Ariana Resources plc (AAU) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

The Ariana Resources plc investor presentation. [Operator Instructions] The company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself. However, the company will review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. These will be available via Investor Meet Company dashboard and you'll be notified once these are ready for your review. I'd also like to remind you that this presentation is being recorded. Before we begin, we'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand over to Michael de Villiers, Chairman; and Dr. Kerim Sener, CEO of Ariana Resources plc. Good morning.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our December 2020 Q&A. Ariana Resources is very pleased to announce this morning our announcement of our special dividend, which I'm sure you'd like to know some more about, and we'll be able to answer those questions during the course of the other questions that have been submitted. We'll also have a short presentation. And I'll now hand over to our Managing Director, Dr. Kerim Sener, to continue with the Q&A and presentation.

Thank you for the introduction, Michael, and welcome to everyone that's been able to join this investor webinar. It's great to see so many people in attendance. I'd like to take this opportunity to run investors and shareholders through the corporate presentation. Now this is very much a whittled down version of a presentation that we working towards. And ultimately, we will have that presentation -- we'll run through that presentation during the course of our AGM. This one relies largely on some of the graphics that we introduced in the annual report and accounts published last week. And I will run through those and provide further explanation concerning some of those graphical elements. I'll start off with just an introduction here on the first slide because I think it's quite relevant. This is actually a drone photograph taken from survey altitude when we were undertaking a photogrammetric survey over the top of the Salinbas project. And those coordinates shown there are actually the central coordinates of the Ardala copper gold porphyry system. Just providing an update on the company and where we find ourselves today following the completion of our groundbreaking deal with Özaltin Holdings and Proccea Construction. As you know, we've introduced Özaltin Holdings as a third joint venture partner within the Zenit Madencilik JV in Turkey and also integrated the Salinbas project into the Zenit JV framework. So the Zenit JV now comprises 3 primary projects: Kiziltepe, our operating gold and silver mine; Tavsan, which will be the next mine -- gold mine; and the Salinbas development project. In addition, there are a number of smaller satellite projects that we also sold into the joint venture, and we've just completed that recently. So the joint venture is significantly expanded. The capabilities of that joint venture have expanded. And we're continuing to develop the Kiziltepe mine, and I'll run through that in a little bit more detail later, and advance the Tavsan Project 2 production with further work underway at the Salinbas project. So over the last 15 years, as a company, we listed on AIM in 2005, so a little over 15 years. We've demonstrated a very good track record. We've pretty much hit all of our targets through that period of time. We've demonstrated that through the joint venture. We have a profitable enterprise that is sustainable, which is leading to further production growth. All of this I will detail further in the presentation. We now have, by virtue of our partial divestment of interest in the joint venture in Turkey, a significant cash position and it's in relation to that significant cash position. We're in the -- we have the ability now to pay a special dividend to our loyal shareholders. Importantly, the joint venture now has minimal debt. I will talk about the debt component of the operations, and in particular, the development of the Kiziltepe mine a little bit further on. But essentially, that debt is now at minimal levels. And we're also demonstrating very significant growth targets for the joint venture, which ultimately will lead to the ability for the Zenit JV to continue paying a dividend up to the owning company, Galata Madencilik, and onwards, to the group company. So in summary, our operations in Turkey have been substantially enhanced with the expansion of our operational joint venture. It's now encompassing multimillion ounce gold project in the form of the Salinbas gold silver system and its associated copper gold porphyry at Ardala. And we are also starting our expansion into other regional jurisdictions. So a very quick snapshot of some of the key fundamentals. The thing that I'd like investors to take away from this is that this share price and volume graph that you can see down here in the lower right-hand corner, I've taken this from midway through 2016 and then -- sorry, midway through 2017, which was the start of commercial production from the Kiziltepe gold and silver mine. So showing substantial share price appreciation within that period of time. Importantly, as a result of that, our market capitalization has continued to grow, and we're now over GBP 50 million, which was a target that I sort of set myself internally to achieving several years ago, and we're now at that point in time. We expect from -- further developments into the next 10 years, and I'll touch on aspects of this into the presentation. We'll expect to continue to grow this market capitalization going forward. Now the focus area for the company is obviously, Turkey, our joint venture operations in Turkey, shown in that lower map, the split between Kiziltepe, Tavsan and Salinbas. Those orange points are earning to 50% of Venus Minerals in Cypress, that turquoise point. And also, are earning to 75% of Western Tethyan Resources based in Kosovo, but encompassing mineral exploration activities across Eastern Europe. So we're expanding our profile as a company across the back part of the Tethyan metallogenic belt, which itself extends all the way from Eastern Europe and pass the Himalayas out into the Indonesian arc. And that's shown in the larger map as that sort of pinkish colored area. Our operations are primarily run out of our Ankara office. We have a substantial operating team there, and we're continuing to augment that. In addition, we've got our joint venture team based out of site in Kiziltepe and we have about 180 staff members on site at the present time. The company can be summarized through this graphic. At the very top, that represents our producing assets or our most advanced assets contained within the Zenit joint venture, of which we retained 23.5% following partial divestment to Özaltin Holdings earlier this year. That entity, as I've explained previously, comprises the operating asset plus the advance projects such as Tavsan and Salinbas. So essentially, it represents the lowest risk part of the portfolio. And it also represents cash flow to the business. A tier under that, we have our earn into Venus Minerals, earning into 50%, but we're currently at 37.5%. And also, our earn into Western Tethyan Resources in Eastern Europe, earning into 75% currently. A tier below that is the newly established Asgard Metals Fund. And this really develops our project catalytic strategy, which is to look at early