Can a Junior Really Mine Gold in Nevada Profitably? | Borealis Mining CEO Interview

Summary

• Nevada Gold Platform: Guest pitches building a Nevada-centric gold production hub-and-spoke platform targeting 100,000+ oz/year through Borealis, Sandman, and selective acquisitions.
• Ticker Highlight: Borealis Mining (BOGO) is the focus, with recent gold pours, more expected near-term, and a planned Q1 restart next year supported by contractor mobilization in January and first blast targeted for February.
• Heap Leach Focus: Strategy emphasizes low-capex heap leach operations, detailing residency times, carbon loading/stripping, and pad dynamics to drive cash flow and scalability.
• Sandman Project: Updated PEA and a forthcoming PFS aim for 35–40k oz/year potential, with loaded carbon to be trucked to Borealis; permitting targeted for 2027 under a phased plan.
• Financial Position: Company indicates it is fully funded through restart with ~C$12M cash and a US$5M working-capital bridge; open to opportunistic equity raises but avoiding debt.
• Operational Risks: Key challenges include clay-related crushing slowdowns, heap leach breakthrough timing, contractor execution, weather, and air permitting (Class 5), though mitigations are underway.
• Growth via M&A: Plan to add 30–50k oz assets within Nevada to reach mid-tier scale while maintaining share structure discipline and prioritizing free cash flow reinvestment over dividends.
• Comparables and Market: References to peers and operators (e.g., i-80 Gold, Hecla, Fortitude Gold) frame the model and risks; a future NYSE American listing is a goal to broaden U.S. investor access.

Transcript

[snorts] Today on the CEO barbecue, we're looking for gold in Nevada together with Borealis Mining. For a bullet point summary of this and all other CEO interviews, please go to resourcealks.com and subscribe to our free weekly newsletter. The company you're about to hear from has not paid us for the production of this interview, but this interview is still intended only for experienced speculators because this is venture capital and mining is a very risky industry where failure is the norm. All conversations are general and impersonal in nature and they contain forwardlooking statements. I'm not a licensed financial adviser and my business sells content producing services which also makes me biased. So before continuing on, please talk to an independent investment adviser with a good long-term track record because your capital is at risk and also visit setterplus.ca where you'll find the company's official filings. If you're not 100% sure you understand all the biases and the disclaimers that I just showed you, please go to the last section of this video and do not consume this content unless you fully understand and agree with everything said herein. That all said, this is actually not Borealis's first time on the CEO barbecue. had interviewed Kelly over a year ago, but u maybe as a refresher, their focus is building a Nevada centric gold production platform that's anchored by the flagship Borealis mine which is near Hawthorne and then they also have the Sandman project near Winnamaka which might potentially soon be going into PA and we'll talk about that later on. They're currently doing residual leeching and have been for a while now. And uh they're also actively crushing and stacking what is now 327,000 ton stockpile with first gold pour already having happened in September. And then a new gold pour from that program as recently as mid November like last week with um further pores expected in the future as well which again we'll talk about. Their self-stated goal is to become Nevada's newest mid-tier producer. And they plan to get there uh both through the drill bid and through selective acquisitions as well, ultimately targeting hub and spoke operating model and targeting a production profile of over 100,000 [clears throat] ounces of gold equivalent per year. As you can imagine, that raises a lot of questions with regards to power, water, community strategy, financials, operational uh challenges, and whatnot, and much more. All of which Mr. Malcolm and I will hopefully be talking about later on. Orialis is listed as BOGO. So that's B O G O on the TSXV where the average 3-mon volume is about 680,000 shares. The stock's 52-we high is a 181 and its 52- week low is 49 with a market cap of just over 215 million Canadian dollars and just under 129 million shares outstanding. Today, this is a $168 stock with a 50 and a 200 day moving average at respectively 192 and 81 cents, which means the stock is now trading well above both of them, indicating positive upward momentum. Moving on to the share structure, the largest individual shareholder here is Rob McKuan himself at 14% followed by Eric Spratt himself at 10% and insiders also own about 10% of the company while institutions and retail hold the rest together in in a an almost even split here. Again, just under 129 million shares outstanding, 8.3 million warrants, a million broker warrants, and 6.1 million options and RSUs combined. They bring the number of fully diluted shares to 144 million. Meaning an increase of just about 12% in shares outstanding could happen if all the dilutive securities get exercised, which would then result in about an 11% ownership dilution if that's always a big if, but if all dilutive securities get exercised. And of course, none of this accounts for potential dilution down the road, which although Borealis is expecting revenue, that's still not unlikely given that mining is a capital intensive industry. Talking about capital, this is where I normally do a deep dive on their financials, but the last available financial statement on set plus is actually from the end the end of April this year. So that's almost seven months ago now. And I don't expect it to be entirely representative of the company's uh financial situation. Things have happened. broke well broker warrants and warrant money has come in. So we'll talk about that later on and I'll save you the overview and instead I'll get an update on the financials from Kelly later on in the conversation. But for this to actually become a conversation I'll have to shut up already and uh Kelly I'll give you the word here. But first of all, thank you for sitting down with me today. >> Pleasure to be here. Thanks Antonio. >> Pleasure is mine. Uh but it's been it's been over a year man. What happened? Where'd you go? >> As you can tell by the share price, I've been busy. Um, I spent a lot of time in Nevada. I I spent probably six of the last 12 months down in and around the project site bouncing around conferences. Um, but sorry to your audience that I've disappeared for so long. >> Remind me where you reside cuz you're wearing a polo and I'm wearing like a full sweater and everything and I'm I'm freezing. You don't seem to be freezing. >> I'm not freezing. I'm in uh Toronto, but it I'm actually it is freezing here, but it's comfortable in my house. So, um, yeah. Toronto based. um Europeans haven't figured out um air conditioning and heating yet. We just we just go with the flow kind of. Um but no, fair enough. And it seems like whatever you've been doing is working because again the stock stock price is up. You're up over 160% since we last spoke. Whereas gold itself is up 50% on the year. GDX, GDXG, they're up about 100%. So you're outperforming all those. Um do you feel like the stock is getting a little stretch here at at over 100 [clears throat] at over 200 million market cap though? really. I don't um I love that it's a beast of its own at this point. It trades, like you mentioned, really, really well. Big volume. Um I I [clears throat] don't know if you know, but when when you first list a company, you can basically tell where every single share is held, where who's selling, who's buying, what house is in, what house is gone. It's completely on its own at this point. Um we are marketing, but we're marketing with with a really good story. And uh to your earlier comments, there is real growth attributed to the existing assets we have. Um and and people are now looking at at what Borealis will be and not not instead of just what it is right now, but what it will be in the next 1 2 3 years. And if you look forward, which I think we should in this industry, um I I really don't think it's ahead of itself. In fact, I think it's just catching up to where it should be going forward. This might actually be a good point to kind of set the stage for what's going to be, I hope, a long conversation here, Kelly, but what are you trying to be like? Is it is it is it really, you know, a single asset producer, a multi-asset Nevada platform, as I mentioned, a sellable package within three years, or what exactly are you building here? >> So, no to the latter. We're we're not we literally are not looking to build something that someone will take over in the next three, four, five years. We're we're genuinely trying to build um build a producer. There's there's fewer and fewer as consolidation occurs and we're looking to become one that that is here for a long time. Um our chairman uh Bob Buckin built Ken Ross from preIPO to uh I think when he retired the stock was 39 bucks which it hasn't hit since 1993 or so. So we like we like the idea of building long life big companies. Um, in terms of what we're trying to be right now, uh, not a single asset producer. We're we're certainly looking to be, uh, aggressive in our growth platform and, uh, that's going to occur through production at Borealis. Um, the the eventual buildout of our Sandman project as you mentioned and we are actively pursuing additional opportunities. So, so to your again earlier comment about dilution um we will most almost certainly be buying other assets in this company and the share count almost certainly will go up in that process but um I think we even mentioned this in our last discussion but but I don't necessarily