Vista Gold Corp. (VGZ) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Okay. We'll be starting right now, folks. I want to thank you for attending. Obviously, it's a good day for gold. So we did choose our day well. Gold should be doing a lot better than this in general, but it's nice to see it up about $15 and to have a good gold company that will benefit from it. Before I introduce our speaker, I just want to mention there will be some changes in the program. We'll be starting with Vista Gold. And then I will be giving my talk on updating the markets. HPIL has some issues going on that are not public. So we've postponed them to our November 17 event in New York. So they will not be presenting. There'll just be 2 presenters today, myself, and first, we'll have Vista Gold. Most of you know my views on gold, which is both as an investment and as a hedge. And this is a company we've been watching for a number of years, and we think it's just about at the right time to be investing in it. So I'd like you to take careful attention. I'm sure you'll find it very interesting, and then I will follow afterwards. When he finishes talking, then, of course, we'll take some questions and answers you may have for Fred, and then I will start. Fred? So over to you now.

All right. Very good. Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Good afternoon, I guess, on the East Coast. We appreciate you taking time to visit with us and to learn more about Vista Gold and what we're doing to build shareholder value by advancing Australia's largest undeveloped gold project. I'm not going to spend any time on the cautionary statements. Rather, I'd like to talk about what we're doing and what we see as a clear path to value creation. This path is focused on and centers around the Mt Todd gold project. I'll show you where it's located in a moment. But just to give you a picture, this is a very large gold project with 5.85 million ounces of proven and probable reserves. Economics has estimated in the current study of 495,000 ounces of gold produced per year on average over the first 5 years, with all-in sustaining costs of $688 an ounce. This is a project that's located in the Tier 1 mining jurisdiction of the Northern Territory of Australia. We've made a very significant investment in the project to date with over USD 100 million spent, we feel that the project is completely derisked and it's partner-ready. Now we're going to talk about exploration upside and the things that we're doing to add life to the project and where we see the growth to come. One of the things that I think will be of interest to you, if you believe that the price of gold is going higher, is that the Mt Todd project and Vista as a result, has greater leverage to a rising gold price than any other development stage project that we're aware of. Now we've advanced the project, we have all of the major permits, both environmental and operating permits that have been approved, and the project will be essentially ready for construction. Additionally, we enjoy a very strong social license, and that's very important to us. The development strategy for the project is designed -- and I'm going to speak more about this, is designed to increase shareholder value. And we'll talk a little bit more about that in just a moment. The drivers, the things that will be mileposts for you as we walk down this path to value creation are: First of all, the Definitive Feasibility Study, which is nearing completion, which will result in an increase in reserves, a longer mine life and using a higher gold price than we were able to use in 2019 improved economics. We are seeking a development partner. This is part of the development strategy. It is not to build this project on our own, but rather to work with a partner to develop the project; to recognize the intrinsic value; and at the same time to minimize the equity dilution and debt burden that would be borne by the company and ultimately, by the business shareholders. Now just to give you an idea of our capital markets profile, we have 117 million shares issued and outstanding, no debt. At the end of the second quarter, on a pro forma basis, we had $18.8 million in cash. You see the list of our largest shareholders, these are gold-focused institutional holders, and you also see the holding of the insiders at the bottom. In the upper right, you see those analysts who provide coverage for Vista Gold. Jumping back to the project itself, as I mentioned, the Tier 1 jurisdiction. I'm going to show you a map in just a moment, but this is located in the Northern Territory of Australia, one of the top places for attractiveness and for mineral investments. Australia is a resource-exporting country. Talked about the leverage to rising gold price, and we're going to show you a chart as we go through the presentation that talks about this simple statistic, that for every $100 increase in the price of gold, the NPV of the project increases by $200 million. Drilling and the feasibility study nearing completion, demonstrating the upside potential of the project with the growth of reserves and extension of the mine life and the work that we're doing with the exploration program. We see a very clear path to eventually having a mine life that's in excess of 20 years. We'll then talk about what we've done to derisk the project, not just from a permitting side of view, also on the technical side. We, over the last 5 years, have completed evaluations, met testing, processor evaluations that resulted in an improvement in gold recovery from 81.7% to now just under 92%. Those are significant accomplishments. We, in this industry, work very hard for 1% or 2% improvement in gold recovery; to achieve a 10% improvement is very significant. We're going to talk a little bit more about our social and environmental stewardship and the things that we've done to earn the community trust. And I don't mean to beat this to death, but I just want to remind you that the development strategy is designed to increase shareholder value. It involves a joint venture and involves bringing in a partner, which allows us to minimize the equity dilution and the debt burden. We hope to maximize our retained interest. And we see this as a very important key to unlocking the value recognition of the project and creating value for shareholders. The map on the left, you see where the project is located, not just in the Northern Territory of Australia, but in the northern part of the Northern Territory, less than 3 hours by road from the capital in port city of Darwin. This is one of the most accessible mining projects in Australia. We're 10 kilometers east of the Stuart Highway, which is the main highway that connects Darwin on the North to Adelaide