Since June of this year, what have been your priorities?
Yeah, I think the transition's gone well. I think it was great to fill it internally within our company and also on the CFO side to have that as an internal fill, too.
Yeah.
With Michael McDonald stepping into that role.
Yeah.
I think overall it's gone well internally.
That's great.
As areas of focus, they're what we talked about, I think, at our AGM, and it's really, it's execution has been key for me. One is to deliver into the prepaids. We knew we had to be done with those by the end of June, so I'm pleased to say we have done that, and that frees up approximately 23,000 ounces a month that we can now sell and realize full value for. That's a big milestone for us.
I would say we used those to finance the build at Goose, so they had a purpose, but now it's good to have delivered into them. Second area of execution was at Fekola to get the Fekola Regional permit. That's been a long time coming, but we were very pleased to announce right in the middle of our Q2 earnings call that we'd received that permit.
That's a big step forward for our company.
Yeah.
Very positive for what we do at Fekola complex in total. Next area of focus, I think, is Goose. Obviously, we have to get the Goose crushing circuit remediated. There was some fire damage that we're also repairing, but to get that done, bring Goose up to steady state with approximately 300,000 ounce per year run rate in the near term or near to medium term actually, by the middle of next year. We're well on our way to doing that. The plan's working, I think. We'll be hosting an analyst visit up there leaving tomorrow.
Yeah.
Those are the key areas of focus. We talked about the AGM, but just also for me, from a market confidence perspective as well as just to reiterate our guidance for the year, both in terms of production and cost guidance, which we have been reiterating here at the conference.
Yeah. This is a fortuitous discussion because you did have an update on Monday. For those who didn't see it, the core two aspects of it were sort of the update on Goose and-
Right
the crushing circuit, and also a little bit on the exploration side. So for those who haven't seen it, please bring us up to date on what you were trying to tell us on that press release-
Sure
and how you were updating us.
Yeah. We are pleased. It is good news on both fronts, I think, for us.
Yeah.
We thought it was a very positive release. It would be nice to do it on a day when gold did not go down $200, but nonetheless, a positive release for our company. The first piece, we gave an update on the Goose crusher remediation, and we are well on our way there. When we built Goose, we tried to make the crushing circuit work as designed. Found it was not fit for purpose, it was not scaled big enough to do what we needed, so we knew we had to upgrade that. Unfortunately, we had a small fire in April, which also damaged a small part of the crushing circuit. So we came up with a plan to fix both the fire damage and remediate the circuit in two phases. Phase one to be completed by right about now.
By mid-October, we will have completed phase one work and commissioned it, and that includes bringing in a new jaw crusher, putting in some apron feeders, and a new ROM bin. Phase two is planned for Q2 next year, and there we are going to upsize the secondary and tertiary cone crusher system. Once we have done that, we think we can get Goose right up to that 300 or so, a steady state rate, crushing rate of 4,000 tons per day. We can feed the mill at 4,000 tons per day, and that will translate into 300,000 ounces per year.
As an intermediate step, we did put a mobile crusher in place. We brought one up to site in August, and we got that commissioned quite quickly, and that is able to get us to a 3,000 ton per day rate already today.
At the end of the phase one that I mentioned, we will be at 3,200 tons per day, and then, as I said, by the time we get phase two done, we will be at 4,000 tons per day. It is a plan that we worked hard on, we engineered, and I am pleased to say that when we take everyone up to site, they will see the progress that we have made.
Yeah. On exploration, obviously the Back River district is something that you're probably very, not only proud of, but it probably has lots of surprises to the upside in store over the next few years. Talk a little bit about that and how that fits into your plan.