consider issuing shares dilutive if you're getting something really special in return for that. So, yeah. >> Uh, I'm not sure if that answered it, but those are the those are our dreams and ambitions, Antonio. And amazingly, they're all seemingly quite achievable with what we've put together and and where we're currently sitting and the the cash position that we have and where we're looking to go in the next few months, if not into the next few years. >> I'm glad you added the almost to the certainly part because this is mining. Nothing's ever certain. Uh, where do you think, >> Kelly? Where do you think that 100,000 ounces or more is going to come from? Like, is it is it is it a I don't know 70 20 10 split between Borealis, Sandman, and whatever else might come on the back of that, or how do you see that? Where's the production going to come from? >> So, I'll have to give a big annoying [clears throat] cautionary forward-looking statement advisory to your listeners here because we at Borealis um are a little bit unique in our setup at the moment. So our resource at Borealis is considered non-current, non-compliant, and historic. That was part of a 2011 prefeasibility study. We of course have have a lot of internal work if we're planning on going into production in Q1 um to to understand what we believe the the existing resource is. And hopefully in 2026 we can get that out to market and then I can have a a much more um coherent discussion around the the future of mining at Borealis. We also have yet to provide formal guidance Antonio to the market which we will be doing if not in December in early January ahead of production. Uh hopefully we can get it out sooner than later with our with our internal mind plan and get that to market. So again, we can speak to uh cash flows in certainty or at least again as as he said, nothing is certain in mining, but almost certainty. So if you look at at where we can or how we can get to that 100,000 ounce number. So, we'll we'll use Sandman because that is um a compliant pea study that was done in 2023 uh that we are currently in the midst of updating again. And again, that'll be out before your end um on on our letterhead, but that shows $ 35 to 40,000 ounces. That was done at $1,800 gold. There's a lot more mineralization present on that property than what was put into that resource. The resource base for that study was 2021. They did a bunch of drilling in 2022, showed some growth. [snorts] So, so that'll be bigger in in my eyes than just the 35 to 40,000 ounces over 10 years. >> Boralis, um, if you look at the 2011 report, uh, again with the caveat it's non-compliant, uh, you would see 1.8 million ounces in the measured indicated categories of which roughly 400,000 ounces of that would be considered oxide heatable material. So without having to build a mill or some sort of flotation circuit or an oxidation uh platform which could be albian or there there's many different ways to skin that um that um particular issue but you're looking at 400,000 of heat bleachable ounces at Borealis. So relatively comparable asset base between the two in terms of what's readily available to um to extract using our existing infrastructure. So I'm not saying that's what we're going to be producing next year. In fact, it it would not be that high and our guidance will will show that. But we're sort of aiming to get to that 40 50,000 ounce number out of what we have at Borealis and ideally out of Sandman. And then in terms of what's next, um I can't really I shouldn't speak to the assets that we've been pursuing. Um although some of them have transacted. Uh you can take from that as you will. Um and and they've been been publicly announced, but but there's plenty of projects that are out there between that 30 to 50,000 ounce number. So if you supplemented what we're looking to do at Borealis with what we have at Sandman, add another 30 40 30 40 50,000 ounce producer which uh as you know in the and following the markets they trade at a dramatic discount to larger resource bodies. There's an opportunity to build something for very little upfront capital, very little equity issuance that can get us over that magical 100,000 ounce hurdle. >> Mhm. That's all in >> I'm not sure if I answered that, but call it call it 30 3030. >> Yeah, you're you're dancing as well as possible around that answer and I understand that it has to stay compliant. Uh it's all Nevada though. You're thinking all that growth and and going to the point where you want to get to build that producer that you just told me about. You think all that is going to come from Nevada? >> So, um one of the reasons that Sandman was attractive to us was number one, it's Nevada. It's easy um for for an investor perspective. Rene Nevada focused. Um the reason that I loved it initially was the capex was low. The capex is low because there essentially requires no infrastructure. It's a small really quarry with a little heat leach pad and then we truck all of the loaded carbon from that site down to our existing infrastructure at Borealis. We've got a plant capacity of 60 to 80,000 ounces per. um it would cost me about 2.4 million US. We've recently costed it to increase that capacity to around 120,000 ounces perom. So the reason that we'd stick or [clears throat] ideally sticking around Nevada or the surrounding states is that for very little cash we have a plant that can satisfy another Sandmansiz project without having to go down um a more lengthy permitting process. and and I know you mentioned at the beginning um that we'll chat about permits and all that fun stuff, but one of the harder permits right now to get in [clears throat] the Southwest USA is it's called a class 5 um air permit, which uh deals with the uh effluent of of mercury and and offging of mercury from epiothermal or deposits, which is very very common place in basically the entire southwest USA. We have that at Borealis. We're able to expand upon it. So, in in just ease of permitting and simplicity, I'd like to have things that are close by that we can truck loaded material from um whatever new project is around to the Boreella site and keep that plant uh humming. >> With that business strategy, and I'm going to go into the details on on some of the things you just said here in a minute, but with that business strategy, Kelly, what would be the closest analog to what you're trying to to build here? What what do you what do you dream about? Uh there's a a really cool one that was so well actually when I when I speak to institutions um a lot of them are of of of are older and have a memory a bit longer than mine but Glamus Gold was a really really fun company in the 80s and 90s. It was before I'm sure both of our time looking at stocks but they built um actually I one of my analysts uh Pierre Vancort from Hwood actually brought up this comp. They built kind of like a consolation software type model where it wasn't about the size of the prize. It was all about the free cash flow generation and they did acquisitions based on the margins and how much cash they could generate from an asset for as little money as possible. And they were mining they got bought for something like $4 billion in it was either the late '9s or early 2000s by Gold uh by Gold Corp. They had four or five mines running. The smallest mine was 14 or 15,000 ounces per year, but it was making ludicrous cash. Uh, and they had operated a few small mining projects and and they all just made money. They were really good operators. Um, so that's a really neat analogy. Another one that I that I like that maybe got a bit too big and and a bit of ahead of itself was I80 gold in its inception was a consolidator. Um, but they went big. They wanted they had like something like 32 million ounces at at one point before [snorts] some devestments and the market all of a sudden said, "Oo, these guys are really going to is they obviously had a bit of a struggle last year at this time." >> Um, and I think it was just the market looking and saying, "These guys need to raise three, four, five billion dollars to get this all online." >> Um, where our approach is, we we've only done it once. we've only bought gold bull, but in in terms of our strategy is looking for things that aren't going to blow up our structure that can help us maintain um like as [clears throat] you mentioned we I own 4 and a half million 4.3 million shares or so and I'd like that to stay a very very meaningful position. So >> things that that can um grow the company but but keep keep our structure alive and and keep I know a lot of companies out there as they grow their market caps grow dramatically but the share price does that. If you look at OSO for example uh who who was a wonderful performer and not not knocking them at all but if you looked at 10 year the 10-year period from windfall through to um before the sale market cap grew dramatically but share price kind of hovered at that 2 $3 round or range for that whole band. So, uh, I'd rather see things that, um, can grow the share price rather than necessarily. Ideally, they both grow, but share price and market cap, um, can grow in tandem. >> Dilution definitely the silent killer and something that I do want to talk about. Um, let's let's maybe talk about some of the specifics and how you go from where you're now to where you want to go, where you want to get. And I'll start with the financials. Again, your last financial statement is um, a little dated at this point. uh where do you foresee 2025 revenue to be at? >> So just as a as an aside, our our we're we're on a funny year end. We're we're off calendar year. We're also off quarter. So our year end is July 31st. So they're our annual financials are due to be filed uh next week. >> Okay. >> So we have our committee meeting on Wednesday and they'll be filed essentially that that day or just just thereafter. But as you mentioned um earlier, they're not going to be super