B2Gold Corp.

Welcome to the D2 Gold Corporation's second quarter 2025 financial results conference call. As a reminder, all participants today are in the listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity for analysts to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. Should you need assistance during today's conference, you may call and signal for a conference operator by pressing star then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Clive Johnson, President and CEO of V2 Gold. Please proceed.

Thanks, Dr. Ed. Welcome to the call, Edmund. For me, it's going to be a strong career, a second career, a strong operational at all three operations. The operations continue to run well and we expect to meet our annual guidance. Additionally, a big milestone on June 3, 2020, is the inauguration of the inaugural Gold Board at the newly constructed Newsline in Cleveland. This sparks a transformational moment for B2O that is a true milestone for our staff and partners who have worked tirelessly to reach this achievement. Actors and folks now chose to continue steady state operations very much in a necessary role in our current record of history. The value seems to be very positive in our view, and that's to say, the value stands for approval to conduct NMF operations in Foucault, who is still more pronounced, which has been.

The approval follows Dr. B. Kavits,

I mean, how did this... During the second quarter of the 25th, there was a loss of 2,000, and in fact, there was a loss of 2,000, and in fact, there was a loss of 2,000, This curve will affect the value of each load as well, so that's up to the state to understand the growth direction of over 1 million ounces this year. And with the majority of growth capital spending in things like freight, the company has settled well in the past because it showed a value over the 10 years, including production from moving coordination.

But we are looking forward to understand core carbonation and financial aid. So with that, I'd like to turn it over to Mike Simmons, our CFO.

Mike will give you a quick review of some of the financial habits, and then we'll have a little while to see if you can update us about this.

And then we'll open up to questions. So, Mike, over to you.

Thanks, Clyde. I mean, financially, it was a strong quarter. Our basic earnings per share were $0.12 per share, and adjusting to one kind of items, which were actually offsetting, we actually realized $0.12 per share of adjusted earnings. And, you know, fair to say that that definitely benefited from the strong average gold sales price. And just to maybe touch on the sales point, too, we were slightly behind budgeted sales ounces in the quarter, but that was purely on a timing basis, the timing of shipments from several of the sites, but those ounces were shipped out just after the period end of the sold in early July. Operating cash flow side, operating cash flow for working capital adjustments, some of 301 million in the second quarter, another strong result, and again highlights the cash generation potential of our operating assets and the full-price environment. Balance sheet-wise, we continue to remain in a strong financial position. We spent cash and cash equivalents of $308 million at the end of the second quarter. And also at the end of the second quarter, we had the full $800 million available in our revolving credit facility, which is undrawn, plus the $200 million accordion feature. I will say that subsequent to June, at the end of June, we did draw down $200 million on the revolver, and that was to help us manage working capital requirements as we start to deliver into our gold prepayment commitments over the 12-month period from July 25 to June 26. In fact, we have already delivered the first tranche of those, so we're starting to unwind that position. With continued strong performance across the portfolio and the ramp-up of GOOST, which is now well underway, we were pleased to restate and reiterate our production guidance for 2025 unchanged, with full-year production expected to be between 970,000 and 1,075,000 ounces, and we expect GOOST to still contribute between 120,000 to 150,000 of those ounces. Again, on the positive side, the lower unexpected cash cost per ounce is at the existing three operating mindsets, the Colomers Stadium and Jakoto. We're pleased to announce that the company has reduced its consolidated cash cost guidance range for those three operations to between $740 and $800 per ounce. So, or produced, sorry. This is lower than the previous guidance range of between $835 and $895 per ounce. And then with the inclusion of the post-commercial production estimates for the Goose Mine, I remind you that we expect Goose to come into commercial production in September. Consolidated cash operating guidance is now forecast to be between $795 and $855. And overall, on an equity basis, we continue to maintain a good amount of financial flexibility to be able to allow us to complete our remaining nine-plus of construction activities at Goose to fully retain and deliver into the gold prepaid venture that is due in early 2024, and to complete the other sustaining and growth initiatives across the portfolio, and we'll continue to fund healthy aspiration programs as well, which we expect will expand in my life. And with that, I'll turn it over to Bill for an operation and project listing.

