i-80 Gold Corp.

Richard is the president and CEO. So Richard, over to you. David, thank you very much, and it's a pleasure to be here to tell the I-80 story. And before I get started, I will share our safe harbor language, as I will be making forward-looking statements through the course of today's presentation. There we go. So I-80 Gold, we were named after Interstate 80 that transverses northern Nevada, where some of the largest gold mines have been discovered. We have four past producing gold mines that we acquired from either Barrick or Newmont, and, uh, we are the-- one of the largest resource holders in the state behind Nevada Gold Mines and AngloGold Ashanti. And we have a three-phase development plan that will take us from fifty thousand ounces this year to more than six hundred thousand ounces in the early 2030s. And I'm pleased to report that we have completed the recapitalization. We raised over one point one mil- billion dollars that allows us to execute on this plan without further dilution. And as we move forward this year, we've strengthened our board as we've moved from an explorer into a developer and operator and added some, uh, four incredible board members to our board. So as we look at our resource base, we have roughly fifteen million ounces of gold and two hundred million ounces of silver split equally between measured and indicated and inferred. Lone Tree plant on the right side is not part of this development plan, so the five deposits on the left are what we're focused on. We have infill and step-out programs underway at all those projects, and we're completing tech reports over the course of the next year, and we should be able to both increase that resource base as we move forward, but more importantly, for the first time, put reserves on the balance sheet. We put, uh, just over half a million ounces on the balance sheet last week, and we would expect by the end of next year to be somewhere between seven and a half and ten million ounces in reserves. The three underground mines, good grade, likely will come in between eight and nine grams. The open pit are lower grades, they're oxide, but they have great economics. So one of the things that I think separates our company, yes, we've got a large resource base, we're located in Nevada. Our AISC, when we fully develop everything, will be about seventeen fifty. But again, I worked at Barrick for most of my career, and what really stands out is the fact that we believe, with this asset base, that we'll be able to produce between five and six hundred thousand ounces into the 2050s. That is unique, and I think ultimately, that's what will stand this asset base strong as we move forward. So we've got a three-phase growth program that, uh, I'll get into a little more detail in a minute. Phase one is well underway. Phase two is Cove, our third underground mine, and Cove, our first oxide open pit that we developed. Phase three is our oxide, but open pit, but it's a much larger project. We will likely flip phase two and phase three, and I'll get into a little bit more detail on why that is. We think that really assists with simplifying the story and delivers more value for shareholders. We put out PAs a year ago. We went up to three thousand dollar gold. There's a lot of value within the asset base. Granite Creek open pit, we were forced to remove from our nav calculation because we updated the Granite Creek underground fees. But look, there's a tremendous amount of value in this portfolio, and over the course of the next year, as we complete either the feasibility studies for the underground or pre-feases for the open pit, it's gonna s- demonstrate significant value to our shareholders. So two years ago, we announced this thr- three-phase development plan. It is complicated. There's a lot of work. But these are brownfields projects. They've already been built and permitted. There's a lot of infrastructure in place, and things are coming along well. Phase one is well underway, on schedule, on budget. That's gonna take production of one seventy-five to two hundred thousand ounces per year, probably at an AISC of two thousand dollars an ounce. As I mentioned earlier, we'll likely flip phase two and three. Movement will point into permitting later this year, with the goal of getting those permits as early as the end of '28, then moving into construction and production by the end of '30. And then we'll build Granite Creek open pit, and Cove open pit will likely get deferred to about 2040 just because we've got enough fill for the Lone Tree plant for the foreseeable future from the first two underground mines in operation. Mentioned earlier we had completed the recap. We ro- raised over one point one billion dollars. It was more challenging than I expected when I took the role two years ago. It was also a lot more expensive than I thought it would be, but that's now behind us, and that allows us to move forward with this plan without further dilution to shareholders, and so we're well underway. So one of the things I would focus on is that while we have maybe eight hundred and sixty million shares outstanding today, internally, we run the fully diluted number, including the convertible debentures and the warrants, so the number of shares ultimately issued and outstanding Will be about roughly 1.25 billion shares. And at that, we've got a market cap on a fully diluted basis of about two billion dollars, and we would expect that by the time we put out the tech reports next year, at current gold prices, that that NAV would be eight to ten billion dollars. Granite Creek Underground, as I mentioned earlier, we put out the feasibility study last Monday. It largely confirmed what was in the PEA. We view this as conservative in that the average grade is eight grams, but we're able to screen the low-grade material that will be stockpiled for open pit processing in about five years, and we put about 10 grams through the mill. That means that we actually overstate our trucking processing cost by between twenty and twenty-five percent. The NAV also includes about a fifty million dollar charge for the Lone Tree allocation, but that will go away. So again, it's a good asset. The resource doubled in size. We think this mine will produce for fifteen, twenty, twenty-five years. It's got a lot of upside, and we continue to drill it. And this is really just a snapshot of some of the current drill programs underway. So six hundred thousand ounces roughly in reserve, 1.2 million ounce in resource. We believe that this mine will continue to grow at good grades as we move forward. Archimedes is our second underground mine as part of phase one. We began construction in September of last year. We're ahead of schedule and largely on budget. And this is a bigger mine than Granite Creek, and we think this mine is gonna get bigger. We will be updating and moving this from a PEA to a fees by about mid next year, and we expect the resource base and reserve base to grow and the economics to improve. In part why we believe that's the