New Found Gold, this is one of my top picks for 2026, along with Polymetal. I think this is an incredible management story. I have a real heart for the project location in Newfoundland, the Queensway Project right outside of Gander. Gander deserves the greatest appreciation. It was where a lot of planes landed after 9/11. I was in New York at the time. Whenever I think of Gander and I think of the hundreds of planes that landed there and delivered babies and doubled the population and all these things, I get shivers. I just think it's a wonderful town that really needs jobs. I think I said it before our first meeting, that fireside, that I think that Newfoundland is the Nevada of Canada. In terms of permitting, with the potential of mineralization, the desire of a government that you can pick up the phone and talk to the top guy and get things done. This is a company that was an exploration play that was being deemed diluted down by exploration. Keith came in, slammed on the brakes, and like an F-16, did a 180-degree turn and took it in a different direction without losing, with all those Gs, didn't lose any energy in the turn. Ended up acquiring Maritime, which turned on the afterburners. Now they're starting to rip with production mid-year. Any questions, Keith? Carry on, Mike. Why don't you tell us a little bit about why you came in. You came in a year ago. What did you see? What did you do? Describe the project and why it was interesting to you. Maybe a bit of background on me because of that is I'm a mining engineer and have done this now for 40 years. The one thing that excites me is to build an operation or turn it around and see how the team really takes it on. Even the communities that are in around it. This one had all the right earmarks. One, is a great deposit. Two, in a community, as you said, just filled with people that wanted something and excited about it. The government, great jurisdiction. When you've got that kind of recipe, when you come out of retirement for the second time to come and have fun, you don't want to have to fight uphill and push Jell-O and all the rest of it. That was really the reason why I took this project on at Queensway. Having been brought in by a fellow like Paul Huet, who came in as chair basically a month before I did, with the mandate to, "Look, let's get this thing to cash flow." We're talking about high-grade gold right at surface that you can go and see. You have seen it. It doesn't get more straightforward. I hate to use simple. It doesn't get more straightforward than that. That was that. On top of that, you've got a property package that basically it's starting to look like the beginnings of the Abitibi, the decades-long operation that's going to be here. It's just more great. What's the strike length of the entire length of your project along the Appleton Fault? There's two main fault zones, which are the plumbing system of the gold, and we have a property that's 110 km long or 70 mi long, which when you look at, like I say, the Abitibi, that's Val-d'Or to Rouyn. There are tens of mining companies that get formed, including companies like Agnico Eagle. They have about, I think it's 35% of their production in the Abitibi along that equivalent strike length, Wesdome, Eldorado, and many others in the exploration phase. For us to have that kind of strike length with indicators that, look, there's lots to explore there, very underexplored. Not explored. It's just fantastic. I think the prior management tried to show that it had great expansion potential, it never really got to a place where they could find that, okay, we've now found the edges of the deposit. Really, it's a string of a number of deposits that a mineralization and concentrations all the way up and down the fault. I have this view that these things are going to get larger, each one of them, and you're just starting with a couple of them right now that just happen to be most advanced. I use the analogy of, you know those old ice trays that had the handle that you broke the ice? If you think about that handle as being the Appleton Fault Zone and just stretch that over 110 km long, you've got these different cubes all along either side of the Appleton Fault Zone, which is where the gold deposits are or pearls on a string, or however you want to describe it. That's what you've got along that whole system to discover, and oh, by the way, it doesn't stop at the surface. It's wide open at depth. We've hit it down to 1 km deep Through the drilling that we've done. We know that the system is not just 110 km long strike at surface, but it goes at depth. Right. One of the things that drew me to this is that there was the possibility that it could look like a Fosterville mine in Australia, the relevant thing there is these are orogenic deposits that are mountain-building ones that can go deep at depth. They can be kilometers in depth, and they could really have legs. One of the things that's a real complaint amongst geologists is about continuity and the nugget effect, and that, oh, there's just gold here, but you won't find it over there, and it's impossible or difficult to quantify for both mining and resource estimation, which is a hell of a burden to bear. Can you tell me about how you've tackled that? I'm going to say there's three parts to the answer on that. First, when people speak of nuggety gold, the picture people will get is you get a chunk, you get nothing, you get a chunk, and then you'll average whatever that gold is. In our case, there's basically flakes along the entirety at relative different concentrations, but they're flakes. As you've walked along that vein and saw, it's pretty consistent. We've done the sampling right at surface at 7.5 m spacings and seen it's very consistent. What we showed were, yep, it's pretty consistent along those high-grade shoots that we call it. The last bit was that we said, "Well, okay, hang on. Let's make sure that we understand what that distribution is." Very tight space, mandated a 5 m-by-5 m center pattern where we're planning to start our mining. We're basically drilling off a pattern of 5m-by-5 m centers, which is extremely tight when it comes to gold deposits. In order to give the geologists the data in order to then re-estimate the resource, taking into consideration this better continuity of high-grade shoots. The drilling has shown that it's actually coming out better than what we had originally estimated. Like I said, the two patterns, one on the Keats and one on the Iceberg, those two areas that we're drilling will be equivalent to a year's worth