All right. Thanks, Mike. I just got back from the group, so I may be a little feral during this, so bear with me. As Mike said, on three operations, we expect to meet or exceed all of our targets for the year. But probably what everyone wants to talk about is goose. So just going back to what has been completed there, goose, all the major construction activities which are required, were nearly completed at the end of the quarter, and the mine ramp-up is now well underway. The focus for the third quarter now turns actually to optimizing the current operations. and increasing throughput to full capacity. As Mike indicated, a ramp up to commercial production is expected in September 2025. Things which were completed in the first half of 2025 at the goose include the completion of the mining of the eco pit, remember that was our tailings facility, and commissioning, so we are now placing tails in echo. Full ramp up of mining of the unwell open pit in the second quarter. We also had continued development of the unwell underground. We completed the fresh airways one already, and in the process of developing fresh airways number two, which will be needed in the second half of 2025. We commenced dewatering of the lava pit. All these things are required to run the mill correctly. This provides fresh water and reclaimed water to the mill. We developed the unwell open pit and underground, and that remains a priority to ensure that the adequate mill feed volumes are maintained. If you look at around the other operations, Motley continued a strong performance for 2025, achieving low production expectations again in the second quarter. As Mike said, cash costs for ounce were also lower than expected. Underground, after meeting with the government last quarter, or last month, the underground production has commenced, as announced on July 30th. The underground development is well advanced with over 9,300 meters of development work, plus the installation of all required underground mining infrastructure having all been performed prior to commencing production. If you remember, we were actually given a permit to do all the development. So even though we were 30 days late on the starting of mining the bore, we in fact continued to develop right up until July 30th. So the question I've heard being asked several times is whether or not we think we're going to get the ounces required from underground we absolutely see a path to make sure that all the required ounces from underground will be delivered in 2025 the regional project we continued with our meeting with them we continue to work with the state of Mali to finalize the approval of the regional exploitation permit in the third quarter of 2025 just kind of late breaking we've actually had our first technical session with them this morning We absolutely see a path towards getting the permit. V2 Gold is ready to commence pre-stripping activities with the Pecola Reef Mill infrastructure. Remember, once again, this was one of those facilities where they allowed us to do all of the infrastructure development. So the haul road's in place, and all the infrastructure's already in place. We're just waiting on a permit to start pre-stripping. Subsequent to June 30th, 2025, the Pecola Mill celebrates a significant milestone. with 4 million ounces of gold produced since the inception of the project. At Modbody, the operations continue to perform well, with a world-class safety track record, which I think we announced more than 2,400 days without a long-time incident. Mine production significantly outperformed expectations, and we anticipate consistent production in the second half will result in strong 2025 performance and robust margins. Old Dakota is also going very well. The open pit and underground went well during the second quarter with production also exceeding expectations. During the second quarter, remember, we're working on this antelope deposit, so we continue to focus on developing that with a target release in the third quarter of 2025. And then the other development project is Gramalote. We released the positive feasibility study. Work has commenced on the modification of the work plan and environmental impact study, and we expect to be complete in late 2025 or early 2026. We anticipate that the permanent modification timeframe should be approximately 12 to 18 months. With that, Clyde, I'll turn it back over to you.

Okay.

Thanks, Will. I'll put it right here, sir, for the question. Thank you.

We will now begin the analyst question and answer session. As a reminder, to join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you are using a speaker phone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw it, please press star then two.

We will now pause momentarily to assemble our roster.

And today's first question comes from Fahad Tariq with Jefferies. Please proceed.

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. In the press release, it mentions lower than anticipated fuel costs in a number of places, not just at Sequoia, but also in Marsati. Can you just maybe talk about what the expectation was at the beginning of the year when you sent guidance?

And I'm just curious why it's trending lower than expected. Thanks. Thank you. Well, I can start. I'll start.

Well, you know, when we budget, we typically have a look at the forward curves on the fuel side, usually around September, October. So we use those as the base. And then what we've seen and what's been realized is the price is that HFO has been about 9% lower than most prices over the first six months. of 2025 in diesel it's actually been more it's been something more like 13% below so you know we made our best investment back when we got the budget probably somewhere around the October price because we were budgeting to finalize it up in November And I can tell you as we've looked forward, we have taken into account those lower fuel costs when we're looking at the re-guidance that we put out in the cash operating site.

