Contango Ore, Inc. (CTGO) Q4 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Faster than usual, I'll say good morning, good afternoon or good evening, depending on where in the world you're coming in from. As always, for Contango events, it's a very international audience. So folks coming in from Switzerland, from APAC, from Alaska. I appreciate everybody joining us. I've got with me today, Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse, CEO of Contango Silver & Gold, who was kind enough to put out a major corporate update right after Labor Day to keep us in the loop. Rick, how are you?

Good. Good to see you, Romeo.

Yes, good to see you. So here's how today's going to work for the folks in the room. For those of you who are regulars, you can just stop listening for the next 30 seconds. You've heard this a million times. But there's a chat at the bottom of the screen. I really encourage you to ask questions at any point during today's event. It's probably going to be a shorter one. We're looking at about half hour. But as usual, I've got a bunch of questions based on the release. But I do want to hear from you guys as well. Some questions were submitted in advance over e-mail. So we'll make sure we get to those. Then any questions that come in from the live audience, we'll pick those off as well. Two other pieces of housekeeping. This is being recorded and will be available for replay probably midday Eastern Time, certainly today. So we'll get right into your inbox. It will also be on 6ix's YouTube channel. There's also a request meeting button at the bottom of the screen. You can press that to have an opportunity to meet with the Contango Silver & Gold team. I'll be passing along that along with your registration information as soon as the event ends. You can press that at any point during today's event, including after it ends.

But that's the boring stuff. Rick, I want to get into the press release. Because today -- yesterday's release reads like a checklist where it's one of those every box gets ticked. You have 3 core assets, 2 jurisdictions, drilling, road building, underground development, all on time, on budget in a single field season. Most companies your size and bigger and smaller struggle to pull off one of those programs. So I'd love if you could give us a sense of what it takes behind the scenes to run a wild season like this with so much going on.

Well, I think I said earlier this year that this year would be about execution and just getting things done. And that is pretty much what we did. And it really starts with putting the whole team together. Remember, we merged 2 companies, Contango Ore and Dolly Varden Silver. And so that was really the first thing to do is to get the teams together and integrate the 2 teams. And I think we've demonstrated that we've done that flawlessly. We've had a very successful year, a very busy year. I think we're over close to 70,000 meters of drilling in total between the 2 main projects, and that's exploration drilling, infill expansion. We've also done geotechnical work and things like that at Johnson Tract. But yes, it's been a very busy year, and all projects have executed exactly what we had planned to do. At Lucky Shot, the underground development, the exploration drilling, announcing results. We're on track to release an MRE on that early next year, first half of next year. Johnson Tract road building actually got more accomplished there than planned. We got the laydown area completely done, which we had actually expected to do next year, but we got that done this year. So now the road is connected between the camp and the proposed portal site. Permitting on the portal side is, I'll say, substantially complete. You never quite ever complete permitting. You're always permitting something.

Exactly. We're renewing it, or there's always a permit.

Correct. It's just -- it's an ongoing -- it's a process, and we're substantially permitted there to build the tunnel. So next year will be about building the tunnel, and then it will be about doing the infill drilling there. So -- and then, of course, Kitsault, I think that's the one that really demonstrates how the teams have worked together very well. We had planned for a 40,000-meter drill program. We're going to be over 50,000 meters. And that's just because of the efficiencies and just the team working together. And that's a difficult place to drill. It's a remote project, it's helicopter supported, it's steep terrain. And I really have to thank all of our contractors, helicopter contractors, the pad builders, the tree fellers, the drillers, the geologists. It's been a very busy year. And I think the thing to emphasize is it's been a very safe year. We've done all this work, the 70,000 meters of drilling, the road building, the bridge building, underground drilling, underground tunneling, and it's been 100% safe, no LTIs, and that's how we want to work, and that's how we want to execute our programs.

Awesome. One thing I noticed in the PR is a pretty big Manh Choh story in the release. I think it might be getting less attention. I've certainly seen less attention than I think it should be getting. All of the mill modifications for recovering the higher-grade sulfide ore from the South Pit are done and working according to plan. That was one of the real technical question marks coming into the year as far as I understood it. So what does it mean now that that's proven out. That's behind you?

