Good morning, and welcome, everyone, to Akobo Minerals' Second Quarter Presentation. Today, we're streaming live out of our office here in Addis, while Matt Jackson is in the Oslo, well, studio. So we'll try to guide you through the latest developments, and give you an update on where we are right now. So there might be some glitches on the way, depending on the internet connection and power outages here in Addis, but we hope this will be okay and work fine for everyone. So yeah, we'll try this today. So we'll do a first short introduction to the company for those not familiar with us, and then we'll continue on from there. So, we're a Scandinavian-based company with assets in Ethiopia, doing gold exploration and mining.
We're listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange, and we have an ambition to become a major player in the future development of a very promising Ethiopian mining industry. So we'll do that by building a strong corporate foundation that will support continued growth of our resources and definitely discovery of new gold deposits. With a strong local foothold, we'll also be based upon the principles of good ethics, transparency, and communication. And last but not least, we'll have a low-cost and flexible operation to be supported by the cash flow from our Segele boutique mining. So based upon our experience and results so far in Akobo and the Gambella region, we've been there now for 13 years, we do see a big potential over time to create significant cash flow and, at the same time, continue developing world-class deposits. So we already have the Segele mine.
You can see from the figures here that that's quite a, again, astonishing, mine, even though it's small. It's a first-class deposit, but still with some of the highest grades in the world. We're in the Bonanza grade category for a lot of the, yeah, the results we've gotten, but we do have an average grade of 22.7 grams per ton for the Indicated and Inferred Resource. As you can see, very compelling economics that can continue to support our exploration. We'd like to call ourselves still an exploration company supported by boutique mining. That's important to take with us, that exploration is still something that is a big part of our future plans.
And we definitely see an untapped potential in the rest of our mining license, where the area at Gingibil is starting to look very tangible and promising. We'll have some update on that a bit later in the presentation, but that looks, yeah, looks to be coming along very nicely. And for those not familiar with Ethiopia or Akobo Minerals, you can see from the map that we're some 700 kilometers southwest in the country, close to the border of South Sudan. Very nice, quiet place to operate in. Again, we've been there for 13 years. We've never had one single day of downtime. It's far away, but it's getting less and less remote, so we can drive, of course, from Addis to camp. It'll take a few days, or you can fly halfway, and you can drive.
They're now putting the final touch on a new airport, about just two hours away from us, so that will hopefully open sometime next year. That will facilitate a lot more for us, with only a two-hour drive away from camp. We do have our own airstrip, which we'll be using more and more going forward as activity increases and also once we start shipping out the gold. So, we're set up in a very good way. We have a nice camp that's been developed over the years. Right now, I think we have approximately 150 employees at site. At peak, we had up to 400 every day in and out, but as construction work and processing plant work are being finalized, we do have less need for daily laborers and workers.
So looking at the key events, the Q2 highlight's a bit old, so I'll focus on what's happening after Q2. We've been active, and we have achieved a lot. We did sign a refinery agreement with MKS PAMP. We've gotten results from the first bulk sampling from Gingibil. That looks promising. The Segele inclined shaft has advanced, and both the Eastern and the Western Winzes have advanced, even though we've had a setback on the Western Winze that Matt will talk more about later. The Community Eco Hub began construction, and we're actually finalized. That's a nice place and a location where we built the house from plastic bottle and sand. So that will be used as a Community Eco Hub and a community place. Important that we signed on Steven Rupprecht.
He is appointed as our mine manager and also a strategic advisor. He's already active at site as we speak, and we have started and finalized more or less a process to take over all mining operations from IW Mining. Several reasons behind that, that we think that we can do a better job at advancing the mining operations. We have more knowledge on how to operate in Ethiopia, and I think it's fair to say that operating this from South Africa has been more difficult than projected and anticipated. Yeah. We have a few other things here that we did. Applied for trading on the U.S. OTCQX market. Why we did that is we see there is a potential to get increased liquidity in tapping into the U.S. market. So we'll see. There is no automatic...
