Star Diamond Corporation (RIO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you, everyone, for joining, and welcome to Star Diamond's live event hosted by 6. I'm pleased to introduce our speakers for today, Ewan Mason, Interim CEO; and George Read, Senior VP of Corporate Development. They will be discussing yesterday's press release. And afterwards, we will be answering questions so you can submit your questions from the chat at any point during the conversation. As always, the summit is being recorded and will be available on six.com, to watch afterwards. So without further ado, I'll hand things over to you to Ewan to start and kick things off.

Great. Thanks, Kyle, and thank you to all and good day for joining us today on this presentation where we're going to explain to you where we've gotten to through a very long complicated process. I think, though, it's important for the new shareholders that we explain just what we are briefly before we get into that, I'm going to hand that over to George.

Thank you, Ewan. We'll go to the next slide. Thank you very much. So Star is to acquire 100% interest in the claims covering the Fort à la Corne kimberlites. You can see the extent of the claims or mineral dispositions as they're referred to in Saskatchewan. It is in Central Saskatchewan in the Fort à la Corne forest, some 60 kilometers to the east of the town of Prince Albert which has a population of about 35,000 people. It is a very large contiguous diamond-bearing kimberlites -- cluster of kimberlites that host very attractive diamonds. These diamonds notably have a coarse-sized frequency distribution. We can expect to see some very big stones from these deposits. They also have an unusually high proportion of Type 2A diamonds, which frequently manifest themselves as very large gin and tonic white stones. The Star Orion South Diamond project is highlighted in the 2 blue kimberlites at the southeast end of that train of kimberlites. There are more than 60 additional bodies. Many have had work done on them. All of them have been drilled. A number of them contain appreciable diamond contents and most notably in the Orion north kimberlites so that's north of Star Orion South, there are some kimberlites that have very high proportions of Type 2A diamonds. The project is 20 kilometers of paved highway and the similar distance of the Saskatchewan power grid. So a future mine will have a great benefit of being connected to grid power and have the opportunity to electrify almost all of its equipment. Much of that power is generated by hydroelectric facilities at some 50 kilometers away at Nipawin. There are 2 hydro dams there. There are still some coal credits in the Saskatchewan power grid. So we must be honest about that. But certainly, we will be deriving our energy source predominantly from hydroelectric power. We have a great access to a pool of skilled labor. Many people from this district have worked on uranium mines in the North and oil and gas projects in Alberta. Remarkably, this project has been received both federal and provincial environmental approval. A lot of work went into that in the past. There will be a few updates required, but the project is in very good standing. Thank you, Ewan.

Okay. Great, George. So as most of you know, we have been involved in this process with Rio Tinto for about a year to try and recover this project. and we are happy to announce that we have done so. And it took so long because it's a very complex exercise. So we're going to get a 75% interest in the project back from Rio Tinto, which will give us 100%. Rio Tinto has also agreed to give us CAD 4 million in cash to help with transaction costs of transferring properties, et cetera, as well. And most importantly, they are providing a $10 million bond for reclamation and that will be in the way of a letter of credit for a period of 5 years. In addition to that, we have also been given the Bulk Sample Plant and the power trench cutter. And these 2 items are almost brand new. If you added up the cost of creating these pieces of machinery and the supplies that we get with them and molding them, that's about $100 million value right there. And at this point in time, we're thinking about many different uses for both of these. But clearly, the trench cutter is -- it will be good for taking a look at other sample sites. It really even had envisaged the possibility of mining with the trench cutter machine. So there's lots to look at in the Bulk Sample Plant. We can toll run other people's heavy samples and stuff like that. So it's good to have it. And as we've always said, we haven't even dusted the top of the Fort à la Corne kimberlites. I mean Orion North looks to me to be an incredible kimberlite pipe with large carat stones greater than 60% Type 2A, and we really haven't even looked at that. So lots of places to go, but first and foremost, we're going to be working on the feasibility study. Next slide, please. So as I mentioned, we did get the Bulk Sample Plant and the trench cutter as well as containers full of supplies and ancillary equipment. We're also going to get all of the technical data and all the buildup material. So Bulk Sample results, pit modeling studies, mining methodologies, geochem data, the Orion North drill results and, of course, we've been twigged by this concept of carbon capture studies on kimberlite, and we'll talk more about that later. Next slide. So RTEC will get up to 19.9% in Stars and equity interest in exchange for this. They own just over 2% right now, so you can do the math on that. They will have the right to maintain this equity interest going forward in future financings. And they will also have the right to increase their ownership above the 19.9% threshold in the event that Star agrees to an acquisition proposal. And of course, Rio will be released from their obligations under the December 2021 joint venture agreement. Next slide. So I want to hand over to George right now to give you a little bit of a sense of where we're going here. We'll talk about it in more detail later.