stage -- discovery stage, essentially, projects, potentially anywhere in the Eastern Hemisphere, as outlined in the map that I showed previously. And we're looking at exploration hotspots, particularly for gold, but other minerals, too. And some of those other minerals that we're interested in include copper or any other metal that is associated with the transition to green energy technologies, which are going to be so important in the coming decades. Asgard Metals Fund, essentially developed out of Asgard Metals PTY Limited, which was an Australian subsidiary that we established some years ago, with initial interest in lithium exploration in the Northern Territory in Western Australia. We did very well out in those investments and turned effectively a $35,000 investment by the company into $3.5 million within a fairly short order, within a couple of years. And it's on the back of that financial success that has given us the platform for the development of the Asgard Metals Fund. So we're looking out for key opportunities, really, across the eastern hemisphere, and we intend to get invested in a number of junior exploration companies through that. As part of this, and in a sense, at one tier below that, we have our Project Generation division. So this is really the brains behind the project catalytic approach. It's our ability to identify high-quality projects that we can then feed into this exploration pipeline and progressively derisk projects and get them to approach the apex there. Now we've had prior successes indicated in similar investments that we've undertaken over the years. Not a huge amount of emphasis was ever placed on these back in the day because investors were far more interested in what we were doing at Kiziltepe. But really, this has always been part of the Ariana strategy and it's a core component of what we do going forward. Now one thing that is really worth highlighting is that we set ourselves apart quite substantially from any other junior exploration company. There are very few companies that can point to the metrics that we are able to as a business. And whether we're looking at operational metrics, such as the carbon dioxide footprint of our joint venture operations they are well below the international average; or it's looking at the discovery costs, and this is something that we really pride ourselves in as a business. It's actually essential and core to what we do. And that is minimizing the exploration cost. So what does it cost our shareholders for us, as a team, to identifying one ounce of gold? It's a very simple metric. Most exploration companies will not give you that because the number is usually fairly appalling. And the international average is USD 62 per ounce. We're coming in at USD 12 an ounce. The industry, the gold exploration industry has not seen that sort of level of discovery costs since the mid-1980s, yet we are maintaining our discovery cost of mid-1980s levels. Another important point on the operational side of the business are the cash costs of producing an ounce of gold. And they're coming in at about USD 490 per ounce based on all prior quarters of production since early 2017 for the Kiziltepe operation. The international average currently is about $1,000 per ounce. So again, we beat our competitors by quite some margin. Now how are we able to do this as a business? Well, one is very good operating practice, being very tight with the purse strings, something that we pride ourselves on. But it's also, critically ,our ability to utilize the very latest technologies as a business, and to do this with a very sound operational and strategic framework. And some of the photographs shown around that slide highlights some of the technologies that we have in use at this point in time. So up there in the top right-hand side, there is our Exploration Manager, Berkin Ugurlu. He's utilizing a portable XRF unit. What this instrument does is provide an instantaneous geochemical readout. So you're not just relying on the geologist to provide an assessment of what the mineral component of a rock or a piece of drill core is showing. And that can be a subjective affair for most exploration geologists, but it's giving a very precise geochemical readout of a particular point on the sample. And this is an invaluable tool for all manner of work that we undertake. And one of the things that it's very good at is it minimizes the amount of material that's being sent off to the laboratory for geochemical analysis, which, of course, itself is much costlier. So we're only sending that material that we know is actually mineralized rather than sending, let's say, all the core. Related to this is an instrument that we've recently started making use of on site, and it's a BoxScan units produced by Geotek. And we're a luminary customer for BoxScan and Geotek. It's the very first time that this sort of instrumentation is being utilized in this manner in the junior exploration space. We're one of just a handful of companies that have this equipment worldwide. And although it's not so clear from that photograph, that instrument includes an XRF unit itself, a magnetic susceptibility meter, an alteration survey device, and a very high-resolution camera and also, digital scanner, effectively, to bring all the core into a 3-dimensional assessment digitally. And this again provides reams of additional data that is not possible for a single geologist or even a geological team to assess in their own right. And this business is all about collecting as much data as you can and to utilize that data in the most effective means possible. Another example of this is shown in the left-hand photograph. We are implementing all of our logging now directly online into the database. So there's no hard copy paper trail, so to speak. Everything is directly integrated into our digital database system. So it minimizes the possibilities of error. So what does that all boil down to? Well, in summary, this diagram goes a long way to explaining how we've achieved this and the time line of having achieved it. So in summary, we can show the growth of the company from IPO back in 2005 all the way up to the present, 2020. Those circles represent the growth in market capitalization of the company, which is the key measure. And also, we provide the details of the resource growth as well. So we've grown from a resource of 0 when we started off as an exploration company, progressively grew the resource base, and consequently, the market capitalization of the company continued to grow. But quite significantly, you can see that there's a marked change from 2017 to 2020. And this coincided with the end of shareholder funding effectively through the market. To date, we have utilized about $25 million of shareholder funds. And at that moment in time, in early 2017, marked the beginning of production from Kiziltepe. Associated with the development of Kiziltepe was a substantial amount of debt, an initial USD 33 million, to build and develop the mine, but further working capital as well has been paid off. And now there's a smaller loan that we're paying off in association with the processing plant expansion that's due to be completed very soon. So that debt component amounts to, let's say, about $50 million. And a large part of that, as I said, is essentially paid off now. So you can see that is one very clear reason for why there's been such a marked growth in market capitalization