Akobo Minerals Ab

Good morning and welcome to our Q1 operational update. This will not be your regular Q1 presentation. I think we're all more eager to hear about the latest operational updates. So we'll focus on that today. A lot of things have happened recently and we are pretty excited about the latest development and the milestones that we have achieved. So with me today, we'll also have our COO, Dr. Matt Jackson, and our Head of Mining and Processing, Helge Ursfeldt. So we'll take you through the presentation and take some questions at the end. So this time, I'll jump straight into the operational highlights that we've had lately. This has been a very busy period for us and as you can see here we have actually now completed the processing plant construction. It's 100% done. As you see also, important element that we have to mention is really the good and robust support and collaboration we've had now with the Ministry of Mines and other governmental bodies to make this happen. It's been a joint effort and we've all been working very hard to get this done. And as you can see also here, we're targeting actually the commencement of first low-grade ore production by end of July. So this is a milestone for us, a huge milestone in the history of the company, and we're really looking forward to presenting this today and tell you more about what we're doing and what's next. Just to give you some of the highlights here, we've been talking previously about tailings, diesel, electrical work, piping, and it's all been completed. A big effort from the team working 24-7 to get this done. So we're really proud of all the hard work that's been done lately at site. It's been hard, but they really came through, and it's all done now. We've also started the phase commissioning at site with Universal Power and Solo Resources. They arrived a few days ago and already a lot has happened. We've had successful synchronization, testing and operation of all the generators that will provide power to the processing plant. Actually this morning we just got the first video of the mill being commissioned and is running. That's really a big thing for us. And we'll continue with the conveyor belts and the crusher in, well, today, tomorrow, next couple of days. The ore body is now to be reached in the eastern winds very, very shortly, any day. And that will, of course, give us access to more gold or ore-rich gold. And that, together with the fact that we reached the gold in the western winds, will provide us with material to run through the mill and the processing plant during July. We have also engaged industry leading contractor DRA Global. They will support us to enhance the mining operation efficiency, reduce the operational risk, and we're really looking forward to develop that cooperation with them. They're really one of the big players in the mining industry. We also worked a lot on sourcing and logistics, and now we have a very good setup in place with several third party procurement houses or enterprises together with airline logistics. And we also have DRA Global working with us on the procurement side now. And we have worked hard with our local team and also we need to mention Prudent Logistics who are helping us a lot on the local side of this to get things in and out of customs. So the setup there looks really good these days. We've had some trouble, as you all know, with the diesel supply over the last few months. We have now received the license from the Ethiopian Petroleum and Energy Authority for our own fuel sourcing and transportation. This, together with the fuel agreement that has been signed with the national oil company, will really make a big difference in the reliability of sourcing fuel and having that always at site. that together with the new diesel infrastructure that we have at site with some large 60 000 liter tanks then i think we're good we're good there A bit earlier this year we had a successful restructuring of the debt obligations with monetary metals. We converted all other convertible loans to equity. We raised 5.5 million dollars in new equity and the balance sheet looks good and the restructuring was a success. Updated mine plan. We forecast actually some really good revenue in the first three, four months of full production. That does not mean from July, but once we're really up and running. But it says a lot about the potential in the near mining operations that we're going into. And also, we see an improved EBITDA over the first 12 months compared to the plan we presented earlier this year. So a lot of good things happening these days and just seeing now the mill running, the generators up and providing electricity to the plant, it gives me a good feeling. And for those who don't know us that well, I'll go through some of the slides. just talking about the company. As some of you know, some of you don't, we are listed in Oslo on the Euronext exchange. We're trading on the OTC in New York. We're Scandinavian based and our only asset is in Ethiopia. There we have a license for both exploration and mining in the Gambela region. It's all the way to the southwest of Ethiopia, closer to the border of South Sudan. It's been a nice area to work in over the last few years and it continues to be so. We've been there for 14 years now. We really have built a strong local foothold. We have good relationship with the community and all the necessary governmental bodies, all the way from the region or the local Voreda region and all the way up to the ministries. And we believe that we're still uniquely positioned to become one of the major players in the Ethiopian mining and exploration industry over the next 5, 10, 15 years. And why we're so excited, of course, still, is that there is a significant gold production potential in our area. We have the exploration license. It's an attractive part of the Arabian Nubian Shield. It's where the gold is supposed to be, and that's where we found it. We have an ambition still to develop a world class deposit of 1.5 to 2 million ounces. and we've identified several targets that we think will take us there. The mining license that we have is giving a potential for significant cash flow from the Segelov deposit alone, but it's also large enough to bring adjacent targets into production so that we can use the same production plant, the processing plant, to develop new areas. The plant machines and equipment side, we have now the processing plant up and running. It's complete, it's constructed, it's a modern and really fit for purpose. And as we all know, we still have a very low cost drilling operation that we will hopefully now get back on track. Why Segheli is interesting is definitely the really high grade that we can see here. The indicated mineral resource alone has an average of 40.6 gram per ton. That's rarely seen anywhere else in the world. It's still a small resource, but we expect to expand. It's still open at that, and we have several near mine targets that will feed into this. So we do expect a high margin gold production going forward. The estimated free cash flow from Segelian itself is around $50 million, based upon just the current resource estimates. And we have an agreement with the refinery MKS PAMP that will handle all the logistics sides and refinery sides from getting this gold out of our gold room into their refinery in Switzerland and then again convert that into cash. So we have the setup, we have everything in place. But what else? We also need to do it right. This is an important part of our company. We have a great ESG team working hard to make sure that we follow international standards and international guidelines. We have developed some award-winning programs. We're trying to be at the forefront using technology and the latest innovations to really make our operation as efficient as possible but also within the frame of international guidelines and standards. So this is a very important part of our business and this is really what makes me believe that we have a solid base to build upon. So ESG, environmental, social, and governments, we continue to develop it. They're working hard and as an integral part of the rest of the organization, helping with ideas, helping with developing new projects, being it the tailings, being it the use of tailings that we hope that we can do. so that we don't have to have a lot of tailings stored, but instead use it in production of construction materials. We're also establishing this tree nursery that we will use to rehabilitate and improve the local environment around us. This is also an important part of reducing our footprint in the area. Again, they're part of everything we're doing. All decisions made on the mining side is also done in cooperation with our ESG team. So they will have ongoing environmental monitoring now of air, noise, surface and groundwater as we move into production. And we're also participating on some high level conferences around, lately global session of the UN Science Policy Business Forum on the environment. So we're really putting a lot of effort into this. Looking forward on the ESG side, we're working hard on the mine closure plan. That's something that will be done soon. We will hire more environmental performance coordinators to oversee what we're doing. Everything that has to do with fuel tankers going in and out will be evaluated. We're also expanding our collaboration with Lynx ESG data platform that will enhance training and ensure accurate social, environmental and engagement data recording. This has been a great tool for us and continues to be in development and we see great use for this. And last year we're also developing a partnership with the Jima University, Addis Ababa University and the Oslo University to map wildlife in the Gambela region and hosting ecology researchers and contributing to biodiversity mapping. So a lot happening also on that side. But maybe now a bit more into our operational details. As I said, we're all pretty, yeah, it's been a good day and a good week and a lot of things are happening. So I'll leave it now to Helge to talk through some of the details on the mining operations and the plant side. So Helge.

