Good day, thank you for standing by. Welcome to B2Gold second quarter earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one, one on your telephone. You will hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one, one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Clive Johnson, President and CEO. Please go ahead. Thank you, operator. Apologies on behalf of the phone service, not our technical issues, but theirs. We're a little bit late getting going. Welcome to the conference call to discuss B2Gold's second quarter 2023 financial results. We had another very strong quarter, again, highlighting the excellent performance of our mining operating team. We're very pleased with the results, and it, it, it makes us feel very comfortable we're on track to re- on for our guidance for 2023 for the year, the annual guidance. I'm gonna pass it over to Mike Cinnamond soon. Our CFO is gonna walk you through at a high level, what you probably already read, which is the details of the financial results. We're gonna have an update from Bill Lytle, focusing on Goose Project construction, Back River, and things are going very, very well there. We, we, we remain in an extremely strong financial position in the company, and that allows us, and Mike can talk at a high level about that, to look at funding Goose and continuing on with our industry-leading dividend, and then maintain a very strong cash position, with Goose now looking to go into production, as Bill will highlight, in the first quarter of 2025. I want to deal with an issue that's come up, I guess, since we put out the news release about Mali and about the, the, the, conversations around a potential new 2023 Mining Code. What we put out in our news release, what we said in our news release was that the Fekola Mine will continue to be mined on page five from the Fekola and Cardinal... Actually, page six, from the Cardinal pits, receipt of an exploitation license for Bantako, which is one of the areas we were gonna, we are hoping to start trucking ore down to Fekola, if you remember the Fekola Mill. The area, the area remains outstanding, pending finalization, exploitation license for the Bantako north permit area remains outstanding, pending finalization of a proposed new 2023 Mining Code by the Government of Mali. What we neglected to say, and what I'll read actually from the MD&A, which is a more thorough analysis of the situation and goes into more detail. What we say in the MD&A on page 11 is, "The company, along with other mining companies in Mali, are engaged in discussions with the state of Mali to provide input into the proposed 2023 Mining Code. It still, at this point, remains a proposal. Any new mining code is not expected to impact the existing Fekola Mine operations, which will continue to be governed by the existing Mining Convention entered into under the 2012 Mining Code, and the impact of the new 2023 Mining Code on Fekola regional licenses." sorry, I'll end it there. Bottom line is, what we're saying is that the, any proposed 2023 Mining Code that was not, from our understanding and recent consultation with the Government, as of last week, the Government's confirming that they are, this is not, this code is not going to look back to previous existing codes. That would be unlawful. The 2012 Mining Code and the Mining Convention that comes, that came out of that, dictates the terms, the ownership, 80/20, with ourselves and the Government of Mali, and also dictates your taxes and all of the details of that. That is in the 2012 code. We expect this is applying to other gold miners in Mali as well, who have valid, outstanding codes and conventions from the past. I just want to make sure people understand what we're talking about here. We remain convinced that the Government of Mali wants more gold mining in the country and wants people like ourselves as foreign investors to invest. We have hopes and plans to expand in Mali, initially by trucking ore, as you've read, from the Bantako and other areas down to the Fekola Mill to feed soft, saprolite material into the mill. We also have, are, have conceptually been talking about and looking at a study at the end of the year that could involve building a second mill, potentially, if, if the economics work and if all the other factors come into bear with the new resource in the north and center. That's what we've been talking about, potential expansion. I think it's really important to point out that if you look at Fekola as a great success in Mali and other mining companies have been great successes in the, for all stakeholders. We invested over $500 million to build Fekola, 100% by B2Gold. The Government owns 20% Fekola. We've actually contributed $1.2 billion of revenue to Mali since Fekola Mine started production. Based on our calculations, the people of Mali have benefited, the country of Mali has benefited by over 50% of the economic benefit of the Mine. We took all the risk up front, built the Mine. They, they realized over 50% of the economic benefit. That's been a great success. We remain committed to looking at further opportunities in Mali, where we believe that the government, from what we've heard, remains committed to increasing gold mining in the country. When, when the new mining code comes out, we will have, I'm sure, further consultations with the government to talk about how we can work with our partner in the government to potentially expand production at Fekola. I just wanted to re-clarify that situation, and, frankly, we probably should have done a little better job explaining it in the news release. The news release was about the financial results and an update on things. At the end of the day, I wanted to make sure we communicate with everyone about the reality of the situation. Fekola, we expect, will continue to be a great success for all stakeholders. With that, I'm going to pass it on to Mike to hit the highlights