reflective of the current situation. Even from July to now, we've done a lot um financially or sorry, I'm I'm jumping all over the board here, Antonio. To your earlier question, where do we see revenue coming like next year? So again, I'm going to put my forward-looking cap on. U we haven't yet provided guidance, but let's do a hypothetical uh and we'll do a reasonably accurate hypothetical. And let's say next year we aim to generate between 15 and 25,000 ounces of production out of Borealis, which is a pretty easy starter. Um, kind of get the ball rolling. We've started with our stockpile crushing, but again, hypothetically, let's use that 15 to 25,000 number. Um, and we will put out guidance in the coming weeks. Um, and let's use a hypothetical for simplicity purposes, $2,000 all in sustaining cost, which is um quite reasonable if not on the high end for a heat bleaching operation. Um, that would result in a very simplistic using 4,000 ounces, $4,000 an ounce US, uh, 30 to $50 million US in uh, free cash flow. um and revenues are double that essentially on a on a very simplistic hypothetical basis which again is not too far off from from where reality will come out in the next few weeks. Um the [clears throat] the caveat to that Antonio and something that that um your listeners should be aware of in heat bleaching you actually have quite a delay from when you stack your ore onto a heat bleach pad. So let's let's use 20,000 as as an example. will be putting 20,000 ounces onto a heat pleach pad. In that hypothetical example, you're going to have and and you see this when you look at financials, they they call it the whip, which are the ounces that will will that were placed on a pad that will be produced in the next uh quarter or the the following quarter. They get accounted for as working capital, but they don't show as revenue. So, another annoyingly difficult bit caveat, but but that's the nature of heat bleaching. just there's quite a big residency time from when you actually place your ore from the crusher onto the heat bleach pad. >> How much is that for you, by the way? Is it 90 days? >> So, in in Absolutely. That's a great question. In a lab, it's 90 days. In practice, it's much longer because we're we're operating on older heat bleach pads. So, if we were placing our ore directly onto the base of our of a brand new pad, it'd be 90 days flat. Um what we're doing right now is we're placing on 100 plus feet of previously leeched material. So we're treating the we're treating that ore with cyanide above that um what what can be a dry portion of the heat leach pad. So it takes a while for wetting to occur. You also get some mixing and dilution from the previously mined material. So in practice, call it 120 to 150 days from when ore is placed through to when we actually get our targeted 70 plus% recoveries. But the cool thing about heat bleaching is is we say we have 70% recovery, but through the years, as long as we're continually adding to the pile, the ore underneath will still continue to deliver uh gold. So in practice, your true recoveries in a heat bleaching operation, if you're continually applying solution, typically are upwards of 80 upwards of 10% higher than than what you um announced the market. >> How's cash for you right now after a warrant exercise? I believe what you had there um first pour in in September. Yeah. How much money do you have right now? >> Looking good. So, uh, we're we're fully funded through our restart. We we announced that we raised 9 million from 9 million Canadian from, uh, the proceeds of some exercises of warrants. We've had additional warrant and and some option exercises since then, non-inssiders, but uh, by some consultants. We're in a great position. Um, again, forward-looking, but better than call it 12 million Canadian with with revenues coming in like we just announced um last week or the week before that we had poured another bar of gold that is is at the refiner. We've not seen revenues from that. We'll see additional revenue coming in uh in the the balance of this calendar year. So, we're we're comfortable. We're in a really really strong position. >> What does uh fully funded mean for you? How much money do you think you're going to have to spend before you're, you know, operating at that capacity that you told me about next year? >> So, in terms of genuine pre-production capital to restart the mine, there is none. Uh, it's it's fully ready to rock. We we've um you'll see when we put out our statements and I advise people to take a look at our MDNA, we do um a nice job discussing that the operational upgrades that we've done. So, I can't really speak to those in in totality until they get released next week. But, we have over the past uh couple years, we've spent a lot of time and a lot of money and um brought in some great consultants to get the plant fully well obviously for Bouring Gold, it's fully operational, but get the site um all [clears throat] decked out. So, it's really zero zero pre-production capex. The money that we'll we will need is essentially working capital. Working [clears throat] capital. It's a bridge between the arrival of contractors and that gold coming off of the pad into the plant. So there's about a 2-month gap between when that occurs. Uh that is satiated by our stockpile revenues which will continue into this process to lessen that blow. Um, but we'll probably go through about 5 million US in um in a working capital deficit in that startup period. But that that's plenty of we've got plenty of money for that um on hand at the bank right now. >> Right. Okay. And and so far you've done um what just two ports. So September and mid November, right? >> So November 5th, we announced it about a week later. Um we we [clears throat] had a a planned pour because we do a regulatory it's called a stack test uh to speaking of that class 5 emissions um class 5 permit for emissions testing that was scheduled for nove November 5th. So we've done two pores from our stockpile crushing exercise. We've as of today um put another big chunk of our crushed material under sinidation. So we should see at least another one if not two more um meaningful pores before your end. >> Right. Okay. Those two pores that you did they were they were different in size I believe. Um how come? Um the first [clears throat] one was just when you look at at heat bleaching and and speaking it was a great comment about the 90 days. When you look at the the actual recovery curves, it's a it's a pretty abrupt ramp up and then it's it tails off gradually. So that was the result of the initial pulse of sinidation going through the going through the rock. Um, we were also testing um we're we're playing a little bit with how much gold we load into our carbon before we strip to maximize efficiency. So for your your listeners that I [clears throat] it's new to me on on some of these things. So um when you when you're running a heat bleaching operation, you're running a cyanide solution through your ore. That's that's basic. But um what happens with that cyanide solution is it goes through a carbon column that acts like a brida filter and extracts the gold and it binds to carbon. So there's a maximum loading capacity of that carbon how much gold it can it can effectively accept. So we tried running it up to 120 ounces per ton. Actually 130 on one of our carbon columns. And we found that our stripping efficiencies were a little bit less than we'd like them. So the second round of stripping which we did for our second pour, we we ran it with a slightly lower total gold content and we were quite quite pleased with the result. So we strip five essentially 5 tons of carbon. We get a certain amount of precipitate and um or dry precipitate and that's the result of the pore. So it's typically out of our plant with the setup that we have. We either do a bar and a half or a bar depending on um how the strip goes. What was it under the same conditions like leeching time, reagent, same everything just >> rocks or where where was the where were the differences in the process as well? >> That that was from and if you look at our presentation, we've got a slide that shows our heap leachch pad uh and the crushing I think it says crushing spread August 2025. At the on the caption of the photo, you can see uh some vegetation growing on the side of our heat bleach pad and then a base and then if you have you have to look a little bit closely, but at the back of that pad, there's a we call it a finger, another another level, and that's crushed. That's under sinidation. And that material is where those first two pores were derived from. You can also see in that image a much higher pile occurring on the right hand side of that image that um is is now dramatically advanced and that's what's under sanitation. So the first two pores came from the exact same rocks under the exact same uh pH conditions, same cyanide conditions. Uh no change whatsoever. And um it's just it's [clears throat] just the nature of heat bleach residency times. The first pore will always be a bit bigger and a bit juicier. Um, the second one you get more residual material, but overall the gold grades were were great in both bars. We're we're very happy with how they turned out. >> Yeah. >> And the processes are running very well. >> What were the grades of of the before leeching? >> Um, [clears throat] we haven't I don't think we've announced them, but it's not overly material. somewhere um like the one we just did was somewhere in the range of 45 to 50% gold and uh about 30% silver. The one before had a higher silver content and a comparable gold content. So quite quite meaningful. What we we did when we did our first few pores um was we would resol we would we would announce the the dor we'd announce the grade of what's called a pin sample which is meant to be representative but in reality it's like a little bit misleading. I I'd rather just announce