Aya Gold & Silver Inc. (AYA.TO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Boumadine PEA Results Webinar. I'm Elizabeth Hamaue, Director of Corporate and Financial Communications. The IR team is excited to share the results of this important milestone. Joining me today are Benoit La Salle, President and CEO; Raphael Beaudoin, Vice President of Operations; Patrick Perez, Director of Technical Services; Ugo Landry-Tolszczuk, Chief Financial Officer; Sebastian Humphrey, Project Manager; and David Lalonde, Vice President of Exploration. Today's agenda is as follows: Benoit will begin with an overview of our PEA results, followed by Raphael for a deeper dive into the project development and economics. And then Patrick will end our presentation with a 3D mine design demo. We will conclude with a Q&A session with analysts. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, we will be making forward-looking statements during today's call. Please refer to the important information included in the presentation as well as the risk factors described in our AIF. The technical information presented today has been reviewed and approved by Raphael Beaudoin, Aya s Vice President of Operations; and David Lalonde, Aya s Vice President of Exploration, both of whom are qualified persons as defined under National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. Finally, please note a copy of our presentation is available for download on the current platform and will be made available shortly after the call on our website. And with that, I'll turn it over to Benoit La Salle. Benoit?

Thank you, Elizabeth. Welcome, everybody, to this very important call this morning on the Boumadine PEA. After 3 years of work by our team, we are now pleased to present an actionable PEA, and you will see the results as we are presenting them this morning. We will come back to this, but it's extremely important to know that the cutoff of the drilling was at December 2024. So this year's drilling is not included. Raphael will talk about this. This is extremely important. As well, we're showing you pretax and post-tax, the tax optimization and structuring is not included. We will be working on this like all projects where tax structuring needs to be put in place. So we have assumed the highest tax rate in country. And the last item is we are assuming 100% ownership of the project. You recall that the current structure, we own 85% and the government owns 15%. The 15% is participating, and they've always made that clear to us that they would not be participating. So we will put in place -- we have in place a dilution process. So this is being discussed at the moment with the government, and it will take place over the next year probably. So let's get into the project. What we like the most is the low initial CapEx, it's something that is manageable, doable. We know exactly how to do this. The CapEx at $446 million for this project is extremely low. We also are pleased with the pro forma production. We're looking at 400,000 ounces of gold equivalent over year 1 to 5. You understand that because it's done on the resource of 2024, the production profile will change considerably as we complete the 2025 drilling and include that in the updated version of the mine plan. So -- but we're looking at a production of 400,000 ounces of gold equivalent over year 1 to 5. If you prefer in silver equivalent, we're looking at 37.5 million ounces of silver equivalent over year 1 to 5. The net present value of the project currently with the base case at $2,800 gold and $30 silver, that the NPV of the project using a 5% discount rate is on a pretax basis, $2.2 billion. Those are all U.S. dollars, obviously, and a post-tax of $1.5 billion. The NPV to CapEx, the capital utilization is extremely interesting. On a pretax, we're at 5.1% on a post-tax at 3.1%, and that is at the base case level. The internal rate of return is on a pretax 69%, post-tax 47%, so already extremely positive internal rate of return for the investment decision. The payback is 1.3 years on a pretax and 2.1 years on a post-tax. And again, the reason we're showing you both is because we do need to work on the structuring, and we know this, and that's something that we will get to in the coming months. Moving to the next slide. We just gave you a summary of the spot price, what the project looks like at the spot price. So at the spot price, you see that the NPV of the project moves to between $3 billion and $4 billion, depending on if you're on a pretax or post-tax, the IRR approaches 100% on a pretax basis is above 100% and 77% on a post-tax basis. The payback is very good at 0.7 years to 1.2 years, very, very quick payback. And the NPV to CapEx ratio, the CapEx efficiency is 10:1 or 7:1, which, as you know, in our industry is extremely, extremely rare. You look at the life of mine revenue currently is almost $10 billion. The EBITDA is at $6.2 billion. And the free cash flow is $5.6 billion on a pretax basis, $3.8 billion on a post-tax basis, the difference being the taxation that we would have to pay the country. We gave you 2 upside just out of interest. You will put your own numbers in there. We know that. And I -- we were -- we assisted -- we were at the conference last week at the SCP Silver Conference, and Mr. Oliver was there, and he was making a presentation on where he sees gold in the next 2 years. We will not be in production in 2 years. It will be a bit more than this. But -- so we just put Mr. Oliver's number there at $7,000 and Pierre Lassonde's number that he gave last month and just for information purposes. We know that the spot price is where we are today and what we should be looking for in the years to come. Now on the next slide, a summary of what we have, we have the district-scale land package, extremely large land package. And what we're using right now is a very, very small amount of the land package. It's a stand-alone project. The model is based on 3 payable concentrates. We've always said that, that we would produce 3 concentrate, and we would look further later on at treating the pyrite concentrate. But today, the model is based on 3 payable concentrate. And again, Raphael and we'll talk about this. Now the next element, the proven track record in the region, this PEA is based on our knowledge of the cost, on our knowledge of the contractors, on our knowledge of the region, on our knowledge of the government. And we've just completed with great success at construction at Zgounder. And Raphael will come back to this, but our understanding of the construction cost and of the region is quite unique. The project has exceptional economics, low capital intensity, rapid payback, very straightforward to build the way with the 3 concentrate. Regarding financing, I will address that, but we are in a position where the financing is spoken for. So financing spoken for and the mining license in hand. So no one will say, yes, but how long will it be for the mining license. There's no waiting time. We already have the mining license. The financing is spoken for. The contractors are identified. We are good to go. We just need to complete the drilling and to finish the additional studies. The Slide #6 is just to show you again, and you see in the middle in red, that is the original permit that we have, which is where the PEA is done. So the PEA is done only on the red permit, that structure, which we call the Boumadine main trend. And this is where we have at the end of 2024, the ounces that we're using into this PEA. But the rest of the land package, as you know, is extremely large. We have 339 square kilometers of permitted land, and we have 600 square kilometers of exploration land, 31 permits and licenses. We're in a very good position. It is a district. And currently, we are by ourselves -- and we intend to stay like this because we are acquiring every permit possible in the region. So you see on this slide, which is the geophysics, which most of you have seen many times. It is showing additional potential targets, which we will address in a couple of minutes. But Boumadine is really just a small portion of our land package. So why it's such an important day for us and for Aya is we're now -- we've proven in a PEA, which you will see has been signed off by all the QPs, low initial CapEx for what -- for the production that we're going to do, very strong economics based on the production of 3 marketable concentrate, revenue driven by the precious metal, which is gold and silver for above 80% of the revenue comes from gold and silver. The beauty is the grade. The high-grade deposit gives us flexibility on open pit and underground mining. So we have used both methods over the next 11 years based on 2024 geological model and mining model. And the conventional 3 concentrate flotation plant, we will address that, but that is a big breakthrough in the valuation of this project based on how much off-takers are willing to pay for the 3 concentrates. And to close on the financing, we have the money to build this now. We are continuing to work on it. But we did a capital raise in June, and we said in the prospectus, it was for Boumadine. It is for Boumadine. We knew at that time that we could accelerate the projects, which we are doing. We have currently positive cash flow from Zgounder. You recall our Q1, Q2 numbers where we generated positive cash flow. Q3 numbers are going to be out next week and the mine at above $40 silver price is generating very good strong cash flow. EBRD is our financial partner. You recall, they've lent us $100 million ESG loan on Zgounder. It is still in place. They even gave us a $25 million additional facility in the spring. EBRD made it very clear that they are our financial partner. Obviously, we need to give them the completion of the study and the ESG studies and all of that. But EBRD already is committing their participation in the project. Furthermore, because we are producing concentrate, well, the off-takers, as you all know, are ready for prepayment agreements if we want that, if we need that, it's something that is available. We already have a term sheet of showing interest of how we can structure all of this. So the Boumadine PEA is showing us that it's doable. It's doable quickly from the time when we started to the time when we're going to get into production, it's going to be a very short period of time when we compare that to the industry. We have a strong balance sheet to get going and put this into production in the next few years. So I'm going to pass it over to Raphael Beaudoin. Rafael and his team have completed the PEA. They've reviewed every detail that you have in the press release. And Raphael, I turn it over to you.

