Metals Exploration PLC

Thank you. Morning, everybody. Thank you for coming and listening. Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll start with a forward-looking statement. I’m not gonna talk through it, but there will be some forward-looking statements made today. So please be aware.

Highlights of our operation. We’re an AIM-listed gold producer. We’ve got operations in both the Philippines and Nicaragua. It’s our first time in Denver because of the Central American operations that we’ve started up. Just looking at some highlights, previous years. We’ve been producing for about ten years in the Philippines. Last year, free cash, about $115 million. We’ll probably do about the same this year. Our guidance is 40,000 to 48,000 ounces as the Philippines operations runs down. It peaked at about 84,000 ounces. And this year is our last year of operation in the Philippines. We’re gonna be at the high end of guidance as we go forward for this year.

Looking at the growth strategy. In January 2025, the board made a decision to purchase the Condor Gold operations in Nicaragua. At this stage, they were greenfields. However, they are construction-ready and fully permitted. The operations we’re looking at basically running up to about 145,000 ounces, and we start first gold in December this year. So from purchase in January 2025 to fully constructed by December 2026 is where we’re at.

In the Philippines, as I said, the current operations will run down by the end of the year. Probably finish milling January. We finish mining in November. But we do have some very nice tenement holdings there, which are more copper, large copper gold plays. So the Philippines is really turning into a copper project over a number of different tenements, whereas Nicaragua is a straight epithermal gold.

If we look at our growth strategy, I took the company over, it was bankrupt, in January of 2019. We solved a lot of technical issues in a BIOX operation. So it was a refractory gold plant that was struggling to get their recoveries up. Basically, by the end of 2019, we’d figured out all the technical issues. By mid-2023, we’re up to 90% recovery on gold. But as we ramped up the recoveries, our grades started to drop off. So the start of the mine was about two grams. We’re mining about a gram at the moment, and still producing at around the 85% recovery. So as we went forward, as I said, in 2025, we bought Condor. We started building, and our share price has reflected the growth strategy that the company has.

Just a quick look. We’re currently, as I said, listed on AIM. The current market capitalization is just over £500 million. We’ve got two key investors, both property developers in the UK, and a number of other investors as well.

If we have a look at our flagship operation, which is starting in Nicaragua, we’ll go through this quickly. Just under 2.3 million ounces at 3.9 grams. There’s about 700,000 ounces of that in the main open pit, underground in two other locations in what we call La India South. And there’s two other open-pit mines, Matises and Las Americas as well. So Las Americas will come into operation in 2027. We’ll start the pre-strip there. And the pre-stripping and ore stockpiles have already started in the La India mine. We’ve currently got about 250,000 tons of ore on stock, and by the time we start up at the end of the year, we’ll have about 400,000 to 500,000 tons of ore on stockpile ready for processing.

It’s a significant package, it’s a significant epithermal vein system. We hold the region. We’ve got about 1,200 square kilometers, running for about 50 kilometers. And we’re really only just mining a small portion of that. You can see that the three veins I talked about, La India, Americas, and Matises are there. But as you can see, the number of identified veins around these three is significant. We’re talking in the tens to up to a hundred different vein systems that we just need time to explore and develop over the time of the project. So internally, we’ve got a target of five million ounces here. As I said, we’re currently sitting on about 2.3, and we’re starting that development process.

Condor Gold was a junior explorer. They didn’t have the money to develop this further than what they did. So over the next few years, we’ll start that exploration on all of the external veins outside the current mining tenements as we build those as well. So huge prospectivity within the La India itself.

We’ve run our numbers. The original BFS, which was done by Condor, was based on just the open pit because they didn’t have enough substantive drilling underground to include that in a proven and probable. We ourselves saw the bigger picture. We’re fully financed internally. So instead of an 800,000 ton a year plant, we built 1.4, and then we actually increased that to 1.8. So we’ve got a 1.8 million ton plant ready for expansion, allowing us to build a bigger footprint in terms of mining in the area versus what was in the BFS at 800,000.

So our target right now with the three-mine scenario we’ve got in the undergrounds, we will be averaging about 145,000 ounces from 2029 on once the underground and the second open pit are up and running. So we’ve got a profile, 2027, 100,000 ounces, 120,000 ounces up to about 145,000 ounces ongoing. That brings our all-in sustaining costs. Our internal numbers, we’re running at about 1,200. We’ve got some analyst reports. They’re saying more like 15, but it’s somewhere in that range, long term. The initial high cost is the initial capital for the underground and the other open pits that will be coming online in the first couple of years. So we’re still building those out, and you can see those in the all-in sustaining costs in the first two years.