Okay, that's helpful. And then on Goose, there was a comment about the CapEx guidance for the second half of this year, $176 million. I'm just trying to reconcile just the overall CapEx at Goose relative to I guess what the project CapEx guidance was before, and I think it was reiterated in the May release. Can you just maybe help us walk through that? I guess the other way of asking is, is that second half CapEx guidance of $176 million, is that consistent with what you were expecting?

Thanks. Yeah, again, I can start that and both can jump in.

Overall, On the project, we did see some acceleration of costs as we worked our way up to the first goal for at the end of half one. So we probably saw somewhere around about 5% overall. Cost increases against the budget. Then what we also experienced as we ran up to that is we did accelerate. from capex uh capex would be in in half two in the tax report and actually a little bit since two years and that that totals about some hundred reasons 50 million um and then we also had What we described in the NDA in the disclosure is we have some narrow and process point upgrades from a region of $40 million, so approximately $100 million between those two. When we pulled step forward from second half and then about $40 million that we've added in to the second half, I think that further mills will set plans for upgrades, and I think Bill can talk to those a little bit.

Yeah, really relating to upgrades, I would say once again it was really operability or availability of the mill. One of the things as we got in and building, we realized a lot of the lines didn't have the necessary valving and piping, the redundancy built in, the ability to do maintenance on the mill while it continues to operate. So we added, I think I saw from the finance group approximately, an additional $26 million on the mill side related to kind of what I would call upgrades or improvements in availability. And like I said, that really relates to a lot of that small stuff, additional pumping, piping, valves, and installation of all that stuff.

Okay, thank you. Our next question comes from Wayne Lamb with TD Securities.

Please proceed.

Yeah, thanks, guys. So we got through a good quarter and getting the SACOLA underground permit. Seems like you have some good momentum in Mali now. Just wondering what the mechanics would be in terms of getting the SACOLA regional permit and what the final points of negotiation might be and any potential hurdles to getting that permit by the end of Q3?

Yeah, so we, as I said, we went down and met with, we met with the Minister of Mines, and during the discussion, it almost seemed like, for them, the regional permit had kind of dropped off because they were dealing with some of the other government, the other mining houses issues there, which shall not be hanging on this call. But once we brought it forward, Quite frankly, they were a little embarrassed that they hadn't done it yet. And so they immediately agreed to try and get this thing pushed out by the end of Q3. That was their schedule, not ours. And they immediately agreed to set up a commission and start working on that. So that happened this morning. We haven't heard any outstanding issues other than to hear that it wasn't a Yelp answer. It wasn't an argument.

It was just a very constructive discussion, which we think leads to the permit. Okay, great. Thanks.

And just wondering in terms of the ramp up of goose relative to the mine plan, you guys had outlined in the plan 125,000 ounces this year, which would be at the lower end of the guidance It seems like he's been making some good progress there, just on the shipping of the echo pit and the development. But just wondering where you guys kind of see the opportunity to outperform what's been outlined in the plan. Is that on the plant performance, or is it upside on the grade profile as well?

I would say both at this point. Once again, you're asking questions right at the front of commissioning. So, certainly we have an aggressive ramp-up plan, but historically we've been able to beat that. So there is some potential there. There's also some potential as we start to move out of kind of the eco low-grade material, which, you know, remember the eco pit was never designed to be kind of a high-grade feeder into the mill. Into the unwell pit, if we can get our head around how can we mine that quicker, certainly there is some potential there. And so I would say not only on the mill ramp-up side, which Admittedly, a three-month ramp-up is aggressive versus many other of our peers, but not really aggressive versus what we've historically done. And then on the unknown side, if we can get additional grade from the open test.

Okay, great. Thanks.

And then maybe this last one, maybe just a follow-up on the CapEx side, just given the increase in CapEx relative to the 270 in the mine plan. Just wondering how much of that would have been brought forward from 2026? Just trying to figure out if maybe we should be anticipating a lower CapEx number relative to the 140 million outlined for next year in the mine plan.