on the very Southern part of the continent. And we have excellent infrastructure, and I'll talk about that a little bit more here with regards to this next slide. This is what the project area looks like. This is a brownfield site. It operated in the 1990s, first as a heap leach operation owned by Zapopan and Billiton, then as a milling operation. They were under the ownership of Pegasus. As a result of those previous owners, we enjoy some excellent infrastructure, things like paved roads all the way to the site. There's power lines. There's a natural gas pipeline, which adds particular -- significant value to the project. With the power plant that's included in our capital costs, we're able to generate power for about 25% of what we could buy it for, from the grid. You see the tailings storage facility and the freshwater storage reservoir. These are other bits of infrastructure that contribute to the project. The tailing storage facility has capacity with the operating raises that are part of the design for roughly 1/3 of the reserves. And the freshwater storage reservoir with a 2-meter raise to the dam will provide 2-year storage capacity for the water that we need to operate the project. The deposit itself is located below the Batman pit. Ultimately, this pit will grow significantly. It will be over a mile in length, and it will be almost 3/4 of a mile wide and 600 meters in depth. We enjoy tremendous infrastructure as a result of the previous work done. Now we talked about the size of the project. You see on the right side, a pie chart that shows you the resources and the reserves. When we acquired the project, we had just slightly over 3 million ounces of total resource. Today, we have over 9 million ounces of total resource, 7.8 million ounces of measured and indicated resource. And within that 7.8 million, there's 5.85 million ounces of proven and probable reserves. Now as I mentioned, with the completion of the feasibility study, that 5.85 million is going to increase. We're going to convert a larger percentage of the 7.8 million ounces of M&I resource to proven and probable reserve. Of course, no discussion of a mining company today would be complete, appropriate without discussing the company's commitment to and practice with regards to environmental and social stewardship. We have been, since day 1, committed to environmental best practices. We acquired a project where the government, as the previous managers of the project, were discharging acidic water from the site straight into the Edith River. We stopped that practice. We began stockpiling that water and then seeking and evaluating methods to appropriately treat it. We succeeded in that effort. And to date, we have treated over 11 million cubic meters of water. We have a permit to discharge clean treated water to the Edith River. And that action, that investment over time, has earned us a considerable amount of trust and respect in the local community. We took a problem, which is a very serious problem to them. We found a solution, and we've become industry leaders in the northern territory in dealing with acid rock drainage. Now as I mentioned, all of the major permits for the project are already approved. Our environmental impact statement was approved in 2014. We were subsequently required to seek approval of a federal environmental authorization under the Environmental Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act. That authorization was received in January of 2018. And we subsequently applied for it in June of this year, received approval for our Mine Management Plan. This is essentially the same as a mine operating permit in North America. These are the 3 major permits. They are the permits that take time and create risk for any mining project, and I'm very happy that we have received approvals for all of those. Now in addition to the formal authorizations, there's always an spoken authorization that we call the social license. We have worked hard with not only the territory government; community leaders in Katherine; citizens in Katherine; and perhaps most importantly, the Jawoyn Aboriginal People, who are the landowners in the area of the project. We have strong relations with all of these groups. With the Jawoyn, we started out with an agreement in 2006. That agreement was modernized in November of last year. We replaced a right that had been granted to them to become a 10% participating partner with a sliding scale royalty. They are risk-averse, they don't have the capital, they don't want to bear the risk of the project, but they want to have economic participation. So sliding scale royalty is adjusted based on gold price and foreign exchange rate. And when we do well, they do well. And when we struggle, they will struggle with regards to the royalty. We meet -- I meet with them with their Board of Directors on a regular basis. We formed the Leaders' Forum. We talk about things like employment opportunities and training, contracting opportunities, discuss and are working on the preparation of a jointly sponsored cross-cultural awareness training program. One of the topics that we discuss on a regular basis is the protection of culturally significant and sacred sites. Before we enter any new ground, we have a representative of the Jawoyn come out and walk the ground with us and make sure that there are no sensitive areas. These things have allowed us to develop a strong personal relationship with the Jawoyn leaders. I think it's important to note that over half of our employees are aboriginal. And so we're very supportive of them and try to provide opportunities for them to improve their skills and to participate economically in the project. Now with the investment that we've made in the project, I mentioned that we've invested over USD 100 million in the project. Some of that early on went into tripling the resource. Some of it has gone into completing and being -- fulfilling our obligations with regards to site management and environmental stewardship. Another significant part of it has gone into the technical work that has allowed us to advance the project from engineering design, metallurgical testing, process plan area, optimization, all of which has resulted in us being at the point that we are at today. We have a project that has tremendous economics, and I'm going to talk about those in just a moment. But part of that is on the basis or on the back of the improvements in recovery. We added ore sorting. This is technology that -- sorting technology that is used in many different industries, and we're adopting it in the mining industry on an increasing rate. We consider it to be proven technology. This allowed us to optimize the crushing circuit and produce a finer product to result -- which in turn resulted in changes in the grinding circuit that allowed us to replace large energy inefficient equipment with smaller, more energy-efficient equipment that ultimately allowed us to reduce the grind size. And the reduction in grind size is what has driven the improvement in recovery from 81.7% to now 91.9%. All of this has happened in an environment where we have -- with the changes in equipment, we have dropped our total energy footprint, our total energy requirement by between 9% and 10%. That's very significant savings. And so on one hand, we've achieved and energy savings. And on the other hand, we're producing more gold from the same amount of material. Obviously, those combined factors contribute to improved economics. Now speaking of economics. In 2019, we completed our last technical report. Much of the engineering, as you'll see in a moment, was where it's already at and was maintained at feasibility study standards, but not all of it. And as a result, we reported the result as a preliminary feasibility study result. The project was designed as a 50,000-tonne per-day operation. This is a large operation. It's very attractive to a senior producer because of the production capacity. See, the average production over the life -- over the first 5 years is 495,000 ounces a year, life of mine. Those numbers will change, and I think they'll increase as we complete the feasibility study. You see our cash costs estimated to be $575 an ounce and $645 first 5 years in the life of mine, respectively. All-in sustaining costs, in other words, cash cost plus sustaining capital of $ 688 and $746. The capital cost of the project are estimated to be $826 million. That's a large number for Vista Gold. It's a key consideration in our strategy to bring in a partner. We want to minimize the dilution to our shareholders. And one of the ways that we do that, rather than building this ourselves, is to work with a partner. Now having said that it's a large number, it's a very reasonable number for the size of the project. In fact, on a per ounce-produced basis, the capital costs are about $157 an ounce. That's in the lowest quartile of large developers with advancing projects today. So we've worked very hard to design a project that's efficient in its use of capital. Obviously, we benefit from the investments made by previous owners and operators of the project, and that's a distinct advantage for us. You see project economics at the bottom. What they were in 2019 when we had a $1,350 gold price and today using a slightly conservative gold price of $1,750, we see that the after-tax NPV is about $1.6 billion with an after-tax IRR of just under 38%. Again, coming back to this idea of leverage, the chart on the right just simply shows you the magnitude of the change of NPV for incremental changes in gold price. And again, it comes back to this number that I mentioned before. For every $100 change in gold price, the NPV of the project increases by $200 million. We're not aware of any other project that enjoys that kind of leverage to the gold price at the project level. I talked about the feasibility study. We made the decision in June to commence and complete definitive feasibility study, recognizing that a great deal of the work was already completed. In fact, you kind of see that in the graphic on this slide. This is a 3D AutoCAD rendering of the process plant designs that have already been completed to the point of being past feasibility study levels. What you see is that all of the concrete foundation work, the structural steel, tanks and buildings, all of the mechanical components of the process plant are already at feasibility or better levels of design. What wasn't completed previously and is nearing completion right now is the design of the piping systems, the electrical and instrumentation systems that will be required for the plant. And with those, all of the engineering and all of the aspects of the process or the project design will be at feasibility study levels. Part of the feasibility study has been a redesign of the mine. Previously, our last study, we used a $1,000 gold price to design the ultimate pit. That was very reasonable given the $1,350 gold price. But today, it's roughly $1,780. I think we would all agree that $1,000 is very conservative. We have raised the gold price. It will result in an increase in reserves. That in turn will result in an increase in an extension of the mine life. We expect, with being able to use a higher gold price for project economics, that we'll see improved economics. These are some of the tangible outcomes of the definitive feasibility study. Additionally, we are undertaking some trade-off studies. We're evaluating the use of contract mining and contract power generation. Those 2 areas have the potential to decrease the capital cost by somewhere between $180 million and $200 million. Now there will be an offsetting increase in operating costs, and that's what we're evaluating. Does it make sense to go with contract mining and/or contract power generation? Is the savings in capital cost sufficient to warrant the increase in operating costs? We're evaluating that. We'll present that in the findings of the feasibility study. We're also evaluating autonomous truck haulage. This is technology that, over the last 5 years, has advanced and become more widely adopted and implemented, especially in Australia. Drivers is the largest single employment category at the project, and being able to reduce that number will obviously result in savings and improved economics for the project. The feasibility study is nearing completion. We're very excited about this, and we look forward to being able to announce results. Now, I told you I will talk about exploration opportunity and the upside. And what you see looking at the map on the right side of this slide is our landholding package. You see small red box in the center of the image. This is the mining license. This is where we're authorized to undertake all of the mining activities and project development activities. 