Thank you, Jørgen. So our mine is currently, we have these three winces going down into the earth and we have The eastern winds now at 66 meters out of 77 before we start to crosscut between the eastern and the western winds. We have the western winds at 53 meters out of 65. So just 12 more meters for that to go before we're done with that. And then the incline shaft, which will be the long wind uh term plan for getting ore out is at currently at 52 meters um we have hired a norwegian specialist mine planner who has made a new and updated mine plan for our project and he finished that some few months ago And this plan is now changed to give an early access to a very rich part of the ore. So it will give us a very good start on the mining side. There is no denying that we have had several challenges this first quarter of the year. We have had Some problems with imports, things taking a lot of time in the customs, etc. Matt will come back to that later. We also had problems with diesel availability in such severity that we actually had to stop mining because we didn't have any diesel at site. So, of course, that has influenced us a lot. And we have also had a few of these extreme rain events that carries a lot of mud into the mine. And this is difficult to remove and also tends to ruin the pumps. So these are the things that are kind of hard to see. The good thing is that whenever we have our, diesel available and every pump is in order we are mining very well so the last month I would say is we have blasted every day so that is a very good progress on the eastern winds we will reach the ore body any day now And the next phase there will be start cross-cutting, like to make a cross-cut between the eastern and the western winds. And then when that is done, then the stoping will start. So we have a trial stop that we will start with, containing about 12,800 grams of gold. This is to test out both the stopping system and also the plant. And then when that is done, we will move into a very rich part. So the stop number one is 306,000 grams of gold. So that's a very rich part of the ore. Yeah, so we have done a lot of work with the external factors. Matt will come back to some of them later in this presentation. Going forward, we have engaged the global consultant DRA for mining operations to increase the speed of ore extraction. So they will have booked flights and will come to us already next week on the site and then start cooperating with us to make the mine haulage even faster than today. We are also trying now to build a stock of consumables and spare parts to make the operation more robust for delivery challenges. And we are also working on permanent solution to prevent the rain events to influence the mine.