Well, nothing will happen by itself. We have to work hard. We have to address the market, but I think there's an upside there to get increased liquidity in the share that will benefit all shareholders. We also did a convertible loan just yesterday that we sent out notice on. So we secured NOK 34.4 million, so we're very happy with that. So we've done a lot, but as I wrote in my CEO letter in the report, we have underestimated the complexity of setting up the first new mine in Ethiopia since 1994.
So when we started up, we made the timeline, we made the ambitions, we set our goals, and we adjusted that to what we thought would be enough adjustment for, call it, going from a South African way of doing it to an Ethiopian way of doing it. But it... Yeah, it wasn't adjusted enough. The situation in Ethiopia has been difficult for the last few years. The cost and the implications of the Tigray War has been, well, quite enormous actually, on the Ethiopian economy. Coupled with the COVID and an inflation of up to 30%, this has really made it difficult to operate. So we have taken a lot of actions lately to mitigate and to address the difficulties. We have structured our organization in a new way.
We've gotten new people on board. We're taking over the mining side, which I think will be a huge positive effect on the company going forward. Again, Matt will talk more about that later. But of course, a few weeks ago, when we found out that we missed the ore body in the Western Winze, that we came in on top of it, that really felt like a low point for the whole organization and myself. But it is what it is, and right now, we just keep on grinding and continue looking forward. And that said, we have advanced on a lot of other items here, like the processing plant. A lot of work's been done, and we will start definitely producing gold as soon as we hit the ore.
And we'll do that by the pilot plant that is already up and running and ready to receive material. So we are planning for a grand opening in a short period of time after the rainy season. We'll see when that happens. Beginning of November is what it looks like right now. But of course, we also need to have the final touch on the processing plant, the main processing plant, before we, we really announce and do the big opening, but I think we're, we're getting closer to that right now. As you can see from the convertible loan, we're very pleased to secure that. You know, the obvious question is: How much money do we need, and what does it look like going forward?
What I can say there is, any need for potential additional funding will now depend on how fast and how much gold we will be able to produce, first from the small pilot plant and then into the main plant. That's the current status there. Looking at some of our ESG activities for the last quarter, we're still having a focus on building and maintaining effective relationships with key stakeholders. That's the basis of everything we're doing. Being a good part of the community and doing things right. We have constructed the Eco Hub, as I said. You can see from the picture here. It will be used to do training and another... Yeah, other things that require a place, a nice place to gather people. We did this in...
Yeah, together with some of the local community as part of also a waste cleanup program, where all these bottles were collected and filled with sand. We have already been training in financial literacy and enterprise startup to the Women's Association, also done together with Adama Polytechnic. We prepared education materials for our Healthy and Sustainable Goals program, which has now been approved by the Gambella government, which we're very happy with, and we're planning for the tree nursery now to be built, and we have that in discussion with Jimma Botanical Gardens. And our annual environmental and social performance report was filed, all according to national and international standards, and with a very good feedback from the government or from the Federal Environmental Protection Agency.
We've also introduced something we call Beyond Compliance Approach, which will highlight our strategic relationship to monitor and manage the biodiversity in collaboration with the Jimma University. So from this, you can see that we're taking part in the local community, and we're working with relevant local institutions, like the Jimma Polytechnic and the Jimma University. We're also trying to be on the international stage and promote what we're doing because we're proud of our ESG program, and we did present that, the ESG strategy, at the Global Summit on ESG Reporting in Brussels not long ago. So we have attention out there also for what we're doing on the ESG side. Oops. Yep. Just want to touch quickly upon the refinery agreement that we signed with MKS PAMP, something I'm very happy with.
This is a very strong partner for us. It fits well with our business philosophy. I feel we're on the same wavelength when it comes to doing things right. MKS PAMP is a Swiss-based, family-owned refinery group. They're one out of 11 approved refineries in the world. You can find, I don't know, 1,000 other refineries in the world where you can ship your gold and get it refined. But this approval, being an LBMA-approved refinery, it states the quality of your product, and it gives it a completely different value, in a way. It can be used in different ways than just shipping it off to, yeah, to a different refinery. So MKS PAMP, they will provide the collection of the Doré bars from site, from our gold room.