that we've done these pores and let the financials speak to the actual revenues because once you go to the refiner there's always um heterogeneity within within the gold bars. It's a if you think about um even just a rock and it's all starting from the same source magma in principle it should all be the same but there's different portions if you look at a granite that are going going to be more quartzri uh feltspar rich so we we did away with that process for that reason but um yeah good good gold content you can expect about 50% gold when we announce our our do bars >> from the current pile that you have right now. Um, yeah. How big is it? How many por how many more pores do you think you can do? >> Lots. So, we we had 327,000 short tons as you mentioned. Um, the grade on that I believe we've announced it. Um, it's it's again heterogenic heterogeneic pile. Um, but we did a 10 ton bulk sample ahead of mining where we took a backhoe and basically did scoops across the whole pile trying to get something representative. Uh, showed around 55 to6. Um, so if you worked out the potential contained ounces there, you'd see 4500 to 5,000 or so in that pile with a 70ish% recovery. So 3500 to 4,000 ounces would be recoverable out of that um material. We have crushed roughly half of it so far. We had a bit of a of a hard time at the outset. Uh at [clears throat] the very beginning, crushing was going very very well because uh the material on the outside was nice and dry. As we got deeper into that stockpile, we did encounter a fair bit of clay material which slowed things down. And we can get into that um as one of the potential causes for concern or delays, but it's it's one of the one of the only real geological things that we're we're working on um identifying a solution for. But the clay did slow things down. So, at the outset, we were crushing 3500 4,000 tons a day. We're we're down um to about half of that right now. Um, so we we'll be crushing into certainly towards the end of this year and maybe into January as well. So we've got 7 8 nine more pores to come from that material. Why I'm asking that and and all the previous question is really about that is because I'm thinking how predictable has the process been or is it going to be like h how big has the delta been between your expectation of what you're going to recover and and reality with regards to again leech time and grades and recoveries and and gold to silver ratios as well and so on. [clears throat] >> Great question. Um in terms of recoveries our team I'm I'm very proud of bang on. Um the the the delta has been in how quickly this operation would would be finished. Initially we were targeting being done around this time kind of early to mid November when we had just looked at it in practice and in principle based on the met test that we done at the lab. Um so it's been slower just on crushing. The only other thing that was slower than planned was uh and I mentioned it before was the residency time it took or they call it breakthrough in heat bleaching but the breakthrough from new solution entering the lab. So that took about 2 weeks longer than originally anticipated but in the grand scheme of things it's it's a moot point because now that we're operating with cyanide that pad is now saturated with cyanide. So the cell um it's this funky um really a heat leach pad is kind of like a living hydro hydrogeeological phenomenon where there's there's currents there's shifts there's paths there's preferential paths for fluid that is now saturated there's cyanide within that saturated fluid. So we shouldn't see a gap when we start placing newly newly minded material >> onto um onto the pet. >> Right. and and you're still you mentioned a couple of times, but you you're still fully expecting to be up and running, you know, a full restart, if you will, in Q1 of 2026. That's still what you think is going to happen. >> Yeah, we had um so so the stockpile crushing, even though, like I said, it's been a bit slower, it's been excellent to to iron out the kinks. We've been adding to our team. We've got some really really great operators on the ground now. Um, we had uh I think we put it on Twitter or X uh and LinkedIn if you're viewers uh last week or the week before a snapshot of what what's called a contractor job walk where the different contractors bidding on the project come to site get their final look at the at the project before they submit their um their actual bids for the for the for the work. Uh so we anticipate the bidding process to be done at the end of this month. We'll select our group and again we'll we'll put out guidance on on exact timing but we anticipate mobilization as early as early January. >> Right. Okay. And and so on the back of that how long is it going to take you to be kind of running at full capacity? Again, we'll we'll put out proper guidance, but uh assuming we had mobilization beginning January 15th, you got to do some drill and blast work. The mobilization is actually not that big of a of a job. Um we got to do some drill and blast work and some um blasting. I I would call our first blast really when things are up and running. We're we're targeting February for that to occur. >> Right. Okay. Why I'm asking this? Why I'm ask where I'm going with this really is because you mentioned that you're again fully permitted, fully financed, debtree, you know what you're doing. You have the plan, you're ready to go into production, but but still you're trying to go from now, you know, a small stockpile lead to a fully operational mile within the next, you know, 3 to 6 months. Uh what do you foresee or what I'm really looking for is is the biggest challenges? What do you think are going to be the biggest challenges on your road to that milestone? >> One of them, as I mentioned, is is crushing material. So, we've got actually an expert on site this week to to evaluate the contractors that that are on site right now to look at ideal blending. Um, that'll be mitigated when we're actually mining. Um, so we're in what's called a high sulfidation epiothermal gold system. High sulfidation means that there is a whole lot of sulfur, but also a lot of temperature in the mineralizing fluids and the altering fluids. In the core of the deposits, you get a very very solicious, very hard material, very brittle. Then at the margins, you get uh a lot of this extreme clay alteration. So when we're actually mining, we'll have a nice blend of the solicious material, clay material. So we'll be able to um be able to effectively control that um to the best of our abilities. Um, the other potential concerns that are out of our hands are are contractor uh efficacy and and their ability to execute uh to the plan. But we're working with some very reputable groups that are working on projects like uh Calibers Pan uh Mchuan Mining's um [clears throat] what's his project in in the states? I can't recall the name of Goldbar. Um but but we're we're working with groups that operate for big companies. they have standards and and they they look to make money. If they're not operating effectively, they're not making money. They don't want to be there. So, that's one of the risks I don't really see being an issue. Um weather could be a concern. We're starting restarting a mine in uh January, February, which anywhere else in the world would be very scary. In that part of Nevada, we get maybe two or three snow events a year. We just had one last week. got about two or actually this week about two feet of snow. It'll be gone by Saturday. It it really the sun is is pretty darn hot in the desert there. It melts things quickly. So, that could be a potential concern. Cost overruns is always an issue uh when you were starting a mine. But again, we've got a nice a nice enough cushion plus the revenues coming in that I'm I'm quite comfortable with with uh with our bank balance. >> So, you don't think you're going to have to raise money again before before you're actually making money? >> We don't need to, but but I will um speak to that because I I'm I'm sure your listeners would like to hear our thoughts on that. Look, our stock's done super well. Um, right now we we're putting all of our dollars into production into getting this mine up and running. If we keep going up and we get a we get a big fund saying, "Would you would you take $10 million?" Let's say if we're above two bucks or so, I think I'd be pretty stupid to say no to that if it can actually um if it can go towards growth and exploration and advancing the assets or buying some equipment that can then drop our costs. Um, I' I'd certainly consider it. So, we we don't need the money. We don't need to take on debt. I've been turning down debt left, right, and center because everyone whenever they hear mine restart thinks here's a good opportunity for us to make some cash. Um, so we we've been turning down financings as you can imagine with the run that we've had uh on the share price. A lot of the bankers are looking to um make some money, which is they they they do that, too. >> That's where they live. >> Yeah. like if if we have if we have a good opportunity with the right people and and our share price is is looking healthy, um would I would I consider it? Absolutely. But have I turned down money lately quite regularly? Yes. >> What about um a strategic someone who's operationally strategic or something like that? Is that something you'd pursue? >> Yeah. Um I [clears throat] I wouldn't necessarily even want money from a strategic. what I would be keen on is uh an equity position granted through uh an acquisition. So, one of the one of the last remaining unknowns to the market is the portfolios of producers. There's assets in a lot of these different companies that people haven't seen for 20 plus years that are just sitting on the back of the shelf, dusted, not big enough for majors, even mid tiers. So there's opportunities uh and that's certainly