of the financials. Bill will talk about... Actually, one more point I'll make before I pass over. I was quoted out of context a few weeks ago in an article that said that we were aggressively pursuing more M&A. That was not what I said. At the end of the day, our strategy remains very, very much the same as it's been for a while here, which is focused on our development projects, which includes the Goose Mine, which is, that Bill will talk about also, was the potential. We continue to be committed to building roads, et cetera, for the expansion of Fekola by trucking ore. We're very committed to that. We're very committed to a large exploration budget, a very large budget at Goose. We're excited about the exploration upside there and other projects around the world that we're exploring, including around existing mines. We are not actively, we're not pursuing, actively pursuing M&A at the moment. We will not take on another development project. That is, we've never done that before. We will not start doing it now, trying to build two of those at the same time. I just wanted to get that on the record, that we are always looking at what's out there in terms of, are there avenues of production growth, et cetera. We are not interested in, in, in, in strapping anything on, whether it be a problem mine or someone else, or whether it be a further another project to build. We're busy. We're very committed. We're very focused. Part of our success is our ability to focus on one project at a time. With that, I'll pass it over to Mike. Hey, thanks, Clive. I'll just touch briefly, I think, on the results, as Clive mentioned. I, I think they're a good quarter from the operations and financially. Firstly, on the revenue side, we sold just under 240,000 oz at a realized price of $1,969 per oz. That's more than dollars an ounce, higher than we were in the same period last year. Benefiting from a good gold price, it's obviously bounced around a bit recently, but it's still well above 1,900. I think we're 50 as we look forward for the balance of the year as an estimate. On the production side, again, very much on budget. The total production from our three operating mines, 246,000 oz, is just almost exactly on budget. When you take in our share of Calibre's results, which is 24% share right now, 263,000 oz, right on budget overall. A little overs and unders there. Fekola was a little under for the period, 8,000 ounces below budget at 152,000 oz. There was a delay of an excavator there and slightly lower production from phase six, just through ability to access the pit and the amount of production mining we could actually do there. We believe we'll certainly hit Fekola's target for the year. Masbate was a little over budget. It's 49,000 oz, so 5,000 oz higher than budget. They benefited from higher than budgeted mill feed grade and mill through and through. In Otjikoto, it was 2,000 ounces over for just generally better, slightly better than budget on all factors. Overall, right on budget, 263,000 ounces in total production for the company. Translating that on the cost side, $636 an ounce overall, including our share of Calibre, $607 an oz from our three mines. That, both of those item numbers were between $35-$40 lower than budget overall. We did see some offsetting factors. Fekola was $538 an ounce. It was actually a little higher than budget, which is a function of that lower than budgeted gold production, effectively. On the fuel side for Fekola, we saw some offsets there. Diesel was a little lower than budget. We also saw HFO. We're switching to a new HFO source, or we've switched to a new HFO source, HFO 180, which is, was, is a little greener, I think, for environmentally friendly. That's a little more expensive than what was budgeted. Masbate, $817 an ounce, which is more than $200 an ounce lower than budget. It, it really benefited from lower fuel, fuel costs. We were 20%+ lower on both the diesel and HFO at Masbate. Otjikoto was also more than $200 an ounce lower than budget, $611 an ounce for the period. It benefited both from the slightly higher production, as I mentioned, and also lower fuel costs. Not as significantly lower as Masbate, but still lower, and also a weaker Namibian dollar. Remember, a high proportion of our costs in Namibia are denominated in Namibian dollars. When the Namibian dollar is weaker, it translates into lower U.S. dollars, and we benefited from that. When you look at the all-in sustaining costs side, including everything, our share of Calibre, $1,214 an ounce. So it was a little over budget for the period, and that's really a function of overall lower cash costs, but higher CapEx that are almost exclusively based on timing. We were lower in the first quarter on a lot of CapEx timing. We caught up in the second quarter, particularly on some of the mobile costs across all the operations and some of the stripping costs. Overall, a little higher than budget, but no change overall to our guidance for the year. I'll just comment on that now. I think as we reiterated in our MD&A news release, we expect our guidance is unchanged for the year, annual guidance. Including our share of Calibre, somewhere between 1,060,000 ounces or 1,080,000 ounces for the year. On the cost side, no change to the cash operating cost guidance or the all-in sustaining cost guidance. We did mention, and as I mentioned there in the remarks, we are benefiting from lower fuel costs as we go through both the first and second quarter. We are watching that. We'll watch that as we go through Q3. If we still see the benefit of that rolling through Masbate and Namibia for the balance of the Q3, I think we'll come back and, and look at our guidance again. But right now, we're maintaining our guidance as is. A few comments on some of the other operational. Bill's going to talk to some of them, but In terms of Fekola Regional Development, we, we've continued infrastructure