KEFI Gold and Copper Plc (KEFI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to the KEFI Gold and Copper Plc Quarterly Update Investor Presentation. [Operator Instructions] But before we begin, I'd like to make the following part. And now I'd like to hand you over to Harry, Anagnostaras-Adams, Executive Chairman. Good morning to you.

Good morning, everybody. I apologize my video is off because of my current location, the bandwidth apparently is not quite good enough. I'm on the road and traveling around between locations. Nevertheless, hopefully, you can see the screen with the slides on it. I had in mind to walk through the first handful of slides. And hopefully, they will answer perhaps some of the more obvious questions given recent transactions, and then we can answer questions. So on the screen, you've got -- this cover slide is a picture of the Tulu Kapi deposit. It's the hill in the middle. That's 1 million ounces is underneath that hill. What you see on the screen is a relatively quiet rural setting, which I suppose belies the publicized situation of Ethiopia, generally in the Western Media in particular, over the course of last year and perhaps, in particular, of course, to the last quarter, but I'll come to that shortly. Now the corporate overview is conveying a hell of a lot of information. I'll try to do it as exactly as possible for -- particularly for the people who may be new to the company because I understand there are some people on this call who are new to the company. The company started as a junior explorer and was listed in 2006, at the end of 2006, is, I think, around GBP 2 million listing of IPO via AIM. But over time, as it moved into development, planning and permitting, pure exploration was replaced by a focus on some developments and the other things one has to do to get development going on projects. It is now really quite a manager of fairly large joint ventures. The scale of the AIM listed parent doesn't really reflect that yet. But underneath the AIM is a parent that done some quite large joint ventures. And we're the manager of them and the shareholder in them, in one we own over 2/3 and in one we own a bit under 1/3, and we manage both. Both of them, one in Ethiopia, one in Saudi Arabia. We have very large influential local partners, one is the government of Ethiopia, and one is a very large Fortune 50 family office in Saudi Arabia and the other one. Now the -- of course, when focusing on trying to create value for shareholders and on a per share basis, it's a function of the numerator, what does one do with the assets or to the assets. And what does one do with the number of shares on issue. And in our case, if you just look at the table at the bottom, I won't go through every particular point here it'll take too long, but I'll just make a couple of highlight points. 18 months ago, the NPV over there only, project that [ I already ] mentioned from the point of view of putting any sort of intrinsic value numbers on it as compared to subjective assessments of exploration potential. The only one we could do that with at the time was to look at if it had permits -- if it had been permitted at reserves and have a completed feasibility study and so on. And it was at today's metal prices, we converted their older project into today's metal prices, so that one can sort of look at them as a like-for-like and ignoring price effects. So now what's changed from, say, 2020 to today. The share -- the company at the time had a project which was worth about GBP 114 million to us, to KEFI. Today, we have 3 projects that warrant these sorts of measurements of value because they're all now in advanced development planning stages, all 3 of them. And the 3 of them combined GBP 348 million to KEFI shareholders. So from the point of view of, let's call it the numerator in any value of assessments of the company, from a shareholders' viewpoint, if you like the numerator the value on the type of the equation has about tripled over the last 18 months. And obviously, the number of shares on issue has increased, and we'll get to that as we go through it. On a per share basis, today, we're at a very, let's call it, highly discounted end of the value spectrum and that one we would expect that those values on the stock market appreciate as we move through milestones. And obviously, there are a number of milestones that are quite important for the company, which we'll get to a bit later. I'll also point out on this slide, a reasonable turnover, share turnover for a company on AIM. And what else, the number of options and warrants on issue is under 10% of the total capital. So it's not really a large sort of swing factor in assessment of values. And the value -- what you call it the volume weighted price of those options and warrants is several times the share price today, so for them to be exercised. Everybody should have done quite well. I won't belabor any of those points any further. I just really wanted to highlight that we've gone from one asset, one asset company 18 months ago to a 3 development asset company today. Now Ethiopia, which has been our preoccupation really because it's the first cab off the rank for us and indeed, the first cab off the rank for Ethiopia, and we've had quite a number of frustrations and disappointments on the way through that process. But cut a long story short. We have a project, which is development ready [ but for ] what I would describe as the local has seen. And that Ethiopia started changing within 2 years of our entry into the country or for the better in the long term, a wonderful transformational move towards democracy and the feeling in the country of the majority of the population is overwhelmingly positive and optimistic. But nevertheless, it's been quite a ride, let me put it that way. Nevertheless the project finance syndicate for this project is a $356 million package, which KEFI only puts up less than 10% of it. And so there's a point to emphasize that KEFI shareholders are actually relying