The first half of this year for Manh Choh was always going to be the struggle 2 quarters. The first half of the year was about transitioning from North Pit to South Pit, lots of pre-stripping. So you've got a lot of equipment moving waste material to get at the ore in the South Pit or the main pit. And of course, that ore is more sulfide rich. It's higher grade and it's more sulfide rich, which means you need the oxygen plant installed to make the recoveries sufficient. And so that was done. It was completed last quarter, and it's now operating. And so we should see our recoveries in the 80s to low 90s depending on the sulfide. The amount of sulfur that really dictates how efficient the oxygen plant works. So that's done, and we'll look forward to -- we're in the middle of the third batch for the year, and we'll probably run all month, maybe a little bit into October. So it will be -- the production will actually go across probably 2 quarters. I'm not sure how Mike will report that, but I'll let him figure that out. But yes, it's an exciting time for Manh Choh because those higher grades are in the main pit. I mean that's the main pit because it's a bigger one. And now that the pre-stripping is substantially done, we should see our costs come down and our production go up. And we'll get the real benefit of that next year, we're guiding towards 75,000 ounces of production and a lower cost, $1,200, $1,300 all-in sustaining cost. So -- and again, the oxygen plants installed. In fact, a redundant system that they've installed. So it's -- we should see those efficiencies in the recoveries and in the throughput.

Okay. Great. I do want to move over to Lucky Shot because that's some news that's exciting me this year. A year ago, nobody was talking about a KM vein system. Now your drill contractor arrives this week to put about 1,100 meters into it from the new West Drift extension. So for investors just catching up, we're here that mostly follow another project of Contango's. What is KM? And why is this jump in the queue for everybody's attention?

Yes. So the KM vein, it's a new discovery, and that's what's exciting. And whenever you're exploring a district, which the Lucky Shot project is a district. It's not just a one little vein. There's a whole series of veins in the district. But at Lucky Shot itself, the vein that was -- that we were exploring is basically almost east-west striking and dipping to the north. And when we were building the tunnel to evaluate that with the drilling, we use the fan shots, fan shots type drilling across the tunnel, we came across a vein dipping at right angles, basically a conjugate set vein. We named KM after Keith Miles, who's one of the fellows who worked for us at the project. Sadly, he passed away, but he was -- he's been a long time in the district. He's a miner in the district for quite a while. And so that vein is dipping at right angles, and it is a new discovery. It's never been explored, never been described in the district before. So that makes it exciting and the fact that it was running up to 10 ounces per tonne. That also makes it very exciting. So grade is king, as they say. So vein was dipping away from us at the end of the tunnel. So we now extended the West tunnel about 100 meters. And so the vein is above us. And so we're going to do fan shots like this above us, some holes like that. We're going to outline an area of probably 100 meters by almost 100 meters. It's a little irregular shape, but it's roughly that. And so when we're seeing these kind of multi-ounce grades, you can build ounces quickly. So that drilling will get underway at the end of the week. The drillers should be all installed, all the airbag is installed, electrical and water is installed now. So they'll get up and running and probably take about a month to get that drilling done. And then unfortunately, it takes a couple of months to get your assays back. So that's always the frustrating part of exploring this -- especially this time of the year, it's -- everybody and their brothers out drilling and so the labs are packed. But that will -- that information will come out before the end of the year is what we're planning.

Sure. People e-mail in every day asking why isn't the company putting out assay results yet? It's not really always up to them. Guys, just so you understand. These labs are real backed up sometimes. It takes in heavy season.

Yes. It's a frustration that I think everybody in the industry deals with right now. It's -- well, we'll get sidetracked on that topic.

Yes, no, for sure. Because I do want to talk about surface drilling at Coleman because it wrapped with 29 holes, including that 2.45-meter hit, grading over 86 grams. And you got 10,000 meters of underground drilling running through February, feeding the FS, which is scheduled for next year, if I'm not mistaken. So how did that KM and the Eastern L2 extension change what that study could look like versus what you were modeling 6 months ago? Because I feel like it's changed pretty significantly.