development there. We got the roads in. We did have 18,000 ounces for Bantako production in, in our guidance for the overall Fekola Complex for the year. As mentioned, and Clive mentioned, we don't see that coming through now in, in, in 2023. We think that'll roll into 2024, but we think we have enough optionality in, in, in the availability of ore at, at Fekola generally that our guidance will remain unchanged. We'll still meet guidance for Fekola Complex. On Goose, Bill's gonna talk to it. We did put out a news release just updating our CapEx estimate in the period, and it came in very close to what we said as we went through the acquisition itself. So CAD 800 million for the, for the core construction of the plant, and then about CAD 90 million net for accelerated underground development, where we see that we can actually, we can do more than was originally planned upfront, and then we'll benefit from that in the first few years of operation at Goose. We're still on track to bring Goose on in Q1 2025. Our share of post-acquisition costs, when you translate it into U.S. dollars, after taking into account the spend that Sabina already had, it's just over $400,000. That's what we expect to incur to complete the project. Otjikoto continues on. Just a reminder as well, there's, there is Otjikoto's scheduled to ramp out in 2024, and open pit mining activity at Otjikoto pit to conclude in 2025. We will have ongoing production from Wolfshag underground, as well as stockpile processing that should take us right through into early 2031, somewhere around there. Gramalote, the sales process is ongoing. No updates to take with there at present. Strategic investments, you saw us look at, the most significant one in the current period, and they put out a great number today, was Snowline. We, we invested $32 million there for a 9.9% interest in Snowline, and that's kind of the, part of the company's ongoing strategy, just like you saw us invest in, in Matador for 9.9% investment last year. The other thing to highlight maybe on, on just project side, we did disclose $20 million more in exploration for the year. We're, we're well over $80 million now, exploration budget for 2023, and that $20 million addition is, is exclusively for, Back River, the Back River district. Both Goose, some more work there in the George prospects there as well. We're excited to get up there and see what else we can make for Back River. Couple other comments on the results, earnings overall, attributable to shareholders, $80 million or $0.06 per share. Adjusted earnings were $86 million or $0.07 per share. On the cash flow side, we have good operating and overall cash flow quarter, $195 million in cash flow from operations or $0.16 per share. We benefited, like I said, from a higher gold price production, right on schedule, good, good cash costs overall, and some working capital timing. $195 million was a good result. On the financing side, there's a couple items of comments on there. With the acquisition, the main item that impacted the, certainly the balance sheet overall in the quarter, was the acquisition of Sabina, as we brought in those projects onto the balance sheet. In doing so, we took the opportunity to extinguish, some of the existing, financial obligations that, that Sabina had entered into as part of their financing package. In total, we spent $111 million, which included extinguishing, the off-take agreement that was there with a private equity firm, and also to extinguish one-third of the existing gold stream with Wheaton Precious Metals. We did that because we, you know, they're effectively, royalties, and we obviously really like the, the prospectivity at, at Goose and Back River generally. It makes sense to try and take those out up front if we can. We took that opportunity. On the dividend side, we've maintained our, our $0.04 U.S. per share for the quarter. The, the dividend is higher this quarter overall in gross terms because of that extra 200 million plus shares that were issued as part of the Sabina acquisition. It's our goal to maintain that dividend going forward, that level of dividend going forward, as well as financing our capital obligations that we have for our various development prospects globally, with most significantly, the, the Goose prospect, that's our Goose Project that's currently underway. We did finish the period with, as Clive said, great financial shape, over $500 million U.S. in the bank. We still have an undrawn, revolving credit facility. It was $600 million. We added National Bank in for another $100 million. Now we're $700 million available on the line, undrawn, $500 million in the bank at the end of the quarter. One point two in sort of available right on hand liquidity. As we look forward to bringing Goose online as we go through, I think what we see is we're very comfortable in our ability to finance Goose, keep paying the dividend as we see it, and then also evaluate sort of the other capital needs that we have around, under group. I think we're in good shape financially there. With that, I think. Oh, the only other thing I'd add, we like to give you an update on cash taxes each period for your model. We did update the MD&A. There is an increased cash taxes to just over $250 million, and that's because we budgeted at $1,700 gold, and now we've come through the, you know, first half of the year, over $1,900, and we're forecasting $1,850. So our new cash tax is approximately $250 million, just for your models. With that, I'll hand it back to Clive. Thanks, Mike. I'll pass it over to Bill. Give us a high level update on the exciting progress we're making at Goose Construction. Sure. Thanks, Clive. I guess I want to start out with talking a little bit about the, really the key things for this project. Number one, obviously, we continue to maintain excellent relationships with the Kitikmeot Inuit Association. ... up in Nunavut, we've had