Turaco Gold

Director. Over to you, Justin.

Thanks. Good afternoon. Thanks for coming along. So quickly, Turaco Gold, we're listed on the ASX. We're operating in Côte d’Ivoire in West Africa, the premier jurisdiction in West Africa. We’ve had control of the Afema project now for just a little over two years. We’ve grown that project dramatically from what we inherited of about a 1.5 million ounce resource base to what is today 4.6 million ounces. And we’ve not only been growing that resource, but doing a lot of feasibility work. So we completed a PFS, which I’ll take you through, a couple of months ago, and we’ll be completing a DFS in April next year and be kicking off the construction of the project basically this time next year.

So we’re capitalised at around about $900 million Aussie. We’re funded through to completion of the DFS and the FID with about $50 million in the bank. And as we’ve grown this project very quickly, obviously the shareholder base has grown with the company. And now I’d say the institutional shareholding within the company is probably around 50%. But still management is the single largest individual shareholder in the company with around about 6% to 7% of the company. And you can see there’s reasonable coverage from well-known brokerages.

So as I touched on resource, we’ve quite regularly been updating that resource basically every six months since we’ve acquired the project. And we’ve been adding over a million ounces every year to the resource. That last resource of 4.6 million ounces came out with the PFS a few months ago in June, and is now out of date. We’ve put a series of drill results out since that resource, which were all extensional drilling results. And so we’re in the process of updating that resource now. And you’ll see a similar growth of around about half a million ounces every six months being added to that resource. And we expect that to continue in the short to medium term.

But importantly, we’ve been drilling economic ounces. So very much an iterative process as we run pit optimisations, infill our pits, drill extensions, come back and infill. And so that allowed us, as part of our PFS that we’ve just recently completed, to put out a maiden reserve statement of around about 2 million ounces. We ran our reserves at a pretty conservative gold price of $2,000 an ounce, so we could get a lot more ounces in these pits if we wanted to. We obviously wanted to maximise the margin and minimise the all-in sustaining cost, which is around about $1,500 to $1,600 all in, including royalties, depending on the gold price there. With capital development costs of around about $450 million, it has an NPV of well over $2 billion, depending on the gold price. But most importantly, it has a payback of around about 12 months at a $3,500 gold price. And at today’s gold price, the payback will be around about nine or 12 months’ time.

Importantly, we sit on a mining licence, as you’ll see. So we’re already permitted from that perspective, and we’re actually just in the throes of completing our ESIA to get an updated environmental certificate, which we’re expecting to receive, if not by the end of the year, early in 2027. And then the project will be permitted and ready to be developed, subject to a final definitive feasibility study, which as I said, will be completed in April and a FID around mid-year.

So as I said before, Côte d’Ivoire is unquestionably the premier jurisdiction in West Africa. But importantly for us, we’re not only in the best country in West Africa, we’re in the best part of that country down the south there. You can see our project area in red, yellow, and the central red area is our granted mining permit with all our resource sitting within the perimeter of that granted mining permit. So for those that don’t know, Côte d’Ivoire is by far and away the most developed country within West Africa. It has the greatest infrastructure. In fact, it exports electricity across its border. So 95% of the population sits on the electrical grid. And one of those hydro dams that feed into that electrical grid sits 32 kilometres away from where we’re looking at building our process plant. So quite modest capital cost of around $20 million to $25 million to bring a power line and substation in straight off that dam, which has got 99% reliability, and then be operating off 14 cents a kilowatt hour power.

You can see the road there. When we arrived, that road, Bichama’s Road, was actually being constructed by the government. That runs straight through our project. Our plant will be about four kilometres off that Bichama’s Road. And our main deposit, the Wuli Wuli deposit, which is the cornerstone of our development, sits about two kilometres off that road. So no big capital cost associated with access. As I said before, no villages to relocate, which is quite a unique thing with a project in Africa. And also importantly, in West Africa, being in the south, as secure as you can be from an operations perspective, and we have no security requirements on site.

