Novagold Resources Inc.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the NOVA Gold 2025 Third Quarter Report and Don Lynn Gold Update Conference Call and Webcast. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will 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 an operator by pressing star then zero. Webcast viewers may submit questions through the text box in the lower right corner of the webcast frame. I would now like to turn the conference over to Melanie Hennessy, Vice President, Corporate Communications. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Ashia. Good morning, everyone. We are pleased that you have joined us for NOVA Gold's 2025 Third Quarter Webcast and Conference Call and for an update on the Donlon Gold Project. On today's call, We have Novogold's Chairman, Dr. Thomas Caplan, President and CEO, Greg Lang, and Peter Adamek, Novogold's Vice President and CFO. At the end of the webcast, we will take questions by phone. Additionally, we will respond to questions received by email. I would like to remind you, as stated on slide three, Any statements made today may contain forward-looking information, such as projections and goals, which are likely to involve risk detail in our various EDGAR and CDAR filings, and forward-looking disclaimers included in this presentation. With that, I will now turn the presentation over to Dr. Thomas Caplan.

Thank you very much, Melanie, and thank you to all of those who are joining our call today. Obviously, we have quite a bit to discuss with you, but I'm happy to say that it's really all very, very good news. And what I expect will be the beginning of a consistent pattern of progress that is going to amply and our stakeholders. As you can see, we are building the path to what will be, quite literally, the largest single gold mine in the United States. This comes at a time when we're not only in the foothills of a historic gold bull market, but also comes at a time when both the concept of money as well as jurisdictional safety are more important than ever before. Many years ago, When I spoke about jurisdictional safety, people thought I was being a little bit alarmist, but they couldn't avoid the fact that I had standing in South Africa and Zimbabwe and Congo. So I knew whereof I spoke before I went into the energy business in the United States and ultimately went back into gold and silver mining. Building what will be America's largest gold mine makes it a strategic asset with potential sources of funding from nations that is really the best that we've ever seen in our lifetimes. Let me take you now to slide five. We refer to this as the catalytic transaction. And the reason for that is, as many of you know, since 2021, when we announced to the world with our partner Barrick that we were going to feasibility, to put it simply, we were held back. If we had managed to proceed as pledged, we'd already be through the feasibility through financing and very possibly breaking ground on construction. So we have some time to catch up. But very importantly, we also have the opportunity to catch up with our share price. Earlier this year, we touched a low of $2 and change. We're now close to double digits. And when I said that I do believe that the stock would go from $3 or $3.50 back to the $12 to $15 area just as our first stop, in fact, essentially going back to where we were before we were paused in our progress, It may have come across as rather bold. Well, what you can see here in this chart is clearly out of date because it should extend up on the right hand side considerably more over the last few days. What you see is that a fire was ignited when we swapped a partner with whom we were not aligned with a partner with whom we are perfectly aligned. So essentially what you are seeing is a revaluation of Nova Gold. For those of you who have been with us for a very long time, all I can say is I wish this had happened earlier, but it really was outside of our control. But I can assure you the first opportunity that we had to put it back into our control, we took it. And as we can see from this price chart, our investors haven't really had to look back. And as far as we can see, this is just the beginning. On slide number six, you see what I'm talking about. Just putting where we were in 2021 takes us to the $12 to $15 area. And I believe that from there, we double again. Historically, we outperformed the GDXJ. In fact, we've always been, until the last few years, one of the go-to stocks in the gold development space. Because when an investor, if there were investors interested in that space, would ask the question of a broker, where can we get access to a great asset that's well managed, responsibly managed, but also in a jurisdiction where we might actually want to visit? we were able to get some of that flow. I think that that flow, which is now turning into a torrent, is going to benefit Nova Gold as much as, if not more, than any other large-scale development story for reasons which I will be explaining very shortly. But with this chart, you see two things. Number one, our historic outperformance versus the GDXJ. But also, I don't want to be distortive, if you look at where we went from peak to trough earlier this year, that was entirely the product of not having the right partner with us in this story. And the reversal, the beginning of the reversal, phase one to take us back to the $12 to $15 area is because we have a perfectly aligned partner. with gold at our backs. Slide number seven. When we talk about that phase two, which takes us from 12 to 15 to 30, which in full transparency is the target price that both John