in that window of time between 2017 and 2020. Another thing that we've done over the years is that we've brought on board very sound joint venture partners to the business in the form of Proccea back in 2010. With Proccea, we successfully developed Kiziltepe mine. We've now brought on board, of course [indiscernible]. It's important to recognize the past contribution of European Goldfields in Eldorado Gold in getting the Salinbas project to this point in time, and they contributed about $8.4 million. So in summary, about $25 million was utilized through shareholder funds to develop the business. But overall, $100 million is the total expenditure, so to speak, of the company and its joint venture enterprises to date. So perhaps there's no surprise that Ariana is about 1/4 of the joint venture in Turkey now. Shareholder funds having only represented about 1/4 of the total. However, that's admitting the fact that we've successfully divested part of our interest in Turkey. So we're now also sitting on a very substantial pile of cash. So it puts -- that slide essentially puts everything into context and brings us up to the present day. And really underscores our ability to start paying dividends to shareholders initially through the special dividend that we announced earlier this morning. So very briefly, I'll go through the Zenit joint venture and what we're working on currently. And I think one of the key graphics that we included in the annual report is this one. And I'll draw your attention to the Kiziltepe deposits. It's shown in orange. And I should also point out that those squiggly shapes there are the actual aerial footprints of each of our deposits across the joint venture. We also show the Magellan project in Cyprus there as well for context. So Kiziltepe is a relatively small deposit containing 227,000 ounces of gold. But it is the operating mine from which we derive the revenue. In comparison to the other assets, Kiziltepe is right down there at the small end of the equation. Our key assets going forward for the joint venture are clearly going to be Tavsan, which will be the next operating mine, and also the Salinbas and Ardala system. So I think this slide speaks volumes in terms of showing the future growth path of the joint venture at least. In terms of the operational performance of the joint venture to date, so looking at that revenue figure from the previous slide, I mean that can be broken down in the format of that graphic there on the top left. That shows silver ounces shown in gray relative to gold ounces shown in gold. And really, I think this highlights the fact that Kiziltepe is really a silver mine in terms of volume of metal produced. But also in terms of value, clearly, the value is associated with the gold. So that's $134 million of revenue to date, at least till the end of 2020. Can be broken down in the form shown in that graphic. And we've also provided a prediction or estimate rather for where we expect 2021 production to be. It's important to point out that we've been mining at a far higher rate than the feasibility had planned for. There are very good reasons for this. And that million-odd tonnes that has been mined to date, not all of that has been processed. Perhaps about 3/4 of that has been processed to date. So we've got a very large stockpile, currently approximating about 10 months of mill throughput. And the mill throughput itself to date, we've been averaging about 3.52 grams per tonne of gold since operations commenced. But we are in the process of expanding our mill throughput. And we'll provide an update on that in due course, and we're expecting fairly shortly. The effect of the mill expansion is shown in the graphic on the bottom right-hand side. So you can see the mill expansion being complete during the course of this year 2021. And then as a result of that enhanced mill throughput, going from about 200,000 tonnes of ore per annum to 400,000 tonnes of ore per annum, we're expecting a ramp-up in output from the Kiziltepe operation. That graphic also shows when we're currently expecting the Tavsan operation to commence production. And then we run the Tavsan production right to the end of its mine life in 2030 there. We also show our expectation of operations commencing at Salinbas as well. But obviously, this is all subject to feasibility and permitting. So moving on to Venus Minerals. We are earning into 50% of Venus Minerals, currently at 37.5%. The license areas are spread largely across the [ through those ] area. And our key focus is the Magellan project area, shown in purple on that map, and as well as an important exploration project called Mariner, further to the east. At Magellan, we've identified JORC inferred resources at 9.5 million tonnes, a 0.65% copper, but this resource also contains substantial zinc in part, about 0.6%, as well as gold and silver. The question of gold is something that we've been asking ourselves since we began operations through the Venus Minerals zone. It's absolutely key to determining and deriving value from the Cyprus-type volcanogenic massive sulfide copper gold systems. And from the latest drilling data we announced a couple of weeks ago, we've proven that gold exists in substantial quantities certainly at the Kokkinoyia sector of the Magellan project, and those drilling results there demonstrate that. Western Tethyan Resources, this is focused again on copper gold exploration, but this time, in Eastern Europe, where we're earning into 75%. Now this summary mark shows the focus area outlined in orange here. We have our base of operations in Pristina at Kosovo. We've got an excellent exploration team associated with Western Tethyan resources run by mental demi, an accomplished geoscientist, with a number of successes through this region, particularly in Armenia. Although it's Kosovan based, we're focused on exploration throughout that region. We are evaluating a number of projects in that overall area. We've got license applications in. We're waiting for those to be granted. We're expecting to make further license applications in due course, whether it be in Kosovo or one of the other countries in that region. But we're looking forward to continuing to support Western Tethyan resources in their exploration activities. And that brings me to the end of the presentation. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] But just while the team takes a few moments to review those investor questions submitted, I'd like to remind you the recording of this presentation, along with the copy of the slides and the published Q&A can be accessed via our Investor Meet Company dashboard on the platform. I'd also like to remind you that your feedback is important to the company. And immediately after the presentation has ended, you'll be redirected the opportunity to provide your feedback in order that the company can better understand your views and expectations. Michael and Kerim, we obviously received a number of pre-submitted questions from investors, and you've kindly provided responses to those, and then they will be published on the Investor Meet Company platform along with the responses to any questions from the live session as well. And we've received there, several questions already from investors. So perhaps if I could just hand back to you to click on that Q&A tab and where appropriate to do so, read out the question, just give your verbal response, that would be great.

Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Perhaps before I delve into the questions, I'll just reiterate the prior -- previously submitted questions we have provided answers for which can be reviewed. If there are any further questions that results from those initial answers that we provided as a company, we can also touch on those shortly. Now moving on to the questions that have just come in as we were speaking. A couple of questions there from Andy M., that are similar relating to future growth, and whether today's dividend announcement puts any limits to our growth options. So by this, I'm assuming that the inference there is that by paying out a substantial portion of available cash, we're limiting the growth options of the company. We don't see it that way at all. It's important to remember that Ariana operated largely off the smell of an oily rag for 15-plus years. And we had a very much hand-to-mouth existence pretty much every year, coming back to the market for further investors' funds in order to fund the development of the company. Now we've closed that chapter on our history in 2017 when we went into successful operations at Kiziltepe. But we know what we're capable of as a company. And we know how to run this ship in a very lean fashion and to do it very, very effectively. Now yes, we're in a very fortunate position of sitting on a substantial cash part as a result of the divestment of interest in the joint venture in Turkey and our other interest in Turkey. But we feel this is an opportune moment after the best part of 2 decades to provide a distinct return to shareholders. That effectively draws a line under the past and enables us to move on as a business. And we're still retaining substantial amount of capital to be able to do a hell of a lot of work.

Kerim, should we perhaps whittle through the Qs 1 to 14 that we got in?

