I'll say good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on where in the world you're signing in from. I think almost every time zone is represented in today's audience. There are quite a few of you, so really thank you so much for joining us. I couldn't be more excited to have with me today, Rick van Nieuwenhuyse, the CEO of Contango Silver & Gold, and Shawn Khunkhun, the company's President. Gentlemen, how are you today? Excellent. Just excited to get going here. Awesome. Me too. As we go through what I always describe as the most boring part of the webinar, where I tell you what's going on, you can also look at Contango's fancy new branding. I'll throw that up while I do this. A couple things I wanted to talk about today. There are a lot of questions that came in already. So that chat button at the bottom of your screen, we are interactive. Please do ask questions during today's event. I will try to get to as many as I can, but I warn you, there is no way we will get to every question that was asked. If your question does not come up, that you submitted over email or that you submit in chat, I will be sending it to the Contango Silver & Gold team, so they'll be able to tackle it afterwards. I am gonna try to get to the most popular ones, or certainly the ones that seem biggest for everybody who's already submitted, who's going to submit them during the event. I'll also say today's event is being recorded and will be available for replay quite soon after the event. I'd say probably by 3 P.M. Eastern. It'll pop up both in your email if you're here in the room, but it'll also be on 6ix's YouTube page, so you can share it from there. I think that's it for the boring stuff. I do wanna get right into the exciting stuff that we're here to talk about. That is, congratulations, both of you, getting this across the finish line and introducing the new brand. I know shareholders on both sides voted overwhelmingly in favor. Now, the lawyers are through all the lawyery stuff that I'm sure was fun for you guys to read emails about. Now that Contango Silver & Gold is a done deal, what is the first thing investors should expect to hear from the combined company? And what does the 2026 game plan look like right from day one? Rick, I'll throw it to you first. Sure. Well, there's a lot going on, and yeah, we're pleased to get this done. It's been a tough market, obviously. I'm sure we'll talk about that some more. I think the first sort of milestone thing to have come out here is an MRE, a Mineral Resource Estimate on Kitsault. There's been on the order of 200,000 m of drilling since the last MRE hit came out. So we're expecting to have that completed by the end of the quarter, next quarter, June timeframe. They're working on it now, and I think it'll be, you know, some exciting milestone. From there, we've got a 40,000 m drill program planned for this year. The Mineral Resource Estimate will sort of help guide how much new exploration's being done, how much infill and expansion of the existing resource will be done. It's, you know, an important document, not only from a milestone standpoint and investor standpoint, but also from a planning standpoint. That'll be the first thing. Obviously we're drilling at Lucky Shot, so we'll have more results out from there. You know, we continue to permit at Johnson Tract. We're getting everything set up to start building the road there. It's gonna be a busy year. I think we're gonna spend on the order of $50 million. There's a lot going on. We had our first big all hands on deck team meeting earlier this week, and we're organized and we're set to go. Exciting. Shawn, I'll get you in there for what people can expect from Contango Silver & Gold with the new management structure, with the new team just going forward into this year. Yeah, look, listen, I think for the investor, you know, what they have now is they have a new go-to name in the precious metals arena. You know, for investors that care about safety, security, that celebrate grade. Look, the last 15-16 years in the precious metals arena has been very, very difficult. You know, up until just the last, say, six months or so, it's been a very depressed environment. For those who have survived and thrived, you know, Contango and Dolly Varden were the exception in the industry. The strong survive and thrive now that the market's turned and projects are becoming very, very economic. What investors have to look forward to is a new entry, a company that has the ambition to become a mid-tier producer focused on precious metals in North America. I think what's unique about this company is, you know, in addition to having, you know, Manh Choh is a very special project. It's one of the highest-grade open-pit gold mines on the planet, and it's located in safe Alaska. You know, you've got Lucky Shot. That's, you know, there's a new discovery that was made and announced in February and an ongoing drilling there. That's a project that's permitted, high-grade and could be back in production very soon, you know, as early as 2028. You've got the Manh Choh production that's gonna be, it's gonna have a record year next year. Company is well-funded. We're doing you know, boring but important work at Johnson Tract. And then from a growth perspective, what excites me is, you know, as Rick said, we're spending about $50 million on enhancing this portfolio. And a lot of that is going into exploration. And if you look back at the company's history, going back five or six years, you know, we've been up there in the top 10 drill results in the industry in both silver and gold. Having a, call it a 50,000 m exploration budget across the portfolio, it's gonna generate a lot of those types of results that's garnered that growth. It's exciting. I think we really are gonna attract the investor who celebrates, you know, good balance sheet, strong cash flow. That's the differentiator. You know, you've got a sea of juniors that are, they don't have the funding to advance. You know, they're relying on share issuances and dilution. We've got the cash flow, we've got the treasury, we've got the pipeline and the growth. It's what I'm really excited about, you know, my skill set coming into this is marketing. You know, I've been marketing companies. I've raised billions of dollars for companies in the last couple of decades. I worked with one of the most famous and legendary mining finance peers on the planet, Frank Giustra, and I've learned from him over the last four years. What I'm excited about is Contango moving into the Fiore office, being, you know, one of the foundational companies, the largest market cap cos here, and working with Rick and his team and Mike Clark, to share the value proposition. I just think we're in an environment here. I don't think we've ever been in a time in history where you've got the governments at the federal level in the U.S., at the federal level with the Biden administration. We've got projects. You know, I can speak on the Canadian side of the border here. This is the most important mining jurisdiction in Canada, you