Paulson and I have set for where the stock really should be now and would have been if we weren't set back over the last few years. This is classic. We are now on the path to re-rating across the development phases of our progress to America's largest gold mine. This isn't actually rocket science, and if anything, the gold price and the revaluation and re appreciation of gold as a monetary asset that you want to own. And if it's in the ground, you want to own it in a place where the rule of law is not a novelty has only grown in our favor. This adventure has been added, you can see slide number eight, by having the Polson team with us. John is someone that I've known, worked with, and loved as a partner and as a friend for well over 15 years. He is the archetype a paradigm of a mensch, of somebody whose word is their bond. And we've had nothing but a great business experience. And in fact, the negotiation of this deal reflected that. He always put himself into the other side's shoes in order to be able to make a deal a true win-win. I don't have to say much about John Paulson other than if there's anyone who is famous for identifying the big trade and finding the vehicle with which he that trade to multiply his and his shareholders' money, it's John Paulson. He did so very famously during the subprime crisis, but he's also done that in a way that is maybe even unique among big generalist investors in the gold space with specific stocks that he has served as a catalyst for being able to recharge them and remultiply their value. If you look at slide nine, you have a great case study with the turnaround of Detour Gold, where it was the nomination and the putting in of John's director slate that led to the optimization of the mine plan and ultimately Detour acquiring Kirkland Lake and Agnico acquiring Detour and anybody who has stayed in over that time is probably up about 500% during a period that we know is not characterized by such outsized winds. If you look at slide 10, more recently, you have a case study of what the Paulson team has done to be able to take Perpetua from what was a year or so ago a $3 stock, now well into the 20s, on the back of its gold and its being a critical mineral provider for the United States. When you look at the different tranches along the way, you can clearly see a thoughtful as well as a successfully impactful value creation model for both detour and perpetua. Now for something a little bit different. If we go to slide 11, this is not as egotistical as it seems. It's in order to be able to underscore certain points which I would like to make to shareholders of Novigold, many of whom over the years have become very close personal friends. And there are a few things that really aren't spoken about as much at this time as I think perhaps should be. Fortunately, they are, for better or worse, all pointing to Novigold as being the Holy Grail in the gold space. For many, many years, and this is just simply to validate the statement, I have argued going back to $550 gold that the first equilibrium price for gold would be between $3,000 and $5,000. Why $3,000 to $5,000? I was asked and I said because I easily see it when it breaks out going to $5,000 and as things get more volatile, perhaps correcting to three before it goes to another area. In some of the interviews I gave to David Rubenstein, some in writing, I made mention of my view that $3,000 to $5,000 was a first equilibrium level based on The fundamentals that I saw at the time, and I must pause to say that this is before the global financial crisis. I knew when this happened that that forecast would be superseded by another one. But as gold was staying in a trading range, I saw no reason to ruin whatever credibility I'd lost by saying publicly when gold was $550 that I saw it multiplying tenfold to just basically keep my mouth shut and maybe allude to it. Well, I'd like to take you to slide 12 and revisit some of the important fundamentals for gold. Gold is in a major, major, major bull market. And for years, I have said when asked what can go wrong in my thesis, the one thing that has made me nervous is that I couldn't find a reason. This goes back now to 2007, 2008. And if anything, everything that has transpired since then has only affirmed in my mind that there's a reason why the prudent man rule was devised in order to measure the risk of all assets against what was viewed as the safest asset, gold. Now, gold is definitely money. People have definitions of what money is, what a currency is, but the reality is that nothing has had a longer pedigree as a historic safe haven. Certainly those who've said that that no longer exists, have missed out on the early stages, the early innings of what I see is gold being in a much bigger bull market than what we've seen. It's proven to be a fabulous asset diversifier. It's been a protection against deflation. It's been a protection against inflation. The emerging market demand has been exquisite. I've said for so many years, whenever you see the Indians and the Chinese competing over who can be the biggest buyer of a scarce asset, you just want to own some of it. Every Indian, every Chinese since the dawn of mankind who has placed faith in gold, is making a killing. We call that in psychology positive reinforcement. More importantly, every investment banker who had the guts to say we shouldn't sell our gold or even was willing to bet a body part that they should be buying gold has probably been issued the order of the fatherland for their prescience. they have seen the revaluation of gold, which is so critical for central banks. Meanwhile, on the demand side, you've