From a geological perspective, the project basically covers the extension of Ghanaian geology into the southeast corner of Côte d’Ivoire. And you’d see there in Ghana, we have two main belts, the Ashanti Belt out to the east and the Sefwi Belt out to the west, which extends across the border. And we’ve expanded our project area now to be 1,600 square kilometres of contiguous ground. In fact, I’d say it’s the largest contiguous holding anyone has in Côte d’Ivoire. And we basically control, I would say, 90% of that world-class Sefwi Belt as it’s mapped in Côte d’Ivoire there. To date, our focus has really been only along one structure, which is what we call the Afema-Bibiani-Shiro Shear, which marks the eastern boundary of that greenstone belt and the Kumasi Sedimentary Basin that you can see in grey there. So we haven’t even started looking inboard into the belt itself, where we have significantly large, very high tenor anomalies, and we will step out and start to drill those targets over the next 12 to 18 months. I’m very confident of having further discovery success.

So our resource is not made up of a single deposit, albeit what has transformed this project has been the discovery of the Wulluwullu deposit, which now sits at 1.7 million ounces. There was no resource on that two years ago. We’re still drilling on that, and I think that’s got a huge amount of legs to go, and you’ll see results coming from that over the next couple of months. And that’s the cornerstone of our asset, and we’ll be mining about 4 million tonne a year coming out of that Wulluwullu deposit at a strip ratio of about three to one. And that’ll be supplemented by higher grade coming out of these shear hosted deposits along the Ephema Shear there that you can see along the boundary of the greenstone belt and the sedimentary basin.

Starting with the Junction and Anuri deposits, which are around 2 gram reserves in pit, which will be supplementing that 1 gram coming out of Wulluwullu to give us around about 200,000 to 220,000 ounces per annum of production. And then as we mine those, we then move on to the other deposits such as Begknapan, which is only small, but we’ve actually put out several results there, and that’s growing substantially. And the Asupiri deposit at the back end of the schedule there. So this is a genuine gold camp. And then there’s a significant amount of strike along that Ephema Shear that hasn’t seen a drill hole yet, but has significant soil anomalism associated with it. So we’re very confident of finding more of these Junction, Anuri, Asupiri type deposits as we step along strike there.

So we’ve touched on the PFS. We just rehashed that. So a 6 million tonne per annum operation was what our study was based on. Most importantly, the key aspects of the PFS being the resource estimate and the metallurgy are all done to a definitive level, and that allows us to move through to a definitive feasibility study very quickly, and most importantly, have a very high level of confidence in these numbers. So all the resources that sit within that mine plan are drilled on 20 to 30-metre spacing, and we’ve done a huge amount of metallurgical variability test work across all of the deposits there. So it’s really about optimising our throughput and then doing a bit of geotech and hydrogeology drilling on it just to confirm some of those parameters and then wrap that up in a DFS in early new year.

So we’re producing around about 200,000 ounces a year, but a bit earlier as we mine those high grade deposits such as Junction and Anuri, around about 215,000 ounces. But I think you’ll see us expand the throughput on this as part of our DFS and get that production more up around 250,000 ounces a year. You can see the economics, obviously, at today’s gold price, it’s pretty compelling with a payback of less than 10 months. So it’s pretty much a no-brainer. I won’t take you through those numbers.

Capital costs, as I said, the location of this project really gives us an advantage in the capital. We don’t have any villages to relocate, which can be a huge capital cost and time delay on developing a project. Proximal to the power line, so it’s not a huge capital cost associated with that. And because we’re mining really three deposits at any one time, the Wulluwullu and a couple of deposits along the Ephema Shear, we don’t have any pre-strip. All our deposits are sitting at surface. And so there’s just a small amount of pre-production mining to build up a stockpile to keep the mill full.

