Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the NovaGold Third Quarter 2019 Conference Call and Webcast. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Melanie Hennessey, Vice President, Corporate Communications. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Sava. Good morning, everyone. And we are pleased that you have joined us for NovaGold’s third quarter financial results and also for an update on the Donlin Gold project. On today’s call, we have Dr. Thomas Kaplan, NovaGold ‘s Chairman; Greg Lang, NovaGold’s President and CEO; and David Ottewell, the NovaGold ‘s Vice President and CFO. At the end of the webcast, we will take questions both by phone and by text. But before we get started, I would like to remind our listeners that as stated on slide three, any statements made today may contain forward-looking information such as projections and goals, which are likely to involve risks detailed in our various EDGAR and SEDAR filings and forward-looking disclaimers included in this presentation. With that, I have the pleasure of introducing Greg Lang, NovaGold’s President and CEO. Greg?

Thank you, Melanie, and good morning, everyone. Our primary asset is the firm Federally Permitted Donlin Gold project in Western Alaska that is 50% owned by NovaGold and 50% by our long-term partner Barrick Gold. Donlin is located about 300 miles west of Anchorage Alaska as shown on slide four. Slide five provides an overview of the achievements the NovaGold team has accomplished this year. Federal permitting is complete and state permitting for the pipeline right-of-way lease, transportation quarter leases, and dam safety certificates are progressing nicely. The Donlin camp was reopened in May and safety training was concluded earlier in the quarter. During July, Donlin Gold commenced the site investigation and the collection of geotechnical information for the advancement of engineering for the tailings Dam. We’re also making good progress on our project optimization work and continue to invest an incredible amount of time and resources in our outreach efforts on various initiatives with our native corporation partners Calista and PKC. On slide six looking a little deeper into our third quarter activities, we’re in the final stage of integrated scoping level optimization work into a study that will serve as the basis for an updated project development plan when the time is right. With federal permitting complete, our operational focus in the quarter centered on furthering our geologic understanding and integrating optimization analysis into our studies. NovaGold is working with Barrick’s new management and technical team to advance the project in the financially disciplined manner with a strong focus on engineering excellence, environmental stewardship, strong safety culture and continued community engagement. Approval of the Alaska Dam Safety Certificate for the tailings storage facility requires a thorough and stepwise process to deliver a final dam construction package to the state for approval. This program consists of geotechnical core drilling, test pits, overburden and various hydraulic tests and geophysical surveys. Final approvals are expected by year end to authorize facilities associated with the projects transportation corridor and the sections of the gas pipeline that reside on state lands. We are dedicated to keeping our community partnerships strong and engaging environmental educational and cultural activities. To that end, in the third quarter NovaGold and Donlin participated in numerous activities including those highlighted on slide seven. We were key sponsors of the program to remove household hazardous material from 14 isolated villages on the Kuskokwim River. NovaGold and Donlin Gold continue their outreach efforts with our native Corporation partners Calista via meetings with tribal councils and key stakeholders in the Yukon Kuskokwim region during the quarter. We believe that our community engagement and support can act as catalysts for sustainable improvements in the quality of life for many people affected by poverty and lack of economic opportunities. And with that, I’ll turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, David Ottewell. Dave?

Thank you, Greg. Slide eight highlights our operating performance. For the third quarter we reported me $8.1 million net loss from continuing operations compared to the prior year. Higher cost of Donlin Gold due to the commencement of fieldwork to support the applications for Alaska Dam Safety Certificates increased interest expense on the promissory note payable to Barrick and foreign exchange losses were offset by lower share-based compensation costs and increased interest income and accretion of notes receivable. In the third quarter of 2018 we sold our interest in the Galore Creek project and recorded a loss of $80.6 million. NovaGold cash flow highlights are outlined on slide nine. In the third quarter we spent $4.1 million, $0.3 million higher than the prior year quarter. Total net spending increased primarily due to higher cost at Donlin Gold related to the commencement of fieldwork, partially offset by increased interest income on term deposits. In the prior year quarter we received net proceeds of $99.3 million from the sale of our interest in Galore Creek. We ended the current quarter with $152.9 million in cash and term deposits. In 2019 we continue to expect to spend a total of $24 million, including $13 million per share of Donlin Gold and $11 million for corporate general and administrative cost as highlighted on slide 10. At Donlin Gold 2019 spending is expected to increase in the fourth quarter with the ramp-up of fieldwork and detailed engineering to support the applications for Alaska Dam Safety Certificates. As a result of our Galore Creek sale last year to Newmont, we have $100 million receivable with an additional $75 million contingent on a Galore Creek construction decision. And with that, I’ll turn the back -- the call back over to Greg.

