absolutely state of the art and the tailings dam is built to very high specifications, as required by the Turkish Ministry of Environment and the Turkish State Waterworks. As I've indicated that capital loan with Turkiye Finans has now been fully repaid. The current operating parameters of the mine, we relatively recently updated the resource back in April. We presented both the undepleted and depleted resources. The depleted numbers shown here. And a large part of that is sitting within the Measured and Indicated JORC categories. So we believe that there's scope to bring a large part of these resources into -- ultimately into reserve, proven and probable. So current mine life based on this is about 6 further years. So we believe that there's -- basically, we've grown the mine life from an 8-year mine life for the purpose of the feasibility study, and we're slowly growing that to 10 years plus. And we'd certainly like to see the mine running for very many more years. And so our exploration programs are designed with that in mind. I probably don't need to dwell on those other parameters there. We've already run through the cash costs. And it's probably worth just mentioning the grades, the grades that we're seeing coming off the mine now are in the sort of 2.5 to 3 grams per tonne range at this point. This is what the mine site looks like, taken from a drone looking roughly towards the Southwest. This image was taken a couple of years ago when the Arzu South pit was not fully developed. So that pit is now fully -- almost fully mined. We've just got a little bit more mining to go at Arzu South through August. But then we'll be continuing mining in the other areas, such as Arzu North, which is just over the hill there on the right-hand side and the hill in sort of middle distance at Banu. So we expect a few more pits to be developed in the vicinity on those additional veins. In addition to that, there are a number of other structures that will probably be explored with drilling and ultimately bring into resource and indeed reserve in due course. And I'll touch on that further later on. So it's a very neat mine site. It's very well served by infrastructure. You can see the asphalt road that connects Sindirgi town, again, they're in the middle distance out towards the town of Simav. And the distance between our office in Sindirgi to the mine site is about 50 minutes’ drive. So it's a very benign and indeed pleasant place to work. This next slide shows the -- it's almost as if we're looking 180 degrees from where we were previously with that perspective. So we're now looking north at the Arzu South, Arzu North and Derya pits primarily. And there you can see Banu in the foreground. The blue pits are the feasibility design pits, which are essentially the shapes that we've been working to so far, particularly in the case of Arzu South. The red areas are the Whittle optimized pits. Now these have been further revised. So these have actually grown in size yet again. And indeed, our new mining plans at Arzu North and Derya, in particular, accommodating an enlarged size of pits. But as you can see in this image, you can trace the Arzu South vein structure all the way through to Arzu North under a sequence of cover rock shown in that teal color. We've drilled that area, the sort of connection zone and proven the existence of the vein system at depth there. There's a lot more work that we need to do to prove that up properly. At the moment, that's largely an inferred resource. But interestingly, the grades that we encounter in the northwest end of our Arzu South are very good and indeed so good that, that area could potentially be mined by underground methods. But also, there's the opportunity to potentially expand the pit in that direction. So at the moment, we're sort of working with those 2 ideas in mind, either continuing expanding the open pits or going underground. So we've continued to grow this resource, which is the key. There are further targets in the immediate vicinity, and we've compiled those in the form of a JORC exploration target, shy of 1 million tonnes at about 2 grams per tonne. So these areas would need to be further drill tested in time to demonstrate that we've got scope to develop those as additional open pits in the future. And here, we are looking down on Kiziltepe. Now you can see the Arzu South pit that's sort of dotted with drill holes there, the position of the process plant and the other pits at Arzu North and Derya and Banu. But this map is particularly useful because it shows the position of a series of additional veins, some of which have only had cursory drilling to date but show potential. So some of these form part of that JORC exploration target that I was referring to. And as you can see, the vein system is very extensive. There's a lot more drilling that we'll probably need to do in time that targets depth extensions to these veins. We're also quite excited by the near-surface potential in the Northwest continuity of the Arzu North vein. Despite grades being relatively lower in that direction, it looks relatively close to surface and easily accessible with an extension to the Arzu North pit. So that's something that we're also considering in terms of our expansion plans. And then beyond the Kiziltepe mine site itself and the Kiziltepe vein field specifically, this map shows the distribution of the joint venture licenses. Kiziltepe itself is shown in the bottom left-hand corner of that map. But then there's a series of additional prospects that sits within what we refer to as the Sindirgi Gold Corridor, which is that washed out area running towards the Northeast. Kepez West and Karakavak are certainly key prospect areas. And that Kepez itself is a high-grade resource that we're planning to mine and truck down to Kiziltepe in fairly short order. In addition to that, in the far northeast, we have the Kizilçukur property, which I referred to several slides back. So Kizilçukur is 100% held by Ariana, but we have the opportunity to sell Kizilçukur into the joint venture at 3x the exploration cost. We've already demonstrated a resource there at about 30,000 ounces, and we plan to mine the high grade part of that and truck that down to Kiziltepe again in due course. Then further to the northeast of Kiziltepe, about 75 kilometers, in fact, to the northeast, sits the Tavsan development project. And at Tavsan, a few years back, we completed a scoping study so back in 2016, based on the then resource that provided for 4 years of mine life at a processing capacity of 675,000 tonnes of ore per annum. We've more recently -- in June of this year, we've expanded that resource quite substantially. We added another 50% to the contained ounces, again, substantially derisking it into largely measured and indicated categories as well. So this needs to be reflected in the pre-feasibility and in the feasibility study works that are underway. The PFS, in fact, is complete. We're