Mike, you can go ahead. Okay, so you're talking about what may have been pulled forward from 26 in the second half? Yes.

That's what you're asking? Yeah, well, I think there's some slight infrastructure upgrades where Bill's doing, I think, what he wants to do to enhance both the MLA and the site, that they're about $15 million. As Bill mentioned, there's 26 roughly related to the mill, so there's 40, let's say, that are things we didn't have to do this year, but we want to do to enhance it. And then there's some prepayments on some generators, I guess since what we have, there's another 24, so it would be more than 60. That would be full forward for the future years.

Okay, got it. Okay, cool. Thanks for taking my question.

You're welcome. And the next question is from Elvis Habib with Scotiabank. Please proceed.

Thanks, operator. Good morning, Tribe and B2 team. Congrats on a good quarter. um just a couple questions from me um starting off with the piccola baby um in terms of the mine plan sequencing um for uh piccola kind of going into 2026 does that change now that you have the piccola underground from it in hand so remember we always talked about having it after q2 so our life of mine

showed it really coming online in July. So the underground permit doesn't really change it other than we have done a little bit more development than what was in the life of mine. So we may be able to steal some additional ounces, but I really think that's more of a 2025 issue, not a 2026 issue. And as far as 2026, we're still working on the budget and where we're going with that. So I don't really want to comment on where the ounces will come from in 2026 just yet.

Just, Bill, in terms of what would be the current grade of the underground stockpiles that you have on site, and what would be the grade that you're expecting from the scopes that you're currently mining?

You're talking at Ciccola? Ciccola Underground, yes. I'd have to look that one up for sure. Let me just – I did actually report to the board what it is, so –

During his call, let me come back to you on that. Sounds good, sounds good. No worries. And then just kind of moving on from there, you know, in terms of, you know, you're targeting about 25,000 ounces from the underground in 2025. I guess this is kind of my follow-up question from our previous one, but is there a target that you have in mind for 2026 for the picola underground that's kind of, you know, is there a range that you can talk about right now?

Yeah, so remember, we always talked about the fact that we thought we could produce about 80 or 100,000, between 80 and 100,000 ounces out of the underground. But remember, that replaces lower grade ounces. So the reality is you're going to get kind of probably 50% of that. So, you know, we're kind of starting at 50,000 ounces a year. And just going back to your previous question, I see the total underground tons mined, this is kind of development, which is on the stock call right now, is about Just about 35,000 ounces is just like 2.7 grand per ton. And then, once again, I'm speaking out of turn, but we're at least double that in the scope of the mining.

All right. Thanks for that, Keller, Bill. And then just moving on to the regional permit side, assuming you get the permit by the end of Q3, is that what you're targeting? are you comfortable with 160,000 to 180,000 ounces of production in 2026? That's not going by the tech report that was presented earlier this year.

Yeah, I mean, there's no changes to what the actual mining looks like in the tech report. Clearly, once again, in the budgeting process on where the ounces are going to come from, that may shift around some, but the ounces haven't changed from the regional, from what was in the tech report.

Sounds good. Okay. Thanks for that. And then just quickly moving on to Goose. I'm really looking forward to that commissioning of the Goose in September. Bill, how's underground development progressing there? And do you have kind of, you know, now the right people and equipment in place in terms of what you were targeting for the underground? This is at Goose.

Yeah. So first of all, I remember like when I first joined these calls, Clive declaring, I think to you, that you only get three questions. So let's start with that. But this is question number four. I'm going to take it. Things are going well. You know, we've kind of hit our stride. We have, as you know, turned over a bunch of people in the underground. We have the new mining manager, which came in this year, new technical services manager. All those people are in place. We also brought in additional equipment on the HERF program this year for the underground. So the answer is yes, we now have the right people, and yes, we now have the right equipment There really isn't an excuse for the site not to be able to deliver.

Okay, good stuff, though. Thanks so much for all the cover, and thanks for taking my questions, and congratulations on the good quarter.

Thanks, Chris.

And as a reminder, if you do have a question, please press star, then 1.

And our next question is from Anita Soni with CIBC World Markets. Please proceed. Thank you.

