Botnia Gold AB (publ)

Hello and welcome to Investor Studios and Botnia Gold with its first quarter for 2026. You who are watching live can as always interact with management and ask questions about one and the other. We will handle your questions at the end of the presentation. With that said, Fredrik, it is my great pleasure to say hello and welcome. Thank you very much. For those of you who do not know Fredrik, Fredrik Bergsten is the CEO of Botnia Gold. And then I say, here you go, the stage is yours.

Thank you very much, Carlo. We are going to look at our first quarter for 2026. A little short agenda together with a picture of our wonderful mining site in Färborg Kärn. Excuse me if I cough a little bit, it's pollen in my nose. Important events during the first quarter. The first quarter has been quite exciting for Botnia in many ways and filled with some deviations in production for the first time. But through a little agile action together with our production staff from the Berg team, we have been able to solve most of these problems. But it is not possible to assume that it has caused some cost increases and production disruptions during the quarter. But we feel safe with this now to be behind us. But as you can see here on the temperature curve from January to February, it has been quite cold. Unusually cold for the last few years in this area. This means a lot of production disturbances, both in the mine and mainly from the transports from Malmö to Björkdal during January and February. We also got a very, very high electricity price during January, February and July. We had some luck. The consumption of burning oil was enormously high. Periodically over two and a half cubic meters per day. As luck would have it, before the real worst diesel and oil prices fell, March had entered much, much milder weather. But we have also seen a lot of production disturbances. We have had some unplanned maintenance on machines. Among other things, our concrete car that picks up our fuel concrete in Kristineberg got an engine failure. Probably partly due to cooling. But then we also got the arm of our machine scraper broke. And then there were a lot of other such small things too. We have appreciated during the quarter we have certainly had unplanned maintenance costs. almost 2 million more than normal. This is something that can happen sometimes, but we have started to get along with all these things. Then the big thing that we have gone out and talked about a little bit is that we have implemented this enrichment in Björkdalen now. It was very, very happy to see the outcome of this. It has been important for us to maintain that the marm we have delivered to Björkdörr on this test has been consistent, that is, from about the same positions in the mine and about about the same breaking methods. This means that in contrast to the plans we had, 100% of the marble that has been broken during the quarter has come from the method we call marble breaking, which has relatively high costs and a little less productivity. But we have got this together. Then we encountered some challenges when it came to transport to Björkdal, which was cold-related for the trucks. Then we got some cost increases during the march related to higher diesel prices. With our transport company, we have a diesel clause, which means that it hits the ton cost when it goes in there. However, we are very pleased with the outcome of this campaign, both when it comes to the halters and the exchange. I will return to that in more detail in a moment. When it comes to the research site and the infrastructure in the mine, one of the most important things for us is to work with the research of the Färbo core to the depth. This has become possible during the quarter, where we have run this research site that you can see on the map that goes out to the left here. We have built it on a site that we call Skiva 9, it is about 125 meters deep in the mine. Here, a lot of the infrastructure of the mine to break down the boards from board 9 to board 12 must also be placed when it comes to ventilation, stowage and rescue chambers and the like. So it's a very good place. The research site here has been completed in good time. We have already told you about that in connection with quarter four, that we had much higher progress here than planned and that was good. But we have had some challenges when it comes to media installations here. When you talk about media with a mine, you are not talking about YouTube clips and things like that, but you are talking about water, electricity and above all air. And it is above all the air that has been a problem for us here deep down in the mine. We could actually start as planned, but only with limited capacity. We could only start the morning shift during the first four weeks. But then we got better air when we opened our ventilation shaft and then we were able to continue working and it flows very well. The other thing we have been focusing on this quarter has been preparing for our high-productive drilling areas. When it comes to the high-productive drilling areas, you