now working on the feasibility itself in parallel with the completion of the EIA. But we're looking at ultimately expanding mine life here from that originally envisaged 4-year life, which is very short for a mine and to a much more sensible 6 years. Now I'm quite confident that we can probably take this to about 8 years, given the additional resource potential that sits within the immediate vicinity of the Tavsan ore bodies that we've defined to date. So we envisage production here at a rate of 30,000 ounces per annum, as I've previously indicated. The potential at Tavsan sits across a number of licenses that we hold and, indeed, a number of pits that we're looking to develop. The original resource that we'd announced that comprised a series of about -- well, roughly speaking, about 5 pits. But as we found from the latest rock-saw channel sampling work and there are near-surface resource extensions that actually enable some of these pits to start merging into larger pits. So I now envisage that we'll probably be looking more like 3 or 4 larger pits, but the work that we need to do on the new resource is yet to be undertaken, but we'll be completing that work fairly soon in terms of optimization of those resources to demonstrate what is demonstrably economic. And we're providing further announcements on that in due course. But the upside exists in the vicinity of those pits and in that map, apologies for the font size, but several target areas have been defined based on near-surface channel sampling work and indeed some outlying drill holes that demonstrate very good -- great continuity in those areas. So there's plenty of scope for the exploration target that we've defined to continue to add to the resource base. So that wraps up Western Turkey and our interest there, both in our own right and primarily in our joint venture with Proccea Construction. And outside of the joint venture up in Northeastern Turkey, we have the Salinbas project. And this was originally picked up by us in 2007, or the core license was picked up in 2007. It was originally joint ventured by us with European Goldfields. They had a 51% stake. They -- and indeed, the following company, Eldorado Gold, which acquired European Goldfields from 2013, spent total of $9 million on the Salinbas project and other areas in northeastern Turkey. We were then able to acquire the Salinbas project outright. So we bought out their 51% stake for -- in return for a Net Smelter Return royalty. Since that time, so since late 2016, we've had to methodically progress the advancement of the licenses from exploration stage through to operational stage. And that process took a little longer than expected. It took us another almost 3 years to work through. But we completed all of that work last year. So the 3 licenses that are shown in that map are the key project licenses now, the Ardala, Salinbas and Hizarliyayla licenses going towards the south. These licenses are now all at operational status, all of which were granted during the course of last year. The Ardala license has been given a 5-year term extension as an operating license. Salinbas and Hizarliyayla have been given 10-year operating license status. So the tenure is very sound, and we've now accelerated activities -- exploration activities on these projects as a result, which included drilling in the Ardala, Salinbas area last year in May, into early June. And then it's on the back of that work, that drilling plus some of the due diligence drilling that was undertaken by Özaltin in November of last year. All of that data has been integrated into what we announced this morning, the revised resource statement. So that was a very pleasing technical advancement of the project. The key thing is that the Salinbas project sits within highly prolific copper-gold province. The project licenses actually sit along what is clearly a gold -- copper-gold trend shown on that map is running from Berta through Ardala, Salinbas, Hizarliyayla and then down to Hot Maden. Hot Maden being the big discovery that was made a few years back, currently over 4 million ounces gold equivalent. And the Lydia and Sandstorm JV is looking to develop that further. But this trend that I'm referring to, actually, you can think of it as being wider and longer than shown on this map. It actually runs over about 100 kilometers, in fact. And there's a series of copper-gold projects that are dotted along that trend, including in the far south, the [indiscernible] properties of [indiscernible] and they contain another about 2.2 million ounces of gold. It contains the Cerattepe deposit and a series of other prospects, including [indiscernible] to the north. So it's a phenomenally prospective area, and we're very excited to be right in the hub of that area. So the Salinbas project itself, some of these figures are actually revised to include the latest announcement and the data out of the latest resource. The scoping study that's outlined there still relates to the old resource. We haven't obviously revised that and there hasn't been time to revise that in the context of the new resource. So it's there just really for historical purposes. So that scoping study was based on the prior resource. There's not -- no huge change to the resource numbers in any case for Salinbas. If anything, the gold grade has gone up a little bit as has silver. And obviously, if we were to run that scoping study at today's gold price, these will be even more positive numbers, certainly in terms of the NPV because this scoping study was run at a gold price of $1,250 an ounce. So in due course, we'll be obviously revising the scoping study. And indeed, as we look towards developing Salinbas in the context of an expanded JV with Özaltin and Proccea Construction, we'll be advancing this straight through to pre-feasibility. There is obviously further upside at Salinbas, and that upside is the result of the prospectivity of the Ardala porphyry primarily. So the Ardala porphyry is shown there in pink. This sits in -- well, this is the core of the porphyry, in fact, what's called the potassic core. So it's the high-grade core containing the high-grade gold and copper and molybdenum. And this sits right at the bottom of the Ardala and Incesu valleys. And then up slope from that going from about 600 meters above sea level to about 1,250 meters above sea level, is the development of the Salinbas style of mineralization, which occurs along a lithological contact. So it's a rock unit contact. So the Salinbas ore body shown in that image in yellow, so that's the drilled extensive Salinbas at the moment but the same potential geology exists in those blue areas. So these are our JORC exploration target panels. The peripheries of which -- well, in the case of Salinbas North, we just started testing that with some of the drilling last year and also Salinbas main extension, which has been proven by follow-up soil and rock-chip sampling. So we're