know, from the density of mines, from the infrastructure, from First Nations, and, you know, Rick's experience, his track record, it's really exciting. Looking forward to hit the road here in the first quarter and share that message. Awesome. Appreciate it. Do love the perspective, the grit it took to get through the last couple of years. People forget, I didn't see a single smile at Beaver Creek for four years. People forget how tough it was to get through some of these. There is a question I wanna ask because this is on everybody's minds. It's already come up in the chat. I know people asked about it. I wanna zoom out and talk about the market, and the stock price for a second, because obviously people do ask questions. Gold pullback from high is well over $5,000 to today, last I checked, just under $4,400. Silver corrected from all the way in the $113 to $119 down to today, under $70. I know a lot of this, we don't have an end to Middle Eastern wars button as much as we'd like to, but I'd love to ask, Rick, I can start with you here, what advice can you give for investors relative to Contango Silver & Gold's future about the market? Yeah, I mean, look, I've always said gold's an emotional metal. I think silver in that vein, you know, silver is a drama queen. It is just more volatile. It identifies itself, you know. It has a catastrophe. It's like I don't know if I'm an industrial metal. I don't know if I'm precious. That's just the environment we're in. You know, something like the Iran war happens, everybody goes to the dollar. That's where the big money goes, the index money goes. Okay, I'm not sure what's going on. I'm not sure how this is gonna affect, you know, my investment portfolio. I'm just gonna go to the dollar. The dollar strengthens, the metals retreat. It's been dramatic. I mean, you know, the metals are down. I think gold is down, you know, 20%. Silver is down. You know, if you wanna take the peak to trough, it's down almost 50%. Yeah, it's been dramatic. You know, when Agnico Eagle and Newmont are all down, you know, 30%, of course, we're gonna be down. Yeah, you know, it's a tough environment to get a merger done. It's just not because of the, you know, the work's the same, but, you know, you're watching your share price go down, you're like, "Okay, well, this isn't fun." What you have to do is look at the long term. What are we building here? Why are you investing in gold? You're investing in gold for the future. You're investing in silver for the future, not for today. That's the company we're building, a company that's looking forward, and that's exactly what Contango means. You know, that's the future, the delta between the present price and the future price. We're building a company for the future. We've got a great portfolio. We've got cash flow. We've got lots of cash. We're starting with lots of cash. We've got $100 million in the bank, and we're generating on average $100 million of free cash flow from Montney. We've worked our way through the hedge book. We've paid off most of our debt. We're poised for growth. You know, the gold and silver market's gonna do what they're gonna do. We have zero control over what's happening in the Middle East. What we can control is our budgets, and we can spend money prudently and make sure that we're investing that money to get a return for shareholders in the future. No, I appreciate it. Shawn, I will throw it to you for your perspective on just current markets and the share price change. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think, you know, I like to be solution-oriented, right? Learn from the past. If you go back to two recent crises, you know, 2020, 2008, in both instances, gold sold off. You know, it initially sold off. You go back to 2008, it was $1,000, it went to $680. We're seeing the same thing happen here. As Rick said, you know, in a time of crisis, you go to things that you can sell, that you have liquidity. We're in a world right now where there's record debt levels, the cost of carrying, you know, the economic slowdowns. Gold is one of the few liquid assets that you can go to and get liquidity in during a time of crisis. You know, what I focus on though, Romeo, is you look at Montney. That was built when gold was sub $2,000 an ounce, right? It was built when you were really modeling, you know, $1,400-$1,500 gold environment. If you think about the all-in sustaining cost throughout the life of mine, you know, whether gold is $3,000, $4,000, $4,500, $5,000, it's a very, very profitable operation. I think, you know, one thing that I've learned as, you know, Rick and I have known each other for a while, but we've really got to know each other well over the last six months. He's reminded me something that's resonated throughout my entire career, grade is king. You know, our whole differentiator here, in addition to the cash flow and the location, is the grade. We've got some of the highest grade gold and silver projects anywhere on the planet. I think for the investor, and I know for myself, successful precious metals investors are contrarians. You've got to buy when you're scared, right? If you look at this opportunity right now, the company was valued at twice what it is today just two months ago. Now, what's changed? What's changed is that certainty of the merger is out of the way. If you study mergers, you know, you look at Equinox/Calibre as the most recent example, you know, they underperformed as they were merging. As soon as they completed their merger, they were revalued. I think that's the opportunity here, and I think the investors should take advantage of that. Awesome. Appreciate it. It's important for people to remember, you know, have a longer memory with gold price. I remember, Rick, we were in a conversation two years ago, and somebody whispered $2,400, and it made the room go silent. It was such a scarily high number. The times do change. I do wanna talk about Manh Choh. Rick, I'll throw this one to you because I know deck on your website right now modeled Manh Choh economics at $3,200 gold. So even after the pullback we've seen, we're still sitting at $4,375, as of today, or $4,380, somewhere in there. That's still a pretty big windfall above base case. How does that change the math for Manh Choh on both life of mine free cash flow, and does it accelerate any development timelines for that kind of growing arsenal of strong Contango projects that you got? Yeah, no, it is. It really just underpins, you know, the cash flow. This year's our guidance. This has always been the low year of production for Manh Choh and the highest cost because we're transitioning from the north pit to the south pit, so there's a lot of pre-stripping and stripping to do to get down to the ore at the south pit. We're, you know, guiding 45,000 ounces of gold equivalent. It is mostly gold. And at a cost of, you know, $1,900-$2,000. You know, relatively high cost in the overall mine life. We get the benefit of that next year because we're guiding 75,000-80,000 ounces of production at $1,300-$1,400 all-in sustaining