Yes, certainly adding the KM vein in the mix. And obviously, it's still exploration. We got -- we sampled where we could and it ran really well. So we'll do this 1,100 meters of drilling and see what we get. But clearly, what's significant about KM is it's right there in front of us. It takes very little development work to actually put that into production. So if that -- if we end up hitting sort of a lot of plus 10-gram material in that vein, we'll look to integrate that into the overall mine plan. And it may well change our overall development scheme for the deposit. But we're not there yet. We're just -- we're still going to go do the exploration. Meanwhile, we're almost finished building the East drift, which is basically just opposite the West drift down the Enserch tunnel and then one goes off west and one goes off east. The East drift is almost done, and we'll bring a second drill rig in and then start drilling that in about a month or so. So -- and that's targeted on the classic Lucky Shot vein system in package, literally right underneath where they mined it before. And so -- and then meanwhile, we advance the tunnel and we build 2 more drifts further down further at the end of the tunnel to continue extending the Lucky Shot vein down dip, further down dip. Obviously, if we really like what we see at KM, we'll adjust and we'll -- the exciting thing about KM is it's never been explored. So right now, we're just going to test 100 meters of it, but we'll keep going, we'll probably keep testing it, especially if it keeps running multi-ounce. We like multi-ounce.

Yes. It's exciting to have a drill core that's worth a big pile of money, just the drill core. It's pretty neat. I do want to...

It is all this visible gold, right, that gets reported and that is exciting. It's always exciting for geologists. And so when you look -- by the time I get to look at the core, it's got all these little red circles on it, so it makes it really easy for me to find the great gold.

What some people don't know is exploration geologists are the biggest adrenaline junkies possibly in the world. These are like base jumpers. I don't think people realize that. But I do want to talk about Johnson Tract for a second because I'm bouncing around your projects. And I hate to contradict you because I know you've previously described it as a permitting story. But it feels to me like this summer, it graduated into a bit of a construction story because the road from camp to the portal built, 2 bridges are in, portal pad is done. So what is having that pad sitting ready to go unlock for 2027 for this project?

I mean it sets us up for continued execution and get the tunnel built. The team that we're building at Lucky Shot to build tunnels, that's going to transition really nicely to get all those folks who we work with and we've worked with for a while now to go over from Lucky Shot down to Johnson Tract and start building tunnel there. So a couple of things we have to do to accommodate that because once we get underground, we want to be underground year-round. So we're upgrading the camp. So we're starting to work on that this year. It won't get completed until next year. But next year, we want to be working year-round through the winter. So there's a substantial upgrade to do to camp. But yes, the portal sites all set to go. I think you see from the photos that the bridges are well built. There's nice stout bridges. The road looks great. You can drive a sedan on it if you want. It's a nice -- it's a good road. We've got lots of material to work with, and that was -- that's a big advantage of working at Johnson Tract as you have a lot of -- it's a big river system right through there. And so you've got a lot of material to work with. It's nicely channeled and then obviously, that's what the bridges and the abutments to the bridges do with gabion baskets. You know to keep the water under controls, but it's not kind of going all over the place. So yes, it's been a good solid year of work. We've got a great crew out there as well. And again, they work safely. And so we're really proud of what they've accomplished in a relatively short period of time.

Yes, it's a lot going on. And speaking of that, certainly, I want to talk about Contango generally and just to kind of summarize all the work. You have 50,000 meters at Kitsault, 5,800 meters plus underground program at Lucky Shot, road construction at Johnson Tract, all paid out from the Manh Choh cash flow without going back to the markets, which right now is great. That's good news for everybody. I'd love if you could talk about kind of the financial discipline, I guess, it takes to keep all these programs on budget at the same time.

Yes. That's where the teamwork comes together that you plan out a budget, you put it forward, then you sort of critique it about -- are you really planning out things accurately from a costing standpoint, but also from a timing standpoint. We just had a big meeting yesterday where we had the whole team together discussing here's what we've accomplished this year, what are the plans for next year and what does it need for dollars? What does it need for people? Those are the 2 key things. And then making sure you get the timing right, so that you're doing the appropriate work at the appropriate time. So you're not trying to get things done when the weather is terrible. Weather is hard to predict day-to-day, but there are definitely rainier parts of the season. And again, so -- and I'll give you an example. We got the surface drill program at Lucky Shot shut down a little early because we got about 6 inches of snow. And we want to work safe. That's a big criteria for us. And so we said, okay, we had a couple of holes that we could drill. We said, let's just wrap it up. And this snow was not one that was going away. You could sort of feel that 6 inches going to 12 inches, not a nice sunny day tomorrow. So those are the sort of things we want to -- if you get cut a little short, it's not a big deal. Those are holes we can drill next year or the year after. So -- but that timing and just making sure you've got your budgets accurate. I don't want to say tight because we always want to have a contingency in things that we don't always use. But -- and most of those are due to weather delays. But we had a lot of equipment working this year, road construction equipment. We had a lot of helicopters moving equipment. And again, doing that at the right time of the year and doing it safely is the key parts of staying on budget.

