Alexco Resource Corp

Q2 2021 Earnings Conference Call

8/12/2021

spk12: Thank you for standing by. This is a conference operator. Welcome to the Lexico Resource Corp second quarter 2021 conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in a listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there'll be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal operator by pressing star and zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Rajni Bala, Investor Relations and Communications Lead. Please go ahead.
spk05: Thank you very much. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Today is Thursday, August 12, 2021. My name is Rajni Bala, and I welcome you all to the Lexo Resource 2021 Second Quarter Results Conference Call. This call is being webcast live and can be accessed through the events and webcast section of our website at an audio archive of the call will be available later today. Our website also contains our most recent news releases and our financial statements for the quarter ended June 30th, 2021. All amounts mentioned today are in Canadian dollars, unless otherwise indicated. Today, our chairman and CEO, Clint Nauman, will discuss our most recent results and he will be joined by our President, Brad Thrall, and our CFO, Mike Krog, during the question and answer period. Please be reminded that some statements made today may constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities law. Similarly, past performance discussed today does not indicate future results, and our business involves several risks that could cause results to differ from projections. Investors are encouraged to review the disclosures pertaining to risk, which can be found in our most recent regulatory filings available on our website and on CEDAW and ADCOR. I will now leave you with our Chairman and CEO, Clint Nauman.
spk10: Thank you, Rajni, and thank you to everybody who's attending this morning. Certainly good to talk to you. A little bit of a change up this quarter. My presentation is going to be relatively brief, and I'm not going to reiterate financial results. You have them available from our filings yesterday. So rather, I'm going to give you a few high-level remarks from site operations and then expand in response to any questions that you might have. I think that should be a pretty productive way to... to execute this discussion. So our ramp up of operations at Keno Hill continued during the second quarter, and we've been making good progress. I would say that, you know, our workforce is settling in. The COVID restrictions, although still rigorous, are not viewed as as threatening at the workforce level, which is important. And so operations are hitting more of a routine, you know, type of a profile. On the revenue side, we continue to mine ore from our Belkino mine. In the last quarter, we mined 6,460-odd tons. The head grade was just over 700 grams per ton in the second quarter, and the year-to-date head grade is a little bit north of 770 grams per ton silver. with pretty strong base metal credits. So this mine continues to overachieve its block model estimates, but we are at the present time moving into the last stope that we would intend to mine there, and then we'll be looking to transition and redeploy resources we have in that mine, the Belkino mine, to either Flamin' Moth or to Birmingham. The one thing that I would say about the Balkino experience is that we have done a significant amount of long hauling. And for those that are familiar with our technical reports, you'll know that both at Birmingham and at Flame and Moth, we have a long hauling component. On balance, it's a subsidiary component. Contrary to that, at Balkina, we've been doing a fair amount of long hauling, and I would have to say that our experience has been very, very good. We've overachieved grades. We haven't taken a lot of dilution. We're using much more, I guess, sophisticated or advanced long hauling methods than we used in the past, and the results have been excellent. So just to make that point, that the volcano experience has been really pretty pleasant in terms of operating practices as well as output. But time to move on. So we remain on track to reach the Birmingham and Flaming Wild Ore in the second half of 2021. I would say that at Flavor Moth, which, of course, you know, is situated right very close to the mill, where we are at the first production level, at the 835 level, and we're about to cross-cut to the ore. It's about 120 meters to the ore, and that's going to open up about 65,000 tons of material. It has a grade of 600 to 700 grams in that type of range. It's the top of the Flavor Moth ore body. And we would anticipate being into that ore body in the last half of the year. Over at Birmingham, in contrast, we are in a drive called the 1150. It's the first production drive. It's a result of the new reserves and resources that we calculated earlier this year. And there's... We're within meters of the first ore blocks at Balkino. The major portion of the Balkino deposit that will occupy the production component in 2022 is about 140 meters in front of us down the ramp. And that will open up when we get there about 60,000 tons of close to 1,700 grams per ton silver. We're within 140 meters of that. Meantime, we're going to be mining at the 1100 level and extracting ore going into the third and fourth quarter. Underground development rates, as we mentioned in our published material, is slower than forecasted, and we would point to crew and experience-related issues there, but they certainly are improving, and we're pretty happy with where we're heading here. At Birmingham, the