costs. You know, on average, it's gonna average 60,000 ounces like we've always said and always guided. On average, next year, the cash flows are gonna be, you know, ridiculous. They're gonna be couple of hundred million dollars at today's gold prices. You know, bottom line, we're gonna be, you know, the Manh Choh operation is managed and operated by Kinross, a large company. They're gonna remain conservative on their assumptions. That's good for us. That keeps us, you know, on the straight and narrow, so to speak. We're not, you know, gonna be talking wild stuff. But it's a constant, you know, nice cash flow. This year, I think we have about $50 million of free cash flow at the guidance that we're giving. I think you'll see our website updated here shortly, and I think we're using $3,700 now for our guidance in terms of free cash flow. Our base case has gone from $3,200 now up to $3,700. Yeah, I mean, it's just unusual in the business to have that sort of nice cash flow generating machine. We're gonna spend about $50 million in exploration on all the projects this year. We're gonna make about $50 million from Manh Choh, and we've got over $100 million in the bank. This is a well-capitalized company, and we're gonna spend our money. You know, we're not gonna be foolish about this. We're gonna be very disciplined in how we spend our money. We do wanna advance the projects, we have a very specific plan to execute. I'm confident we can execute because we've got the team to do that. We had our first organizational all hands on deck organizational meeting earlier this week. I don't know, I'm, I think everybody's just, like, raring to go, so exciting times. That's great. Like I always say, everybody loves when Mike Clark gets a check. It's always a good news day for everybody. Shawn, I'll ask you a question. I only ask this because there are some new folks in the room that are new to both stories. 'Cause I've got the advantage of already knowing that an overwhelming number of Dolly Varden shareholders agree with the opinion you're about to give. I'm curious, for those who are in the room, walk us through why merging into a producing company was the right path versus continuing to develop Kitsault as a standalone. What does this platform give you that you didn't have on your own? Well, you know, I moved Dolly Varden into the Fiore office about four years ago. Working alongside Frank Giustra, I got to know something that Frank describes as the buy and build strategy. It's a strategy where you diversify into multi assets. You're not just focused on a one asset company. It's a strategy that's worked for entrepreneurs from Pierre Lassonde to Ross Beaty to Robert Friedland to Frank Giustra. So, you know, as much as I believe in the Kitsault Valley, it's a district. You know, we have 100,000 hectares. We have five past producing high-grade silver mines. You know, richest silver mine in the British Empire, Canada's third largest silver producer. It's the number one jurisdiction in Canada. Getting exposure to neighboring Alaska, the cash flow, the pipeline. I think what put it over the line for me is the team, and it was Rick. It was Mike, it was Bonnie. It was, you know, and that expertise, like, you know, if you go back to 2020, you know, we were in a lockdown. We were in a pandemic. If you go back and study Manh Choh, that's exactly when the feasibility came out, and I think it was 2021. In that environment, a very difficult, challenging environment where you had massive inflation, a lot of uncertainty, within a 2.5-year period, they were producing. In 2024, I think there was 42,000 ounces of production. To be able to navigate that and, you know, Contango is one example of Rick's expertise. I can look at Trilogy, NovaGold. Partnering with an experienced management team that could take the Kitsault Valley, which our group of explorers have done a phenomenal job growing, expanding. I brought the capital. We've done a number of M&A transactions that were wildly accretive, but be able to now develop, permit, turn back into production, that's a skill set that we welcome from the Contango side. Oh, amazing. Appreciate that answer. Rick, I'm gonna zoom in on Johnson Tract for a second, 'cause I know we've brought it up a couple times. I just wanna really get into that project. I know the initial assessment came out May, that post-tax NPV $224 million, 30% IRR. That was using $2,200 gold, a fantastical number we haven't heard in a long time. Gold is today doubled that number at $4,400. The sensitivity analysis barely even covers it. It's not even. It doesn't even get to those numbers. Can you paint the picture of what Johnson Tract economics actually look like in, we'll call it, today's price environment? Yeah. Well, actually, I think technically we can't talk about it because it's not in our S-K 1300. We were able to convince our QPs that we should put a $4,000 gold price in there. So, you know, according to the SEC regulations, I'm not supposed to talk about a bigger number. But yeah, that was, you know, Saboli back then being wildly optimistic that we put a $4,000 number in there, and the NPV of the project is well over $600 million. What I really like about it doesn't matter whether it's a $3,000, $4,000, or $2,200 gold price, it's got a one-year payback, which is, you know, unheard of in our business. This is a beautiful ore body. Average is 40 m wide, over 9 gm/ ton gold equivalent. It's polymetallic. That's where we really see the synergies with the Kitsault Valley ores because they're sulfide polymetallic. They're silver biased. The Johnson Tract is more of a gold-rich polymetallic deposit. They're gonna be processed by the same kind of mill, and so that's where we really saw the big synergies there. That's where we can see our growth profile from Manh Choh at Lucky Shot, 50,000 ounces, at Johnson Tract and Kitsault, and they're producing over 100,000 ounces of gold and 5 million-10 million ounces of silver. It's a hell of a portfolio. Right now we're permitting Johnson Tract. We're part of the FAST-41 dashboard. You know, we finally have an administration that not only recognizes that metals are critical and that we have a whole class of metals called critical metals now, but they're actively, proactively saying, "Okay, we want mining. We're gonna help get more mines permitted." That's the objective of FAST-41. FAST-41 started under Obama. It was Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act, so it's not something invented by the Trump administration, but the Trump administration sees it as a priority to get more mines producing more metal. Yeah, it's great to have both a state and a federal government now solidly behind mining projects. No, I appreciate that. Shawn, I'm gonna jump to you for a Kitsault update. I know the Wolf keeps delivering pretty crazy numbers. 