can see in this picture that the marble drilling we are talking about is when you look at the picture where it says top drift and then it says bottom drift. That is actually what we break out when we break the marble drilling. And when we have done that in a number of levels, we establish a main level, a bottom sheet, and then we start to shoot out and load out what is in between. And what was a bit of a struggle for us here was that the bottom sheet preparation had to be completed. It didn't go as well as it did in the first attempt. And this is important so that we don't have to leave a thick middle sheet with a lot of gold left in the mine when we leave it. But we got to that point. And then it went really well with both openings, shooting up the first holes. But then we got some hang-ups after a while and it took us a few days to solve that. In general, it's like this, about four to five weeks we were late with the start of this. But already today, when I'm standing here on May 5th, we're basically on top of this delay. Because this concrete is very productive. It has gone very well to come to terms with that. So it rolls on very well for the time being. Then the other is the mulch sorting. And here, while I'm talking, you can see a little picture of what it looks like when the mulch comes in first and then goes on to the sorting. We have been doing this since the end of February, but it has taken a while for us to get up in capacity. At the beginning of March, we identified that we had a little too little air pressure available in this system for it to work well. Therefore, we did not come up with a nominal resolution with the quality we wanted. This was solved now at the beginning of April, when we got access to another compressor. So we basically have twice as much compressed air as we had from the beginning. The reason for this was actually in the tests. saw the normal distribution curve on the size distribution on the material we ran out a little differently. In reality, it showed that the normal distribution curve is slightly different from the larger part. And to move on a larger marble lump, compared to smaller marble lumps, it takes more air. But this was solved quite quickly. But we reached nominal capacity about a month later than planned. But it still went well together, because just when we got this to go into nominal capacity, Malmö started to come into the system from the high productive breaking area. So they matched each other very well. We were soon almost done with this delay. So that was really the most important thing that happened during this quarter. When it comes to production and expectations for 2026, when we look at the production for the first quarter, we see that the production here from the Malmö site was a little higher than what we had in our forecast. The total malm production was a little lower because we were too late to get started in this high productive area. What we could also see was that we made a little more ramp. Ramp is important for us because that's how we prepare our upcoming mining areas. If we start to walk after that, it is an indication that in two quarters we may have problems producing a whole bunch of malm. We also managed to feed a little more malm than was planned for the trial campaign in Björkdal, which was good. And we also saw that the outfall was quite good. During this, as I mentioned earlier, we had some production disturbances. Difficult to cool and unplanned maintenance have been the main ones. Difficult to cool can be considered underground. You say that you heat up the air. Yes, but when it's 35 degrees cold, we can't heat up the air enough so that the concrete hardens fast enough so that we get a little standing time. That's mostly what happens. And it really moves mainly when we produce marble from marble shavings. As I said, a slightly higher tonnage than planned in the campaign in Björkdorp. That was good. And the preliminary outfalls due to the gold production also look to have improved. When it comes to the Björkdorps campaign, a total of 12,526 dry tons. You never think about it, but we actually pay the truck drivers to drive a lot of water too, because the weighted transported wet weight on the marsh was somewhere around 13,300. But then it's about 6% water on the surface of these stones, it's so much. It was no marginal marsh that has gone with this, but it's just the primary marsh from the bracing of the marsh and from consequent positions also so that it will be comparable. The halters are the joy, because we have been able to replicate the halters we have in the block model with our goal of 30% screw-in mixture. This was also important for us to confirm that all these activities that we have worked with during 2025, even after the semester 2025, to implement to reduce the challenge we initially had with a very large mix of gravel, which lowered the halt and increased the costs. We look here to have achieved the desired outcome. Then it was also exciting to see that we got such a high exchange rate in the process. This is a strategically important question for us