initial oil production is anticipated, as I mentioned, in the third quarter, and at Flavamoth, initial oil production is anticipated in the fourth quarter of 2021. Don't forget that we updated our mineral reserves in May of this year. They were increased by about 20% to 1.4, 1.5 million tons, so we added about 270,000 tons. Small number for those used to bigger mines, but don't forget that at 400 tons a day, that's almost two years of production there. So the new resource is an average grade of 804 grams per tonne silver, 3.8% zinc, 2.6% lead, there's a little bit of gold, or as some people report, and we would say just over 1,000 grams per tonne silver equivalent based on the normal calculations. So this new reserve has extended our mine plan, and we were anticipating producing more than 35 million ounces of silver over the next eight years. At the mill, we processed nearly 11,000 tons of ore in Q2. It's 18,000, 19,000 tons year-to-date, with a year-to-date hit grade of 817 grams per tonne silver. about 11% lead and 4% zinc. So very high base metals. In the second quarter, that mill averaged 176 tons per operating day for the days it was operating in Q2. And the mill is simply operating in response to the ore that's being extracted and delivered from Balcino. But the Q2 experience was a 65% increase in throughput over the last quarter. And all of the, or the great majority of the construction work, refitting work in terms of cyclones, a new fine ore feeder, construction of a new building, the second ball mill, the regrind mills, et cetera, have all been completed and stand ready for scale-up in Q3 and Q4. The experience in the mill has been excellent, actually. You know, recoveries, are on or ahead of our expectations. It's averaged 93% of recovery of silver in Q2, with 94% of the silver reporting to the lead concentrate. So, you know, payabilities are high, and that's good to see. Here today, you know, recoveries are around 91% with 87% of the silver reporting to the lead concentrate. So you can see the similar trends, you know, emerging at the mill with increasing efficiency and especially payability as we go along here. So additionally in Q2, as I mentioned before, we released an updated technical report. The mineral reserve increased, as I mentioned. And we end up here with a run rate of 4.4 million ounces of silver per year over an initial eight-year mine life. Turning briefly to exploration, we will have a lot more to say about exploration in a couple of weeks here. The Birmingham Northeast Deep Exploration Program is continuing. We have four drill rigs here. continue to operate. They're using directional drilling technology. That is a 20,000 meter underground program. Excuse me. And we're about 60% of the way into that particular program. 11,500 meters have been drilled to date. Ultimately, we should have more than 50 intercepts through the target zone in this northeast deeps area under the Birmingham deposit. And that zone, which as we've talked before, is 400 to 500 meters long, will be drilled off of 10 fences, which are being drilled with large diameter core, off of which we drill daughter holes or directional holes to get a vertical hole spacing of about 20 meters. So we're doing that very deliberately to make sure or to enhance, I guess, the opportunity for us to, when we start calculating the resource for this deeper mineralization, that we're able to go straight to an indicated category. We're working towards releasing initial drill results in late August. I would say that we would hope to have them available, you know, for the second quarter for this week, actually. But we had some duplicates and standard issues, quality issues that we had to retest at the lab. It was delayed just a couple weeks. Nothing to get excited about there. It's pretty routine. This is very high-grade material. to the extent that it is intercepted, so it does give the lab some problems from time to time. Our objective in 2021 is to incorporate this drilling into a new site-wide mineral resource estimate, and of course that will be focused mostly at Birmingham, but it will gather in some other drilling that we did in 2020. So, it's still our target to complete this resource analysis by the fourth quarter of this year, and just to see where we stand at, especially at Birmingham. So, finally, just to conclude, I wanted to, again, express my sincere thanks to our workforce who have continued to deliver results amidst the ever-evolving COVID environment together. We've made steady and significant progress on delivering Keno Hill back to full production, but make no mistake, we still have hard work ahead of us. Maintaining and increasing our forecasted underground development advance rates is key, as is continued successful recruitment of underground miners and maintenance technicians. We also need to be navigating the normal short-term supply chain issues, as are most other people in the business. So for us, it's all about execution, and that comes down to underground advance rates, continuing success in recruiting underground operators, miners and mechanics especially, and being proactive on the supply chain challenges. With that, I think I've said enough here to give you a high-level overview, so I'd like the operator to open the call for questions. Thank you.
spk12: We will now begin the question-and-answer sessions. To join the question queue, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. You'll hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. We'll pause for a moment as callers join the queue. The first question comes from Jake Sikalski from Alliance Global Partners. Please go ahead.