Good morning, Brad, Mike, and Bill. I'm just going to ask you, so that will make up for Obie's extra question there. First question was either commercial production. What's your definition of commercial production? I just want to clarify several different definitions.

Yeah, I think it's the same thing we use at Popola and at El Chico. That's like an average of 65% main plate throughput over 30 days.

Okay. And then, from your perspective, what's the next milestone in terms of, like, you know, the ramp? Like, I guess year-end, what are you targeting for? What's the throughput ramp-ups you're hoping to get to by year-end and then for how long?

By year-end? We want to be at that name, like, 4,000 for sure.

You mean 100% for the whole quarter?

Well, I think it's, like, 92% or 93% availability. It's something like that. I forget what it will be in the tech report.

Okay. And then last question, I guess what I did ask, just in terms of the optimization plans that you're looking at, in terms of doing a winter ice road less than, I think you said less than annually, what would that entail? I would assume that it's kind of a... Is there a way to do an ice road that's, you know, not at the ice road time? Or was it every other year? Or what are you looking at, like, you know, every 15 months or so? Like, I'm just trying to understand that phrase.

Yeah, well, it can't be every 15 months. The ice road must be almost always between February and kind of that May 1, let's say May 6. So that is the ice road date. The question you're asking is actually one that's almost like an engineering question. interest. So the question really revolves around fuel as the first problem. If in fact you need 80 million liters of fuel, which is what we're sending down the road every year right now, it would have to be every year. But now let's say, because we just don't have the tank, it should do anything less than that. But now let's say that we actually are successful by putting these medium speed generators in, which saves about 10% of that, and then you say, okay, now we're going to put our wind farm in, which is 50 megawatts, could you get to a point where the number is less than half? Then you suddenly say, okay, now can I increase my reagents to make up that difference in the off years and do it? Those studies are obviously very preliminary, so much so I'm not convinced that 80 million liters is actually what we're going to use this year. For example, right now, we're sitting here in August, and we still have 70 million liters of fuel sitting on site. So how does that really add up? once you get into full production, and we just don't know yet.

Okay. All right. That's it for my questions, and congrats on some strong-ups this quarter.

Thank you.

The next question is from Lawson Winder with Bank of America Securities. Please proceed.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for today's update. Well done on the permanent success in Mali. What I wanted to ask is, more or less, jurisdiction as it pertains to Colombia in particular and Canada. So acknowledging BC Gold's historical success as being jurisdictionally agnostic and focusing on asset quality instead, I think feedback from the market would suggest that the market likes to pivot to Canada. How do you think about assets in Canada, and Google's appetite to add more assets in Canada. And conversely, how does Columbia then stack up in terms of jurisdictional risk? And is that at all a headwind today for a potential taxing decision on caramel locusts? Thanks.

Yeah, I think we're definitely interested in doing more work in Canada. Unless you're in the field where the budget couldn't. We need to do more diversification. We're looking for additional issues in Canada. In Columbia, we see quite a lot of what's been happening there. We do have a permit for a larger operation, so we need to go back to the bottom side of that permit. We've got three houses to board in Ethiopia, local population and government in Ethiopia, and also some support from the federal government as well. I'm glad you raised the question because I want to figure that a little bit into talking about M&A. You know, we will not surprise the shows with a development project. M&A is very disciplined. We build one line at a time. And we think that was fairly interesting as a project for us to do financially. We'll be in a strong position to do that. And we might go to see the feasibility study. That, I think, would be a very good project for us. We've got, you know, to get through the permitting process and then make a decision when we go forward. But I just want to underline again, no M&A for development projects. potentially in the future sometimes if we find an opportunity to increase our gold production through some kind of a deal. We'll look at that, of course, just like that. But at the end of the day, we're not going to surprise the market with a major acquisition.

We'll look at all the projects. And if I could just get one more in on Goose.

In your update earlier in the year, you highlighted the potential for an expansion in the processing capacity. You know, today, now that you're approaching commercial production, what's the latest thinking on timing of that expense in the process? And has there been any change in thinking on the magnitude?

Is this a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately question?

Sort of. Thanks, Bob.