Thank you, Ewan. The focus of this work that I'm discussing now will be predominantly on the Star Orion South diamond project, on which extensive work has been conducted. We were -- we initially started out evaluating Star. We collected a very large parcel of diamonds from large diameter drilling and underground bulk sample extensive underground bulk sampling on Star, some 75,000 tonnes were taken out from the underground, and we recovered in total, about 15,000 carats from Star and we then translated that methodology to Orion South. Unfortunately, while we were busy with Orion South, we were working on the underground and the large diameter drilling, we were impacted by the world financial crisis. And the parcel on Orion South is not as big for evaluation as it was on Star. So we need to -- since April of this year, we've been actively working towards reducing the risk in the diamond price estimate on Star. We have some very good methodologies up our sleeve, and we aim to improve the risk tolerance or mitigate the risk on the Orion South diamond price, even though there's this smaller evaluation sample without the necessity to do extensive or additional large diameter drilling or underground bulk sampling. In other words, greatly reducing the costs that would lead to a revised mineral resource and an updated feasibility study. So we aim to publish a revised resource. We aim to get that done by the end of the first quarter of 2024. We have a lot of that work in place. We do need to integrate the trench cutter diamond data into that model. There is a very good opportunity in there to strengthen the grade, particularly at the lower size fraction end. Rio Tinto's plant, as you saw in the previous pictures, is a very much a state-of-the-art plant using the best technology high-pressure grinding role that ensures very good liberation of small diamonds. And it also has a TOMRA XRT sorter, which ensures the recovery of large diamonds without breaking them and ensures perfect diamond recovery. The dense media separator in that plant runs in a very narrow size range, 1 to 6 millimeters and is highly efficient in recovering, particularly these small diamonds. We then would proceed with the pre-feasibility study that would be rolled into a feasibility study as soon as we had sufficient confidence to take that step. As you can see, we have -- since 1996 to 2022, we have completed very extensive work, both with Star and then lately with Rio Tinto, extensive core drilling, large diameter drilling, underground bulk sampling, which gave us a very good idea of the kimberlites size, shape and internal structure. It gave us a diamond grade distribution across the kimberlite and in the vertical. And then the underground bulk sampling gives us a very good idea on the run-of-mine diamond price for the individual units within Star and Orion South. We then have to integrate all that information into a geological model and then that will allow us to estimate a mineral resource estimate that we would form the new foundation of a pre-feasibility study that we would want to advance into probably already as soon as we can afford to do so in the early next year. So it would be an updated feasibility -- pre-feasibility study leading into a feasibility study, tonnes, grade, carats, a reserve estimate, a mine plan, capital cost, economic model, life of mine and then ultimately, net present value and internal rate of return. Thank you, Ewan.

Thanks, George. And we will be commenting further on these plans in the coming days. So we're going to do things differently now as we move forward. I really do think that we need to engender participation of local community in building this mine and that includes indigenous peoples as well as local civic communities and the government and financial investors. As I've said before, we are not interested in a mining company as a partner. If you want to build this mine, you can buy us. But given our experience with the bracket of expenditures, we simply are not interested in that sort of arrangement again. Next slide. So as we move this forward, we are cognizant of changing landscape of mine development and production in this country. And we're going to follow all these regulations, and we hope to be leaders in some of them. We're going to have enhanced environmental performance. And we're going to use hydroelectricity with a low carbon footprint. We're going to talk more in the coming days about how we're going to do that. And essentially, this project has Canadian diamonds, Conflict Free Canadian diamonds. Canada is, I think, the third largest diamond producer in the world right now. Within 3 years, we're going to the bottom of the heap because all these mines are shutting down. Our kimberlite pipes have great quality diamonds and in abundance and it's such that it's almost like endless mining if we can get this approved and move forward. Next slide. So you might ask what do Star Diamond look like after this deal closes? Well, Rio Tinto is going to own 19.9% and Newmont will be at 12.2% based on current ownership positions. Next slide. George?