got all of these tailwinds. But look at what you have on the supply side. Discoveries in gold are so few and far between. Anything of size is rarer than a hen's tooth. And the fact is, to be able to take a mine, well, to be able to take a prospect to what ultimately is a producing mine has been variously estimated at between 1,000 to 10,000 to 1 against the explorer. meanwhile if you are lucky enough on average it takes 20 years plus to be able to take that project from a discovery through to a mine in other words in terms of supply coming out into the market from gold companies number one the horse has already left the barn number two We won't have to see the results of that for 20 years. And unlike hydrocarbons, you have no large trapped spaces where you have the hydrocarbons, but you have to figure out how to get it out. It just doesn't exist in gold. In other words, depending on your point of view, it's either the perfect alignment of stars or it's the perfect storm. One way or the other, I have no doubt that every portfolio manager is going to end up having an allocation to gold. Do I think they're gonna go back to 10 to 15% as was the norm through the 1970s? Well, if we even approached a few percent gold will already probably be five digits. So let's discuss what a real bull market looks like and why someone who does have standing can explain his view. I could be completely wrong. It's a forward looking statement. Probably should say, you know, Don't listen to what I'm saying. But let's look at the next slide. Let's look at slide 13. Slide 13 is the Dow Jones since the 1970s. And what you see in that bull market is, almost imperceptibly, the Dow breaking out of what was a 30-year trading range between 800 and 1,000. breaking above 1,000. Now, the old timers who knew that you go short when that happens were blown away by the young people with red braces or suspenders who thought, hmm, this time is different. And here's the thing about this time is different. A lot of us will say, yeah, when you hear that, you think of people drinking Kool-Aid, except for one simple fact. every reversal is characterized by that time indeed being different and that's what happened to the dao in the 1980s as a curiosity i want you to go back and look towards the mid-1980s and you maybe you need glasses but look at that blip that blip which Barely is noticeable. That is the crash of 1987. That a lot of us thought was going to be the harbinger of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, that you can't even see it as the Dow marched from a thousand to a forty five plus leap in value over the decades. Now, I don't think this is a spoiler alert. It's entirely possible that we will see something similar happening in gold. I think it was announced yesterday that for the first time, the gold in Fort Knox is worth over a trillion dollars. That's interesting. But what's fascinating is that gold has now surpassed the euro as the second largest global reserve asset. Now, many of you will say, well, that's because of the price appreciation. And my answer to that would be, yeah, no kidding. However, we really do have to understand that this is a major, major statement about the reappraisal of gold as a monetary asset at a time when we are in the world. in unchartered waters, not just in terms of the financial markets and debt, trade, and of course, geopolitical trends, which are unlike anything that we've seen since the end of the Second World War. But I'd like to quote Ray Dalio, who I think is really probably the best applied historian of those who are in the financial world. Gold is now the second largest reserve currency behind the US dollar. To understand why, you need to look at the history of fiat currencies like the dollar and hard currencies like gold. The way I see it, we're currently facing a classic currency devaluation similar to what we saw in the 1970s or in the 1930s. In both of those cases, fiat currencies around the world all went down together and also went down in relationship to hard currencies like gold. Gold. Now, what does that mean? Years ago, when gold still sported a 1000 handle, Ray Dalio said that anyone who doesn't own gold either doesn't understand economics or the history of gold. And not wanting to be cast as a gold bug, he put it in a very sober way and just said, you should own some gold. which, of course, was echoing things that I said and, of course, other great proponents of gold as well. We were hardly unique, but we probably could have fit into a relatively small restaurant or a dining table. But in any event, what we're seeing now is an epic, epic reversal in the same way as the Dow going to 3,000 and having a correction that took it down. And anyone who held and just basically said, that's a correction, some had the perspicacity to say, I'm going to buy more. But those who understood that this is the natural cycle and held it have had one of the great generational trades in world history. I believe that the same is taking place in gold itself now. I don't believe that we're in nosebleed territory. Of course, we can have a correction. We will at some point along the continuum. And I would argue people should keep some powder dry. And when that correction comes, have the guts. You know, don't freak out. Have the guts to add to that position because the next wave up is going to be very, very sweet. This is going to be a very, very long wave in gold. I didn't want to... I thought about that for years, alluded to it, didn't want to say it until I thought at least I have the credibility for my first phase to be in place. Now, what does that mean for... Novigold