Thank you, Dave. Yeah, these are exciting times to be in the gold space and invested in a unique project like Donlin. It’s federally permitted with the strong long-term partnership in the communities of Western Alaska and in the jurisdiction where the rule of law is not a novelty. On slide 11 we compared Donlin Golds almost $40 million ounces and resources to 14 other development stage projects. We take a hard look at the peer group to see that Donlin is better than twice the size of the nearest comparable and more than five-fold figure than the average. The scale of the resource is a key attribute. Another attribute is the grade as shown on slide 12. The average grade of Donlin set to depart from other large scale open pit deposits. Donlin’s grade of 2.25 grams is double the industry average. With scale and grade if Donlin was built today would be the largest gold mine in the industry. For an investor there’s additional value that comes with the mine with the multi-decade life span. As currently envisioned in its first five years, Donlin will produce 1.5 ounces a year followed by over 1 million ounces year over its almost 30-year mine life as shown on slide 13. There are few existing or planned mines with an output like this. Looking at comparable scale mining operations, Donlin would rank among the top producers. Slide 14 shows the 10 largest producing mining operations globally. Only four of these mines are expected to produce more than 1 million ounces this year, further illustrating that projects like Donlin are scarce and are needed to replace the industry’s diminishing reserves. With years of study behind us and roughly 1,400 drillholes as shown on slide 15, we have a deep understanding of the…

Thank you very much, Greg. I’d like to take the opportunity of the quarterly call to be able to highlight some of the features that make Donlin, that make NovaGold in my mind than that of the Electrum Group, the larger shareholder from the very best vehicle from a risk reward basis in the entire gold space. I’ll do that by highlighting not only our leverage and the fact that we’re in a place where we can keep the fruits of that leverage when the time comes that shareholders to do so. But also some of the changes which we’re now starting to see in the gold market. Obviously, the sentiment, as well as the price of gold is markedly changing and has been considerably altered over the course of the last several months. Starting with page 24, what you see is the leverage to gold that Donlin enjoys. You see that the different NPVs 5 and you see that at NPV 0. It’s my belief after having been in this business for 25 years, that those very, very few high quality assets, particularly with exploration potential, but absolutely within jurisdiction that are favorable will trade with 0% NPVs and this is extrinsic of the fact that so much of the world step is trading below 0%, but surrendering gold a high-yielding currency by comparison. What you see here is a story which regardless of your NPV assumptions is going to explode in value, if you’re remotely bullish on gold. I’m on record as having said that I do believe that gold will have its first real stop in a trading range between $3,000 and $5000 an ounce. What we can see with Donlin is that the leverage is absolutely extraordinary and this for us is what makes Donlin so…

Thank you, John. We’re now happy to take any questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Lucas Pipes with B. Riley FBR. Please go ahead.

Hey. Good morning, everyone. And thank you very much, Tom, for the description on the gold markets and appreciated those different perspectives you were providing there, very helpful. I wanted to ask a little bit about kind of putting this gold price in perspective to the equity valuation of NovaGold. Tom, Greg, kind of how you think about valuation of NovaGold shares today? And then, in the past, you’ve commented on not doing a down around, but when we look over to kind of recent months, you got pretty close, and I would say, at one point, crossed the prior share issuance level. Is that something that you’d be looking at or given the very bullish view on gold, is that something where you think look, the trend is in our -- the trend is our friend, we can wait and be patient here? Thank you very much for your perspectives.

Greg, should I go ahead.

Yeah.

Hi, Lucas. How are you? Great to have you on the call. Look, we are gold bulls and everything that we have seen over the last few months has only reinforced our conviction that this bull market will be the likes of which one rarely gets to experience in their lifetime. In fact, if anything, one of the most pleasant surprises for me is the way in which just over the last three months, four months, a generalist billing on Bloomberg or CNBC can makes the case for gold with only a hint of a raised eyebrow from the interviewer. That I did not expect to come until gold had made new highs. Now don’t view that as a contrary indicator, don’t view that as being a sign that gold has stopped, there will be pullbacks along the way. But what this tells me is that, whereas I would have thought that some people would take the risk of talking about gold, only when gold made new highs, because that’s human nature, that’s the uniqueness of gold. And the way in which gold has don’t many hooks on which people of various stripes looking at gold through various lenses and hang their hat comfortably and intellectually shows me that the gold bull market is going to be sharper and it’s going to go higher than even I predicted. In other words, the dissonance phase, which I expected to last for months, if not much more, is truncated. But the fact is gold remains the most underestimate -- under owned financial asset. So you have more people going out there and putting on a record that you can buy gold and not the above or a cave dweller. And that in turn as gold prices go up is going to allow…