on the support of people who are putting up 90% of the capital. And therefore, as fiduciaries, the company is not at just a -- I feel like a fiduciary for KEFI shareholders and an operator of joint ventures, but also a fiduciary for the people who are putting our most of the capital. So we have to strike the correct balance of transparency and honoring our commitments to all these stakeholders. Otherwise, I won't put up most of the capital. The whole syndicate has hung in there with us, they're all African-experienced and some of them, particularly Ethiopian-experienced much more so than if I may say, the typical KEFI shareholder who is perhaps new to Ethiopia or perhaps some even new to African mining, I don't know. But nevertheless, they sort of ridden with it and just expected us to manage things carefully and properly and to keep them informed and to press the button when we all agree it's ready to go. This has been -- last year was quite a climactic year. I think that's obvious to anybody. You've probably seen a fair bit of publicity. I suspect -- It actually did come to a bit of a crescendo during the last quarter that we're reporting on here. And the climb -- what do you call it, the conflict has abated dramatically and the scene is quite set for a ceasefire and deals to get done, but that hasn't been done yet. Okay. I'll keep moving. South -- sorry, Saudi Arabia, Hawiah now is in terms of metal content. It's about double the size of the total company. And if we keep drilling, because it's still open, so this thing will turn out to be a lot bigger. And Jibal Qutman has come back on our radar. It was our first discovery and we were getting very excited about it a few years ago. But what we suppose, diplomatically called quagmire regulatory process at the time sort of stopped us and we thought we better sort of deemphasized the project and not put NPVs on it until we clarify all those things. But that's -- the environment in Saudi Arabia is clearly much for the better now, very pro-development and the granting of the Al Godeyer licenses to us next to Hawiah and the -- and noises that we should get our mining license clarified during this year now, 2022, at Jibal Qutman. Over in Saudi, the funding would be a lot simpler in many ways than it is for Ethiopia because Saudi Arabia is very stable, if I can put it that way. But also a very large, well-capitalized partner. So we're not really being relied onto bring capital to the table, we're just being relied on to bring technical expertise to the table. But to keep out their end, but our end is probably only 1/3 of the 1/4 of the total development requirement. So it's a very much more easily digestible, if you like, capital requirement. The development project, Slide 6. We've tabulated them there just for ease of reference, and they're all done at the metal price of 31 December. So that all you're really looking at is what has KEFI done to these assets. It's not what the price of the markets have done to the assets. But what has KEFI done to these assets or what has happened with these assets in KEFI's hands between the middle of 2020 and the end of '21. Well, on Tulu Kapi, it's gone up in value because we've had to rejig with the financing structure, but we've done so in a way which optimizes the position of KEFI shareholders, and that's increased the value to KEFI. Hawiah, it's a discovery. So it went from 0 to where it is today based on what we've just announced as its resource. And Jibal Qutman, we didn't present NPVs because we felt it was misleading to present and promote NPVs when there was a question mark against the license. But now that we've been given a positive encouragement to get into our planning again because it will come through, it should actually be presented again because it's live again. So you can see there from GBP 114 million in 2020, where we've gone to on the -- what do you call it, the numerator of asset values. The second last column on that table is what's happened to the shares on issue, and the last column is what happens to the NPV per share. And you can see there that it's doubled over an 18-month period. And notwithstanding displacing that we've just announced that it stays around double what it was 18 months ago just because of the changes in the numerator as well as the denominator. And down below, we still have various assumptions for anybody who wants to dig into it. This chart -- organization chart, Slide 7, is just summarizing the funding package and how it gets [ cost ] and who puts up what. And essentially, if you go right to the very bottom line, it says that as everyone else puts in their designated sums, it leaves about $29 million down in the bottom, if you like, for the last brick in the wall. And if one takes into account the internal cash generation during commissioning, and that would leave about $9 million to come in from KEFI. And then if you cast your mind and for those of you who are familiar with the placing we just announced, if you -- there's a warrant attached, it's quite deliberate. I think it's the first time we've ever issued a warrant with the placing and perhaps probably one of the very few times I've personally been involved with issuing a lot of our option with any capital issue. But we've done it partly really to fit into that box here because everything we do -- everything we do has to keep the syndicate together and has to demonstrate that KEFI will keep up its end, both in terms of providing the human resources and in providing and selling the capital resources. And that warrant -- on exercise of those warrants, it tips in the amount of money that's not designated to be generated internally. So the way in which that placing was structured was also an [indiscernible] to doing that. Actually, I'll pull up there. I don't -- I'm happy to elaborate on any directives or other things. So I don't want to chew up the whole time on presenting rather than answering questions. So I'll stop there, and hand over to the media to ask any questions.