All right, so the answer is, you know, we've got several studies in the hopper. One would be, you know, we've got a flotation circuit, which you might be able to add. The other is would you expand the mill capacity, go up something like 6,000 tons a day. Those are all due really at first look by the end of this year. And so I think we'll – I can't remember. We're talking Q1 next year. We're talking about putting it out, the results. But at the end of the day, those are very, very early on in the study, you know, where they go. But we think they're all very real. And just so you know, We talked about some of these optimizations. The mill will run at more than 4,000 tons. It's just a question of can you keep the availability up. So by increasing some of these optimizations we've already put in, like I said, these valves, piping and everything, you know, there is the potential we could squeak out some additional capacity as it currently stands. No promises.

We're saying 4,000 tons a day. Thank you very much for taking my questions.

And the next question comes from Francesco Costanzo with Scotiabank. Please proceed.

Hi, guys.

Sorry, I didn't mean to jump into questions here. I think the others have already asked all the previous questions, so apologies for that.

And the next question comes from Don DeMarco with National Bank Financial. Please proceed.

Thank you, operator. And good morning, Clyde and team. So it sounds like things are moving along well in Maui now.

I mean, you've got the military, the regional economy. But, you know, what are the reasons to do this? I mean, is the government focusing on bearers and maybe other stuff?

Or is this kind of thing going on in Maui off from the benefits from optimal mine performance from a tax point of view?

Yeah, so maybe I'll take that since we were just down there. There's a couple things there. Remember, there was this whole shift in the government, and they readily admitted that they didn't really know who was doing what. So you had the Minister of Finance working on this kind of updated mining code, and the Minister of Mining didn't know where it is mandated, and the Minister of Mining started it. We highlighted that. We had a chance to meet with the prime minister, and they were visibly embarrassed and said that that's a non-starter phenomenon and they will get it rectified. So, certainly, I think some of the other mining issues in Mali play a factor. I think the fact that there were some big disputes out there that they had to pay attention to took up some of the bandwidth, but ultimately, they also didn't really know what each other was doing. I will say that all three ministers we met, Mr. Mines, Minister of Finance, and the Prime Minister, they all apologized profusely. They all said that they're committed to getting this done. Remember, they've got a big stake in this too, so they want to go as quickly as they can, of course legally, to get us this permit and get us to open.

Okay. Yeah, go ahead.

Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to just add a little bit to that. Some of the questions here have to go through the negotiations with the government to get the permit for the diesel. There is no permit negotiations. We're inactive. The term is negotiated in the MOU last September. That's what's there, but I'm running the negotiation over to getting the permit done. It works closely with the government to do it. There's no test on it. The revenue class is going to come from the balance, which is going to be the revenue. The passengers are going to have to get revenue from coal mining.

Okay, that also clarifies things because that would have been our impression as well.

So that's encouraging for the future. But speaking with Focola then and Mallory, so I saw production is up 35% quarter to quarter, grades are elevated. So Bill, do you expect this to continue into H2? What was some of the drivers here in Q2?

Well, some of the drivers really revolved around finding additional lower kind of on the margins of where the resource model was. And it was, quite frankly, it wasn't higher grain ounces, but it was tons that would have been considered waste that they ended up being able to process through the mill. We also had a very good run with the mill. The mill had a very good quarter. And those were the two main things. So, obviously, I can't predict what's going to happen outside of the resource model and Q3 and Q4, but the mill is kind of firing on all cylinders. And, you know, one of the things that we've been very open about is that even if we don't get tons or get ounces from the retail stuff into the mill in 2025, we still feel very comfortable with our range that we put out there. So that obviously would mean that we're going to get an additional ounce from somewhere else. That was a pre-script. Yeah, I think that's it. So that's a good point. Even if we get the permit in kind of, let's say, August or September, there is still a pre-circuit campaign that you have to do before you start trucking tons down to the mill.

Okay. Okay, and then just for final question, I'll shift him over to Goose. I see that the ASIC for Goose is lower than what it was in the tech report, I bet. You know, what are some of the efficiencies that would explain this delta, favorable delta? And is there a read-through for lower POS at goose in 2026 versus the technical report? Or is some of the capex that you kind of push forward also provide read-through for lower ASIC in 2026?

