I am from The Nuvo Group. We specialize in SEC filing services and financial printing solutions for pre-public and publicly traded companies. We have Amaroq, which trades on OTCQX Market under the symbol AMRQF, and on the LSE under the symbol AMRQ. Please welcome Ellert Arnarson, CFO, and Edward Westropp, Chief Corporate Development and Strategy Officer. Time starts now.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Thank you very much, Shelby. We'll introduce ourselves. We're from Amaroq Ltd. I'm Ed Westropp, the Chief Corporate Development and Strategy Officer. This is Ellert Arnarson, our CFO. We're going to take you briefly through the business. If I take you to the first slide. Amaroq is entirely Greenland focused. We're the largest license holder in Greenland. We're probably the largest private employer and certainly last year, the largest private investor in Greenland given the CapEx that we spent. The portfolio is centered around two hubs, the South Greenland Hub and the West Greenland Hub. The South Greenland Hub is centered around the Nalunaq operating gold mine. This is our flagship gold mine operating post commissioning last year. This is the first full year of production operations from that mine. That was a previously operated mine that we restarted and recommissioned and grew through exploration.
That will be producing 25,000 oz to 35,000 oz in 2026. One of the characteristics of the Nalunaq mine is grade. The latest MRE, MRE4, had it at 30 g/ton and about 500,000 oz. We like to keep things simple, and in the West Greenland Hub, again, we have the Black Angel mine. This is a zinc, lead, silver mine previously operated, we acquired last year. We'll be doing exactly the same thing that we did at Nalunaq, bringing that back on stream through exploration. [audio distortion] I'll do that. Okay, that's fine. Got this. No worries at all. The Black Angel mine, again, a cookie cutter of the Nalunaq mine, a previously operated mine, which we'll be restarting and through exploration, growing. The other sort of elements of the portfolio that we call are our enablers are operating in Greenland is incredibly difficult.
It's remote, there's no grid, there's very little roads, and there's not much infrastructure. We've had to go upstream into the provision of services and energy. We have these two businesses that are wholly owned subsidiaries of ours called Suliaq and Imeq that own mining equipment and energy provision in hydro. Business was founded about 11 years ago by Eldur Ólafsson, who's the Chief Executive, listed on, as [audio distortion] said, listed in London and on Nasdaq Iceland. We have quite a differentiated shareholder base. If you look at this slide here, given our listing in Iceland, we've got about 20% of our shares in issue are held by Icelandic pension funds long-onlys. About 11% are held by strategic investors, and in this case, it's the state, the sovereign fund of Denmark called IFU, and the industry's pension fund there as well.
Denmark is about 11%, the board owns about 11%, and the rest are majority institutional investors. We'll take you to the next slide. This one, when I talked about the South and West Greenland hubs, this is where we're operating. Down in the south, South Greenland hub, we're circulated around the Nalunaq Gold Mine in the very, very far south there. The significance of the South Greenland hub is that we have the entirety of something called the Nanortalik Gold Belt. This is a gold belt that stretches from west to east, and we have all the licenses in that gold belt. Obviously the Nalunaq Gold Mine being the sort of centerpiece of that, and then we have the running room and the exploration running around that, to then grow that to a more district-scale type of opportunity.
In relation to that, we have the Nanoq Future Gold Project, which is there on the East Coast where we will be doing further exploration drilling this year, having done 5,000 m of drilling last year, and intersecting very good grades. The West Greenland Hub up to the northwest there is centered around that Black Angel zinc, lead, silver mine. Very similar, trying to create a district-scale opportunity centered around a previously operated mine. Another theme in Greenland is grade. The grades for the zinc, lead, silver at Black Angel are incredibly high. We've got the big exploration upside in the Kangerluarsuk license there as well. We can talk a bit more about that as we go through the deck. To many of you metal and mining investors, this will be a very familiar type of slide, this is how we see our growth strategy.