Okay. Okay. Tom, this has been very helpful and I very much hear your opinion. I have more questions. But I’ll jump back into queue for now. Really appreciate all the color. Thank you.

Thank you, Lucas.

Lucas, if you have any more questions, please go ahead as you were the last person in the queue.

Great. All right. Well, Greg, question for you on the development plans. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend to Denver Gold Forum. But the feedback I got is that you are considering a kind of smaller project scale. Could you elaborate on that kind of what exactly you’re looking at there and when you may have finalized plans on that front? Thank you very much.

Sure. Lucas, for some time, we’ve been looking at Donlin sort of little bit different why it’s been was conceived in the feasibility study. The feasibility study always envisioned Donlin as a large scale mining project and capital intensive project, that usability study was completed in 2011 and that was largely driven by Barrick. And in those days, they had a much stronger balance sheet and a goal to get to 9 million ounces a year. So it was always conceived as bigger is better. But the work we’ve been doing in the last year or so has been a stage development approach, where we would look at building a starter projects, perhaps, half scale of what we’ve permitted and then expanding it out of cash flow at some stage in the future. And that’s certainly an approach that’s been done many times in the gold industry and both NovaGold and Barrick are very interested in advancing. So, I think, to give you some bookends, it would be a project about half the throughput of what was originally conceived with smaller equipment and there are opportunities to enhance the grade particularly in the early years. And that’s where our focus has been and where the drilling that we’ve done on the project has, has led us to. So we’re pretty encouraged by that. We’ve been meeting with representatives from our partners the last couple of days here at office at Salt Lake City, John Steele, Rob, Gregory and others, and we’re laying out the program for 2020. And we’ll be releasing the particulars of that program with --when we announce our 2020 budget, and the work plan. So a couple months from now, we’ll put a little bit of more color on what’s ahead for the Donlin projects in the next year.

All right. That’s very helpful. Thank you. Thank you, Greg. Then my last question is to -- in regards to some of the comments -- comment you made on the lack of major discoveries in the gold space and how the majors are kind of feasting on their prior discoveries and essentially cutting into the principal if you kind of thinking about in financial terms. Do you think there is the ability of the majors to change that course if they were to increase their exploration budgets, would they be able to find more or do you think it’s we’re just in a new era where even if significant capital was deployed you couldn’t really change that trend? Thank you for your perspective.

Lucas, I think that it’s already game over. One of the reasons why an answer to your first question I basically took a relaxed view that $0.25 billion, no debt, low burn rate, time is on our side, we’re not a $6 stock, we’re not $7 stock, we’re $26 or $27 stock. On our way to potentially much higher and one of the reasons is, it already the perfect storm in terms of the gold price and one of the reasons that it’s a perfect storm is because the majors are not making big discoveries. They are just simply not. Not new ones that are going to be able to really fill their pipeline in any significant way. Their best chance of increasing reserves is probably like what you see in Barrick and Newmont in Nevada, working near existing discoveries. There is an expression if you’re it’s a bad expression in today world perhaps and actually coming from conservationist. But the expression is if you are going out so elephant, go to elephant country. I happen to believe that one of the great virtues of Donlin and they are so many of them is the fact that it’s been so underexplored. We have 40 plus million ounces on 3 kilometers of an 8 kilometer belt. So saw that particular chart, but that 8-kilometer belt which we think means that our resources could double potentially. That 8 kilometer belt is only a few percentage points of the entire land package. Now why hasn’t that been more explored that’s a function of personality after the failed takeover bid by Barrick of NovaGold. But before we came into the story, Barrick basically almost put down their tools in a sense they said look we’re going to do what we need to do, but…

Tom, I really appreciate your perspective. Best of luck. Excited to follow the progress and look forward to speaking again soon. Thank you.

Thank you, Lucas.

Hello, everyone. That concludes our call this morning. Thank you for taking the time to get an update.

This concludes today’s conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.