Welcome to Virtual Investor Conferences. My name is Scott Powell, President of Skyline Corporate Communications Group, LLC. On behalf of OTC Markets and Skyline Corporate Communications Group, we are very pleased that you have joined us for the third day of our Precious Metals & Critical Minerals Virtual Investor Conference. The first presentation of the day is from Novo Resources Corp. Please note, you may submit questions for the presenter at any time. You may also view the company's availability for one-on-one meetings by clicking "Book a Meeting." At this point, I am very pleased to welcome Mike Spreadborough, Executive Co-Chairman of Novo Resources, which trades on the OTCQB Venture Market under ticker symbol NSRPF, and trades on the TSX under ticker symbol NVO, as well as on the ASX, also ticker NVO. Welcome back, Mike.
Thank you very much, Scott, and thanks for that introduction. Everyone, today I am going to go through quite a detailed presentation. It does not cover everything that is in our corporate presentation, so I do suggest after this you get onto our website and have a look at the corporate presentation, but also the detail that you will see in all of our news releases. Thank you very much for joining us. To start off with, for people who do not know Novo Resources, we are a little bit unique. We are very much a greenfield explorer. We really are focused on Tier 1 projects across Australia in three of the states, Western Australia, Victoria, and New South Wales. We have a focus on gold and copper and antimony. As you have just heard, we are dual listed on the ASX and TSX, which provides good liquidity.
We have got a strong exploration portfolio, but we are continuing to grow that portfolio through acquisition. You will see our balance sheet on the right-hand side there. We have got about CAD 37 million in liquid investments, which is allowing us to look for other opportunities, CAD 8 million of cash in the bank, and we run at about market cap of around CAD 35 million. Our key, more advanced project is in Victoria, the southeast part of Australia. It has a large exploration target, Belltopper, 880,000 ounces, and we will definitely cover that in our discussions. In the Pilbara, we have some really exciting, great projects that we are working on, Wyloo, Teshman, and Egina, and we will cover all of those. Then there are some district scale projects that are really early stage or a little bit more advanced at Toolunga and Tibooburra.
We have a very, very large diversified exploration project for our portfolio. Well over 6,000 sq km of tenement across the three states. As I said, we have got a really strong balance sheet and a strong exploration portfolio. Our strategy is really two-pronged. We are really looking for that greenfield discovery that would result in a stand-alone business, copper, gold. Or we are using our balance sheet to look for advanced projects that we can take through to a decision to mine. So we are kind of running that two-pronged strategy that gives people a lot of optionality when you invest in Novo Resources. Both of those have clear market re-rating events, either through a discovery or if we do find a project and make an acquisition. We are in a very good position going forwards, supported by obviously the ASX and TSX listing.
We've got a strong board, made up of Quentin, who's a good geologist, Greg Jones, a geologist. Karen O'Neill has a great history in working in small caps with a finance background. Rohan is our GM Exploration, who's worked all over the world. I'm just going to jump back and see, I think I just missed a slide, so we'll just see if we can pick that up. There we are. As I said, we're listed on ASX and TSX. About two-thirds of our shares trade on the TSX. As I said, we've got CAD 8 million in the bank, and there's the investment portfolio. It's around CAD 37 million.
It is really made up with a private unlisted investment in San Cristobal Mine that does deliver dividends, and you can see some of the detail on the right-hand side that you can have a look on the website on the corporate presentation. It's really important to mention that that San Cristobal investment, even though it is unlisted, is quite liquid. We can draw down on that investment, which we have done over time to support our exploration profiles. As you can see with the register, we've got a very good register backed by Northern Star, very large mining company in Australia. Good family offices and also billionaire explorers in Australia like Mark Creasy. So we've got a great register with great support. Here's a map of Australia, for those that haven't seen where we operate.
Obviously on the left-hand side in Western Australia, Perth is our home base, which is where I'm talking to you from today. Really up there in the northwest part of Western Australia is the Pilbara, and that's really where our home is. So we'll talk about some of these projects as we move forwards in the presentation. On the right-hand side, you've got New South Wales. We've got the Tibooburra project, which is really exciting. Then we've got the Belltopper project that I've mentioned before, that has a very large exploration target. So we are diverse across Australia, focusing, again, predominantly on gold and copper. Some of the projects that we've explored have delineated or shown in assays good antimony results and also in some cases, some zinc. So here's our portfolio, and this is important to really understand.