Harry, thank you very much for your presentation. [Operator Instructions] I'd like to remind you that a recording of this presentation along with the slides and the published Q&A, can be accessed via investor dashboard. Harry, we received a number of presubmitted questions from investors, and I wanted to start off the Q&A session with these. The first one was just follows. You appointed Tavira as a broker, why the change? Is there a plan to spin off for Saudi assets on to an exchange in the Middle East?

The question about the broker is simply that the person who was heading the team that did our work at Brandon Hill switched to Tavira. So we switched with them. That's all of this. There's nothing profound about it, but they're the people who have looked after the company for some years, and we're just stuck with them. There is no plan to spin off Saudi assets. I mean we're not close-minded about anything, but there's just no plan to do so.

The following question is broken down into 3 themes. The first theme is share issues and the first question asks, what made you change your mind and raise funds before the Tulu Kapi financing completion at the very low price.

Well, essentially, we got snookered, I suppose, you could say. We since reported why and how. But the reported kidnapping that with sort of our personnel having been taken hostage. It was a very uncomfortable 2 months, we were in captivity. We weren't able to tell so publicly what was going on. We had to focus on protecting the people and it stalled us. We couldn't -- because we could until publicly what was going on, we couldn't do anything with capital raising or anything like that. . So it was sort of stuck. We were sort of stuck. And the financing of Tulu Kapi was stuck. Everything was stuck. And we just have to focus exclusively on making sure those people were return harmless with conditions meant that we weren't left with the legacy of concern for the future. Now we did handle it as it turns out with hindsight all very well, but we were stuck for some months. And I mean that's essentially that we had other timing in mind and that kidnapping couldn't have happened at a worst time from the point of view of stopping us in our tracks. And also going into balance date of 31 December, we can all look backwards now and look what's happened in the last month or 2. But back in September, in the middle of the kidnapping and then coming out of it in November, and this, what do you call it, the conflicts in Ethiopia going into a sort of a climax, it was considered prudent to derisk the balance sheet completely and get rid of its liabilities just to protect the company in case something went wrong or unexpectedly in Ethiopia. As it turns out, the conflicts -- the war has effectively ended unless something weird happens again, but the war has effectively ended. The conflicts have abated. And that looks like it's turning its corner for us. But of course, that's with hindsight, and we feel we had to take it on the chin and derisk the balance sheet. Now it's our own comfort to all of us as shareholders to know that it's barely affected the value per share after you take into account that all the value increase have achieved on the assets. But of course, it's it took away from us a possibility that we increased the value per share during that period. But I suppose to put a positive spin on it. We protected the project and protected our people and then we protected our balance sheet. And we've protected our value per share through what was a very challenging period.

Thank you. The next question asked, what is your personal share price expectation at the moment? And when is the first gold being sold?

I think the fairest way to answer about personal expectations is just to say that when you look at any benchmarking of companies like this that are going to development is a very strong body of statistical evidence to say that as you come into production they traded around or a bit better than NPV. If the NPV today is 12p, it will be higher than that when the first one comes into production just because of the passage of time and all the money will have been spent by then. So it will be up in the high teens. And of course, that ignores the fact that we expect our resources to keep growing and the value to keep increasing. So the best way to answer it is that NPV is what we target and NPV should be bigger than what it is today. The first gold would be around the end of 2023, at Tulu Kapi.

Now turning on to the next question. What do you have to say to the long-term shareholders who invested in KEFI after any of your previous presentations and have since seen their holdings slightly dive without the benefit of lower and lower option and more on guarantees, warrant issue, sorry.

So questions about why can't everybody get warrants and options. Well, the incentive options per se are obviously for people involved with the management and the -- they've done for specific reasons under a scheme that's being approved and well publicized in the past and presented to shareholders. The warrants, as I said earlier, specifically, constructed to bring in capital for the Tulu Kapi financing. They're not just sort of issued as a sort of a benefit or something that's not the way we look at them. Their issue is an instrument to bring in capital at the funding requirement. So we haven't sort of looked at it that way. The question is sort of looking at them as sort of benefits that the incentive options are only worth something if the value of the company is well above where it is today and the warrants only worth something would likewise and also bringing the capital for the development to Tulu Kapi.

Why do you keep diluting the company's share of the Saudi Arabian joint venture when it looks to be a huge opportunity, we are giving away a share of billions for the cost of trillion.

Well, therein lies the dilemma. You can't have a share of something unless you put up some money. And so our job is to find the balance between putting up -- asking shareholders of KEFI for capital to keep a share in Saudi Arabia, you sort of can't have it both ways. So what we started -- the biggest, how to put it, philosophical policy decision that was made on Saudi Arabia was when we went into it in 2008. And we decided upfront that better to have a minority stake in a giant pie as we were convinced that there would be huge discoveries in Saudi Arabia, and we thought we could ever crack it being one of the ones making those discoveries. And so we took that on the chin up front. And even though there's been terribly frustrating delays in Saudi Arabia, much worse. And in Ethiopia, even although it might seem hard to believe at the moment, but the fact of the matter is that we've allowed ourselves to be diluted from 40% down to near 30% because we judged at the time that it was appropriate not to ask shareholders for that extra piece of money. But we have to stand our corner going forward because we really don't want to keep diluting for the reason that the questioner said. And now that -- 18 months ago, we didn't have a discovery that was live for development. And today, we have 2. So it's changed the complexion, hasn't it? 18 months ago, probably the question wouldn't have been asked and today, the question is asked with the benefit of hindsight. So I agree with the questioner now, but we didn't know that 18 months ago, did we?

