Cora Gold Limited (C0J.SG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. Welcome to the Cora Gold Limited Operational Update Investor Presentation [Operator Instructions] Before we begin, we'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand over to Bert Monro, CEO. Good morning, sir.

Good morning. Thank you very much, and thank you very much, everyone, for joining. I'm going to take you through the Cora presentation, hopefully, for around 20 minutes or 30 minutes. And then once I've done that, as Paul mentioned, I'll open up the Q&A, and I'll try and get through as many questions as I can. So Cora is a name listed gold company, as I'm sure most of you know. We've been listed since 2017. Our focus is very much in West Africa. We've got 2 core projects. We've got the Sanankoro project, which sits in Southern Mali, and we've got the Madina Foulbé project, which is in Eastern Senegal. Both are in very prolific gold belts. Obviously, I'll get into more detail on both of those permits and both those projects as we go through the presentation. But really pleased with the portfolio, a lot of ability for organic growth from a large landholding and as I said, 2 very prolific gold belts in West Africa. Obviously, as a business, very focused on operating correctly. We've got a great team on the ground in Mali, and obviously travel out there regularly myself and obviously, we've got a good track record of discovery over that period of time as well. Diving straight into our main asset, Sanankoro. Sanankoro is made up of a number of permits, which make up the Sanankoro Gold project. We sit in Southern Mali amongst a number of other gold mines and gold projects. It's about 4 hours drive from Bamako, predominantly on a tar road. So it's in a good location, both from access but also geologically. As you can see on the map on this page, we are bordering with 2 other projects really, one a company called Tubi, which is over 2 million ounces and a pre-resource company called Silla Gold, one is ASX listed, one TSX listed. So we're in a good region with lots of gold. Obviously, our project is currently sitting at just over 1 million ounces of gold and resources. We've obviously additionally got an exploration target on top of that. The project itself has been taken through from discovery through maiden resource, obviously, an initial DFS and obviously, the DFS update we put out just a couple of weeks ago. The plan is to develop an open pit oxide gold mining operation, 1.5 million tonnes a year, traditional gravity CIL. Obviously, one of the big benefits of oxide ore is [indiscernible] element to it, and I'll talk a little bit more about that later. Clearly, it delivers really, really strong economic fundamentals. $2,750 gold price is what we've based our headline numbers, which is obviously significantly below where the gold price is at today, delivering a 65% IRR, 1.1 year payback period. So it's fantastic in that respect. One of the big advantages in terms of moving the project forward over the last 2 or 3 years is we have grown the resource base. And obviously, that's led to us having a plus 10-year reserve life as well, which is also very strong. At the bottom of the page, you'll see a few different gold prices showing the returns at high gold prices on the later slide, there's also other slides showing that as well. But clearly, it generates extremely strong free cash flow and the nature of the oxide ore in the open pit mine that you can get into production for relatively manageable CapEx compared to certain projects and obviously it straight into ore at an early stage. So huge amount of positives for this project. And obviously, I'll dip into it in more detail as we go through the presentation. In terms of Cora strategy, we've always been very focused around developing Sanankoro as quickly and as cheaply as possible. We really latched on to the oxide nature of the ore, meaning that it was very amenable to open pit CIL mining. Our view is that if we can get into positive cash flow, we can then look to really expand the project and also develop organically our other projects as well from strong cash flow from Sanankoro. In terms of -- the schedule, obviously, we'll touch on permitting later in the presentation. I know we already had a couple of questions on it in advance of this. But effectively, from the period of being project finance, you around an 18-month time frame to get to gold pour -- to first gold pour, which is reasonably quick, which is great. As I mentioned, it's a straightforward project in many ways, a traditional West African oxide project with gravity and CIL, but also making additional advantage of the oxide nature with the scrubbing circuit as well, which I'll touch on slightly later. So for us, being able to go from commencement of project construction to gold pour in 18 months is, in our minds, very achievable and obviously, is in line with our strategy, which is to make sure we develop Sanankoro as quickly as we can and obviously deliver really strong free cash flow from that, enabling Cora to really open up organic growth within its portfolio. Not saying we aren't always looking at inorganic growth as well. Obviously, as a company, you're always looking to take advantage of opportunities and always looking to review other opportunities as well. But I think for us, we're really pleased with the portfolio we've got in our hands as we stand. Diving into a little bit more detail on Sanankoro. Looking at the map on your right, that's obviously an outline of the project area within our permits. Obviously, the red blocks are the outlines of our pits. Obviously, we've got 4 main pits there. And then you can see the outline of some of the infrastructure as well. You can see location of the process plant to the south and east of the Selin deposit, also got lined up where the tailings as well as the solar farm and the main camp will be. One of the things we'll touch on when we talk about permitting and the process there, obviously, as you can see, the project overlaps more than one exploration permit. So