in the future. Delivery of gold. Here on this picture you can actually see a small gold line on the chessboard in Björkdal. According to the preliminary analyses, we have delivered 84.9 kg of gold for 117.5 million, which is about 1384 SEK. In principle, this is 30% higher than the average income per gram under 2025. I think it's almost 10% higher than the last campaign we had in October last year. When I say preliminary, I put in an asterisk here, it simply means that this works a little differently than when we do it here via Anrikningsverket in Svartliden. There we produce a doré taco that is very quickly measured in its full amount of gold and so on. In Björktalsgruvan, we have produced four different concentrates. These are tested by Anrikningsverket and get a preliminary halt. The final halt is the re-reporting from Smältverket. These products have gone to two different smelters. We will probably get the last analysis at the beginning of July on one of the concentrates. We will probably get the first one very soon. Then it works like this, that 90% paid we get 30 days after delivery. And the final payment you get when the last analysis is done, so that the last 10% came first in July. And today, when I look, we have got about 15 million of what we are going to get from this. The rest of the 90% will come here in the next one and a half weeks. The plan for 2026. We have carried out the first campaign here at 12,500 tons. The second campaign of the year will now actually be launched next week and will continue until midsummer, around the end of June. We have calculated that this will cover about 20,000 tons. This can vary a little up and down a little depending on how much margin we send with this process. Then we plan to have another one campaign during the autumn, which we also think will be about 20,000 tons. But I want to put a little asterisk when it comes to the total heat drainage. Excuse me. I don't really know what the effect will be. How much that is sorted away from arm sorting. That's how it can sometimes sound when you get something in your throat. When we talk about the future, we are investigating the Färb och Kärnmott-djupet. The holes indicate the planned drill pattern. The white ones are finished. The red ones remain. When I checked in the past, about 75% of the holes were finished. It is still too early to say anything about the results. We have not received any analysis yet. However, I assess that the work has gone very well and continues according to plan. The next thing you will hear about this is probably that at the end of Q2 or the beginning of Q3, actually before we go on vacation in July, we will probably be able to say a little preliminary about the results of this. If this result is as good as we hope, then there is the possibility to expand this BOR program and examine the findings even below 250 meters, actually below this image. There are also drillings in Varvbäcken. The diamond drill hole we drill there is then clarified information about how the quartz holes look. We are also going to duplicate some of the work done earlier to confirm that it looks like it is. We plan to be done with this after the semester. After that, we will decide how we will proceed with a new feasibility study and so on. But it will take a little longer before we can say anything preliminary about this than what we can do with Feb and Cern. But this work is also going on according to plan more or less. Are we perhaps a little early on this and that is because we got so much earlier snow melting. When it comes to financial results and position, now it says Q4 here, I haven't changed it to Q1, but this is Q1 to deal with. Then we see that we had about 11.5 million in turnover for this quarter, based on these preliminary analyses. This can move a little bit in the future. When we get the final analysis. EBIT fell to 30 million, which is actually an EBIT margin of 25.6%. And then you can think that's about what you were on for the whole year last year. But you should have more than a quarter when you have a campaign. Yes, but it has been a fairly small campaign. We had some seasonally emphasized higher costs here. And a little unplanned entertainment that we think is behind us now. Then there was the application cost for trial application in Björkdal also higher than what our nominal application cost is. And that's kind of how it becomes when you're doing such a one-off business for the application. However, this has given us a lot of strategically important information about this. The cash flow for the period then ends up negatively. And then you can ask why that is. Yes, but it's just like I said, we don't get paid in 10 days anymore, but we get paid 90% after 30 days and we deliver right at the end of March. So the payments are coming now. And it is simply that the customer service has increased by 116 million compared to the previous quarter. Then we have also invested about 12.6 million. Pretty much half of this is cash flow related to investment in marble sorting. The rest is then investments in renovations and under construction.

