Investor conferences. On behalf of OTC Markets, we are very pleased you've joined us for the second day of our Precious Metals and Critical Minerals Conference. The next presentation is from First Mining Gold. Please note you may submit questions for the presenter in the box to the left of the slides. You can also view a company's availability for one-on-one meetings by clicking Book a Meeting.
At this point, I am very pleased to welcome Dan Wilton, Chief Executive Officer and Director of First Mining Gold, an OTCQX Best 50 company which trades under the symbol FFMGF and on TSX under the symbol FF. Welcome, Dan.
Lily, thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be back presenting to the audience here on this investor conference. It's started, I was remarking this morning, I think we started doing these with our friends at the OTC like pre-COVID. Before anyone did video conferences, we were still, the first few I did were sort of dial-up. It's a pleasure to be here.
We know we have so many of our great investors in the U.S. who follow this format. It's great to be here. I'm gonna make my way through a few forward-looking statements as we go here. We'll dive right into it. First Mining Gold, for those of you who aren't familiar with the story, we are advancing two of the largest undeveloped gold projects in Canada.
Our Springpole Gold Project is really one of the next to get its critical environmental assessment approvals. We're targeting that major milestone in the next couple of months. Our Duparquet project is actually larger than Springpole, a little bit behind in the permitting process, but we're making very good advances at Duparquet,
both in defining more resource as we continue to see that deposit grow, and starting to collect some of that very important long lead time data to move Duparquet into the permitting process as well in Quebec. We have a portfolio of other assets that continue to provide us with very good access to capital and financial leverage to this gold price environment.
We've got a great team pulled together here as we advance these projects through what are, you know, very complicated permitting processes in Canada. In the end, when we achieve those milestones of having those environmental assessment approvals at our projects, it is a major de-risking factor, and we think a major contributor to value and valuation re-rating for the company.
It just gives you a bit of a sense here of where our projects are, Springpole in northwestern Ontario and Duparquet in western Quebec. Those two other projects that we have, Pickle Crow, which is located in northwestern Ontario, about 150 km from Springpole. We just have brought on a new partner at Pickle Crow.
Bellavista Resources is a company that's just acquired FireFly Metals' interest in Pickle Crow. They've raised a bunch of money and are starting a very exciting work program there. Seva Mining, which holds the Cameron project that was one of our projects, I think actually the last major project that First Mining acquired. We've sold that project to Seva Mining, but retained almost 50% interest in the project or in the company there.
They put a great team together, raised a bunch of money, and started to move that project forward as well. Those two projects, you know, importantly provide us with some significant opportunity for ongoing capital appreciation.
You know, those other projects, over the last five years, I think we've done a pretty good job of actually managing those projects, and finding partners for those projects, managing to turn those projects into what's now almost CAD 90 million of cash that we've used to advance our projects here. You know, the market valuation of those two projects today would, I think, be in excess of CAD 60 million.
Very excited to see those continue to move forward. We've got a market cap today, Canadian dollars of a little bit more than CAD 600 million, you know, $450 million U.S. Cash on hand of around CAD 40 million as well. Still very well-funded to keep moving the project forward.
Strong shareholder base, growing institutional shareholder base, which is important for us, and think that's gonna be part of what really helps drive the project forward. Importantly, also management and directors significantly invested in this company. I am a significant shareholder of the company.
Our company's founder, Keith Neumeyer, who is a founder and Chief Executive Officer of First Majestic Silver, is actually, I think, still the largest single shareholder in the company and is buying shares in the market, you know, almost every quarter here. Great support, both from Keith and from First Majestic as well, who's become a larger shareholder by exercising some warrants.
The real opportunity as an investor looking at First Mining Gold today is that the market has not priced in or not given credit to or given us value for, these really, really important milestones that are, you know, like I say, within the next two or three months here. That really is getting through the federal environmental assessment approval. And we are moving forward and optimistic that we will get to agreements with Indigenous communities that we're working with around the projects as well.
The provincial environmental assessment is likely coming in that sort of next three months period as well. Significant milestones. You can see here First Mining Gold trades at, you know, a significant steep discount to where advanced developers are trading right now.
Not just where they're trading in the market, but we've had a couple of the larger development projects in the world acquired by bigger mining companies over the last, call it three or four months. Those have tended to be acquired at values in excess of CAD 300 an ounce, most of them CAD 400 or CAD 500 an ounce of value.
We think that with the environmental assessment approvals and as we move this project forward towards that construction decision, you see those multiples move from CAD 32 a lot closer to the CAD 300 value where our peers are trading and that 0.14x net asset value up closer to the 0.7x where advanced developers are trading.