very confident in some of these target areas coming good, in part or potentially wholly in the case of Salinbas main extension. This same geology does extend beyond these blue areas, and there's certainly potential on the eastern side of the Incesu valley. So as you're looking at this image, closest to you, that area, those hills closest to you, there's certainly indications of mineralization there in the form of alteration and indeed from early rock-chip sampling and grades going up to 2, 2.5 grams per tonne. So that whole area is almost completely unexplored at this stage, and it certainly wants further work. All we can say is, as I advance to this next slide, here, the porphyry core is outlined in pink, the Salinbas panel, again, shown -- outlined in yellow and those JORC exploration targets outlined in blue, you can see the distribution of anomalism, geochemical anomalism from rock-chip or soil sampling that's been undertaken in the vicinity of the porphyry, it really is very extensive. And we very much feel that we're still just scratching the surface. There's a lot more work that needs to be done in this area, but we can only pursue that with drill testing ultimately. And that's something that we want to do in the context of the expanded JV. Those blue panels that I identified in the earlier slides, we've sort of boiled those down to some numbers that people can understand better. So this is just the process of developing a JORC exploration target. This target is based on our current understanding of the geology of the Salinbas ore body primarily. So it relates to the Salinbas style of mineralization. And it implies that we will -- we have the potential to identify other Salinbas styles of mineralization where the geology is conducive for that. Now if we apply the numbers that we get from Salinbas to these other areas, we end up with potential for another almost 1.5 million to 2.5 million ounces of gold. But as I said, this requires a lot more additional drilling, and we want to undertake this further work in the context of an expanded partnership. So that wraps up Turkey. Then outside of Turkey, we've commenced some targeting work a couple of years ago. In fact, on Cyprus, we were eventually able to secure an agreement, an earn-in agreement with Venus Minerals during late last year. And this work focuses primarily on the Troodos area of Cyprus. So this is specifically targeting Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide deposits, which are seafloor depositions of metals. So in the context of black smokers that you see on divergent plate margins, such as in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. That's a good example. But what's happened here is that millions of years ago, the green units that you see on this map were what's called abducted onto the crust at -- in Cyprus. And so the seafloor itself was preserved in part at today's surface. And along certain contacts within these seafloor basalts that we see exposed today, we identify these Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide systems. Cyprus has been known for these deposits for thousands of years. It's been mined since Bronze Age or, indeed, the Copper Age prior to that. And it's been a highly important source of copper for the world for very many years. However, an important part of the story was largely missed, and that is the potential for gold. And we recognize this potential being really very significant. These are ultimately copper-gold ore bodies. But the potential for -- sorry, the potential for gold is largely ignored because going back several decades, the gold price is not what it is today and was not considered particularly economic. We have to look at this in the lens of current circumstances, and it makes Cyprus a wonderfully prospective area for an exploration company. And Venus has been operating in Cyprus for 15 years. They've got a great in-country team, a very well connected team in Cyprus, and we've commenced the process of earning-in by spending ultimately EUR 3 million to earn into 50%. Currently, we're just north of 9% of Venus Minerals. We are planning for an exploration resource drilling program in Cyprus. The exploration drilling may commence imminently, possibly as early as August. That work is being finalized now. And then resource drilling possibly commenced later this year, although the situation with coronavirus has obviously delayed certain plans in terms of moving rigs and people into the country. But it's a very exciting addition to our overall portfolio. So in summary, Ariana represents the only AIM company that provides exposure to Europe's largest gold producing country, that being Turkey. Turkey is an exceptionally prospective country for gold. And we've seen through the last 15, 20 years, a huge expansion of gold mining activity in the country. It's certainly one of Europe's success stories from a gold production perspective. So we're in absolutely the right place for this business. The team has demonstrated a fundamental track record, unlocking asset potential right across its portfolio. And indeed, developing that portfolio from what was essentially a greenfield asset base right through to producing projects. In the case of producing projects, the existing JV, don't need to go through these numbers, we've gone through them before but it's fantastically profitable operation. And certainly in the current gold price environment, we're doing very well indeed. We've obviously got the opportunities that stem from that being well funded for our future growth. So we haven't come back to the market for funding since mid-2017. And with the dividend stream that we're receiving from the joint venture, there's minimal dilution risk to shareholders in terms of future placings. Obviously, we're continuing to grow the resource base across the existing portfolio within the JV and indeed outside of the JV in the case of Salinbas. Every ounce that we add to the resource base is another boost for the company. And to be doing it at, as I said, less than $15 an ounce is exactly where we want to be for our shareholders. We're also looking at diversifying the company. So utilizing the skill sets that we've developed over 15 years in Turkey to jurisdictions that sit in the vicinity of Turkey, so we can use essentially the same infrastructure, utilize the same team very effectively. And Cyprus is the first of what we hope to be a number of opportunities that we develop within Eastern Europe. And obviously, we're not going to ignore the potential for developments in technology metals, copper itself being one of those, but any metal associated with copper being of interest in the electrification, decarbonization agenda that is so important in today's world. So we have a business that's built on solid foundations. We are poised for rapid growth and diversification. So with that, I'd like to thank you all for listening in, and we'd be happy to take questions.