part of the process we're currently going through is about reshaping so that you get all of your infrastructure as well as your project within one single mining permit and obviously, the ground, which is reshaped, obviously, out of the mining permit then would remain part of your other wider exploration permits as well. So you don't lose any project area. You just need to make sure that all of your project you're initially developing falls within the 100 square kilometer mining area for us. One of the big advantages of Sanankoro is in the 1 million ounces we've already got, it's the gold we haven't yet pulled into resource. What you can see there from those outlines of those pits is you've effectively got these parallel gold structures. We've drilled a relatively -- we haven't drilled a huge amount of the project. I think we feel it's very under-drilled. All of those deposits are open along strike, and we feel certainly with additional drilling that we continue to grow those deposits. I think that's proven with having exploration target of up to 1.5 million ounces in addition to the existing resources of 1 million ounces. So for us, it's a great starter project, obviously gets you into production relatively quickly from when you start construction and obviously delivers extremely strong free cash flows. We'll talk about those numbers next. But obviously, for us, we feel there's a lot more to grow with that project. I think the gold block at the bottom, which states that we've already got -- we've already seen the ability for 173,000 additional ounces when we pit and strain our inferred with the same ounces as our reserves shows that you can grow this project from what's set out in the table to our left. Just talking through some of the numbers. Obviously, the CapEx is at $124 million. That includes various contingencies, other management costs and working capital. I think one of the changes from the previous study, obviously, was incorporating all of the factors of the new 2023 Mali mining code. I guess one of the big jumps in the CapEx from the previous study was an increase in the cost of the tailings storage facility of the DFS. So that's one of the factors which led to an increase as well as obviously general inflationary impacts over a 3-year period, 2-, 3-year period. I think what you're seeing though is obviously a jump in the amount of gold. Obviously, our reserve has grown. We've got over 10 years of reserve production and obviously, significantly greater free cash flow generation. So really pleased with the overall outcome of the study. All of the numbers have really been improving there. And I think as you can see, we're at over $3,500 gold right now. So gold prices right now are significantly higher than what we're showing in those numbers. But really pleased with fundamentally having a quick payback and delivering really strong free cash flow, which has always been the focus of an oxide gold project like ours. Talking through the flow sheet. I touched on it a little bit at the start. I think it's a traditional gravity CIL flow sheet. One of the things which is very common in West Africa, so we're not trying to do anything particularly new. I think one of the advantages we have changed from the previous DFS to this one we've just published is we've incorporated what's called a scrubber circuit. This is enabling us with the oxide ore material to separate out the ore, so you're able to run a much smaller ball mill. By running a smaller ball mill, you reduce the amount of power needed, which obviously reduce your power cost, which is great over the life of mine. So we've really tried to maximize the advantage of having the oxide ore through the flow sheet. But fundamentally, the flow sheet is a standard gravity CIL flow sheet in West Africa being run by other mines in Mali across West Africa. So I think that hopefully good from your view looking at this project from, I guess, a risk appetite. We aren't trying to do anything new. We aren't trying to incorporate any new designs in that respect. It's a standard processing plant. Obviously, detailed CapEx there. I suppose if anyone has got any specific questions on it, I can answer them. But fundamentally, we did the work with an engineering group called SENET. They are a South African-based engineering firm. They've built a number of projects in West Africa, including in Mali. They're currently working on a project in Mali and expansion of an existing operating mine in Mali. So really pleased that they've done a very thorough job, obviously, supported by Lourens Steenekamp, our project manager, who again talk a little bit more about later in the presentation, but ultimately, he's got a very strong track record in West Africa. He's worked for a number of mid-tier mining companies. So really pleased with the quality of the work that's gone into building out the DFS in these numbers. Touching on the OpEx and the production profile. I'll just start on the production profile. For me, what I see there is really more opportunity. You'll see in the first 5 years, you've got strong levels of production averaging over 60,000 ounces, and then you're starting to see the production tail off as you move towards processing lower-grade stockpiles towards the end of the mine life and you see a reduction in the production then. I think, again, that box, which references is 173,000 ounces of pit optimized inferred. Those aren't currently in that production profile sitting above. They haven't had enough volume of drilling in to be upgraded to a reserve classification. So for us, those are easy wins. They're currently in what's called an inferred resource. So additional drilling needs to happen as well as other factors to be able to convert them into measured and indicated and then into a reserve. So it's obviously our view as a team that we will -- with drilling, we've consistently been upgrading those ounces. And actually, the production profile will hopefully stay in line with the kind of 5-year average numbers for a much longer period, which will obviously continue