a path that we're looking at. Antonio is um potentially doing something like that where we could grant a major a nice equity position and um maybe maybe raise a bit of money on on the backs of an M&A deal. But >> I so get get a new project from a major paying for it in in a combination of shares and cash then >> potentially. Yeah, that that would be something we we'd absolutely consider. And [clears throat] to to your point that in and that we're not looking for strategics, our meetings, let's say at Beaver Creek, which is where the the real strategics meet juniors occur, um we actively did not seek out strategic investments aside from a few that had some projects that were of interest to us. So, we were focused solely on shareholders funds uh prospective uh partners. But yeah, we're not we're not looking and that's kind of that to to your our first I think sentence of this discussion is we're not looking for a buyout. We're not looking for someone to take 199 with an eventual take us over sometime soon. Uh it would be strictly an equity position and maybe we can get some technical insights, but um yeah, it's not not of major interest. like we've got Rob McKun in there, we've got Eric Sprout in there, we've got some some big players already that I would consider strategic and uh can can provide advice and technical support as well. >> And staying on this topic of of financials, um if you go through it the way that you're describing here, when do you think you're going to be consistently profitable? Is 2026 going to be a profitable year for you? And and what's it going to take for you to keep that up? Profit's a funny word, but it will be a free cash flow. It fingers crossed. Um it should well be a free cash flow generating year. >> Um if we look to true profit, um we are are going to be advancing our Sandman project in well throughout 2026. Right now, as mentioned at the beginning, we're working on a PAFS in in 26, targeting potential [clears throat] permits in 2027 uh with potential construction in 2027. So, there goes most of your profit um out of the out of the balance sheet depending on how you how you um structure that uh construction. We pick up another asset. Again, a lot of our a lot of our capital and cash will go into um growth. I think until you get to a certain size and a certain platform, I think true profit in mining is is hard to come by um for the first 5 to 10 years of a producers uh growth trajectory. So, uh, I think we're going to see real revenues and and real free cash flow, but I think we'd be prudent and and wise to use that cash to grow the the company into a bigger into a bigger story. >> Name of the game stays growth, though. That's what I'm getting from you. It's not You wouldn't be looking to do a dividend or an N NCIB. >> No interest. Um, I [clears throat] one of the companies that I love that did such a cool job I I'm not sure if you've heard of Fortitude Gold before. Yeah, >> they're our neighbor. That such a cool unique way of of operating as a junior. They were paying the the the I think it was a gold dividend. Um a really healthy dividend. They have been in a little bit of trouble lately because their Isabella Pearl mine is is I don't know what the status of it is, but I think just looking at press releases um being nearly depleted. They've been waiting on a permit for another asset. The challenge is when you're when you're a dividend payer, the second you stop paying dividends, you really struggle. Um, and and for them, I think they were kind of forced to continue producing maybe if it wasn't necessarily all that profitable to maintain that structure. And I I think it's I think they like honestly wicked market like when you look at the market cap where the stock was, beautiful idea. They they it was a a really really effective strategy. But unless you have sustained long life production, it can be a little bit daunting. So, I'd rather see that cash be put into growth rather than dividend. If we if we make some some gangbuster discovery and um get into 20 30 ounce per ton material like the Father's Day vein in in in Australia, maybe we do a special dividend or something. Um but I but I think it's going to be several years before shareholders would see a dividend out out of Boralis. I do want to talk about uh that growth and I'm going to get to it here in a second but just staying on the topic of of challenges. Do you for have you come across since last we spoke which is again uh early on in in your uh public journey but any legacy issues or challenges with the historic heat leaches or waste rock or old pits or anything that could end up costing you money either directly as a cleanup or in the form of uh some kind of a bond or something like that. Nothing crazy. We We have had to drain um one of our ponds, which was quite an endeavor to repair our um our pond liners. We did that uh last I think around this time last year. Uh we're in the midst of repairing a portion of the the non the the underused the portion of our HEL pad that's not in use. There's um some repairs that we've we actually approved yesterday in our in our invoice meeting. Um there might be some geotechnical issues, but really nothing that we've seen and we've we've got some geotechnical studies underway at the moment. Uh really nothing. The plant needed some real TLC. We replaced all of our replaced all the pumps that are the main driving force of a heat leachch operation. um as recently as four or five months ago. Um I'm going to upgrade our furnace at some point. Our tanks, so our carbon columns, we we had to essentially drain, reline. We announced that last I don't know 8 months [clears throat] or so ago. The nice thing is we sold all of the the used carbon fines from that. Nothing nothing that scares me, Antonio. Just just things that had to be fixed and and repaired and replaced. But it's >> and you have already had to put up a bond I think. Uh just looking at the at the older financials there seems to be some kind of a pretty big one actually on there. What's that about? >> Uh I think on the books it would show about 13 1.5 or sorry about 12 million or so that was bumped up uh recently. So, we announced, I think it was the 24th of October, that we had received our modified permit, which allowed for some expanded um the disturbance, but basically bigger pits. And there was a bond increase associated with that of about 2 million. So, I think we're around 13.5 million US. We don't actually put that all up as cash. We utilize a bond insurance company. So, we put up 20% of the overall bond uh into a bank account that that we can't touch. Um, and then we pay pay interest in the order of I believe 3% perom on the overall bond number. >> Mhm. >> So, it if it takes 20 years, it'll end up being more expensive doing it this way. But, um, to to save capital and maintain your structure, it's it's quite effective. I'm really asking this Kelly because a lot historic mines will have many potential pitfalls and stuff like that and and in your case given the history of the mine with you know was less than ideal management decision-m at the time and then a bit of a hot mess in the aftermath of that I think maybe even still ongoing. Has has anything else come up for you like either on paper or or reality that's connected to the historic closure of the mine or or whatever that situation was there at the time? So just for for context, the yeah the mine was completely rehabilitated. It was actually one of the first um first sites in Nevada that that had undergone modern remediation in 1993 and that was Echo Bay who ended up being uh Kin Ross I believe or I think Kin Ross. Um it was rebuilt completely in 2011. So the mine uh although it is an older site, it is a newly built site that hasn't been in operation much. So the the actual buildout is is recent. Everything's done under modern standards. Uh in terms of Are you talking about the lawsuits and all that stuff that occurred? >> Yep. >> Okay. So that uh we are completely free and clear of the the lawsuits are with the vendor of the asset. We we acquired a subsidiary. Um, we did a lot of homework on this in in our acquisition. We spent a lot of time and a lot of money with some very expensive lawyers out of the states who who really dug into the into the idea. Some of our board members before even joining the company actually did their own their own individual [clears throat] research to ensure there weren't any potential liabilities. So, we haven't heard from the the the previous company. Um, I don't I don't foresee anything happening with that. Right. Would do you think you're going to have to work on um on a on an economic resource or an updated resource like you know a P or an updated PFS on Borealis um anytime soon or are you just going for the production here? >> Well, [clears throat] I would like to get something out to market. It's it's challenging. So, I've done as as we me or as you know, I've been marketing a lot and and some of that marketing has been to different banks and uh different funds, bigger funds. Uh right now a lot of our investors are not small funds. We've got some huge uh funds that own the stock but going to let's say like Franklin like these huge big boy Black Rockck groups they need quantitative data to make their investment decisions. Um I can tell a good story all I want but some of those bigger groups they need to see clear and concise data. >> Mhm. So as we advance, we're getting there now at 200 plus million dollar market cap. Bigger bigger funds and bigger groups are now uh looking at us, bigger banks as well with with um less flexibility in in how they can operate. That's the real driver. Like you when you talk about a feasibility study, they always used to be called bankable feasibility studies because that's when you were able to go to the bank and get debt. Um in our case at Borealis, we don't need it. Um, but I I I think in 2026 is probably the right time