Just running through the deposits quickly. Wulluwullu. You can see here this is a significant discovery. So we’ve drilled this over three kilometres in strike length, and it has an average width over that three kilometres of 40 to 50 metres. So it’s a big bulk zone of mineralisation. You can see our resource pit constrained shell there, which only extends down to 270 metres vertical. And metallurgically, this is very clean. At 75 micron grind size, we get 93% recovery in the oxide, 90% recovery in the fresh, and pretty much no change in those recoveries if we coarsen that grind to 106 micron. But all of our PFS work to date has been based on that finer grind of 75 micron there. When we optimise this at a $2,000 gold price, we get a million ounce reserve that we put out as part of our PFS, as I said, a strip ratio of three to one, and that’s all drilled on 30 to 40-metre spacing.

What’s interesting about this deposit is we’ve only drilled it to 270 metres. Even in a West African sense, this is a major discovery of three kilometres of a 50-metre wide ore body, and it’s only constrained by drilling at depth. So since the PFS, we embarked on doing some deeper drilling, and you can see in the central northern part of that pit, the reddish brighter coloured zones, which represent a very high-grade zone within that three-kilometre strike, which itself has a strike of about 700 to 800 metres. So we stepped out another 250 metres down dip, so twice the vertical extent on that with one single drill hole, and we demonstrated the ore body continues. We got 100 metres at 1.1 grams per tonne, but importantly, within that, about 20 odd metres at over 3 grams per tonne.

Sitting along the western contact of the resource there, which sits within a rhyolite unit. And you can see a subtle flexure in the dip of the mineralisation there. And there’s also a jog in the strike of the mineralisation, which we think is controlling this 700-metre long plunging shoot that has probably 20 to 30 metres of true width at 2 to 5 grams per tonne. And with one single drill hole, we’ve already demonstrated we’ve got 250 metres vertical extent to that. So you can put some numbers around that. There’s a serious number of ounces potentially sitting there. So we’ve got to re-drilling some deeper holes there now, and you’ll see some results shortly from that. So Wulluwullu not only will expand as an open pit, but I think you’ll see real underground grade potential here.

And then you can see just sitting off the southern end of this, what we see in an IP survey, a resistive response there. And then you can see where our deposits sit along the margin of the belt with the shales there in purple. And running up the middle there in silvery blue is a sandstone conglomerate unit, a Tokwean unit. And that’s a key controlling feature of these higher grade shear hosted deposits sitting along this shear. We’ve got 25 kilometres of strike on this, and it’s basically continuously mineralised on both the hanging wall and the footwall of that unit, and really only certain areas have been drilled, which have delivered, just along that shear itself, about 3 million ounces of gold already. And we haven’t even drilled a hole really beneath 200 metres yet.

So looking at some of these deposits quickly along the shear here. You see the Anuri deposit. It’s only been drilled down to about 200 and 250 metres. And what I’d point out is you can see these brighter coloured zones. We get these repeating high-grade plunging shoots. At Anuri, we’ve drilled it across a strike length of about a hundred and one point five kilometres. And you can see within that, probably three high-grade shoots for us to chase down plunge with some deeper drilling there, which we’re just starting to embark on. So plenty of growth to go beyond the pit, and this will obviously, with grades that will carry underground here. I think the first hole we drilled at Anuri was 30 metres at 8 grams per ton.

And then you look at the Asieperie deposit, which sits right next door on a parallel structure to Anuri, so only one kilometre away. And both these deposits are within five kilometres of the Wuli Wuli deposit, which is where we’re looking at obviously building a plant, given the majority of the tons come out of that. It’s a very low trucking cost. But here at Asieperie, this resource sat at barely 200,000 ounces 12 months ago, just in the oxide in the top 30 to 40 metres. We’ve been progressively chasing these higher grade zones and still only drilled it down to barely much more than 150 metres, and we’ve added a million ounces to this over the last 12 months to put it at 1.3 million ounces.

But importantly, we haven’t stopped there. So a month or so ago, we put out some more extensional drilling results. Bearing in mind that everything that comes into our pit is already drilled out to reserve here. And just from extensions outside those reserves, we got 15 metres at 4.7, 15 metres at 3.6, 60 odd metres at just over a gram per tonne there. So you can see that 1.3 million ounces is gonna continue to grow, and importantly, the reserve will continue to grow there. And we’ve still got a rig here drilling, and so you’ll see further results from this Agyapan area.