Absolutely. The results we put out yesterday, I would say they cover two main areas. One was drilling at the Goose Mine itself, and the other area was the wider Back River district. At the Goose Mine, we reported some very positive infill results for underground areas at both Llama and at Goose Main. At Goose Main, we have Nuvuyak and a newly identified area, Tattuk. We reported good widths, good grades there. Then we also gave an update for drilling that we did at George out in the Back River district. What I'd say for the stuff that we did at Goose Mine, for Llama and Goose Main, what's really positive there is our reserve plan only has one underground area in it, and that's at Umwelt. That's the only one that's in the current reserve plan.
This infill drilling that we're doing at Llama and at Goose Main really lets us. We're very confident now, I think, that we can start to pull in some of what's in inferred into indicated and then put them into reserve mine plan. They're already in our internal operating mine plans, but not in our reserve plan. That's the sort of positive good news that we got from that element of drilling. This new Tattuk discovery, it's an extension of the iron formation that we saw. It's a new limb of that formation that we didn't know about before, but it was our interpretation of what we thought should happen. This drilling has really reinforced that and confirmed that interpretation. We're very pleased with that, and we think it bodes well for saying that that mineralization continues down plunge.
Yeah.
Just to comment on the Back River, the wider district stuff at George, we focused work there just to see if we can expand the known mineralization at George. We already have an indicated resource of 400,000 ounces, an inferred resource of 1.2 million ounces. Keen to see if we can expand that mineralization, our knowledge of that, then see if we can pull it together into new resource with a desktop mine study.
Yeah.
Really identify, is there an open pit mining opportunity or is it underground? Can we think about applying for a permit then and starting to plan to bring it into our bigger sort of operations, both at Goose and in the district as a whole?
Yeah. Congrats. A milestone Fekola Regional permit. Tell us what the production outlook looks like over the next several years. Then I sort of have a follow-up question on, can you sort of help us reconcile how some of the workings around the geopolitical situation can be decoupled from the operational realities of what the mining operations are actually looking like?
Sure. First of all, very pleased to get the regional permit. It was quite a long time coming, but now we've received it. What we've done at Q2, we took regional, any production from regional out of our guidance for 2026, and that was in recognition that although we've received the permit early August, you still got to go through the administrative steps of setting up the mining company, transferring in the mining license in there, transferring your exploration costs in there. That's in progress and with a goal that we may be able to start stripping later this year, but certainly next year to start stripping activities and mining activities at Regional. We will remind everyone, as we've been doing here, that it will be a ramp-up year for Regional.
Once we get to full steady state, there I think we can achieve somewhere in the region of 150,000 ounces on average per year. But when you look at in the context of a ramp-up year next year, you probably got to look at somewhere that's closer to half that amount.
Got you.
That's the contribution that I think we'll see.
Yeah.
On a bigger picture, I think it's apparent it took a while to get this permit, but we've had a constant dialogue with the state all the way through. If you look at what's happened there, you had the new Mining Code 2023 that came in. Obviously, all the companies and the government entered into their agreements or new agreements as they may be to comply with that Mining Code.
That took a while, and the government also put in some levels of oversight that were new, including the new mining commission. So I think it was apparent in the last visit that I had there just before the quarter that they feel comfortable now that they've moved forward there. They've got the oversight they wanted, they've restructured the way they wanted to, and now it's time to move the industry forward.
We were the first major permit under the 2023 Mining Code, but I know there's already been some exploration permit renewals issued as well. So you can see that mining's very important to the economy. To your point, mining has proceeded uninhibited almost, I think, throughout everything that's happened in the country, including when they had a coup, when COVID was there, and in some of the recent activities. So mining's an important pillar of the economy there for state revenues. If you look at where the mining belt is down in that southwestern corner of the country.
Yeah
I don't think anyone's missed a day through any kind of activity there. The industry's managed to keep a solid footing and continue on.
What's the best way to maintain dialogue with the government, and how do you do that on an ongoing basis to the point where you would consider the strong relationship having continuity?
I think it has to be constant.
Yeah.