Ultimately those, the valuations being driven by what we think is going to be a pretty robust M&A market for projects. We say that because we know that there is a real shortage of projects in Canada, large gold projects that can be built in the next five years. We know that because while governments are aiming to speed up permitting processes, you know, we are still years ahead of really the next projects that are coming down the pipe through the permitting process in Ontario.
When we look at this list, we think there's, you know, maybe 4 projects that you could see a shovel in the ground here before 2030 in Canada. We've got, you can see here, two of the 10 largest and very significant projects to be advanced.
Our Spring Pole project is the most advanced one. That's the one where we're on track for these environmental assessment approvals in the near term here. Just to give a sense of where the project is in Northwestern Ontario, it's about 100 km from the mining town of Red Lake, about 150 km from Pickle Lake. They've been mining in Red Lake and Pickle Lake for 100 years now, mining gold. It's a very significant and robust project.
That's when we talk about projects that are strategic. What is really strategic about Spring Pole is the potential for that project to produce more than 300,000 ounces a year. There are very few projects worldwide that can do that, and even fewer of those that have their environmental assessment approvals in hand.
You can see why we're so excited about the near term here. A big, robust project, based on our pre-feasibility study, which we updated in November of last year. Post-tax net present value in excess of CAD 2 billion and an IRR of 41%. A very, very significant project. You know, very low cost operation as well, all-in sustaining costs sub CAD 1,000.
Important to note that those all-in sustaining costs and cash costs that we're talking about here are done on a byproduct basis. The revenue split in Spring Pole, there is a significant silver component to it. It's about 5% of revenue. Those numbers are taking that revenue as a byproduct credit with silver at a CAD 35 silver price. Silver price is double that right now.
That has a significant benefit to the project overall. Really when you look at those costs, absolutely lowest quartile potential operating and all-in sustaining costs. It's a very attractive project in terms of the grade and longevity of this project. As you can see here, most of its year is producing 300,000 ounces a year. One of the reasons you want to be an investor today in projects like this is the leverage that a big project gives you to an increase in the gold price environment.
You can see here our base case on this project we did at a $3,100 gold price, which was basically the analyst long-term consensus price when we put the study out in November. Today, that consensus price is probably closer to $3,600 an ounce.
We ran 1 upside case here with CAD 4,200 gold, which was the spot price at the time that we put it out. You know, we're sitting today in excess of CAD 4,600 gold, but you can see the NPV is almost double. The IRR is massive and the payback comes down, you know, in some cases your pre-tax payback comes down to below one year. Exceptionally robust project for this gold price environment that we're in.
When we think about the valuation of the company, this is kind of how we frame it to ourselves and to investors. The net asset value per share, and this is really just looking at the studies that we've put out on our two projects on Spring Pole and Duparquet.
The Duparquet study, this is at a CAD 2,200 gold price, which was the upside sensitivity that we used in 2023 when we put that project out. It's amazing what a couple of years does. If you looked at that at something like a CAD 4,200 gold price, that number would be closer to CAD 3 billion. You know, I think we're talking about the sort of value per share here well north of CAD 5 at a CAD 4,200 gold price.
You can buy the shares today is about CAD 0.48, you know, mid-thirties U.S. Projects like this will tend to trade at, you know, when they have their permits, will tend to trade at that 0.5 to 0.7x NAV. Our peers are trading around 0.7x NAV.
You can see what that means in terms of of return potential, you know, from a CAD 0.45 level to an above CAD 3 level if you're trading at that 0.7x , and even more when you factor in that gold price, gold price leverage that you have with the Duparquet project as well. You know, I think important to understand about these projects, that leverage to the gold price is huge. Every CAD 100 in the gold price is CAD 230 million in fundamental net asset value. Also important to understand how advanced these projects are and where the risk is.
Both Springpole and Duparquet, exceptionally well drilled-out projects, very clear geologic understanding of these projects, and it leaves them, I think, in a position where on a risk-reward basis, if you're looking at, you know, the near term, and I think really genuinely near-term return potential here based on us hitting a couple of these milestones, versus the risk of these projects and where they are, yeah, they are not built yet.
We still need to raise the financing for them, still need to put them into production. I think you are being very well compensated for that risk at these levels. We'll just talk a little bit more about the projects here in the next few minutes, and then, we'll get to taking some questions. We can see a few questions stacking up here.
We've already talked about Springpole, where it is. Great place to be developing a project. A big part of the reason why these environmental assessment catalysts are so big for this project is really that the project has suffered forever from a perception issue around the fact that the deposit sits in the bay of a lake, and you need to build two dikes and dewater this basin of the lake in order to have the open pit mine. Forever, many investors were saying, "That sounds really hard.
I'm not sure if you're gonna be able to do that, and I'm willing to wait until you have your environmental assessment before I'm gonna really jump in." It's really that overhang here, and I think the, you know, the perception of the challenges with the community getting not just its environmental license but its social license as well. I think, you know, when I started here in 2019, there were a lot of unknowns about this project.
