Recording in progress.
We are South Africa, Zimbabwe, and we've had some technical sort of problems. So if it's okay with you, and it might seem quite rude, we're not gonna be sharing video on video. So you won't be able to see us because we found that that was sort of impairing the audio quality. So I'm sorry about that. If I could just introduce colleagues who's on the call, Victor is an Executive Director. Victor, could you introduce yourself, please?
Thank you, Mark. I'm Victor Gapare. I'm an Executive Director of Caledonia. I used to work for Anglo American Corporation, and then we bought the Bilboes project, which we subsequently developed into a feasibility study and which was then bought by Caledonia.
Thank you. Also, for the first time on one of these calls, can I also introduce James Mufara, who joined us as Chief Operating Officer with effect from the first of May. Clearly, James has had little to do with the PEA because he's been with us only for a very brief period of time, but clearly, he'll have more to do with it as we go forward. But I just think it's appropriate, given the nature of this conversation, for James to be on the call and for James to introduce himself. So James, could you just say a few words about yourself?
Thanks, Mark. Good day. My name is James Mufara. I obviously joined from Harmony Gold Mine. I was the regional general manager in charge of the Free State operations. Harmony, obviously, a 1.5 million ounce producer, $5.8 million market cap company. I was running the five operations in the Free State, which is 450,000 ounces. Before I joined, obviously, a month and a half ago, so I'm glad to join this call as well. Thank you.
Thank you, James. Somewhat unusually, the regulatory context in which we've prepared this PEA is quite complex. You know, reconciling Canadian rules, U.S. rules, and the limitations that brings, compared to what we'd actually like to say commercially. So if we find ourselves getting into deep water, I've got Adam Chester, who is our General Counsel, on the call as well. Adam, could you just introduce yourself?
Good afternoon. Thank you, Mark. Yes, I'm the general counsel, company secretary and head of risk and compliance. Been at Caledonia for seven years, and I head up the legal and secretarial team. So look after any kind of regulatory legal and regulatory issues, and I'm on hand, as Mark said, to answer any questions on that side of things.
Good. Thank you. But also, we've got Craig Harvey from Johannesburg. He's the Vice President, Technical Services. So to the extent we start veering into complex discussions about technical stuff, Craig is on hand to provide assistance. Craig, just, introduce yourself, please.
Good afternoon, all. Yes, so thanks, thanks, Mark. My name is Craig. Worked extensively on the S.A. deep, deep level gold mines. Consulted out of Australia for a couple of years. Heavily involved in Pickstone-Peerless in Zimbabwe. That's open pit operation when that started. And, yeah, I've had a lot of open pit and underground experience.
Good. Thank you, Craig. And then last but not least, we've got Simba Chimedza, who is our group technical manager, and he's the guy who's been actually most closely involved in the development of this project over many years. Simba's currently based somewhere in Zimbabwe. I'm not quite sure where. Simba, could you just introduce yourself briefly, please?
Thank you, Mark. I'm Simba Chimedza. I was trained by Anglo, and I worked with Bilboes for many years prior to joining Caledonia. I've been involved with the project for the last 15 years, having worked in the mining industry for the last 25 years, predominantly open pit mining.
Good. Thank you, Simba. Okay. Shall we, shall we move on? Adam, Adam's having to drive the presentation from, from Jersey, because as I said, we've had some technical difficulties. Okay, just, just to, just to run through what we're gonna talk about, clearly, once we've got through the pleasantries, the highlights, the introduction, I want to take some time to explain why the status of this, this study is at a PEA level and not a feasibility study. I'd like to run through and explain the changes that we've made in this study, compared to the previous feasibility study, which was prepared by the, the previous owners and had an effective date of December 2021.
And then I'll duck out at that point and hand over to technical people to discuss the geology of the project, to outline the metallurgical processing route, including discussing the various alternative metallurgical processing routes that we've considered and discarded. I'd like to spend some time discussing our revised approach to the tailings facility, which is the single biggest change that we've made to the feasibility study that was prepared by the vendors, and is actually the main reason why this study is at a PEA level. And then finally, to demonstrate the sensitivity of this project to a higher gold price and a lower discount rate.
And then finally, because I think, I think people might get sort of quite concerned about this, is just briefly reassure people as to the ESG status of, of this project, which is fully permitted. It's something that we, we in Zimbabwe and South Africa and the U.K. sort of take for granted, but I, I am aware that, you know, once you, once you start... If you, if you're approaching this from a U.S. perspective, permitting is a big issue. I just want to reassure people that it is, it is fully permitted. Okay, so Adam, if you could just move on to the next page. We've got a video. We're just running a little video just to give people...
It's recent drone footage of the Bilboes property, just to give you some sort of sense of the scale and the flavor of the property. It covers about 22,200 hectares. It is a huge property. What you see here is the scarring that's been caused over recent decades relating to the oxide mining activities, which are now pretty much finished. I just want to be absolutely clear, the oxide mining, there's no relation to the target of our operation, which is sulfide mining. So don't for a minute think that just because you've got these big holes that you see here that means the sulfide's gone. No, the sulfide hasn't gone at all. I think the other thing I'd say is just note how sparsely populated it is.