If we go to the construction, right now all of the main infrastructure’s in place. The mills are in place. The CIL tanks are done. The structures around and the decking. We’re really at piping and electrics for the main processing plant. All the subsidiary infrastructure is all in place. And as I said, the mine’s already up and running with about 250,000 on stock.

This is a really good photo looking at the project. It’s basically a very, very simple circuit. It is a low sulfur epithermal gold. Recovery is running at about 92%. So it’s a SAG to ball to CIL. So very simple elution circuit into a gold room. One of the more simple circuits you’ll find. And set up to do 1.8 million tons a year with the current mine plan running 1.4. So expansion is already built into this plant for a larger footprint.

And we look at the operations. We ourselves are doing the mining of all the bulk earthworks. We have a small contractor who’s going to do small equipment around the vein system. The strip ratio here in the open pit is about 13 to one. And it’s about, as I said, seven, 800,000 ounces currently in the open pit as it stands today. So we’ve got two 6020 Cat excavators and fifteen 777s on site as we speak.

Over the last year, as we’ve worked on these projects, we’ve been looking further afield to see what else is available for us in country to grow this business. And we worked with the government for about a year to increase our land package. So we went from about 550 to about 1,200 square kilometers. La Grecia is one of the key targets we’ve picked up. It is actually a very historical mine. If you look at some of the numbers, it was actually mined between the 1800s and the 1900s. So one of the oldest gold mines in the region. And significant high grades. About, I’m gonna say about a hundred rock chips on surface. The average grade is 18 grams in those chip samples off surface.

The vein system here is extensive. And what we see is there’s a main vein and we’ve got some numbers there where we hit the main vein, and we actually found a two-meter void where the old mine was. So we’ve got the vein both sides of what was a high grade in the middle, and both sides, it’s going over an ounce. So we can see that there’s definitely something here. And it was mined for a reason, and in quarter one next year, we’ll be starting up a very strong exploration program in this area. We’re doing a lot of sampling on surface, a lot of mapping right now, building out our knowledge of the area. It’s about 1.2 kilometers long. It’s basically a hill. And we’ll be looking to start exploring that hill with drilling or further drilling within Q1 next year.

What we’re looking for here is that high grade. We’re running an average grade through the plant of four grams, but if we can start bringing in some of this material at very low volumes, then that 145 does start peaking, start moving towards that 200,000 ounces a year. And that’s what we’re really targeting to do as we move forward, bringing all these high-grade zones we can see around this project back into the plant, like a spoke-and-hub situation.

So, Philippines exploration. As I said, we really got two businesses. We’ve got a copper business we’re looking to build out in the Philippines, and we’ve got a gold business in Central America. The copper business in the Philippines, Runruno mine, you’ll see it here. It’s where the star is. And we look further north, we’ve got the other red and blue star. They’re both the Abra and the Batong Buhay projects, which are both in our portfolio as we speak. They’re about 30 kilometers apart and they’re significant in terms of world scale for what we see on surface.

And these are some of the results in the Batong Buhay project. These drill holes, by the way, are 30 years old. The gold numbers aren’t really specific here because they’re actually mining epithermal veins here at half an ounce, all the small-scale miners. But what we see is significant copper numbers. Every drill hole that was drilled here started in ore and ended in ore from surface, okay? There’s only 20 holes, or just over 20 holes. The two drilling locations are over a kilometer apart. And we do know from the underground, there’s an old underground workings there, that that ore runs right the way through that area. So what we’re looking to do here sometime, hopefully early next year, once we get all the local community approvals up and running, we’ll start the drilling program here and expand this resource.

This is right beside a small company called Celsius Resources in Australia. They own the edge of this ore body. So this is the core of the ore body. They own the edge. They’ve drilled it out. The edge of the ore body is about 300 meters wide. This is about one kilometer. They’ve currently come up with about 380 million tons in their part that they’ve drilled, okay? So drilling this out, we know that there’s a significant upside for what we see on the surface. And with those holes, the grade’s going to be very good. That’s currently where the drill holes are. And as you can see, there’s a big gap in between where they’ve drilled currently.

The Apra project, very interesting. We’ve had this in our portfolio for a while. Again, Philippines, the regulatory regime there is very slow in moving forward, so we’re currently working with communities to get the approvals to finalize drilling. We have done surface mapping here. Manica Bell’s the project I like the most here. Just to give timeframe, I’m doing really well. Manica Bell is two and a half kilometers by one and a half kilometers at surface. The core of that’s about a kilometer and a half by 700 meters. The geochem went 3,000 PPM, 0.3% in geochem. Every stream we’ve sampled, every rock is porphyry copper, average grades between 0.5 and 3%. This has got a vein system through it. The vein system is all copper, and some of the grades in the veins are going up to 16%.