several stakeholder meetings over the course of the quarter, introducing them to the B2 philosophies and very positive outcomes. Additionally, I think everyone's aware, this really more than anything, this project relies on logistics for success. If you look at the timeline, and we, we've been very publicly stating that, yes, in fact, we will try and maintain the existing timeline, which has us producing, first gold in Q1 2025. With that, the overall logistics has, has gone excellent so far. I think everyone's aware, B2Gold has their own logistics group, procurement logistics group, that has done this before. We did it in, in Far East Russia. So they've jumped right in and really maintained the excellent progress that had already been done. Far, there's been a HURT program, a C-130 program. We've brought in more than 60 loads for the, for the summer season this year. All of the shipping and ordering has, has basically been completed now, so things are on the boat heading towards the marine laydown area. Barges, which were stranded last year by Sabina, have been picked up, and they've arrived at the marine, marine laydown area. Overall, as of today, we see that the procurement and logistics remains on schedule. As part of the next phase, we needed to come out and finish the phase one construction of the camp. That was completed at the end of July, so we currently have more than 130 beds. We'll be going up to over 200 here over the next little bit. That allows us really to bring our full construction team on site. The construction team, at least the first wave, has arrived. Just to remind everybody kind of what the scope is this year, this year, we've got kind of three major areas that we need to work on. We've got the mill, of course, we've got the powerhouse, and we've got a big workshop that we have to get done. Really, the, the scope for this year is to get the concrete in, get the steel up, and get it all weathered in. The concrete group has arrived on site. They are currently pouring concrete. I should add that originally we had, inherited from Sabina, kind of a, an EPC contract, which, you know, is not the typical B2 model. The B2 model is self-performed. We've, we've ended that relationship, and we've now brought back the same group that, that really has made us successful for the last five projects, has arrived back on site and, is in the process of pouring concrete. That is going very well. Actually, so far, even the structural steel superintendents and supervisors have arrived on site. They're busy sorting steel with the intent of getting everything put together as they can on the ground and waiting for the concrete to be poured so we can move forward very quickly on that. On the, on the underground side, just looking at it, one, from a, from an operational perspective, that goes very well. We have so far on, on the open pit, we've come down a couple benches already. Remember, the, the first open pit is gonna be used, has to be mined out for our tailings, location, so that, that remains on schedule. The underground, we've, we've developed more than 1,300 meters in the decline, more than 128 meters in the vent raise, and more than 374 meters in the access ramp. Basically, everything remains at or ahead of schedule. What's probably of more interest to you, we talked about initially when, when B2 acquired the project, the potential to kind of front-end, front-end some more ounces. The engineering team here in Vancouver has been working with the site engineers, and I'm pretty happy to say, without having the final details, that certainly we are looking at kind of in excess of 300,000 ounces a year over the first five years of production, which I think is significantly more than what was in the Sabina feasibility study. Along with that, we've, of course, taken a first cut at what kind of the operational costs would be, and I think we've already said it, at least several times in the market. What we're really talking about is we're talking about $1,000 an ounce, plus or minus right in there, remembering. Sorry, that's, yeah, as in the all-in sustaining cost. Rem- remembering that that is still preliminary, with still some final work left to do. Mike already talked about the costs. We are talking, right around C$800 million, plus an additional C$90 million for supercharging the development of the underground. I guess maybe I'd end with it, I, I believe everyone's aware that there's an analyst trip coming up. I think it's the, the 26th of September, where we'll be introducing people to the work that we've done on site, but also the excellent management team that we have, that we've, that we've brought over from Sabina, and also, of course, our construction team. Of course, showing, all the excellent progress in logistics that, that we've had to date. Thanks, Bill. Just, we had a board meeting over the last couple of days, of course, to review the quarter and present results. A lot of discussion on the presentation around Goose and what we're doing there. I think I can say the board takes great comfort, as I do, in the, in what we're doing there and the experience factor of the team, as Bill touched on. This is what we do. We build our own mines, and we have a history of doing it on budget, on schedule, or even ahead, and we feel very comfortable where we are today, as Bill's, as Bill has highlighted, and you'll all see that, those of you that make the, the, the trip up there. There's a lot of companies have struggled in the North. We're very aware of that. We believe that we can set a new standard here for how we do it, whether it's Northern Russia or Northern Canada. We refer the board is feeling very comfortable with the work that's been done and that we, we did inherit a good situation from Sabina. They did a lot of good work in exploration feasibility and had, you know, kicked off construction in the difficult circumstances of a single asset company