The next question, do shareholders have to expect another new share placing during 2022, 2023? Was the financing secured yet?

Well, again, I just want to -- I don't like to mislead. The fact of the matter is we are an exploration development company. And until there's production cash flows, the only capital that comes into the company itself is from shareholders. And we're fortunate that we have people who advance capital to us to sort of try to optimize those moments sort of asking capital from shareholders. But at the end of the day, the shareholders have to put up the capital for us to get into production. And the way that I presented with our slides, with that chart, it showed you very clearly what we're aiming to do with Tulu Kapi, and the bottom line number of $29 million, of which $9 million to come in from shareholders. If we can achieve that, I mean, I think that would be a fantastic achievement. I don't know what the question of things. But I think that if someone can achieve that, it would be a fantastic achievement. And that's our objective. And the warrant that was attached to the placing we've announced is designed to bring in that amount of money. So I think that answers the question.

The next question asked is about the recent fund raise and why existing investors were not giving the opportunity to avoid dilution with an offer?

Yeah, well I -- I was -- matter of -- that was a great disappointment to me because we really did want to do that. And the idea of this thing called primary bid was sort of appealing philosophically to us, but we bumped into the fact that having designed it to have a warrant or a half warrant attached for the reasons I've explained. We then bumped into the fact that the stock exchange doesn't allow a primary bid offering to be made if there's a warrant attached. So that put the kibosh on that. But I certainly not trying to prevent any shareholder participating, but it's very, very difficult to provide retail shareholders as compared to institutional professional investors as defined by the stock exchange to participate in capital raising. But we'll keep trying.

The next question asks, why did the directors consider the granting of warrants over shares that were granted in place of salary to be fair?

Well, I can tell you, the syndicate at least, I'm not sure what the majority of shareholders feel. But the syndicate, I'm pretty encouraged and confident by the fact that senior management get paid in shares instead of being paid in cash, and that they're prepared to do that, if you put their money with where their mouth was type of thing. I won't bring granted option warrant into salary, the placing terms were defined, as I said earlier, to be -- to close the financing with the market, the mid-market set the terms and to have an eye to the structure to look at financing. And the management -- any management that was prepared to take payment in shares and warrants attached was just really just accepting whatever the market has dictated the terms to be, it wasn't the management dictating the terms. So there, I think that answers it.

That's great. Now turning to the next theme, which deals with the Tulu Kapi financing and mining license where the first question asks, is the Tulu Kapi financing likely to be completed before the state of emergency ends in Ethiopia? If not, is that [ soon ] enough for the minister of mines?

The state of emergency is until May. And it might be worth just explaining what that means to for people who may not be familiar. But what it does is, I mean, I was pleased from the point -- I knew we were perhaps horrified distant observers to hear that there was a state of emergency, but I was one of the people on the ground in Ethiopia for most of last year. I'm staying very close to everything. I was pleased when the state of emergency was declared because what it did was to give certain powers to the governments to maintain law and order in a more effective way, and that was a good thing. And it's been declared until May. And you might have noticed in our announcements, we've said that we expect the closing to be within the window of February to May, targeting March. And because we don't drive these events, we don't drive the security events that's seen around us. We can only drive what we do about them for ourselves. But we've maintained the syndicate and we're focused on that window. So it's not necessarily that the state of emergency has to end, but it has -- the whole scene has to keep turning. It's already started to turn for the better. So that -- there's a ceasefire and independence sign off that the security is in order on our traffic routes and around the site and insurance -- normal insurance for construction and transport logistics is available. There is a standard procedures and requirements for any project finance transaction. And the Minister acknowledges that may not see that in his public statements, but privately he is not unfamiliar with the fact that sort of can't hold a gun to a bank's head and say send in 140 million and all the equity, send in 200 million regardless of whatever is going on around the site, you just can't do that. So what the minister is looking for is not us to have triggered the project by the end of January. He's just looking to make sure that our syndicate is in there, is committed, subject to those normal conditions, as I've just stated because that's all he can ask for and that's all he has asked for.

That's great. Moving on to the next question. Is the national security in Ethiopia good enough currently for a financial close to happen so that the TK Mine project can finally enter development?

