Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the KEFI Gold and Copper Plc post-AGM investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged. They can be submitted at any time using the Q&A tab situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. Just simply type in your questions at any time and press Send. The company may not be in a position, given the attendance we have on today's call. However, the company can review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses where it's appropriate to do so. Just to say that, Harry and the management team are presenting live from Ethiopia, and we have experienced a few connection issues this morning. If Harry does disconnect, I will jump back in and allow him some time to reconnect.
With that said, Harry, if I may hand over to you and good morning to everybody.
Good morning. Can you hear me clearly, Mark?
I can, sir, yes.
Okay. Thank you. Well, thank you for joining. Let me just say that, we're sitting in Ethiopia, where, we have a number of shareholders present, and, we have a whole full agenda for these few days. Our other stakeholders, including, our banks, may join this session and listen in, by physically walking into the room shortly. If you hear a bit of background noise, just bear with us. We're sort of rounding up various stakeholder meetings and formalities and so on, in the country as we speak. The first slide I'd like to turn to is slide number 3, annual meeting. We just closed the annual meeting of KEFI. There were a number of resolutions which were passed, 90%-94% vote.
We bid farewell to retiring Non-Executive Director, Mark Tyler, who's been very supportive all the way through our dealings with banks. He, in fact, was the head of mining finance for one of the largest African banks and has been quite a strong guide and mentor as we work through with our two banks to where we've got to now, which is in I think the final stages. Corporate reorganizations we've been dealing with in Ethiopia. We've had a registered branch in Ethiopia for the holding company, but that needs to be incorporated for some of the financing closings that we will undertake here. That's proceeding. As I've mentioned, we have other meetings taking place over these couple of days.
Last week, we had site visits and meetings with local government agencies and community. This week it's with banks and other financiers. Next slide, please, Mark. Now, it's hard to describe when we've been at it for so long, and shareholders have had to be so patient for so long. It's hard to describe the difference in atmosphere of Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia with that of distant countries. It's the same atmosphere as it is today in Western Australia. Only here, people feel like they're missing out, and they're scrambling to get on board. If you look at that table, you'll see there what's happened to the exports of those few metals just in the last short period. That's quite a remarkable change.
Some of it's price effect, because prices are now at very high levels. Some of it's volume effect. Here in Ethiopia, we obviously are involved with gold and about to start the Tulu Kapi project. We also have been pegging in the other metals shown on the screen. It's premature to talk about them. It's early days, but we've been pegging quite deliberately while the rest of the world was sort of looking the other way. It's been deliberately done because we think that this boom that's occurring, and it's highlighted by those statistics in Western Australia, will occur in Ethiopia. In fact, before Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, it's more visible because of the promotion. In Ethiopia, it'll be more real in the next few years because there's a backlog of development projects sitting around waiting for development. That is not the case in Saudi Arabia.
As we all know, it takes a long time to go from a discovery to a development to an operation, and that will happen faster in Ethiopia because there's a backlog of projects to start up. Ours being one of them. The fact that we, as a company, have sort of cleared the path on some of the regulatory issues is allowing other people to be able to jump in around us or behind us or whatever. It is quite an unusual atmosphere. You know, here we have more shareholders in the room. They're all linked to the company, but more shareholders in the room that turn up to an English meeting. We have a dozen bankers upstairs who are working assiduously to get the show on the road.
We're with the Mines Minister this morning at 8:00 A.M. We're meeting with the Finance Minister and the central bank head. This is sort of, how to put it, an intense sort of all-hands-on-deck atmosphere, which is quite staggeringly different to the atmosphere on the junior mining market on stock markets. It's quite remarkable. I'm sure the stock markets will react and turn for the better eventually. Next slide, please, Mark. Now, I'm sure those of you who follow the company in the past have seen this map before, but all we've done is to intersperse amongst the dots of where we are active, to intersperse some of the names of some of the companies that have come into the scene. Here we are today.
You know, we're with the Minister of Mines this morning, and he was quick to point out that there are now yellow machines driving around and doing work out at Kurmuk on the border, as if to say, "Why aren't you already driving around yellow machines?" and so on. You know, he wants to get on with it. You know, the reality is that he knows as we know that we have a community to move before we can put earth-moving gear on the place. But be that as it may, the fact is that it's happening. In the north of the country, in Tigray, which was actually a conflict zone only a few years ago, which is now a very quiet zone, another project has container loads of gear turning up. It's starting to happen in Ethiopia.
In Saudi, you know, I was there for a couple of weeks up till about a week ago, and I made the point of meeting lots of the financial community in Saudi for the very first time. It hadn't been a priority up till that moment, because I've only just opened the file on mining. Up until recent months, it was a no-go zone for the institutions and the family offices of Saudi, other than inside Saudi, through our partnership with the Al Rashid family. They're all, if you like, not so much under instruction, but official guidance is to move into mining, not just to replace the reliance on hydrocarbons, but there's a whole Western push happening.