1,422 gm/ ton silver over 21 m, with 10,700 gm/ ton over 1 m in the latest step-out holes. You got an updated resource coming, Q2 2026, I believe. What should investors be expecting? There's a lot of them in the room today from that update. How will that feed into the path towards PEA at Kitsault? I think one thing I wanna start with is this is just a point in time, right? Like, this resource, it's gonna be, I think, a significant improvement in growth on the silver side. You know, the guidance I've given previously was a 50% increase in terms of the silver ounces. On the gold side, you know, I think you're gonna see about a 50% conversion up at Homestake. You know, really the way to look at the project is you have two centers of gravity. You've got the silver-centric south, which is the Torbrit Horizon, which makes up the past producing mines, and then you've got the gold-rich north. In the gold-rich north, 80% of the resource was inferred. You know, the biggest risk or challenge a resource investor has is conversion. I think what we saw with the drill results that we put out the last few years is we were actually surprised to the upside in terms of the grade and the consistency of the veins. Like, we identified a very wide high-grade plunge in the ore body at both Homestake Main and what we call Homestake Silver. I think what you'll see here is a 50% increase in the number of silver ounces, a 50% conversion on those inferred to indicated ounces. As we move categories there, you know, we're currently sitting on about a 4.5 gm inferred resource, whereas the indicated resource is over 7 gm. I think you're gonna see that grade at about a 50% increase to that grade as well. You know, all in all, I think it's gonna be a very strong resource upgrade. The key is, you know, we've maybe explored 2% of the property. You know, Rick's described some of those silver deposits as a string of pearls. The real opportunity on the project is there's about a 5 km gap in between the Wolf and Homestake Silver. I suspect, you know, it's a structurally controlled corridor, we could fit another three major deposits. You know, right now the company, you know, the project contains about 64 million ounces of silver in all categories, 1 million ounces of gold. That will be upgraded with the 200,000 m of drilling we've done. By no means is it going to be the be all and end all of the project. I think with the 40,000 m of drilling that we've got that's gonna kick off here in the spring, we're gonna see. You know, some of that will be growth oriented, and we'll be looking. We had some big results last year where we drilled on the other side of faults. We saw mineralization 20 km away from known resources. We've got a big land package and, you know, we're putting a lot, we're investing a lot of dollars into that continued growth. Awesome. That's an exciting 5 km, so it's fun to see what comes next. Now Rick, one thing I wanna ask you, because I know there's a lot of Dolly shareholders in the room and also new people to the story. The direct ship ore model, rocks in a box, as I know you like to say, central to a lot of what Contango does. I heard somebody call you DSO Rick at PDAC this year, which I thought was very funny. But it's not something I think a lot of investors are familiar with. I don't know if you could break down for folks in the room why shipping ore to an existing mill is a game changer for permitting timelines, CapEx, environmental footprint, et cetera. Yeah. I mean, it is a little different approach, and it's not that it hasn't been done before. It certainly has. You know, the Australians are certainly the kings and queens of the DSO model. It's central hub and spoke, central milling concept. We just happen to be able to take advantage of it with Manh Choh because this was high grade, and we looked at the fact, well, we could build our own mill and tailings facility, but it would cost a lot of money. For a junior company raising $500 million -$600 million to build a new mill, one, it's a lot of capital, but two, it's a lot of time. You know, the Lassonde curve just smacks you right in the face again because you've gotta do the boring stuff to get to be able to build a mill and a tailings facility. You've gotta do all the engineering work. You've gotta do all the permitting work, and that's a boring time for investors. You know, you're on the slump side of the Lassonde curve. The DSO model allows you to skip that, and it does require that you have grade because the offset is you're not gonna spend that capital, and you're not gonna spend that time permitting and all that, but you have to transport your ore. The ore's gotta be good enough grade to be able to pay for the truck ride or the barge ride. To me, the most important part of it, the capital's a big part of it. You have a much smaller environmental footprint, so what you're permitting can be done in a reasonable amount of time. We've demonstrated that with Manh Choh. We got that permitted start to finish, 18 months. I challenge any other mining project to say that, you know, hand over heart, honestly, I got my project permitted in 18 months. We're doing that with Manh Choh. We're about ready to, you know, get our state permits, and we'll be able to go underground and get the road done this year, and we'll be able to go underground and you know, start drilling once we get that work done next year. It's a different approach. It does require discipline in going after high grades. That are close to existing infrastructure, so there's not a bunch of other infrastructure to permit. We do find that trying to do all these things developing a mine on private land is by far easier than trying to do it on public lands specifically federal lands. Until there's a federal directive a permitting reform which has to include a court reform aspect to it. Until that happens and there's movement on that, so I'm optimistic. The SPEED Act is passed Congress and Senate, the Senate is working on their version. When that happens, we can, you know, we'll relook at federal lands. Until then we like working on state lands and private lands. That's really the essence. It affords you to be able to skip a few important steps from a capital side and from a permitting timeline side. No, that's great. No, appreciate it. Like I said, I know there's a lot of people in the room unfamiliar with it, so I think it's helpful. But I do wanna scroll down the map, from Alaska to the Golden Triangle for a second. Shawn, I'll turn it to you for this one. I know the region's seen $5 billion in M&A over the past couple of years with Newmont, Seabridge, Skeena, all in the area. And I know that even this pullback with $67-$70 silver, the economics on the high-grade silver deposits look way different than two years ago. How do you see Kitsault Valley fitting into that district? And then this is a question I'll throw to both of you. Is the combined company now an acquisition target itself? But Shawn, I'll start with you. Okay. The way I see our part of the Golden Triangle where we've established a land position that does rival Newmont in terms of size and in terms of the density of the past producing mines that are under there. Rumi, you still with me? I am, yep. It looked like the screen had froze for a second. Really, we're in the sub-basin of