to strengthen the position of the project. And clearly, again, we'll touch on a bit more later in the exploration slides. But clearly, we think there's significant scope to grow our 1 million ounces of resources much further from here as well. So for us, I'd like to look at the first 5-year average and see that hopefully as a bit of a base case. And obviously, what we'll be aspiring to do is to turn those first 5 years average into a much longer -- for a much longer period of time with additional drilling on the project. Obviously, breakdown of the operating costs on the left-hand side on a per ounce basis, clearly, from the all-in sustaining cost, the projects had an impact with the new mining code in Mali. The new mining code fundamentally increased sort of gold royalties to the government significantly, which had an impact of close to -- well, at these gold prices, probably a little bit over $300 an ounce to our all-in sustaining cost. It's obviously not insignificant. So I'm really pleased that we've managed to keep most of the other operating costs relatively flat from the last study. So the significant change in our ASIC was really around the increase in royalties and taxes in the new mining code. Also just pleased to touch on, obviously, including a hybrid power solution to the project. Effectively, that's a solar farm offering power predominantly during the day and then obviously having diesel generators which run overnight and obviously, a battery element as well, which obviously manages the blend between the -- between the solar and the diesel -- diesel generators that is. Obviously, at the moment, that's the most -- a combination of obviously saving 40 million liters of diesel over the life of mine. The current 10-year life of mine is obviously fantastic. Obviously, in time, I guess, as batteries develop, obviously, one might be able to reduce diesel usage further. But as it stands that both from an environmental but also an economic perspective for what we think is the best option in terms of a blend. So really pleased with having that lined up and having a Malian contractor as the tender and obviously compliant to deliver that for us. Updated reserves, it's obviously published alongside the feasibility study 2 weeks ago, 26% increase from our maiden reserve, which is great, over 0.5 million ounces of gold in reserve in the ground at a sub-5x strip ratio. So all of that really pleasing to see it developing. I think the other aspect, and I keep saying this word that obviously, nearly all the gold is oxide, as you can see, close to 500,000 ounces in oxide and just over 50,000 ounces in transitional material. So obviously, just to talk through that, obviously, generally speaking, different terminology, but you have oxide transitional and fresh rock. Obviously, your fresh rock is obviously hard. You need to drill and blast it often. You then need to do significant amounts of crushing and processing. So one of the reasons and one of the benefits of having an oxide deposit is that you have lower operating costs, both because you're doing -- you don't have to drill and blast when you're mining and you're not having to crush or not significantly crush it during processing. It also helps from a sustaining capital perspective as well, less wear and tear on your processing plant as well. So lots of advantages to having sort of low strip ratio oxides. We've got a relatively small amount of transitional model -- transitional ore in the model currently. When we're processing it, there's -- there is a rented crushing circuit, which comes in to help process it for the period of time we are. I think in time, this project, and I guess, looking to somewhere like Sadiola, Allied Gold's project in Mali, they mined oxides for 15-plus years. And then obviously, it transitioned into being focused on a fresh rock mine. So I think we haven't drilled any really significantly deeper holes at Sanankoro. We've drilled a couple, 2 or 3. And obviously, it shows that the gold continues into the fresh rock. So I think that's obviously a significant upside for the company and for the project. In the future, I think at the moment, in terms of growing our reserves and growing our resources, our focus will be very much going up and down strike and at depth where we still have all of the existing deposits are open. And that means that you can hopefully be adding further oxide and transitional ounces, which should be your higher-margin ounces near surface at a low strip ratio as we develop it. Well, talking now [ I flipped ] on to the next slide, the MRE, we updated this in January this year, obviously, took us over 1 million ounces of gold for the first time, so a significant milestone. So a big success of the exploration team who managed to do that off a very minimal budget. So really pleased with that ounce growth. As I said, really just scratching the surface of it in many ways. All of the deposits are currently open. We haven't drilled out any of the deposits. So we certainly believe as you continue to step out drilling up and down strike, you would be adding ounces. Obviously, the ability to add ounces at depth as well, which will be interesting. I think, obviously, the most economic ounces, the highest margin ounces will be the ones up and down strike, maintaining your lower strip ratio. So that will probably be the initial focus as we look to try and grow this resource in the future. But I think 1 million ounces, again, literally, you've got 65,000, 60,000, 70,000 ounces of fresh rock ounces out of that 1 million. So really, you are talking about an oxide deposit here, which is fantastic and what we've really been focused on. Touched on earlier as well, an exploration target. This is a touch dual compliant target based predominantly of drilling data, showing an additional potential sort of 0.5 million to 1.3 million ounces over and above the resource. A bit more background on that, which could be useful. I think all of the project before Cora owned it back in kind of Gold Fields days was drilled on about an 800-meter line