On the left-hand side of this picture, you can see our greenfields projects. These are very greenfields projects. These are projects where we have used desktop studies to identify them. We've done geophysics, we've done soils, and we've built up a picture ready to go drilling. You'll see us drill on these projects in early 2025. Toolunga is the standout of those projects, and we'll talk about that. Next along, Wyloo and Egina are two projects where we have done drilling. We've done more work on the ground. You'll see us do more work, the rest of this year and moving into early stage next year for a follow-up drilling program. So these projects have advanced, and hopefully, we'll see good results that keeps pushing us forwards. We'll definitely talk about some of those as we go forwards.
A little bit more advanced, Belltopper with an exploration target, and Tibooburra has had a number of drilling campaigns. You will see us go back to Tibooburra to continue to try to delineate a resource. As you can see, project generation, that is exactly what we are after. We are looking for additional projects to balance out our portfolio and really provide a good diversified portfolio between greenfields, which has the discovery focus, and project generation, which we are looking for those projects we can develop. Across the board, there is a lot of speculative rerating potential across the board for investors in Novo Resources. Australia is a Tier 1 jurisdiction. I will not go through in detail, but you pick it up on the website. There is a large work program for the rest of this year, a possible couple of drilling programs, a continuation of soil.
The Pilbara gets very warm, so you will see us stop work at the end of November, and we will start up again in February, when the temperatures come off. We have about an eight-week hiatus over that Christmas, New Year period. There is also a cyclone-prone area, so that also impacts our work. Some good catalysts and news flow, and you will definitely see some project updates between now and heading into early December. Keep an eye out for those updates. Here is a picture of the Pilbara, which as I said, is our main home. We are going to talk about Toolunga, which is down here. We are going to talk about Wyloo, which is also down here, and we are going to talk about Egina, which is up here in the Pilbara.
As I said, we have about 5,000 sq km of tenement in the Pilbara across a number of different projects. They are definitely balance of risk. We move across between different projects as we complete one work program and we are waiting on assays. It allows us to continue to move across to other projects. Here is Wyloo. Wyloo is a classic Novo story. We built this story up from the ground floor. We identified the potential. It took us a couple of years to get approvals from both regulators and the traditional owners to be on the ground. We did a whole series of soil sampling, which identified targets. We then went in and did some drilling earlier this year. We have now been back to do some more soil samples, which you will see results coming forwards. On the basis of that, we will go back drilling in early 2027.
Wyloo has all the characteristics of a hydrothermal alteration system. We have still got a lot of work to hone in on the core of the system, but the area is known for having mineralization. Paulsens is a high-grade gold mine, underground gold mine, and Mount Clement is a very large antimony deposit. The region does have mineralization potential, but we really are building up a new story here. The potential here is for discovery as we do the next drilling programs or additional programs throughout 2027. Again, very large hydrothermal system. It has had one drill program, a lot of additional soils. You can see we are able to contour the soils, and on top of that, the drilling program. The drilling program definitely had all the characteristics in the assays of hydrothermal.
A very mixed bag of elements, but you can see there high stibnite levels around 3.55% in some of the soils. It really has that flavor that we will now build on from the 3,600 meters of drilling that we did early this year. Keep an eye out for Wyloo. We do like it. It sits very high in our priority to do work. As people know, hydrothermal systems can be really hard to nail down, and it will take a few drilling programs before we really understand the potential of this area. Egina is really important. If you look at this picture, you can see the Hemi deposit, which is 11 million ounces. That is now owned by Northern Star.
Northern Star paid AUD 5 billion for the De Grey Mining, and De Grey were the discoverers and the founders of Hemi and took that project all the way through to DFS. Northern Star will progress Hemi into development. We have had a large tenement package south of Hemi for a long time, over 1,000 sq km of tenure. We did early work in 2023 and 2024. That work came to the attention of De Grey. De Grey liked the fact that we were able to follow through and see the intrusions and also the sanukitoids. We did some air core drilling, and we are definitely seeing similar tenure to what De Grey saw at the early days of drilling around Hemi. We formed a joint venture with De Grey, which was taken over by Northern Star.
As noted here, and we have announced this, Northern Star have recently pulled out of the joint venture. You might think that is a negative, but for us both Northern Star and De Grey ended up spending AUD 8 million on exploration. We kind of moved forwards with a very extended exploration package and database, and we are in the middle of kind of reviewing that. More importantly, we have engaged people from De Grey, who is now helping us really understand the package. A little bit of detail here. You can grab it on the website, but the important message here is we are seeing similar geological environment with the intrusions coming through to our ground. We are busy reanalyzing all of that data, and we are kind of honing in on some targets, and you will see us come back next year to do some more work. I am really excited about that.