It's quite palpable, and it's emanating from the White House and from the EU and from other leadership centers in the West. For the West to trigger a bit of a scramble to put its foot on particularly critical metals, you know, to secure a supply chain for the transformation that's occurring in the world's electrification or style of electrification. That's now coming in earnest, both in the capital allocation of the region and in the opening up of licensing and prospecting and development in the region. These things don't happen overnight, but it is happening now. I think the capacity of the company to align itself with regional investors has taken a step or two up. Which brings me to our second board change today.
Addis Alemayehu has joined our board today, and while, if you like, we're not quite finished with the banking work, it's sort of done and dusted in a in- principle sense, and the rest of it should be procedural. The alignment with community, with the public messaging, with the regional investors, with the governments is now numero uno for the company. Banking certainly we have to finish it off, and we will. Now we're spreading our wings into regional stakeholders, regional alliances, and that's why you see Addis on our board. Thank you. Mark, next slide. I think many of you know most of this, but just to skip over it, the Tulu Kapi, to be followed by two development assets in Saudi, is the position we have the result of 15 years of being on the ground.
I actually don't know any other company that has that position today in the Arabian-Nubian Shield of having three advanced assets, one shovel ready, the two coming along behind. I think today it's unique. Funding flexibility. The arrangements we make to prepare our in-country holding companies and in-country operating companies to admit alliances is, you know, has proven already we have equity investors in both countries already spending money, and the project financings is against these subsidiaries. In both countries, both Saudi and Ethiopia, there's a move for public listings, stock exchange expansions, IPOs. Again, ironically, whilst, you know, the Saudi market is an open market, it's not a closed market like Ethiopia.
The Saudi market is actually, I think, not gonna move as quickly as the Ethiopian market for the mining sector. I'm sorry, just to cut across from you. Let those people in if they wanna come in. It's because, you know, I've said it before, and we're now starting to see it on the mining side. When Ethiopia, you know, unifies and gets cracking on a particular strategic priority, it really does get cracking. The creation of Ethiopian Airlines into Africa's leading airline is a case in point. The flower industry is a case in point. Africa's largest hydro scheme is a case in point. Now I think you'll see that sort of energy directed at the mining sector.
I think the way we're shaping up and the closeness of our collaboration with the financial regulatory authorities is such that we'll see us be able to take advantage of the Ethiopian Securities Exchange, perhaps, you know, involvement, allowing locals to participate more directly in the projects. I think we'll see that before we see it in Saudi 'cause it's more happening here. Next slide, please, Mark. I think those of you who follow the company know we're a $50 million market cap under one pence share. The basic statistics about underlying value indicates it should be about 10 times that or more as these assets de-risk and come on stream.
There's a sort of a very modest allocation of value to the Saudi assets. They're not NPV basis or anything like that until they've got a complete bankable study as we do in Ethiopia. Next slide, please, Mark. The current priorities, I'll just walk through them to give you a bit of a feel for what's happening on the ground. There were three critical conditions that we highlighted publicly at the beginning of 2022. When Ethiopia lifted the state of emergency because of internal conflict having subsided in early 2022, we had a big syndicate meeting, and we laid out three critical conditions for the Tulu Kapi project to go into development. One was security, two was foreign exchange exemption from controls, and three was what's called country membership for one of our two banks.
One has these membership protections, and the other one asked for the same thing. As we speak, the foreign exchange control exemption came through in October, and the bank that already has the country membership went through its formal approvals and issued board ratification confirmations within a few months. The government has been stepping up security over these months in preparation for mobilization. Some of us, including myself, were out there last week, and I can report that the only words I heard from the community were jobs, and jobs. They just really, every time I spoke to anybody, they just wanted us to start so we could generate employment.
One of the reasons that the banks are in town this week is the formalities, the completion of formalities on the country membership, and that's in train, and there are lots of meetings with lawyers and ministers and so on to sort that out. While in, how would I put it? Day-to-day terms, it's a sort of a grinding process, but in the overall scheme of things, I think you'd say from the point of view of multilateral banking, a country that's starting a mining sector, it's going more or less according to how we set out. The equity ranking note. It's got two or three different shapes to it.
The one thing that has happened there is that we're looking at involving more locals in that and for a longer-term note than we had in mind previously, which is a good thing, which is one of the reasons we're incorporating the local holding company so that those notes or bonds can be issued from that company. That's shaping up, you know, quite well. The share capital is being spent, so the Ethiopian government as a partner is already spending. That was number one. The lead banker was number two. The co-banker is moving along now in tandem as security and country membership is sorted. Now the local investors including subsidiaries of multinationals and locals are engaging on the note to settle that down.