So we also have a 50% interest in a project, the Buffalo Hills joint venture with Canterra Minerals in Alberta. And there have been many kimberlites discovered there in the past. Some of those have diamonds. Some of those have very interesting diamonds with both high values and a proportion of Type 2A stones as well as uniquely some yellow diamonds, which also exist at Star Orion South we should add. And so there is opportunity at Buffalo Hills to work with our joint venture partner and draw focus on this area. It is also ultimately road accessible. And one of the unique advantages in the Buffalo Hills is, as you can see in the picture on the right there, the geologist standing in an open pit, which has excavated Kimberlite right at surface. So there are huge opportunities still in this Buffalo Hills joint venture for accessing and proving resources in the future. So we can say we have an excellent location, geology and economics. And we're advancing the world's largest and most attractive diamond development project, a very large long-life mine. Our preliminary economic assessment says 66 million carats can be mined over 38 year mine life, very good geology, continuous kimberlites that span tens of kilometers, attractive economics, $2 billion NPV with a 19% IRR in the base case. 3.4-year payback period is very, very quick. Once you get mining and you get into producing diamonds, it's a low-risk jurisdiction in Saskatchewan, Canada, near existing power and transportation infrastructure, obviously are extremely advantageous. Many of the people that work on a project in the future would probably live at home and commute to the project on a daily basis. It is fully permitted in terms of federal and provincial environmental permits. The revised mineral resource estimate will proceed as soon as we can, and we aim to get it finished before the end of the second quarter next year. Updated feasibility study will follow and will run concurrently with that work and be built on the output of the revised mineral resource.

Well, great. Thanks, George. That's what we have for you today. There'll be more in coming days, but we're happy to take your questions now.

Thank you, gentlemen, and for everyone in attendance today. Just as a reminder, you can submit your questions in the bottom right corner of your screen. I'm going to share on my screen. So just let me look at the question or the chat right now, right off the hop, Brett saying congratulations on completing this agreement and getting the project moving forward. How would Rio increase their share ownership if there were future raises or if there was a buyout of Star. Would they purchase at market price or some predetermined price? Is there a limit to how much they can increase their ownership of Star?

Well, first thing I would say is there is a standstill clause, which does not allow Rio Tinto to exceed 19.9% ownership in the next 2 years. They are allowed to follow their money if we do an equity raise and there's a process for that, which is -- it's on paper. It just has to be followed. In terms of increasing their ownership above 19.9% within the next 2 years, if we receive an acquisition proposal, Rio is allowed to increase their ownership above 19.9%.

Brett has a follow-up question here. Will there be any -- will there be an updated feasibility study? And what would the cost be? With $4 million in cash, how long can you go without needing to raise further funds.

Well, I think George has explained that there will be an updated feasibility study. We are actually going to release more information in the coming days on what we believe it will cost. But what I will say is that before we were looking at 5 to 6 years for a full feasibility study, now we're looking at maybe 2 years tops. And we -- the expense of this study now is what George and the team have done proves to be correct, the cost for this feasibility study will be several orders of magnitude less and will not involve taking a bulk sample. George, you got any comment there?

Just a very well constrained approach that we're taking. We're using some innovative information. We will disclose more of that as time evolves. We have proved some of it. We want to wait until we prove all of it to disclose it. And I think we're going to be very fortunate that we don't have to take additional bulk samples. We also have a vast amount of information from the past. So some of that information just has to be updated to current pricing. That can then be easily updated into the feasibility study without additional extensive long-term work. We have design work that was done for the PEA, particularly the mining method, the mine plan, the plant design and infrastructure design that are all in good standing and just need to be updated to modern prices. So that work can proceed very quickly once we get going.

There are multiple individuals asking the same question. I'm just going to group them all into one. They're all wondering about financing and the options for finance and what can we look at here? Is it just going to be through the capital markets? Or could you touch on the options for financing and the time line?

Well, we have said many times over the past 6, 12 months that we're going to do this differently. We will be looking for a partner to move this forward, but not a mining partner. We'll be looking for a community partner like indigenous groups, government groups as well as financial groups. And that's something -- we started doing that earlier this year. And the first couple of folks we talked to smiled and nodded and said, come back and see when you own the bloody thing. And so that's what we did. Now we're going to own this and look at it.

There is an add-on to this question from Thomas here. Is the project considered stale now that so much time has gone by?

What do you mean the 2 billion years or the 4 years with Rio? Those diamonds haven't gone anywhere. They are still sparkling brand new, and we haven't even touched the surface of this deposit. The proper question might be is the diamond market stale? And the answer is, I don't think so. We're in a bit of a technical recession right now. This has affected some of the lower end pricing. And of course, with the advent of lab-grown diamonds, there has been some concern. But what we have noticed very surprisingly is that at the high end of the market, so bigger carats, above 6, 7 carats, Type 2A diamonds, the price differential between original God made diamonds and lab-made diamonds is massive. And so what that tells me is we have the right stuff. We just got to get it out of the ground. George?