I'll certainly say being from Ottawa, you can tell when 6 inches of snow are going to be keepers. Just get a sense for us. These are the ones -- these are sticking around, you do get a sense...

It was a really early winter this year in Alaska for sure. I think it shut a lot of folks down early.

Yes, I saw pictures of snow caps in August still, which meant that is -- get different up there. But I want to look into 2027. Just kind of a follow-on, I guess, from the last question because each one of the assets is asking for capital as we talked. You got underground drilling through February, drift development camp extraction -- expansion at Johnson Tract and obviously, the engineering work at Kitsault going after the MRE. How are you thinking about prioritizing these dollars? How does that math work for the team strategically?

Well, I guess it really starts with Manh Choh and the production we're expecting out of Manh Choh, and we're using a $3,700 gold price to do our financial projections. So I think we're being on the conservative end of things there. And so the cash flow we're going to generate, we obviously want to spend more than that. And so we are -- we've got things planned out where I'm going to predict a little bit here. We're going to get a feasibility study done at Lucky Shot. Most of the work's done this year in terms of the tunneling and the drilling will spill over into about February of next year. But then it's just working with the data to complete a feasibility study. And again, I call this feasibility light because it's with the DSO model, we're not building a mill and a tailings facility and a big power plant to run all that. It's definitely -- it's a mine plan and a transportation plan effectively and they're working on an offtake arrangement for production. And so I think for Lucky Shot, that's pretty straightforward. And then we can obviously pull the trigger on in the start of the second half of the year on the development plan. Here's the feasibility study, we're going to execute the feasibility study. At Johnson Tract, the tunneling is based on what we're doing at Lucky Shot this year. We're going to be doing at Johnson Tract next year. We probably won't get started until we had to mobilize equipment in and all that. So we probably actually won't get tunneling until August, September, the latter half of the summer because we got to get everything set up. But then you're doing it all year round because now your camp is upgraded. And then at Kitsault, I think it will be a little less drilling. We have 5 rigs turn in this year. I think it will be only a couple next year, and we'll be working towards -- we'll update again the MRE. We've got one coming out here shortly by -- certainly before the end of the month. But then we've got another 50,000 meters of drilling we did this year to incorporate. So that will get updated first half of next year. Even assays probably won't get all the assays back until January, late in the year. And so then I'd say by the end of the first quarter, early second quarter, we should have the MRE updated. And so I guess all the programs are -- we're not doing all the same things at all the programs. They're all slightly out of phase and so -- which is nice you've got, like I said, the drill team and the underground mining team from Lucky Shot can basically transition over to Johnson Tract. And you know you've got a good group of people who have worked together and can work safely and get things done efficiently.

Great. And I know I'm just going to talk about Kitsault really specifically for a second before I broaden out. This was the first full field season with Kitsault under the Contango Silver & Gold banner. And all 8 of the previous target areas were drilled plus Homestake. So 123 holes and an updated resource estimate landing as far as I understand in the next few weeks is our guess. So when that MRE comes out, I encourage everybody to keep a keen eye out for it. What should investors be looking at to judge whether this season delivered at Kitsault?