Yes. So this is the new mine plan.

If you can start... showing there so you can see the the green areas there are the where we have come by now the one to the right is the western winds and the one to the left is the eastern winds. The one to the left, the eastern winds, is come further down than it shows here because this was made some weeks ago. So the gray ones are the first cross cuts going between the eastern and the western winds. And the leftmost light blue area is the first trial stop. And then the next very rich stop is the one you see on the top right there. So these are how it will start and how you would start to produce the gold from the ore.

Yeah, I think we can go to the next.

This is just to show you how it actually looks like on the mine. On the left side picture, you see they have marked the wall with the red spray paint where they are going to drill and then on the face. And on the right side you see they have already drilled the holes and then the blaster is putting in the explosives and stuffing it into the holes so it's ready for blasting. So this is what is done now every day to blast the face going forward down towards the ore. Yes, also moving over to the processing plant, and this is kind of really exciting now for me to be able to present because a lot of things have happened even today. So this is really, really nice. The plant construction is completed. All the major things are finished. Everything is done, and we have started the commissioning. And we have a plan to start early production in July. So this here, you can see to the left here, you can see the large tailings dam has been finalized. It's lined up with the black liner there, so to prevent any spillage going to the ground. And then we have our... construction and operations team on the right there, ready to go.

Yes?

Yeah, so the key recent developments is that the plant was completed as of yesterday, and that is quite a milestone to be able to say that, and it really makes me happy to say that to everyone now. The major recent developments are that the TSF lining, the tailings facility, has been completed. What you see to the left picture there. And it has been fenced and approved by the ESG, our ESG department. And the MCC control center wiring is complete and that is not a small thing. The MCC is what you see there and it's thousands upon thousands of cables and the control cables going in there and out. So it's a huge thing. The water pipeline to the factory has been laid down. Crushing circuit has been upgraded and finished. All internal wiring has been finished. And the gold room is now secured with walls and doors and everything. So it's ready to receive gold concentrate to be smelted to gold bars. So going forward, we have still a few things going on on site, but it is not crucial to the plant. The laboratory is now being built and some offices also being built on the site.

Yes. And the commissioning has started.