We're not gonna run into difficulties with, you know, having to relocate, settlements and what have you. So Adam, could we move on?
So on Monday, Monday morning, we published a PEA in respect to the Bilboes project. It's 100% owned by Caledonia. As I said, it's fully permitted. It's got robust economics, as you might imagine, as you might expect, for a large scale, high grade, open pit operation such as that which we're proposing. I'll come on to the details of the economics later. And just be reassured that we do have a strong management team with a proven track record of operating in Zimbabwe and operating open pit gold operations. Instead, in addition to our current core operation, which is a deep level underground mine. So Adam, if you could, move on.
All right, so this summarizes the key economic outputs. So total production of 1.5 million ounces over 10 years. We have shaved production back slightly. We're not taking account of, some of the oxide material, which actually, in due course, may be readded back into the plan. And we've also slightly shaved some, sort of peripheral ounces off it, with a view to focusing on making money and not maximizing ounces, which is a very important point for us. Total capital cost has now increased to about $400 million. And again, I'll explain why the capital cost has increased. Peak funding is about $309 million.
So peak funding is the total amount of cash that we will need to find to build the project. So clearly, the capital spending might continue for four years or so, but within that period, sort of by years three and four, we'll start to have money coming through the door. So that's why the peak funding is lower than the total capital cost. And just by happenchance, it's not. Don't read anything into it. The net present value of the project is $309 million. That's at a relatively high discount rate of 10%. Most projects are evaluated at 5% or 7.5%, and we're using a three year trailing gold price, as required by Canadian regulations, which is about $1,880.
So again, towards the end of this presentation, I'll show you what happens to that NPV if you want to use a higher gold price and a lower discount rate. And just to be absolutely clear, the NPV of $309 million factors in the outflow, the capital outflow of $400 million. Okay, so that takes that into account. Internal rate of return has advanced slightly. It's still very strong at 34%. That's that assumes 100% equity funding for the project, which, as I'll talk about in a minute, is not what we're assuming to do. So if you're to introduce the level of gearing, which we think this can stand, the internal rate of return would be something north of 50%.
And the all-in sustaining cost is creditably low, creditably low, at just below $1,000 an ounce, which is, which is, you know, outstanding. And all of that flows through into a payback period, which is just less than 2 years. Now, while we're, while we're on this page, I just want to address 2 important points. The first is: why is this, why is this study at the level of a PEA? Why has total project CapEx gone up, okay? Just to address the first of those, the first of those points, why it's a PEA status. The previous work that was done by the Bilboes vendors, that actually was available on our website, that is to the level of a feasibility study with an effective date of December 2021.
As we've disclosed many times, since we bought the project in January 2023, we've revisited this feasibility study with two objectives. First of all, to update it for revised circumstances. A lot's changed since December 2021, notably the invasion of Ukraine, which has resulted in higher capital costs, higher operating costs, but also a higher gold price. We've also considered alternative development options, in particular, whether a phased approach might make more sense by reducing the initial capital cost, and thereby minimizing equity dilution, with the objective of maximizing NPV per Caledonia share. To this end, we considered several development approaches, each of those to the level of a PEA. We looked at a double-step approach, a two-phased approach, a three-phased approach.
And for the purposes of making an internal capital allocation decision, those bits of work were done to a PEA level in the interests of time and money. Now, at the end of the day, we ultimately ended up pretty much back where we started from, deciding to adopt the single-phased approach. But even though we've pretty much ended up back where we started from, with a single-phased approach, within that, we have made a very substantial change to probably the largest single CapEx component of the project, which is the tailings facility. And that's a capital cost of about $75 million out of the total CapEx of $400 million. Now, the revised approach to the tailings facility, we'll talk about it in more detail later. It's gonna be a modular approach.
So even though the whole project is gonna be done on a single-step basis, we will construct the tailings facility on a modular basis, and that follows exactly the experience that we've gained in the last year or so, and we're currently continuing with at Blanket Mine, where, as you know, we're building our own new tailings facility there, at considerable expense, and we've found it more capital efficient to do that in a phased basis, so it reduces the upfront CapEx. So we're very comfortable that it's a robust approach, and we have real-time experience of that. But the work that we've done, given the work that we've done on the new approach, the tailings facility, is only to the level of a PEA.
It will take about six or seven months to upgrade that to a full feasibility study. Because the tailings facility is such an important component of the whole project, the fact that the work on the PEA on the tailings facility is only to the level of a PEA pulls all the rest of the work down to that level, even though very little has changed, if anything, on the other main components of the study for the whole project, being, you know, geology, mining, metallurgical processing. Okay, so I just wanted to explain why this is at a PEA level.
Our priority over the course of the next 6-7 months is to upgrade the current study on the tailings facility, so that it qualifies as a feasibility study, and that will then raise the overall level of confidence of the entire project to that of a feasibility study. The other thing I just need to address is the fact that the overall project cost has increased. Peak funding has increased from about $250 million in the previous feasibility study to $309 million in the current study. That should come as no surprise to anybody who is close to the mining sector, where the costs of capital equipment, particularly steel, have increased substantially.