From our point of view, we've been there since 2014, visited the country many times. You need to have strong local leadership, people who are tied in-
Yeah
understand the country, understand the mining industry, so we have that. We have a great local team, both at site and at our corporate office in Bamako. You have also got to maintain a constant dialogue. There has to be a level of trust. That is the same with any state where you operate. There has to be a two-way trust. What I have always found is you go there, you do not always want to go there and ask for something. It is also good just to go and explain what you are doing and give an update, and through that sort of constant dialogue and knowing the individuals who operate there, you can operate successfully.
Yeah. Mike, let us switch to Masbate, Otjikoto, two sort of more of the smaller assets in the portfolio. To what extent do you think that those assets are not only underappreciated, but maybe the market may be missing?
Sure. Well, let us start with Otjikoto. I think there is lots of upside at Otjikoto. As we previously reported, we have the Antelope discovery that we are currently developing and with the goal of that is going to come into the mine plan in early, or sorry, in late 2028, and it will contribute an average in the current study that we have of approximately 65,000 ounces a year for five years.
The good news is since that study was done, we have actually expanded the resource. We have increased it by 50% already, and we continue to explore. It is open along strike in both directions. So we are very optimistic about what we might find there to extend that underground resource. What it needs in order to fill the mill is a low-grade feed that you can blend it with.
Currently, we are feeding material from the Otjikoto stockpiles to do that, but that is the constraining factor because those low-grade stockpiles will see us through the current Antelope life, but if we increase it significantly, we do not have any more material in those stockpiles. What we see the upside as is a pushback of the Otjikoto pit, the open pit there, the east wall. We had ceased mining operations there last year, but now we see that there is certainly potential to take maybe up to at least close to half a million low-grade ounces out of there. Now, they will be low grade. We are talking about a cutoff of somewhere around 0.6 grams per ton. The beauty of those ounces is it lets you extend your activity at Antelope. It extends that life.
It won't necessarily increase what we think we might do in terms of production annually. It'll be somewhere north of 100,000 ounces a year, but it will push out the number of years that it covers significantly. That's great upside for us
Yep
in that jurisdiction, and as I think anyone that we talk to knows, we think that is a great jurisdiction to operate in. It's probably our lowest maintenance jurisdiction. It's got a regulatory framework that works, a taxation system that works, and very good people that operate there. Lots of upside that we see at Otjikoto, and we'll keep you informed as we move our plans forward for the open pit pushback.
Then at Masbate also has significant upside. It's the little engine that could, Masbate. It's our most consistent producer. In its current open pit mining phase, it's producing 180,000 ounces plus a year. Very consistent across the quarters, great cost structure. Again, a great well-educated workforce that have done a great job over a lot of years to keep that mine running. And we have done expansions there before.
We've done pushbacks already, and we've done some resettlement to accommodate that. It's quite a tight footprint at Masbate between the mining operations and the local community, but it's operated very well, and we've gotten on well together over many years. What we see there is, with not a significant increase in gold prices on $3,000 plus, there's definitely potential to push back a number of the open pits that we have there and bring some satellite deposits in. But there's still more work to be done there. There's still more study work to be done as to what we need to do in terms of engineering. There's some infill drilling that we need to do in some of the current inferred resources that are there.
We have to think about the permit timing process and how they'd interact, and there's probably a tailings TSF facility uplift that we need to do to accommodate it. We're working on that. That's going to take us into at least mid next year before we have a more definitive view as to what we want to do there. But there is certainly potential there.
Yeah.
In the country in general, I would say for the Philippines, we made a decision a few years ago now to actually pursue new greenfield opportunities. We created a new exploration company, and we've spent the last three years looking around all across the whole island group for potential business. I think that under President Marcos, for sure, they are very open to business and foreign mining investment.
Yeah. Mike, you've built this great mine building team, Bill Lytle sort of being key to that. Sometimes I refer to it as sort of the First Quantum of sort of the small senior gold producers, also a great mine builder. How important is it to keep them busy? Are they focused on Gramalote next for them? Or is now the time for B2Gold to start looking sort of more for inorganic growth opportunities outside the firm?