Thank you, Kerim and Michael. Thank you very much indeed. Ladies and gentlemen, could you please continue to submit your questions using the Q&A tab, which is situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. But just want the company to take a few moments to review investor questions submitted already. I'd like to remind you that a recording of this presentation along with the copy of the slides and the published Q&A can be accessed via your Investor Meet Company dashboard. And before I hand back to Kerim and Michael, I'd like to remind you that your feedback is important to the company. Immediately after the presentation has ended, you'll be redirected for the opportunity to provide feedback in order that the company can better understand your views and expectations. Kerim and Michael, obviously, we had -- investors had the ability to pre submit questions ahead of today's live presentation. I thought if it was possible, perhaps we could address some of those now.

Sure.

And then we can perhaps ask you to look at the live Q&A just to see what from there. And if anything comes in during the pre submitted questions. So the first question we have is, what effect has Turkish political instability had on your longer-term strategy for the company?

Okay. Well, I think it's interesting that the question is phrased that way, that there's this perception of political instability in Turkey. Actually, Turkey is politically stable. It's had an AKP government in place for the past 18 years. That AKP government has been led largely for most of that time, in fact, for 17 of those years by President and the one initially as Prime Minister, and then luckily as President. So from a political perspective, the country is stable. However, the country has faced several headwinds, which have influenced investor perceptions of the country. And those headwinds include the situation in Syria over the last almost decade. And other regional events that have impacted the region around Turkey and indeed within Turkey. There's also, unfortunately, as a result of that instability in the region. There has been a number of internal terrorist incidents that have been influenced by those external factors. But they're also domestic terrorism issues that Turkey has dealt with for very many decades. And this has all added to the perception of Turkey as being less stable perhaps than some other countries in Europe. And that's unfortunate. But I think that if you look at it purely from a mining perspective, that political stability has been essential. So having a single government in place for so long, that government has actually been instrumental in developing the mining industry and indeed identifying that industry as being strategically important to the country. So we are and our gold mining peers in Turkey are beneficiaries of that. So for that, we're very grateful. The fact that we've been able to secure things like the strategic investment status from the Turkish Ministry of Economy, which really is hugely beneficial for companies that are planning to develop mines because there are -- within those incentive schemes, there are massive benefits, like a reduction in corporate tax from 20% to 2%, the Turkish government providing various tax exemptions, be it VAT or customs duty exemptions, interest rate support as provided by the Turkish government, the support that they provide, social insurance payments to mine employees for a large part of the mine life. All of those things are hugely beneficial for mining companies. So it's been a fantastic environment to operate in. And as I said a little earlier, Turkey has gone from having 0 gold mines 20 years ago to knocking on the door of 20 gold mines operating in the country within that 20-year period, which is phenomenal. There's no other country like it in that part of the world or in very many other places in the world. So I think that the question needs to look at that political instability in that broader context.