spk03: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. So just looking at the ramp up kind of heading into the second half of the year, I'm trying to get a sense of the pace we should be modeling for Q3 and Q4. Is there any color that you guys are able to give on how we should kind of be thinking about that curve up to 400 tons a day in the second half?
spk10: I mean, let me take a shot at that, Jake. It's an evolving issue, obviously, as we ramp up here. We are fully confident that we'll have an opportunity to be able to push that mill up into the higher numbers in the fourth quarter of 2021. And certainly, um, you know, by the second, by the first quarter of, uh, by 2022, um, you're going to, you'd be modeling, you know, sustained, uh, you know, 400 ton per day, you know, four plus million ounce per year. It's sort of a run rate. That's, I mean, you know, hypothetically, I guess if, if, if I was sort of, you know, working on a model, that's what I'd be thinking.
spk03: Okay. Yeah. And I understand it's a moving target, but that was, that was what I was hoping for. So thanks for that. Um, And then just on recoveries, I mean, obviously we saw a significant increase quarter over quarter with both silver and zinc. You know, do you expect these to trend higher in the second half as throughput ramps up and you transition to mining Birmingham and Flamin' Moss material?
spk10: Yeah, Brad's the expert here. So I will say anecdotally before Brad answers, though, that – that mill, you know, Jake, is operating as good or better than we've ever seen it operate. But the alternative to Brad, because you're correct, the character of the ore that's going to be coming from Flamin' Moth in Birmingham is slightly different. Brad?
spk01: Yeah, thanks for that question, Jake. Yeah, I mean, certainly our recoveries in Q2 improved over Q1. Again, about 93% on the silver side, but I think even more more important just in the last month or two, June, July, we were at, you know, just over 94% on silver. So I wouldn't say that, you know, it will continue to increase. I think we've kind of, you know, we've reached a point of, I think, excellent response. But again, we are transitioning from Belkino to Birmingham, which is a different ore. And that will require the regrind mills for the concentrate. So Yeah, so I think, you know, the recoveries that you're seeing right now in that 93, kind of 94% are – that would be, I think, our expectation going forward.
spk03: Got it. Okay. That's all. Cool. That's all on my end. Thank you again, guys.
spk12: Thanks, Jake. The next question comes from Joseph Riga from Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead.
spk04: Morning, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Kind of just following on a little bit of what Jake was asking on the operating rate ramp up. You guys gave your operating rate in Q2 as 176 tons per day, but that's per operating day. So I guess looking at Q3 and Q4, should we be assuming a certain percentage of days that the mill will be down? as we're looking at those numbers you gave it, or were those numbers based on, you know, an expectation of the mill being, you know, fully available the rest of the year?
spk10: Well, once again, I'll let Brad take that. But, I mean, the high-level, you know, issue is that that mill is operating, Joe, in response to the ore that's being extracted from volcano. Um, and, uh, you know, it's worked, you know, pretty much as we expected. I mean, it's, it's, uh, you know, there's runs of, you know, a couple of weeks, um, you know, we are, you know, working on, you know, optimization, debottlenecking type work. So it's worked out pretty well. Um, uh, and, uh, in the, for the, for the last half of the year, though, you're going to see all being delivered from, you know, Belkino initially, and then, uh, you know, and then Birmingham. So there's going to be, you know, a supply of oil there that is going to enable us to operate that mill at a higher throughput, albeit it may not be a sustained higher throughput. But, I don't know, Brad, do you want to elaborate on that?
spk01: Yeah, I mean, I think the mill, General Joe, has been operating on a two-week-on, two-week-off schedule. And that's, you know, mostly dictated by crews and crew rotations. We want to make sure that all four of our operating crews have have operating time when ore is available. But certainly, that 176 ton per day, that is not any indication of mechanical throughput capacity. We could operate, let's say, for a week at even higher throughputs. So we're trying to find the right balance of sustained operations for a couple weeks at a time. but again, being cognizant of the feed source coming from Belcano. So we'll likely continue this two-week-on, two-week-off rotation at the mill into Q4, but as we get closer to the end of the year, that's when we'd be looking to increase the run time that's at the mill.
spk04: Okay, fair enough. And then on the capital spending front, you know, the first half of the year you guys spent right around $25 million based on the cash flow statements. What should we expect, you know, as far as capital spending in the second half of the year?