It's what you'd call a conventional waterfall of commitments as the government shows its commitment, number one, lead bank shows its commitment, number two, co-banker shows its commitment, and it flows. It's just a normal sequence in any conventional project financing. The early works were on the ground. As I said, inspection number one for independent bankers and advisors was last week, and there'll be monthly inspections or thereabouts going forward as we see the whole process unfold on the ground. The Saudi Arabian projects, there's been well over 100,000 meters of drilling over the last couple of years. A huge drilling program. Those projects are being pulled into shape for a stage development approach. The next sort of chapter of management has been introduced.
There's been a few changes there as we now move into more development planning mode. Development financing will be a lot easier over there because the Saudi Industrial Development Fund was instructed by the government to allocate as a priority to the mining sector, I think approximately three years ago. Up till now, they've deployed capital into the mining sector of exactly zero, which tells you how many mining projects there are available to back in Saudi Arabia. Ours will be amongst the first, if not the first they can back because nobody else is ready. Of expanding the project pipeline, I don't wanna dwell on that today because it's sort of cart before the horse. We really need to get the show on the road with Tulu Kapi first.
I do assure you that there's an expanding pipeline of opportunities including in the critical metal space. Not that we're going to set ourselves up as a company that's gonna start up all these projects ourselves, but it's our job to set up mineral resources in our countries that we're experts in now and to bring in strategic alliances around each project that allows each project to get the right sort of support and leadership and backing it needs, including in the lithium space and other, you know, similar high priority metals for the whole shift in the world's electricity generation movement. Next slide, please, Mark.
I'm sure those of you who follow us have seen this several times, and we're still a company at the bottom left of those valuation slides. All I can say is that in my view, when, you know, we demonstrate a few of the closings happening over the next few months with different financing components and then the final sign-off for launch, for the full launch, just the natural scheme of things will be that the market cap will adjust itself as the projects are seen to de-risk. Next slide, please, Mark. Now, I won't go through the whole deck because really it'll be good to allocate time for questions, and most of you are aware.
What I will do is highlight one or two things that I think are worth highlighting 'cause they're quite at the heart of how we plan things. Next slide, please, Mark. On the far right-hand side, you've got a banker's deck of numbers at $1,550 gold, and it shows how much money is left over for the shareholders if gold was $1,550 flat for the next 10 years. It shows a very humble return to shareholders at the bottom of that, having serviced all the secured debt and unsecured debt. That's how it's been designed. It's designed for this secured debt to be covered at $1,200 or $1,300.
Please remember.
The whole debt package to be covered at 14%. As you move away from the right-hand column and you go back towards the left, two things happen. One is you go away from just focusing on the open- pit, which is the right-hand side, only the open- pit, which the bankers focus only on the open- pit as the bankable project today. On the left-hand side, we introduce what does it look like when you start to recognize the contribution of a couple of things. One is we will bring on the underground, and we've just included a little contribution from the underground there based on, you know, very preliminary numbers. It exists. It's an ore body. It's not gonna be ignored. It will be processed, and an owner should know what it might look like.
That's what those numbers do. Secondly, we will be refinancing. In fact, the bankers are standing outside having coffee. I can say this loudly. We will be refinancing. We're not gonna be paying these expensive startup financing loans forever. As soon as we're in production, we will be planning to refinance with much lower cost of debt. When you put those two factors into the thing, the numbers start standing up, you know, pretty impressively. Depending upon one's, you know, opinion about the gold price, you can pick which column you want to look at. There will be underground mining, there will be refinancing once we're up and running and settled down in production. The numbers are incredibly, you know, impressive. Next slide, please, Mark. Expected milestones ahead.
This list is actually, you know, behind each topic is an action plan and a Gantt chart with lots of interconnected dots and streams of activity, which is what we're all here talking about and planning and pushing and shoving about lawyers, banks, community, security, all those things. We're just chugging through it in, with intense pushing and shoving. I know it sounds like paperwork or administration, but I can assure you, when you've got hundreds of people or thousands of people to move in an area that had a breakdown of law and order a few years ago, you take no shortcuts on security. You protect the community.
It takes a lot of hard work for our team to preserve our record of never having suffered a fatality or an injury as individuals in the organization. We protect ourselves and the community with the highest of standards. The same sort of discipline carries across all the activities. You can take no shortcuts. We are taking no shortcuts, and I think that's why the banks and others are here, 'cause they know they can rely on us. You know, the energy is palpable, the progress is grinding through it, and it all finishes up so that we can trigger this thing around October. Next slide, please, Mark. I won't dwell on resource reserve. You've all seen this before. Next slide, please, Mark. Next slide, please, Mark.