Thank you very much, Benoit. I cannot stress it enough how excited we are to be here this morning and have a chance to dive into this PEA that you've all seen as of this morning. So first of all, let's talk about the mineral resource. As Benoit mentioned, we published our mineral resource update early in 2025 and the drilling -- the ongoing drilling campaign has not been part of this PEA. Now let's get into the detail. Over the next few slides, we'll talk about the resource, our mine plan for this PEA, some metallurgy and processing and finally, the CapEx, the OpEx, the economics of the project as well as some next steps. So in the Mineral Resource Estimate that we have for this PEA, we have about 35 million tonne of mineralized material at a head grade of about 4.5 gram per tonne of gold equivalent, which gives us about 5 million ounce of gold equivalents. We've done a lot of work in the exploration department into the drilling, and we've managed to increase the Mineral Resource Estimate by 29% into our last update of 2025, and we can expect more updates to come in the next years as we continue to work on the exploration of Boumadine. Very important first step of this PEA is the mine plan. We have a life of mine of about 11 years at an average mining rate of 3 million tonne per year. The good part and the very interesting part about Boumadine on the mine side is we have lots of flexibility. We have 6 open pit over a strike of about 6 kilometers, we will mine about 2/3 in open pit and 1/3 underground at a head grade of 3.85 gram per tonne of gold. The average strip ratio for the pit is 21:1, and I want to take a moment to speak about that. We have very good open pit mining costs in Morocco, and all of the costs that we looked into this PEA has been cross checked with our real operating costs. At Zgounder, we sit around $4 per tonne for ore, $2 per tonne for waste and at 21:1 strip ratio, this is the optimal pit for both the current mineral resource estimate and the rest of it will be taken underground. So it provides flexibility for mining operation. It is the most economical outcome to mine this deposit. And we also have a potential to merge some of these pits as we continue exploration. The sequencing of the open pit and the mine also allow for flexibility with the first 2 years of the mining operation being open pit only and then the rest of the life of mine being a mix of open pit and underground. The mine plan in the PEA includes 77% of the Mineral Resource Estimate, which is a very good step in the right direction for the -- to continue to grow the life of mine and the resource. Here, I like this slide a lot. It shows a good visual of the life of mine with the north pit and the center pit that will start first in the north and the center region should be noted that the underground mine is independent of the open pit. So as we start the north and the center pit, we will develop the underground mines. And later in the life of mine, we'll go to the South 1 and South 2 pit. And once we finish those, we'll continue underground on the south portion of the project. So we have 6 pit overall. The underground mining method will be avoca, so essentially long-hole stoping. And the mining sequence has been designed such that we have the highest grade coming from the first 5 years and underground production starting in year 2. With all of the north and center section underground being completely independent for the open pit to provide this essential mining flexibility, especially early in the project. Next, we'll go to the metallurgy. There's been very extensive work done on the metallurgy over the last even 5 years. Metallurgy at Boumadine has always been interesting. It's a polymetallic deposit with gold, silver, zinc and lead. Over the last 2, 3 years, especially, we're focused a lot on metallurgy as well as downstream processing and commercialization of the -- especially the pyrite concentrate. For this study, we did crushing, grinding, flotation, lock cycle test for all flotation -- for all the flotation circuit. And we come out with very good recovery over 96% for gold, 96% for silver, 75% for zinc and 82% for lead. We even pushed it further. As we did the locked-cycle, we produced approximately 90 kilogram of pyrite concentrate on which we did roasting test work that we'll talk about a bit later, but we also sent to various potential buyers at least 6 different smelters, 3 different traders of concentrate that all showed great interest for our pyrite con and obviously, for lead and zinc concentrate, which really directed this PEA into the direct commercialization of our concentrates. If we dive in the processing part of this PEA, it will be a conventional flotation plant with jaw crusher, SAG and ball mill, 3 different flotation circuit for lead, zinc and pyrite. We will process an average rate of 8,000 tonne per day of ore or 3 million tonne per year of ore. The annual production, as we mentioned earlier, for the first 5 years average around 400,000 ounce of gold equivalent per year. We will prioritize the high grade of the mine plan over the last -- over the first 5 years to give room for further exploration and production upside. We have a simplified flow sheet as I described. So it's conventional flotation plant that we crush and grind and then we have 3 different flotation circuits. Here, we have a 3D overview of what the plant will look like, which will be -- which we will continue to refine over the next phases of the project. A key to this project is a strong market interest in the payable that we have. We have shared -- as I mentioned earlier, we have shared a concentrate with multiple traders, and they all have expressed firm interest in the lead and the zinc but also in the pyrite concentrate. And based on the received offer, we can see the different payable for the different metal and concentrate that we'll make. So the overall gold equivalent payable is of 73%. Gold itself is at 69%, silver 77% and then the zinc and the lead are 85% and 90% payable of all ounces and base metal produced. Over the last 2 years, we've worked with many different local consultants as well as international consultant for the PEA. We've completed the water study. We have identified the water sources that we will use, either it's water wells and discharge water from greywater processing plant at the nearby city. We will have to build a pipeline and pumping station and quite a bit of engineering has been done for this -- for the water need for the PEA. The power supply, as you know, we've built a 90-kilometer 60-kilovolt power line of Zgounder. We know how it works. We're working for the same people for the future power line of the Boumadine is something we're quite confident and we have experience with. Also for the logistics, logistics is an important part of this project. We will export concentrate. We also have experience into exporting concentrate as we used in the past at Zgounder. The beauty in Morocco is we have several ports we can work with. We did multiple road survey. We went to see the port. We have logistic partners in the countries that we've used for construction at Zgounder as well as for exportation of our concentrate. And we've identified several viable options since we have 3 national highways going directly to Boumadine. And the selected port facility for this PEA was the Nador-West port, which also gives future optionality if we want to extend the railway. The tailing facility, we have quite favorable topography at Boumadine. So we have a valley that will require only one main dam, and we are continuing to develop other tailing facilities if we need in the feasibility study, but the costs are quite known, is the same engineering firms and construction firms that helped us at