98% of the expenditures we've made since acquiring the project have been made inside that box. Now surrounding that box, we have over 1,500 square kilometers of exploration licenses. We've undertaken grassroots exploration activities, even a small amount of drilling, but there's a lot of work to do. And with that, given that we cover 2 structural trends, the Batman-Driffield Trend and the Cullen Australis Trend, and we've identified a number of gold occurrences through our grassroots exploration programs just at the surface. We believe there's tremendous opportunity to in time expand the resource and ultimately further expand the life of the project. But for right now, we are focused on the area inside the boundaries of the mining license. So what you see in the aerial photo is basically an area that covers approximately the same as the boundaries of the mining license. What you see is that we have been working on the resource potential close to the project. Now you see the Batman pit and you see the area of the Batman pit label as right on top of where the plant site will be, we have been following mineralized structures, part of the plumbing and the mineralized system that helped create the Batman deposit, we've been following those structures to the North and to the East. Couple of years ago, we would have told you that the Golf and Tollis target and the Quigley's target were independent, unrelated mineralized events. Today, we're different. The drilling that we've completed in the last 12 months and tracking and following the mineralized structures leads us to the understanding that these structures are all connected. And we're very excited about that. Knowing that they're part of the same system, the same plumbing related to the same intrusive leads us to believe that there is considerable opportunity to efficiently add additional resources very close to the mine site in the future with appropriate levels of exploration and expenditure. Now, that means I'm talking $10 million, $15 million, maybe $20 million. We're not going to make that investment. We feel that, that investment will be made by a partner or, at the very least, by the project itself once the project is in operation and in production. We're very excited about it. We're now in the third phase of our drilling program, and we expect to be announcing results again in November, maybe some results in December. But certainly, in January and February, there will be more full results from the continuing program. And so keep your eyes open. There's been -- we have not drilled a dry hole, so to speak, in any of the exploration. All of the holes that have been drilled to date have intersected mineralization approximately where our geologists expected it to be in. And that's a very -- we're very encouraged by that, that this we know enough about the system to say that it's predictable. So we have done a lot of work. Developing large projects, developing any mining project takes time. Large projects such as Mt Todd in particular may require more time. What you see on this slide is a graphic presentation or summary that suggests that the culmination of the development process is nearly and rapidly approaching. We started out with resource expansion drilling. That was followed by the engineering and design and metallurgical test work and optimization work, a pre-feasibility study in 2019, and now a definitive feasibility study, which will define the production parameters, the ultimate economics of the project. The other side of the scale, there's the lengthy process of obtaining permits. One of the great risks of our industry is actually whether you can get permits or not. And what you see is that with the combination of refining -- the technical aspects of the project and receiving the appropriate permits, we are now at a point where we believe that the project is partner-ready. To use a phrase, the stars are lining up. And this is the result of a lot of work by a lot of individuals and team effort, and we're very happy to be at this point. At a point in time, the gold price is very favorable for the development of the project. To kind of wind things up, so we believe that the Mt Todd project and Vista Gold are well positioned for value creation. The development strategy, as I've indicated, focuses on value creation. It involves bringing in a partner, bringing in a partner will be a significant catalyst. It will be a validation of the work that we've done and will be an instant reflection of the fact that there's -- that the value that we believe exists in the project, that view is shared by another. a partnership is, from our side is based on the premises that we will be able to agree on a value that's reflective of the intrinsic value of the project. With that, we hope to receive sufficient cash payments to allow us to minimize, if not eliminate, the future dilution that will be required, although there will be some money that we will have to put up before the project gets to the point of being -- having achieved financing. Well, we believe that with a partner, we can minimize that. We believe that this is on track to -- from the point of signing an agreement and reaching out on completing a transaction, that gold could be within 3 years. We believe we have the right project, a project that truly is of interest to the kind of partner we're seeking. It's in the right jurisdiction. It's large, has potential to grow with regards to reserves and mine life. Costs, our life of mine all-in sustaining cost is lower than the average all-in sustaining cost of the largest 10 gold producers in the world. This would be a significant addition and favorable addition to their production profile. All of the permits are already approved. We've eliminated that risk. The social license likewise is in place. As I mentioned, there's potential to extend the mine life. All of this depends on execution. Obviously, first step, one of the first measurable significant events will be the completion of the definitive feasibility study. And as I mentioned, we are nearing completion. That work is on schedule. It's on budget. We're very excited about the results that we're seeing. The exploration program. While we're not going to add resources, we're defining where resources could be added efficiently, and we believe that's important for a partner. We have engaged with and we have signed confidentiality agreements with a number of partners, all of whom we would be pleased to have as a partner. So it is slowing down their work, their efforts a little bit. Not being able to travel to Australia is impeding the work of some of the companies that are not based in Australia. But there are others who are making significant progress and getting caught up even as we speak. One company in particular has initiated the due diligence program, the 1st of August, before the end of the year. I expect that knowing what their program is, with some metallurgical test work, I believe that they will have invested between $300,000 and $400,000 in due diligence. I think that's a very important statement about their degree of interest. Ultimately, and finally, I would just say that our objective and what we're focused on is narrowing the gap between our market cap and the project NPV. This is the key to creating value for shareholders. I'm going to just stop with that slide. And Henry, I'm happy to take questions and answer questions anyways.