spk10: Well, I mean, it's, you know, there's two pieces to the capital the way that we look at it, Joe. The first is the PP&E, and, you know, to a large extent that is you know, already invested. So it's all about, you know, working capital. And that is, you know, that is based on the, you know, fixed costs, the underlying fixed costs at the operation. They're going to continue, you know, at about the same level that we have at the present time, offset, of course, by, you know, revenues that are returning from the ore that's being milled. So, Um, the underlying costs, I, you know, I don't anticipate are going to change significantly. Um, uh, but it's the revenue, the revenue side of the equation is going to be the, the important piece. So Brad, do you want to elaborate on that?
spk01: Yeah, no, I think that's, uh, you know, fair comment. Um, you know, the vast majority of our PPE, the mill and, you know, all of these, you know, site-wide infrastructure, projects, they are essentially complete. And, you know, we are now in kind of a normal, I guess, you know, operating burn rate, if you will. That's, you know, pretty consistent now month in and month out. And, you know, now the focus is increasing the revenue to, you know, start to narrow that, you know, that gap.
spk04: Okay. Fair enough. I'll turn it over. Thanks, guys.
spk12: Thanks, Joe. The next question comes from Nicholas Dion from Cormac Securities. Please go ahead.
spk06: Hi, guys. Most of my questions have been answered, so sorry to be repetitive. But just to be clear, it sounds like the mill is performing quite well. What's really holding the ramp up back is the underground development rates. And the main issue there is recruitment and retention of labor. I guess the ground conditions you've encountered have, you know, underground have so far been more or less as expected. Is that all fair to say?
spk02: Yeah, that's pretty reasonable. Okay, great. Yeah, that's a fair statement.
spk06: Okay, thanks.
spk12: The next question comes from Mike, new user from RF LAVITY. Please go ahead.
spk08: Good morning. Thanks for the extra detail on the underground development at Flamin' Moth and Birmingham. It kind of sounds like that you're going to be able to seamlessly transition right into Birmingham and Flamin' Moth, or do you anticipate that there might be a break there where the mill might be idle for more than a couple weeks?
spk10: You know, not the way that we see it, Mike. We've got plenty of ore to continue to come from Birmingham, from Balcino, sorry. Birmingham is very close to being in the ore. So you're going to see a continuous supply of ore to the mill. It is true, though, that the multiple working headings that are in the plan are Um, we'll be, you know, both Birmingham at the, you know, at the deeper level that I mentioned, and also at flame a mob that, you know, the block of all that we're cross cutting to the prison time, those blocks of war, um, can be expected to be on stream in the first quarter of 2022. Um, you know, how soon we get to them in the, you know, if we get to them sooner in the fourth quarter, that's great. But our plans show a steady supply of ore to the mill, pretty much in line with what we've been seeing until we get those bigger blocks of ore underway and more headings available at Birmingham and Flaming Moss. So I'm not exactly sure if that answers your question. We're certainly not looking at any sort of stand down or or step back at the mill. We anticipate a continuous supply and increasing supply of ore to that mill.
spk08: That does answer it. It really does sound like you're really managing your people in the days of COVID pretty well. One more follow-up about the zinc recoveries. There really was quite a jump from the first quarter and much better than the prior operation back earlier in the last decade. Is that pretty much from regrinding the concentrate? And do you think that you're going to be able to maintain those zinc recoveries going forward? Yeah, Brad.
spk01: Yeah, I'd like to take a shot at that. Yeah, thanks, Mike. It's not because of regrind. It's essentially two changes. I mean, one is pH control. I mean, in a lead-zinc flotation circuit, pH control is absolutely critical. So, you know, I think we have that dialed in pretty well right now. And we've also made a few adjustments on some of our reagents on the zinc side. So, yeah, plus 75, close to 80% recovery on zinc with, you know, in excess of 50% congrade. So that is as good as we've seen at Keno Hill. And, yeah, we would expect, I think, that to continue going forward. certainly at Birmingham, and especially when the regrind mills are operating at Birmingham.
spk08: Thank you. And one more thing, following up on that, when answering the question earlier, passing it off from Clint to you, I wasn't sure about the answer with the new type of ore bodies. Flamin' Moth and Birmingham are a little bit different than Belkino. Do you foresee pretty much a continuation of recoveries you know, again, seamlessly into those ore bodies? Are you expecting a few challenges you'll need to work through and optimize?