Sure. Yes. Happy to do that. Do you want to start, Michael?

Well, yes. Question, I'll ask them alternately. Question 1, are we considering a consolidation? This is under review. Share consolidation, that is. It's not something we've debated at great length. So we're considering it. And I think we won't dwell on that any longer.

Sorry, Mike. I'm just trying to find my -- done with my answers here.

Well, I'll go on to question 2. Are we considering any share buybacks? We've primarily focused this on something available for staff and people who are very close to the company as part of our team who received shares as part payment. And that's really all the share -- purchases are considered full. We're not going wholesale into the market buying shares. And nothing more to be said on that one. There's a detailed answer going to be published.

You can keep going, Michael. Sorry.

Okay. The question on public relations, well, we've actually considered ourselves to be amongst those as up-to-date as we can be with publishing price-sensitive information as it becomes available. And we're continuing to do so. When it comes to the point of promotion, obviously, we're not able to attend conferences as we have in the past. That, I think, will come back in the future. I know it was Freedom Day yesterday, but I don't think it feels like it. And it's probably another year before we have face-to-face opportunities to meet shareholders and other interested parties at conferences and share promotion events. But we'll probably be doing more of these sort of investor seminars type approaches, using Investor Meet Company because it does work rather well with us being in different places and not able to meet face-to-face. And I think the -- our shareholders must appreciate that we have actually been publishing everything that has come due for publishing as and when it has been available, as we've done now. And I think the deluge of news we've put out in the last 3 weeks is a testament to that.

Yes. I think it's also worth adding there, Michael, that one of the things that we pride ourselves on as a business is the quality of the RNS releases. Investors can rely on RNSs, particularly the technical ones in providing a huge amount of detail. We're not averse to providing that detail. And a lot of information can be gleaned through a very careful read-through of our RNS releases. So from a PR perspective, if related to RNSs, I think we're ticking all the boxes. And I don't think that we're underdoing RNSs in any way.

And the history stands. It's -- the detail is there for people to go back and have a look on our website. And I think the current annual report has a huge amount of new information that is there for the reading.

Exactly. I have now found the answers, so I can continue if you like, Michael.

Okay then.

So question 4 was a longer one. Just relating to certain content within the annual report and whether the goals we stated -- or rather the strategies, our strategic approach is realistic. Very much so, that's absolutely essential that we followed those strategic elements essentially to the letter over the years. And they're certainly not, as was put, motherhood statements. They are absolutely core to our business strategy. There's also reference there to why is it that the annual report is not more aspirational. Well, I don't think it's the place for aspirational statements so much in an annual report. Annual report is there to record a period of time and that the information provided for that period of time that represents that period is auditable and verifiable. Aspirational statements, yes, there are a few related to the outlook section of the operations review and certain aspects of the Chairman's statement. But the annual report is not really the place for that. And other platforms and these sorts of Q&A are a good example of that, but proactive or other interviews are in other place.

I would agree with you, Kerim.