Absolutely. Okay. Let's start with the COVID questions, and there's a couple of others. So people, I think we're going to have to do this by writing, because I didn't get the Q&A thing right. So let's start with COVID, and then we've got a few more questions for you.

Perfect. Well, as I was saying, the Northern Territory has been only minimally affected by COVID. Last I heard, there had only been 58 cases throughout the territory. So our activities in the Northern Territory have been largely unaffected. There's -- from day to day, week to week, we see travel restrictions, interstate imposed, drop, eased. Presently, there are some travel restrictions between the Northern Territory and Western Australia. The only way that -- there's 2 ways that COVID has affected us. First and most importantly is not so much on a Northern Territory basis, but on an Australia continent basis, international travel to Australia is presently not allowed. And as a result, we have not been able to travel, which has not been much more than an inconvenience. We've been able to handle everything, we needed to do by Zoom. But potential partners have not been able to get part of their due diligence teams to site. One particular partner has indicated that until they're able to get their executive management team decide, that they will not be advancing discussions. So the travel restrictions going to Australia have been our greatest obstacle with regards to the project. We have recently cut back from 2 drills to 1 drill because of quarantining between New South Wales and Victoria and the Northern Territory. We've not been able to keep two drill crews available. And so we've come back to 1 drill rig. It has extended the program into next year. But we see that as a minor impact. The most significant impact has been the travel restrictions, not allowing us or others to travel to the continent. That's been the way that COVID has affected us more significantly.