Yes. So obviously, there's a total number, and we'll have moved a significant amount of the inferred resources into measured, indicated, and indicated is really the one to focus on. As underground mines, you don't really get measured until you get underground. And so that's a significant part. Obviously, we've got a new zone that we're drilling on the 470, that won't come into play until next year because that's a new discovery this year. So -- but that's -- we'll talk -- we'll certainly highlight that when we release drill results, which will also be coming out here shortly. But if I just stick to the MRE, it's basically infill drilling and overall expansion of the resource. And keep in mind, this resource that's out there in the public, this 60 -- almost 65 million ounces of silver, million ounces of gold. That's quite dated. I mean it was sort of rebranded, but I think it's like a 2017, 2018 era resource, and there's been 150,000 meters of drilling since. A lot of it infill. So the focus of the program was not to make 65 million ounces of silver, 150 million ounces of silver, whatever, it's to do infill drilling and to really understand the geologic controls. So it's a much tighter resource estimate. You'll see a lot less inferred. And obviously, if you've got new discoveries, you'll have more inferred on those. And that obviously is what a lot of the drilling this year will update as well. So -- but the MRE that will come out here in a couple of weeks look for the inferred transitioning into indicated. Obviously, the gold and silver prices have changed significantly since that was released in 2023, I think it is, under the Dolly Varden banner. And that -- the gold prices and silver prices that we used in will be different from now. We're going to stick with the consensus pricing which I believe is in the $50 neighborhood for silver and $3,500 for gold. So there'll be some changes. And when you increase the gold price, you lower your cutoffs or you lower your average grade and all those dynamics have to work. And we'll try to explain all that in the press release, but we'll have another forum like this, and we can talk about it in more detail.

No, that's -- I look forward to getting into those numbers in detail. So I personally can't wait, like I'm sure investors, I'm sure everybody calls you says I can't wait. I do want to close on the calendar, and then I'm going to get into questions. I know there's a lot in the chat. There's a bunch came in over e-mail. This last one for me, I promise, then I'll shut up. But I want to close the calendar because Torbrit, North Star assays are imminent. Kitsault MRE, as we said, lands probably this month. Rest of the Lucky Shot surface assays come in October, Q3 financials in November, underground results closer to the winter. Rick never takes a vacation as far as I understand it. But for someone new to the story, which of these moments matters most? Like what should a keen investor be keeping their eye clearest on for the rest of the year?

Well, I think the silver story is a great story. And we wanted to -- from my perspective, we wanted to acquire Kitsault because it's a world-class asset. There are not very many high-grade silver projects. And Kitsault is a silver mine. It's got some lead and zinc and gold as well. And by the way, on the MRE, we're not going to see a huge increase in the gold because that was all infill drilling at Homestake. All the gold is at Homestake and Homestake Silver. So you're not going to see that number like grow significantly because it's -- again, that was all upgrading of [ inferred ] resources. So there's going to be a lot of news flow on Kitsault and on the silver grades. It's a high-grade silver deposit. There is a significant amount of gold at Homestake and Homestake Silver. We kind of divide the district into these 2 target areas, the Torbrit, Dolly Varden to the south, which is gold with -- sorry, it's silver with lead and zinc, very little gold. And then up on the north, you've got Homestake and Homestake Silver that are silver rich, but also have a significant amount of gold. Again, low base metals. But yes, I'd say the focusing on -- in terms of news flow, there's going to be a lot of news flow on Kitsault in the next -- over the next several months, through the end of the year basically, and it's silver, silver, silver.

Awesome. No, exciting. Okay. Getting to get into questions from e-mail and then stuff in the chat. So the first one, it was a fairly long, complicated question, but what it amounts to, so I'll stick to, I think, just to the guts of it, which is, can you update us on the mill?

Yes. Short answer is I don't have anything to update you on other than we are -- we continue to work on a number of opportunities for building a mill or acquiring a mill. And we are looking at both those options. So I hate to say stay tuned, but that's really all I can say right now. We're definitely advancing those discussions on multiple fronts.

Appreciate it. One person wanted to know if you could comment on Manh Choh seasonal exploration activity. I wonder if there's any chance, anything between you and Kinross for life extension for that mine?

Yes. Short answer is we don't have any results yet from this year's drilling. And I'll say this year's drilling was interrupted by a pretty serious fire in the Tok area, literally right into the -- near the town Tok. Unfortunately, several -- a number of people lost their homes. So that definitely interrupted our field season and basically cut it short. So along with the early snow that I talked about, all those things sort of came together. So we'll have results of this year's drill program out later in the year. I'm going to guess towards the end of the year. And we'll have our next joint venture meeting, I think, in November. So that will be probably the time period where we'll get some more results on the exploration front.

Okay. Great. And 3 people e-mailed in to ask a question we've already answered, which is when do you update -- when are you expecting an updated MRE for Kitsault? As you said before, probably this month. So stay tuned folks.

Couple of weeks.