Zgounder. So we have high confidence in our cost. And finally, on-site construction requirements, processing plant, workshop, warehouse as we know. Now for the CapEx, I'm very excited to talk about the CapEx of this project. It's low CapEx. It's also -- it has a healthy contingency for this PEA sitting at 27%. The initial CapEx consists mostly of the plant, the shipping infrastructures, the tailing, the water storage supply and also the stripping costs. As we can see, all of the underground mining development is in sustaining CapEx, which also derisk the projects and provide flexibility. So the total CapEx of the project sits at $446 million. And I must reiterate that many of these costs, we are quite comfortable with. We've done it already at Zgounder. It's very similar, a bit larger scale, but work with the same engineering firm. We still have most of our construction team that are now focused on Zgounder and are very excited to start working on Boumadine. Same thing for operating costs. We worked out these operating costs from scratch, and we also cross-reference them with Zgounder. The whole technical team looked at all of them to make sure we're comfortable with. So on a per tonne milled basis, we are at on-site cost of $72 per tonne, out of which can be breakdown of $49 per tonne. It's a bit more expensive early in the project, and it goes down as we have more mines open. $49 per tonne mining cost, both for a mix of underground and the open pit. We're at $17 milling, $5 G&A for total on-site operating cost of $72, after which we must add the product shipping. On a per tonne of ore mill basis, we are at $38. And if we look at a per tonne of concentrate basis, it includes land transport as well as freight to deliver the concentrate to the relevant client throughout the world. So the total cash cost sits at $119 and the total cost, including sustaining is $131 per tonne mill, which brings us a total AISC of $1,021 per ounce of gold equivalent produced over the life of mine. Again, these costs are very close to our Zgounder operation, although there are some different salties, and we made sure that not only we work them out on an engineering basis, but we also reference them with our own experience in the country. This slide puts a bit of perspective on current producing asset on their AISC curve in 2025 and what would Boumadine look on an AISC basis for both gold ounce of gold equivalent. So we have ASIC for Boumadine predicted at $1,021 and then we have it for silver at $11 per ounce on an AISC basis, which is -- which sits very comfortably in the cost curve, definitely on the first quartile and on the lower end. So Boumadine is a very robust project. I want to attract your attention on the right side of this slide. The revenue per metal, like Benoit mentioned, is driven first by gold and second, the silver, and we also have close to 20% of lead and zinc. And we also put a waterfall of the total life of mine cash flow that we can see on the bottom right-hand side of the slide. So over the life of mine, we'll have a $7 billion revenue and after tax on the base case, post-tax scenario, we have a $2 billion revenue over the life of mine. So we've put a different price for precious metals to see the robustness of the project. And while on the base case, the project is very good on spot price even better, one thing that is important to understand is even if we look at lower commodity price, say, even $2,000 for gold and $20 per ounce for silver, which is almost half of current spot price, the payback post-tax of the project is still at 3 years, and we have a robust IRR and a robust NPV. So it just demonstrates the depth of the Boumadine project even early at this stage that it's very robust, almost independently of metal price, and it can sustain lots of variability into the mill prices. And finally, before we go to the next step, we have the yearly cash flow. We set for the first 3 years of free cash flow of about $300 million per year for the first 5 years for a total after-tax free cash flow over the life of mine of $2 billion. The whole technical team and exploration team have worked quite a bit for this PEA, and we were supported by world-class consultants as well as trusted local firms with whom we've been working on over the last 5, 6, 7 years at Zgounder and that have been very supportive of us for this PEA. And you can see the long list of consultants who've been working with on this PEA. Now for the next step. Now that we have the PEA in hand, we will work on 2 different tracks in parallel. We have an extensive exploration program of over 360,000 meter planned over the next 2 years to really focus on resource expansion and also conversion to increase the classification of our mineral resource. In parallel to that, we will start the prework of the feasibility study, whether it's a metallurgy mine plan, we will then have about 2 years of work for the feasibility study before we go on the front-end engineering design, long lead procurement and early work for planned construction over 2028 and 2029 for a commissioning in 2030. So we are planning to advance the feasibility as fast as we can and in parallel to continue the exploration to increase the classification of the mineral resource. We also have started environmental and social impact assessment through the PEA that will continue over the next 2 years to be completed with the feasibility study. I also want to take a moment to talk about the roasting update. The pyrite is a large portion of the payable of this project, and we've been working in parallel for various different solutions to have the most value out of the pyrite. The flotation route demonstrates very strong recovery, concentrate quality. We have shipped this pyrite all over the world, and we were very pleased with the response we got. There's lots of enthusiasm for the pyrite. It has gold content payable, has silver content payable. We have large volume of pyrite with very good sulfur content. And that's something that has to be taken in mind when we look at it. The sulfur content in our pyrite concentrate is comfortably above 40% -- above 45% in most years. So there is an appetite for the concentrate as is. So for the PEA, we chose to directly commercialize the pyrite. This is the best economical outcome for this moment for the project. We have concluded over the last few years, quite extensive work on the roasting, and it shows good potential. And if we consider the lead and zinc flotation, the pyrite flotation and then roasting of the pyrite and leaching, we get up to 79% recovery in gold and 85% recovery of silver with an average recovery of 63% for gold and 80% for silver. We will continue to work on the roasting routes. We will continue to evaluate if there's an improvement on the overall project if we do downstream processing of the pyrite. The exciting part is we have optionality with the appetite on the market for all of our 3 concentrates. As Benoit mentioned, this PEA is only on the main trend. And this is what really must be understood this morning is we are drilling -- we have drilled a lot this year, in the previous years, and we will continue to drill hundreds of thousands of meters at Boumadine. This PEA is on the main trend only on our 2 main permits. There is significant exploration upside. We have identified multiple targets for resource growth, and we also have future expansion opportunities and to also look at downstream processing, mill expansion, and we'll continue to drill to extend the resource. So before we go to our Q&A section, I will give it to Patrick to give you an overview, and we have very good 3D modeling of the plant, of the mine design, and it will give everyone a good picture of what the life of mine looks like. Go ahead, Patrick.