spacing. So you've got drill data over a very large area of the permit. We've obviously focused in and targeted on our current resources and obviously really been focused on trying to get a mineable ready project and obviously bringing in ounces to reserve and then showing a quality project to start with. But I think in terms of the ability to step out and really develop our resources more. You've got that historical drill data and you've got a lot more to go. And there's a couple of exploration slides coming up, which I'll talk to now before I said everything for those slides already on the previous one. Obviously, exploration is a systematic process. It can be very expensive, and that's why you really need to make sure you've got a targeted based approach. Really pleased our chief geologist, Murray Paterson and his team, they have a very commercial mindset to exploration. They really look to make every dollar count when they're working. Obviously, again, we had a press release in a full way today, but making good use of our XRF machine as well, which is a low-cost way of following up and making sure you covered the ground and understand your deposit. But actually, we've got a pyramid of targets, obviously, with existing resources and indicated in the third at the top of the pyramid. Then you've got -- as you go down the pyramid, you've got other earlier-stage projects, which obviously we need to systematically work our way through. There's obviously lots and lots of these opportunities. I think some people might have picked up or noticed we had to move the processing plant, for example, between the previous study to this study, we just announced on doing sterilization drilling, we hit a little bit too much gold under the old proposed process plant location in the last study. So we decided to move 500 meters or so to the east, which I guess is an indication of how much gold is around the permit and it's a case of just making sure we look at it commercially and we go through sequentially to make sure that we're continuing to bring new deposits and new discoveries online. We're always looking to grow through that pipeline. Exactly. And I guess this is just following up on really what I'm saying. I think the image on your -- on the left is very touched on what I said. You've got this long strike -- long mineralized strike length. Obviously, we've drilled out some of it into resources. Obviously, Zone A, B, B North and Zone C are currently in various stages of inferred or indicated resources. And obviously, you've got a reserve on Zone B and Zone A as well. Clearly, there's significant scope to continue to step out and drill further, and we would expect those ounces to continue to grow before you even move to new targets, just stepping out those existing deposits. I think [ Luca ] just talked through the sort of the 6 steps in terms of viewing how we go about that systematically. I think to date, exploration can be very expensive. You can go and drill tens of thousands of meters. And I think for us, we've only drilled 3,000 or 4,000 meters of Sanankoro in the last 2 years, but we've managed to have good resource growth on the back of that. So our bang for our buck has been good. And I think that's because of having a good commercial geological team who obviously follow a clear step-by-step process to make sure that we're making every round of exploration work. So lots of hopefully, future upside there, which is exciting and obviously looking forward to doing in the future. In terms of the team, I'm really pleased, I guess, another development since the 2022 study during this period of permit moratorium, really strengthened the team, brought in Lourens Steenekamp, who is a really experienced project manager, most recently with Resolute and Perseus Mining, 2 mid-tier miners operating in Mali and Ivory Coast predominantly. So he's got a really good Francophone West African experience. He's constructed projects, managed projects and a really strong guy to have on the team sheet to manage this process. He's been in and out of Mali constantly over the last 2 years, working with and getting a better relationship with contractors in country, getting to know the project better and obviously has overseen this DFS as well. So really pleased to have him on board, really brought a much deeper strength to the Cora team, obviously supported by Frikkie and Murray as well. Frikkie is a mining consultant. He obviously did the reserves and has got, again, strong Asanko based in Ghana, strong West African experience from a mining perspective. And Murray used to -- a long time ago and lived in Mali back in the day with his family amazingly when it was back in his Randgold days as a relatively young geologist 25 years or so ago and has been working in and out of West Africa for his whole career. So -- these are senior guys older than me and with a lot of experience on the ground in West Africa, it's great to have them on board. Touched on SENET earlier. They've got great track record in West Africa. They've built mines in Mali and they're working on projects currently in Mali. So pleased to have them do the study. And I think very much it was a feasibility study that we were doing with the aim of building it. It wasn't just a marketing document that's been done to a very high and a thorough level. Permitting, obviously, I'm sure on everyone's minds right now. Mali, just to recap for some people, after we published our previous feasibility study in November 2022, Mali put in place a permit moratorium whilst they were launching a new mining code, they've now launched the new mining code and the moratorium was partially lifted at the end of Q1 of this year. I think what you've seen in the press, you've seen a lot of operating mining companies. I think all of the operating mining companies signed MOUs with the government and look to transitioning on to the new mining code. I think what hasn't been -- what hasn't happened yet is you haven't seen a new company like ourselves go and receive a fresh new mining permit. Obviously, we're actively