spk01: Yeah, there may be certainly some learning curves. I mean, again, the reason that we are installing concentrate regrind mills is all due to the Birmingham deposit, which, again, Birmingham and Flame and Moth, as you know, have lower base metals than Belkino. And so those regrind mills are necessary to increase the concentrate grades to meet, you know, specs on the concentrate. So, yeah, I mean, it wouldn't be, you know, it wouldn't be unusual to have some learning curve as you get into some of these new ores. But the regrind mills are ready to go. And, you know, again, we're, you know, 30 days or less away from starting to mill that Birmingham ore.
spk08: Well, thank you. The... The directional drilling seems to be a real coup, not just from the number of downhole hits you might have, but also understanding true width there by coming in at different angles. But just from the numbers of meters drilled, it's kind of hard to estimate how many opportunities you've had to pierce the target panel. And I'm guessing it's somewhere with 11,500 meters, you're probably around 25 to 30 meters. uh, hits on target there. Is that close?
spk10: Yeah, your arithmetic's pretty good, Mike. Last I looked, it was 33. So, um, so yeah, I just, just elaborate on that just a little bit. Um, the, um, yeah, it, it, the directional drilling, um, exercise has been important technically. Um, it is, um, Not as easy as just shooting holes in the ground, you know, from the surface. It's slow getting around the bends, if you like, or the dog legs. But, you know, we are totally focused on the end result here, which is a controlled intersection at measured distances, you know, down dip and a long strike. And from that perspective, it's certainly meeting its expectations. I would say that it is more expensive than we had anticipated, but that does not mean that we would end up running anything over budget. Rather, we are going to collapse our entire effort this year into that Birmingham deep zone and expand. We'll be drilling 20,000 meters in there. in what was originally planned to be a 25,000-meter program with 5,000 meters in reserve for other work in the district. That now has been collapsed into the Birmingham DEEP program, and we have increased the number of intercepts or, I guess, potential intercepts or intercepts of the target zone simply because of the information that we're seeing as we go through this process. So we're increasing the drilling. It's a little slower, it's a little more expensive, but at the end of the day, we'll end up with a product exactly as we expected in terms of geometry of penetrations of the target zone.
spk08: So with collapsing in the non-Birmingham deep targets, what would be the gross number of meters or targets for solely the Birmingham deep alone now?
spk10: I think we're at like 56 or 58, something in that range. It's about another three-quarters of a million bucks we're putting into that effort.
spk08: How many? So 58? Yeah, something in that range, yeah.
spk10: Okay. I kind of broke up there for a second. No, I just said we were originally talking, Mike, if you remember, you know, several quarters ago, 45, 50 holes, something in that range. We've increased that to, you know, the 55, 58 type range. Okay, thank you.
spk08: And the recent increase in reserves, that's actually in the mine plan now. That's not going to be refigured later in the year at the end of this drill program. Is that correct?
spk10: Yeah, exactly. It's a little complicated, I know. Yeah, so... We did that primarily because this first production level at Birmingham 1120 was not in the reserves in the original mine plan. But with the increase in the silver price, there's clearly margin in there, so it's currently in the mine plan. So that was the reason we redid that technical report. So you can expect another technical report or recalculation of the resources and reserves in the fourth quarter of this year. And if that, and that'll primarily be driven by this deep drilling at Birmingham. But you can be reasonably sure that if the results from that drilling are encouraging, there's high possibility that we'd look at an even further report in Q1 2022 as we see whether or not the mineralization, this deeper mineralization, can withstand the economics of a normal underground mining plant.
spk08: Well, I look forward to the first quarter of next year. Just one last more of a comment than anything, but Brad mentioned burn going forward, and I was staring at your cash flow statement for the second quarter, and you actually had a positive operating cash flow, which is interesting for a project that is still in the throes of commissioning and optimization, and so congratulations on that. That's kind of a rare sight. I can't say that that's going to be the same next quarter, but with no huge adjustments in there other than a reduction of inventories, congratulations on a good quarter, and I look forward to the exploration results. Thank you.
spk12: Thanks, Mike. The next question comes from Chen Lin from Lin Asset Management. Please go ahead.
spk11: Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. Actually, most of my questions have been answered. I just want to touch up a couple of points. I've been hearing that next year's zinc smelting charge has already been set and the company reporting much better term next year versus this year. Do you see similar...
