Akobo Minerals Ab

few junior miners who have actually managed to progress from discovery to production. And we're now operating with positive cash flow from our operations. And we're the first international gold producer to begin operations in Ethiopia since 1993. We have strong support from the government, from the ministries, but also from the Ethiopian Investment Holding, the Ethiopian sovereign fund, who is now also a shareholder over Kobo Minerals. We're listed on the Euronext growth in Oslo. And as you can see here from the numbers, we have an in-situ value of the Segheli deposit of around $280 million. That's based on a gold price of 4,100 per ounce. We also have a gold loan which stands at 38 million dollars today based upon the same gold price. So we'll come back to that and just explain for those who are not familiar with it. Just a few pictures here you can see our mine geologists looking at visible gold after blasting and figuring out where to go next. You can see the excavator digging down into the new vertical shaft and you can see some production from our processing plant. So latest key events. This is a milestone for the company, positive EVTA for the first time ever, around 730,000 US dollars. The Q3 production was strong. We did 21 kilos of gold ore bars at an average grade, close to 30 gram per ton, which is very, very high. That has a value of around $2.4 million in sales. Also, we're continuing into Q4, October-November production being strong so far by 13.5 kilos in total. The average is a bit lower, 21 gram per ton. That has to do with the fact that we are now trying to blend more towards the 20 gram per ton target. That will keep the processing more stable and better. That has a value of around 1.9 million dollars in sales. We see that we have a cash and Gold Dory balance end of November of around 4.3 million dollars. So we have a pretty solid cash balance these days compared to previously. We also have an additional stockpile that has not been produced, around 385 tons, averaging around 20 gram per ton. So here we are blending already high grade, medium grade and low grade. So this stockpile we will increase towards 1,000 tons over the next few months to support the commissioning and the ramp up of the vertical shaft and then the processing plant accordingly. So the value of that gold sitting in the stockpile is an additional $1.1 million, given the current gold price. So the headgear that is related to the vertical shaft is now shipped from the manufacturer The vertical shaft in itself, we reached 20 meters into hard rock out of some planned 60 meters. The infrastructure work is happening also now these days. So we're preparing around the shaft all the infrastructure that will be used for getting the headgear in place. And as we continue to see, the gold price remains strong. It's above $4,000 per ounce. So this has a big impact on the cash flow also for Segelle and Aqobo. So up until end of November, we have produced now 65 kilos of Dore and we expect Q4 also to deliver a strong result with continued positive cash flow from operations. So we do have stable operations today and we expect a significant uplift by the new vertical shaft. So again, stable production. We are not pushing the activities these days. The vertical shaft is pretty close to the existing winches and the tunnels. So we need to work diligently and make sure we don't blast when people are in the different tunnels in the areas. We do not want anything to happen on the safety side. So a higher output is technically possible already now from the winces, but we are not pushing that. We would like to keep it stable and we would like to focus on making sure that the work on the vertical shaft is progressing according to plan. So from where we are now, no additional financing is needed to complete the current development plan. So on the left hand side here, I've tried to illustrate sort of what it will look like going from today's production into full quarterly production with the new shaft aiming at 50 kilos a month. So we do have here an estimate for Q4 around 20 kilos of gold that assumes another six and a half in December and that will ramp up to around 150 on a quarterly basis. Looking at the numbers on the sales side, we have an estimated $2.8 million in sales in Q4, given the current gold price. And that will ramp up and increase to around $20 million on a quarterly basis. Of course, all depending on the gold price. And you can see the effect on the gold price and increasing gold price just from Q3 to our estimate for Q4. So with 21 kilos in Q3, we had $2.4 million of sales. If we reach the 20 kilo target in Q4 due to the increased gold price we will see a sales value closer to 2.8 million dollars. So the gold price of course has a significant effect on our numbers. So this is an illustration again based on some assumptions around the gold price. I would like to just mention that Ethiopia and what we're seeing today has a very positive investment climate. It's worth noting Ethiopia is doing a lot on the reform side these days, supporting mining, foreign investments, and export-led growth. This is part of their key pillar in their 10-year plan. And we see that every day, all the support we get. So we have constructive dialogue with all government agencies and we're now working to finalize the two remaining points that are critical to all international investors and miners looking to develop something in Ethiopia or other places. That's the ability to open an offshore account and also to export. So all of this is looking very good, and I hope we'll have some news on that very soon. Generally, on the broader economic reform side, what we're seeing is opening of the banking sector, the currency float they did, IMF, World Bank, corporation framework, and a growing financial market also with opening of the stock exchange. And it is the second largest country in Africa with regards to population. So there's a strong long-term growth prospect in Ethiopia. So vertical shaft development. We're doing a vertical shaft. It's progressing and it's on budget. We're preparing that for operations during or end of Q1 next year, only a few months away. And then, of course, following that up by a ramp up period until mid-2026, where we expect to hit the 50 kilo target. There's a significant operational leverage of course by getting this into production. A lot of the cost is fixed and will remain largely unchanged. So most of the extra gold will materialize as