Right now, it's not good enough because the conflict has only really just abated. If you're following closely enough, you'd know that a big pushback of these rebel forces only commenced in November, and it appears to have succeeded by the end of December. And then there were some very important diplomatic initiatives only in the last few days around Ethiopian Christmas, which is only 2 days ago. So it's all hot stuff. It's a hot topic. It's certainly looking extremely encouraging. And I know -- I want a new tie around our site around our people, around various other things, which all -- which reinforces the fact it's extremely encouraging. But it has to go from being encouraging to actually settling down into a ceasefire. And what I said earlier, an independent sign-off that's not just our opinion or a government opinion or a minister's opinion but independent security specialists saying, your routes are fine, your sites fine, your procedures are fine, your teams in place. Insurance companies, underwriters saying you can have the construction insurance and logistics insurance at this price now and so on. It's just straight up project finance management and I think that defining the window is February to May is still reasonable. It's what we had in the current circumstances of what we had in our minds, and we set that sort of framework up for timetable management. But it has to keep getting there, if you know what I'm trying to say, in order to be ready. It's getting there, but it has to get there.

Next question we've got for you here, Harry, is the Ministry of Mines given a deadline of the end of January 2022 for the funding of Tulu Kapi mine might be signed off. Have this date given by the Ministry of Mines changed with the Tigray conflict? Or does it still have to be completed so the license is not revoked after the January 31, 2022?

Sorry, I left my phone on in case I have to dial in by phone, but someone keeps ringing. I think I've more or less covered that already, but just to make sure because it's a very important question. The Minister is not expecting financing to be closed at the end of January. He just wants to make sure these banks are -- the banks in particular, he knows that the rest of the syndicate flows around the banking in particular. The banks are the toughest sort of guys. And so he just wants to make sure the banks are still there and without in any way being disrespectful of anyone in the government. They've been under intense pressure. This is the largest export generator plant for the country at the moment. So he's under intense pressure to get this show on the road. But our license is in good standing. It's solid. We've done nothing wrong ever. And whatever the political pressure is to proceed, we'll just do the right thing. And the banks have been in the country, explaining exactly what they need to release funds. And I don't believe anybody being unreasonable about it. They've been going there of their own volition. Nobody forced them to go there in the middle of all that conflict, they still went there to explain and give comfort. So I think that the legal position is crystal clear, and the political pressure is understandable and our demeanor as a company, I think, is perfectly reasonable. It's not a negotiation. We just have to be disciplined and reasonable about it and explain ourselves to everybody. Unfortunately, some of the messaging has been by media messaging, which hasn't exactly helped. We're in a position to conduct negotiation or communications via the media. So that hasn't helped and has confused shareholders, but these are the facts that I've just stated.

The next question reads as follows. What progress has been made in the last few months regarding project financing? Have you converted the remaining 37% of funding sources that were yet to give conditional approvals?

Yes, they are sitting there. The lead bank has gone through their credit approvals. The support bank has said, we'll move when the situation is ready. The lead equity investor has given his conditional approval, the support equity investors said we'll will move when they sign-off. So they're all basically, they've all hang in there. The question is what progress has been made. We've maintained a syndicate despite a civil war and a kidnapping and that's a critical point, number one. Frankly, if they hadn't been held up -- if they've been the bond people that we had in place a couple of years ago, they would have probably run for the hills during the last 12 months. But we've got a syndicate that just stayed steady and firm. And so one of the costs of all the chopping and changing of Ethiopian politics in the last few years has been delays, but one of the benefits has been that we've ended up with a syndicate or sort of get it or understand it. And so they've all hang in there, which is to me the most important thing. But at the same time, any technical issues, legal due diligence and more importantly, the detailed agreements with the -- there's probably about 10 different agreements with different government agencies. And it sounds perhaps hard to believe, but it's an incredibly detailed work, and it's the first major development of this nature that the government has done for 30 years. So everything seems to take the government agencies a lot longer because they aren't familiar with it. So we've been nailing those things down, taking the time to do that. Again, very collegiate, very collaborative. But again, we have to be clear that money, people and capital cannot flow unless all standard conditions are complied with. And it's just unfortunately, the cost of not -- if KEFI shareholders wanted to put out a $350 million and not rely on banks and all these risk-mitigating measures, then KEFI could have done that. But that's not what we've done. We've set out to raise the capital in the classic project financing structure. It's quite normal and we need all those things to be tied down and so far as the last few months has been concerned. Frankly, we had a big scare. That was a big fight to have gone through the last 4, 5 months. And we came out of it all intact and preserving the safety of all our people, no ongoing conditions as a result of the kidnapping. In fact, the kidnappers have since surrendered. And the government, I believe, is understanding that we are serious and are just trying to do things properly. And the Saudi side has come through terrifically. And as a result of that, we appear to have preserve the value on a per share basis, 10 to 15x the current share price. So I hope that doesn't crash, but that's what we've achieved in the last few months.

Now turning on to the next theme, which is Saudi Arabia. The first question, reads as follows. In August, you mentioned the case for a potential 30,000 ounce heap leach gold operation, but we haven't heard anything since. How likely is this coming to fruition?