spk01: trend and can you quantify that thank you yeah chan i just uh brad i'm not sure i have an answer to that to the uh the zinc tcrc's at this point are you familiar with what's happening well we're currently under uh under an offtake agreement um uh the chen as you know um and those terms are are set uh through the end of the year and then um then there would be uh I guess, adjustments on an annual basis based on benchmark kind of guidelines. So, I guess that's all I can say right now in terms of, you know, our smelter, our treatment charges. They are set, but they do have an annual kind of adjustment built into the contract.
spk11: Okay. Okay, great. Thank you. Also, right now, you haven't declared commercial production yet, right? Are you capitalizing the expenses right now in the accounting? And what's like kind of cash if, you know, I don't want to just touch a little bit on the Mike's last question. What kind of cash burn with all the exploration and COVID, you know, remediation going on? What kind of cash burn you have in the past quarter? And what do you see? you know, on your project projections by the end of the year when you start ramping up the production where the cash level will be close to the end of the year. Thank you.
spk10: Yeah, I'm going to let Mike take the first part of that in terms of the accounting treatment of the expenditures at Keno Hill, and then I can elaborate on that second portion.
spk07: Yeah, thanks, Clint. Yeah, so we early adopted on... expensing all of our operating costs at the mine. So the amounts that you see capitalized are more of the longer-term capital expenditures that you see hitting the balance sheet. Otherwise, all of our operating expenditures are going to the P&L right now, which is what you see for Bell Aquino.
spk11: Okay, great. Thank you.
spk10: Okay, and then on the other side of it, Chen, in terms of the burn, it's pretty straightforward arithmetic. Obviously, it's driven by revenue, and primarily because your underlying costs, as you know, a large number of those underlying costs are fixed. The burn, you can calculate, I think, from current financials that our fixed costs and underlying costs at site are running about two to three million dollars more than the revenue that we've been producing over the last quarter or so, but be aware that the throughput and concentrate side, the revenue side of the equation, continues to scale up as we go into the end of the year. I'm not sure if that answers your question, but, you know, that's what we're anticipating.
spk11: Okay, great. Thanks. Yeah, great. You know, you did the financing, actually, was much higher, almost double the current stock price, and you have a very strong balance sheet right now, can stand, you know, the volatility of the metals. So that's a good move. And just curious, you're going to finish up the volcano, right? And then you... redeployed to Birmingham, Flamin' Moss. So what kind of grade variation do you see and what do you see, you know, if recovery, do you expect a similar recovery from the meal, if not better?
spk10: Yeah, I mean, as I said, we talked about the recoveries previously. Brad was talking about that. Let me just see. You know, the output from volcano has averaged, I think, you know, at the minehead around 770 grams. At the first, the initial ore at Birmingham and at Flame of Moth has a slightly lower hit grade than that. But as you get into these deeper levels, the head grades will escalate, you know, quite rapidly. So we haven't, you know, actually, and just sort of thinking through your question here, the 770, you know, year-to-date silver grades are likely to decline slightly in the initial feed. from the combined Birmingham and Flame and Moth operations, and then they'll climb very rapidly when these other production levels come on stream.
spk11: Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you for the question and to answer my question. Good luck and looking forward to your new report with more production and more profit.
spk10: Yep.
spk12: Thanks, Jim. The next question comes from Martin O'Malley, private investor. Please go ahead.
spk09: Clint, a couple of times you've indicated that you thought that the Birmingham exploration would be transformational in terms of how people viewed Keno Hill. Do you still feel that way? Absolutely. No question.
spk10: I don't have any other way to answer it. Absolutely. You know, we've been lucky enough to stumble into, you know, a total, what a geologist would call sort of an ore deposit profile. We've stumbled into a deposit which, you know, which is unique at Keno Hill. We see the top of it and we certainly haven't seen the bottom of it. And we're drilling holes down there, you know, 500, 600 meters. And we're right next door to the biggest deposit in the district historically. So, Yeah, it's a very important discovery for a lot of reasons. And I still feel, you know, quite optimistic. I'm the blue sky guy, don't forget. But I feel, you know, really quite, my interest is highly piqued by, you know, what might be the outcome of our work here.
spk02: Thank you. You answered my question.
spk12: This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Clint Nelman for any closing remarks.
spk10: Thank you, operator. I look forward to keeping you updated on our progress as we get closer to 400-ton-per-day target here, and I want to thank the shareholders for their continued support and confidence in our team. And with that, I wish you a safe and confident travels as we move into the future here. Thank you.
spk12: This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.
Disclaimer

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