We're trying to create a balanced portfolio. Amaroq can be seen as the proxy for Greenland. There's massive resource opportunity in Greenland, and Amaroq was set up specifically to unlock that. This is the strategy to do that. You can see across the spectrum of exploration, production, and development, we have projects at each of those stages. Those enablers I talked about, we're using to narrow that discount to the valuation. On the far left, you've got all of our exploration opportunities which we'll be drilling this year. As you go through the value curve, the projects at different stages of their maturity. Clearly, as I just discussed, you've got the Black Angel mine, the restart there, the Nalunaq Gold Mine top right, which is producing.
There's a Phase 2 and potentially a Phase 3 of further production enhancement at the Nalunaq Gold Mine. I'm going to hand over to Ellert now, who's going to take you through some of the financial highlights and operational highlights. We just had our first quarter results last week.
I'll start with some key highlights from Q1. We delivered a strong operational quarter at Nalunaq, producing close to 3,700 oz at nearly 20 g/ton . As I said, quite high recoveries for 61% in line with expectations, and Phase 2 flotation commissioning remains on track for Q2. As a reminder, that is the circuit that will take recoveries from 60% to about 94%. On the permitting side, we completed the IBA in January and received approval of the final mine plan in March, removing key permitting milestones at Nalunaq. Within the wider portfolio on the bottom left there, we also announced encouraging results from the highly prospective Minturn license that's within the Gardaq Critical Minerals joint venture we have, including high-grade iron ore mineralization.
On financing, we expanded our RCF at the end of April, which materially strengthens our working capital going into the 2026 field season. In February, we issued the guidance you see on the table there on the left. After Q1, that guidance is reiterated, remains unchanged. The operational focus this year continues to be on ramping up and stabilizing operations at Nalunaq. Q1 performance being in line with or ahead of expectations is particularly from a grade perspective. You will see on the lower table there, we had guided grades in the range of 14 g/ton- 15 g/ton , but ended up at nearly 20 g/ton , so we're in a good position to reach that H1 guidance of 7,000 oz to 10,000 oz produced. Costs and CapEx are also continued to track in line with plan.
As a reminder for Nalunaq per se, we have constructed a 300 tons per day processing facility there. Phase 1, which is the gravity circuit, has already been commissioned, which produces Doré bars at a recovery of ±60%. The flotation circuit will be finalized in Q2, which will produce float con, that will take total recoveries up to ±94%. That is being finalized this and next month and will then be commissioned, we are quite close to being fully complete with our processing plant construction, which will make this year a watershed year for Amaroq. We also have further plans of expanding that throughput, that 300 tons per day throughput, which should give us a range of 40,000 oz-50,000 oz production per year, expanding that by 50% to 450 tons per day.
We're conducting these studies now, and that will allow us to leverage on the fixed infrastructure and asset base at Nalunaq, without much further variable costs. I'd like to touch a little bit more on the AISC, or all-in sustaining cost at Nalunaq. That is expected to reduce, you'll see on the top right graph there, progressively as production ramps up, recoveries improve, and operational efficiencies are realized. By year-end, we are guiding AISC in the range of $1,250-$1,450 per ounce. On the cost structure, it's largely labor driven, as you'll see on the lower end right-hand graph there, which may be a bit different from some other mines you will see.
Approximately 60% of operating costs are related to salaries, contractors, and travel. That is largely reflecting the realities of operating in a remote Arctic environment with limited infrastructure and service providers in place. Importantly for us, much of this org chart and infrastructure base is already in place now. The number of people required to operate the business doesn't increase proportionally with throughput. That creates a significant operating leverage for us as production ramps up. Energy accounts for approximately 10% of the cost base. A major focus throughout this year will be on productivity and cost optimization. That links directly into how we think about capital allocation throughout the business. We view capital allocation across three core areas of value creation, going from left to right on the slide, it's short, medium, and then longer term value creation.