You know, we've been engaging with our principal contractors for the construction like Lycopodium. There's a whole bunch of ideas on, you know, projects to speed up the project or de-risk the project and pre-spend on the project and all those things, the normal competition for improvement. We'll just work our way through those things over the next few months, as we lead up to project launch. Next slide, please, Mark. That's a standard slide, which just reiterates that how does a small company, started 20 years ago, to go prospecting in the Arabian-Nubian Shield, how does it garner the support of major banks and Al-Rashids and governments? It's because everything we do, we get independent sign-off on. It's not just backing people, but it's independent certification of everything.
Do bear with us, ladies and gentlemen, as Harry reconnects.
Cut and thrust of tendering. You don't buy licenses in Saudi, but you tender for them, and you compete based on the quality of your proposed program. Because of the information we have on the whole scene there, we've assembled a pretty good package, but we're out there always trying to improve it and broaden it. We're very well-positioned, I think. We have basically four project areas apart from the two we have now in feasibility study. They won't all survive, and there'll be others added. That's just the name of the game as you assemble your portfolio. There's nobody as advanced as us, literally. It's just us. Mark. Jabal Qutman, we've only really tested about a quarter of the strike there.
Low-grade deposits, but you know, she'll stand up, and we've only tested a quarter of it. It'll increase in scale quite a lot. We're not there yet, but we'll get there. Next slide. Next slide, please. We are a bigger beast. Ivanhoe, with its Typhoon geophysics, has blanketed all the areas around us, looking for the mother lode at great depth. We're focused on shallower areas where you can develop and make money out of in the short term, but it's a hot area, and it's on the back of our work. At the moment, the drilling we've done has effectively converted most of it into indicated or measured so that we can convert into reserve as we finish the studies and then move into development. Next slide, please, Mark.
That just shows you the areas we've followed at depth. The darker blue at the surface are the open- pit areas. This project is now the equivalent of about 2.5 million ounces of gold, this one. KEFI's interest in it is a quarter of that. If it doubles, it'll start to compete with the scale of our interest in Tulu Kapi. I suspect Tulu Kapi will also expand its resource over time as well. We're now starting to see a healthy competition between, you know, which projects can contribute the most for KEFI shareholders in the longer term. Next slide, please, Mark. These milestones coming up on Saudi, there'll be quite a lot of announcements as the drilling results gets pulled into shape and interpretation and preliminary conclusion on the studies.
There'll be quite a string of things that we'll have to announce over the course of the year, from month to month and so on. Next slide, please, Mark. It's still the case that Saudi, remarkable as it sounds, a company, albeit in production, with resources very similar to Hawiah and Jabal Qutman, much smaller, a bit higher grade, but much smaller, and in production, is capped at $1.6 billion. Which tends to suggest that if you just drew a line between that number and our assets in Saudi, it suggests that our interests in Saudi are worth over $1 billion.
Now, I'm not suggesting that's the case, but it's just an indicator of how hot the appetite is in Saudi for when we've got these assets into good shape for development and production, how relatively easy it will be to get backing in the country as it's starved of opportunities to develop its mining sector. Next slide, please, Mark. Okay, so I took 33 minutes instead of my planned 30 minutes, and I'd like to turn to questions now, please. Mark, if you wouldn't mind reading them out.
Yes, of course, Harry. Ladies and gentlemen, do continue to submit your questions just using that Q&A tab on the right-hand corner of your screen. Harry, you did receive a number of questions pre-submitted, and you have very kindly kind of put those into areas, hopefully to give the broadest context. The first question is really around Ethiopia. When will the independent security advisor for the banks inspect the site?
Well, the first inspection was last week.
Do you want me to do that one?
Oh, yeah. Why don't you? Eddie, the COO, Eddy Solbrandt , is with me. He literally in a session with the bank, probably on that topic.
Yeah.
Why don't you pick that up?
We had a first preliminary visit to site last week by the independent advisor for the banks, and we've now planned a final visit by the banks and their technical advisors in the first week of September, no later than the seventh. That visit will be comprehensive. It'll look at social, security, and environment. In order to get to that visit, the biggest ticket that is outstanding is a joint report headed by the bank's independent security advisors on the logistics between port and site. The good thing is we've done most of the work on that already, so we'll be handing it over to the advisors in the course of this or next week.
They'll be working with our logistics partners to finalize that report before the end of August. Actually, well before the end of August. We've made that a high priority.
Okay. Mark?
Yep. Of course. Thank you to you both. Next question. When do you think both banks will have approved rather than just one?
I can talk to that as well, if you want, Harry.
If you want, yeah, go ahead.
Having just come out of the session over the last several hours working to coordinate the banks and TKGM's effort towards financing. There's a whole range of moving parts that needed to be coordinated and to settle down, some in great detail. We've come up with a preliminary date that the banks have committed to, the first week of September after that visit. The banks are now fine-tuning those dates because there's some internal shuffling of agendas to happen. They've committed before the Ethiopian New Year, which is on the eleventh of September.