Thank you, Raphael. So just before I start, I just want to mention that all the slides will be made available on the website. So even, obviously, the 3D views of the -- through the verified presentation. So the first slide, so it shows an overview of the project with all the permits owned by Aya on the Boumadine property. Again, the Boumadine mining license is just here highlighted in red with the main trend about here. And I just want to focus, as Benoit and Raphael said, that the PEA is based only on the already known resource located on the main mining license, which represents roughly 10% of the total land package. On the next slide, so it shows an aerial view of the current site infrastructure with the core shed, the lab, the exploration office. There is also going from the north, the access road. So it's about a 20 or 25 kilometers drive to an already established city, Tinejdad, where about 40,000 people live all year long. We can see also the different mineralization zones of the Central one, North and Tizi area. On the next slide here, so it's a 3D view of the mine, the process plant and all the infrastructure. So we've got the South pit #2 and #1, the Central pit, the North pit here. The processing plant will be located about 700 or 800 meters away from the main Central pit. The TSF will be about the [indiscernible] away from the process plant. As we said already, so we drilled another good 130,000, 140,000 meters on top of what is already identified in the current mineral resource. We've got good potential here in the North to increase the size of the pit. Probably the 3 small pits that we can see here can demerge in the future with the next update of the mineral resource. We've also drilled extensively between the Central and the South area here and also between the South Pit 1 and South Pit 2, which -- and here again, there is a big potential to merge the 2 pits. So on the next slide, so it shows a 3D view of the processing plant. So there is the ROM pad. So the ROM pad is sized for about 3 to 4 months Run of Mine material. So roughly 1 million tonnes of material can be sold on the ROM pad. So then there is a crushing unit. The crushed material will be stored on the stockpile. Then it goes to grinding. So we've got 2 mills, SAG and the ball mill. Then it goes to flotation with the lead flotation, zinc flotation and pyrite flotation, after flotation goes to thickening and filtration. So we'll have 2 filtration areas, one for the pyrite, one filtration unit for the lead and zinc. Also close to the plant will be a couple of water storage basins. So the ROM water storage that will be sourced from the nearby water treatment plant in the nearby cities will be here. Water storage -- processed water storage also will be located close to the plant. We've got also all the main buildings that will be needed for the operation, including the warehouse, workshop, all the different offices such as admin building, plant office and security office. So on the next slide, it shows the pits, the open pits and the underground design or underground development. So as Raphael mentioned already the North and Central underground mine will be accessed with a decline that will be developed directly from surface and totally independent from the pits on the North and Central areas. So if we go on the next slide now, so we show a high level annual schedule of the underground. So this is just to show that starting in year 2 of the project, we start with the development of the 2 declines in the North and the Central area. And then in year 3, we start mining the North and Central underground mine. So the main reason for that to access this area first is we want to be able to access high-grade zone in the underground mine as soon as possible in the life of mine. And then we progress mining in the other part of the North and Central and then after year 6 or 7 in the South underground mine. On the next slide, well, it's a bit busy, but we show the current mineral resource overlaid by the different pits and the underground mine. So one thing to note is that Zgounder has been filtered with all the blocks above 100 grams per tonne of silver equivalent. We can see that there is big potential to increase the size of the pit in the South, essentially in the North as well. And more importantly, this resource is open in all directions in the North, South and at [ depth ]. So if we go on the next slide. So this slide here shows the main geophysical anomaly that we have identified at Boumadine, all the pits and underground mine will be developed directly on this geophysical anomaly, which is only a small portion of the program [indiscernible]. And if we go onto the next slide, so that gives a regional view of all the Boumadine family that we own. Within the middle geophysical survey, the main mining license of the Boumadine project is here, the main trend is here. So on top of the already -- on top of the world that we saw that we've already identified, we've got lots of upside potential, lots of new zones and interesting zone. So you know the Asirem area. So it's been -- we published the press release on September 15. So the exploration team has completed a lot of drilling already, and we've been able to trace gold-rich areas over an 8 kilometer span. On top of the Asirem, we've got [indiscernible] is probably one of the most promising target. There is a major whole structure that has been identified. High alteration has been observed, a very favorable geological context and exploration team has collected already a lot of graph samples with high gold, silver and copper values. We started drilling very recently in this area, and we expect to get the first results hopefully by year-end, maybe early in the new year. Similarly, we've got the [indiscernible] area in the South. [indiscernible] is located on a big geophysical anomaly, a major discontinuity. And again, a lot of graph samples have been collected with high value for copper, silver, zinc and lead. Drilling has been started at [indiscernible] and the first assay results are expected to arrive by year-end or maybe early in the new year as well. So this concludes the 3D view of the mine, and I hand over to Elizabeth for the Q&A session.