Now, although there are signs that those input costs may be cooling off, it has resulted in higher upfront capital costs, even though we've done quite a bit of work to mitigate the effect of that. Should we move on to page nine? Okay, so as I've said, the single-phased approach gives better returns than a phased alternative, and that really means a better internal rate of return and a higher NPV. Now, that is amplified, that effect is amplified by our assessment that the single-phased approach should be able to support a higher proportion of debt than the phased approaches. And this further enhances the return to equity. So over the next 6-9 months, we'll be in parallel with the work that we're doing to upgrade the PEA to a feasibility study.
We'll be working with our recently appointed debt advisor, who are at the mine already, to refine our internal work on debt and to commence approaches to potential debt providers, and that will be done in parallel with the work to complete the feasibility study. But in general terms, the project's economics, notwithstanding the increase in capital costs, have improved somewhat. The project internal rate of return has improved very slightly, and it's now at a very robust 34%. Shall we move on to page 10? Okay, what we do on this page is that we summarize the changes that we've made to the single-step approach, as set out in the feasibility study with an effective date of December 2021.
What have we changed between where we were then and where we are today? And as I've said, by far, the biggest change relates to the tailings facility, which we will discuss in more detail later. But we estimate that had we not made the change that we're proposing to make to the tailings facility, the total CapEx would have been about $25 million higher. So we've made quite a significant change there. Of a much less, much smaller order of magnitude, we've revised pit designs to reduce upfront capital. We've looked closely at the cost of process plant, and infrastructure, particularly where we're gonna source it from. We've reassessed the phasing of the construction of the mine village.
We've looked again at operating expenses, and particularly the G&A expense for the project, now recognizing the fact that because the project is part of the Caledonia group, there should be scope to realize synergies and economies of scale, particularly in the areas of financial management, and procurement with the rest of the group. And then also, we're taking into account something that couldn't have been taken into account by the vendors, which is the 1% NSR, which we've granted to one of the Bilboes vendors. So that's taken into account as well. So I think that explains the key changes that we've made between the pre-existing feasibility study and where we are today. Adam, could you hand over?
Right, now, here onwards, we get into sort of technical stuff, so I'll ask Simba to run us through, you know, a slide on the geological, the overall, the general geological setting, the geology, and then the more specific geological settings for each of the sort of project areas. So Simba, could I hand this over to you, please?
Thank you, Mark. So from a regional geological perspective, the project is located in one of the three main geological zones in Zimbabwe, called the Archean, which is an ancient block covering most of the country. This block also hosts remnants of volcano-sedimentary rocks, known as greenstone belts. These belts are renowned for their mineral endowment, especially gold. The mineralization at regional scale is structurally controlled, consisting of silicified stockworks and veins. So it is in these veins that we find finely disseminated gold that contains the sulfides, which are predominantly pyrite and arsenopyrite. Thank you. You can move on, Adam. At local scale, our mineralization at Isabella and McCays range from 5m -20m , and the strike length from 75m-500 m, covering an extent of 4.4km .
in an en echelon pattern that is northeast, southwest bound. So Isabella and McCays, this is where the first six years of production will occur. The sequence will be two years at McCays, followed by four years at Isabella.
Yeah, just to pause, just to pause there. So just to reiterate even though we're gonna develop the overall projects in a single phase, within that, we have about four main mining areas. There's Isabella South and Isabella North and McCays at the bottom end of the project, and then that will provide production for the first six years or so, as Simba's outlined, and then thereafter, we'll go mining at the Bubi ore body, which is about 23 km further north. Okay? So sorry, and that's set out, that's actually set out on this little schematic that Adam's helpfully shown us. So move, move, move on back to Bubi, please, Simba.
So can you move on, move to the next one, Adam? Right. For Bubi, the mineralization width ranges from 10 m to as wide as 100 m in central portions of the pits, covering an extent of 3 km. Again, it also occurs in a similar northeast, southwest bound as Isabella and McCays. Mining will then happen at Bubi from year six to year 10 of the operation.
Okay. Before we move on to talk about sort of metallurgy and processing, I just want to reinforce the point that, notwithstanding the unfortunate experience with the oxide project last year, nothing has changed in our understanding of the underlying geology of the sulfide project. I want to be absolutely clear on that. Shall we move on? Thank you, Vic. Thank you, Simba. Shall we, Simba, do you just wanna quickly run through the process-
Yes.
the metallurgical test work that we've done?
Okay. Thank you, Mark. From a process perspective, we conducted multiple and extensive metallurgical tests over a period of 7 years. This covered grinding and milling tests that were conducted solely for the purposes of generating sulfide flotation concentrates. From there, three main gold recovery tests were conducted, namely ultra fine grinding, which is a process which yielded 20%-30% gold recovery after cyanidation. We've also looked at pressure oxidation, which is partial. Pressure oxidation, which had high amounts of arsenic in the filtrate, despite the good gold recovery. So we then put that one aside. We then looked at biological oxidation, which proved to be the most effective, with expected gold recovery of 83%-90%, at mass pulls of 5% and 10% for Isabella, McCays, and Bubi respectively. I'll come back to this point in the next slide.