I think we have systematically continued to move, better understand those unknowns, you know, and continue to move down the path of, you know, particularly trying to move forward to agreements with the indigenous communities in the region, and continue to make very good progress on that front as well.
This is, you know, just remind the people watching today, we've been in this environmental assessment process since 2018. You know, we're now more than eight years in the EA process, but really at the tail end of that EA process here. Targeting that EA decision federally, kinda by the end of June, and provincially should follow shortly thereafter. After that, there's still more permitting work to do. There's still project, you know, optimization, detailed engineering, feasibility study.
There's some really important work that we need to do over the course of the next 18 months post EA approval to get the project ready for construction. The major permitting de-risking element here is that environmental assessment. Again, what we think here are pretty near-term opportunities.
I won't spend too much time talking about the project itself, just in the interest of time. You know, it is a pretty unique ore body. There's a lot of things in this ore body that mean that it's lower risk than a lot of other comparable projects. We do continue to think that there's a lot more mineralized material, even in the existing pit, as it's framed right now, that's going to continue to extend mine life. We have a 70,000 hectare land package around the project, lots of exploration potential.
We found gold deposits in a number of other areas. All need more work and more drilling, but we think in general this is a region where you're gonna be mining for a generation to come. We'll just quickly touch on Duparquet.
Important to understand this is one of the largest and one of the highest grade open pits left in Canada, an area of amazing infrastructure. We're located, you know, right in the middle of the Abitibi gold belts. We're half an hour from the city of Rouyn-Noranda, which has Canada's only copper smelter. We're an hour and a half from Timmins. We're an hour and a half from Val-d'Or.
This really, you can see here, more than 200 million ounces has been produced in the Abitibi. This is really the heartland of Canadian gold mining. Very, very well-located project. Past producer, this mine has produced 1.5 million ounces from the 1930s to the 1950s. Amazing infrastructure and a significant project. We had scoped this project to a preliminary economic assessment.
This is from 2023, with these numbers run at an $1,800 gold price. You know, we're more than double that gold price right now. It's a very attractive production profile. Major producer, more than 200,000 ounces a year. Importantly, again, that leverage to the gold price, every $100 on the gold price for this project is about $100 million U.S., about CAD 130 million of after-tax NPV.
You know, you stretch that 2,200 up to 4,200, you can see these numbers start getting very, very significant. An amazing project, a very well understood, very well drilled, and that's what's important to understand here. We've got more than 300,000 m of drilling over the 4 km of the strike. We're finding more gold in between these zones, on contact with these zones.
It really is an advanced stage project that we are looking to accelerate going through its own elements of the permitting process here. Important work going on at Duparquet this year, particularly with respect to environment. There is an environmental legacy in this project from the past production. It left 4 million tons of historic tailings, which contain gold, and we believe that we can process and recover the gold from.
And there's also some historic mine residues, which we are actively managing, and will be relocating this year. Very good environmental stewards of this project in moving it forward. We know that there's a lot more exploration success to come here, both along strike and at depth. We think that what we've shown in that PEA is really just literally scratching the surface.
This was mined from underground in the 1930s to the 1950s, we know that there is a real opportunity to see that continue to extend. With that, I'm gonna take a bit of a pause, and I'm gonna flip to some of the questions that have come in here. The top one here just says, "Given the media coverage around our drilling and Pickle Crow restructuring, are we starting to see more inbound interest from generalist institutions that previously ignored the name?" I think the answer to that is yes.
We're starting to see the investor base changing a bit, including, you know, with the increase in the share price and increase in size of the company.
We've been included in a couple of indices now. Really, it's only scratched the surface so far of what I would call dedicated long-term gold investors, who are the investors that hold most of our peers at values considerably higher than where we are now. Again, I think it's been a story that's been easy to ignore.
It's been easy to be skeptical around the ultimately around the permitting and community consent process at Springpole. You know, we don't have to wait much longer to get to those major catalysts. I think when we do, I think that's very important for us as a catalyst to drive and finally make sort of institutionally investable this stock.
I think is part of what contributes to that ultimate re-rating and acceleration of the share price gains here. It's just the transition of the shareholder base as we go from 23% institutional to 50%, 60%, 70% institutional, where a lot of our peers are. Lots of room to see the value ramp there and a natural investor base that's not invested right now. We're excited about that.
The next question says, "Dan, with your background in mining private equity and M&A, how is that deal-making experience shaping the way that we think about strategic options once Springpole's permitted?" I think that's a really important question. We are in an environment like I haven't seen in the 30 years of my career.