the Golden Triangle, and it's an area that despite being, you know, so having some of the best infrastructure in the Golden Triangle, it's seen the least amount of exploration. It's really the future of the Golden Triangle as I see it. What's interesting about it is, in the center of the Golden Triangle, it's a gold centric region, whereas the north is more copper gold, and in the south, you've got the silver and the gold. You know, look, we're in an environment right now where I'll just talk about silver and silver producers. You know, if you assume a $50 silver price and the average all-in sustaining cost of about $25, you know, for every million ounce you mine, that's $25 million of free cash flow. As we look at the Kitsault Valley, and we look at, you know, 5 million -6 million ounces of silver production, it's gonna be a very, very profitable mine moving forward. Awesome. Appreciate that. Rick, I'll throw it to you for if you think the combined company has become itself an acquisition target in the region. Yeah. I mean, look, you can never, you know, get too wound up about that. Look, we're building a company that's gonna generate a lot of free cash flow. I'd say, yeah, that's probably a target for a bunch of people. You know, we're gonna focus on executing our plan, and our plan is to grow from our current 60,000 ounces of average annual production to 200,000 ounces of gold and, you know, somewhere between 5 million -10 million ounces of silver. That's. You know, there's a lot of work to do, but we have the money, we have the team, and I think we have the support of the governments, which is really important as we-- You know, this is the first time I can remember in a long time that we actually have support of governments and a recognition that metals are important. They're critical now. Silver is one of the top ones on that list in terms of the big metals. You have all the specialty metals that get all the airtime, the rare earths and what have you. They're more niche markets. But silver's a, you know, silver and even gold itself, I mean, with all this investment going into AI and data centers and battery storage and all those take a lot of gold and silver as well, and specifically silver. You know, the solid-state battery is another, you know, estimated to be another 100 million ounces of new demand on silver. You know, that said, we're just in a great spot, I think. I'm really excited about where we are. Yeah, the pullbacks is a pain. It's painful to watch. You know, we're in for the long term here. Awesome. My final run of individual project questions, and I'll zoom out a little bit. I promise, I will get time to get to some of the questions that were sent in over email in advance. I do wanna talk about Lucky Shot. I know it's already fully permitted for mining. Rick, what gives you the confidence of the scale at Lucky Shot, and what's the realistic timeline from drilling into production? Yeah. I'll answer those in reverse. Our plan is to get the drilling done over the course of the remainder of this year. It'll probably, you know, move into the early part of next year, but I think by the Q1, we should be mostly wrapped up with the drilling. Then objective outline about 400,000-500,000 ounces of resource, and then convert have a, you know, subset of that that we get converted to reserve status. We're shooting for, you know, a quarter million ounces that can produce 50,000 ounces a year. The fact that this district, and it is a whole district, we focus on just the Lucky Shot and Coleman, you know, part of the vein structure there. There's, you know, there are 50 other prospects that have, you know, all have some workings on them. So there's a lot of gold in the district. We produce a lot of placer gold or alluvial gold, which I just view as one, you know, a giant soil anomaly. The fact that we found a new vein, we announced, I think, a little over a month ago, KM vein, in a completely different orientation from the Lucky Shot vein structure. In fact, at right angles to the Lucky Shot vein structure. This is the first time that it's been. It was a new discovery. The folks who mined here back in the, you know, the late 20s to the 40s, they didn't see any veins like that. They never described any veins like that. It's twice the grade of the Lucky Shot vein. We're very excited. That's you know, everybody loves discovery, and we've got to get the tunnel underneath it now. We're planning to get the miners back in mid-May, extend the west drift so we can get underneath the vein, 'cause we set the west drift up to drill the Lucky Shot vein, which is at right angles to the KM vein. But we're gonna outsmart this Mother Nature here and just go underneath it and get some more drilling done. That may well change our plans in terms of where we focus. I mean, if we're drilling 30 gm/ ton, you know, rather than 10-15 over at Lucky Shot, and guess what? We're gonna adjust the plan. The fact that it's literally right there, you can see the vein. We can take you underground, and you can put your hand on it. You know, that's exciting. I'm excited about the, you know, what this, the implications of what this vein orientation means, the fact that it is high grade and the fact that we have a whole district to explore. You know, I think both Shawn and I have just emphasized the same thing that we don't have five deposits or, sorry, four deposits. We have five districts. You know, we're focused on the long term here again. Just keep remembering what Contango means. It's the future price, and that's what we're focused on, is developing projects for the future and adding shareholder value in the future. Awesome. Zooming out now. Done with all the individual project questions. Zooming out, even after this pullback, combined company has a pro forma market cap approaching CAD 1 billion. Gonna be dual listed on the NYSE American, targeting the TSX. You're already in the GDXJ, the SILJ, and the Russell. Shawn, I'll throw this to you. How important is that institutional visibility right now? With precious metals pulling back, is this an entry point for funds? How are institutions thinking about this period? It's a good question. I think it's everything in the world we live in today where, you know, more money is passively managed than actively managed. I think it's very, very crucial to get into the indexes and the ETFs. You know, most investors can finally now buy us, right? We've gotten large enough. We've gotten liquid enough. We're gonna be on the prime North American exchanges, TSX Big Board, NYSE American. That is everything. You know, liquidity is the oxygen of capital markets. What we've seen from the time we proposed the merger to completion of merger is our liquidity profile's increased significantly. It's very, very important. Look, I've always been taught that you make your money on the buy, not the sell. I think that what you need to focus on right now during this correction, as gold is below the 50-day moving average, right? As we continue to go through this correction, this is a buying opportunity, right? This