There’s one drill hole in this, drilled over 30 years ago. It’s 120 meters deep. The average grade was 1.2% from surface with an intersection of 10 meters at 4.5% copper. This is a significant copper project and we’re really looking forward to starting drilling that sometime in 2027. I think we’ll be drilling in Batin Buhay first, but Manica Bell is definitely a priority target. So what we’re looking to do is build out a copper complex here. Same port, same logistics system. And that is forward thinking. We’re talking five to 10 years. We’ve got a lot of drilling in between, but we’re very much looking forward to putting this on the map over that time.

The other two projects we’ve identified up there, again, they’re a lot further out, but MARCOpper started drilling in Bolinape as a non-drill compliant resource there of 50 million tons of 0.5% copper. And that drilling was a long time ago as well. So really that’s our business.

Just to give you an idea who we are, our ESG, we have won the President’s Award in the Philippines for four years running. Only company to do that. President’s Award is specifically focused on environment and communities. We’ve been nominated by the Philippines government to represent them in the ASEAN Awards. We’ve come second and third in both of the ASEAN awards we’ve been nominated for. We have the credentials to do this in developing countries. This is our target market, which is why Central America works so well for us. I’m 17 years in South America. The team in Nicaragua right now all worked for me in Colombia and Dominican Republic and other places that I’ve worked. So we’ve got a team with credibility and they’re doing a great job putting that plant together for first gold in December.

So that’s Metals Exploration. Are there any questions? We do have some time for some questions if there’s any questions in the... Yep. We’ve got one right in front.

Thank you for your presentation. Nicaragua hopefully will be undergoing a political change which will be positive for you in terms of being able to raise capital. Are there any negatives right now for being in Nicaragua because of the politics?

Yeah. It’s a question we get a lot. For us, stability is key, and the current government, as long as it’s stable, we’ve worked very well with them. We’ve built strong relations with them. We see them stable for at least the medium term, if not the long term, and that’s a very good thing for us. They need foreign direct investment. They need the credibility that foreign direct investment brings, and we’re the first major foreign investor for 15, 20 years. B2Gold. You’ve got Equinox there now who took over from Colibre. You’ve got Mineros and you’ve got Mako, a smaller group. They’ve been there a long time. They’ve been able to get their gold in and out of the country. Money’s not a problem. There’s never been a hold up with the government, and this is their biggest export and their biggest income.

As long as the government remains stable, which I do believe it will, then we’ve got a very bright future for at least five to 10 years. You never can say with complete certainty in any developing countries what’s going to happen. I’m from Colombia. We went from Uribe to Santos to Pietro, and you saw where the industry went. Here these guys have been in charge for 20 years. If they remain in charge, we’ve got a very good, strong relationship, and that relationship will be ongoing. So we’re quite comfortable with working with the Nicaraguan government.

What do I like about Nicaragua? I like the fact that the bureaucracy is not layered. You’ve got basically two levels of bureaucracy. You talk to the minister. The minister says yes or no, or he has to go one step up the chain. They say yes or no. The next day it happens. It’s great. You don’t get that in many countries, especially the Philippines. We’re six years waiting to drill one hole in the Philippines. Within two weeks of getting the second tenements, we’re up drilling in Nicaragua. That’s the difference. It mightn’t be as stable, but the difference is it’s very quick moving and it’s fast moving, which assists a small company like us to move forward.

Darren, maybe just a quick one from me. You’re gonna be operating in Nicaragua. You’ve got the Philippines as well. How do you deal with the time differences and just being spread out like that?

Yeah, a lot of jet lag. [laughs] No, the team, as I said, in Nicaragua are very competent. They’ve all worked for me before. I trust them completely. We do have a couple of meetings and we try and find time zones because we’ve also got London in the picture where Max, our VP Biz Dev, sits. We do work through those time zones. So I catch them in the morning, it’s their afternoon. So we’re normally talking with Nicaragua between 6:00 and 8:00 in the morning. I’ve then got the Philippines between 8:00 and 11:00, and then I’ve got London between 3:00 and 6:00 at night. So yeah, we do have to work through all that stuff and there’s a lot of time on planes, but it works. We get it there.

Good stuff.

I think building the business, not just in Nicaragua, but in Central America is key for us. We’ve shown we can do it. A lot of the new governments in Central America, El Salvador, even Costa Rica are now opening it back up to mining. We’re a first mover in the region, and if we can get our footprint to grow in that region, then we’re gonna build a bigger business and that’s what we’re looking to do.

Excellent. That’s it for the time, but thank you so much.