It's a combination, I think. The mine team is busy. We're busy doing a pushback at Fekola right now, phase 8. That's significant. We're busy remediating Goose right now. Some of the core team are actually down in Gramalote too as well, just moving that project forward. So they are busy. You don't need a very large in-house mining team to have an in-house mining team. You just have to have a few core members that can bring the people they need when they need them when you do have a major construction project. So I would say it is still part of our secret sauce.
Yep.
Same team built, if you look back, Kupol.
Yep
Libertad.
Yep.
Otjikoto, Fekola. Same team worked up at Goose as we moved that forward. They're around. They've morphed a little over the years. We've brought new people forward. It's still a core part of our business. We've been proud of the fact that we've built our own mines and own that process. That's part of who we are and our DNA.
Yep.
We'll continue to move opportunities forward. We're interested. Gramalote, we're de-risking that as we go forward there. We're modifying the permits there. We're doing the resettlement. All with a view to pushing that out into the middle of next year. That's when we really get to a decision point. That's core for me, because if you circle back to what I started with, is the execution points. We want to make sure that we do have Goose up and running properly at full steady state capacity, and we want to make sure that we've advanced Fekola.
Yeah.
That we're seeing the cash flow that we see coming in our business.
Yeah.
We're at a major inflection point in our business now. We've done the investment over a number of years, and now we're in cash flow mode.
Well, that's a great way to almost sort of segue into the final questions, which is you bought $172 million worth of shares, right? Capital allocation strategy is the next question, is sort of where do you go from here, and what feeds that capital allocation decision when that cash flow inflection comes?
Success at Goose, success at Fekola. We're entering into some very significant cash flow years there, and I think you can see it in all of our studies.
Yeah.
If you look at our other, Masbate is a phenomenal cash flow generating asset, even though it's a small asset. Otjikoto's been very significant over the years, but it's in a sort of interim phase now before it moves into the Antelope production phase.
Yep
Primarily it'll be the three assets that will be generating significant cash flows for us. The approach we've taken is a three-tiered approach to capital allocation. One is to continue to grow and strengthen our core business, so it may be these pushbacks that we're talking about at Otjikoto and Antelope development. It will be making sure that we get the phase eight done at Fekola.
Yep.
to then to strengthen our balance sheet. We delivered out of the prepaids now. We do have some collars left from the last revolver renewal, but we will have delivered into those by the end or early January next year, and then very strong balance sheet. We will be undrawn on a revolver in great shape. Then we are really with a focus to what do we do with the remainder, and that is to return to shareholders. If you look at what we have done this year already, between the buyback program and dividends, we have already returned twice as much in six months in 2026 than we did in the whole of 2025. That is something that we will continue to do. We are committed to the dividend program, and we will remain committed to the buyback program.
There is no preset formula in terms of a percentage of free cash flow, but we have been opportunistic. We believe our own story and the valuation of our share price, that we definitely are due for a re-rate. In our minds, there is no better way to use that excess cash than to buy back some of those shares.
Great. We have got about a minute left for questions if anyone would like to log in. Mike, it is going to be my privilege with some of my colleagues in the audience to visit the site over the next few days. What are you hoping are going to be the key takeaways for us?
I think you will go up and you will see how much we have advanced since the last site visit. I think the key takeaway as well will be we had a plan to remediate what we are doing. We have communicated that plan, and you will be able to see the physical evidence that that plan is advancing. I think you will be impressed by the areas of development, the open pit and the underground that you can see at both Umwelt and Llama. We are very happy to showcase this asset.
Great.
It's in a remote part of the world, but it's built to the normal high B2 standards.
Looking forward to it. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in thanking Mike for his fireside chat. All right.
All right. Thanks very much.
Appreciate it. Thanks.
Appreciate it.
Great job