company is trading at half the value it was just two months ago. Again, I just think the discrepancy between the price of the metals and the price of the mining equities has never been further apart. I think the big opportunity for the investor here, and if you study history, this happens every cycle. You know, first you have the gold price move, right? Then you have the large producers move, and then that trickle-down comes down. I think what I'm most excited about 2026, is going out and being able to share a company that's now cash flowing. I think for what we are now representing, what the Contango shareholder has been now, exposed to is a longer profile, a longer mine life, right? That five-year business is now a 20-year business. For Dolly Varden, the uncertainty around, "Well, now what? When are you gonna start producing?" Well, we are. We have the cash flow to get the silver off the hill. I think for me, it's having two sides to the story, production and growth. It's very powerful. Great. Rick, I know we already talked about the market near the beginning of this, but I do wanna lean on your decades of experience in markets just for a second and indulge me in some crystal ball gazing about the gold price. I'm just curious, your perspective, this most recent correction, is it a healthy one in an ongoing bull market? Is it just related to the war? Should investors be concerned? Then as a side question to that, how does a company like Contango Silver & Gold differ than a pure explorer in a volatile metals market? Like, if it's gonna be jumping up and down, how does a company like Contango fare comparatively? Yeah, look, I mean, you know, if you average the correction in silver and gold, it's a 30% correction. That would be described as a very healthy correction. I mean, gold and silver both moved very fast, as we've talked about. Silver always is more volatile and, you know, more drama, but they both moved. It's a healthy correction. Nothing fundamental has changed in the gold space and in the silver space in terms of the appetite for investors in the metals. You know, you're still seeing the central banks buying, you're still seeing a deficit of silver from what's needed to build all the things that silver is actually used for 'cause silver is both an industrial and a precious metal. You know, nothing fundamental has changed there. I think from, you know, again, if you take gotta take a longer term view. I think if you're investing in exploration and in mining, you're investing for the future because that's where the return comes. That's where you know 'cause if you take the dollars you're spending on exploration, and if they're wisely invested, and you get additional production and additional cash flow out, that's the business model where you build wealth. The fact that we have the cash flow, and we have the goods, we have the gold and the silver, and we're in a safe jurisdiction where they're not gonna You're not gonna wake up tomorrow and your asset's gonna be nationalized, or there's gonna be bombs dropping on your head. This is. We're in North America, Alaska, BC. We got supportive governments. All these things I think are very much lined up for our success. We've got the team, we've got the dollars to do it. For the junior explorer, it's a tougher sell. You are at the whim of the market. If the timing had worked out that you need to raise money now to get a good drill program going this summer, well, you've just diluted the crap out of your shareholders. I don't like seeing the share price down in the, you know, $17-$18 level, but I don't have to raise money now, and we're not. You know, we're pleased with where we are, and I think, you know, we're just gonna keep focused on the future and adding value for shareholders. Awesome. That is all my questions. Everybody who's written a question, thank you for indulging me. I'm getting into yours now, I promise. I'm gonna go through some of the ones that came in over email first, and then I'll get into some of the ones that are caught in the chat. Where possible, I'll combine them. There's one straight out the gate, asking about fuel prices, 'cause obviously that's on, I think, most people's mind to some degree as oil prices do increase. The question basically is: When would you expect high fuel prices to start impacting Contango's revenue? Do you have an estimate on what that impact will be? And as a side question, are electric trucks being considered as an option in the DSO process? The short answer is, for Manh Choh, no. We've got the fleet that is gonna complete the, you know, the delivery of the ore to the Fort Knox mill. So yeah, no, we're not even looking at electric trucks. It's a lot, a huge amount of capital and fact is they don't exist right now. So-- That's another idea. That's an Elon Musk dream, and I'm sure someday Elon will make them. Now, in terms of just, you know, solid, you know, diesel prices, we have a tendency to buy fuel sort of a year ahead of time here in Alaska, and so, because all of our fuel comes out of Seattle, and I'm talking about diesel fuel. I don't expect us to have any significant increases right away. I think over, you know, if these fuel prices, you know, remain in this $100 sort of a barrel oil price environment, we will see that increase sort of run through, I'd say the latter half of the year and, but obviously if it continues into next year. It's not immediate, because we've already got our fuel stored. Just to frame it, the transportation portion of our all-in sustaining cost is roughly a third. Roughly a third of that is related to fuel. The other 2/3 are, you know, the capitalization of the truck and the driver and the cost related to that. That makes it one-ninth or one-tenth of our overall costs. Just to, you know, kinda keep it in perspective. It's a significant contributor for sure, and especially when you're transporting ore, and our whole DSO model relies on that. It's something that we'll monitor and, you know, and we'll give guidance when we have new numbers. Awesome. Appreciate it. Just because there's a lot of questions in this arena, I'm just gonna throw this out to you guys. Where can people buy you right now? Where will people be able to buy you in the future? What, why pursue TSX over maintaining TSXV, NYSE? Let's just talk about tickers for a few minutes and where people can buy you and what the strategy is for the future. Shawn, you wanna take that? You can buy us right now, CTGO, in the U.S. You'll be able to buy us, CTGO on the TSX. Now, why big board versus venture? You know, there are more indexes, more institutions that are able to buy a TSX big board stock than the venture stock. It's been proven with case studies that liquidity goes up. You know, your investor exposure and reach is increased significantly. It's very simple. You just have to remember one symbol, CTGO. Whether you're investing in the U.S. or Canada on the big board, CTGO. Perfect. No, I appreciate that very much. Rick, one question I haven't heard in a very long time, but I'll throw it to you. It's about the