Okay. Thank you. The next question, 5, is in relation to the environmental impact assessment application for Tavsan and whether there are delays and the nature of those delays. Well, we previously referred to this in some prior proactive BRR media interviews. But we are experiencing delays as a result of COVID. Now the Turkish government, the number of government departments effectively shut down during the course of last year. This has led to a backlog. Things are still not running exactly as normal. There are still issues. And it's very difficult for us to get a handle on government time lines. And it's not really our place to second guess what the government is doing all the time. Our application is in. We're waiting for a response. And as soon as we've got a response, we'll provide an update to the market. And Tavsan is one example of that. I mean there are permit-related applications that we have in for our other projects that have been similarly impacted. And when we receive a permit that is material to the business, of course, we will announce that as appropriate. I think question 6 is also, to some degree, impacted by what we've experienced over this last 1.5 years, permitting aspects associated with Salinbas, that's -- we've experienced some delays in that as well. But from an environmental impact assessment point of view, we've commenced an environmental scoping study on the project prior to completing our transaction with Özaltin . And this lays the foundations for the formal EIA work, and that's underway -- aspects of that are underway. Because you need a substantial time line in which to lay down the foundations to the EIA to assess the local environment from a pre-mining perspective. We're also working continuously on social and community aspects as well. I mean it's an integral part of how we run our business. It's very important to ensure that we've got community buy-in.

It's worth pointing out that we had achieved that with great success and probably record success in Turkey. In fact, with my 15 years of being involved in this industry on project levels, I've never seen quite so many straightforward public meetings.

Yes. That's right. We've had a pretty good run of public meetings in the past. So long way, that continue. Question 7, relating to an independent nonexecutive director, an additional one. There is reference to this in the annual report. Depending on the strategic aspects and exactly what an individual would add to the business relative to the strategy. That's something that, obviously, we would continue to give consideration to. But at this point in time, the Board makeup is entirely adequate for our current objectives. Question 8. This relates to what's happening with the weakening Turkish lira. There's a view there that, that represents a substantial loss to the business. Well, obviously, we don't control exchange rate movements. And what we do to mitigate the risk of exposure to Turkish lira is to try and hold as little Turkish lira as possible. So the bulk of our cash reserves, we keep in pounds or in U.S. dollars. And it's also important to recognize that the exchange loss shown in the accounts is an accounting adjustment that occurs between periods. So it's -- in a sense, it's not a real number. Michael, do you want to -- as I'm not the accountant, would you like to explain that in further detail?

Well, yes, the bulk of it relates to our holding in Zenit. And it is directly linked to, as you correctly said, the change in the Turkish lira pound exchange rate. It is a book entry booked against the carrying value of the assets, which are assets not cash. So the cash we have invested, mostly in U.S. dollars. So that isn't depreciating. And it is a book entry so it doesn't represent a cash loss to the business. The asset is still there. That is in detail in the accounts if anyone wants to know more.

Michael, should we just jump back to some of the live questions?

I think we should.

While we're at it.

Well, here's from Paul R. "are we investing in something more near term as most long-term? Ariana shareholders don't have another 15 years to wait." Well, neither do I. But yes. Certainly, some of the targeted investments are near term, as in 3 to 5 years, very much what we achieved on lithium, which was 3 or so years. Wasn't it, Kerim?

That's right. Certainly less than 3 years. that around...

That would be pretty much under the Asgard portfolio, whereas the -- some of the other true exploration generative targets will take longer.

Yes.

But they won't actually go through the long run of mine development. They may well be divested of when they are at peak value and joint venture of unsold.

Yes. Yes, I agree. Yes. I think that the -- our investments in the lithium space back in 2014, '15, they were timed beautifully. We picked up very early-stage projects. And we were very quickly able to turn those around to creating real value for the business with appropriate early-stage exploration work. And that's something that I think we do very well as a business. So why not do more of it? I mean that's basically what that part of the strategy boils down to. And the other thing, of course, is that it relies on our experience operating in Turkey, where, again, we identified a relatively early-stage exploration opportunity in the form of Kiziltepe, that it had some initial drilling undertaken, like, by Newmont at the time. But we could see that it had potential. It looked like the sort of thing that could become a mine. And it was just a matter of sequentially derisking that asset and getting that to the point of mining commencing. So I think we're just quite good at identifying projects that have the ability to be turned into mines. So we just want to do more of that basically. So let's go on to -- I'll start at the bottom of the list. So we've got a question from Nida 1 -- Nida I. Joint venture, how is Ariana ensured that it will not be squeezed out on operational levels? So the Zenit joint venture, we had a very successful joint venture running with Proccea Construction. And when we entered negotiations with Özaltin, jointly, with Proccea, it was very clear that Özaltin wanted Proccea to remain the operator of the joint venture, primarily because Özaltin themselves didn't have a mining division. They had no prior experience in the mining space. Although it was an area, obviously, that we're very excited to get involved in. And Özaltin, primarily being a very large construction firm with large-scale engineering projects, primarily in hydroelectric dams, road infrastructure across country and elsewhere within the region. So they had all the engineering capabilities, but not specifically in the mining area and certainly not from an exploration point of view. And the new joint venture framework essentially builds on the prior joint venture framework, which is already a very successful formula. So we're not expecting to be squeezed out of the joint venture.