The commissioning started, yes, already in May with basically filling tanks, et cetera, to see they are not leaking and these kind of things. But the real commissioning, I would say, started yesterday or the day before yesterday with the generators. being commissioned. So the generators are the diesel generators that produce electricity to the whole plant. These are five big generators that are working in unison to provide enough electricity to run the mill and the whole plant. So it's a big thing to actually be able to do that. And I can also say that today this morning we have concluded that the generators are finished and fully commissioned. So they are up and running and that is a big milestone for us to be able to produce electricity to the market. And as you can see now in this small video clip that our mill is also turning. And the reason why that is a huge thing is that the mill is the one single machine that draws the most power. So when you are able to run the mill, you have enough power to run the plant. Like this is the testing to be done for the MCC and the generators to see if they can produce enough juice for our operation. So this morning, the mill was running for the first time. So that is what you see on this clip. So it's a huge milestone, and you are with me today to live that exactly now. Going forward, we have the cold commissioning expected to continue for the rest of the plant, maybe to around the middle of July. It is going faster than I thought, and we haven't received any anything problematic yet, but of course commissioning is always something that we need to take our due time and do properly. We expect the first material to enter the plant mid to end of July and the first low-grade ore production expected to start end of July.

So that is the commissioning now going forward. Yes.

The plant is ready. The area has been completed. The crushing circuit has been completed, what you see to the left here. And the whole plant is ready for commissioning and then production. There are no wires still needed. There are no pipes lacking or anything. Everything is now in place to run and commission and run the plant. It will take time to test everything, to test every motor, to test every pump and everything on the plant, and that it all works properly in unison. But everything is there now, and we are starting to start things up. So it's a very positive thing. day and time for us now. So I think I will leave this to Matt to describe, but it gives us some good history of what happened before. So Matt, maybe you can take over from here.