I'll check that.

When we look at the balance calculation, we see here what the causes are. You can see here that the marbling has decreased, but the customer feed has increased radically. When you look at the installation stages, you can see that they are starting to get close to the top now. We have started cleaning the last four levels in the mine towards the depth now. Which will be the last, if it is not so that the result from the savings we make now makes that we can extend the lifetime. Then we obviously have to increase these investments a little bit. But the Malmö sorting, the last invoice on it came now in April. So then it started to be clear. Of these customer vehicles, 15 million arrived before the end of April. Another 60 will arrive very soon. The last 10% will arrive in July. That was actually what I was going to say.

I have to apologize for the coughing. Yes, but that's what happens. There is a lot of pollen in the air, especially if you fly along with the whole of Sweden. It's on different levels. But we have received a few questions here and I would like to stop a few here. And then we have a few that we have received earlier. We have Marcus here who asks a question about the research project. After the successful research campaign in Björkdal, what are your thoughts on building your own research project? And what potential obstacles do you see ahead of you?

It's an intelligent question for Marcus to ask, because of course, if we were to build a research project, it would be a commercial research project just like Björkdal. We have the capacity to build such a building and we have the capacity to put it up at the Varjebäcken pit. So it will be very connected to the Varjebäcken project. Then it is so that a building costs a lot of money and then we need to have some slag on the pit to amortize it. So the question is whether we will be able to build it before Färbo Kärneklar. So I see it predominantly as a project question. But of course it is part of that plan to see if it is possible and suitable to give a better economic outcome to build it in the context of building out Varbäcken.

And for a non-initiated, like myself, Ineberg, I come up with a claim and say that an enrichment work does not have to be only connected to Björkdal, but it can be connected to the other parts, the more you have. And then we take another question here about the different production Ted is asking what the lifespan of Feb and Tjern looks like. You said that it's too early to answer certain questions, but we'll see what you can answer. Lifespan for Feb and Tjern, and when do we have full effect on Varbäcken? We'll start there, and then there will be more lifespan questions.

As we have communicated earlier, we have a well-known reserve down to 175 meters today. It takes us until the spring of the summer of 2028 to break it out. But as I said, now we are standing and digging towards the discovery under this. And the answers to that is what will possibly lead to an extension of life. Four levels we can add, it takes about a quarter per level to break out. So if I can add four levels, then I have added one year. If I can add six, then it's one and a half years. And I think that down to 250 meters, it's about six levels. So then we'll see if you can add everything or if you can add parts. And then we'll see if we're going to continue to drill even below 250 meters. That's what the results from this drill campaign show. As I said, it's a little too early to say what the results are yet.

And then we have a little cheeky question here, and it's Ulf who thinks that you can own more shares. How is the reasoning here when it comes to, shall we call it, share incentives between staff and owners?

That question has been discussed before. I have said that many companies where you have large parts of the management in the earlier stage, it is easy to give out options and they can buy in on suitable levels. Now we are a company in production and have a a valuation on the stock market if you are to buy into it. And of course it has been difficult. I have looked at it in some places. Should we be able to do an incitement program for, I don't know, day management? But with regard to just the lifespan of the foundry in Färborkärn and that we have not yet taken any development decisions with Varjebäcken, in the current situation it is difficult to do that because the running time is too short. But the board also thinks that management can buy some shares and I actually bought 1,600 shares today in the morning.

It's just a certain amount of time that you can buy.

Yes, this is probably the first time this year I've been able to buy shares. I haven't been in any kind of insider list or on any logbook or anything. So I'm using it today.

Another question, you mention production. This might be more of a question of knowledge, if not for the rest of the market, at least for me. Then you have 165 meters of tunnel drive against a planned 135. In my untrained ears, it sounds like it's better. Is it a one-off? Is this important? And how should we understand the matrix, the tunnel driving?

The matrix, the tunnel driving, is important to keep an eye on, especially over time. Because in principle, we need to do 130-140 meters for each new marble we are going to break. If we start to lose here towards our plans over time, then we will end up in what is called a little slang in the mining industry. Then you end up in the gravestone. Then you stand there without any malmgavels available to produce malm for, and you just stand there and can produce gravestones. It's not all that much fun. So that it goes up and a little bit down from month to month. Now we have had two quarters a day where we have overperformed. That's good. It makes us stand in a favorable position until autumn when we start to produce from marble shavings. Right now, during the coming quarter, all the marble will largely be from high productive rill shavings. If we lose this in a couple of quarters, there is a risk that we can lose production capacity in the future. So you should primarily see it as important to prepare future cultivation areas. And it is the trend that is important rather than the individual quarter.