engaged with the government. They've shown a very strong willingness that they need to see. They want to see new projects in construction and moving into production, and we've had really positive engagement with them and are obviously trying to get ourselves through this permitting process as quickly as we can and obviously working with the government very closely to do that. I've been out in Mali. I was there the last week of August, and I've been at a number of times this year and have had good face-to-face meetings with various people in government. So I'm happy that the process is moving forward. I'm sure no one is happy that it's all taken as long as it has, and I'd only say thank you to everyone's support during this time. I appreciate some of you who have been investors for a long time, it's been a very frustrating 2, 3 years. But thank you for your support in this period of time. And also, thanks for your engagement. It's always good to get questions and people asking, it's nice to know we've got an engaged shareholder base. So yes, we are working -- this is our primary focus. We're working -- trying to get these permits done as quickly as possible. But I guess some reassurance -- there hasn't been lots of other companies getting issued new mining permits, what you've seen in Mali since the lifting of the moratorium, you've seen existing operating miners or existing mining companies with mining permits transitioning from the old code to the new mining code. You haven't seen lots of explorers receiving new mining permits. So we're very much trying to be at the front of that queue and driving that process as hard as we can. Madina Foulbé had a press release out on Madina this morning. It's a great project. It's on the Mako Gold belt, which has obviously got a number of significant gold mines on it. So geographically, it is a really exciting location to be in Senegal. Geologically, it's also a really exciting place to be. It's a big permit around 200 square kilometers in size. So it's a large area. We have done a series of rounds of exploration on it. We drilled it in 2024, had some really nice hits. I mean, 10 meters at 4.5 grams a tonne is a great hole. Fundamentally, we haven't drilled it enough. We only drilled 2,000, 3,000 meters of drilling on it. The majority of those holes hit mineralization. Unfortunately, most of them ended in mineralization, which is slightly embarrassing, but ultimately, it's ultimately a factor of trying to drill as wider are as we could to try and test the mineralization with a limited drill budget a meterage. So ultimately, we left 50% of those holes in mineralization, which shows obviously there's more to come, we hope. So very exciting prospect, Madina Foulbé in a really good geological and geographical area. It's easy to access [ far right ] within 10, 15 kilometers of the project. It's a nice area where you can explore relatively cost effectively. And obviously, a good spot. So looking forward to being able to follow up at Madina Foulbé and do more work in the future. As I said, our strategy has been around trying to exploit Sanankoro as quickly as possible and obviously generate good early free cash flow to enable us to expand organically as we can. But also concurrently whilst doing that, we have been doing work. The teams have been on the ground there pretty much every quarter, taking samples, following up with the XRF and obviously looking to develop the project and looking to advance the projects while still focusing on Sanankoro predominantly. To touch on ESG, really pleased that we've got a good strong presence on the ground. Always great when I go to site to go and see various community projects we're doing on the ground, whether it's a local clinic, seeing some of the schools where we've helped support them with books and also supporting teacher salaries, also engage with the communities in various ways, whether it's supporting agricultural development and other things. So community engagement is great. It's a really exciting part of the job for me. It's a great privilege to be able to go there and represent Cora and be able to meet the communities. And I think we've got a really good relationship with the communities. Obviously, ESG is much wider than that. And obviously, I could talk for ages on it, but I think this presentation has really been focused more on the DFS. So excuse me for running over relatively quickly, but obviously, ESG was a factor in focusing on making sure we had a good solar and hybrid power solution for the site and obviously are always looking to act to the highest possible integrity on the ground and in Mali as a business. So I'm pleased that it's something which is in good shape. Touched on this briefly. Obviously, I've been the CEO of Cora since January 2020. Before that, I've worked in West Africa for the previous 10, 15 years or so. So I guess my background has been West African gold since I was in my early 20s. Craig, CFO, co-founded Cora back in 2012, obviously, still with the company, which is great. And then obviously, Siaka Koumare alongside Craig has been our country manager since Cora's inception as well. So really strong, stable team who know the company, know the permits, know various people in government and all those relationships and all those different stakeholders in country. So really pleased that you've got a combination of long-standing stable team members who know everyone on the ground and know everything well, but also bring in new blood in the likes of Lourens and Murray and others. So yes, pleased with the team. Obviously, as we move into construction, that team is going to have to grow and strengthen as we bring in more construction-focused people. But as it stands, we're in good shape with lots of relevant experience on the ground. I think obviously, just touching on this briefly, I never think it's very good when management try and tell everyone why the share price should double or triple or quadruple, but I think there's very good reasons why Cora should continue to move very strongly in the future. I think