Maybe I'll talk and then I'll let Mike correct me. So when we wrote the technical report, really the information we had was, what was created by Sabina for the feasibility studies and the actuals we had during construction, right? And so in construction, there's all these inefficiencies where you're flying stuff in, you've got the wrong crew, you know. What we've seen, and we've now been able to tighten that up, and particularly around the mining side, is that we're probably a little bit worse than what Sabina had promised the world. but a lot better than what we have seen as kind of a developer. And so I do believe that the costs that we're now presenting on the mining side in particular, and hopefully on the milling side, will carry through. And we're going to see those. I can't remember what we said they were ultimately going to be, but they were coming down, and we do see those as real.

Okay. Thank you for that, Bill. Follow me. I'm part of the...

Part of the impact in the 25 numbers is we're using post-commercial production, which is basically post-September. But if you are familiar with it, so you have a production, what they're doing, two, three, two, four, and you also have some of the capex that we pull forward in salaries, and also it's already incurred, so that has some impact on the post-commercial production numbers.

Okay, great, thank you. That's all for me. Good luck with the rest of the quarter. Thanks.

And the next question is from Kerry McCrury with Canaccord Genuity. Please proceed.

Hi, guys, and congrats on the quarter. Maybe just a question from Mike on the accounting around Goose now that you're, you know, making a production. Are we going to see OpEx starting from now at Goose, or is that going to come after commercial production?

No, yeah, you're right, John. It's like in the new world order, I think for a few years, all results will go through in the P&O and all production reported. It's just so you'll see everything from Q3, whatever production you have, whatever operating cost we have, whatever sales we have, we'll see them in our financial results. Okay. So we'll be presenting the tax costs and all that in post-commercial production. And that's based in the OPEX guidance you're giving us?

Yeah. Yeah, okay. And then maybe this back on to the Kola Regional, assuming the permit comes in the near future here, is that still an attractive area from an exploration focus, or do you see better opportunities elsewhere, just given the economics of that area now?

Oh, yeah, I think that's an exploration prospect, according to you. Yeah, one of the areas that you see outside is the, but you see outside, you see pretty much covered and we had sufficient off-site answers to keep us going quite a while. So the big push is to actually pursue high-grade, fresh or sulphide material beneath the off-site zones within the polar region. And that's really where a lot of the upside is. The other is looking at the underground And, you know, obviously, the shooting that has been developed, the underground will be able to drill down trench. So there's nothing to suggest that that is closed off. We'll certainly be pushing that forward. And there's also potential for picking up a parallel shoot to the main zone at the lower underground as well. So that's really where the potential is. I think we pretty much have adapted. There's not a hell of a lot more there. But that's it, really. Yeah, we have a $62 million budget, US, for . Part of that is . And then, obviously, ongoing drilling in Mali, pursuing extensions of the antler deposits in Namibia, and also looking at the potential for surface material in Namibia to complement and to help the throughput as we look down the road at Oshikaga cities. more than just the stockpile to then dehydrate all the material that we have there. So that's where we're at. And then also securing new areas, using and leveraging of our experience in Masbari, in Philippines. We're looking at opportunities in New Zealand at the moment. So that's all very, very staged.

As at the Okay, great. Maybe one last question for me, just on Grandma Latte again.

Were you guys, did the feasibility study fit with what you were expecting? And I guess what I'm asking is if, you know, you get through the permitting, so basically menstruating at $3,000 gold environment, is, you know, how likely is this to move forward?

Well, I think we, like some studies do, So, I think this will multiply. So, we'd expect the feasibility study to be close to the VA. And, you know, I think if you look at that project, it's potentially going to produce $240,000 a year to gain this kind of opportunity. There aren't many of those crowds.

Again, if you are an analyst and you do have a question, please press star then one. And at this time, there are no further questions in the queue.

And this does conclude today's question and answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Clive Johnson for any closing remarks.

Thanks, Matt. Good questions. You've covered a lot of ground here.

Today's conference is now concluded.

Thank you for attending today's presentation, and you may now disconnect your lines and have a pleasant day.