Well, it is also protected under legal agreements that are properly constructed.

Correct, yes.

The basis of the primary arrangements.

Yes. There's a question about further ounces being discovered. Salinbas has given us the example, how it'd be monetized by Ariana. Well, now the Salinbas is part of the joint venture. Any resource additions associated with existing parts of the joint venture, that's a joint venture enterprise. It's not specifically an Ariana enterprise, although our exploration team provides input into the exploration of all the projects. However, if we identify another project that currently sits outside of the joint venture, we can sell that joint venture -- sorry, we can sell that project into the joint venture effectively at 3x exploration cost, which is very similar to the arrangement we had in the previous joint venture with Proccea. So that's effectively how we sort of monetize peripheral assets like that. Michael, do you have any...

Nothing at 6.

Okay. There's question here from Craig M. Can you please explain, broad brush, how 50% of the proceeds of the JV disposal state results in 0.7p dividend? And what your logic is in spreading out the dividend over 3 tranches? And why you believe spreading out the dividend awards long-term shareholders rather than a one-off payment? Can you confirm the disposal proceeds are being received in full? So the last question there is, yes, we can confirm that $35.75 million has been received. It was received 7 months ago. There is the sale of satellite projects that was referred to in an announcement late last year, the sale of satellite projects for that $2 million. In addition, that process, through the mines department, only recently concluded. And as a result of that, we've only received the first payment effectively for those satellite projects, but there will be monthly payments hereafter as per the terms of the arrangement that we had. So in going back to the rest of that question. So I just lost the question now.

It had moved.

Yes. The question just moved.

I'll just put it back up there for you, Kerim. You just answered this. I'll just put it back for you.

Yes. Okay. The rest of the question related to the payments of the dividend in tranches. Well, there's a very good reason for this. We don't do anything lightly. That's for sure. It's very logically thought out. There are significant tax advantages available to the company in Turkey in relation to disposable and asset. So we are taking advantage of those tax incentives. To do it any other way, we would not be getting those tax advantages. And of course, that would then be in shareholders' interest. So this is the right method by which we pay out the special dividend. And to do it over 3 tranches does reward long-term shareholders. And it certainly rewards loyalty of those shareholders because we want you here for the long term. So I think there were a couple of other questions, actually, that related to the dividend payment. Just seeing if there's any other aspects of that, that need to be addressed. Michael, can you see any?

Well, there's one that I think is relevant. Neda, is the dividend payment in the joint venture agreement sanctioned in any way? How? Are releasing cash and information from the joint venture to AAU decided by a simple majority? If not so, how?

Okay. So this relates to the payment of dividends from the joint venture entity, Zenit.

Yes.

And so every March, we hold an Annual General Meeting in Turkey. And at that Annual General Meeting, we determine the profit from the prior year and whether the joint venture entity is going to pay out dividends associated with that. When we have the joint venture running with just Proccea, that would happen every March. And we pay out interim dividends or repayment of loans, intercompany loans. And that was done right up until the end of 2020. The March AGM this year, because it happened just within a couple of weeks after the conclusion of the joint venture with Özaltin, we decided collectively to not declare a dividend for this March. But profits, of course, has been registered. We have profits from the joint venture entity. So we'll probably hold another meeting later this year in relation to the payment of further dividends from Zenit. And the payment of those dividends is proportionate to our investment share in the joint venture. And one of the key drivers for the joint venture, of course, is profit. This is why Özaltin is in business. That's why Proccea in business. And that's why we are in business. We want to ensure that we maximize profits from the operating company, and specifically, from the operating mine at Kiziltepe, and indeed, future mines.

We have another one. Ryan N., what do you view as the greatest opportunity for the company moving forward? I would just say it's our adoption of technology and moving quickly.