They will then be responsible for managing the transportation of the gold all the way throughout this to MKS PAMP and to their refinery in Switzerland for the purification, and then, of course, sell the gold in the market. Just to give you an idea, that process, all in all, will take maybe five days from the Doré bar leaves our site until the gold is sold, maybe a week, depending on... But it's not a long process, and this is something they do every day. We're also in dialogue with MKS on how to produce carbon-neutral gold, which we think is achievable and a very positive thing, and this will potentially create a very interesting niche product from the Segele Mine, which is unique in itself.
So this is a very good fit, and I'm very happy to have joined up with them. And with that, I think we'll move over to you, Matt. A lot of activity has happened, a lot of positive things happening, but we've also had a setback. I think we managed that setback very well, and we're getting back on track already. And it has given us a few learnings on the way. So yeah, I'll leave it to Matt to explain and also give some update on Gingibil and some very interesting news there. So Matt, please.
Great. Thank you, Jørgen. Yes, so I'll start off talking a little bit about the mining operations, and then I'll move on to talking about the process plant and the progress we've made with that. And then I'll end up with a discussion about, like Jørgen said, some exciting news from Gingibil. So, you know, the mining progress has been ongoing. It's been developing. We've developed the incline shaft to 55 meters, the Eastern Winze to 28 meters, and the Western Winze has been advanced quite far, but there was a setback, which I'll explain.
But just to go back and explain for any new viewers, these three shafts and winzes are essentially tunnels that go down into the ore body to extract the ore, the rocks that have the gold in them. So unfortunately, we found out in the middle of August that the Western Winze had been misdirected. So instead of the Western Winze hitting, going directly into the ore body, it came a little bit too shallow and went over the top of the ore body. So that obviously was a disappointment and was the, you know, something that needed, you know, action to be taken. You know, and this is a setback. It's put us back by about a month, and that's obviously a disappointment.
But I'll talk a little bit in the next two slides about the actions that we have taken to prevent this from happening again, and also, in general, to improve the speed at which we operate and also improve our cost effectiveness, in fact, when it comes to the mining operations. So, but just to cover a little bit about the facts of the mining operation, we are doing mining on quite a small scale.
We will be hitting a mineral resource that has the Western Winze is aiming now towards a mineral resource that has 40 grams per tonne, which is one of the highest concentrations of gold, you know, in a reliable resource estimate from anywhere in the world, in fact. And that translates to quite a low operating cost, a very low operating cost, in fact. And so we are still optimistic. Our plans haven't changed for the mining operations, but like I said, it's been put back by about a month.
That obviously is disappointing, and it's a low point, but, you know, as I'm going to explain in this slide, I'll cover a little bit about the history of the mining operation and why we, why we started the contract mining. The contract mining was chosen because it was, we chose to give out a contract, essentially, to an experienced mining company to, to operate the mine for us, because it allowed us to start up very quickly, to get closer to revenue much faster. It eliminated a lot of the risks, a lot of the start-up risks, because we were essentially hiring and we're buying in the expertise quickly. But that obviously comes at a cost.
We decided at the end of 2022 that that was the correct decision for us, because we were essentially transitioning from an exploration company to a mining company. It certainly was the right decision. Even before the setback that we had in August with the misdirected Western Winze, we actually identified... This was in the middle of Q2, we actually identified the need to move to what we call owner-operator, which is where Akobo and our subsidiaries do the operation, take full responsibility for the operation for the mining.
So we identified that need there because we saw that, we saw that, with our knowledge of Ethiopia, and the team that we already had, for example, Steven Rupprecht, we had, the opportunity to, to do the mining operation in a much more efficient way, with much better supervision, and, and also at a lower cost. Which obviously is very important. You know, part of our strategy is, firstly, to have a low-cost operation, but also a lot of our strategy is to be Ethiopian. So we want to create, a mining operation that trains local, Ethiopians to be world-class miners, and we're already on the track for that. So, we're very happy with the decision to move to owner-operator, and that is, it has, in fact, advanced very, very far now.