Definitely, early stage. It is under cover, so it makes it a bit tricky. We all need to remember, De Grey went from about an AUD 8 million market cap to AUD 5 billion through the discovery. Egina is definitely one of the top two priorities for us in the early stage of 2027, once we get through Aboriginal approvals to go and do drilling. Keep an eye out for that. We will do an update on our review of Egina by the end of the year. That will give people a good pathway going forwards. Kind of a little bit to the right of Egina is Teshman. We will not spend a lot of time on Teshman, but it is really a narrow vein system with high-grade rock samples. It is south of the Egina area.
We've seen really good results there, and we'll try to get drilling in here later this year, but it really depends on our kind of access and, as I said, the weather. If we don't get there this year, you'll see us drill Teshman as the first project in 2027 around about February. It's an exciting project. All the rock chip samples are extremely high grade, as you can see here. 77 grams, 51 grams. Very high grade. Really nice trends and this thing just needs to be drilled so we can understand its potential. Definitely doesn't sit as a priority for us, but we're now ready to drill and we're working with the traditional owners to allow us to go drilling. Toolunga is in parallel to Egina, our two priority projects for 2027. This is classic Novo work.
The team has built up 2,000 sq km of tenure across a range of areas where are 100% owned by us, but also joint venture. The next slide shows why we're interested in this ground. The three targets really get a high profile in geophysics. The area's had very, very small work. You can see there that Western Mining did some drilling back in the 90s, but it was only 90 meters deep. Very little work done as this area. We've now got a very good picture of the geophysics. We need to do some more soils to kind of hone in on the drilling program. Once we get approval and applications are completed, we'll go drilling next year. We see Toolunga as a very exciting prospect. It is an IOCG style system. Here's a bit more of a hone in on Lobster.
High magnetic complex, 4x 8 km, so by no means is it small. Western Mining had some kind of early-stage copper mineralization. All the elements are there for us to come in and follow up with drilling. Lobster, very good target. You can see the next one here. Einstein Bore, again, very good geophysics. You can see the 3D magnetic inversion, which is extremely exciting. Again, this project is very close to Whundo Range, which are historical copper mines. This project, again, is really one of those that says, "Hey, come and drill us, and let's see what we can develop out of this one." The final one, Minnie, has the same type of profile. A very good geophysics target. You can see the 3D TMI model there, really spiking.
Again, really has all the elements that the next stage is you have to go and do some drilling to really understand what's going on. We like Toolunga. It'll be a parallel priority for us for Egina. We just need to get approval and access to be able to do the drilling. I want to jump to Victoria. Belltopper is a very interesting project. For those that know Victoria, Belltopper is not too far from Fosterville, that's owned by Agnico. Very high-grade mine, produces hundreds of thousands of ounces of gold a year. To the right is Costerfield, which is the Mandalay operation, so that's owned by Alkane. Very much to the right is Southern Cross Gold and their Sunday Creek project, which is extremely high grade with a very large exploration target.
They are in the middle of constructing an exploration tunnel to continue the development of Sunday Creek. We are in a really exciting area. Belltopper is really driven by a high series of high-grade reef systems. On the southern portion of the reef systems, there has been historical mining, but our whole focus has been on the northern part of the system. You can see a cluster of reef systems, which we really think gives you the centroid of the potential going forwards. Just keep an eye there on the Leven Star on the right-hand side. I will explain what is going on there in a minute. This is a good picture of the drilling that we have done and the working underground and the high grades. Just jump to the next slide, and then we will come back.
We have done enough work at Belltopper to put out an exploration target. We did one in 2024, and we have now updated that earlier this year. The exploration target has a range of 460,000 ounces- 880,000 ounces. So very perspective, and it is only based on some of the reef systems in the northern part, not all of them. It really hones in on what we can put together based on our drilling. That is very, very exciting. Then what we have done is we have followed up with Leven Star. It is only one of the eight reef systems that made the exploration target, but it proves the concept that if we are able to drill these reefs, we can put an RPEEE resource around them and delineate a resource.