to be able, to be able to arrange financing and advance the project. As Bill said, we've combined our team with some very good people of Sabina, that we're pleased to have with us, stayed with the project, joined forces with us. A lot of good work's been done on the, with KIA, our, our, our Indian partners and the landowners. Excellent relationship there. If you look at the history of B2Gold, we've taken that culture of fairness, respect, and transparency around the world, the key is to deliver on the promises you make. We're very excited about what we can do working with the KIA for, to, to advance and progress things like education, healthcare, and other areas in the north, working closely with our partners. The other exciting thing, Sabina knows this very well, Sabina shareholders know this very well, that Bruce and his group, McLeod, did the right thing, which is focusing on advancing the Goose Project. Therefore, they were not going to spend an awful lot of money in exploration, although they, they would've definitely liked to. At the end of the day, they did the right thing for their shareholders. They had a relatively modest exploration budget because of the fact they were trying to build, to finance building the mine. That was the focus, of course. We're very excited about the exploration upside, and I'm just gonna pass over to Vic here quickly to talk about how many rigs are on site and what our plan is for this year. We're exploring the Back River, the huge Back River property, as well as further looking at the extensions of Goose and the George prospects. Over to you, Vic. Thanks, Clive. I guess straight out of the gate, we're active up at the George project. It was basically the focus there was due to, you know, waiting for space to open up for the exploration team down at the Goose Project. We've completed 12 holes there. We don't have all the you know, many of the results back yet, but that's, that program has been completed. The focus now with the accessibility of accommodation down at Goose for the exploration team is Goose itself. To remind you, we have five excellent deposits there, and these are all open down plunge. There's a immediate potential there to actually extend these resources down plunge, and we're looking forward to that. As Mike pointed out, we have $20 million for the balance of this year in the budget, which is, to put it into context, Sabina was spending around C$5 million on annual exploration. The $25 million-$27 million is five times that much in half the time. There's been a very extensive ramping up of exploration at the Back River project. We have five rigs planned for surface drilling at Goose itself. As we get access to underground drilling possibilities, we'll be strapping in one or two rigs to that, hopefully, early towards the end of this year or early next year. yeah, very, very active, in terms of our exploration and, and ramping up very fast. I'd say the other thing is, we have, have, obviously, a great exploration team of Sabina, and everyone knows our strength in exploration has been a great. We benefit from the from the experience of the Sabina and Chalice exploration team, and all their knowledge of the project. That's another area where we're combining forces to aggressively pursue the exploration opportunities that we see there. I think with that, operator, we'll open it up for questions. Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Ralph Profiti from Eight Capital. Thanks, operator. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. Clive, I appreciate, you know, the clarification on the Mali situation, I want to come back and maybe ask a question, sort of in broad terms. When you've engaged in discussions and they solicit your feedback, where have you think that the concentration should be in terms of giving your input, right? Where, you know, are there any specific issues that should take precedent in these discussions in your view? Well, I, I think the, the discussions with the government, ourselves, and from what I've heard, other mining, foreign invested mining companies, successful in Mali, is the fact of maintaining the importance of maintaining an attractive economic environment to go to and invest in, in Mali, as we've done in the past. That's what we emphasize to, to government, and we always do this everywhere we go in, in our conversations with government, which is find the balance there. Fair, reasonable tax regime, which we feel we, we have under the Fekola scenario. Obviously, for a, a public company, part of, part of the incentive of what we do is, is profitable mining. Our conversations with government and all governments is always surrounded about what is, what is fair and equitable, and what, what, what maintains an attractive environment. Mali's had such a rich history of gold mining for thousands of years, the governments for Randgold's been there a lot, a lot longer than us, now, of course, Barrick. They've been very beneficial of that and have been very good to work with. They have changed the mining codes over time to more reflect the reality of the kind of standards that we see worldwide. I would say the 2012 Mining Code reflects what we consider to be a very fairer and equitable environment for all stakeholders, as I mentioned. That's kind of the focus when we talk to governments all around the world, how to find that balance, where the people of Mali should, of course, benefit- Mm-hmm. From gold production in their country, of course, it's their gold. ... At the end of the day, what's the balance? Because they are not, at this point in time, able to raise the hundreds of millions of dollars as we have done to build something like Fekola. So that's the balance, and we've had successful conversations on the history of Mali as a gold producer, I believe. We believe going forward, the Government is, is keen on-- I mean, the economy is driven in large to a pretty