Thank you, Patrick. So we are now ready to begin our Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] So our first question comes from Bryce Adams from Desjardins.

This is Bryce Adams at Desjardins. I want to ask on the payability on the metals. Where do those figures come from? Are they benchmarking other assets? Or are they figures that have been informed by market players? And then if so, can you talk to where the concentrate would potentially be exported to for further processing?

Sure. Bryce, this is Ugo. Thanks for the question. So we -- so there's a few things. As we're working on our pyrite and roaster, we decided to produce some concentrate, some pyrite concentrate, and we work with some of the traders that we worked with in the past for Zgounder because even this year up to this year, we were producing silver concentrate. And so we work with them to market, and we got 3 different offers today, and we use those payables for gold and silver, lead and zinc that we see for those offers that we used in the PEA. In terms of where they would go, so the lead concentrate, which is gold and silver rich, represents about 40% of our total value, our total revenue. And that is a highly marketable lead and zinc concentrate would go to the similar off-takers that we had before, so lead smelters. The zinc concentrate is a pretty traditional zinc concentrate as well. So it's highly marketable. It's quite easy. The pyrite con today is very high sulfur, and it goes mostly to copper smelters. So we've had it tested in China and in other parts of the world. And so far, it's been very, very favorable and direct clients and our traders are quite motivated and quite happy with the results. So for us, we're quite confident on being able to sell those. And just in price breakdown, as I said, 40% of our revenue comes from the lead con, about 12% comes from our zinc con and then 46% of that would come from the pyrite concentrate.

Okay. Maybe I'll ask a second question and operator, I have a few more. So if you can add me back in at the end, that would be great. But second question would be for Raphael, I think. Outside of the roaster scenario, what other trade-off studies will you be completing ahead of the feasibility study? I'm sure there are many, but maybe what are the ones with the most materiality and the most potential upside?

So for the trade-off study for the feasibility, we will continue to work on the roaster, as you mentioned. Now the plant is quite conventional with lead, zinc and pyrite. Sure, there will be small trade-offs on maybe the flow sheet on the grinding circuit, but it's not quite material for the project. It will be more internally with our different engineering firm to help on the trade-off. As the resource grow, we always balance, of course, the open pit and the underground. We make sure that each ounce is mined in the most economical way. And we also take into consideration operation flexibility, CapEx delay, the lowest investment we can do. So Boumadine at the end is just at the start. David and his team, they have lots of drilling to do. We keep it flexible. We have internal update of the resource. So to answer your question, most of the trade-off will be on mining to make sure we have the right mining method. And like I said, that every single ounce is mined in the most efficient way. Now -- on the flotation side and on the milling side, it's quite conventional. We'll continue to advance the roaster, but the demand is so strong for the concentrate as is. We believe this is the best path forward. We'll keep our options open as we go into the FS.

Thanks, Raphael. And as a tiny follow-on to that one, like the precious metals recovery to concentrate 96% or better, like is there additional testing that you need to do on that ahead of the feasibility? Is that part of trade-off, but like additional work?