bridge. Somebody wants to know if the Alaska Department of Transportation repaired bridges that had heavy load restrictions impacting Manh Choh operations. Yeah, short answer is yes. There was a lot of drama last year about that. It turned into a bit of a much ado about nothing story in that the reason this whole came about was the federal government didn't approve the state transportation plan, which meant that the state then had to you know sort of delay their planned maintenance of the bridges. When the Trump administration was elected, that was one of the first things the Trump administration did, is just say, "No, no. Boom, here's the dollars." This was a political attack on our governor, but so glad to have all that drama behind us. Short answer is the trucks are running as per schedule 24/7, 365. That was a painful political experience in my view. Oh, absolutely. I will give congratulations to everybody who bought Contango during Bridgegate, because you made out like an absolute bandit. Congratulations to that team. Somebody asked a question I've actually never encountered before, so I'm curious your perspective. They say Alaska is a known earthquake region. He wants to know, as an investor, how should he judge the impact of seismic events on underground mines? Yeah, that's actually a good question. The short answer is underground's actually one of the safer places to be in if you're in a properly maintained mine. Because we, you know, that's something you do on a daily basis, is you look for hazards. Short answer is you engineer for it. Alaska definitely is a, you know, active seismic zone. It's actually all of western North America is an active seismic zone. We engineer for it. As odd as it might sound, underground in a well-maintained mine is a pretty good place to be. Yeah. There you go. No, I appreciate it. Just curious. I think that's great. One question somebody asked is, are there any non-core assets of the combined company that you intend to dispose of, sell, et cetera? I think from the Dolly Varden side, it's you know the focus was on Kitsault and the surrounding areas. I'd say no on the BC side. In Alaska, we have a number of early-stage assets. We have discussed and thought about spinning those out because they're not likely to fit the DSO model. I'd say stay tuned for this space. We're doing some work on them this year. I'd say we're gonna make a decision probably sometime this year as to whether they remain a core part of the portfolio or whether we look to do something else with them. There's certainly value there. They're good assets. They're all next to infrastructure. There are certain aspects of them that fit. We've got a lot on our plate, so we might sort of high grade the portfolio a bit. Yep. No, you guys keep busy, for sure. That's something I've always known about Contango. Shawn, I'll throw this one to you because I'm glad I got both you on the call for this question. Somebody wants to know if you can describe the management structure of the merged team. What's the relationship look like, who's on it, how are decisions made? Somebody just wants to know kinda how everything's gonna go with the combined group. That's a good question. One thing I would just wanna add to the last point before we touch on that is, you know, having that disciplined approach and having the appropriate amount of cash on treasury and cash flow to advance the four major assets. The other thing I wanna say is there's an opportunity for Contango shareholders to get exposure. Like, depending on how we look to unlock that value of those earlier stage projects, we're now moving into a price environment that is supportive of exploration. I think there's a way for us to monetize to the benefit of the existing Contango shareholder that portfolio. I think that's something to look at in the future. In terms of management, look, you know, the nice thing here, just like whether it's the shareholders, the cross-pollination of skill sets, look, I'm a marketer, right? I'm a marketer. You know, and you know, so in terms of the structure, you know, Rick is the CEO. The way I look at all these companies, and this is something that a lot of investors, a lot of management teams don't appreciate. The top of the pyramid is the shareholder. Sure. That's who really calls the shots. Then you've got the Board of Directors, and then you've got the CEO who reports to the board and is working for the Board of Directors. You know, you know, myself, Rick, and Mike Clark, you know, we will huddle up, and we will make decisions as a group. You know, Rick is our CEO, governed by the board and working for the shareholders. It's really, you know, when we had our all hands on deck meeting, you know, Rick made an incredible point, which is the real value drivers of the company is the people you don't see on this call. They're the people at the sites, in the offices. That's where the magic happens. We've got one of the. We've got a lean team, but we've got an incredible organization that is supporting us. They really are the ones that are driving the value and creating the real magic. Awesome. I just want to add in, just on the board. We, you know, we've got a really solid board that is very mining focused. As you know, Contango came from an oil and gas background. Again, has been great, very supportive board members, and that know a lot about resource development. I think we've now kind of focused the board on a board that knows mining and understands what a mining company is and how do we grow it. I'm really pleased with the board. We're actually meeting next week, and with the entire team, board included. We're excited and to get you know get the whole team together and move forward on executing the plan here. Great. Shawn, I got a marketing question for you from the chats. Somebody says he knows that before you've used the word pure silver play to describe Dolly Varden, and he's happy with the merger. He just wants to know what the base message you're gonna be using to promote Contango is now. Yeah, no, it's a great question. You know, for me, from my perspective, I look at the great precious metals companies that stood the test of time. You know, they're really producing multiple metals. They're polymetallic, right? I think what we offer the silver investor is we offer them a lot of high grade, primary, safe jurisdiction silver, which is extremely rare. It's what made the Kitsault Valley project a pure, true unicorn project. You know, having primary silver is rare, having it in a safe jurisdiction is even rarer. But if you look at some of our peers and, you know, you take Hecla, you take Coeur, First Majestic, they're producing other metals, they're producing a lot of gold. You know, in terms of marketing, I think the key here is grade, jurisdiction, and silver and gold. Perfect. No, appreciate that. A couple of quick questions. P. Sexton asked about 40 minutes ago, what's AISC right now for gold? I might as well give the man a confirmed number. But then what's anticipated AISC for silver at Kitsault? Yeah, probably too early to put