Then Begnapan is another area, the third area that we’re currently drilling at the moment. And this really sat where Asieperie sat 12 months ago. Just a modest couple hundred thousand ounces of resources there, predominantly sitting in the oxide zone. And so we’ve embarked on, firstly, an infill program ’cause it didn’t sit in our PFS reserve, to convert those inferred ounces to indicated, which we’ve completed now. But that drilling has just continued on as we’ve drilled extensions and got really good results that you can see here, like 11 metres at 4.3, 15 metres at 3.4, 20 odd metres at 2 grams. So very much more of the same there. And we’re still barely drilling here beyond 100 metres vertical depth.

So you can see every one of our deposits is gonna continue to grow, and that’s why we’re confident of continuing to grow this resource at the rate that we’ve been growing it at. That’s half a million ounces every six months. We’ll have a new resource estimate out in November, which will reflect that growth, which will then feed into our definitive feasibility study. Then as we come back into the dry season in Côte d’Ivoire, which is really November, December onwards, we’ll start stepping out further afield, looking for further discoveries.

And you can see the extent of our soil coverage here across our permit area. You can see basically the soil anomalism to the south, and that’s basically what I’ve just run through. It’s currently 4.6 million ounces predominantly sitting within that area there. You can see the soil anomalism to the north as we move along strike along the Efem shear off our mining licence in red there onto our adjoining exploration licence there. Targets such as Kofakro, Kotoka haven’t seen a drill hole yet. We have soil anomalism of 100, 200 ppb consistently over several kilometres there, sitting within the Sefwi Belt, a belt that hosts deposits like Ahafo across the border in Ghana and Bibiani, Chirano, et cetera. So we’re very confident that this project will continue to grow with further discoveries, not just resource extensions.

So looking forward, as I said, our drilling will very much remain a focus. We’ve done all the infill drilling, done all the metallurgical drilling for samples. We’ve done most of the geotech drilling. We’ve only got a few thousand metres to go. So with four rigs drilling on site, about 8,000 to 10,000 metres per month, that will be very much focused on resource extensions and exploration, and that will continue unabated going forward. But whilst we’re doing that, we’re very keen obviously to develop the project as quickly as possible. So our ESIA is now complete, looking to have that project fully permitted in the first quarter of next year. A DFS will be completed early in the second quarter of next year, making a fit in around the end of the second quarter next year. And beyond the ground, pouring concrete around about November after the wet season in Côte d’Ivoire. So thanks very much and happy to take any questions.

Thanks, Justin. Great presentation. Do we have any questions?

Close to the coast with this particular operation?

No, we’re still probably more than 30 kilometres away from the coast there. But it’s actually a relevant point on that. Soils are very effective throughout the project area, but as we move to the coast, we get a bit of transport and cover. So the Wuli Wuli deposit itself is under a thin veneer of cover, or the deposit itself sticks out through that cover. But that cover within our project area is only about seven to 10 metres. But that masks what we think are some parallel structures around Wuli Wuli, and there’s potential to find other Wuli Wuli deposits right next door. But as we move south, that cover thickens up, but that’s off our project area. And so, yeah, that has no impact. And also, we’re in no protected areas or anything like that.

Questions? Questions? Maybe one from me, Justin. Just at a high level, I wonder if you could chat a little bit about the range of funding options that you might be considering for the project.

Yeah, we’re pretty vanilla. We’re just proving up the project. We have $50 million. We’re spending about $8 million a quarter, but most of that is on drilling, exploration drilling. So that’s discretionary, but that will continue. So we’re really funded through to a FID. The capital cost is around $450 million, but with a payback of 12 months, it’s gonna support a significant amount of debt funding for the development. So yeah, we’ll have to raise some more equity to develop the project. But I don’t think it’ll be very dilutive off our current market cap of $900 million.

Okay, great. All right. Well, thank you very much, Justin.

Thank you. [audience applauding]