Well, that's the Jibal Qutman. That's the Jibal Qutman announcement we made, which is that -- which is why we brought that project back up onto the center stage alongside the other 2 that Jibal Qutman was a string of discoveries in a like string of pearls, a lot of little potential pits. And we stopped at around 730-odd thousand ounces as a major resource. And we did some metallurgical testing to confirm we could expect to recover the oxides with our heap leach. And then we submitted the mining license to put our foot on tenure and make sure it's early in order and that's indeed a good thing we had done so because we discovered these problems with the tenure and they have taken all this time since then to have rectified. So yes, we've announced that, that project is back on the books again and looking pretty positive. And the answer is -- if the question really is, will you develop Jibal Qutman quickly, do you have cash flow going quickly, then I think the answer is, yes. We will add another team to get that going quickly because it's a relatively small capital investment to get that cash flow going and by the same token proving up that Hawiah now is -- a large part of it is now open pitable. It's the same thing. That has the Hawiah economic model has probably dropped $100 million of its capital requirements to get going because it can get going as an open pit. So whatever prompted that question, I'm all the way with it to get these open pits going quickly.

That was great. The next question we have here relates to Al Godeyer. And if you could give some early indications of the potential from this license.

Well, it's only, 212 kilometers from Hawiah, so it's a satellite deposit in that sense. So the plant can -- it looks the same type of geology minerality from the little work we've done. We've done quite a lot of surface sampling under reconnaissance license. We've got some good numbers out of all of that, but we can see it's very similar to Hawiah. But we've done the drilling. So whatever I say is highly conjectural. But superficially is sort of zero chance it's just not worth something. And there's a high probability that it's sort of a twin or a baby twin or whatever of Hawiah. It's going to add metal to Hawiah. It will make Hawiah bigger than it otherwise would be. So how big, I don't know. But Hawiah is already sort of doubled. I think we said earlier that at gold ounce equivalent to Tulu Kapi and our model is about 1.2 million ounces, and Hawiah is about 2.2-some million ounces of gold equivalent. It'd be very easy to sort of speculate that it might increase another 50% or double again, but who knows? But clearly, Al Godeyer is a very important exploration license for us because it complements and scales up Hawiah. And so Hawiah will keep growing for the foreseeable future. No question.

The next question is in relation to the ARTAR relationship in Saudi and what's their mining ambitions in the region? And how is KEFI's relationship then developing?

Well, we've been in the joint venture since 2008, and we know each other very well. Without speaking out of school, I think they're very comfortable with what we're doing as the operating partner. I think their only concerns would be that can little KEFI and it's -- and the small listed company on AIM really keep up with the big boys game. That's -- that would be their natural concern. So they want to see KEFI develop and grow and prosper so that KEFI can keep up its end and not just the little company on AIM that sort of scrounges money together from drill hole to drill hole. They want to see us to develop our multi-mine operation, and they're very comfortable with our management. And I just want to say that this the structure via AIM listings is actually feasible to make sure they're comfortable as the partner. But I think it's so far as the relationship is concerned, no problem there at all.

That's great. The final pre-submitted questions asked, what's the minimum share of the Saudi Arabian joint venture that you're willing to dilute to fund the drilling?

Well, it's not a company policy, but just in my personal view, as I said earlier, we accepted our front 60-40 with us being 40%. I think I'd feel uncomfortable below 30%, and I wish it was still 40%. But I do think that taking all the risk on stabilities of the operating power and seeing that we've now good assets there that are moving ahead in leaps and bounds at last with the regulatory regime having really turned under the front foot. We would be pretty silly, wouldn't it, to dilute below 30%. But it's the old dilemma, again, we as shareholders can't expect to keep up. And as we put up some money as well, and so we just have to find the right balance, but I wouldn't like to go below 30%.

Thank you very much. As you can see, we have received a number of questions today, and thank you to all the investors for submitting their questions. Could I please ask you to open up the Q&A tab to read out the question and then you can give response where appropriate to do so, and I'll pick up from you at the end.