You know, been involved in raising billions of dollars of capital and sold projects for, you know, billions of dollars. Lots of projects that are at exactly the same stage we're at now, but sort of at the end of the last cycle. Most of those projects have been now put into production. We're starting to see the real benefit from some of those mines. I think we're in a position where you have a real shortage of projects, and on the other side, you have gold producers that have never generated more free cash flow ever in the history of the industry.
I saw a very interesting chart from Tavi Costa, who's an analyst and an investor I respect immensely, showing that the free cash flow from the top 25 precious metals producers is 7x higher than it was at the peak of the last cycle. There's a ton of cash in the industry. All of those companies spending record amounts of money on exploration and not finding nearly as much as they used to.
What that says is all of these producers need to demonstrate resource replacement, at least, if not resource growth. They've been reticent to take on permitting risk, and I think that's one of the things for us that with this EA, it really does open up that real strategic interest.
You know, I think there's a number of ways that that can work for us, but one way in particular would be potentially for us to bring on a partner to help us build the project at Springpole. Lots of those discussions that, you know, have been happening for a long time and will continue to happen. In the end, we're gonna do the best thing for the shareholders in terms of making sure that, you know, we're moving the project forward and in a position where, you know, we can advance it, and I think ultimately realize the best value that we can for the shareholders. I'll just go to another question here.
This question is that, "Keith Neumeyer, our Board Chair, has already helped build 2 multi-billion dollar producers in First Quantum and First Majestic. How is the board actively leveraging that track record as we move to a construction and financing phase at Springpole?" I think that's another really, really good question.
We are really blessed to have a couple of the First Majestic team, Raymond Polman, who's the former CFO of First Majestic, is on our board as well, who have gone through the acquisition and building and rationalization of a number of mines. We do really benefit from that relationship. We benefit from access to resources inside First Majestic that other groups obviously wouldn't have.
You know, I think for us, it's really, the real benefit has been, as we've gone through some very difficult years in attracting financing, we always knew that we had Keith and a lot of Keith's supporters who have been there to support us. It really is what has allowed us to get this project to, particularly at Springpole, and Duparquet for that matter, to where it is today, coming through a period where most developers had very, very little access to capital.
You know, we always knew that we would be supported, and have been supported, by a lot of those long-term shareholders, and we're delighted now that, you know, we've sort of some of those shareholders are seeing the light, those who, you know, helped finance us at CAD 0.12 and CAD 0.13 and CAD 0.18, where share price is now, you know, approaching the CAD 0.50 range.
It's been really having that, you know, confidence and the backing that's been so important to us getting these projects to, you know, to where they are now. Here's another question that's here. It says, "How are you thinking about sequencing?
If Springpole permits land cleanly by mid-2026, could Duparquet still leapfrog in terms of first production, given the existing infrastructure and permitting regime in Quebec? That's an excellent question, and one that obviously for the last couple years, we have been very, very focused on getting Springpole to the EA decision. We've been moving Duparquet forward, you know, concurrently. It's why we have accelerated what I'd say is some of the longer lead time baseline data collection.
We'd have liked to have done that work earlier, we just didn't have the funding to be able to do both at the same time, and the real priority was we needed to get Springpole to this EA decision. I think, you know, for us, the next stages in Springpole, there's still a pretty heavy lift between here and that construction decision.
Got our team gearing up. We're staffing up on the team to have the resources to be able to do that work. At the same time, having our environment team where, you know, they go from the EA process really to a focus onto the permitting process, which is, again, it's another 12 to 18 months just to get the sort of construction operating permits that you need. That's a, that's a huge process in and of itself.
A lot of our EA team, who's just taken, you know, they've taken another project through for six and half years before they joined us in 2020, that team with all of that EA experience is ready to pivot hard to Duparquet in Quebec, where you're right, it is a very, a very constructive permitting regime, and it's a great jurisdiction to be moving things forward.
We have a great project there. Yeah, I think in terms of sequencing, I don't think you'll see a leapfrog, but I think a Duparquet construction decision is actually not gonna be as far behind Springpole as a lot of people might think. Great projects, you know, still lots of work to do, but again, those key catalysts are really, really right around the corner here.
Just wanna thank everyone for joining us today. Just seeing that we're out of time. I think there's lots of avenues for us to continue to follow up. We've got the questions. Our team will follow up directly with the people who've asked the questions to, you know, continue to be able to get those questions answered. I think there's an opportunity to request meetings with us through this platform.
We look forward to connecting and really for a lot of our shareholders who are tuned in here, really genuinely appreciate the support that you've given us over the last few years and, you know, we're very much looking forward to what's coming in the next weeks and months here ahead of us.
Thanks again, and for more information, details there, website or you can always reach Paul Morris, our Director of IR, at paul@firstmininggold.com. Thanks very much.