Absolutely. Very much so.

Steve is wondering if there's any risk of community stakeholders opposing the project.

Well, I think that this has been a learning process for everybody. Rio went into this and Rio had their troubles over the last 5 or 6 years. And in fact, they have instituted a process called The Way We Work, which we have agreed to follow in as a condition of taking back their 75%. And this has got a tremendous element of social and environmental performance, which means that the community is considered and the community is important. And I have said right from the beginning, anyone that's asked me, I don't think this mine will be built without community involvement. That's just the way it is.

Speaking of community, Martin's wondering how many staff will be hired to complete the work described to date?

George?

There will be a requirement of some assistance, not a vast number of people. Obviously, when we reach a stage where we can make a production decision, then there will be enormous opportunities for employment. But until that time, there will be a limited number of people employed. There will be a fair amount of work done by contractors. And I think we are confident that we know the people that would be doing that work.

Thomas has another question here. When do the federal and provincial permits expire?

George?

I don't believe they do expire. There will -- there are some changes to the federal environmental regulation that has taken place since that permitting event and we would need to update that. But other than that, it's ongoing.

Glenn is wondering why Rio Tinto is walking away from this project.

Well, I think in the press release, Rio's head of exploration, David Andrews was quite clear about it. Other priorities for any more detail than that, you really have to talk to Rio Tinto. But to be honest with you, I'm happy they're walking away because it gives us the project back. Our last agreement was a save the day agreement. We're still going to be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars. This is different now. And so Rio's loss is our gain. They've been very gracious about it and very helpful, and we're going to expect more of the same.

Two individuals in the chat are asking similar questions. Just wondering about insider buy-in and if it's a blackout period or if you're allowed to participate.

Well, we've been under a blackout for most of the last 2 years, and it's been endlessly frustrating. We're still under blackout, but that will be lifted shortly. And I can't speak for anybody else, but certainly, my equity interest in the corporation with nothing but grow. I believe in this story, I think there's nothing like it on the planet, and I put the money [indiscernible].

Thank you. Let's see here. A lot of -- there's a lot of questions in the chat. It's great to see. Do you have the legal authority to sell diamonds?

No.

Not until we have a mining lease, which is a decision to mine.

A decision to mine, okay. Because then another individual is wondering if it will be after the feasibility study.

Correct, yes.

Okay. And I do see 2 people asking this question. I just want to save it to the end to wrap up about the catalyst for moving forward. I just want to make sure I'm not missing any other questions. Bob was wondering if you could provide any commentary on the stock price?

It's not high enough.

Okay. What is the timeframe for actually mining?

Well, before I turn it over to George, there were several scenarios that were presented to us in the March 2022 joint venture meeting. And anything is possible. For instance, it's even possible to mine that deposit with the trench cutter. So anything is possible, but George?

It would -- the feasibility study we would obviously like to get done as soon as possible. And we're talking about 2 years at this stage. Obviously, we would like to get it done very quickly. And then thereafter, there would be a phase of mine construction. If it is decided to go ahead with an open pit mine, obviously, there is a fairly lengthy period of overburden stripping to expose the deposit to expose the kimberlite and during which time you can build your plant and get going thereafter. So once -- it could take a few years, maybe 4 years from mining decision to actually produce diamonds. But once you start producing diamonds, the payback goes very quickly.

So there are multiple questions here about just seeking clarification on how Rio acquired 19.9% or will acquire 19.9% just about the purchase price of the 75% stake in the project, if you could elaborate further, please?

Well, I'm not really sure how to answer that question. Rio did not want to make a takeover offer for Star Diamond. Therefore, their ownership interest must stay below 19.9%. And they simply asked for that, and that's what we're prepared to give. Certainly, if they wanted 100%, they could have had that too. But they were happy with 19.9%. And there's really no math to it. It's simply an assist to our shareholders and to the people of Saskatchewan from Rio, plain and simple.

This is probably going to be directed toward George here. But why do we need another feasibility? It seems rather excessive?