Yeah. Well, I'll just add, you know, Eddie's being completely open, straight up, as we always are. You know, these are enormous banks, you know, $15 billion banks with a multitude of issues to work their way through. Please don't hound us on the eighth of September saying, "Why didn't the bank approve it yesterday?" We don't control them. We facilitate for them. All we're being is very open to you that these people are here. They're serious. No one's mucking around. We went out to site last week. They're planning the next visit and so on and so forth. The minister and I were punching each other around in front of everybody this morning, Eddie, you know. It's everyone's pushing and shoving.
Yeah.
You know, don't despair if a giant banking organization slips a week. You just shouldn't do that, you know, because we're not their masters, if I can put it that way. This is a huge effort. We'll just tell you the straight-up answer as presented to us, and we'll pass it on to you, candidly and transparently. Thank you, Mark.
Thank you, Harry. Let's turn to the next question. When will the main local equity investor approve?
Well, they already did. Well, actually, if you're talking about the government, they're already spending their money. If you're talking about the private sector, they already did. They're refreshing it. They're coming to our sessions these days. They're basically waiting for everything to get going, you know. They already have. Both the government and the private sector lead have already happened. They're just waiting for security to be signed off and the banks to do their various exercises that Eddie was just touching on. That's done.
The next question is, when will the equity risk premium investors approve?
Well, it's a normal. How would I put it? There's a normal cascade here. You know, anyone involved in any financial market will say, "When's Fred gone? When's he on?" You know? You'll say, "Right, Fred's on last week." He'll say, "Okay, I'll go next week." You know, they look for the leader. It's it. I'm not criticizing, but people will look for the lead investor to go first. It's just human nature, and particularly with a complex topic like this. I think they're the last cab off the rank because they're the higher risk capital, and they wanna see that the banks are signed off and the lead equity is signed off, and then they'll say, "Right, we're on." We're jocking them. They're You know, the terms are being ironed out.
We've got fallback positions. We've got Middle East capital wanting to deploy if the locals don't wanna take it all up. We've got ourselves covered. Literally, in any financial transaction, the leader has to go first. Just like KEFI had to lead with its money to get the project to this stage. That's why KEFI ends up owning 80-odd% of the project when it only has to put up a relatively small, if any, amount of capital going forward. Largely that is for, you know, add-on projects in the future. The sequencing is quite normal. You as investors, those of you who, you know, are studying the company, have the opportunity to form a view as to coming in and out of the company around different moments in time.
We as management just keep our noses to, what do you say? To the grindstone. We're just bashing away at it every day. We don't go in and out of it. We're there every day. I can assure you that what's happening on the finance side is just normal sequencing. Waiting for the lead bank. Okay, now the second bank. Waiting for the lead equity. Okay, now the lead, the second equity. It's just normal human behavior. Thank you, Mark.
That's great. Thanks, Harry. Next question relates to the recent site visit. One of the investors saw a photo relating to that and asks: What's the mood of the community and what are the key issues you're facing?
The mood is they sort of wanna see it to believe it, 'cause they've been sort of hearing about it for so long, and they are excited. They're excited to see me, you know, because they thought, "Well, if Harry's turned up, it must be happening." They're excited to see the leaders of government. They just wanna see it happening, you know. The anxiety for it to happen is palpable and, personally, I feel really bad for the community that they've had to wait so long. It's not of their doing that the project was stalled, and they sort of think that politicians and business people owe them better than that, if I can put it that way.
You know, by the same token, as I said to them, without wanting to sound critical, I just wanna show you that we're open people. We talk to everybody completely openly. The community said, "Well, you know, why?" "Jobs." I said, "Well, when I first came here and I never worried about security, and the community was telling me that you'd protect the project no matter what, and we didn't have to worry about security or anything like that." Well, that wasn't true, was it? Not blaming the community for that, but now we're going belts and braces because the community can't protect the project. I explained all this to them. You cannot deploy $hundreds of millions and 1,000 people unless it's absolutely belts and braces.
We treat it as red zone security now, even though it just flashes red periodically or occasionally. I think that's understood and accepted. That's the reality. The prevailing thing is just get on with it type of feeling. Like, no.
Great. Thank you. Just a few more questions on Ethiopia before we turn to Saudi. What's the mood of the government and what are the key issues there?
Why haven't you started? What do you need so you can start? No time for any excuse from anybody who's not performing. Replace them and get on with it." That's the mood. The mood is all go, go, and what do you need? You know, you would have been taken aback to see the government support of just that simple visit the other day. You know, we had a major military helicopter put at our disposal for our trip with a dozen people. We had, you know, protection. You know, and you couldn't ask for more support from a government, really.
I think a real sense of urgency is now there.
It is.
to make this happen.