Great. Thank you, Helge. It's really quite fantastic to be standing here today with Jürgen and Helge, especially given that to see the news this morning and the videos of the mill turning over for the first time. Just to emphasize what Helge says, I mean, the turning over the mill is always a huge milestone in the development of any mine project. especially for us where our process plant is the second ever commercial gold mine to be operational in Ethiopia and the first since the 1990s. To go through all the challenges that we've been through and to get to this point is quite a huge milestone. And it takes the support of all our shareholders and investors to do that, and all our contractors, Solo Resources, Universal Power Africa, Airland Logistics, and all the other contractors in Ethiopia, and especially our staff in Ethiopia to come together and really make this work. The gravity tower in Ethiopia in our project is the highest man-made, man-accessible structure in 50,000 square kilometres. That's the equivalent of all of Norway from Otter southwards. So to put in place an engineering project like that is quite a huge achievement. especially given the challenges that we've been dealing with, especially in the last six to eight months, in fact. And it's taken all of our team to resolve these problems and to really come together to solve them. This slide talks in particular about fuel and imports. So where we stand at the moment is a huge progress. In the last few weeks, we've seen huge improvements in our operational capability. And I expect to see that improvement carrying on. The graph shows the green bars. The green bars show the amount of explosives that have been used per week. Each bar is a week. And the orange line is the total amount of advance, the number of meters that we advance underground each week, how much longer the tunnels get. So we can see that we took over from the contract miner in September last year. And we saw a fantastic increase in the speed of our mining activity and our operational capability. And we even got to the point whereby we were developing eight meters per week in total. And then at the end of last year and the start of this year, in Q1 this year, we faced some serious challenges. Our mining equipment was deteriorating. All mining operations require a continuous feed of consumables and spares in order to keep the rate of advance, the speed at which we mine, going. And we faced import restrictions. There were some changes in the importation rules and the system in Ethiopia that caused not only us but many, many companies in Ethiopia huge problems with importation into the country. That required us to change and it required the federal government to make some changes as well and some improvements. Those have all happened now and those changes have come into effect. And we're very glad to say that our systems are now working very smoothly. Sadly, there was also a restriction in the fuel supply that was available locally. So we were in a system whereby we were purchasing fuel from the local municipality, just like all organisations were. And that was severely restricted for quite a period between April and the beginning of June. But I'm very glad to say that we managed to pivot to organise our own fuel supply from the capital. And we organised a fuel truck to be engaged to receive the fuel from the capital as an interim measure. That is now working. We also have an agreement with the National Oil Corporation. And we have already completed a 60,000-litre site storage capacity that is ready to take the first shipment, not only from the capital, but from the distribution centre in Djibouti. And we expect to receive the first delivery within a week or so. And we'll be receiving twice monthly deliveries of 50,000 square litres. So as a result of us de-risking our fuel supply we expect to see our rate of advance in the underground mining improve an awful lot. You can see that in the last part of 2023 we were achieving very high levels of advance. Since that time Helga has done a fantastic job of fixing up the mining team so that we have more staff and more equipment and more pumps So I'm very confident that we will be able to exceed our previous records of weekly advance. Just to come on to a little bit of detail about what we have done with regards to importation. Previously, at the end of last year, we were able to source a lot of the equipment and consumables that we needed in Ethiopia. That situation changed drastically very, very quickly. So we had to change around our system to become mostly focused on importation of the items that we needed. And I'm glad to say that we've managed to set up a system with a company called Airland Logistics, where they are our single expediter that organizes shipments from all around the world. We also have multiple third party procurement houses that provide us quotes. And what we've seen with this new system is a much faster speed of sourcing and delivering equipment to our team. We've also engaged ERA Global, who I'll talk about very soon. And DRA Global are providing supply chain consulting for us. We have a consultant that's working with us that specifically has mining-related supply chain capabilities. So we've seen huge improvements in our ability to supply items from overseas to our site. And we're expecting more improvements to come. This slide just shows an overview of our supply chain system. And I'm very confident that we'll see improvements in the next few weeks and then ongoing into the following months. So, just a note about DRA Global. We are very proud to be operating what we have in the past referred to as a boutique mine. It's a small mining operation. It's a lot smaller than many, but because of the very high grades that we have, we're able to have these fantastic margins and revenue potential. In order to make that a success, we need to be able to access world class knowledge and experience in problem solving for mining and problem solving for the process plant. And as I mentioned in the previous slide, problem solving for supply chain. Operating a mine, any kind of mine, whether it's a 10 tonne per hour mine or it's a 100 tonne per hour mine, operating any mine of any size requires very fast, efficient and sophisticated problem solving. We're dealing with chemical processes, we're dealing with the movement of mass material, we're dealing with underground mining. We have to have the people at the right places in the right time coming from South Africa. The expats come from South Africa. We have to have good sourcing of Ethiopians. The total complexity of what we're dealing with is significant. And we've done a great job of solving problems in the last six to eight months. You can see the problems that we've had have been significant. And we've done a great job in solving those problems. And inevitably, additional problems will come. and additional challenges will come. So that's why we are developing a strategic relationship with DRA Global. As you can see, they have operated and worked on 50 mining projects in processing operations and in underground mining. They've worked in 16 countries across five continents. They employ thousands of people. They actually have over 40 years of experience now and they have offices around the world. So to be able to involve DRA Global and to lean on them to assist to help us resolve the problems that we will have in the future and also to predict problems that we have and to completely de-risk the operation or to finalize the de-risking of the operation is a really great asset to us. And I'm glad to say that we have a fantastic partnership with DRA Global and their subsidiaries, Minipex and Senet. So just to put a bit of a picture around what we have done so far with DRA, as Jørgen mentioned, we had the successful refinancing of the whole project. The technical due diligence for that, for Monetary Metals, our largest lender, was performed by DRA, and that was successful. So they gave us the stamp of approval in order to support the refinancing. So that was fantastic. We've always had successful due diligence assessments. And it's great to have DRA doing that for us again. And right now, we have Christo from Minipex, the DRA subsidiary. who's working with us directly and attending all our meetings with regards to procurement and logistics. He's identifying risk areas and helping us mitigate them. He's making sure we get the capital purchases right. We're already seeing a reduction in cost and an increase in speed as a result of this work. So we're economically a lot more effective now. And the optimization work is ongoing. And we've already seen huge improvements. Weeks knocked off our delivery times. And I expect to see additional improvements happening as we go on. So Helga has already mentioned that the mining consulting team from DRA will be traveling down to site next week. So that's fantastic. And they already have some fantastic ideas to optimize and accelerate our current work in the Windsors. We're also very much hoping and intending that we will get them involved with accelerating the incline shaft as well. And that will have a really huge impact on the acceleration of our revenue generation. So we're very, very pleased with what we've currently been doing with DRA. And we have ongoing discussions with them for providing support in other areas of the Segele operation. And with their support, I know that we can get the project done and delivered as expected by our investors and shareholders. So given that there may be some new people seeing this video for the first time, I've talked about this before, but I should say it again. We will generate revenue from Segele and I'm very excited that's going to be happening in the near term now. We are still an exploration company and we have fantastic potential in our exploration license. The exploration license has the Segele mine inside it and we have numerous targets inside that exploration license. Our older shareholders will know that we've been very excited in the past about dealing with the Jodhu target. We've drilled at Jodhu South. We've got high-grade intersections there. Sorry, we've drilled at Jodhu Central. We've got high-grade intersections there. Jodhu South is a similar area to Segele in that there were quite fantastic grades in that area and a lot of quite intense artisanal mining at one point. And in addition to that, between Jodu and Segele, there are numerous additional targets. Gingerbill is still very exciting. We have low-grade gold. We've actually produced low-grade gold from bulk sampling at the surface at Gingerbill during the last year. And we have similar targets at Kororima and Mitmita. And we also, right near Segele, we also have some fantastic targets that we're very, very excited about. And so in the last six months, our focus has been very much on developing the Segele mine. So our work, our exploration work has been at a lower intensity during that period. But our team has nevertheless been very, very busy with doing whatever they can with the resources available to them. And this map that you can see on the right hand side is a new geological map. The yellow star is the Segele mine. And within 1.5 kilometers of the Segele mine, we intend to start drilling as soon as we are able to. We found gold nuggets in that area with similar mineralization to the Segele mine. We've already completed some trenching that helps us target the holes. And there's more than 60 line kilometers of magnetic surveying that has been done. So our exploration team have been very busy with that. Our drill rigs are very, very nearly ready to go to start drilling out the targets in this area. And our team have identified one particular area that's in the black rectangle to the left of the yellow star, which has very similar characteristics to the Segele mine. And if we're successful here, then this is mineralization that can be processed through the process plant that, as we've seen from Helga's slides, will be ready to produce within a very short period of time now. So this is an exciting project for us. Just to look back at the bigger picture, we are a relatively small company. And we are standing in what geologists refer to as elephant hunting territory. They say if you want to shoot an elephant, the elephant being a large gold deposit, if you want to shoot an elephant, then go to elephant hunting ground. And we're in the Arabian Nubian Shield, which is very much elephant hunting ground. The mines that you can see in the green area here with a little mine symbol, each of those is that these are very much the elephants of the mining industry. Multiple million ounces of gold found in each of these mines. And the green area is the Arabian Nubian Shield. We have the Sukkari mine, for example, that produced half a million ounces of gold in 2022 and has a total resource of 15 million ounces. And there's the Mardan mines and the Barak mines in Saudi Arabia. So a total of 48 million ounces of gold has been defined so far in the Arabian Nubian Shield, and our part of it has hardly been explored. And we are the only professional exploration company in our part of the Arabian Nubian Shield. We're the only company with our own drill rigs in the Arabian Nubian Shield. and sorry in our part of the Arabian Nubian Shield we have geologists that are experienced and knowledgeable in the geology and we have all the logistics set up and with the fantastic progress that we've had with the Segele mine now I'm very confident that we're going to be making fantastic progress in achieving our aim of defining a large-scale gold mine in our licence area and nearby. So now I'll hand over back to Jørgen to talk us through where that takes us as a company.