The last full feasibility study was done more than 10 years ago. And obviously, pricing and methods have changed since then. There is better technology available, much cleaner from a carbon point of view. And so we would -- there would be some things that we would have used in the past, but many things will have changed, and we will incorporate new technology, more efficient technology and we will do it quickly. Obviously, we have done quite a lot of work on that already in the PEA, which is only 5 years old. And so a lot of that new technology was available at that point, and we have understood it already. And so we will proceed like that but it is necessary to do it. You do need to ultimately, in a feasibility study cost the price of every nut and bolt and piece of wire that is going to take to build a mine to show that the economics of the project is supported.

Thank you, George. And Jeff, I don't quite understand your question. So I'm just going to read word for word here. 4 trenches in a cube could knock down between trenches to build a shaft, correct? I'm not sure...

What you would -- I think I understand that to build a shaft, yes, that would -- that probably would work but I think the goal would be to actually use the trench cutter to recover the kimberlite at depths because we must remember that on Orion South, we have 100 meters of overburden. We have a bit more on Star. And so we -- the trench cutter is able to mine the kimberlite beneath the overburden and down to a depth of 250 meters below surface. So it's a very versatile piece of equipment.

That might have just answered David's question here, how deep are the Kimberlites below the surface?

So the Orion South, it has 100 meters of overburden. On Star, it is about 130 meters and there is a very vast volume of kimberlite, 479 million tonnes from which the 66 carats -- 66 million carats that's listed in the PEA would be recovered. And the open pits in the kimberlite would go down at -- in the open pits designed for the PEA would go down to 350 meters below surface.

I think, too, it's worth noting that the Bauer trench cutter is essentially a vertical drifter and it's huge and it's in great shape. Our team has been up there looking at all these equipment. There are container loads of supplies to go with it. It's sitting there begging to be used. Now it's not inexpensive to operate. So anything we do that we have to think about very carefully but it is a tremendous piece of machinery and it's capable of adding so much more dynamic to this.

Just wondering if shaft can potentially would be more efficient than open pit.

No, we have crossed that bridge. Definitely not. The kimberlite -- as opposed to many other kimberlites elsewhere in the world, these kimberlites have a very vast aerial extent over 300 hectares in Star and somewhat less in Orion South. The kimberlites erupted in the cretaceous on the edge of the Western Interior Seaway where the oil and gas deposits of Western Canada were being formed, and they were very rapidly buried by marine mudstones in the expanding Western Interior Seaway. And so the edifice, the volcanic edifice on top of the feeder pipe was preserved in its entirety and that is the target of our orebody. So these kimberlites are more mushroom shaped than carrot shaped, which is the classical model that we see in Kimberly and South Africa and many other places in the world. So we need to expose a vast open pit from which we can use a very efficient, low-cost per tonne mining method to recover the material. And we would like to run at 45,000 tonnes per day in a future mine. And to do that with an underground shaft with an underground crusher would be very difficult to feed that kind of system, very -- not cost effective. We have crossed that bridge already.

Just a follow-up question here. Rock's wondering if carbon capture within kimberlites will be included in the feasibility studies.

Absolutely in that. We know that olivine-bearing, ultramafic rocks, particularly kimberlites, also some nickel deposits, they have an ability to latch on to CO2 from atmospheric CO2. In some projects, you could even -- if you were using on-site power generation, you could feed your exhaust gas into a pile of kimberlite. To fix carbon, but we don't do that because we will be using electricity. So we will initially have a very low carbon footprint. We could potentially sell carbon credits as a result of the kimberlite that we break down on surface. We will be mining a vast amount of kimberlite, as I said, 479 million tonnes and so we might be able to sell carbon credits. We have formed a relationship with universities to conduct this work and to quantify how much carbon we can capture with these specific kimberlites.

And we're going to release more information on that in the coming weeks. So stay tuned on that.

Are you able to share -- are you in any discussions with potential financing partners?

Not at this juncture, no.

And there's still a couple of individuals don't quite understand what happened today -- in yesterday's press release with Rio, having 75% now down to 20%. What did Star gave them to make this happen? If you could just...

So first of all, Rio still owns 75% of the project and will do so until the closing date of this agreement, after which they will own 19.9% of Star Diamond, not the project. This was simply a negotiation that we went through over the last year, and this is where we ended up.

That clarifies it. Sorry, just going through here. Well, there's a question for you, Ewan. Why should someone consider buying the stock today? Or you a year away from a mining decision?

Sorry, today, if were?

If we're a year away from a mining decision.

Well, first of all, we're not a year away from a mining decision, we're probably 2 years away from my decision at the earliest. However, I can assure you, if we make a mining decision and if we own it, I believe we will, the stock will likely be much higher than it is today.

604, Paul is wondering, has De Beers shown recent interest in the project.