Yeah. I think that's and pressure, right? You know, this morning there was a bit of jostling between the banks and the minister, too, you know. Everyone's jostling each other to get it going, you know. I don't think anyone in government is doing anything other than that. Those days a couple of years ago, you know, how would I put it? Threats and so on, today it's just all positive pressure to get this thing going.
That turns nicely to kind of the next question, which I think you just touched on, but what's the security situation like at Tulu Kapi and what's the key, I guess, to your success there?
As I said just a minute ago, there's a real sense of an urgency from the government. They've provided us, and are continuing to provide us with an unparalleled amount of security. Now, for obvious reasons, I'm not gonna give you exact numbers of people that are out there, but it's more than 10 times that we've ever had before. They're looking at, not just the MLA, but perimeter security beyond that. It's the best since I've been here six and a half years now. It's the best and the most comprehensive security from the government's perspective that I've seen in six and a half years.
Great. Thank you. Let's just turn to the final question on Ethiopia. Can you elaborate on the other exploration targets that you've been assembling around the area?
Well, the most obvious one is the proximal areas that we want our areas back. There were some shenanigans a few years ago and a threat against our proximal licenses, and we want them back, and we'll push hard to get them back. Looking for satellite deposits around Tulu Kapi.
Thank you.
That's the main thing, Mark. There are some others that I mentioned earlier, lithium, copper, nickel, and gold. It's premature to go into details on any one thing, but we've been pegging busily. The head of the team that does that is sitting in the room. He was the father of Tulu Kapi, Kebede Belete. He's now going to be the father of the next Tulu Kapi if he does his job very well. He's in the room here, and that's his mission to open up opportunities for us elsewhere in the country. Thanks, Mark.
That's great. All right. Well, let's switch gear. Let's turn to Saudi Arabia. When will the JQ and Hawiah feasibility studies yield some development scenarios you can explain more publicly?
I would say over the course of the rest of the year. They're a bit tricky, you know. They've been a bit elusive on us. A combination of grade and metallurgical recovery has been the elusive thing. We, having drilled the initial discovery zones out for reserve determination and mine planning, can quite go to town on them now. Optimizing them is really why we've refreshed leadership. We've brought in extremely, you know, proficient development expertise in terms of those types of projects to finesse for the next stage, if I can put it that way. That's what's the name of the game now. It's optimizing the sequencing of development. Over the course of the year, I think is reasonable.
Great. Thank you. Given that you've done over 100,000 meters of drilling, there must have been an enormous amount of results and I guess lessons learned. I wonder if you give any color around that.
Didn't change anything from the point of view of changing the nature of the beast. It confirmed the nature of the beast, both grade and shape, structure, metallurgy. Nothing emerged, which was a surprise. I don't expect surprises, just expect them to keep getting bigger and a way for us to optimize how we tackle them in a development sense. We've got enough on the table now, enough meat to sort of bite into to get development scenarios mapped out properly. The beast is pretty well understood now. It's just that the beast is gonna sort of double and triple. That's what's gonna happen.
Thanks, Harry. How are we looking in Saudi as regards to the cost of the works to date versus the results?
In a broad sweep, you'd say excellent, because we... What do we have? We have about 3.3 million ounces of gold equivalent, putting aside that we think they'll more than double. If you convert that into dollars per ounce in the ground that we've spent, it's a very low number. Off the top of my head, I can't think, but it might be $15 or something. In that respect, it's been an incredibly value-adding exercise. Of course, we need to convert it into development propositions and a finance development and so on. I think, you know, look at what's been spent on Tulu Kapi and compare it to NPVs and you see pretty impressive value add.
The stock market doesn't reflect it, but the intrinsic worth of the asset reflects it, and the same is gonna happen in Saudi Arabia. You know, I'd have to say that again, this isn't in any way sour grapes or anything like that, but the business model of the stock market to fund exploration and development is a rather broken model now, you'd have to say. I mean, it's. We've done it, and we're there, and we'll move forward. You know, we're one of the very small minority of companies on AIM that have survived in that sector since we formed. You know, the private equity approach or the private approach or the end user financing, the mining side approach clearly is taking over in this sector.
It's because there's this huge lag between what happens on the stock market and what's happening on the ground. The only good news is that if you've survived the last however many years or if you're getting involved today, when the stock pops, it'll pop, you know, impressively. The business model of funding exploration and development through the stock market is a rather broken model now. I suppose until the market turns and there's a bull market and everyone will forget about that, but that's what it is at the moment, to my mind.
That's great. Thanks, Harry. How do you see the potential of GMCO's regional exploration as compared with our discoveries at Jabal Qutman and Hawiah?
You know, too early to comment, to be honest. I really don't know. No, I think. How would I put it? Because we had so long to put data together, and we had such a good team, and because we've perhaps got the largest exploration team in the country other than Ma'aden, the government company, or certainly one of the largest, we're well placed to cherry pick and, you know, make progress. But at the end of the day, you just don't know until you get results. I think we're well positioned, but it's too early to judge those areas yet.