a margin for the company. During the ramp period, we will use both the winces and the shaft just to make sure that we optimize and maximize the production and the cash flow in that period. Of course, the vertical shaft will replace the current winces, tunnels and improving efficiency and also reducing our overall operating cost. You can see some pictures here on the right hand side. This is how the headgear will look that will sit on top of the shaft. how the elevator will look, that will take people and ore or tonnage up and down. And also now on the illustration, you can see how the shaft is compared to the ore body that you will see on the right hand side, the orange part. So we'll go straight down and we'll do development drives into the ore body from the vertical shaft. Of course, once reaching those lower levels, we will also start doing underground exploration. and continue developing the mining site underground and go as deep as we can. We expect it to be deep. It is open at depth, the Segelli resource. So that's for future operations. Current operations on the mining and processing side, we are doing a lot to optimize and improve, making sure that we have a steady and stable operations. You can see from some of the pictures here the new shaking table in operation. how we're working with the different grades, different stocks here, and also how we bring the ore from the tunnels and the winces into the processing plant and the crushing circuits. We're doing at least consistent mining on a day-to-day basis. We do not have any major operational challenges or issues. It's just keeping up the activity, making sure we work in a safe and sound environment. Always something to do. There's always something to optimize. But we have a very strong team at site. So we're very happy with the current operational progress these days. We're also doing work to optimize our camp, the infrastructure, community. So we're preparing for power grid connection and we might get that in the first half of 2026. That will be a major improvement to camp life but also That will reduce our most costly expense or what we're spending a lot of money on today, which is diesel. It will not be able to replace all the diesel and generator work, but at least it can take a big part of it. We're doing general camping upgrades. We do have 200 employees at site, so trying to make their life as good as possible, working on generally just improving, working on building new labs, office buildings. And also, since we're going from a stockpile of around 385 tons today to around 1,000, we're also spending time on working on a bigger stockpile area. We have started work for the new tailings facility, the TSF, that will enable us to start up our CIL later into 2026. On the community side, we're doing a lot of road improvements, supporting both logistics and local community access. We are now enabling water access to the community, which is probably the most important thing to get pure water into the local village, local community. And just in general, working on security and safety in the area. and access control and staff training also in our own camp. You can see some pictures here on the right hand side. Bulldozer doing the road. We have our work, our daily safety briefing in the morning. And a bit strange picture on the right hand side. This is actually the headgear that will sit on top of the vertical shaft. which is now on its way from the manufacturer to our site somewhere. Okay, exploration. It's important again to mention that Kobo Minerals is still an exploration company. We've had to reduce our exploration activity the last couple of years. We've been focusing on getting the mine up and running and the cash flow generated from that operation. But now we see it's the time to restart. So we have focus on this. The GLO license that we have been talking about for quite some time, it is now approved by the Ministry of Mines in the Gambela region and we're waiting a final sign of in a very short time from the local administration. You can see that on the right-hand side. It's about 1,200 square kilometers. It's north of the existing area, and it fits well within the geological structure of the Arabian Nubian Shield, where you have also a bit north of us the Allied Gold Kyrmuk mine and the Kefi Tulukapi mine, which are both million-ounce deposits. Arctic Drilling that delivered the first drill rig that also did all the drilling for Segele are arriving at site more or less as we speak. They will repair and recommission the drill rig that we have so that we can start near mine drilling again. I hope we'll get that going now. in late December. And then the exploration activities will progressively ramp up through 2026. And we still have very high expectations for what we call the Jinji-Biljoru corridor, which is a 15 kilometer strike, length strike here, where we see a big potential for developing a much, much larger resource than what we have today. And again, Ethiopia remains underexplored despite strong geological fundamentals. We are in a very favorable position. We're definitely a first mover in all of these areas. And again, the Ginge-Miljori corridor is something we're still very excited about. So looking ahead, of course, completing the vertical shaft is the top priority. Enabling higher and more stable production. It will be a controlled ramp up. We will not stress the system and do anything wrong. We have to get this right from the beginning. This will enable us to access deeper zones and additional ore bodies. And also at some point we will get underground drill rigs and we will start exploring from the deep. Again, we will restart near-mine drilling and also looking at the gingerbill jewelry drill program. Very important is to continue optimization of the plant performance and the processing costs and everything. That's a big, yeah, it's a focus, continuous focus for us. We expect to start exporting our gold at least once we have the bigger volumes from the new vertical shaft. And we're also now looking at strengthening the operational and technical capacity for the next exploration phase, looking at getting some more senior exploration people on board to drive that activity. And over the coming years, we're still looking now to establish a structured and multi-year exploration pipeline that goes beyond the current Segelle and near mine area. So the financial performance overview, you can see the development that I've touched upon. A bit higher operational expenses