of mining in each of those areas. It's interesting to me that initially the prior management demonstrated that there was mineralization at the northern end of that long stretch over 15 km added to the land position. This is with 50 m, 75 m wide holes. We're able to drill 1,000 m down, detect gold, five distinct different areas of these shoots coming up from above. As you get picked on, you've basically gone down to 5 m almost production grade preparation of mining type drilling almost close to- It's better than production grade drilling. Well, thank you. This is really worth taking the time to go to their website, look at their presentation, but the problem with discovering these types of deposits, it's covered with glacial till of maybe a couple meters to 10 m. At the Iceberg and the Keats and now the Lotto, you're now clearing these multiple football-sized field areas. The next question is, as you go to permitting later, it's like you've almost got ready-to-go mining right in front of you. It's very capital efficient development on a project like that where you've only got a few meters of overburden to strip away. Then you're starting to mine right in the high grade, right at surface. Another thing that's interesting to me is that when you forced, at the beginning of last year, a mineral resource estimate and a PEA, that was with widespread drilling and what you had. Since then you've done nothing but tighten it down. I'm excited to see about what the direction is as you continue to optimize these really big fat plums that you've got. What we're demonstrating by doing that kind of drilling, first is the continuity of those high-grade shoots. It'll give the geologists the comfort that they don't, I believe, wouldn't have to cap as high or limit the influence of those high-grade intersections on estimating the rest of the blocks. That's what I believe that that first does. Second, it gives the market the comfort that, hey, that'll be the first couple of years of mining. That'll be the grade that's going to be going through. What's the difference between the first phase and the second phase? Phase 1 is starting a small mine, 700 tons a day, mining that very high grade. We'll be stockpiling the material that's the lower grade, but still profitable, but in a bigger mill. We're going to take the cash flow from that first phase and then permit and construct a mill right at Queensway. Now when I mentioned that they maneuvered and then they turned on the afterburners, you made an acquisition here at the middle of the year. Could you talk about that, what it means to financing your first phase, and how is that going? With phase 1, we said 700 tons a day. We want to truck that to a mill offsite so that we get that high grade in a mill. Had we decided to just build a mill on site, we'd be in production in 2031. We decided, let's acquire the mill, which is the acquisition that we made. We happened to acquire a small mine at the same time that is getting ramped up now. But the mill in particular allows us to make the modifications, double the size of that mill to accept Queensway, and we're anticipating to ship first production out of Queensway by the end of next year. End of 2027 versus 2031. That was really the savings for us by making the acquisition. The afterburners was to bring that production forward. For us, now it's the detailed engineering of the expansion of the mill and the mine site development at Queensway while we're ramping up Hammerdown. Hammerdown's a mine that although it's not a big mine from a gold mining perspective, we're looking at 12-year mine life, 20,000 oz-25,000 oz a year in general over that period of time. We've got a couple of years that are higher than that being next year. That's key for us because next year's production will be part of the cash flow that will fund the Queensway development. We announced just last month the signing of a term sheet of $75 million, so CAD 100 million, of a debt facility that we're working through to close now. We're looking to have the funds in place to accelerate and keep the afterburners on at Queensway so that we get that high-grade material that we've just drilled off right at surface in the mill by the end of next year. In the middle of last year, they acquired Maritime Resources. It had the Hammerdown deposit that was being produced, would be processed at the Pine Cove Mill there at the north end of Newfoundland. They also had what was called the Nugget Pond equipment and mill, and that was where they were going to do the toll milling. That mill is being transported to the Pine Cove location. Yep. Really that first phase, instead of having to build a mill, it's going to be processed through existing equipment at the- Pine Cove at Pine Cove, which is Nugget Pond. You're still also going to be producing from the Hammerdown deposit 700 tons a day, a very similar deposit to Queensway, and highly unexplored. One of the things is people were disappointed with the resource or the PEA that came out of Hammerdown, but what they may have missed is that it's almost three or four grams in the first couple of years from Hammerdown. Yeah. That's the afterburner turned on for the cash flow for your phase 1 at Queensway. Did I drop a stitch? Yeah. No, that's correct. That's the full picture of why we decided to acquire Maritime. One, getting our hands on the mill so that we could bring forward production. Two, having the cash flow from Hammerdown to help fund that capital. Three, there's a lot of exploration potential even on those properties on their own. Having the exploration team that's been successful at Queensway, we can now add a lot of value on that property package. Depending on the gold price, the Hammerdown could take down the debt fairly rapidly, more than expected, and may not have to dilute. We'll see how things go. That'll be able to fund your phase I, and your phase I will fund your phase II. Yep Bob's your uncle. That's how we're lining things up. That happens to be why you're one of my top picks for 2026. I think that it's one of the greatest changes in management with Keith came in, they kept the geologist, everybody else departed, and you wound up with an entirely new management team that were mine builders. What's interesting, you're fairly deceptive, Keith, because even though you have this hardened exterior about being a mine builder and focusing on none of this exploration, the prior team never mentioned the other fault, JBP, or the southern part of Queensway as being prospective. I think maybe you're a closet geologist at heart. I am. I'll admit. My name is Keith Boyle, I'm a closet geologist at heart. You're pretty excited about Dropkick. You want to tell me about that and why that's important? Say that again. Dropkick. Dropkick. On the property that's 110 km long, we've got four and a half km is where the resource is on the Appleton Fault Zone. We have a second fault zone that's JBP, it's paralleling Appleton Fault. 