Thanks, Harry. How's the entry of so many new explorers? You know, has that squeezed us out or crammed your style in any way so far?
No. Just more and more knocks on the door saying, "How do we get involved?" We say, "Well, go away and do your work and then come back and talk." That's basically what's happened so far. No.
Thank you. How is the relationship with ARTAR, and can you see a joint venture company, Gold and Minerals Company, being listed in Saudi Arabia at any point?
You know, I think the ARTAR relationship is second to none. Eddie's been exposed to it the last, I don't know, six or 12 months, quite a lot, or maybe a bit longer. You know, it's KEFI's been the laggard. I mean, we all know that. We haven't kept up with our contributions, and they've been carrying us. That's a measure of the relationship.
Yeah.
Do you wanna add to that?
Well, they're patient capital.
Mm-hmm.
Incredibly reasonable and reasoned in their decision-making. From a relationship point of view, you couldn't find a better partner as far as I've seen so far. These people have an enormous amount of integrity. They're bringing good resources to bear. We're bringing those that they lack to bear. I don't know. It's flawless from any aspect that I can see.
Yeah.
Thank you, guys.
As to the listing, you know, I think a leading family like that and being the controlling shareholder will only contemplate high-profile public exposure when it's fully shaped up.
Mm-hmm.
Delivering results.
Yeah. When they're comfortable.
It's reputational management. It'll be either a premier float of the premier company or they won't bother. I think.
Yeah. Yeah.
I think that's the way they would react. It doesn't mean to say that we don't have many choices. We have many choices for funding over there aside from just IPOs. That would be their attitude to that question.
That's right. Yeah.
Thank you both. Thank you. Harry, I guess in your opinion, how many new mines will be operational in Saudi in five years versus Ethiopia?
That's a good question.
Well, you know, one thing that's on my side in answering that question is that it takes forever to get new mines up and running.
Mm-hmm.
There's a backlog of development assets in this country. I reckon, 'cause I was talking to the minister about it only last week. I reckon there'll be five gold mines in Ethiopia within five years.
The question was around Saudi.
Saudi, I reckon there'll be four new mines in Ethiopia on top of the one existing, and in Saudi, one or two.
Nice. Yeah.
Yeah. One or two. That's because even though there's a lot more money being thrown at Saudi already, no one's found anything yet.
No.
It's gonna take time. Whereas in Ethiopia, there's a backlog.
Yeah.
Mark?
Thank you. Well, look, we got one more question, I guess both on Saudi and on Ethiopia. It's a good one to end with. Which of Saudi Arabia or Ethiopia has the greatest potential for discovery?
They're the same geology, so theoretically, they should be the same, per square meter or whatever you wanna call it, theoretically. Low-hanging fruit, exposure on the surface, you'd say exposure on the surface means go to Saudi first because there's no soil, trees or people, relatively speaking. Whereas in Ethiopia, there's fantastic soil cover. Those of you who think that Ethiopia is a desert with famine all the time, it's. The majority of the country is lush, chocolate brown soil, lots of trees, lots of people. It's not. It's harder to walk up to exposure of mineralization. It's harder to do with communities because, there's more people. From that point of view, it's quicker in Saudi, but there's been massive amount of money thrown at it and now being thrown at it. In Ethiopia, it hasn't happened yet.
Down underneath that soil cover, it's the same geology. It's just a question of implementation and exposing the opportunity. Mark.
Great. Thanks, Harry. Right. I guess the last kind of category of questions are all around corporate focus. Most Western countries have introduced policies encouraging resource investment, I guess, into the mining sector. I guess why do you feel the stock market is so weak? I think you have touched on this, but just any other color.
I think because we've taken so long, patience has run out, and there's too many people who need to make money out of the stock market in a much shorter. I think, you know, if I had my time over, I think we would've done it private. It's all spilled milk now. It would've created a lot less frustration to public investors. The flip side of that is that if we're right, if the company is right about the way things are going now, this is the perfect moment to take advantage of a stock market. It reminds me of Warren Buffett. The stock market is a device to transfer wealth from one person to the other.
I think this is the moment, really, to look closely at it because, you know, the takeoff is happening and the metal price is a record.
There are a few other things that are influencing it as well. You know, you've got all this hype around AI, so speculators and some investors are sort of herd animals. They chase that down. Guys look back at lithium about two years ago. You know, everyone was chasing lithium. There's a herd instinct there, and more choices, I think, than ever to allocate capital to.
Thanks, guys. I'm just waiting for your connection to recommence. Apologies.
You'll be rewarded in spades.
Mm-hmm. Well, that's our theory anyway, right?
We will be rewarded.