I'll skip over anyone -- any questions that seem to be repeat, so I don't take everyone's time. One question. One question is, why was the updated MRE for Hawiah issued after rather than before the recent share placing? Well, I wish it was issued before, but it wasn't ready before. And I wish we had -- I wish we didn't have to deal with kidnapping and situations in Ethiopia. But the Board felt on balance that we really don't need to derisk the balance sheet, as we're say earlier. But I mean, looking forward, it's some constellation that the value per share hasn't really gone down just because of what's happened to the assets and the value of Hawiah and our growth on these assets generally will continue. So it should actually start going up further. But the main point today, frankly, isn't the dilution from 13p per share to 12p per share. That's really almost immaterial. The real question to an investor today is should one buy shares at 0.8 of a p when the NPV is 12p. That's the real question, not whether it's gone from 13p to 12p, if I may say. Another question is, why is Tulu Kapi still a copy commissioning now '24? Well, it's a 2-year thing. It's a 2-year build. That's as simple as that. If you start today, it's 2 years until you start production. So we will have started commissioning at the end of '23, and the construction people are incentivized to do it earlier, but it's not reasonable to assume that it will be achieved, that's a 2-year build. Another question is, do you plan to fund Jibal and Hawiah or another large share placement at the end of next year? Yes, it's another question saying, "Can you build these mines, please, but don't raise any money basically is what you're asking, I think. The -- there's a fundamental problem here. I know it's terribly disappointing. And I'm the first one to be disappointed and kind of truly have disappointed my family is that basically, we've just sunk and anything, that all my time for the last 6 years since I came as an executive has just been better on KEFI. And they're sitting in other countries and never see me. And so it's the frustration by the executive is you know whether you believe it or not is no less or it could be a lot higher than the frustration of shareholders. But we just -- we're managers who will just keep putting runs on the board as best we can of building value, which we've talked about today withstanding several wars, which we've talked about today. We are in frontier markets, which have issues and we talked about that today. And in so far as raising capital to go into mining, if the equation ahead of us for Saudi Arabia is not palatable to KEFI, then we should get out of the industry because the Hawiah and Jibal Qutman joint venture relationship is such that the joint venture partner is completely reliable to put up his 70-odd percent, and there's no shortage of debt capital in the country of Saudi Arabia to put up at 75% or whatever of the total project costs. So KEFI would have to put up 30% or 25%. Now if KEFI is not prepared to put up 25% or 30% of capital to develop the mine that it spends years to discover, then we really shouldn't be in this industry. And you can criticize management for maybe not promoting more or promoting better or whatever. But the fundamental decision of a company to go into exploration and development is to find things and then to develop them or to sell them to someone else who can develop them. And the way we've set up this structure, we should be capable of developing them to reap the rewards for the shareholders. But what really needs to happen is to close the gap between the share price and these NPVs. It's not -- the financing itself isn't problem, otherwise, we shouldn't be in the industry. As I say, for -- I haven't checked the numbers that the question was quoted here, but work it out. If it's -- if Hawiah has come down to $160-odd-million say, and work out what 30% or 25% of that is, we can't put up about 30% or 25% of $160 million to develop Hawiah, well then we should give it away, give the game away. It's just not -- it would be very ridiculous, I think. Probably not the answer you'd like to hear, but it's what I believe. The question is, with Hawiah now being proven to be an economic deposit, why have you now decided to continue to drill? It is now looking like Hawiah's delayed by more than a year, why keep drilling? That's not true. We only discovered it. We just declared a maiden resource in August 2020, I think. This is as fast as it gets in the mining sector. I absolutely guarantee you. We're looking to submit a mining license during 2022. And you have to keep drilling to upgrade it to a reserve category. We've got an indicated resource now in part of it, which is great. But we have to keep drilling to infill it out. to get it up to indicated and then reserves for the lot. So there's a sequence here and a fast track is what we're targeting, and the fast track is that we will be developing this around the time Tulu Kapi starts, and that's a pretty fast track to get our discovery in 2020 to start up of the development within 4 years and then being, what do you call it, production within 18 months of that. That's a pretty fast track. So I can see the time is slipping by and it's another question from the same person, same person has asked 3 more questions. I'll just -- I'll go back in if I can, but I'll just see what anyone else has asked. What's being put in place to avoid any more kidnapping of any more employees? It's not -- I mean I can only be generic about it. But all I can say is that they're released unharmed with the only condition being we didn't name the kidnappers, and the kidnappers has since surrendered. And there's been the upgrading of security protocols and systems and teams for that was planned with project launch and the people that were kidnapped were part of the inspection teams going around planning all of that. And unfortunately, they got kidnapped. And so we've had to bring forward a whole bunch of things that would have been launched at project launch to make sure that it doesn't happen, whether there's a project launch or not, but we've done all of that. But I have to leave it fairly generically for security reasons. The next question is on the PFS stay for Hawiah has lift from H1 '22 to H2 '22 in November's -- still a long question. So given your current business plan being an explorer and not a producer? We're not an explorer rather than a producer. The company was launched as an exploration company. The exploration team leader stepped down to allow to go into the development and financing. He's still around to advise parting step down 6 years ago, so it would go into development and permitting and financing. So we're not aiming to be an explorer, but quite the contrary. If you look at the CVs, if you like, of the people on the Board, it's in that slide show. And the people in the senior executives, they're not the classic explorers, the classic builder operators. And so all I can say is that the average in the world globally of -- from the first successful discovery hole to production used to be about 15 years. But today, I'm told it's crept up to around 20 years, but I haven't seen the stats myself. So -- and it's usually because of things not to do with technical stuff, that's easier to do with things like we've been dealing with. And even in Australia, now it can take longer than Ethiopia or Saudi Arabia, even though it's such a mature mining jurisdiction, but now getting exploration permits around the environmental side and development permits around the environmental side in Australia can take 5 or 6 years. So our time lines are not driven by being an explorer and wanting to carry on exploring. Our timelines are driven by wanting to get into production as soon as possible. It's as simple as it is. We're trying to get into production as soon as possible. We don't want to be an explorer. We want to be a profit maker. And I think in the slide show today, we summarized that we see ourselves as $200 million EBITDA within a few years based on about half from Ethiopia and half from Saudi Arabia. We've laid that out into quarterly in today's presentation. That's what -- that's how we see ourselves as the operator of production units with a pipeline of exploration around them. There's some questions questioning that CapEx has gone down at Hawiah, We used to say $220 million, now we're saying lower. It's because of the open pit. We used to say -- but don't hold us to this because we only just published an upgraded resource days ago. So we haven't actually done all these numbers carefully enough yet to be held to account on CapEx estimates until we do the work properly. But clearly, by starting with an open pit, we can pull the CapEx down at Hawiah to get going with and do the rest of it during production from the open pit. And so that's what we're doing. Are KEFI -- are ARTAR, [indiscernible] and KEFI needing to get [indiscernible] build and generating revenues as a prerequisite of the Hawiah mine being funded and built. We've never said that it's superior. ARTAR knows about us very well. As I say, we've been partners for -- since 2008. They selected KEFI from a beauty parade of a lot of other companies. They know exactly what we're up to, but we would never stand in the way of development in Saudi Arabia for the sake of development in Ethiopia OP, we will do whatever each of these projects warrants. When are you selling off something like Hawiah -- this one says answer the question, Harry. And the question is, when are you selling off something like Hawiah? Well, I don't plan to so I'm not sure why that's the question. Another is, there's another one saying it will deliver more shareholder value. So I think these people are saying, discover things and sell them. We're not interested in developing, I suppose what these people are saying. Well, that's a matter of conjecture and opinion. Those 2 or 3 last questions on my list here were really from people who just want us to sell something to make some money quickly and never have to raise money again, I think is where they're coming from. I think I've answered all the questions I see in front of me.