We are very close to actually being fully owner-operator, and we expect that transition to have finished within days, in fact. So we've already brought on board Steven Rupprecht, who has always been involved with the project for many years. In fact, he was instrumental in designing the philosophy for the Segele mine, and now he's come on board as our mining manager and strategic advisor, strategic advisor. And he has brought on board two additional supervisors from South Africa, who have a lot of experience in doing exactly this kind of mining, and also this kind of mining outside of South Africa. So we're very confident that they will do a great job of supervision, and we're already seeing the effects now.
I've already seen, just in the last week, a big change in pace, a big change in momentum for the project as a whole. We've also been lucky enough to retain some of the skills and knowledge from the IW team. And we've also modified the shift patterns to match more closely the Ethiopian way of working. So rather than having three shifts of eight hours, we have two shifts of 10 hours, which is culturally appropriate for Ethiopia. And we're seeing the effect of this already, and we're really looking forward to making more changes by hiring more Ethiopians. We will be ramping up the team.
The team will become bigger, so that we can, you know, in addition to increasing the speed and efficiency by having better supervision and working in a more Ethiopian-appropriate way, we will also be training up more Ethiopians and building the team. So the team will be more efficient, and it will be larger as well. So we are... I'm very very optimistic and looking forward to seeing the results of that, of the, of this change as it comes out in the next in the next few weeks. So this transition that's coming to a close now has gone very smoothly. We haven't seen any loss of momentum. There have obviously been challenges that we've had to overcome, but those have all been overcome.
I'm very happy with the way in which we've managed to do this, and I'm very proud of the team, and also delighted to have Steven Rupprecht on the team in a much more greater sense, as well as Sola Olatunji and Magwaza, who've come from South Africa. So yeah, we've had a setback, and that was disappointing, but before even we had this setback, we were already under in the process of taking the actions that were needed in order to bring forward the speed and efficiency of our mining operation, in addition to it being important to note that it actually brings down the cost.
So, in addition to that, many of our long-term shareholders will know that only a short period ago, maybe a year and a half or two years ago, we were a dedicated, pure exploration company. And an exploration company has a different setup and, you know, in some ways, different philosophy to a mining company. So, also, at the same time as changing to owner/operator, we've also restructured Etno Mining, our subsidiary in Ethiopia, our 100% owned subsidiary in Ethiopia. So we've rehired it along the same kind of operating model as the Gold Fields mines in South Africa, which are mines that have run for decades. And Steven Rupprecht and John Derbyshire, two of our most important consultants, worked with Gold Fields a lot, and they understand the system.
So it's been turned around in this way. We've also brought, in addition to Steven, who has a lot of experience with mining, we've also brought on, brought on board some very experienced managers. So many of you will have seen that Helge Rushfeldt has come on board as our mine operations manager, and we're very glad to have him on board because he is a processing engineer and also has experience with mining operations in Norway. And he is already turning around the mining operations team, so he takes responsibility for the mining and the processing and the related ancillary services. So we're already seeing we ...
Well, we are just now seeing the effects of this reorganization and the increased efficiency that it provides, you know, better access to maintenance, better access to utilities and consumables, and a much more smooth operation. So we're really just seeing the effect of that starting now. And obviously, the mining operations team, it's a complex job. We're operating 700 kilometers away from the capital. That requires very careful and efficient support operations from Addis and at site as well. So I'm very glad to say that we have Dr. Zelalem Tesfaye, who's come on board, and he's our head of business support. He is a medical doctor and a former ... His previous job was Chief Operating Officer of a large hospital in Addis Ababa.
He actually set up our clinic for us, which is a complicated job in such a remote area. And because of his success in that and his quite long and sophisticated experience in management and organization, he's come on board to operate and manage the support functions from Addis, including health and safety, with the clinic involved, and the IT infrastructure and the procurement systems. So yeah, this. So our reorganization of Etno Mining, in addition to the change in the mining operations and the move to owner-operator, we're looking at a much you know a different system and a much more improved organization, which is more appropriate for mining. And also should bring cost benefits. I'm very confident it'll bring cost benefits.