in Q3 due to more work on the shaft and on the preparations, but also some costs related to the equity rates we did towards Ethiopian investment holdings. but it's all under control and we are not expecting any major increase in operational costs going forward, not until at least the shaft is up and running. You can see the development of the equity and debt here. So again, the increase in debt reflects the fact that it's a gold loan, so the dollar value will be impacted and reflect the gold price. If the gold price increases, the value of the gold loan will increase. If the gold price goes down again, the value in dollars of the loan will also go down. So what is important, again, to note this is, of course, when the gold price goes up, of course, the value and the cash flow from the Segella deposit will also increase. And it will increase a lot more than the gold loan. On the other side, if the value of gold goes down, then you'll have the opposite effect on the cash flow of the Segella mine. So this is of course not something that we can illustrate from an accounting perspective, so that's why the equity side is what it is. The corporate structure is still the same. Acobo Minerals is our listed company. It's Swedish. We do have an operational company in Norway and Ethnomining, our local company in Ethiopia that holds all the licenses and all the activity is based there. We're still maintaining a very lean organization, very low overhead costs. It's only two people outside of Ethiopia these days. working for the company. You can see here the top shareholders, really not that much of a change. We still have a very stable shareholder base and we're very happy to have them as our supporters. I will leave this for you to look into more of the details. If you have questions, you can ask me and send me an email. So with that, I think we're already at the Q&A session. I have received some questions that I will answer out. So there is some questions about when we can expect some further update on the resource estimate of Segelle. We have indicated that we have hit gold outside of the resource model while mining. So we don't expect a resource update of Segelle as such. But what we're seeing is at least on some parts where we are mining now the resource or the ore body extends at least some five meters beyond the existing resource estimate and the resource model which just is a very positive thing. We think the gold is there and we think there is there can be more gold and from what we're seeing at least so far it looks to be extending somewhat but we have not seen this extending over a large distance but so far it's at least giving us very good indications. We have talked about the million ounce potential, so just referring to the exploration slide, we do expect that is possible within the existing license area and that's what we'll be working on over the next, well at least we'll restart now in 2026 and we'll see how far we get during 2026 in getting updates on that. There is also a question here. Is it possible to reach more than 50 kilos a month from the new vertical shaft? Could we get 80 kilos out on a monthly basis? Yes, that is possible. To achieve that, we need to get the CIL up and running, something we're looking at commissioning by the end of 2026. We have started the work on the tailings side. The CIL system is already there, so it's a matter of when we put the final effort in there to get the tailings done. But yes, it is possible to increase up to 80 kilos a month. once we get that up and running by the end of 2026. Yep, some questions around drilling, around Segella. As I said, we are now, as we speak, looking into repairing the existing drill rig and see if we can commission some of the other drill rigs we have at site. And hopefully we'll get that up and running again now in December. And we will continue the drilling around Segella then going forward into 2026. Questions around GLO? So from what I said, we're now just waiting for the final approval from the local administration in the area. We expect that to happen soon. Then what will be the next step is developing an overall strategy for the area. We will probably start from the top, meaning using satellite images, airborne surveying, then narrowing it all down until we finally get to some sort of drill ready target. So this will be work for 2026. It's a huge area, so there is no point in just driving some drill rigs in there and try to start drilling. We need to do a lot of structural geology work before we can enter that phase. So the GLO license is more of the longer term plan for the company, expanding on the existing mine, the near mine exploration, the Gingerbill-Djoru corridor, and then moving into new areas like GLO. Some technical questions around mining phases. It's a bit too early to say on the new vertical shaft. We'll do more surveying underground, but we're looking probably at working with three phases in the new vertical shaft. Some questions on how we will maintain our operational stability. Well, we have a strong team from Sutton at site. They're experts. They've done this many times before. From what we're seeing right now, the work being done is very good and we have very stable operations. So now it's all about keeping up the level, improving it even further, and of course working on the planning side so that we always have spares. We're always prepared for what can happen. This is mining. It's still a rough area we're working on. The difference now is that we at least have a financial flexibility to be better prepared going forward. That's been a challenge, of course, previously. OK. That's fine. I think we're all good from now. Has there been any exploration done in the GLO area? It's the final one. So the Gelo area is really not an area that has been explored previously. So why did we actually try to get a license in that area? Well, it's based on the overall geological structure that we've been working on in our area that we're seeing going all the way up through Ethiopia and further. So this is based on a general understanding of the area, but not any kind of explicit exploration activity. So it will be a pure greenfield exercise. We're looking forward to start work on that once we get the license. So with that, I think we're all good for today. If you have more questions, please send me an email and I'll get back to you. But for now, I think we're all good. And I will just say thank you for participating and listening. And I'll see you next time.