11 km to the north of the resource itself, we discovered Dropkick at the end of 2024 some spectacular grades like 46 grams over 15 m, I think it's 23 grams over another 12 or 13 m. Some very spectacular grades. We saw that as an opportunity to basically fill in the back end of our production profile in the next iteration of our updated technical report because we mill the highest grade first, then the production profile tapers off as we're milling the lower grade stockpiles that we have. As we discover these higher grades, we can fill in that production profile and really demonstrate a long life, good production asset. That seems to be the surprise with these companies, that if you define a deposit and that's it, the best days are right now when you're mining it real fresh. When you have a district-scale project, which I think a lot of those little pearls on the line there- Yeah. ...are going to be a Lotto someday. They're going to be a Keats someday, they're going to be an Iceberg if you just take the time to spend the money on them, just like Hammerdown with what's around there. I just have this sense that you've got a generational mine on your hand. Yeah. Well, that's what I believe, too. This will be going long after my time, long after your time. For us, it's really establishing that, I'll call it rhythm, of understanding we're going to build a mine, we'll use the cash flow from it to expand, but we're also going to use the cash flow to continue to explore. There's a certain cadence we're going to have to keep drilling holes at to keep replacing and, with luck and good science, find the next Keats, Iceberg, that high grade. As well, looking at the underground, we know we've hit it to a 1 km, so how do we really take advantage of that vertical of high grade that's available to us, and bring that forward in the production plan? Well, that's actually kind of the next one I'm going on to. It just seems like that you have, really, we just mentioned three mines that are in your first couple of years of the mine plan, but when you look at the graphic coming out of that initial mineral resource estimate, you have 20 different groupings of what look to be nascent deposits on the way. I would think that if it was me, I'd just go pluck the eyeballs out of this thing all the way up and down, from the surface where you have cutoff grades for your open pit, for your cutoff grade is- 0.3. 0.3, the grades you're looking in your high-grade core that you're mining first, that's going to be trucked- Yeah that's about- In the ten-ish range. Ten-ish range. The early years is above 12. The really good stuff. That's a lot of margin there. Yep With that level of cost. How do you weigh that against the temptation of going underground? Like I say, I would've stuck to the surface, the underground is really an adult way of looking at it. It's a sleeper that requires more work. It's not one that you can say, "Oh yeah, that's what's going to happen." It requires more work. We have in our production profile about 270,000 oz of production from the underground over the 1.5 million ounces in the mine plan. Okay? Quite small percentage. It's over a strike length of 4.5 km in five different ramp systems. Each ramp system takes a lot of capital- to establish that mining. Once you're established, if this goes to depth, I believe it goes to depth, we've hit it in various places. It's really just a question of then drilling below your feet and just extending that ramp system down. Well, you can imagine how that 270,000 oz then all of a sudden starts growing, each ramp system becoming a mine on its own, as opposed to all five being considered part of one mine. We could be adding five different underground mines to that production profile without necessarily understanding how long it'll take to mine it out. Well, I was pleased to see that there was an underground component in your mine schedule for phases one and two, because that meant that you had to force yourself to contemplate the cost of those five different portals, because transitioning from an open pit where everybody knows how their day starts every day, to going to underground is a really different discipline than an open pit, and you've kind of already got a beachhead established underground, like you said- Yeah it's just a matter of being able to define the resource deeper with some concentrated drilling. Yeah, and development. It's really understanding, well, how are we going to do this? What are we going to look for? How are we going to establish and understand how to go about mining it? You can only do that and get down there. We've already started talking about how can we accelerate maybe one of these ramp systems to get that learning started, and maybe bring some of that forward. Kind of a last question is, this is something I kind of know the answer to, I just have to ask it again, is that when you look at the photographs of the areas that are cleared, the gold is in these really beautiful, long, fat, old quartz. They're really hard rock. Quartz is hard. It's surrounded by the softer kind of schist kind of stuff. This is typical all the way from Appalachians all the way to Ireland, these types of faults. When you go underground and you're mining out the hard part and you're leaving the softer part around you. Does that present any insurmountable issues with underground mining? Insurmountable, no. What you want to be able to do is limit the extent to which the ground is open. We've decided to use a mechanized cut-and-fill method, which basically takes out a slice, you fill the slice back, and then take out the next one. You're always working in just an area that's been exposed, and you put in the necessary ground support to keep the walls up. You're mining the quartz that's above you, and the walls have the rock that's less competent. Well, I really appreciate you sitting down with me and talking, and I really look forward to what you're going to be coming up with this year with production out of Hammerdown. I really am hoping and expecting that you make one of my top picks, one of the big ones amongst the analysts at Roth in 2026. Me too. Me too. Well, let's get at it. Thanks a lot. Okay. Thank you