clearly, we've got a strategy to deliver a producing gold mine, which is going to have very, very good economics. I think unlocking of the permitting situation will hopefully be a significant step change for the business. And obviously, I'll touch on investors on the next slide, but I think we're very well set up to be able to move into construction once that permitting comes. I think this is my final slide for the appendix. So I think half an hour, that was a good effort. So look, we've got a really strong shareholder base. We have got predominantly the Quirk Family and Michael Farmer. Michael Farmer, who own just over 50% of the business. They've got a very strong mining background, both operating and investing and have been extremely supportive behind that, obviously, we've got another other very long and supportive shareholders. So I think Cora has been very well placed with its shareholder base over the last few years. We've been able to fund and finance exploration work and study work and also during a period of moratorium, which was tricky for everyone operating in Mali and obviously, other West African countries have also gone through similar recently. We've had a very supportive shareholder base. So really pleased with where we stand. Obviously, looking to always grow the shareholder base. And obviously, as we look to develop it, obviously bring in new shareholders. But as we stand, I think we've got a strong register who have shown through the convertible loan note that we received and then repaid when we were looking to finance Sanankoro earlier, I think you can see they're clearly supportive of bringing the [ equity ] to develop the mine. So really pleased with the shareholder register. I think they are an excellent register for Cora's state and development being a significant part of us being able to deliver on what we've done and drive forward that strategy. I think just recently, we have got a new research out from Cavendish. I think it can be accessed on research tree. If you're a professional investor, obviously, you've got a 16p price target. I think that's priced in a fair amount of [ conservatism ] with active fit. So pleased that we're getting a bit more coverage of the story. And I think it's really pleasing to see that people are starting to see, I guess, an upward trend in Mali and the likes of B2Gold and Allied and others who are starting to make progress with expansion projects and moving forward. So pleasing with the direction that's going in Mali and the progress we've made. So I think now I've got a few slides in the appendix. I guess, depending on which questions we get, I might need to reference them later. But otherwise, Paul, I'll just hand back to you before we move into questions.

Bert, thank you very much indeed for the presentation [Operator Instructions] As you can see, Bert, we've had a number of questions, both pre-submitted and throughout today's presentation. So thank you, everyone, for submitting those [Operator Instructions]

Cool. Thanks, Paul. I'll do my best to both be interviewer and interview here. So first question, which actually was pre-submitted, was around our environmental permit. The environmental permit states that operations must commence within 3 years of the environmental permit, which was issued on the 14th of October 2022. Otherwise, a new environmental permit would need to be awarded. So yes, it's an interesting -- it's a good question and good analysis to go into that. I think our view is that we are well. We are not planning to need to apply for a new environmental permit at the end of October this year. Commencement from the perspective of the environmental permit is different to actually commence the project starting of the full construction happening. For example, we have already started and we've done certain land compensation over the project area when we're doing sterilization drilling. Obviously, there's further land compensation to go forward. So we are planning to obviously from an environmental perspective, commence a project so that we aren't needing to submit for a new environmental permit. It obviously ties into the mining permit as well. So you need to have a valid environment now in place to be issued the mining permit. So that's obviously something which we're working on managing. But yes, it's not our expectation to need to go through the mining -- the environmental permit application again. We are working with that with the dual environmental consultants at the moment. Next question. Could you cover about the financing and development costs for the project? So yes, I think we've talked about this a fair bit before publicly. We obviously signed a mandate with Atlantic Finance for a $70 million -- proposed $70 million loan. We have, since publication of the feasibility study, engaged with Atlantic Finance. Obviously, the CapEx has increased from the last study. So -- but ultimately, the economics have improved significantly and the ability for the project to take debt has improved as well. So it would obviously be our aim to put in place more than a $70 million loan on the project. And therefore, that would obviously be part of the full finance solution alongside equity as well. And as I touched on during the presentation, we had very strong commitments for the equity of the project around the time of the moratorium was put in place from our existing shareholders. So I think we're very well set compared to a lot of junior single asset companies before they move into production in terms of having shareholder base who have shown significant support for putting in equity financing alongside debt to build the project. So yes, we're looking to work with Atlantic Finance going forward and obviously looking to increase the loan to sort of match up with the larger CapEx. Just going through a few other questions that are slightly overlapping what I've asked. So apologies, I'll just read through as we go. Yes. So there's a question -- just sorry trying to go through. So which explorers have received new mining permits as opposed to