So questions from the chat. The first one, and I've already warned, this might be a question that we end up sending to Mike because there's a lot of math here. But I'll throw it to anyway, Rick, for just any guidance that you can give. He wants to know, assuming you hit your 2027 production guidance of 80,000 ounces at $1,500 AISC, what's a good range of operating cash flows for fiscal year '27? And he wants it at $5,000 ounces of gold, but do it at whatever gold you have an answer for...

$5,000 gold price?

Yes. That's right. That's what he's looking at...

It will be well in excess of $200 million, probably almost $250. You've got $5,000 gold. Yes, it's a big number. It's -- next year is the banner year for the project. And yes, if you've got $5,000 gold, we'll be -- we'll have a lot of cash flow.

Yes. And as a degenerate gold bull myself, I think we'll see $5,000 by the end of the year myself, but you never know.

I won't be surprised. I mean, nothing has fundamentally changed. We're still printing money and the Fed is between a rock and a hard place. And the Fed is fighting the treasury and interesting times and -- but you better own some gold and silver.

Certainly, my view, too, physical stock, everything available to you. And the same person just noted in the chat, we should communicate this every time we have a public update, and thanks for that note. And I agree. I will have that question, Brad, every time this comes up. So I'll break I'll make you do some math every single time. A couple of additional questions. Wesley wants to know what indigenous groups you work with at Johnson Tract.

So the Johnson Tract project is owned by an Alaska Native Corporation, Cook Inlet Regional Incorporated. There -- and then there are a number of villages that have tribal councils. Tyonek is the closest one on the same side of Cook Inlet and then the Ninilchik and Seldovia, Salamatof are other ones on the other side of the Cook Inlet. And then Kinik, those are probably the main ones that we've had on a regular basis interaction with. We're currently looking at some -- doing some work for some gravel material. So we're working with 2 of the tribes on that because they own the surface. I shouldn't say the tribe. It's actually the village corporation that owns the surface rights. And so we're working with those pretty much on a regular basis. Yes, so those are the main ones. They're basically all around sort of the Cook Inlet area, and hence the name Cook Inlet Region for the regional corporation. So regional corporation owns the subsurface and the surface at Johnson Tract proper, but the village corporations own surface lands elsewhere and that's where we're working with a couple of them on some potential borough material sites for building road down the -- when we start building the road down to the coast, those sort of -- that's where we're working with the villages.

Great. And Trevor wants to know, he says, I don't think so, but he's curious, could opposition at Johnson Tract cause any challenges for the next stage for the project?

I think there's a lawsuit out from the Center for Biodiversity Cook Inletkeeper. Center for Biodiversity is a national NGO. Cook Inletkeepers is a state of Alaska-centered NGO. And their main concern is beluga whales and endangered subspecies, the Cook Inlet beluga whales are an endangered subspecies. So we're obviously, we're doing a lot of work to understand where the whales are and where the whales are at certain times of year. So we understand where we -- places we should try and avoid. So those studies are ongoing right now. We've got basically a whole year's worth of data now or close to a whole year's worth of data. So all that will be incorporated into the environmental permitting process, which is going on for building the road down to the coast and building a barge landing facility. All of that will be in there. And that's all -- all the required permits on the federal side are part of FAST-41. So it's -- you go on the dashboard, you just go to FAST-41 and you just type in Johnson Tract, it will take you right to the page. And you can see all the permits that we're required to do all the work we were required to do to get the permits and understand the timing. And basically -- and obviously, we've got -- we have to stick to getting all of our work done on time to stick to the overall time frame, which we're doing. But we will -- the process will play out over the next 2 years here. So by May 2028, we should be in a position to start construction of the road and the barge landing facility. So I guess the basic question was, is there a potential for a lawsuit to delay the project? Look, we're in the United States, there's always potential for lawsuits. And so that's just part of the terrain. So we think we're doing things in a way that are minimizing our environmental impacts at Johnson Tract because of the approach we're taking with the direct shipping ore model by itself. And obviously, we're collecting as much science as we can to understand specifically where the beluga whales are and when they are there. So from a technique standpoint, winter or summer, where they're coming and where they're going. But we'll understand all that and we can design a program to minimize the impacts.

Okay. Appreciate it. Pivot back to math. And again, I'll throw this to Mike on e-mail if you don't have it on top of your head. But you know where net debt will end fiscal year '26 and fiscal year '27?