So, yeah, I'm very proud of the fact that our team has been able to pivot in this way. We are a small company. We're an exploration and mining company, and now we're much more of a mining company than exploration. And, the fact that we are small gives us the flexibility to change and operate and change the way in which we operate in order to adjust to the challenges that we faced. Jørgen did a great job of describing some of the challenges that have affected our progress in the last few years, and now we are just gonna start seeing the effects of the pivot and the flexibility in our company to respond to those challenges.
So I'm just gonna move on and talk a little bit about the process plant now, which has been really quite an exciting development that we've seen in the last few months. So, putting in place the process plant foundations has been a major job, and it is now finished. There are a few small foundations for ancillary projects that the civil engineering team is working on. But you can see that from the statistics that I've put here, there's been an enormous amount of work. You know, 40,000 cubic meters of site clearing, you know, more than 12,000 quintals of cement. It's an enormous job, and now the major works have been completed, and we're very proud of this.
Given the remoteness of the location, this is quite an astonishing achievement, and I'll put a slide up a little bit later to indicate, you know, quite how remote the project is. And, you know, as a result of doing this foundations work, we've developed, you know, a lot of knowledge and skills inside the company, which will enable us to be successful in the future and to solve more problems. And I've put a photograph here of Faisal Saeed, who is our civil engineer and has been leading the project, so we're very grateful for his work. And we look forward to what he can do in the future. So in addition to actually finishing the foundations, the erection of the major processing equipment has also been completed.
We have a few photographs in the next few slides of this. Again, this is something that's a real delight to see. You know, the erection of this major processing equipment comes, you know, it is a success as a result of all the work that was done in fabricating the vast majority of it in South Africa and shipping it all the way over, achieving all the, overcoming all the obstacles when it comes to import and transportation and so on. And then, the Solo team have been very successful in rapidly putting this up. So we're really proud of their work. Just a bit of background for anyone that's new to the project. We already have a pilot plant that's up and running.
This can operate at around about 6 tons per shift, and it can extract around about 40% of the gold, and that is something that already works. It's ready to go, and that will be operated once we hit the ore in the Western Winze. The main plant that we're constructing now operates at more like 10 tons per hour. It's a huge increase in capacity to the pilot plant, and it's also able to extract 97% of the gold. So that's ongoing. Oh, I think I pressed the wrong button. There we go. The remaining work, there is obviously more work to be done for the processing plant. The major erection has been completed. The pipework is ongoing now, the electrical installation is ongoing.
We already have a borehole that's been established some time ago to provide water to the plant, and the piping will be installed. We have additional diesel tanks that need to be installed. We have three extra generators that are in Ethiopia now. And of course, there's the tailings storage facility that needs to be created, and the design is complete for that, and the earthworks will begin imminently before this. There's obviously the question of when we expect to be starting up, and we expect to be going into the commissioning phase in the middle of the last quarter of the year. So that will obviously be a big event for us.
So, I mentioned before the fact that this is a big achievement because of the remoteness of the project. Now, the photograph on the left, you can see here, is our gravity tower, and it contains the system for extracting the largest particles of the gold. Now, that tower is only 4 stories tall, but it is the highest man-accessible structure in 50,000 square kilometers. The only things that are higher than this are communications towers that just have mobile phone transmitters on them. So this is the equivalent in size to all of Norway, south of Otta, or it's just slightly smaller than the state of West Virginia in the U.S.
So I put this slide up on here to indicate, you know, quite how remote the area is. There is very, very little... In the 50,000 square km around us, there is very, very little man-made development at all. So to be able to put the foundations up and put the steelwork up, and to do this work in such a remote area is something that very few mining companies have achieved. So we are developing a very sophisticated and successful team when it in regards to creating projects in remote areas. And I'm proud of the work that the team have done, and I think it's going to really put us in good stead for advancing in the future.
So, I'll talk a little bit about about Gingibil bulk sampling, and the, and the drilling that we're doing at Gingibil. Just a little bit of details about what Gingibil is. This is an exploration target, which is only 10 minutes drive from the Segele processing plant itself. So there's two important things about Gingibil. Firstly, you can see in this cross-section that I'm showing here, there is the uppermost arrow points to an area of what we call quartz float, that is loose quartz rock, and that has visible gold in it, and we've actually produced gold from from this loose rock right at the surface. In addition to that, we've also we've also intersected gold at depth, using our core, core drilling system.