extensions of existing ones? And how do they get ahead of Cora. So in answer to that, we're not aware of any -- no, I don't believe any explorers have received new mining permits since they lifted the moratorium. What you've seen is existing mining permit holders transitioning from old mining codes onto the new mining code. I don't think we've seen any explorers receive a new mining permit under the new code. So we're looking to obviously be the first to do that. And as I said, we're having good engagement with the government and trying to move that forward as quickly as we can. What are the next steps for Cora in Mali? Hopefully, I've sort of been covering this, but ultimately, our main focus now is on permitting and looking to move the permit forward as quickly as we can. That's obviously going to unlock the project. Obviously, until you have your mining permit, you can't look to close your debt finance on the project. So really, the mine permit is our key focus right now. Question on time line on the permitting. Look, it's a tricky one to answer. I don't have an exact time line. I'm obviously working with the government, and we are working with the government with Siaka, my country manager and others to move it forward as quickly as we can. Obviously, it's in the Mali government's interest for us to get a mining permit and move into construction. It obviously creates employment. Obviously, it also creates significant amounts of revenue for the government and royalties to the government when the project into construction. So it's in their interest and our interest to get the permit. Ultimately, as one, hopefully, people can understand after a long period of not issuing permits in a moratorium, there's a lot happening with the government trying to transfer or transferring existing mines on the new mining code. Obviously, other people also applying for permits. So I guess I don't just like probably sort of post-COVID sort of when everything shut down and everything has to reopen again, it can take a little bit of time to get things moving as quickly as you like. But we are working with them, and we've got good positive engagement going with as well. I think I'm just trying to -- there's a question there. Someone put in a question around recoveries referencing production and recoveries. I'm not quite -- give me just one second just to -- I think someone was asking a question about the recovery. The recoveries stay relatively flat throughout the project. So the gold recoveries and sort of the metallurgical recoveries stays between about 90% and 93%, 94% throughout the life of the mine. I think the question I got from [ Ian ] around it dropping to 25%, I think actually that's the production number. So what I was saying is in the first 5 years, the production is obviously averaging sort of 65,000 ounces, give or take. And then in the later years of the mine life, effectively, a lot of the lower grade material, which is stockpiled is then processed. So effectively, you're only mining the project as it's currently envisaged for 7 years, but you're processing ore for 10. So in the last 3 years, give or take, you're actually just processing low-grade stockpiles, which have built up over the first 7 years. As you've been mining, obviously, from your financial model perspective, you're better putting in the better grade first and then obviously leaving the lower grade in the stockpile. So the actual metallurgical recoveries or recoveries from the processing plant remain effectively flat in that 90% to 95% range. It's really the production profile, which dips off at the end. But I think for me, that's obviously I was trying to say, it's obviously one of the really big advantages in this project. You've got a huge amount of exploration upside. And actually, you don't even really need the exploration upside. You've got huge amounts of existing resources which aren't in indicated and you need to convert an inferred into an indicated, which is really about drill density. And once you have the necessary drill density, resource will generally get upgraded from inferred to indicated. And then obviously, you can wrap the economics and the mine plan around it and convert it into a reserve. And obviously, what that will have an effect as that grows, you'll be pushing that low-grade stockpile further out. So rather than having a dip and then a rise, you'll actually just be pushing the low-grade stockpile further and further out and obviously maintain a higher average production, which is why, I guess, during the presentation, I was trying to leave people to look at the sort of the 5-year average numbers. And obviously, my hope is if we can continue to convert similar grade inferred material or discover and create new resources of a similar grade to the reserve and get them into inferred and then obviously work through them and get them into indicated and into reserves. That first 5-year production profile will be able to be continued. And I think actually, what you could look at in the future if you have that good exploration success is actually potentially expanding the plant, whether it's a larger scrubber circuit, a larger ball mill and actually looking to increase your production if the cost benefit analysis of a plant expansion works in the future. Hopefully, that answers that question. There's a question here, what lessons have you learned from Hummingbird and how are you going to prevent similar issues to Cora. I guess for your reference, I worked for a company called Hummingbird, I guess, from 2008 or '09 to about 2019. Hummingbird built a gold mine in Mali, which in the period I was there was very successful. We built it on time and on budget. It ramped up to commercial production and started producing at around 100,000 ounces a year, which was great. I sort of left in 2009, and I guess through the period from 2020 to 2025, ultimately, its production has reduced. And obviously, it became public before it went private, but it had a number of issues, which obviously led to that production being reduced, but I wasn't working