A pilot plant was constructed on site at Isabella, and this was run for eight months with an effective gold dissolution of 89% for Isabella, McCays, and 96% for Bubi.
Okay, before we move on then, can we just, I do appreciate that particularly the further away from Africa you get, the more alarming BIOX technology might appear to be. And just to be clear, BIOX is effectively, and to put it as crudely as possible, there's lots of. It's a bit like, you create a sort of slurry. You introduce some bugs into that slurry. The bugs eat up the sulfide, and I can't find a polite way to say it, and they sort of shit out the gold at the end of the day, and then you collect that. That's a very crude explanation as to how it works. There are plenty of very successful BIOX plants in Africa.
There's one in Zimbabwe. So I think there's at least one in South Africa. So I don't know if anybody in the technical team, perhaps Craig, perhaps you wanna sort of talk about, you know, our perspective on the challenges associated with BIOX and why we think it's less scary than, sort of, other people might. Craig, do you wanna sort of say a few words on that?
Yeah. Yeah, sure. So look, I mean, Pan African Resources in Barberton, in South Africa, runs a very successful stirred BIOX, which is a plant BIOX. I personally visited the Carlin Trend in Nevada, in the States, where they ran a bio heap leach operation, which was on their lower grade refractory sulfidic ores. The only real issue with the bugs is you've got to keep them alive, and I think in a heap leach, it's a lot more difficult. Successes in BIOX, I've noted there's one in Mexico that's also being built. So yeah, it works pretty well.
Okay. And Victor, maybe you could just comment on the degree of support we would expect to get from the specific provider of that BIOX technology. Victor, could you do that for me?
Thank you, Mark. Basically, the agreement we would have with the supplier, with the supplier of the BIOX technology is that, when we start, we will send our team to other operations, other BIOX operations throughout the world, so that they get trained properly. We've already had this before. When we were running the pilot plant, we sent our team to Barberton, to Pan African Resources operation, and we were able to learn a lot from them. So the agreement is that, obviously, we pay them a, a fee for the technology, and then they support us. They would make sure that we run up to certain levels, before we start paying the technology, and there's continuing support from all the other BIOX plants, throughout the world.
We are also in a situation where, and it's every two years, there's a BIOX users' conference somewhere, at a BIOX plant somewhere.... And, that's the kind of support we would, we would receive from the suppliers of the technology.
Okay. Thank you, Victor. Can we, Alan, just move on then? Could you, Simba, just quickly run through the processing design structure that's set out here?
Okay, thank you, Mark. On the plant design, the plant will be designed to process 2.88 million tons per annum for the first years at Isabella and McCays. Then from year 6 to year 10, 2.16 million tons per annum from Bubi. The reduction in the throughput from Bubi is because Bubi material is much harder, and therefore takes longer to crush, thereby accommodating 75% of the material at a given time. The mass pull at Isabella of 5%, Isabella and McCays of 5%, means that the 2.88 million tons of material mined will be reduced to approximately 144,000 tons of concentrate per annum, which will be processed in the BIOX plant.
For the same reasons, the mass pull of 10% for Bubi means the 2.16 million tons per annum of material will be reduced to 216,000 tons of concentrate per annum for the BIOX plant.
Okay. Can we just pause there for one second yet, and thank you. Just pause there. Now, we're proceeding on this project on the basis that it's Bilboes alone. It's possible, depend- as you know, we've started exploration work at Motapa already. It's possible that, you know, over the course of the next, let's say, two-year building phase of Bilboes, and then the first six years when we're cheerfully mining the Isabella South, Isabella North, and McCays. During that period, it's quite possible that we will find attractive material closer to the metallurgical plant than Bilboes, and therefore bring that material in from Motapa and displace Bubi and push Bubi, you know, down, out, out several years. So that is a...
That would be quite a significant benefit to the project, but clearly, you know, we can't talk about that. We don't know what it is yet, because we've not found sufficient material at Motapa. But that's one of the ways in which this project could evolve substantially to our benefit. Sorry to interrupt you. Can you continue again, Simba?
Well, thank you, Mark. So the process plan will essentially comprise of seven main areas. Firstly, the comminution, which is your crushing and milling, and then the flotation, which is where the recovery of the gold bearing sulfides into concentrates takes place. And then from there, we've got the BIOX, where the sulfides are broken down by bacteria under high temperatures and very acidic conditions to liberate the gold. The CIL, carbon leach, for the recovery of the gold from the BIOX plant onto carbon. Carbon treatment will essentially ensure that the gold is recovered from carbon for electrowinning and smelting. Then the tailings storage facility, that's for the disposal of neutralized tailings from the flotation and BIOX processes. I will try to go through this again in the next slide, because there's a-
No, sorry.
This is small.