A question here around share consolidation. Have the Board considered a 10 for 1 share consolidation like MARL, this so that the 1 billion shares could become a more respectable 100,000 shares. The share price unit would also then more attracted to investors rather than just appear as just another GBIs penny share.

Yes, the answer to that is that we have investigated that and researched it. But we do not see any particular advantage in undertaking a share consolidation at this point in time. In the majority of cases where share consolidations occur, there's almost certainly a drop in the value, the new value of the shares in a period following the share consolidation. And so we don't see any reason to subject the company or its shareholders to a potential drop in overall valuation as a result of that. And the other thing is, if it's not broken, why try fix it.

Two more questions, obviously, that were pre submitted. And obviously, I am mindful of time because I see there's a number of questions coming in, although I think you are coming across some of these through the pre-submitted ones. And the next question is, is it possible to say when shareholders will get to see the full deal details? And how long will be given to consider them before ratifying it?

Yes. So essentially, all the key deal terms were provided in the announcement that we made at the end of November, concerning the as yet at that time, unnamed incoming partner. So I'd ask shareholders, investors to refer to that announcement because that actually provides a lot of detail. Since that time, there have been certain steps that we're in the process of taking to refine the methodology of bringing the deal about to bring the joint venture together. And I'll go on to explain that in a little bit more detail. And then it was only in early July that we were able to announce as often as the incoming partner to put the overall JV, proposed JV in better context, as Alten being a major construction firm responsible for large-scale government contracts, such as the hydroelectric facilities in very rugged, difficult terrain. And major infrastructure projects, such as the Istanbul Izmir motorway and associated infrastructure such as the Orhangazi suspension bridge. So it's -- as Alten represents a very powerful partner to bring into a project like Salinbas, specifically. The other thing is that they have local cloud because there's Alten family come from the Artin region. So it's not just the fact that as Alten have deep pockets and engineering capabilities, but they're also locally very well connected. So there is a clear strategy and desire from our side to bring them in as the key partner to make -- to unlock the key value from Salinbas. In terms of -- just to come back to what I said earlier about the next steps that we're taking. We've recognized a methodology by which we can accelerate the proposed JV on Salinbas and to ultimately bring Salinbas into the expanded Zenit joint venture such that all parties have shareholdings of 53% result in 23.5%, Ariana 23.5% proceed. And the certain corporate restructuring that we need to do in Turkey, which is currently underway on our side. So this relates, specifically to the company that holds the Salinbas asset. There's certain steps that we need to take, which -- it will take a couple of months to sort out. We're already about a month in. And once we've got that resolved, then we'll be able to provide a further update on how the JV is going to be, how it's going to come together and how it will be financed. But in terms of key deal terms, in terms of the gross numbers, and indeed what Ariana will be netting from the proposed JV. None of that changes. So there will be a cash payment for initial -- sorry, initial cash payment of GBP 5 million for 17% of the Salinbas asset with the commitment by as Alten suspended further $8 million to earn into its 53% of that project, but they're also committing to spend $50 million to acquire a 53% stake in the Zenit joint venture. But there's also the provision for Proccea to acquire its 23.5% stake in the Salinbas JV, and we'll provide further detail on that as soon as we can.

As I said, just mindful of time, obviously, we're coming up to the hour. So perhaps if we can address this and then pick a handful of the live Q&A, that would be great. So the final question is, is it possible to comment on the progress towards a dividend policy and specifically the special one-off payment?

Yes. Michael, do you want to answer that one?

Yes. Well, the one-off payment we will know more about when we have concluded it. And the prospect of having a...

All right, I'll answer it. So on the dividend policy, we -- obviously, we're planning to enable...

Sorry, Kerim, I think there is a small interference coming from William. I might just remove William. There we go. Sorry, please go ahead, Kerim.

Yes. Michael, are you there? Or shall I answer that?