And my second question is about, you referred to the feasibility study, but I understand that you are loose about the time? Are we talking next quarter, 6 months, next year? I mean, some guidance that way, perhaps. We understand there is forward-looking guidance.

No, we are in the process right now of finalizing this study and expect to have draft reports in our hands in December. Results will likely not be announced until just after the first of the year, simply from a markets perspective. And we'll spend the latter part of December reviewing the reports and making sure that all the numbers are right, but we're very close. We're starting to see preliminary results at this point.

Okay. The next question is, any comments on metallurgy and process development?

No, we have done a lot of work on the metallurgy and process area development with the -- from the time that we acquired the project, where it had been operated as a heap leach, which failed dismally with roughly 47%, 48% recovery to a milling operation that selected -- or poorly selected the equipment for the project, specifically the third and fourth stages of crushing. We have done a lot of work, we've looked at a number of different kinds of crushers. And we selected primary gyratory crusher, secondary cone crushers. They worked acceptably in the previous operations. We've selected high-pressure grinding roll crushers at the third stage. And all of these pieces of equipment, the specific size of the equipment, has been upsized beyond what the manufacturers recommend. And we've done that to make sure that we have adequate capacity and that the machines themselves can handle the duty cycle that we're expecting of them. We have -- we've added ore sorting. Automated sorting is this technology that touches almost every facet of our lives from the foods we eat, to the medicines that we take, to many different parts of the agricultural and just product, consumer-related manufacturer, all of them use automated sorting to one degree or another. The mining industry is adopting this technology. And we have done more test work on this technology than anybody else. We've sent a greater volume of material to Tomra Sorting Solutions, facilities in Hamburg, Germany than any other mining company. I think it's fair to say that we have gained a significant understanding, and we're very pleased with the technology. That, combined with the test work we've done on grinding to reduce the grind-size, which ultimately allows us to just like any -- almost any gold project, refinery, grind, the more gold you're going to get. That's a pretty simple almost fact. And we've been able to take advantage of that kind of universal characteristic of ore deposits to improve the recovery. We're very satisfied with the work that has been done, and we're very confident that the metallurgical test work that has been completed by one of our potential partners will be validated. We've -- one potential partner in a comment several months ago that we've done twice as much work on Mt Todd as they would have done. And it's simply a fact that we've been very cognizant of the reputation of the project, and we focus on making sure that we get it right.

The next question is how much is needed to be spent before production commences?

So that's really the initial CapEx number. And then obviously, there will be some other minor expenditures. The initial CapEx is estimated to be $826 million. At present, we believe that number is going to go up some. If I were pressed to guess what the new CapEx is going to be in the new feasibility study, I'm going to guess it's going to be between $875 million and $925 million. I don't have all the numbers yet, but we know that some things like steel costs and some equipment costs have gone up. But that's a pretty good number. And then there will be projects, that transaction-related costs and detailed engineering that will be shared by the partners, it will be just a small fraction of that. And then obviously, there's this trade-off study that we're talking about. Can we reduce that number, that $900 million number by something on the order of $180 million to $200 million? It doesn't economically make sense. Will the project economics still be attractive with the lower CapEx but a higher operating cost? That's the ballpark, the number is the investment that's required. And it's the reason why we want to bring in a partner. There's value in the project, and we believe that selling a part of the project to a partner will allow us to cover a significant part of our cost in funding our share of the project.

And the last question is, from your point of view, what type or size of larger companies ought to be interested in your resources?

That's a great question. And what I tell many people is that if you were to write down the names of 6 companies and pass them across the table to me, I would probably acknowledge that you have at least 3 of the companies that have already signed confidentiality agreements. Because of its location, because of the jurisdiction that we're in and the size of the project, this is obviously a project that should be attractive to a number of senior gold producers. The cost structure, the all-in sustaining costs bode very well with the cost structure of many of those senior producers. It would be -- it would help lower their total operating costs. Other things that make this attractive to a senior producer is the very short lead time. Most of them do not have projects that can be developed as quickly as Mt Todd can be done. Having the permits already approved, having a definitive feasibility study already or, in our case, nearing completion is a tremendous positive. And so we're focused on senior and upper mid-tier producers as potential partners. And the list is quite predictable. Now in addition to that, we have signed confidentiality agreements with a couple of what we would classify as strategic financial partners, partners who, if things advance, will not want to be the operator. They will contribute financial resources, and they'll expect us to build the team. Our preference would be to partner with a senior producer for several reasons. One is that there's an obvious synergy that comes about because of their -- they'll come with the project development team, operating skills. There will be an instant recognition of value in the market that they've obviously done their work and have -- it will be a validation of the work that we've got. That would be our first choice. And it's obviously a shorter path to the development of the project than working with a financial strategic partner.

Okay. Well, thank you. I think you've covered it well. You've made a good case, and it's certainly worth following the stock. And so we'll leave it at that, and thank you both for presenting for us. So we're going to remove you now and have a wonderful day. So I'm going to present with my presentation up right now.