The first area which I've touched upon is optimization. Continuing to improve efficiency, Nalunaq being the main focus point there, lowering unit costs. That includes transitioning the workforce from contractors to owner operators. That reduces cost. We transitioned from a mining contractor in Q4 of last year, to insourced operations, and we were able to reduce mining costs by 25%. Even more importantly, it gave us significant greater operational control and flexibility, which is particularly important in Greenland. We're also focused on optimizing logistics through longer term contracts and, without touching on all the points there, also infrastructure investments, by, for instance, investing in a larger fuel farm or larger fuel shipments and hydropower initiatives, as well to save on diesel fuel costs and handling, et cetera. The second area in the middle is Nalunaq itself. The focus there is on increasing throughput and maximizing operating leverage.
There is significant scalability within the existing infrastructure. Operating a 450 tons per day plant does not require a proportionate increase in workforce compared to a 300 tons per day operation. As I mentioned earlier, we've already commenced this study work. The third area to the right, that is the wider portfolio we have in Greenland, which Ed will touch upon in more detail later in the presentation. Systematically advancing our projects such as Black Angel, Nalunaq, Qaarsu, and the broader license package. Our approach from a capital allocation perspective there that is mainly value focused. We require capital to translate into measurable de-risking of projects, and ultimately progress them along the Lassonde curve to enhance their value. The key strategic assets we have there are Black Angel with its existing infrastructure, Nalunaq as a high-grade gold growth opportunity with district-scale optionality.
I'll hand it over to Ed again to review the exploration plans for the year.
Thanks, El. Thanks. Thanks very much. As El alluded to, as well as the efforts on the finalizing of the development and commissioning of the Nalunaq mine, now we have a year of full run rate on that. 2026, we'll also be very busy with the exploration drill bit across the whole portfolio. I think what you're seeing from Amaroq now is the strategy coming to fruition. The strategy that was put in place 11 years ago was to get a cash flowing high-grade mine restarted to provide the cash flow to then go out and unlock a lot of that massive resource potential you have in Greenland. This year specifically, you could see these as the catalyst for us.
At Nalunaq itself, we continue to underground exploration, and high-grading there, and getting more and more knowledge of the ore body and the future drilling programs there. Nanoq, which is this future gold project we talked about, the Chief Executive, Eldur, talked about this as a world-class potential. This will be the third drilling season on it. We hope to end the year with a maiden mineral resource that has the potential to be multi-million-ounce resource here, and significantly very close to shore and very close to surface. We're really excited about that. We have three rigs drilling on that, and that should be kicking off in later in the summer, the seasonal drilling window.
We'll also be doing further exploration across that in the Nanortalik Gold Belt that I mentioned on the satellite gold deposits, and continuing to de-risk those with the potential to then hopefully do some drilling on them next year. Outside of the gold portfolio, we have a large critical metals asset portfolio. Black Angel is the linchpin for this, and we, having acquired it last year, will be spending a lot of time this year back there reopening, refurbishing the facilities there. It already has a deep water port, it already has the export route through a cable car system. That should then end the year with far more understanding of the phased approach to restart. We hope to also put some holes in there this year as well on some of the big high impact exploration targets. One that we haven't talked about yet is Minturn.
This is a large iron ore play that El briefly mentioned, but we haven't gone into much detail on. This is a large iron ore prospect, a potential IOCG prospect, an iron ore copper gold prospect in the very far north. Significantly, again, with Greenland, it's very high grade in the surface and the aero mag and the EM that we've done on it. We will be scout drilling on that. That will be kicking off probably in July, August. Again, news flow coming out of that, which could be very impactful, so to speak, as the initial studies indicate it could be. The most near term is Ilua, which is our rare earth exploration target. We did a lot of surface sampling and geophysics last year.
We'll be taking the rig up there in the next three weeks to start drilling on that. That's a large conventional pegmatite based rare earth, which includes heavy rare earth. Again, very close to shore. Logistically to commercialize it, well, we'll see, but it could be quite simple, we hope. We've also got a large copper nickel play called Stendalen, which we'll be doing further work on. A really exciting and very busy year for us with the drill bit. Each of those will be coming out with news flow as the year progresses. The other significant thing that we're going to be doing hopefully over the summer, and work is underway on this already, is we're moving up to the main market of the London Stock Exchange.