Thanks, Harry. You've been very generous of your time. I think you've addressed all the questions you can. And of course, the company will review all of the questions submitted today. Just before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to the company, can I ask for a few closing comments?

Well, I think that it's -- I don't want to dramatize, I suppose, what the company has been through the last 4 or 5 months, but it was quite testing. And maybe it's some comfort to shareholders to realize that the -- not only were the syndicate of partners in Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia, and bankers who deal with this around Ethiopia and contractors, not only were they, let's say, at ease with our handling of the circumstances. But they were comforted on our disciplined approach. I think it's important to say that to shareholders. I know it's frustrating that there were delays again but I think it's all simple and to realize that when you're putting people and hundreds of millions of dollars of capital to work. It has to be got right to allow those things to flow. And I think we -- from my point of view measuring up as a company to develop a number of mines. We stood the test of that crisis management for one of the better expression. Secondly, I would say that the Ethiopian situation has turned. I personally was really quite shocked at the Western coverage, Western media coverage of Ethiopian conflict are staggered. I was in Ethiopia for most of last year, watching that coverage and looking around me what was going on internally. And I'm very, very personally very supportive of the Ethiopian people wanting democracy and not wanting single ethnic group to rule the country, and I was staggered really the way international politics was beating the country up. And I'm really pleased personally I probably shouldn't say politically motivated or not motivated politically, or make political commentary. But I'm really pleased that the country is preserved with its sovereignty and it's -- and the people are winning, the democracy is winning, which I think is fantastic, and it's calm down. And I think it will go like a rocket. And it's -- and it will settle down very quickly, I believe, now. And Ethiopia has been the top 10 growth countries of the world until last year for 20 years running. So I believe it will go like a rocket again and we'll forget all this 2021 period quite quickly, I hope. So I feel very optimistic about Ethiopia now. And 2 years ago, we didn't have a discovery -- we only had 1 discovery in Saudi Arabia, and it was a dormant thing because licensing was stuck. And today, it's the best thing since last [ break ] and everyone wants us to drop Ethiopia and get on to Saudi Arabia. Two years time, it might be the opposite, I don't know. But if you're dealing in frontier markets, unfortunately, it's testing at times. And one of them will shoot ahead and the other one will fell behind and so on and so forth. So I personally would think if we can set this company up to prosper in the Arabian shield with strong foundations with a foot in at least 2 jurisdictions that cover each other and support each other. I think it'll be much more powerful company. But we may well sell something here or there, I don't know. But it depends on the opportunities and our partners are commercially minded. But at the moment, there's so much value to be built in these projects that we just got our noses to the [ wheel ]. So I feel that we've had a tough time in the last year in particular, shareholders and the company as a whole. And I feel that we're a much stronger company now and probably cheaper then we've ever been from a point of view of someone who looks at the shares, but I hope that's useful. Thank you.

Harry, thank you again for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete and I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of KEFI Gold and Copper Plc, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you all.