Yeah. No, sorry, Simba. I don't, I don't suggest that you talk through that slide in any, any great detail. It, it is available. It's, it's just lifted straight from the PEA. I think it's a fairly sort of standard representation of the of the flow sheet. So, so Simba, I wouldn't go into more detail than that. It's just, it's sort of there for the record, and if people want a bit more than that, please either ask us a question or send us a question, and we'll address it. So I'd move on from that, Simba, please.
Okay.
Let's focus on the tailings, 'cause look, the tailings is the big, is the big change we've made, and it is at $75 million, is the biggest single component. So, Simba, could you spend a few minutes talking through the plan on the tailings, please?
So the tailings is designed and quoted by SLR Consulting, who are based in South Africa. They're leading consultants in terms of TSF construction. The size essentially takes care of the 23 million tons that will be mined. That is inclusive of the 1.7 million tons from the BIOX tailings. It's at a rate of 12,000 kilotons, 12,000 tons per year per month. The maximum rates of rise will be 2.5 million, 2.5 m per year. This construction is actually sensitive to the mining, you know, that will be happening, and it will be done in essentially two broad phases.
phase I will cover the first three years of production, and that will essentially take care of the first flotation compartment, the full compartment for the BIOX, the full compartment for the BIOX, return water dam, and a portion of the flotation return return water dam. And then phase II will then finish off the remainder of the flotation compartment, as well as the flotation return water dam. That will be done in phase II. Then in phase III, we ensure that we build up to design capacity in terms of the position. This TSF will be aligned to industry best practice, which is the GISTM and the SANS and UN code, which essentially governs the hazard nature of the tailings storage facility.
Good. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Simba. Could we move on? Well, I wouldn't, I wouldn't dwell on this. This just simply reinforces the point. That's the, that's the project area. You can see the bottom left-hand, bottom left-hand corner, you've got the initial mining sites being Isabella South, Isabella North, and McCays. And then, and then you've got, Bubi, to the top right-hand side. There's really it's not big enough to talk in too much detail, but, that just gives you a sense of perspective. So I think, I think we should move on from that. I really find out, I just want to leave you with, with last, but by no means least, you know, what this means in terms of value uplift.
We've used 1,884 as the gold price for assessing this, which is the three-year trailing average. We've used a 10% discount rate, which gives an NPV of $309 million. But you can see, if you use anything close to the current gold price, something between $2,200-$2,400, and if you're comfortable using a lower discount rate, this thing easily goes up to $500 million NPV. If you're comfortable at 2,600, you know, you're approaching $1 billion. So let's be on, let's be in no doubt of the size of this opportunity that we face. It really is.
And we've always said it's a transaction and an opportunity which will make this company, but this PEA reinforces that. So I think that brings us to the end of the presentation. Is that correct? Oh, no. Yeah, just to put some... Yeah, sorry, just to put this in context, just a few slides here to show you how this project stacks up against similar projects in Africa. So what we're showing here is the recovered grade compared to other projects. You can see the recovered grade of 2 g a ton, and it is significantly better than other African projects. Move on.
This shows the price we paid for it in terms of dollars per ounce, and you can see that an acquisition cost of $33 an ounce, it is, while it's not the cheapest, it is certainly helpful towards the left-hand side of the scale. So we got the deal at a good price. Then next one. Finally, this isn't an issue, but we're just addressing it in case other people are concerned about it. In our minds, we have all of the environmental and social permitting requirements, and an environmental and social impact assessment was completed and was approved. This project, subject to funding now, is ready to go. So we don't need anything else to get this project going. I think that's finished.
But no, we're not finished. No, we're not finished. Okay. So look, there we are. It's a single, it's a single-phase development, NPV $309 million at a relatively pedestrian discount rate and a relatively pedestrian gold price. We expect to deliver, upgrade that PEA to a feasibility study in the first half of 2025, in conjunction with developing funding solutions. Because while we work, while we're doing the upgrade in the PEA in parallel with the funding, don't for a minute think that they will necessarily be coterminous. Obviously, we're in the hands of funders as to how quickly they can get through their own credit purposes.
So they may well take some longer than it takes us to do the feasibility study, but as I say, we're kind of in their hands on that. And a very short payback period of again, at this pedestrian gold price. So I think with that, we are finished, aren't we? Yes, we are finished. So can we hold this open to questions? I honestly prefer the questions that people say, because if we get written questions, sometimes it's hard to pick up the nuances and the context. And so you might find that responses to written questions might not quite sort of hit the nail on the head for you.
But clearly, if you're shy and you want to, if you just wanna type a question, clearly, we'll, we'll address it as best we can. So we'll just keep this open for a few minutes and see if anyone comes through with questions. But I think the lines are, are open now, aren't they? The lines are open. Okay.
Howard, you're on, you are unmuted.
Howard?
Oh, I didn't hear my name. Sorry. I have two questions. Hi, Mark. Hi, Camilla. Did you pay $95 million for Bilboes? You showed the number of dollars per ounce, but I couldn't remember the total price.