So the focus on the feasibility study, and I mentioned that a bit earlier, we've been working on the metallurgy of Boumadine since [ 2018 ]. And every campaign we've done converges. There is no surprise on the flotation. So we're very comfortable and confident with the metallurgy of Boumadine. That being said, as we extend the resource, we need to keep all the different variability test work we need to do it also. So the main focus on the feasibility study metallurgy won't be so much on flow sheet development, will be mostly on variability test work just as a sanity check to make sure we're always ahead of what the geology team, the exploration team finds for us. So mostly will be on variability. The recovery is outstanding. We have 3 concentrate. And at the end, we float all of the sulfur. So all the gold comes in the sulfur. So whatever doesn't come in the lead and in the zinc concentrate makes its way to the pyrite concentrate. So not too worried about metallurgy. We need to get -- we just need to stay on top of the variability test work, and that will be the focus on the feasibility study.

If you have follow-ups, Bryce, you may go ahead and we have the time.

Yes, sure. Okay. I mean, Raphael, you mentioned the Zgounder mining cost of $4 per ore and $2 per waste. Are you using those numbers directly into the Boumadine model? Or are they adjusted in some ways there some differences in the projects? And can you talk to the underground mining cost per tonne?

Yes. So to answer your question is we derive these costs for Boumadine independently, okay? So we work with WSP, and we work with also the local contractor that we currently have at Zgounder, and we work the cost from scratch. Now what I mean is we also -- as a sanity check, we cross-reference them with Zgounder. There is also opportunity of economy of scale at Boumadine in terms of unit cost per tonne and waste, especially for the open pit. Let's remind everybody that Boumadine is 3x, 4x the tonnage of Zgounder, right? So there will be economy of scale. We'll have larger fleet. We have several different pits. There's lots of optionality built in, in Boumadine. So the total cost per tonne on the mining side for open pit is around $47 with a strip ratio of 21, which is quite similar to the underground where we sit around $45 to $50 per tonne. It's a long-haul stope. And yes, we're quite comfortable with these costs. They do check quite well with Zgounder, and we also have the upside of larger economy of scale for Boumadine.

Okay. And my last one before I pass it on. You mentioned resource upside potential and the chance of merging the pits together from all the drilling you've been doing. If you were to add ounces between the North pits and the Center pit, is that the most obvious area to merge the pits? Or is that -- are they too far apart? And what would the impact on the strip ratio be? Would you be adding ounces at the same strip ratio? Or is there potential to lower the life of mine strip?

Well, let me comment a bit on the strip first. We don't consider the strip in our economic analysis to be blunt. Every tonne is mined in the most efficient way. So if the strip is higher, but it's more economical to mine it open pit, we mine it open pit. If it's more economical to mine underground, we mine it underground. So to lower -- we don't look at lowering the strip. We look at making the best NPV possible for the project. We make sure there's ore continuity. We make sure to have flexibility into the operation, and we make sure that the overall cost per ounce mine is the lowest. So the strip ratio at 21 because our mining costs are low, it is still economical to do so. And when the tonnes that we get out in the open pit means that they were more economical to do so than underground and vice versa. It's a bit early to comment about which pit which will merge with which. When we look at the geophysics, we see the continuity of the trend, and we have lots of infill to do all between those pits. But even if we look at the current mine plan, one can speculate that the underground of the South of the 2 South pit, they get quite close as we go deeper. So with the infill, we will see. I don't know, Patrick, if you have comments on that on the mining side.

Well, just one comment to go back to what -- to go back to your question. So I think there is big potential for the 3 smaller pits in the North side to merge together. But I don't think it will merge with the Central area because it's a bit further away. And I believe we drilled between the North and the Central and we haven't found a lot of mineralization. But on the North side, definitely, there is big potential for the pits to merge together and hopefully, to look like the bigger Central pit that we've got in the main area of the deposit.

Okay. I appreciate all that. I appreciate a lot of work that's gone into this. So well done and congratulations to the team.

Thank you, Bryce.

Okay. I think Benoit would like to address an additional question we've received.

Yes, I've received a question from Ovais from Scotia. Benoit, congrats to you and your team for a robust Boumadine PEA. A few questions. You are assuming contract mining in this PEA. Are you contemplating switching to owner mining as the initial pits and underground is developed?

So we always keep our options open. So first of all, let me start with that. It's always something we reevaluate year-after-year, we look at our contract. We look at what we can do ourselves. We look at where there's more value to outsourcing. In Morocco, currently at Zgounder, we have a very good partner for the open pit. And we believe this relationship can maybe continue to translate with Boumadine. Outside of that, there's very good open pit mining contractor in West Africa, also some open pit contractor in Europe. There's a good market for open pit mining and our costs are quite satisfactory for open pit. So by going on a contractor base, we save the investment. So if I were to look forward into this project, I would believe that the best outcome for us would go to contractor base for open pit mining. Now for underground, maybe there's a bit more of a -- there's a bit more study to go into that. Currently, as Zgounder, we have 2 different underground contractor, and we do quite a bit ourselves. So for Boumadine, I believe there's lots of work mostly for a contractor to help us in the development. [ Chances are ] we ll do production ourselves, but we're certainly not close to have a contractor also doing the underground mining in Boumadine. And that will be part of the trade-off that we'll do into the feasibility study, like I mentioned a bit earlier. So we have the advantage in Morocco that we are quite well surrounded with especially good open pit contractors. But for the underground, there's very good know-how, especially on infrastructures and on waste development that I believe will have its place also in Boumadine.

The second part of the question in regards to 360,000 meters of drill program, is drilling expected to infill and expand the current known resource? Or do you have target outside of the current resource that you're excited to explore? I think Pat, that's exactly what maybe what you've explained.

Exactly. So the 360,000 meters drilling program is only for infill. And this is to increase the level of confidence on the already known resource on the Boumadine main trend. On top of that, we will very likely add more drilling to explore the different areas that I mentioned in the Asirem, [indiscernible] or even in the main Boumadine mining license, other areas that are not part of the Mineral Resource Estimate.