Thank you, Matt. Thank you, Helge. Yeah, where does that take us? Well, there are just so much we can do going forward. Ethiopia is a place to be over the next, as I said, 10, 15, 20 years. This is where the new mining industry will be. You have a lot of land available. There is little competition and little happening these days and it's really a good place to work. A lot of support from all relevant authorities and this mining industry is really one of the top three pillars in the economic development in Ethiopia. So a lot of focus on it and our small project will be an important part of that, showing the world that it's possible to do mining in Ethiopia, even a small company like ours all the way up to Norway. So the strategy for us is to capitalize on that and use the organization that we have already in place. We have more than 200 employees. We have spent a lot of time working on developing that organization. We've been through A to Z, we've been through exploration, we've been through licensing, we've been through well, building a plant and now going into production. So that's a valuable asset that we will expand on going forward. And as Matt said, we're still an exploration company. Segele is a funding machine for us. We will of course try to increase the tonnage and the resources that will go through the plant, but our main objective now and where the value for our shareholders and investors will really be in building bigger and larger resource base. But as you can see here, in the short term, we're still delivering on the strategy. We need to get the mine really running and producing cash. That's something that will now happen in the very near future. The medium term, well, as I said, we need to establish a solid and attractive resource base. And we will use the cash flow from the mine to do that. We will look into new license areas. We will expand existing areas. And we have a long list of targets and things we want to do. And of course the long-term vision is to become the leading player in the mining industry in Ethiopia. And I think we can do that. We will probably not be able to do it alone. We will seek partners and we will seek the right partners. Being it financial, being it industrial or something in between. And I think... With the right setup, with the right partnering, we will be able to really build long term value here for everyone. That said, of course, investing in a company like Ecobo Minerals is a long-term project. Mining is not happening overnight, as we all know, and what we've seen over the last couple of years. So that's something to have in mind. We will build this company now step by step and expand in the best possible way that we can. So I think really with that, we've been through the presentation for today. I hope at least we gave a good view on what's happening. If there are anything unclear, please reach out to us. We might then do some questions at the end here, if we have.