No, we paid, we paid 65 in shares and then a 1% NSR. And clearly, the value, the value of the 1% NSR, you'd have to take a view as to the gold price, but if you applied 1% to your... So if you- we're gonna produce 1.5 million ounces, you multiply that by the gold price you, you feel comfortable with, take 1% of that, and then discount it, discount it as you feel comfortable. I mean, I'm sure you can work that out. So $65 million in shares.
Okay. I didn't calculate as you were talking, but I'm guessing it was probably something like 95 or 100 when I discount the 1%.
No, I'd have thought it'd be less than that,
Less than that?
I think, yeah, but I can't do it in my head. But,
Okay.
It all depends on what gold price you want to use. I know you're very bullish to gold price, so you're probably using $10,000.
I am.
You're using $10,000. I, I don't use $10,000.
That leads me to my second question and, the calculation I was doing mentally while you were talking. Is Motapa fence-to-fence with Bilboes?
Yep.
Okay.
completely adjacent.
All right. I used an incorrect number of $95 million acquisition price and added to your capital expense for a total cost, and then I used $2,100 instead of $1,884, and I still came out with a pre-tax return on total capital of 30%. That's pretty fancy.
Yeah. I always get slightly nervous when I have to sort of keep pace with Howard Finkler's internal sort of mental calculations. I'm not fast enough, but be in no doubt, this is a very attractive project.
Yes.
Certainly, when you put some gearing into it, the equity return becomes really very attractive indeed.
Oh, that's right. I took total capital. I forgot to say how big can we guess Motapa might be? Is there a guess?
Come on, Howard, you are naughty. It's a bigger land area than. So why not put somebody else on the spot? I mean, why don't, you know— I'm not a geologist, Craig, come on.
Are you calling me to the rampart?
Is the geology similar to Bilboes?
Yeah, it's basically, it's as Marcus said, it's adjacent. It's a cross-the-fence boundary.
Yeah.
It's comprised of three main structures that have been mined in the past. Very much the same, that they've mined oxides during their life. We have some historical maps from underground. It looks very good. To give you an idea, they had a roaster on site.
Oh!
They've got quite a lot of old TSF. And so, you know, and the historical underground grades appear to be good, so we have started drilling there now. It's first pass drilling. But if it had to perform in the same way as Bilboes, it would probably be slightly larger than Bilboes.
I was gonna say, this could last a lot longer than 10 years.
Well, it could last longer, or it could be bigger. It could be both of the two, yeah, yeah. But clearly, it all comes down to, all comes down to the exploration. As I say, we've now, we've now started a program of RC and diamond drilling, which will be done before the end of the year, before it starts raining. Is that correct, Craig?
Correct, and this is just first pass drilling.
This is first pass stuff, so certainly, certainly I would... we will not be in a position of, of announcing a maiden resource by the end of the year, Howard, if, if that's where you're-
No, no, no.
No.
Just thinking in my own mind. Look, we know this is exploration. Mother Nature can always kick us in the nuts.
Mm-hmm.
But, there seems to be more than 10 years beyond Bilboes.
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay, that's-
We do have other questions. Can we-
Thanks.
Are you finished with that, you, Howard?
I'm done, thanks.
Okay, thank you. Can we move on to Nick, Nick Dlamini, who's with Standard Bank in Johannesburg? Nick?
Okay, thanks. Thanks for this very comprehensive, summary here. I've just got a few questions to ask, and I can go through them sequentially. Firstly, trying to understand the power situation as you see it in this PEA. It seems to be largely reliant on the grid, and I know you're closer to the mainline, grid, but your experience in Blanket has shown you that you need to rely on other alternative sources of energy.
Okay. Let me interject there, because I think I thought I explained this previously, but Blanket in particular is very poorly positioned on the grid. It's at the end of a particularly badly maintained, leaky line. All right? So Bilboes, on the other hand, is much better positioned from a grid perspective. So we expect to continue to import power for Bilboes, as we're currently doing at Blanket. But the dire state of the Zim grid will not have anything like the adverse effect on Bilboes, such as we're currently experiencing at Blanket. So we don't foresee the same level of difficulty with electricity at Bilboes that we are experiencing at Blanket. But, I mean, Victor, you're probably closer to this than I am.
Victor, do you want to add anything to that?
Yeah, thank you, Mark. Basically, even within Zimbabwe itself, the power situation, in terms of the power stations, is kind of improved, because they built new power stations. So... But we still import power. For instance, we are part of the Intensive Energy User Group, which is a group of the biggest energy users in Zimbabwe we pay for the power directly to Mozambique, for instance, and the power is wheeled through the ZESA, the local power utilities, infrastructure. So we're well-positioned in terms of power. We don't think it will be an issue. Another issue, which we've always done, and we've done it at Blanket, we built a power- a solar power plant there, which now, as we have announced, we probably will sell it to someone else to run, and we will be a captive, consumer of that power.
We'll probably do the same at Bilboes and put a solar plant there, but we'll get someone to come and put a solar plant where we can just off-take. But that's a little bit down the road.
Yeah.
But I can assure you, power is not one of our problems at the moment.
So-
Okay, I see your costing in the PEAs of $0.10 per kWh. Is that a correct number? I believe your costs at Blanket are higher.