Okay. So we will take our next question from Justin Chan from SCP Resource.

Congrats. Just a couple of questions on, I guess, first, the infrastructure side of things. I saw you mentioned in the release that water will come from nearby towns and wells. Just wondering maybe to get a sense of what the split is as you scale up the operation from maybe 8,000 tonnes a day to a larger number, would that have a big influence on your design? And yes, if you could give us a sense maybe on if you do choose to go to hydromet or roaster, if that would be an impact as well. Maybe just talk through the water side of things. And then my second one is just on the mining method. And I guess, what are your effective mining with -- did you consider cut and fill, et cetera?

Okay. Justin, yes, happy to comment on that. So for the water supply at Boumadine, we'll need about 2 million cubic meter of water per year. And there are several options available to us that we've considered for the PEA. There are 3 relatively large cities close to Boumadine that all have water treatment for their sewage water, they do primary treatment. So the idea is to have about 100... [Technical Difficulty] that all have water treatment for the sewage water, they do primary treatment. The idea is Sorry about that. So the idea is we'll have 100 kilometers of pipeline.

Okay. Maybe we'll pause here. There's an echo. We're just going to address it, and we'll pursue with that with Justin's response.

I caught the first half of that. Should I just wait on the line for the second half?

There is an echo, Justin. I think we'll just close your mic and then I can finish to answer.

Sounds better now.

Okay. Sorry about that. So 3 nearby cities, they have treated water plants. We'll build 100-kilometer pipeline through all 3 cities. And just like that, we'll bring us sufficient water. That being said, we also have contingencies built in. There are several water reservoirs in the region. okay? And we'll continue through the feasibility study to see it as a contingency, we can have water from the source. The region is also known for underground water, and we have a good hydrogeological study and campaign plan to see if we can -- to which extent we can pump water from the underground water nearby. So the water aspect is taken seriously at Boumadine. We have experience in that regard at Zgounder also. So in a nutshell, Justin, to answer your question is we have water processing plant in 3 relatively large nearby cities. We will continue to work on the hydrology of the region to see if we can pump water underground, and we know that water exists. We need to quantify to which extent, and finally, there are large water reservoirs in the region that we will try to have as a contingency.

Regarding the roaster, it's the positioning of the roaster that

Correct. So Justin, as you can imagine, a roaster consumes a large amount of water. If we were to build a roaster, we need to evaluate where we will build it. The most economical place to put it is probably close to a port, close to the water. A roaster would produce significant amount of sulfuric acid that may be used locally or exported. So at the end of the day, if we build a roaster at Boumadine, we need to export sulfuric acid. If we build it somewhere else, then we need to truck the pyrite. Regardless of where we put the roaster, we will have transportation to do on the sulfuric acid or on the pyrite. So we might as well put it on a more sustainable water source to make sure it's not an issue. So if we are to go on the roaster route, chances are it would not be at Boumadine, but it would be somewhere else, but that has to be evaluated as we develop the project.

Got you. That was really comprehensive on that. And my second question was on just the underground mining method. I think it's longitudinal avoca mining. Just curious if you consider cut and fill or I guess, how that -- what are your mining widths and how might that evolve as you progress through DFS?

Yes. So about -- well, the open pit, that's very straightforward. But Boumadine is essentially vertical veins, okay? So we need to continue our refinement of our understanding and modelize those veins. But it's -- at this point, it seems obvious to us that the best method for Boumadine is just long-hole stoping because there are visual clear-cut veins. So I don't think -- we certainly don't think at this point that there's value to cut and fill at Boumadine. The most economical way would be by long-hole stoping and to follow the vein because they are quite vertical.

So our next question is from Don DeMarco over at National Bank.

Congratulations, Benoit and Raphael and team. Maybe I'll just continue the questioning on the underground mining. What are the underground mining rates? I mean, I see you've got an 8,000 tonne per day mill. And is this filled over the life of mine in any given year by having just a combination of both open pit and underground mining running concurrently?

Don, happy to answer this. We have a life of mine of about 11 years, out of which we'll mine 20 million tonne open pit and 11 million tonne underground. So the mining rate underground over life of mine is roughly 1 million tonne per year, but we only start at year 3 to extract ore. So it will be a bit above that. So say, 1.3 million tonne per year on the ground. And don't forget, this is over 5 different mines, not only 1 underground mine, we have 5 different mines with their own access ramp.

Okay. Great. So it sounds as though at some point in the mine life, you'll have the underground mine entirely supplying that mill.

Well, if we look in the PEA, the last 2 years of the life of mine is underground only, but that is in 11 years. We're just starting to drill this. So I think for the PEA, what's the most important is really the first 5 years of the project. This is where we have a bit more certainty, but there's definitely much more upside in the considering of the life of mine. And for the PEA, yes, the first 3 years is open pit. The last 3 years is underground. But overall, the life of mine is a mix of about 2/3, 1/3.

Okay. And about the pits, how deep are the pits? I mean, I can see in some ways, it might be advantageous to go underground sooner. You got a strip ratio contend with. But -- so how did you arrive at that balance of open pit and underground?

Okay. So it's Patrick here. So we -- the deepest pit is the central pit, and it goes down to about 350 meters in depth. The reason why it goes so deep is because in the Central area, this is where we've got the bigger number of parallel veins, which means that we've got not only the main central vein that is about 5 to 6 meters wide, but we've got also 3 to 5 other parallel veins. So it helps on the overall strip ratio of this. How we came up with the depth of those pit, it's very simple. We used standard software in the industries. We looked at several scenarios between -- an optimization between open pit and underground. And we came up with this scenario, which is, as Raphael said, the most economical way to mine the different areas of the Boumadine deposits.