to do it. We should get an updated study out to the market at at least so the analysts are able to effectively tell our story without having to say, "Well, we think it's somewhere in this range." >> Right. Okay. That's and that's exactly why I'm why I'm asking. Um because I mean you haven't going to find or or at least you don't have it on paper where you can go go to them and show them like a mining method or recovery flow sheets or or an LOM even. But look well can you maybe give me an idea of any of those numbers or an estimate as to what those numbers might look like even just LOM in the first place like you know you start you start mining next year how long does it keep going for? So, I'll give you um an idea of what we've designed for a little minor modification. Um so, about a year ago, gold was starting to trend up. We were seeing 26 $2,700. And I was getting sick of maintaining [clears throat] the asset. Uh it's not cheap. We're 2.5 million at a minimum US to maintain the permits, maintain a staff. It's got to be manned 24/7 to keep the plant running. So, we decided to build uh and and the actual guidelines were let's build a a mine plan that will cost us no money to get up and running. So, we built um a smaller plan. Uh again, we'll put out guidance, but in that earlier 15 to 25 plus,000 ounce range for about 3 and 12 to 4 years to get the ball rolling. uh in terms of LOM it's much bigger than that but we don't have a quantitative study to um effectively answer that question but we will be working as mentioned to to get something out there which [clears throat] again the main challenge is is is for for bigger institutions is their NAV models um and financial models on on the asset so >> sorry >> cost as well like that's something that I'm thinking about. That's what I was kind of asking about grades and and and leeching times and and recoveries and whatnot because and maybe you know put simply and I understand it be forward looking again but to the best of your guessing abilities here Kelly what's the bare what's the bare minimum gold price that you'd need to run a profitable operation here >> 200 >> what's that I think you cut off >> 2,200 bucks okay >> um yeah like right and right now too uh we're we're we're planning on doing everything via contractor. So the costs are higher than or call it yeah 20 22 2400 I I don't have the numbers off the the top of my head. We're using a bit higher of a number as our internal model uh to design our our our mine plan. But um we will come out with with some guidance and you'll see what those numbers look like. When when the mine was built in 2011, uh, gold was probably 1,200 maybe at its height. The prefeasibility study showed real profitability at those numbers. Um, I think operationally it it failed for a number of different reasons, but it should it should make plenty of money um [clears throat] >> at those at those levels. >> Yeah. Yeah. 2,000 uh sounds good. Does that account for fresh rock and stock piles? Kind of a mix of the two or maybe you can talk to me about that. >> The stockpile will be cheaper, Antonio. It's it's there's nothing to it. It's it's already mined. It's already reasonably sized. Um, so if you looked at a projected potential cost for the stockpile, really the only expensive thing is royalties, which um I've I've come to learn have incredible torque to the price of gold, which I'm I'm amazed actually at how valuable these royalty companies will be once they start reporting earnings. uh as a bit of an aside, but yeah, at $4,000 gold um on this portion of the project, we're up to 5% NSRS on on the main body. So, you're paying 5% at 4,000. So, uh a lot more than than we had originally bargained for, but we're also making a lot more money. So, you're sub 1,500 bucks on this stockpile exercise. So when you when you when you talk about free cash flow next year, how much of that cash would be made up by sort of residual leeching versus fresh rock off the bat? Because again, one I guess is more predictable and call it quoteunquote safe than than the other >> which the residual or the fresh. >> Yeah. How Yeah. Well, how much of the cash would be part of how much of the free cash flow? >> 90% would be from from mining. >> Oh, okay. That's like off the bat. So the residual would just be something that you're kind of doing as a solid or less >> another maybe 80 85 80% somewhere in that range. Uh it depends how long it takes us for us to get the uh the gold onto the pad. And also don't forget too for for you and your viewers that our financials are a bit of skew. So when you're looking to when we're looking to potential quarters that will start you'll start seeing real real revenues and real cash generation um we're July 31st and then every 3 months following. So it won't be probably until about our Q3 which would be filed [clears throat] at some point in the summer that you'll start seeing significant and meaningful revenues um out of the mining exercise. When we talk about fresh rock, obviously we're talking about oxides here. When you're eventually at the point to move from oxide heaps into deeper sulfide mineralization at Borealis, could that trigger different environmental challenges or or if not challenges maybe requirements? >> Without question. So [clears throat] the um very high level if you looked at how to process the mineralization at at the sulfide mineralization at Borealis it's the simplest approach would be uh build a mill which we don't have. We've got an outdoor crusher and our our ADR plant. Build a mill put a flotation circuit in. There has been some network done on the sulfides that do indicate it does float. [snorts] um and float float a concentrate, drive it down to Hawthorne where there's a rail spur, put it on a rail, send it to Jared Canyon or Nevada Gold Mines or somewhere uh to be processed as part of the milling and flotation process. You'll end up with a wet tailings. So, you'd need a tailings pond or tailings dam. And in our case, it' be a pond most likely um that has acid rock drainage ARD um issues that come along with that. But you also you have that at Hecka down the road with the Aurora Mine and Mill. You have it at essentially any milling operation, you're going to have a dam of some sort. But in terms of long life legacy, the heap leech pads are are pretty pretty easy. they just essentially dry out at a certain point and you you your contamination risks 30 40 50 years down the line are are much lower than than with a with a big raised pond that that contains potentially harmful chemicals. So, >> right, >> that's something to think about, but it's not anything that we're looking at for the next five, six years. >> Would you what would you have to do for processing? like would you have to invest more money into processing infrastructure to handle sulfice or how would you deal with that eventually? >> 100%. So if you went with that simplistic approach um which is um the milling flotation you you got to build a mill you got to put in a flotation circuit you got to put in the infrastructure associated with that you've got to put in potentially if you're looking at if if if you look at our existing sulfide mineralization the best body is this we call it the grab and gold deposit that occurs about 120 m below the surface We've not done the engineering works, but just on a on a high [clears throat] level look, it would make sense to mine that underground rather than open pit. So, you'd have to put in underground infrastructure. Be looking at 100 plus million dollars to um to get all that put in place. There there's other ways you could do it. There's um [snorts] different oxidation processes. There's a lot of different things you can do to effectively um strip that. Let's call it 100 to $150 million US no matter what to get that material processed. >> Yeah. Yeah. And that's 5 to six years away away from now. I was I was wondering why in the meantime not take someone over who already has sulfide handling infrastructure. Is that maybe could that maybe part of the plan? Are there really takeover targets that could help you out with that as well? >> There's an easy uh answer to that. Not [clears throat] I I don't have a CA. I honestly haven't had many real meaningful discussions, but Hecka is just down the road from us. From our front gate, we've got a sign, Borealis, this way to our front door. And then Hecka put up a sign 7.35 mi to their front gate of the Aurora Mine and Mill. That's a mill that has um wet tailings facilities. I think you need to add a flotation circuit. They've got what's called a Merryill Crow in place at the moment uh at that mill site, but potentially there's a deal to be done there. Um there's mills for sale all the time as well. They're not overly complex. You can just get a modular setup. There's also different processes like we've got some net testing underway. Um, they can't say who the who who the group is because we're under CA, but um, they're testing a a multi-tonon sample of our grab and sulfide material to potentially identify a a chemical oxidation method. So, in that case, what you would do is you you'd have your heat pad here and you'd have an oxidation pad over here. So you pile up your your sulfides. Instead of sprinkling cyanide, you'd be sprinkling this magical uh chemical fluid that would oxidize that uh material. Then you would take after maybe a year or 6 months or however long the residency time would be, you would take that material, bring it over to your heel bleach pad, and then treat it like a conventional oxide. So lots of different ways to look into it. We're just kind of starting that, but but honestly, our team's heads are are pretty much down right now, focused on this restart. Once that's up and running, then we'll have lots of time to um look into sulfite processing. >> And you're also working on Sandman. And in the meantime, I think what's the plan there? How much is it going to