significant extent by gold production, and we believe they're gonna want to see more successful development of gold mines in, in Mali. Gotcha. Yeah, thanks. I want to switch topics and, and come back to the construction update at Goose that was given last month, and, and the move to the move to long haul underground for Umwelt, right? I'm just wondering, does that move sort of stope and ore pass and all this development as one of the critical path items? The reason I ask is that that particular deposit on the old Sabina plan was at the front end of the mine plan. Just wondering how sort of ore sequencing by deposit happens now that you're sort of changing the, the mining method. Yeah. You're actually, like, right in where we're at right now in, in the design, so I don't really want to comment. I would, I would maybe say, give us another quarter back, give us another quarter to really kind of come back and answer that correctly. We are looking at the sequencing, and, and really, a lot of it revolves around the crown pillar, that needs to be mined out ahead of when you use the, when you use the pit for tailings. Sequencing, I don't think we're ready to talk about exactly which one, but certainly long hole stoping seems like the way to go for us. That we think would add, positively add to the production profile. Yep. Yeah. All right. Thanks, Bill. Thanks, Clive. Thanks. Thanks, Ralph. Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Ovais Habib from Scotiabank. Thanks, operator. Hi. Hi, Clive and B2 team. I just want to say congrats on another strong quarter and, great to see development of Goose progressing well. A couple of questions from me. Number one, just on a sustaining cost, you know, 2023 seemed to be a bit of a high sustaining CapEx year. You know, a lot of projects came in at the beginning of the year at the same time. Should we expect sustaining capital to subside going to 2024, or should we maintain the same kind of spend going into the next year? I think you can see it come... I think we guided that, Ovais, when we put the budget out. It means a, a chunk of sustained capital. Some of it's fleet. It's time to upgrade some of the fleet, also deferred stripping was quite a big number, as we put out in the budget. There were significant stripping campaigns, both at Fekola, the new phases, and in Namibia for Otjikoto. Obviously, like, if the Otjikoto pit's winding down, I guess by the end, by 2025, you shouldn't expect the same levels. You know, mine plans bump up and down a little bit, generally speaking, last year and this year were heavier stripping periods. Got it. Got it. Thanks for the color on that. Just, moving on to Fekola then, and specifically Fekola Underground. Maybe this question is for Bill. I believe you're looking to release a new mine plan at the end of the year, that includes the plan on the Fekola Underground. Bill, is there any update info you can provide on what Fekola Underground kind of looks like or how you're envisioning that? Yeah, well, I can provide an update, kind of where we're at, for sure. You have to remember, the Fekola underground development, more than anything, was to really get down to the deposit and drill it off to an indicated resource, right? While we do have what I would say, a conceptual mine plan on that, what we really did was prepare development and got approval from the government to get the development down to the face. I will tell you that that development, because it was a rather new concept in Mali, where you did exploration from underground, it took a little longer, so we were about a quarter behind. All indications are Byrnecut is on site right now. They're, they're doing the development for us, is that they will catch up, and we will see that in Q1 2025. I guess the, the, the short answer is yes, it will be part of the update at the end of the year. It will contain really the resource that you've already seen at an inferred level as, as it fits to the whole plan. There won't be any update for that, but it will be part of the year-end update, the comprehensive Fekola Complex. and, and, and basically, I mean, I mean, is this, you know, study kind of, kind of see if this is feasible, or is this kind of already given the green light, and we should start seeing some production out from underground Fekola underground, you know, in the near term? In 2025 is when you'll see production out of the underground. Got it. Okay. Thanks for that. Just, moving on to the exploration program at Goose and George. You guys mentioned drilling has commenced. So when can we start expecting some results from the program? Again, is the priority, you know, of this exploration program to kind of target near mine, exploration, or are you looking more regionally as well? The target at this stage, you know, we, we started, as I said earlier, at George for, basically, logistical reasons. That's, that's the regional work that's been done to date. The focus now will be at Goose, there's a mix there of both, as I, as I indicated earlier. ... looking at extensions of the known deposits, that's the focus this year. There's also targeting, particularly the Crown Pillar area and below that, to actually provide more detailed, infill drilling, to some extent for, to, to, to allow that planning of, of, and of that drilling, of the mining of that Crown Pillar within, in the, within the timeframe. In terms of more regional work, both at Goose itself and George, we'll probably pick up on that next year more. Certainly we've got a lot to do, even on the extensions that we have of the existing deposits. Some good results? Oh, so sorry, the timing of the results. I guess because of the location, the turnaround is not great on assays, so we're looking at four to six weeks at least. Having just started basically this week at Goose, we're looking at probably another two months, at least, before we start seeing some of the results coming