there, so I can't -- hard to comment on it too much. But I think a number of them were around the mine contractor. I think they had to change mining contract a number of times. I believe the process plant continued to work and produce, I think it was about having the necessary ore to be fed into the process plant. I think one of the advantages to turn it back to Cora and to our Sanankoro project, which is very different to Yanfolila and very different to a lot of other projects in West Africa. We have low strip ratio oxide ore. So our strip ratio is under 5:1. So effectively, in simple terms, you have to move 5 bits of dirt to get bit of gold-bearing ore in the process plant. It was public. So I guess I can say that means Yanfolila, the Hummingbird project was 17:1 strip ratio. So they have to move 17 bits of dirt to get 1 bit of ore bearing into the process plant. So clearly, straightaway, moving less material is going to be a benefit and it simplifies it in that respect. So I think it's very hard to compare projects to projects. Clearly, when things go wrong, you learn a lot from it. And clearly, thankfully been through the process of building a mine in Mali, which I hope you learned a lot from and obviously, building up a team with a strong track record of delivering projects in West Africa to support me and drive that day-to-day. There's a question about -- one second -- I think I've got a few more questions around permit timing. So apologies, I'm not sure I can add much more, but obviously, clearly, it's our main focus, and we're trying to get the permit timing as quickly get the permit as quickly as we can. Clearly, it's the impediment in us moving this project forward right now. It's our primary focus. Just a question just in about Senegal and drilling further in Senegal and how we finance that. I think I sort of tried to touch on it in the presentation. It's always a tricky one. We'd always hoped and expected to really expand our exploration from cash flow rather than significantly diluting shareholders by raising lots of money now to drill things out. So it's a bit of a managed approach. We obviously did drill 2,000 meters there last year. And obviously, if you're drilling relatively shallow smaller programs, you can try and manage it with existing budgets. But as it stands, I guess, putting significant amounts of money into the project was pretty likely to happen once we're in production from cash flow. But I think, obviously, with the rising gold price and with the success we're having, it is obviously very tempting to try and get a bit more money into the ground in Senegal and really push forward that project. So for me, I'd love to drill lots of meters in it as with our geologists who are chomping a bit too. So I think it's just a bit of a balance of kind of time -- just the time when you put that money into the ground and obviously trying to continually move the project pipeline forward whilst also managing your cash flow. So [ Ash ], I would love to be drilling it straight away. We've obviously got lots of drill-ready targets and obviously a strong belief that we could grow out a significant discovery there. So we just got to balance that with financing. So I guess, hopefully give you more updates on that in the near future or in the future. Right. Give me -- I think I'm getting to the end of these questions. So just give me one second while I just sort of scan through them, if that's okay. I think and I hope I have answered all the questions. I appreciate there's some specific questions I haven't answered, but I think in some of my long-winded responses to other questions I have answered, I think I hope I've covered them all. So Paul, I don't know chance to give everyone a last minute to type in...

Yes, absolutely. Of course, any of those questions that do come in or after, you will have the ability to review those. And we publish all those responses on the Investor Meet Company platform. But as you say, before redirecting those investors to give you feedback, but if I could just ask you for a few closing comments, that would be great.

Yes. Firstly, I guess I'd just say thank you, everyone, for listening today and for joining and engaging, but I think more importantly, for being shareholders, as I know lots of you are and for being supportive of us and following the story and being engaged in it. So thank you very much for that support. It's really appreciated and I appreciate the engagement. Apologies if I can't always give you the answer you want or the specific timing that you want, but we obviously always do our best to be as transparent and give everyone as much information as we can at the time. But obviously, I appreciate it can be frustrating when you're waiting for permits. I guess switching to Cora really, we're extremely excited about Sanankoro. It's a really good looking project. I think it's got so many positive attributes to it, and it's really ripe for development. And it's got a low-risk, relatively low-cost route to really, really strong cash flow, really strong production. And I think there's a huge amount of blue sky to develop on top of it. So we are really pleased and the whole team is really excited about being able to develop that project and obviously, a wider exploration package as well. So a lot of blue sky whether it's [indiscernible] where we hope there will be a significant future resource in time or obviously wider exploration potential around Sanankoro to grow Sanankoro as well. So we're really pleased with how the portfolio is looking and really pleased to have everyone's support here today.

Fantastic. Bert, thanks indeed for updating investors today. Can I please ask investors not to close this session. You should now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management can better understand the views and expectations. This only take a few moments to complete and is greatly valued by the company. On behalf of Bert and Cora Gold Limited, I'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That concludes today's session, and good morning to you all.