Now, the grades that we've got, we recently received some grades, so we're announcing today that we got an intersection of 1.5 grams per ton... sorry, one point three grams per ton, over 1.5 meters, at a depth of 20 meters. Now, this is a grade that is much lower than Segele, but it is, you know, if the studies and more intersections are made of this kind of grade, then potentially these kind of grades could be economic. But the studies are needed, and more drilling is needed. But this is very exciting because essentially, we're talking about the potential to be able to produce revenue from material that's right at the surface, in addition to growing our company a great deal through drilling out a much larger resource.
Now, I was just talking about the grade here. This is the table which Jørgen showed at the start. Segele has a bonanza grade, which is an astonishingly high grade. Many, many mines operate at much, much lower grades. The kind of grades that we have seen both in the bulk sampling and in the drilling that we're announcing today. So, this is very exciting for us. As you can see on the bottom left, there's an image that shows the bulk sample being taken. And these are rocks that were able to be extracted very easily by an excavator at surface, rather than needing to be a sort of complicated underground mining system.
It can be extracted at surface, and the bulk sampling has shown that we can extract economic amounts of gold from there. So the surface material is low cost and a low-risk target. Nevertheless, we need more studies. So what we intend to do is to change from bulk sampling, where we take the rocks and extract the gold from the pilot plant. We do more bulk sampling. We're gonna be doing more of this, and we'll also be, at the same time, doing the studies that are needed to assess any capital investment that's needed, what the operating cost would be, and more bulk sampling to extract more gold, and that's the process called trial mining.
So we intend to start trial mining in the next few months, and we are targeting that to be completed Q1 2024. So and I'll come back to why this is important. Essentially, if this trial mining process is successful, it means that we have an extra feed of ore to the Segele processing plant. So we've also, in addition to the grade that I mentioned earlier, the 1.3 grams per tonne, exploration geologists will all tell you that there's no point in having one drill hole that has a good grade in it. You need to be developing many drill holes and the layers of rock that have the good grades, the good concentrations, have to correlate from one hole to another.
So what we have seen in the last few weeks has been that we're starting to see that correlation in one particular place, in particular in Gingibil. So we're now getting to the point whereby we not only are seeing grades that are exciting, we're also seeing correlation that will enable us to move towards resource definition. So, and this is about long-term growth. We don't, we don't. You know, I, it's possible that we might take any successful mineralization that we identify here. If the studies work out and the drilling works out, it's possible we can put it through the Segele plant.
But also, in previous presentations, I've said that we're very excited about the wider area around Segele and our exploration license, and we're exciting because we - it shows all the characteristics that are required for a large gold project, a large, a large gold mine. So Segele has 69,000 ounces at 20 grams per tonne. Most gold mines have more like 1 million or 2 million ounces. And what we are seeing here is the geological characteristics of a big project.
and we're very excited, and now I'm pleased to say that in this presentation, we can say that, you know, we're starting to put together some of the jigsaw pieces that if the entire jigsaw puzzle is a very large deposit, we're just putting together one or two of the pieces that are starting to look like a big deposit. So this needs more drilling, and it needs more study, but this is an exciting prospect for our long-term growth, and it will be a major part of our plans going forward. So, I've only really talked about Segele here, where the mine is, in the top, in the top of this map, and I've only and I've talked about Gingibil as well, which is our most exciting exploration project.
I won't talk for a long time about this, but all these other colored boxes that you can see here, these are other areas that we're excited about. People in the past will have heard me talk about Joru, and we had some good high-grade results there. And there's also Joru South, which also has some very high-grade results. And there are other areas here that I can't talk about them all because we don't have enough time, but on the whole, we have an opportunity here to define, you know, a really good, you know, to define both. To define additional ore to go through the Segele plant and also grow the company, to develop much larger deposits. But Gingibil is definitely the most promising target so far.