Certainly not, not to me. You'd have to ask Rio about that.

And Paul is wondering what are the value of the tax credits.

People ask me this sort of stuff from a lot of the time and having worked in that industry for many, many years. The value of the tax credits are really not what everybody thinks they are. They have to be matched against offsetting expenditures, et cetera, et cetera. I am not a tax credit expert. What I can tell you is I don't think anyone would be buying the company for tax credits.

Jennifer is wondering about powering proposed mine. Are there any issues with electricity? Or is there a hydropower nearby? How would you provide power for the...

There is no issue. In the PEA, the study, we would use less than 120 megawatts with almost everything electrified, that's the plant, the removal of the overburden, a lot of electrical equipment in the pit. 120 megawatts would be the consumption. If we -- and that is available in Saskatchewan. If we exceeded 180 megawatts, which I don't believe will happen, we would need to bring power in from Manitoba. But we believe that we can rely on the Saskatchewan power grid to exclusively provide our power in the future.

And George, Glenn has a question here. He is wondering if the sand seen between the surface and the kimberlite as a major problem? And if so, how would you handle such an issue?

The answer is no.

No issue.

You dig the sand very easily. And there's sand overburden and then there is glacial till. And in the case of Star, there's Colorado mudstone, but all comes out and we would anticipate with a bucket wheel excavator.

Thank you. SJ Home was wondering about other -- let's see, what are the plans for the other 50 or so smaller kimberlites sell off to other developers?

Well, I don't think so. I think keeping the package together enhances its attractiveness to would be suitor of which there are several updates that I could think of. You're looking at a ready-made high-purity diamond deposits, probably the biggest in the world. I can't see why you wouldn't be looking at it once we get it back.

Few individuals are wondering as the expected close date. I'm not sure if you could provide an answer or not.

It's a good question. And the time-limiting factor will be the approvals from the Ministry of the Environment in the province of Saskatchewan. We need to transfer some permits, some leases, et cetera and we need to ensure that the reclamation provisions are adequate. And then once we get the project's approval, away we go. So it could be 30 days, it could be 60 days, it could be longer. But you can be assured that we'll be doing everything we can to have a shorter period as possible.

Jan Wright has a good question here. Just wondering if there's any supplemental materials that might impact the economics?

Yes, there are. There is an opportunity for the recovery of aggregate gravel from the overburden. That could be a possibility that could be leased to a contractor and there is also both ilmenite, which is -- if it is greater than 55 weight percent TiO2, it can be used for the aircraft industry in ilmenite metal. If it is less than 55 weight percent, the ilmenite could be used for passive fires in paint and whitening of paper. It is marketable, and we will be producing probably thousands of tons of ilmenite that come out of the concentrate from which the diamonds are recovered. There is also Garnet, which can be used as an abrasive for making sandpaper and other abrasives. It can also be used as a decorative product in synthetic dimension stones like your kitchen counter tops. But that, again, would be something that could be potentially sublet to a contractor to deal with.

Thank you. Okay. I think I've addressed all the questions in the chat. Forgive me if I have not. There was a lot going on there. But feel free to reach out to management. If you have questions, are always happy to take a call. There was one question I purposely left to the end, a few people asked, what are the catalysts going forward for the next 12 months?

That's a good question. I think the most surprising part about this project is the contribution that Rio Tinto has made. I mean, you have to understand, they had dozens of people working in this across the world. And for years, and when we had our March 2022 joint venture meeting, I was gobsmacked by the detail that was provided. Not only did their engineering and design teams validate our assumptions with respect to pit slope, mining methodology, carats in grade, they modeled an 84-year mine life. So we know we got it. We just got to move it forward. And that's the big catalyst for growth here. We need to bring partners in. And as I mentioned, those partners will be local partners and government partners and financial partners, not money partners. And we have a lot of stuff up our sleeve to show you, which is very interesting. And on top of that, as I keep on referring we haven't even dusted the top of stuff like Orion work, which is really -- it's really the pipe, and that's where Rio Tinto wanted to start with Orion North, much shallow overburden. I think, George and much, much higher Type 2A content.

Correct.

So there's lots of places to look, and we're going to look everywhere.

Perfect. Gentlemen, thank you so much for your time and for everyone that attended. If you did come in a little late, don't worry, this is being recorded, and we'll be on YouTube shortly afterwards. But thank you for your time. If there's any last words, say them now before I close off.

Well, thanks, everybody. Appreciate your time. Stay tuned.

Thank you.