We will deserve it, I can tell you. Anyway.
We did just lose you for about 15 seconds, 10 seconds, Harry, so apologies if I read out the other question. Let's move on to the next question. Really your thoughts on whether Saudi and Gulf investors, which according to the media, are now examining mining opportunities in Africa as well as the Middle East. Are you seeing that?
Yeah, absolutely. I walked the pavement about a decade ago in the Middle East, and it was way premature. I just wanted to sound out, you know, who you could align with to achieve this or that, and it was way premature. Now it's happening. They've all opened their files. Doesn't mean they'll all mobilize capital, but some of them have started. It's an unstoppable phenomenon based partly because of Western policy making.
Mm-hmm.
Partly because the Middle East needs to replace its reliance on hydrocarbons.
I guess, Harry, given the fact that you've had a long presence in both, that must make KEFI quite an almost a unique platform for these kind of investors.
Well, that's what I tell them.
Perfect. A couple more questions then. How do you see the Tulu Kapi financing being announced? I mean, can you anticipate the sequence of milestones needed together?
knew who I was, they all knew who KEFI was. I'm not bragging. It's just because, you know, who else is there that's been doing this and preparing such a platform for takeoff?
Mm.
That it just, I don't know anybody else.
Harry, I don't know whether you got the last question. Apologies, 'cause the connection's been really robust up until the last few minutes. Did you touch on the answer to how do you see the Tulu Kapi financing being announced? That, I guess, is a series of milestones.
Well, I think you know, our brokers tell me everyone just wants to hear about it being formally signed and launched. They don't really wanna hear about milestones along the way anymore. They're sort of tired of hearing all the progress. Here we are having webinars and answering questions about when the next safety inspection is. You know, maybe we should shut up and not talk about it for four months. We've said this early work's to be wrapped up in September, so we can launch in October, and that's what we're all working towards. You know, if you wanna see the final announcement, tune in in October, November. If you wanna follow the you know the progress, then keep watching.
Yeah.
This question is really for you, Harry, I guess. It's, do you see yourself running KEFI in five years? Regardless of whether you do or you don't, how do you see the senior management team changing over the next 12 months?
No, I won't be running KEFI in five years' time. I'll be pushed out of the way by smarter and stronger and younger people. Over the next 12 months, there'll be a lot happening, you know. Without embarrassing Eddie, you know, the reason Eddie's the COO is because he spent a lifetime on what you'd call organizational development, recruitment, discipline, policies, culling, all that stuff.
Yes.
There's been a lot of that. We'll take over as well. I won't be running it. No, I'll be put out to pasture probably by then.
Eddie, Harry, thank you very much indeed. Well, that concludes the 20 or so pre-submitted questions that you very kindly aggregated. I guess those most common themed. We have received a number of questions throughout the presentation. Harry, I'm mindful of time, but more importantly, the fact that we have started just to lose you now and again. But if you want, I can throw some of these questions or maybe you could look at those post-today's call. Up to you.
You know, I'd like to stick to keeping these to an hour, and we've got people milling around outside the door waiting to see us again. Let's just stick to the procedure we set up of one hour and send me through all those questions and we'll answer them on our response.
I will definitely do. Well, look, Harry, I know that investor feedback is particularly important to you and to the board, and I'll shortly redirect those on the call to give you their thoughts and expectations. Perhaps, Harry, if I may just ask you for a couple of closing comments.
Well, you know, it's. I'm very conscious of the fact that if you just listen to the company or listen to the voice of the company or look at the company sporadically, perhaps it looks like Groundhog Day. I'm mindful of that. That's what my wife tells me. But you know, inside the system, we all work exceptionally hard. I'm really pleased and proud of the commitment of these people within our team. You don't see most of them. These things don't happen without that sort of passion and commitment. I can assure you that the passion and commitment is here. Being the first mover in a country that had a civil war a few years ago has proven to be more challenging than I had imagined.
Hopefully the opportunities that present themselves to us because of our perseverance and our integrity will make the efforts worthwhile. Certainly, the statistics on those graphs about share prices and so on tells you it's it should be worthwhile for any share investor. You know, we're seriously building a major mining company for the region, of the region, in the region. We're aligning ourselves very deliberately with Fortune fifty family offices, with governments, with leading contractors, with leading banks. That doesn't happen with a hell of a lot of effort and commitment. All I can say is that effort and commitment is here in the company, and I hope it earns you the rewards that you deserve as we move forward. We'll see. Thank you.
That's great. Harry, thank you very much indeed. Ladies and gentlemen, if I could please ask you to close this session as we'll now automatically redirect you for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order that the company can better understand your views and expectations. This may take a couple of moments to complete, but I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of KEFI Gold and Copper Plc, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation and apologies for any momentary disconnections due to Harry's connection. Good afternoon and good morning to you all.