cost? What are the timelines? Again, I think you mentioned something about 2027, but we're revisiting here. >> Sure. So, [clears throat] in terms of what we've been working on, I guess I we haven't really announced much because there hasn't been much to announce, but in terms of uh what we've been doing geologically and exploration wise, we stopped drilling. We announced some really nice numbers uh in oxides below one of our existing deposits at Borealis. I think it was March of 2025. Stock did absolutely nothing. It's not cheap drilling in Nevada. So, we made a decision to stop. >> But we did maintain our geological staff. So, two geologists or three geologists actually for a big portion of it >> [snorts] >> uh really just prospect generating mapping target mapping uh sampling doing alteration studies hyperspectral studies so from let's call it [clears throat] March through to about August of this year they spent um all their time on Borealis identifying some some neutral targets for some potential oxide new mineralization they've pivoted over to Sandman so they've been banging around rocks and and really getting to know the ge ology on that project for the past several months and we're we're quite excited. So, speaking of what we're going to do for growth and development of Sandman, um there was a 2023 pea uh published the same author is is essentially modifying and redoing that study for us at the moment. So, it shouldn't be overly ownorous. That should come out soon. Uh we intend to launch a prefeasibility study following that. uh we're we're working on on lining that up, but I hope to get that kicked off even before year end, if not January. And in terms of [clears throat] steps to get it into production, um the biggest question mark there is metallurgy. There there has been plenty of met studies done prior to the company that we acquired, Gold Bull, owning it. uh Pneumont owned it and they they did as Pneumont does a ton of work um bunch of different studies. Their methodology or their their their thought process was to uh ship it as a high-grade concentrate uh similar to what we were talking about with the the potential sulfide material to one of their other plants. So a lot of their met work was focused on a much finer grind size than you would typically use in heat bleaching. There has been some column leech tests done to um to test the amenability of the material to heat leaching. And in fact, the 2023 pea had a had an external metallergist that actually increased the recoveries from 70 to 75 based on the studies that were done. But be [snorts] for for the prefeasibility study purposes we will be doing some met drilling or drilling for large basically large diameter holes uh for the purposes of metallergical studies. We'll also do some fun exploration drilling alongside that. Um, we've also got to do some potentially some additional archaeology biology studies, although Newmont did a lot of that uh as part of their propertywide exploration plan of operations. They also drilled water wells. So, we've initiated a water well sampling pro program to get the background for our permits. Um and the plan the grand vision is to launch the prefeasibility study focusing initially on the detailed engineering that will be required to submit the actual mining permits. I'd like to get the permits off to the the government by the beginning of Q2 of 2026. >> Mhm. [clears throat] >> In principle, this will qualify for the fast 41 program. Um, we've got a two-phased approach. Uh, if you look at the 2023 PA or just wait a couple weeks and look at our new one, um, it's a two-phed plan that was designed. First [clears throat] phase is completely above the water table. Uh, it should be very little environmental impact. Uh, very little water draw. Although the Winnamaka area, even though it's the desert, is actually quite wet. There's a very high water table there. Um, I'm not sure. Yeah. Anyways, the the first phase will be four four or so years. That should be a relatively easy um permitting process. Nothing in permitting is ever guaranteed and it's often slower than than than hope for, but our initial discussions are are quite positive. So, um that's where we kind of get our mid 2027 if not the latter portion of 2027 permit grants. Based on the pea, we're anticipating that it's going to be a basically construction decision on the date of permit grant and then just get the ball rolling and we should be able to fund that out of treasury. If if we go that route, maybe we take on a bit of debt. I it depends how how consistent the revenues are at Borealis, but in in principle, we should be able to finance that completely out of treasury from the productions of Borealis. And because you talk about this sort of hub and spoke model is the expectation here and I understand forward looking again but is it the expectation that minologically it's the same type of ore though so that you can process it at at Borealis or would the processing infrastructure again need an update at that point in the future if Sandman works out? >> So the the mineralization is a little bit different. It's a low sulfidation uh gold system, different rocks. Um the actual heat bleaching process, the the reagents will be slightly different. The chemistry will be slightly different, but [snorts] by the time and and what we're going to be doing is building a small heat bleach pad as mentioned. And then um sorry, it just got a popup. Um small heat leach pad car a set of carbon columns and we'll load carbon as I mentioned before. uh your carbon gets loaded to 100 to 150 ounces per ton. Once it hits that preferred loaded range, we'll we'll empty the carbon out of the columns, put it into Super Saxs, ship it down to Borealis for processing. The plant that we have is already set up to process external mineralization. when Waterton owned it uh and they did a small small phase of mining at Borealis. They were processing ore from Ruby Hill which is now owned by I80 while simultaneously mining at Borealis. That's very different geology. Once the gold is in the carbon, the actual rock type itself is completely irrelevant. It's the same process. It's just a stripping a pressure temperature um series of pressure temperature changes to strip the gold off of that carbon. So once it's at Borealis, it doesn't matter where it's from. Uh it's just getting the gold off of the carbon grains. >> And you you'd mentioned that again the results maybe fell a bit on on deaf years and exploration in Nevada is expensive. So you cannot afford to, you know, be putting out results that are not appreciated by the market. Are there any other parts of either the Borealis land package or Sandban that you'd consider having, you know, that blue sky potential uh that is worth that expense? And is is any money going into testing some of those targets? >> There are some really really really great targets at both. Um so [clears throat] to your earlier question about would I do a financing? What would I do with it? Is it worthwhile? Um right now uh as mentioned, we're going to have that cash draw down uh and the working capital bridge between contractors coming on site and revenues uh essentially exceeding that that working capital draw down for that month or two. I can't afford to spend much money like with with with the treasure we have which is very healthy to be a conservative and responsible steward. We can't afford to spend a bunch of money on drilling right now. Um we're we're doing some confirmatory drilling, but but that's part of the mining restart. If we did want to want to raise some capital, like I said, if we had good people coming in and and the share price was high enough, uh, and let's say we raised 15 or 20, 10 million would absolutely go into testing some of these these targets. And I think that we would have some joy in that endeavor, >> right? >> Uh, so if if we don't end up and I'm not looking to do a financing here, but I'm just saying if the opportunity presented itself, that's where the money would go into. And I I do think we've got some really amazing targets and we're we're going to put an exploration update out probably January once the mine kind of gets up and running with some of these targets. But our team has done a really great job. Um [clears throat] identifying some some brand new targets on a property that's been walked around and beat banged on for the past 30 or 40 years now. Um, we've identified some true new exploration targets at Borealis that have associated grab samples that are are looking really good, beautiful alteration profiles. And then at Sandman, um, the geological that the management team, Sheree, uh, who is the CEO and and Regina, who is the was the exploration manager, are genuinely brilliant geologists. They have they had a ton of targets. they just were struggling with with cash um and a and a dwind dwindling share price and not really able to raise the the money they needed to effectively test those targets. But there are some really really spectacular targets at Sandman that um we absolutely would like to test. >> Mhm. [snorts] Why I'm asking that, Kelly, is because I want you to talk to me about, and this again going back to strategy and what we talked about at the beginning a little bit, but talk to me about how you keep your your balance there, I suppose, trying to get, you know, a mind restarted here rather shortly. Also working on a on Sandman, pushing that through uh you know, a new project, which even only the ladder would be a big deal for for any junior out there. And then potentially, you know, doing other um sort of blue sky exploration here. How do you divide your time, attention, capital between between those different, you know, business lines essentially? >> I probably had more hair last time we talked, Antonio, but uh it's a uh right like so, so that's a great question. Um I would say about a year ago, our focus was certainly heavier on the exploration