Okay. Okay. Good. And then maybe just as a final question. And I mean, this is -- for those that may ask, I mean, there's been some challenges with the grade at Zgounder. And I recognize this is a completely different project, but what confidence can you give that you can achieve the grades laid out in the PEA?

Yes. Great question, Don, I understand it. The first thing to understand is the geology of Boumadine and Zgounder, they are just 2 completely different things. This is a high sulfide visual defined veins. Even in the core, you see -- if it's very dark, it's sulfides, you see the galena vein, you see the sphalerite vein, you see the pyrite vein. So it has nothing to do with it. Zgounder is not a vein deposit. Zgounder is fine structured. The continuity has to be followed very closely. This is not the case with Boumadine. With Boumadine, we have several dozens, even 20, 30, 40 meters in-depth well-defined veins of 1, 2, 3 meters. It's visually accessible, so it has nothing to do with one another. We can modelize the vein quite clearly at Boumadine. So we're quite confident on the mining method for Boumadine.

Good luck with the next steps and moving toward the FS and other milestones.

Thank you, Don. So before we close it off, I will turn it back to Benoit for some concluding slides and closing remarks.

Thank you. Thank you, team. Thank you for all the answers. Look, this is a very unique project. It will go from beginning of exploration when we took over to production in 7 years. It has -- which is, as we know, in our industry is extremely low. It will produce 400,000 ounces of gold equivalent. When you look at the slide that we just put up, it's in silver equivalent. And -- but when you look at this in silver equivalent, it's -- we will be at pro forma 42 million ounces of silver equivalent, comparing ourselves to in between Hecla and Coeur before, obviously, the Coeur transaction, obviously. And you can see that we're moving up the curve. As we indicated, Boumadine has got lots of upside potential. It's got many more structures. But just on the main structure, on the main trend with something that we can execute, which is permitted, which we have the money to deliver, we are now on a pro forma basis, a 40 million ounce silver equivalent producer. It's quite interesting, quite unique. And all of that, I would say, with 141 million shares outstanding. When you look at the market cap at the top of this slide, you see that we're totally off, and we understand that. And that's something that Alex and I will need to work on. But clearly, there's a major, major rerate that needs to happen. On the next slide, showing the efficiency of the investment, it's quite unique. When you look at the efficiency of the investment, you look at the annual production here on a gold basis on the top left, we're joining the big players with 400,000. And I know it's the first 5 years, but we've indicated clearly that that's where we have visibility after that, because of the drilling. You know that this year, at Boumadine, there's 160,000 meters at year-end that will need to be included in the model. Currently, we are at about 140,000 meters. We should be adding another 20,000 meters, maybe more for year-end. So there's 160,000 meters that's not yet in the model. And as indicated, we will add in the next 2 years, 360,000 meters and not including the regional play. So obviously, when you look at this on a 5-year basis, we look extremely well. When you look at the bottom on CapEx to average annual production, the beauty is the low CapEx, which we are very comfortable with. You recall, we did Zgounder for $140 million, and I'm not including the compensation that we've received from the EPC contractor. We did Zgounder on budget. We were a little late because of the EPC contractor a few weeks, but we did it on budget. We're very, very comfortable with this CapEx number that we just gave you. And based on the annual production, we're going to have one of the lowest CapEx to production ratio. And if you look at it on the top right-hand side, the after-tax NPV to CapEx, well, look, this is quite unique. And as we know, this just gets bigger as we see a higher silver and gold price. So we're in a very unique position. Now something we haven't discussed from the beginning now is jurisdiction. I mean, we see and we know that things are getting complicated in many countries. Morocco is just getting better. Morocco, if you follow what's happening on top of being the Junior World Cup Champion in soccer, I mean, it's just getting better everywhere. The investment, climate is great, the automobile industry is thriving and us in mining, we're doing extremely well. So it is quite unique as a jurisdiction, and let's never forget that. So Boumadine, large district, very, very large district, exceptional economics based on facts that we have, that we know, it's the same team. Raphael and his team are going to be using the same contractors, the same people. Some of our employees will probably, that we have extra will go from Zgounder to go to Boumadine. Our track record in the region is second to none. We've done it on budget and a little bit off time, but almost on time. And again, I said it, but we have the mining license in hand. We're developing on our mining license, and we have the financing spoken for. So it's quite unique. And on this last slide, when you look at this last slide, where we're showing production, again, just to show that we're up there with the bigger projects, you see Boumadine 1 to 5 on a gold equivalent basis, we're up there. But what's really important is the one at the bottom. And Raphael showed that to you is on an ASIC for year 1 to 5, we are below $1,000 for life of mine. And again, life of mine based on what we know now, we're at $1,021. So it's a low CapEx, low OpEx project in a great jurisdiction built by people who've just completed a recent bit. So I think that we are in a very unique position. We're comfortable that with the numbers we just gave you are for us attainable, and we are really motivated to follow the calendar that's included in the press release and in this presentation. So look, again, this is just the beginning of a 7-year journey to production. We -- and the last item is the buyers are out there for the concentrate. We were pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm of the traders and the end users to get the pyrite because it's a source of energy for the smelters. They need it, they want it. And we do have MOUs with 3 groups that are really looking to get this pyrite over to the smelters. So look, thank you very much for your time. We are available. There will be another call next week for the Q3 financial statements. If you have questions at that time on the PEA Boumadine, we will take them. Otherwise, you can reach Alex or myself, and we will get back to you always as quickly as possible. Thank you for your time. Sorry, it was an hour and 18 minutes. It was a little long, but it's -- we felt that for Aya, this is a game-changing project, and we're very, very pleased to show you this great -- the great economics of this project. Thank you very much, and talk to you next week.