shareholders? Well, the great news is that it has the potential to give Novigold and the very, very few large-scale, well-managed, high-grade, high-volume assets to be able to get by far the premium rating in the space. I do believe that we will see U.S. assets be valued if they have exploration potential for sure with 0% discount rates because of jurisdictional safety. The flip side of that as one who did really well in Latin America and Africa, is that I do believe that in most countries, certainly those where the rule of law is more of a novelty, like in West Africa, which we're seeing, but it's also happening in other places, gold mines are going to be nationalized. And this would be extremely sad. There's nothing worse than all of you who are bullish on gold, may even have bought into a great asset. I'm not saying that there aren't really excellent assets in unsafe jurisdictions, but then have it taken away from you because they were great assets in places where the government's basically said, wait a minute, you're minting money. You're really minting money. It's not a slogan. We want that. It's force majeure. It's a choice between your shareholders and our shareholders, which is our population. And I tell you, there won't be any governments which will have any sway with these governments when they pull off that trick. We've seen it. And no matter what your relationships are in that country, it won't mean anything. Mark Bristow did more to put Malley on the map than any other human. They rewarded him with his fidelity and his charisma by basically stealing the asset. Mongolia tried to do the same with Bob Friedland. We saw what's happened to, you know, companies with assets in Panama, in Guatemala. This is a contagion. It's a disease because when governments, whether they're autocrats or democracies, see someone else being able to get a better deal, they have to be able to respond by giving at least as good a deal to their own shareholders or have the risk of being accused of being in the mining company's pocket or simply not attending to the needs of their people. So, again, this is a public service announcement from someone who's been there and seen what these countries are like and managed to get out with 100x returns in silver in Latin America, in platinum and palladium in Africa, and gold. I sold Kibale to Mark Bristow. Wonderful mine. I hope and wish for the best for Barrick in Congo. also in Pakistan. These are different philosophies, but my attitude is I have adopted Woody Allen's famous line, I'm not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens. And why would I want to when for all the reasons that Greg Lang is going to be laying out, you have everything that you could possibly want for a high-octane high-volume, high-grade, low-cost producer in the safest jurisdiction in the world. Or, as we'll see on the next slide, slide 14, what we call maximum leverage to gold but in a jurisdiction that will allow you to keep the fruits of that leverage. Now, what you see here is with gold at $3,500, you have at 0% discount rate, $50 billion. And that makes no allowance for the extraordinary, inevitable exploration upside that we have at Donlon. So much so that I contend that it's entirely possible, forward-looking statement, disregard everything I'm about to say, that the next Donlon will be found at Donlon. only 5% of that district has been explored. Only three kilometers of eight kilometer mineralized belt, the 5%, has the 40 plus million ounces of gold that we already believe can add tens of millions of ounces. So when you think that 95% is unexplored, now you understand between that and being based in the United States in one of the safest jurisdictions, you can see why I do believe a 0% discount rate will be justified. But even so, we're nearly $20 billion at an NPV five for Donlon. The $12 to $15 target that we've set as phase one for the doubling of Nova Gold is not unreasonable by any stretch. I hope it will prove to be cautious. One thing that I would say is For us, as investors in this space for over 30 years, you want to seek great assets in great places with management that knows how to build things and shareholders, I must say, who are aligned. And you have all of that in Novigold. So before Greg goes more granular, this is why you're going to see what we hope to be a steady stream of good news that will more than make up for lost time, but take us on the path to building America's largest gold mine. We are already working with top tier firms to be able to position us for the bankable feasibility study. The bankable feasibility study will be coinciding with advanced engineering. We hope to begin construction in 2027, 2028. 30 being our target for production. I also have to point out that in the first 10 years, we'll be producing roughly 1.4 million ounces a year. That's why we'll be the largest in the country. But it's entirely possible that we would be able to sustain that production. We start with a 28-year mine life. So for all of the reasons that you see, we are very, very comfortable that this project will be able to be financed. Sovereign wealth funds, it's entirely possible that governments closer to home may take a very great interest in this strategic asset. their offtake providers, and of course we believe that the equity will be a multiple of where it is today when we have the construction decision and that we will be comfortably positioned to be able to pull the trigger and really enjoy the fruits of what we and our Native Corporation partners and Alaska have been waiting for so long. And with that, I will pass the baton to my brother in arms, Greg Lang.