Victor? Victor.
Okay. Yeah. What I can tell you is that for Bilboes, so now the cost of the power from an independent producer, who will say put a plant there, and then we blend it with the power from the utility, and it will come probably somewhere slightly lower than that.
Yeah, just don't forget, Nick, don't forget, the power cost of Blanket is a blended cost. It still includes a considerable amount of diesel, and Blanket itself doesn't benefit from the solar plant. The solar plant at Blanket is owned by Caledonia, and Caledonia sells solar power to Blanket at a rate of about $0.134 per kWh, which reflects Blanket's long-term historic average cost per kWh. Because what we're aiming to achieve here is to leave the indigenous, the minority shareholders in Blanket, neither benefiting or dis-benefiting from the use of solar. We paid for the solar project, and therefore, we will be, we're reaping the benefits. So you're not quite comparing like with like, if you're comparing $0.10 with what we're paying at Blanket.
Okay, thanks for clarifying that.
Yeah.
On the second question comes to some of the variations which you have, the different scenarios you've put out here... the sensitivity. In the table here, there is no discussion of what the capital implications of those, you've said that you looked at it in order to save capital, obviously, at the expense of your cashflow. But there's no, there's nothing here that says how much capital you would've been able to save if you had gone down those, that-
Well, we're talking about the alternatives. You, you're talking about the multi-phase development routes?
Yes. Uh-
Well, we're not. As we're not progressing those, we just can't see the point in discussing them. It'll be completely futile, time-consuming exercise to talk to you about, you know, why the relative merits and demerits of a two-stage or three-stage process. It would just absorb too much time. And at the end of the day, the benefit of the single-phase approach was of an order of magnitude, you know, considerably better than the other two approaches. It's just, Nick, it's. I haven't got time to. Me and the management team just don't have time to do that. It's a waste of time. Sorry.
Okay. It was just a line in your graph that's required, that's all.
Well, there's multiple, we, we-
There's multiple variations, but there's no discussion about the capital that you would've otherwise have spent, Mark.
I don't see. I don't understand why we have to do that. It's not-
Well, because people like me would like to know, I guess.
Yeah, okay. Well, we can tell you, but it's talking about something that doesn't exist. What's the point? But if you wanna go down that route, get someone to do it for you. But
Okay, you've done the scenario analysis here already.
Oh, sure. Yeah. Sorry, I know what you're referring to. Somebody, you wanna pick up what's what Nick's saying there? It's right at the back of the PEA. I know what he's referring to. I just don't want to start digging a deeper hole for something that's just going nowhere. That's my concern. Anybody want to comment on that scenario, on that sensitivity analysis that Nick's referring to at the back of the PEA? Simba? Simba?
Sorry, I was muted, muted. So, we looked at two other options, which was initially treating 80,000 tons from Isabella McCays, and then that would then reduce to 60,000 tons treating Bubi because of that 70-75% figure that I talked about. And then, the other scenario was then upgrading the 80,000 to 160, before then discounting for Bubi. In terms of the CapEx of those numbers, the scenario that looked at 80,000 tons dropping to 60 for Bubi, we had a total CapEx of $226 million, compared to 400-
Mm.
-for the scenario that we're just discussing.
So I mean, just put it... Just pause there, just to put it in context, Nick. So that scenario is a third of the size of the one we're doing. So instead of doing 240,000 tons a month, we're doing 80,000 tons a month. But the caps are only a third of the size, but the CapEx was half the size. All right, so-
Yes.
But then on top of that, because the cash generation within the phased approach was so poor, you had a much lower debt capacity. So at the end of the net net, whereas if you're looking at a potential equity requirement, if you're assuming two-thirds debt funding for the single-phased approach, let's say $100 million, on the multi-phased approach, because of much less debt capacity, you're looking at the same amount of equity for a project that's just less compelling. That's the issue.
Yeah.
Okay? And so they're just-
And then the other scenario-
I just can't see any point in sort of digging further into what might have been, you know? If ifs and ands were pots and pans, what's the need for tinkers, quite frankly.
Right. Okay, so,
Nick, sorry, sorry, sorry to be robust on this, but, I'm trying to, I'm trying to keep us sort of focused on where we're going, not focused on where we're not going.
Right. Okay, thanks for that. And then the next set of questions is about what's happening to the intermediate, or are you, have you estimated the intermediate ore in your systems? How have you dealt with that in your processing platform?
That's one for... Simba, do you wanna pick that up or, or Craig, do you wanna pick it up?
Yeah, that's, that's okay, Mark. The intermediate material that we have, I would classify that as 60%-70% sulfide. So technically, from a process perspective, it belongs to the BIOX process. We have tested that through the BIOX, through the flotation and BIOX system, and it was actually recovering. So our view is that, that 5%, because it constitutes 5% of the total material over the life of mine, that will actually be blended in, on a, on a basis that will be dependent on the mining, really. So whenever that becomes available, it will just be thrown in, into the system. But we've realized that it doesn't affect the operation of the BIOX process. And after all, it's only 5% of material over the life of mine.