side. with gold moving the way it's moving, it's it's pivoted quite dramatically into very very production focused. We have um we have a really great group around us uh particularly on the banking side. We've we've got a actually I'll name them um Russ Mills and Brody Dunlop out of a small shop called MDCP Mills Dunlop Capital Partners that present some excellent ideas to us and do a lot of the um kind of modeling homework on on some of the M&A ideas before we have to sink too much time into uh site visits. But I would say um my time is really spent a lot of it lately has certainly been marketing, but our team's time is probably 70% head down exploration, 15% uh advancement of of Sandman at the moment and the balance on on exploration. >> Yeah. And that's I suppose that's kind of the eternal and internal struggle there of of a junior mining company. they have to think about. Um, would you be looking to change anything else in the meantime before you've gotten into production like a listing in the US or something something like that? >> I would love to. So, right now we're we're trading on the pinks uh the OTC pink sheets. We actually engaged a marketing group that did a really good job for us. If you look at our OTC um OTC stock chart, we engaged them end of end of August. We essentially didn't trade a couple shares, not hundreds of shares like we didn't trade at all there. Now, we're steadily doing three 400,000 shares a day on that on that OTC platform. Um I would love this company to be listed on the NYC American. I think it would be a a perfect fit for the platform. The challenge is we're working on it. We're we're we're trying to advance to a [clears throat] position where we could get there. Um there's a few different requirements they have. The easy platform is you have to be I believe it's above two bucks a share US and um a certain market cap. But the the funny thing they do is they weigh your your market cap less your insider ownership. So in our case, we've got between myself like our group and Rob McHugh and there's 25% of the market cap that just disappears. Uh which honestly I find strange. I'd rather have very much aligned insiders than than the other way around. But we're working on it. That's that's the that's the the exchange that I would love the story to be trading. think it would really resonate in the USA. And speaking to like Rob Mchuan, for example, [clears throat] he's Canadian through and through. He loves that stock exchange and most of Mchuan Mining's shares are trading through there. Integra, I talked to George uh said the same thing. That's that's the place to be and that's the place to um to have a US focused company trading. >> It won't happen. >> Not cheap. Um but [clears throat] one of the things that that sets Borealis apart from many other companies uh even in our peer group and at our valuation level is our liquidity. Um so we we do about a million and a million to a million and a half Canadian dollars per day in trading volumes over the past 6 months including the the alternate exchanges or maybe maybe sub a million bucks a day on on the main TSX. um that brings in a lot of good shareholders. Like you can't get big funds in in a name um unless there's the the chance for them to get out within a month if they take a big position on. So not cheap listing there, but the liquidity that that comes alongside of it I think is very valuable. Um, we don't market a lot in the states and and that's where this story resonates the best because brokers aren't able to recommend our stock at the moment on the exchange that is listed. So, we can only uh the only people that can play are either funds or uh retail individuals. And the best thing about the states is these broker platforms. And if you're able to get on, let's say, like Sprat USA out of California, um, Carl'sbad, I can't recall their name right now, Justin something. But if you can get them on your side, that's a network of of an insane pool of capital that can get behind your story. So, pros and cons for everything, right? You got to some things are expensive and and worthwhile and and as sadly we've we learned the hard way, some things are expensive and a total waste of time and money. But >> yeah, >> I do think it would be a worthy uh thing for us to get on there. >> Well, you said that's one of the best things about the US. I thought the best thing about the US was tariffs. Um making things easier for everybody out there. Um GNA, what do you think uh that's going to be? Again, I um wanted to talk to you about the financials. So, where do you foresee GNA being once you're actually up and running? >> Uh not overly cheap. Um so [clears throat] actually our whole team thanks to the board we just increased um all all the executives across the board. Um so we were about 2 and a half million I would say on a on a GNA basis last year. In 2026 we'll be closer to 3 1/2 or so. Um we are traveling we're marketing. Um we're we're reasonably paid across the board. Like I went from 20,000 to a month to 32 and a2 which is is chunky but I think I've delivered a lot of value and CFO CFO COO VPX went from 15,000 a month to uh 21 for COO CFO and I believe 19 for VPX. Mhm. >> But um in line like we've got a compensation committee. We also started paying directors as of November 1st. So it's I think 3,000 a month for independent directors, six for our chairman and uh 1,500 extra per committee member. The rationale there, Antonio, is and again it's one of these ones that I find doesn't make any sense. uh Glass Lewis and the proxy firms as we're getting bigger, we're going to start getting looked at by those guys. Weirdly prefer directors to be compensated with cash than with um securities, which I don't get. >> Yeah. >> But yeah, it's it's it's definitely moving up um in accordance with their market cap. >> What what are you going to do um for marketing in terms of budgets? How much money do you want to spend on marketing? Uh let's [clears throat] say from from Jan 1 to end of 26, we'll definitely be um I would say we'll probably end up doing 600 or so on digital marketing, which has been effective for us, and probably another 200 or so in conferences. We'll we'll end up we'll end up at a million dollars, I would assume. >> Right. Okay. Yeah. And and I hope we're going to be talking um a couple of more times throughout that process. Um in the meantime, I'm going to let you go here because I know you only have a couple of minutes, but what's the most fear criticism that you've heard of Borealis since we last spoke? >> Uh why has the stock price remained like this for a year? Because we we were rangebound for quite some time. I was critiqued um on our last financing we did um and people thought it was too cheap with with warrants. We did a 56 cent unit with a half warrant at 78 cents for 2 years. Um honestly those warrants all came in or most of them have come in and and really made the story so much better to otherwise we would have had to have raised money to restart the mine. That would have been done at a [clears throat] discount. we wouldn't be trading anywhere close to where we are. I don't think that's certainly one. Um other critiques, where's the resource from from bigger people as mentioned earlier? Um that's it. We're I I don't have a single unhappy shareholder today, which is is really really lovely. Um our board is super engaged. Yeah. Really really nothing. Uh Tony Makuch when he left I got it certainly a bunch of questions when cuz he he was chair I believe last time we'd spoken. >> Uh but obviously with Discovery Silver doing what it's doing he had he had dropped off all boards and and all advisory positions. >> Yeah, >> that's Yeah, we're I think we're we're doing pretty good. I'm I'm very very pleased with the company shareholders support team assets where we're headed where we're going. Life's life's pretty good at Borealis. >> And I hope we're going to talk again a couple of more times in the future so that I can um I can get questions from people listening and and watching for stuff that I might have missed or forgotten to ask here. What's your most favorite criticism of me, Kelly? What do you think I forgot to ask? Uh what did you come here hoping to talk about that I failed to bring up? >> Well, you said it was going to be a barbecue and I'm I'm still very much medium like be well. I'm blue right now. I didn't get roasted at all, Antonio. So otherwise, uh I I do watch a lot of your interviews. I I think they're great, insightful. Um we didn't talk about uh permitting water, all that fun stuff, but we can do that again and and go into some of those details cuz that is something that um for Sandman certainly is something that um y >> will bring up some questions. >> There's definitely a couple of things open on my list as well. Um and and I'd be happy to to catch up sometime soon. uh maybe in the in the new year and see how development is going and all that and then indeed we can talk about water power communities and everything all the all the good stuff in the meantime but I really do appreciate your time. Thank you so much for doing this. >> Thank you very much as well >> and as always thanks to everyone for watching Resource Talks. I have a couple of more things to say though. The fact that this company was interviewed here today does not mean that they're necessarily a good or a bad company. I'm not here to endorse nor attack anyone. I am simply here to ask some questions. If you find that I have failed in asking a question that you would have liked to hear an answer to, which will happen as I'm not an experienced interviewer, please let me know and I will try to correct that mistake in a future interview. As mentioned at the beginning, please understand that mineral exploration and development is an extremely risky business. Losing money is the norm and should be the expectation. 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