We are going from the Alternative Investment Market, which is the junior market in London, to the main market in London. This will provide further liquidity, scale, and access to a much larger shareholder base, including North American institutions who prefer the main market to the AIM market. We are at the size and market cap now where we will then go, at current market capitalization, into the FTSE 250, which is the 250 largest companies in London, which will include indexation. That will have hopefully a good catalytic effect and also give us much bigger access to the shareholder base in London. We have Citigroup, Citibank helping us as a sponsor through that, and work is very busy underway on that with respect to this. As part of that, there will be an updated CPR being published. I think this is the sort of summary side for us.
Clearly, the strategy for Amaroq is to unlock a multi-asset opportunity throughout Greenland. We are the largest license holder there. We're the largest private employer. We are the platform for access to Greenland's mineral resource opportunity. On an unrisk basis, there's huge potential in terms of value that can come out of the drill bit. Just in Nalunaq alone, there's 2 million ounce upside exploration there, which we've already got the infrastructure in place to de-risk. Going back to that Lassonde curve, you can clearly see moving projects through that curve. We've now got two development assets, which we'll be going to be progressing over the next two to three years. Leveraging that sort of consolidated platform we've created through these enablers that we talked about with hydro and the services company that we also own. A very exciting year for us.
Started well in the first quarter. All in line with our guidance. We'll be putting our second quarter, first half results out over the summer. Please look out for that. Thanks very much.
All right. We got some time for Q&A.
[audio distortion] Spartan Capital. The preferred way you're going to expand your resources is not going to be the copper credits?
So, in terms of-
Ways of expanding your resources.
Sure.
I'm trying to figure out which way you're really looking to focus your efforts.
There's two. There's the expansion across the Nanortalik Gold Belt. That's the Nalunaq Gold Mine, leveraging that infrastructure with the Nanoq Future Gold Project that we're doing resource building on this year.
Exactly.
Then the second sort of nearer term development in terms of accessing resource and commercializing resources, the Black Angel mine. The thing I didn't mention on the Black Angel mine is the germanium and gallium that's also within the mineralization there. Clearly that has interesting strategic commercial angle for the offtake discussions that we'll be having this year on that. That's the Nanoq Future Gold Project.
Yeah, exactly.
The Black Angel mine is the old producing zinc, lead, silver mine. Very high grade. We will be restarting a phased approach. Phase 1, which has already got a mineral resource from it and a feasibility study.
Exploring at the same time to then grow a much larger resource, and at the same time, look at how we can commercialize that high-grade germanium.
Got you.
At Nanoq, the Nanoq Future Gold Project, all of our rigs are winterized. They are being spooled out as we speak, and there's three rigs on site already. This year we will probably be doing a bit of civil work as well to build the road access and the small port to enable future drilling there.
Any other questions from the audience here before we move to the online crowd? All right. All right, gentlemen, we got a number of questions. Although I know we're going to be short on time, so we'll get through some of them. At least one or two. I guess the first question is, you present a clear playbook of replicating Nalunaq at Black Angel and then Kangerluarsuk. What's the realistic timeline to having two producing hubs in Greenland contributing meaningful cash flow?
That's what the work this year is going to be determining. On initial suggestions, and if the work goes well at Black Angel this year, then we could be starting to commercialize Phase 1 in 2028. Again, that is a relatively small resource, 4 million tons, and practically speaking, that is the old pillars, very high grade pillars in the mine. You will be restarting by extracting those and probably direct ore shipping in that case, while backfilling with the marbles to then reenter the mine. Phase 2, which would be the sort of 2031 onwards Phase 2.
Great. I've got time for one more. Given your growing presence across gold base metals and critical minerals in Greenland, are you seeing an increased inbound interest from majors or strategics looking to partner on large scale opportunities?
In short, yes. I would caveat that with, we've built up a second to none operating experience and operating team that we are not keen to let go yet. We've got a long way to go and a lot of value to grow here. Clearly some of these, for example, the large IOCG, mid-term prospects, having majors coming to talk to us about that is interesting. We'll see. That's why this year is so critical to unlock a lot of that opportunity.
Thank you very much. I think that is it for today.
Thank you.