in. From Goose. Yeah. Sounds good. Thanks for the color on that one as well. Just shifting gears to the situation in Niger. Now B2 obviously doesn't have any exposure in Niger, but Clive, maybe, can you provide any color or thoughts on Niger and any sort of impact to your current portfolio? Well, obviously, everyone's watching what's, what's, what's happening there. I mean, we feel that our- for our circumstance in Mali, we are working with the current government, and the current government is, is, is popular. The, the, the coup a few years ago was a, a bloodless coup. There was dissatisfaction widespread amongst the people with the government of the day, at the time. I think if you talk to our, our people in Mali and many people in Mali, they feel that the Government of Mali has, has done some good things for the people of Mali. I think there's some stability there, and they are heading into elections, committed to elections next year. Sometimes the, the, the, the West mis- misinterprets or misreads what's, what's happening in each of these countries. I'm not an expert on Nigeria, and I really won't comment much about that. At the end of the day, we're, we're, we're hoping to see continued political stability, and, and we believe we will see that in, in Mali. I'm, I'm not an expert on, on all the other countries in West Africa. Mm-hmm. Okay, thanks for that, Clive. That's it from me, and thanks for taking my questions. Thanks, Ovais. Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Don DeMarco from National Bank Financial. Hi, thank you, operator. Good morning. Good afternoon, Clive and team. First question. At Fekola, Bill, you mentioned that there's ore available to replace the 18,000 ounces that would've otherwise been trucked in. Would this replacement ore be comparable in terms of grade, operating costs, and CapEx to the ore that would've been trucked in? The answer is yes. The short answer is yes. It'll most likely come from Cardinal or some of the, some of the kind of extensions of Fekola. With it being closer than coming from Bantako, it has to be at or better the overall cost than you would see at Cardinal. You should model it as the same. Okay. It seems like you've got some flexibility there with Cardinal, Fekola in general. If some of these trucking delays persist into Q1, do you also have the flexibility to replace what you might have otherwise trucked for a period of time? Yes, I mean, we are so. Remember, we've always talked about the kind of flexibility. That's the beauty of having all those licenses and getting set up the way we are to be able to mine from multiple pits. We still are projecting that in 2024, we will be trucking from the Bantako area, right? That's still in our life of mine. If, if that changes, which I, I can't imagine at this time that it would, I mean, when, when we were just there meeting with the government. Now that, now that they've kind of gone through the review of their mining code and are trying to sort out what they're gonna do with it, the technical guys are saying, "We need to start moving this stuff forward as fast as possible." We absolutely see bringing some regional stuff in 2024 to the Fekola Mill. Okay. While I'm, while we're talking about, Fekola and Mali, you've been there firsthand with these negotiations. How would you describe the sort of, the tenor of the meetings? I mean, obviously, you have a long-standing positive relationship with the government there. you know, are you seeing based on what, your engagement there, that this should continue? absolutely. I mean, what we've been saying over the last quarter, and which I just validated, being down there for two weeks, was that the Malian government considers B2 kind of the, the poster child of what they want in mining there. You know, Clive didn't really hit on it, but the reality is, is some of this talk about changing the mining code is really bringing up some of the other people that are not under the 2012 code to kind of what we're doing, right? As far as we're concerned, we continue to have a very good relationship, and quite frankly, we, we expressed our concern on, one, really the way that these discussions around the mining code have been happening. Every one of the government officials I met with saying, "We do not want to slow down mining in Mali. It is a cornerstone for our economy. Okay, that's good. That's encouraging. At Goose then, shifting to Goose, congratulations on the progress so far, and one of the items you guys did is, you successfully completed the ice road without any incident. You actually created, came up with some creative ways to expedite development next year. My question is, have you looked at the cost and benefit of building a permanent road to the site? If so, what might that cost and benefit, some of the benefits be? Well, I, I think that Sabina had looked at it. There, there's never gonna be, at least in the short term, a permanent-- well, I should never say never, but the government and the KIA up there do not want a permanent road in, into the site. That would really require extensive, extensive discussions. What you can do, is there is some talk that you could actually put down some base, you know, within your license area to shorten what the ice road would look like, and, but I don't think you'll ever see an all-season road, road in there. Okay, great. Well, that's interesting, but it, it seems like that's good for that. Thanks for that color. Last question on Masbate. Okay, we see Masbate benefiting from lower fuel prices. There could be a guidance, cost reduction. Are the fuel costs running below budget at the other mines? Yeah, it's Mike. Yep. As I mentioned, they are. They're also at, at Namibia, they're lower than not. They're not as much below budget as Masbate. Remember, Namibia, we've kind of weaned ourselves off HFO, because now we're connected to the grid, so we're it's only really diesel costs, so we're exposed to fluctuations there. In Mali, diesel's a bit lower, but HFO, this new blend of HFO is a little higher, so kind of- Okay. More neutral in overall fuel costs. Masbate is the one that is impacted the most by fuel right now. Okay. Okay, well, that's all for me. Thanks, thanks a lot for that. Good luck with Q3. Thanks. Thanks a lot. Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Our next question comes from the line of Anita Soni from CIBC World Markets. Hi, good morning, guys, and thanks for taking my questions. Just following on Don's question about the fuel. As I recall, or maybe, maybe I'm thinking of it incorrectly, but it wasn't you, but is there a little bit of a lag in terms of the sort of your inventories and the effect that you have in terms of fuel pricing? The question really being is: Would, could we see more, more of an effect going into next year as fuel prices come down? There's probably two or three parts to that. Historically, we had disclosed there is, there was a lag in, in Mali because the government sets fuel. What we'd seen certainly initially, over the last couple of years was they were much slower to react to change the fuel price than the underlying market price. Whereas in the Philippines, you see that correlation impacting much more quickly, for example. So that's one, the setting of the fuel price by the state in Mali does create a lag sometimes. The other one to think about as you go forward, it's not in operation now, but Goose, there's a short shipping season, so you're, you're gonna be shipping fuel in large increments over the summer, and that fuel is gonna be used over the course of a year. You're not gonna see the same direct correlation with the market price there for Goose fuel, because it, it's gonna be inventoried and then used. You know, as we get near to Goose coming into production, we'll be able to give you more guidance on that, as to, you know, the quantity of fuel and, and the valuation that's ascribed to it. Those are the two main timing differences I think you got to think about. Government, Government pricing in Mali, and then the impact of Goose having the short shipping season when it comes into operation. Okay. Then, just in terms of, you know, the, the, sort of cadence for the rest of the, the year-end quarters, you're, you're, you know, running, I think, at about 50% already. Was there, was it expected to be slightly more back half weighted at, at these assets? Or was it relatively even, like we could just continue to, model? Consolidate, consolidate was relatively even, but we did disclose in Otjikoto, they were, they had more of it. As you get into both the underground and some of the higher grade parts of the later Otjikoto open pit, it was weighted like 60/40, second half to first half of the year. You'll see a slightly higher production in Otjikoto. Fekola is the opposite. Fekola has a little tapering. Overall, not really significant fluctuation on the total production from our sites. You would expect, all else being equal, that the costs would sort of follow the opposite trends then, I guess? Historically, that's correct. Like I said, you, we haven't re-guided half two. Yeah. After the first half, but we will come back and let you know where we think things are at, just as we gauge fuel prices going through Q3. Okay. Lastly, on the Goose Project, you mentioned that, you've gotten rid of the EPCM contract and moved to your own, owner, operated, building fleet, I guess. Can you-- are there any costs associated with the terminations of those contracts that we should be thinking about, or is that already included within the budget that you just announced a couple weeks ago? Yeah, it sounds like a legal question. The cost, the cost of termination was, was nominal, and, and you won't see an impact on the, on the budget that was put out. It's factored in for sure. Yeah. Greatly less. Okay. Well, I look forward to going on the tour. Thanks. Thank you. At this time, I would now like to turn the conference back over to Clive Johnson for closing remarks. Okay, thanks, operator. Thanks for your good questions. Just a couple of things. One thing I noticed that I forgot to mention, a very important thing, and that is that as part of our going forward at Goose and Back River, we will be looking to, of course, maximize Inuit employment and training. I don't know if you want to touch on that, but that's a very important part of... As we, in all of the countries we're in, I think everyone's aware of it, we are well known for having a very high employment from locals in the 98% range, I think, as a company. Here we are back in Canada, bringing in the culture. We've been so successful around the world to bring the culture back to Canada. We can do a lot of good work there in terms of working with the Inuit community in training and employment. Yeah, no, sure, Clive. I mean, as you pointed out, we have a very good relationship with the Inuit communities up there. We have an agreement signed with them that was signed under Sabina, which does ask us to maximize kind of local hires, and, and we've really taken that to heart. I think with that, we're well over, I want to say we're in double digits% already, in, in hiring of the Inuits, and I think that number's gonna only go up as we, as we create job training programs and opportunities for them. Yeah. Thanks. Well, we covered a lot of ground. Thanks for your for your time and your questions. Any follow-up questions, talk to Mike Cinnamond, and he'll he'll get the right individual to answer your further questions. Thanks for your time, and let's remember, this is a really good quarter that we just we just put out a reflective of how I believe how well this how well we're doing as a company, and I'm excited about. We are excited about our growth prospects going forward. Thank you very much. Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.