So, this slide is to show you that we have a strategic plan. This is our three-year plan to move the company from not only producing revenue from the Segele plant and from the Segele mine, but also you can see that we intend to take the near-surface material from Gingibil and extract it using using the process plant at Segele, if the studies work out right. We will also be gradually over the period of next year, we'll be ramping up the speed of production from Segele, the speed of production of the ore from Segele. And we're still working very hard on areas like Joru and other areas and exploration projects. So this is our strategic plan for how we will be developing the company in the next few years.
The focus for now remains the Segele processing plant and the Segele mining operation. You know, pushing our new owner-operator system to ramp up and produce more ore, and to get that into the Segele process plant. We'll also be advancing the trial mining work for Gingibil in order to get a second source of ore into the Segele processing plant. Obviously, a big focus now, getting the process plant working, getting down to the ore at Segele. We expect to reach the ore within two weeks or so at Segele, so we will put that ore through the pilot plant initially to get revenue, but then also we'll have the main plant running that has a much greater capacity.
But then, if we are successful at Gingibil, and we're seeing a lot of great signs in this regard, then we have the opportunity to double the capacity of the processing plant. The foundations have been created for two times the capacity that we already have, and we have the opportunity to put in place more equipment very easily and very quickly. The Segele plant has been pre-designed for doubling the capacity with very, very small amounts of equipment. So when we hit more interesting ore in Gingibil and the trial mining is successful, we have the potential to double the capacity of the plant at Segele with the obvious benefits to revenue generation and growth.... So now I'll hand back to Jørgen, and thank you very much for listening to me.
Thank you, Matt. That was a good description of the situation we're in. A small setback, but I think the outcome of that will only benefit us in the time to come. We're, again, as Matt said, more and more excited about the Gingibil target. Of course, it needs more studies and more drilling, but we're already, after just, I would say, a handful of drills, seeing indications of what we would like to see. So I'm happy with that. The exploration part will definitely be a much bigger focus for us in 2024, in the years to come.
That's where I would say the real value growth for the company will come from as we start to move up resources as we go along. So yes, looking forward to that. Financial performance, as we all know, unfortunately, still no revenue in the project, so only costs. You can see we have more or less the same cost and operational expenses since last quarter. I expect that to gradually decrease going forward until we reach a steady state of production. We still have excess use of machinery and people to finalize the remaining parts. But once that's done, we'll get to a steady state, where it's much easier also to start identifying the core KPIs that we will be reporting on going forward that has to do with mining and cost and revenue.
You can see here from the equity and debt development, I just want to highlight the fact that the numbers, the equity is negative for the group, but that is already offset from, converting a loan now in the beginning of July of SEK 53.3 million. Just to remind you of the corporate structure and the top shareholders, we're listed again on the Euronext Growth in Oslo and Frankfurt. As I mentioned, we have already applied for trading on the U.S.-based OTC market platform. From what I hear, we expect that to be finalized within a couple of weeks, and then we'll see how the trading starts over there.
It'll be interesting, but of course, we still need to do a job over there to promote the company and get people familiar with us and see what we're all about. But I think this could be an interesting asset. It has a good combination of Scandinavian bases coupled with Ethiopian assets, and the combination there is interesting. I think we can do something very good there. The company still has some 3,000 retail shareholders, but as you can see from top shareholders here on the right-hand side, the majority of the company is owned by some 20 shareholders. Pretty stable list. We have one new there, Gåsemark Utvikling, who participated in the convertible loan. So apart from that, it's pretty... It's the same.
We have long-term shareholders that have supported us all the way through and will continue to support us. The company has a 5,000-ounce gold loan from U.S.-based investors, and we have now two convertible loans also that has a maturity of a two-year. So that's an overview on the shareholding and corporate structure. I'll leave you to read the small numbers here. You can also find this in our report. Income statements, really not much to say here. You can read this, but it's partly expenses related to consulting and accounting and audit, legal in Norway and Sweden, the operating expenses, and the remaining is general operating expenses related to the mining activities in Ethiopia. And the personnel cost is primarily salaries for fixed employees in all countries.