Whilst 87,000 ounces does not sound like a big resource, it really hones in on the concept that what we are seeing here at Belltopper has a great potential going forwards. We are busy evaluating our development options for Belltopper. Given its location, it is a very good position for underground mining. There are a lot of processing plants in the vicinity, so there is more potential. Victoria is really open for business. We have seen that with Southern Cross Gold, with their exploration tunnel. Really to kind of wrap up the presentation, we will talk a little bit about Tibooburra. Tibooburra is in New South Wales, way out in the northwest corner. It is very, very, very remote. It is about two hours drive north of Broken Hill, for those that understand the geography in that area. Why do we like Tibooburra?
Tibooburra has had a number of different people work the system, but at the end of the day, it is a 22-km -long reef system. Historical workings, new drilling programs, and we have done one drilling program at Clone. Our drilling program at Clone, as you can see there, delineated 12 meters at 5.9 grams per tonne and 17 meters at 2.4 grams per tonne gold. We have come in with a different approach. We have done a lot of soils, and we continue to do that, and you will see some of those results come out in the near future. We will go back to drilling here before Christmas. We are really trying to understand the whole geology and the mineralization system and really see if we can kind of crack the nut on exactly what is going on in Tibooburra. We see the potential for a significant mineralization here. It is just doing the work across that 23 km.
A lot of work's focused on the New Bendigo area. We've focused on Clone and also Pioneer, in the north. The next picture just shows you the drilling that we've done in Clone on the left-hand side. We did 1,700 meters of drilling there in the past. You can see that there's a plunging sheet system. It's open. We'll come back and go drilling between now and Christmas on this mineralization. On Pioneer, we've done a lot of surface work. Some really strong high-grade rock chips, and please go to the announcement. We will come back in 2027 and do a drilling program at Pioneer. We like Tibooburra, very long system.
We are farming in on a joint venture with Manhattan Corporation, and you'll see us continuing to slowly work on this system over 2027 to see if we can really understand the core of the mineralization and its potential. To kind of pull it all together, we are an ASX and TSX-listed company. We're very much focused on copper and gold. Really good experienced geological team who've worked all over the world. We are aggressive explorers, so you'll see good news flow between now and the rest of the year. You'll definitely see us push into 2027 with drilling programs. Definitely, Belltopper is more advanced. It's got the potential to move forward, so we're kind of working through how do we do that. Egina has a great potential. Hemi is very, very exciting. We've got the data from Northern Star, which we will pull apart.
As I said, what's really important is we've been able to employ as consultants some of the great people that were part of the discovery. You'll see before Christmas, us put out a very detailed update on that assessment and where we will go into targeting for 2027. Really, that Egina coming back to us with all that AUD 8 million worth of data is really a bonus for Novo shareholders. Great opportunity for us. Toolunga again, district-style project, really targeting on those IOCG geophysics at Wyloo, a hydrothermal polymetallic system. We've got some really kind of company-making projects that allow us to re-rate, and then obviously a very strong cash position. We've got illiquid investments, and that will allow us to head forwards and look at other acquisitions to provide other opportunities for re-rating.
Something we haven't mentioned, we do have a significant tax loss position, and that allows us to look at projects going forwards in Australia. I hope that really gives you a good overview. A couple of questions have come through, if I haven't picked it up. Belltopper, someone asked Belltopper. As I said, within 60 km, there's four different processing plants, from the larger ones from Agnico's operation at Fosterville, to smaller ones at Maldon with Kaiser Reef, and then you've also got Costerfield, and further out at Bendigo and Stawell. There's a lot of processing potential around Belltopper. Definitely in our internal thinking, we've never thought that Belltopper would need a processing plant. Someone talked about Teshman. Yeah, we really love to see the drilling program. I do need to caution people.
We have many times seen the Pilbara really strong rock samples and results. When we go drilling, they haven't been followed up. So, it's really exciting for Teshman, and we'll see where we get to that. Just going to jump back on a couple questions up the front here. I see, for those that followed the journey, we've slowly pulled down the Pilbara package to quality. There's definitely more ground that we'll divest or get rid of that doesn't add any flavor to us. But I think we've really got a strong package that if we can continue the work, 2027 will be really exciting with those projects. So I hope I've covered everyone's interest in the project. I always say that even in the markets as now, everyone should have a bit of investment in early-stage exploration.
We've got that chance with double re-rating of exploration discoveries early next year. On top of that, looking at projects to add to the portfolio. So thanks, everyone. Long distance from Australia, I hope everyone enjoyed that, and please keep up to date with a lot of news flow that will come out between now and Christmas. So thank you very much.