Okay. Thank you very much, for that. Finally, you have inferred ounces at the bottom of your pits, or presumably below the bottom of your pits. What is your feel for how accessible those will be? Are you, do you have... I know this is not a reserve statement yet, but do you have any intentions to draw those up to a point where you think the gold price could support you getting those inferred ounces, moving into a better definition?
Well, look, perhaps Simba can pick this up later, but for the time being, the mine plan is based purely on M&I, no inferred at all. So yeah, whether in due course we do go looking at the inferred, it's conjecture. We can't talk about that, Nick. It all depends on, you know, what the situation is like at the time. As you'll understand, you know, if it may be the case that trying to just get a few extra ounces out of inferred material at the bottom, could be disproportionately expensive. It means we've gotta fundamentally change the size of the pit. You understand that?
We have much less flexibility with an open pit mine than an underground mine. But Simba, do you wanna... Do you want to add anything to that, Simba?
No, that's, that's exactly what you've just said. In fact, maybe what we could then do at some stage is just to rerun way to trying to sensitize and see how much we could pick up if we increased the gold price. Because at this stage, that resource that we have declared is based on a gold price of just above $2,000 per ounce. So we'll have to maybe change that gold price and see how much more material can we pick before we can decide whether it's, it, it warrants us to spend capital.
I mean, it was to Nick's question, you know, just talk a bit about what the exploration potential is at Bilboes. 'Cause really, we're just working on what we know we've got at Bilboes. I mean, is there exploration potential at Bilboes? That's a fair, that's a reasonable question.
Yes. So we have explored at the moment, just above 7 km, but the total strike extent, if you add all the potential parallels that we have within the confines of the tenement, that could easily be above 10 km. So we still have quite some decent exploration targets around the mines, in terms of possible pit extensions and then parallel zones within the pits that already have been depleted of oxides.
Excellent. Thank you very much.
Okay. Thank you, Nick. Any further questions from anybody? Howard? Is that Howard? Is that an old one for Howard?
That's not one. It's Yuen Low now.
Okay, we've got, we've got Yuen Low from Liberum in London. Morning, morning, Yuen. Morning, Yuen. How are you?
It's actually mid-afternoon here, but,
Sorry, it's the afternoon. Yeah. Sorry.
You are. I've got a few questions. Most of them have actually been answered, but a few left. First of all, I wondered about the margin of error in the study, given that most of it is actually probably to FS level. What is the overall margin of accuracy, or can you break down between the tailings dam versus the rest?
Yeah, we can. I'm sure Simba can do that. But what I would say, so given, even given the fact that the tailings facility, tailings facility is done to a PEA level, yeah, I don't think there'll be anybody in Zimbabwe who's got a better handle on costs for constructing tailings facilities than us. You know, as you know, we're deep in the throes of constructing one at Blanket, which is similar in that it's double lined. So, I think we've got a high confidence level, but I mean, Simba, do you wanna sort of try and quantify what I'm waffling on about?
Yes, Mark. You're absolutely right. Most of the components of the study have actually been done to a sort of Class 4 estimate, as defined by the AACE, American Association of Cost Engineers, which then places that within 15% error margin. The TSF is probably the one that sticks out, could be on the low side to about 30%-35%.
Okay, that's great. Thank you. Another question I have is about water. You've covered electricity. What's the water situation like in the Bilboes area?
Yeah, that's a good question. Simba?
Well, it's hot. There's essentially two distinct weather patterns. It's either hot and a little bit humid, and then for about six months of the year, and then the other six months, it's cold and a little bit windy. There's not much-
Six months, Simba? The summer is like nine months a year, nine, ten months.
Yeah, okay.
Two months of the year.
Simba, it's never cold there. Don't stop. It's never cold there, okay? Never cold.
Yeah, it's never cold, yeah. Oh, well, it does at night, you know, at night.
Let's.
But, uh-
Go on, let's talk about the rain. Let's talk about the rain now. Go on.
But what I just wanted to highlight is the fact that it has been now proven that the technology that we're talking about, the BIOX technology, doesn't really the battery limits in terms of the weather that we have on the location, that has actually gone through the checklist 100%.
Okay. It's fair to say those existing pits are actually a considerable water resource, actually.
Okay, that's great. And finally, can you tell me about what proportion of gold you'll be allowed to export from Bilboes?
Well, yeah, the agreement we have with government is 100%. Currently we export from Blanket, because it's a new project. Currently we're exporting 75% from Blanket and 25% locally. That actually, even if we were to export 100%, we'd still need local currency in Zimbabwe to, you know, to pay our taxes and to pay some other costs. So we're assuming, we're working the assumption it's 100% US dollars, because that's the agreement we have with government. Almost certainly, the debt providers will ask for the same thing. But in practice, we would then need to sell some of those dollars for local currency.
Okay, that's great. Thank you very much.
Okay. Anything else?
I don't think we've got any more questions.
Okay. I don't think we've got any more questions. With that, I'll thank you all. Look forward to updating you as we progress this project. Thank you all for your attendance this morning or this afternoon. Thank you.