As you can see, the other interest income expense is a lot of FX adjustments on interest and convertible loans. So we have fluctuations in both US dollar, gold price, Norwegian krone, and Swedish krona. There's a good mix here, and this will go up and down depending on these fluctuations. The balance sheet, fixed assets, capitalized exploration costs in Ethiopia related to the mining, and again, the long-term debt is the 5,000 ounces gold loan and the convertible loan of SEK 22.5 million. The cash flow, you can see the operating activities relates to all entities. The investment part is related to Ethiopia. The cash flow here is a bit strange, of course, but it has to do with the fluctuation in gold loan, the gold price, the US dollar, and other FX-related matters.
And again, translation differences relates to the changes in foreign exchange values on bank deposits. And I think that that leaves us only the final part for a Q&A session. I did not receive anything on email or. So I have no questions here. Matt, do you see anything in the studio that is-
We've got two questions here.
Mm-hmm.
The first one is, with regards to trial mining, what's the difference between trial mining and, you know, real mining?
Yeah.
Okay, I guess I'll answer that one.
Yeah.
There is very little difference with well, in regards to the trial mining at Gingibil, because it's such a simple system. The ore, the quartz float, the material at the top is so loose and so shallow, that it only needs to be extracted with an excavator. At the moment, we see no need for even for any blasting. So the trial mining actually is very, very similar or almost the same as the actual genuine, real mining. We are not allowed to produce to produce revenue from the trial mining, because it's in the exploration license at the moment.
So the only real difference between trial mining and genuine mining is that we have to extend the mining license into the Gingibil area in order to turn it into revenue generation. So it's a pretty straightforward, simple system. So that's the difference between trial mining and real mining. Obviously, we would need more excavators, more trucks, but it's very simple. All these things are available in Ethiopia. And we're obviously already using them for the operations that we're doing now, for the foundations and the TSF and the mining operations. So that's the difference between trial mining and real mining. And there's one more question here. There's... I think it's a question that's asking to clarify the difference...
Sorry, to clarify the process that's needed for moving from 10 tonnes per hour to 20 tonnes per hour for the process plant. Yeah, I maybe should have talked about it a little bit more. So this is possible and in our strategic plan for towards the end of next year. So for example, when we operate in 10 tonnes per hour, we have four CIL tanks that are used for extracting the fine gold. The foundations are already in place for an additional two tanks that's needed for upgrading to 20 tonnes per hour. The crushing system is already big enough for 30 tonnes per hour, and we only need to put an extra mill onto the foundations.
So, if there is any questions about, you know, how complex it is to ramp up from 10 to 20, 20 to 30 tonnes per hour, it's a lot less complex. No extra foundations are needed, and it's a matter of putting in place the contract for sourcing the steelwork and the mill and so on, and extra piping, and then we already have a plant that can operate at double the capacity. So, there's a question here: When do you expect the plant to be ready to produce gold? So, we expect the commissioning to begin in the middle of the fourth quarter of this year, and then towards the end of the commissioning phase, we will be expecting to see any...
We will expect to see some of the first gold to be produced. But what I will say, of course, is that the pilot plant is ready to go. It's fully manned, it's fully operational, so when we hit the ore in the Western Winze, we will produce revenue from that straight away. And another question, do you expect the Joru license to be extended without any problems? Shall I answer this yet again?
Sure. It's
So, the Joru license, we have the right in our mining license, we have the right to extend that to any part of the exploration license as well. So Joru also is covered in the exploration license, so, you know, once we have the correct mining studies, we can apply for the license to be extended, and,
Yeah
... and we see no problems with that. We already have very good dialogue with the Ministry for Mines in order to get the permission for the extension to Gingibil, for example.
Yeah, I think I can add, Matt, that we're actually encouraged to do this as soon as possible also. So everyone is expecting us to file this very soon, and yeah, and get this incorporated into the mining license or to the mining license that we already have. So yeah, we don't foresee any issues with that at all.
And there's more questions coming in now, but the one we haven't answered is: What is your current best estimate of when you will hit the gold in Segele? One-two weeks, that's what we're expecting. And that's the end of the questions here.
Okay. Then, well, thank you everyone for tuning in and listening in. If there's anything else you wanna ask us about, please reach out to Matt or myself, and we'll try to explain the best possible. But yeah, I think that's it. Thank you everyone for listening in, and have a good day.