Yeah, we've got some questions. Shall I start reading them out? Yeah. Great. So we have a question here, which is, what are the risks associated with cash repatriation and what steps have you taken to reduce them?

Well, there is always a risk associated with cash repatriation. But what we have done is all the cash that we have invested into ethnomining has been registered as loans with the national bank. And as long as you register that as a loan with the national bank, you're eligible for repayment of it. You also have the opportunity to have your yearly annual dividend, like any other company. Of course, it is difficult to pay dividend if you don't have dollars in the company or in the national bank. But since we are producing our own dollars, I don't see that as a huge risk going forward. There is also a new directive from before Christmas this year where owners of large scale mining licenses that we do have will also have the right to open an offshore account. So that's something we're already working on with the National Bank and hopefully that will be in place within not too far future So we're working a lot on that part. That said, cash repatriation is one thing, but we will also use parts of the cash that we produce to invest into what is really the value proposition here, and that's to increase the size of our resources and get that up to a certain level that will attract the bigger international mining companies.

Okay, great. So another question is... Sure. There is a need for more frequent updates to the market. Is this something you wish to address?

Well, frequent updates to the market. Well, we've just had one operational update earlier this month. We're having this one. I think we're doing more operational updates than most companies on the stock exchange. We will... We will announce the news we have to announce when they're there. If there's nothing to announce, there's not really much to do. We do have our quarterly reports and that's really the nature of how a stock listed company will operate. So I think we're addressing that pretty well already.

Great. And another question. Congratulations to the milestone achievement. Very well done. Do you foresee any difficulties to obtain mining license for the rest of the exploration area?