But then it does nothing if you get 165 against the planned 135. Another little knowledge question from my side is the Plan 2026 enrichment campaign. In March, if we round off, you had 12,500 tons and that was the same as 85 kilos of gold, roughly. Then in June you say 20,000 tons and then you had another 20,000 tons. But does this 20,000 tons mean that we can say that it will be 140 kilos of gold? How are we going to calculate?

Not really. All marbles are not created the same. What you should also think about is that you saw that I had an asterisk in it. We don't know yet how much will be sorted out of this marsh as gray mountains. So I nominally say 20,000 tons. It can be a little smaller because we sort out more side and mountain from this marsh than calculated. It will in itself increase the halter a bit. But you may have seen in the forecast I left for Q2 that we believe in somewhere around 112 kg gold. Then it also depends a bit on, we have a part, if we can't really fill up the tonnage with primary mulch, then we have a large stock of marginal mulch. Parts of that marginal mulch have actually gone through the sorting department. that we are working on, but that one has a lower shelf life than the primary one. So you can't really multiply that, but you have to look at what we say. And our whole year's forecast, there is nothing that we know of today that makes us not believe that we will meet the one that we have communicated earlier.

This will be a good segue to the next question, which I think can be good for the market and also for myself. How do you want us to connect the gold price with your income? Because it is one thing to have a target of a number of tons. And then there are different degrees of that. And then this is going to be produced. So what is important now, especially if we say this, what is important in general and during the coming quarter?

I would say that when it comes to our ability to earn income, over time we produce a certain amount of gold. But our costs will not turn so much up and down. Now we have actually found our cost level. We had some seasonally emphasized costs that were higher this time. We also had some extra costs for enrichment this time to do this one-time deal with Björkdal. But otherwise, it's about the cost level we have now. The production of gold in the mine will be somewhere between 260 and 280-290 kg per year. So then you have to see there. And quarter by quarter it will be difficult to say. Because there is not a big disturbance that is needed in the mine for us to move one campaign from one quarter to another. But we expect that we will keep this pace. Maybe we get one year that tops up to 300 kg. I don't think it will be this year, but we can reach 260-280 kg this year. And the gold price will be what it will be. Because we will never be able to optimize the delivery of gold from the mine against the market price.

Is there a low level for the gold price?

When it comes to Färbo Kärn, the level is so far below the current market price that it is not relevant to talk about. When we then look at the Varjebäcken foundry, this will be a much more interesting question to discuss. Because regardless of whether the gold price would go down to 3,500, we are well and truly profitable even at that level. And now it's around 4,500, but it's not like a gold price spike anymore. It will be what it will be.

What is the next news from you?

The next news is that we will have a visit day and a company vote on Monday and Tuesday next week. So some information from the day of visit and the company vote is what comes next. And what will be very interesting with our company vote tomorrow is the last day to be registered. So you who are interested can think about it. It is necessary to be careful. It is necessary to be careful. And what we do this time is that in normal order we have our company vote up in Lycksele where we have our seat. But we also have a collaboration with you, where we offer an opportunity to participate here from Investor Studios in Stockholm.

And there you can communicate?

You can communicate via links with us. We will have a little party here, we will have a voice calculator here and we will have people who make the chairman of the committee who sits up in Lycksele aware of any questions. So I can recommend it. It's a little bit of a test we run based on Feedback in previous years has been that it is a pity that we have the voting system up there because it is so difficult to visit. So we're going to test this now. That's probably the next one. After that, it will probably come, just before we go on vacation, some information about the outbreak of the borning in Färborkörn.

Exciting. So you can see a little bit as hectic in 2026 as in 2025?

One could hope that it would be a little less hectic, but there is nothing right now that indicates that.

Fredrik, thank you for that. It was nice, fun and informative. We'll see how it goes. Thank you. Thank you for asking questions. If you're a shareholder, make sure to contact us, no matter where you are, whether it's in Lycksele or Stockholm. Thank you.