case, there's two zones at Archimedes, the upper and the lower. We began drilling the upper zone late last year, finished that program in Q2, put out a press release. It is much larger than what was in the PEA. It confirmed the sulfides where we saw the increase was on the oxides, and those oxides, uh, while we've designed Lone Tree both for refractory material with the autoclave, we also have a bypass for oxide material. We've done the metallurgy testing. Turns out this material leaches very well. We've got a permitted leach pad right at the Ruby property, so we'll begin leaching this in Q4. Leach kinetics are great. We continue to drill both the lower portion of the upper zone as well as the Ruby Deeps. We think the Ruby Deeps has a lot of continuity that will allow for long hole mining, which will be lower cost. We do th-think that this is gonna be a very large, long life asset for the company. So between Granite Creek and Archimedes, we believe that's gonna fill our Lone Tree plant at least through 2040. Turning to Lone Tree, Lone Tree was a, a Newmont facility that we acquired in 2021, and, uh, we will put the three underground mines, which are all refractory, through that plant. We began construction-- Well, we began demolition in Q3, and that's largely complete. We're now mobilizing to begin construction next week. We're on track. In terms of the cost to build this facility, it was four hundred and twelve million plus eighteen million of capital spares. We're on track in terms of procurement. We're about eighty percent through procurement. We're running about one percent below, uh, the tech report. On the contract side, that's the one area where we are seeing higher costs. We're seeing labor about five to ten percent higher. That's a combination of higher labor rates, per diem rates, and then the cost of, uh, additional, um, trucks for all of the individuals. But look, we're, we're on schedule. We expect to be fully committed by the end of this year and be commissioning in Q3 next year and pour gold in Q4, and, uh, that's going very well. The blue areas are what's new. The gray areas are what is being refurbished. So the critical path item is the dry stack tailings, and, uh, we'll begin construction of that next year and expect per, uh, commission in Q3 of next year. So it's all coming together on schedule. Mineral Point is really what the future of this company will be. The PEA, so there's five and a half million ounces of measured and indicated gold, plus about two hundred million ounces of silver. The PEA demonstrated, uh, a mine life of seventeen years at about two hundred and eighty thousand ounces of gold equivalent production at AISC of fourteen hundred dollars an ounce. And again, we only ran the NAV up to about three thousand dollar gold, and I think the NAV at three thousand dollars was two point three billion. It's significantly higher at current gold prices. We're targeting to have a PFS for this by mid next year. But as we look at the deposit, it is growing. We put out a press release last Tuesday, thirty-five drill holes as part of the program. It's a $45 million program of 430,000 feet. We expect it to continue into the first quarter next year. So the first 35 holes, 19 were step out. Of those 19 step outs, they're not included in the green area of the pit. All 19 encountered mineralization. Five had mineralized widths of over 200 meters, another five between 150 and 200 meters, three between one and 150, three between 50 and 150, and three below 50, but all intersected mineralization. So what we think is gonna happen, bless you, is that we'll have to put a pin in the drill program once this program's completed, but we'll likely continue to drill through the course of the year because we do think it's gonna get materially bigger. So in terms of near-term catalysts, first gold from Archimedes will be Q4. We're gonna put that on the heap leach pad. In terms of Lone Tree, we're now moving into construction. We're gonna complete engineering shortly, filtration plant early Q4 next year, and first pour before the end of next year with the ramp up through Q1 of '28. In terms of technical studies, we just put out the fees for Granite Creek, the first of our three underground. The second underground mine, Cove, we'll put that fees out shortly in Q4, and we're targeting Gran-- uh, Archimedes underground mid-year next year, and then two PFS's, one for Mineral Point, the other for Granite Creek open pit, uh, second half of next year. And I think that with those fees and pre-fees, I think that'll demonstrate significant NAV of somewhere between $8 to $10 billion, depending on gold price or maybe higher as we move through and complete those programs. So in ti-- in terms of why I-80, you know, I, I think, you know, historically why investors have invested in the stock was, look, Nevada is probably the number one jurisdiction to mine. We do have one of the largest resource base in the state and overall, and we've got an organic growth plan. And why now? We now have a funded development plan. Look, we're two years into the development plan, and we're largely on track. We are gonna flip some phases, and the valuation, we think, is compelling. So that's the I-80 story, and now, David, I'll open up to questions. Thank you, Richard. Um, do we have any questions? If not, I might ask a sneaky one. Um, the production profile you showed obviously has very strong growth up until sort of mid-next decade, and then it starts to roll. So maybe could you talk to what you see as the key opportunity to further enhance that profile of backfill? I'm sorry, I couldn't really hear the question. I was saying the production profile sort of peaks and rolls mid-next decade. So what's the opportunity to extend that? Okay. So, so the question is that it looks like based on the PAs that our production peaks and rolls. The Mineral Point mine plan wasn't really fully optimized, so that will be a flatter production profile. And the two underground mines, Granite Creek and Archimedes, will produce a lot more gold. We had the production profile falling off, and that's why underground production was falling off. So what we would expect as we move through the 2030s, roughly 175 to 200,000 ounces through the Lone Tree plant in terms of our underground contribution. And we do expect that we'll be able to produce at that level, including Cove, the third underground mine, through into the 2050s. Mineral Point will be roughly about 300,000 ounces into the 2050s. And then Granite Creek open pit is another 125,000 ounces. It is a shorter mine life of about ten to twelve years, and that's about 125 per year. And then ultimately, we'll look at the Lone Tree open pit. It's a three-million-ounce resource, and, uh, look to put that into production to further bolster production as we move through the second half of the 2030s. Okay. Thank you. Um, is there one final question for Richard? If not, thank you very much, Richard, for your presentation. David, thank you very much. Thank you, everyone. [audience applauding]