G Mining (TSX:GMIN) - Three-Asset Growth Strategy from Cash Flow, Oko Build, and Resource Update

Louis-Pierre Gignac (0:00)

My name is Louis-Pierre Gignac, President and CEO of G Mining Ventures. And we're currently building the Oko West project, which is going to be basically the next Tier 1 mine amongst the only ones owned by an intermediate company such as ourselves.

Crux Investor (0:19)

I hope you could see here at Beaver Creek, an inspiration to everyone else here of what could be, for sure. It's good to have you here. Are you getting much out of the conference?

Louis-Pierre Gignac (0:31)

Yeah, I think we're starting to outgrow the conference, but it's good to still meet some of the accounts and also on the Corp Dev side, see what people are advancing as projects that could be interesting to us in the future. Right.

Crux Investor (0:44)

Well, they're probably, yeah, obviously. Right. Well, let's kind of rip through where you're at with various projects. Contazzino, how are things going?

You kind of set guidance, are you on track?

Louis-Pierre Gignac (0:57)

Yeah. So, you know, the first half was going to be a lower half for us. Now we're moving through Q3 as we speak, and it's looking very good in terms of tracking to our guidance.

Crux Investor (1:10)

Right.

Louis-Pierre Gignac (1:10)

So we're having a stronger second half already in Q3, so higher grades, good throughput, and that will lower our ASIC just because of volume.

So, yeah, things are tracking really nicely, and that's setting us up for a strong next year as well. And it all has to do with mine sequencing and getting into some of the high grade in the pits.

Crux Investor (1:33)

Okay. You've also indicated some higher costs, stuff outside of your control.

Louis-Pierre Gignac (1:37)

Yeah. So we did make a slight adjustment to our guidance in terms of costs and really to reflect some of the strength in the Brazilian currency and some of the fuel price impacts. But overall, things are tracking nicely. But yeah, we do have an active hedging program on the Brazilian currency. So that takes a bit of the bite out for us.

But otherwise, we still have a bit of export.

Crux Investor (2:04)

And so to talk about this ramp up into 2027, it's a bigger year, 2027 I think you announced that.

What gives you the kind of confidence that you're going to be able to deliver into that?

Louis-Pierre Gignac (2:15)

Yeah, it's really accessing some of the high-grade mineralization in the pit. So as we're widening out the pit, we're getting access to some of the higher-grade pockets within the intrusive ore body that we're mining. So that's what gives us the confidence. And also as part of the projects that we're doing this year to expand the tailings pumping capacity, which was essentially a bottleneck for the plant. So we see that we'll be able to push more tonnage as well.

Come next year probably.

Crux Investor (2:47)

Okay, that's kind of important because that can partially fund the Oko project as well, right?

Louis-Pierre Gignac (2:52)

Exactly. So it's been a great cash flow generator. So we've been able to fund the construction of Oko through our cash and cash flow that we're generating from TZ. So basically we've not, we've repaid the debts that we did have.

We still have a 350 million corporate revolver untouched, undrawn at this point. So it gives a lot of cushion to get through the remaining build of Oko. I mean basically we've already spent 44% of the CapEx on Oko. That's as of the end of June. So a lot of it's been spent already.

Crux Investor (3:35)

What comfort does it give you and I guess the market having an untouched revolver? Because there's a de minimis cost to that obviously. Could you get through without that there?

Louis-Pierre Gignac (3:45)

Yeah, there's a good chance that...

Crux Investor (3:47)

It's just a hedging tool.

Louis-Pierre Gignac (3:48)

We'll draw on it temporarily, perhaps, through the construction. But that's also the reason why we did announce an NCIB that we put in place so that if there is dips in our share price that we think don't make sense and we have the capacity, we'll buy back some of those shares. And we just see it as being now the best time to buy back some of our shares before we finish executing on Oko and then it becomes a cash generating machine and we get a re-rate as well as we get to the end here.

Crux Investor (4:21)

I guess people forget that. In terms of the cost, there's a performance cost as well for you. So the ability to buy back shares is quite useful.

Louis-Pierre Gignac (4:30)