Yes. I agree with that. And really building on the platform of the previous 15, 16, 17 years. We've always been a very early adopter of the latest technology. So when we started as a business, we were utilizing remote sensing data sets that are being used by other companies, of course. But we use them in slightly different ways. We were very successful in identifying a number of very prospective areas very early on in our exploration in Turkey. And in fact, we'd identified the Kiziltepe area and the region around it as being a high priority long before we identified because of that opportunity and prior to us negotiating with Newmont to secure that asset. Likewise, in the Salinbas area. In fact, with -- would you believe it, we actually picked out the Hot Maden discovery. And we actually wanted to acquire those licenses, but we couldn't at the time. And then it was a couple of years later that we then secured the Ardala copper-gold porphyry. And of course, that became the basis for our original joint venture with European Goldfields, lastly, Eldorado Gold, and then we made the discovery of the Salinbas gold silver system sitting off just to the west of Ardala. So we've utilized technology very effectively previously, and we continue to do so as we've run through during the course of the presentation today. So there's a huge amount of leverage there. And we just know how to do things very effectively.

Neda, why separate the investment fund from Ariana? Why not directly inside Ariana?

Well, I think it needs its own entity because it's essentially undertaking a different type of business to Ariana itself. So Ariana, in its own right, is very much -- if you're looking at the PLC, it's the group company. It's at the very top of that apex. What Asgard is doing is a component of that, but it has to be quite distinct. And we obviously had the Asgard entity that we established 6-odd years ago here in Australia. And that entity at that stage was very successful with this lithium strategy. And we're just utilizing that same entity rather than it just being a dormant part of our business.

Okay. John G., "Can't see how you've included the dividend element that you say needs voting on in this AGM. Shareholders have already given authority."

It's this AGM. The resolutions and special resolutions for this AGM are already outlined in the annual report. Now the authority we would then be seeking for the payment of the final dividend is on acceptance of the 2021 accounts, which will clear in 2022.

Yes. It is completely unrelated to the past year. It is this year in which the profits take place on that transaction. It's this year in which the dividend is distributed for the first and second tranche, and the third one being the final part.

Correct.

Michael, Kerim, we're coming up to the hour mark. I don't know if there's any further questions you want to pick up. Of course, you can review all questions submitted by attendees today and publish responses where appropriate to do so. But just, if there's anything further, or we can just ask you for a few further comments to wrap up before we redirect investors to give you some feedback.

Okay. Thank you. I'll just answer just one more question then because it just builds on the dividend question, and this one from Thomas D. His question is, "I believe you previously mentioned the intention to pay a regular dividend. Are they likely to commence directly after the 3 parts of the special dividend? Or will there be a hiatus?" So a very important question, this one, and one that an answer to which we've alluded to, both in the annual report and in the announcement of today. We are working on a strategy to be able to develop sufficient capital reserves to pay a dividend in the longer term. But a large part of that is obviously dependent on the performance of our existing assets in Turkey through the joint venture, particularly Kiziltepe. And also in relation to that, the timing of commencement of mining of the Tavsan deposit as well because that would be a critical part of that pathway going forward. But that's very much our desire. It is what we're working towards. And, I think, just watch this space.

Lastly, I'd like to just mention that as we have made it, potentially, attendance AGM, i.e., there's nothing to stop people attending given that nothing changes with regard to COVID attendance rules, in any event, I urge people to please vote by proxy because that will ensure your vote is counted and everyone gets the opportunity to vote then at this AGM 18th of August, London. Thank you all for attending.

Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure.

Thank you to Investor Meets Company for hosting an excellent event.

Thank you both. Thank you for addressing those questions from investors. And as I said earlier, of course, the company will review all questions submitted today and will publish those responses where appropriate to do so. Kerim, just if there are any final words from you just before we redirect investors for feedback?

Just to say thank you very much for everyone in attending today. It's been a pleasure running through the latest developments of the company. As people can see, there's a look to look forward to. We're certainly very excited about the next 10 years.

Yes, indeed.

That's fantastic. Michael, Dr. Kerim, thank you, indeed, for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close the session as you'll be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, and it's greatly appreciated by the company. On behalf of the management team of Ariana Resources plc, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That concludes today's session. Thank you and good morning.

Thanks. Bye-bye.

Thank you. Bye-bye.