any numbers on Kitsault. Let's get the MRE out, and then we'll execute the plan to do the 40,000 m of drilling. By the end of 2026 and in early 2027, we're gonna be focused on getting a preliminary economic assessment or initial assessment done. That'll give guidance on the plan to turn, you know, as Shawn says, you know, metal in the mountain into metal that we can market and sell. On the Manh Choh, this year's guidance, we're guiding 40,000-45,000 ounces of gold production. I think we'll be at the higher end. Our costs are in the $1,900-$2,000 all-in sustaining costs, in the $1,900-$2,000 range. In terms of next year, guidance is 75,000-80,000 ounces of gold and $1,300-$1,400 costs on the sustaining cost. Again, the reason for the lower production and higher cost this year is the equipment. The mining equipment is focused on the transition from North Pit to South Pit. Lots of pre-stripping going on at South Pit. We have relatively low production and high cost. We get the benefit of that in 2027 and 2028, where we'll have much higher production and much lower costs. Awesome. I appreciate that very much. Now I know somebody asked, Sydney from the chat, said, "Shawn, I appreciate your comments on rebalancing," but I'm gonna throw this question to both of you, but I will start with you, Shawn. What do you think is the catalyst from here that drives the rebalancing for Contango? Just love to hear what you're thinking. Well, again, I talked about some of the case studies of other mergers in the past, right? I think, you know, you know, for some investors, we've had some turnover, right? There were some investors on the Dolly side that were here for a silver explorer, you know, silver speculation. For Contango shareholders, I think for some of them, you know, getting another development stage project, you know, they're there for the production. As we've turned over those shareholders throughout this time from proposed merger to completed merger, now we're gonna go out and build a new shareholder base. A shareholder base that wants to get exposure to high-grade, safe jurisdiction, silver and gold. For me, in addition to things like a new discovery at Lucky Shot in the KM vein, you know, good operational numbers, the exploration drilling in the Kitsault Valley, you know, there's just an opportunity here. The market needs this name. There's a vacuum in the mid-tier space. There's a void. That void has been built up because we went through a 15-year depression in the mining space. Now that we're. You know, Rick and I were gathering assets during a depression. You know, I look back at the HighGold acquisition and the cost of bringing Johnson Tract into the company, it was an incredible accretive transaction, and I think this transaction is gonna age in the same manner as we look out into the future. The real opportunity here is just to educate the precious metals public that we've got a new name. You know, this is like putting yourself in a time machine and investing in Hecla, you know, five years ago, right? We've got a five-year plan that's gonna deliver, you know, 200,000 ounces of gold production, and then, you know, we'll be turning that corner and looking at 6 million, 7 million, 8 million ounces of silver production to complement it. It's an absolute rocket ship. You know, really the key here is going out and sharing that as we explore, as we develop, and we continue to produce. I'll just add that we have a marketing meeting on Friday, and it's a busy schedule. We're gonna be, you know, road warriors on an airplane. We wanna do a lot of marketing. We wanna get this story out. That's great. I hope you get used to the ice-cold brie that they serve on planes. It's fun every time. You get used to it. Gentlemen, I know we're coming to the end of the hour. I'd love to give you just each one last minute to close off each on what you're most excited about for this year. I know we've gone over 1 million things that are keeping everybody on their toes. Shawn, I'll start with you and Rick can close us off. Just what are you most jazzed about? What's keeping you up with excitement for 2026 Contango Silver & Gold? Well, again, for me, it's, you know, I've been out there pounding the pavement for the last six years and bringing in a lot of incredible shareholders to what was a primary silver name. And what I now get to do is introduce that network that I've been building for the last two decades into some very, very unique special assets in Alaska. And, you know, a combined company that really is a platform. You know, when I look out, like, you know, this is a company that could be around for the next century in terms of these districts, this potential. You know, we're just scratching the surface. So there's. If I were to sum it up, it's exploration, it's development, it's production, it's. Again, it's the uniqueness of having all of that in Northwest British Columbia and Alaska. We've got a very, very busy calendar. I'm just grateful that I'm not doing it alone, that I've got a team that I'm working with because, you know, we've got different team members in different cities at the same time, and it's gonna be busy, it's gonna be fun, and we're finally in a market that's starting to pay us for this, right? These projects are now incredibly profitable. More profitable than I ever dreamed of. You know, I'm just glad that Rick and I were out there actively acquiring the portfolio, you know, advancing it, exploring, developing, and now we've hit it, I think, at the right time in the cycle. Awesome. It's payoff time. Rick, I'll leave it to you for a final word. I mean, I'm an exploration geologist by background. That's my passion. That's what I love to do. So, you know, when we've got, you know, north of 50,000 m of drilling going on this summer, it's gonna be a hell of a lot of fun. Exploration's fun. You know, finding new high-grade veins at Lucky Shot, that's fun. There's just a, it's the passion of exploration. I've always loved the saying that without art, there's no science, and without science, there's no art. That, that's exactly what our business is. That art is part of that passion. You know, it's just, how do I build this? How do I create this? Creating that future for the company is, I think as Shawn just outlined, we're incredibly fortunate, we feel incredibly blessed with governments that support mining finally, and with a team and the capital and the good four districts to explore. I just couldn't be more pleased with where we are as a company. Awesome. Appreciate it. Marcel in the chat just increased his holdings during the event, so thank you, Marcel. Rick and Shawn, thank you so much for letting me grill you and getting through all these questions. Everybody in the room, I know there's five or six questions I didn't get to. I'm gonna make sure the teams get them, so that they can get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you everybody so much. I know there's so many of you in the room today. Thanks for taking time to spend with us. Rick and Shawn, thank you guys for letting us grill you.