No, if we need to. We already have a big area. The 16 square kilometers that we have, I think, is one of the biggest mining licenses that you'll find, not only in Ethiopia, but in other countries. But this is a natural development and it's part of the structure of moving from exploration to mining. As long as you move or you find miningable resources, you'll have the right to expand and to start mining. I don't see any issues with that and the dialogue we have with the Ministry of Mines these days is excellent and we have all the support to get that done.

Great. So we have a few more questions if we've got time. Should we go through them? Are you confident rain will not hamper production anymore in the future? Maybe one for Helge?

Yes, I can take that. Yeah. Yeah, it seems strange that rain should be a problem, but here we are. And what we see now also, and talking also to the locals, is that the rain events that are now are more massive than has been before. So the effects of weather change has also reached the Gambela region. So what we are doing now, we are working with a three-factor barrier solution with trenches being the first barrier. Then we are now constructing catchment walls to take the water when it comes further down. And this third and last barrier would be to actually roof the last areas over the winches so that we have no none of this extreme rain coming into the mine. And we are quite confident that this strategy will all but negate the effects of the extreme rain.

When will the mine be able to deliver enough tonnage for the plant to run 24-7?

Yes, the mine is currently not producing enough ore to be able to feed the mine 24-7, so it's a good question. What we are doing now and what you saw in my presentation for the mine that with this updated mine plan is that we will go for the very rich ore first, so we are able to deliver high-grade gold ore to the plant as a starch. That is our low tonnage, but high grade solution to this issue. Going forward, now we are hiring DRA at the site to try to speed up. The main task for them is to try to speed up how fast we are able to go down the incline shaft, which will be our main haulage way for the gold. So that is our response to that. So to increase the speed of the inclined shaft, so we are in position to haul more tonnage through that way.

Great. There's actually, should we carry on now? Yeah. Take a couple of more. Yeah. There's actually a question here that we can put together. What is our financial position and when do we expect first revenue?

Okay, so as you saw from the presentation, we're expecting to produce our first low-grade ore by the end of July and then ramping up. It's a bit difficult to say how much cash that will generate in the first couple of months and that will of course also affect or have an impact on our financial position. Our financial position today is good. We have had a lot less operating expenses than what we planned for in the beginning of the year. So the financial position is good. We will have to see what kind of cash we can generate in July, August and then we'll have to evaluate from there of course. But the general monthly operating expenses that we have now after completing the processing plant is much lower than we expected and also will be lower going forward. Yeah, so I think that's it. Maybe just the last one here. I think we've answered it before, but it's always good to repeat that. How the gold will be taken out and sold. So the gold will be produced and it will end up in our gold room as small dore bars smelted into that. And we have a setup already in place with MKS Pamps and Brinks, who will be responsible for flying in, taking out the gold from the gold room, flying out to others, then to Zurich and to the refinery of MKS Pamp, where it will be refined into nice LBMA materials. approved bars where it again will be sold on the london bullion market stock exchange and that process in itself takes about five days from from the gold leaf site to to cash is is received from mks pam yeah great i think that's it what do you want to we have a final one here on exploration

Yep. What is it about Westergale exploration that makes you so confident? Right, I guess I'll answer that one. So as you saw from the presentation, we have seen very, very similar geology and mineralization in that area already. There are some units called sheared ultramafex that seem to be mineralized actually with gold, and we found gold in those units. We actually find those similar sheared ultramafics with the gold around the edges of the Segele mineralization. And our geologists are also particularly exciting because they found a similar contact in West Segele. A contact is a join between two types of rocks. And we see exactly that kind of contact at the Segele mine as well. And that's backed up by the magnetic surveying that we've done. So that's the reason why we are so excited to drill there. And of course, once a discovery is made at the Westergale area, it's only a very short distance to the process plant itself. So we already have the team and the equipment and the logistical setup for actually generating revenue once a discovery is made in that area. So that's exciting.

Looks like that's it for today. Thank you all for joining in. We will try to keep you, of course, updated as much as possible. Be some exciting time, exciting period going forward for us all. And July will be the next important milestone for us. So stay tuned. And thank you all.