Yes. So I don't have exact numbers in my head, but I think it's around $47 million currently, and by the end of next year, it'll be gone.

Okay. There you go. Appreciate that. And if you're looking for any more real specific, Brad, we'll get you connected to the team following. One question from Gillen from the chat, how did the North Pit at Manh Choh's production compare to what was assumed in Contango's reserve report?

That's a great question. So I'll kind of bottom line it. Ounces are accurate. Total ounces tends to be more tonnes and lower grade. And that's not an untypical relationship. So we have something we call a grade tonnage curve. So you can mine more tonnes at lower grade and get the same ounces. And that is more or less what we're seeing. And I think that's an outgrowth of how the resource was estimated. And this is a skarn -- I don't want to get too technical here, but it's a skarn-type deposit. So it tends to be at really high grades over relatively narrow widths. And so when you're estimating those, you're -- what the model is telling us is that we've overestimated grade and underestimated tonnes. And so when you're mining, you're obviously mining at a much more detailed level than your block model is predicting, so you have a lot more data points. And so pretty much consistently, we're seeing slightly lower grades and more tonnes, but same ounces.

Great. Somebody notes in the chat that Contango currently trades for only 2 times cash flow, says that's insane. I'm inclined to agree. I'll ask you to make no comment on that, Rick, but that's just the comment from the chat. One question, I think it's a good opportunity to talk about how indigenous corporations work generally in the States. Because they want to know what is the indigenous groups position on Johnson Tract? Like, how do they feel about the project?

I'd say, obviously, they selected this land for mining. And I won't get into the long story, but the short story is that before they allowed the Alaska Native Corporation to form and select lands, the state and federal government took all the lands that had oil and gas potential. So Alaska Native corporations were left to select lands that had traditional cultural importance. And then, in terms of economics, it was mining and trees. So those were the -- and so that was kind of the order of how they ended up selecting the land. So in short, Cook Inlet Regional is very interested and they have a royalty. It's a classic way of mining arrangement, mining lease, very much like we did at Manh Choh. The tribe has a royalty. So the tribe has done really well as the mine has generated lots of free cash flow and lots of royalty payments. So that will work the same way with Cook Inlet Regional. And they're very supportive of the project. They want us to do it right. They don't want us to go out there and make a mess. And so we have -- that's why we have regular meetings. And they know -- they wouldn't have allowed us to become involved in the project if we were going to make a mess. That's not -- that's their land, they're not going to allow that to happen. That's the thing with private landowners. That's the -- that's the thing with private landowners. Private landowners take care of their land.

Yes, it's theirs.

If you want to go see a mess, go look at something that the government did.

Fair, fair note.

Yes. No, I think -- and there's -- in Alaska, you have regional corporations, village corporations, their lands are surface lands, and they tend to be right around the villages and lands that were traditionally important to them. And then you have tribal governments. So there's -- there are a lot of different layers to sort of work with and interact with. And look, I mean, Chickaloon is one of the villages. It's one of the furthest ones away from the project, but they are aligned with the Center for Biodiversity. So they are not in favor of the project. So not all the villages are supportive. But that's just part of the politics and part of the dynamic that you have to work with. And we try to work with all of the -- obviously, the regional corporation is the landowner, so we work very closely with them. The villages we work with and interact with and same with the tribal councils.

Very helpful. I appreciate the extra context, because I think a lot of people don't understand, especially our Canadian viewers, because it's a very different setup.

Very different.

Yes, very different setup...

Alaska is very different from anywhere else in the lower 48. It's just very different.

Yes. It's helpful, I think, for the folks to understand. But I will close on the last comment in the chat. This is from Bruce, paraphrasing, I believe, Ronald Reagan. If you want something screwed up, ask the government to come in and fix it. I'm inclined to agree. But Rick, thank you so much. I think this was a great update. I think everybody should read the release in full, but I hope you got some extra context from this interview. If you have any additional questions, please do hit that request meeting button at the bottom or reach out to Contango at any time. I'll be sure to answer your questions very quickly. Rick, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time, as always. I think this is really helpful extra info for the release.

I appreciate it, and thanks for great questions. And if you have any others, don't hesitate to send them in, and you can also just send them in to info@contangoore.com and we'll certainly get back to you.

Awesome. Thank you, Rick. Thanks everyone for joining. Have a great day.