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Asante Gold Corporation

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September 17, 2024 at 11:10 AM (MDT)|Broadmoor Hotel & Resort

David Anthony

President and CEO

A resident of Canada, Mr. David Anthony has +40 years’ experience in mine project development and operation. His experience includes mine and process plant design, permitting, construction and operation. He has also worked in Canada, Ecuador, Brazil, Indonesia, Chile and Argentina to design, deliver and operate open pit and underground mine assets with CAPEX from $100 million to $3.6 billion and with total material movement to 65 million tonnes per year.

Mr. Anthony joined Asante as Chief Operating Officer (“COO”) in July 2021 responsible to build and lead the Company operations team to refurbish the Bibiani Mine and to become a significant gold producer. Before joining Asante, he was COO of Cardinal Resources Limited, which developed the 5 million oz (reserve) Namdini gold deposit and project execution plan, prior to its purchase by Shandong Gold for more than US$500 million. Previous positions include working with Barrick in Africa for 10 years where he became COO of African Barrick Gold.

Mr. Anthony holds a B.Sc. Mining Engineering from Queen’s University.

This is an automatically generated transcript. Denver Gold Group cannot accept responsibility for mistakes, errors, omissions, or any action taken in reliance thereon. Use of this transcript is governed by Denver Gold Group’s Terms of Use.

Hopefully this works better than it worked for Matt. So just to talk a little bit about the management team, we only have four expats in the company and obviously I'm one of them. I think a lot of people know me. I've been in the business about 45 years, about 20 years experience in East and West Africa. Fred Auma is our executive vice president and he is our country manager. Fred's got about 30 plus years experience in executive leadership. before he joined Asante, he was with Galliano. David Weans joined us about a year ago. David has been focused on getting a financing package together to get our balance sheet right sized. He's been a huge asset to the company and just talk a little bit about our assets. We acquired Bian in 2021. We completed a refurbishment for gold in July 22 and we continue to to ramp up at Bibiana this year, Bian is gonna produce something around 100,000 ounces. Torano is gonna produce about 100 and 65. So we're on track for about 265 to 280,000 ounces. Toronto, we acquired in August 2022. So we've owned the two mines working together for about two years. We've added substantially to the reserve and resource base during that period. So Bian got a full on refurbishment, bolts up and it continues to run well, when we started up, we started up at about 3 million tons a year. We're currently operating about 3.33 0.4. We're installing a secondary crusher and a pebble crusher. So that by early 2025 we'll be running at around 3.6 million tons. Crono we acquired in, in August 2022 we have increased throughput there substantially from 3.4 to 3.7 million tons per year. And by the end of this year, with the tertiary crusher installation that is just now being completed. We'll be at about 4 million tons a year. We've also done a lot of metallurgical improvement at Toronto. when we acquired Toronto, it was getting around 83 to 85% recovery. We're currently pushing a little bit past 89% recovery. We're also developing some of the underground workings extensively to get the grade up and that will take us to about 92. I think Matt did a great job presenting Ghana and I'll just underline what he was saying, for me, it's been a pleasure to work. The infrastructure is mature across the country, the ability to build and service mines in Ghana, I think is consistent with my own experience across Canada or across the United States. Ghana has been producing gold for over 1000 years. It's been operating in an industrial capacity in mining for over 100 years. The Bian mine was developed in the late 18 eighties as an industrial project. So we talk about Bian and Cerrano working together. We control 53 kilometers of the Chrono and Bian shear zones. That's on the stuff we built. So we have the opportunity and we're exercising the opportunity on both minds to get our hr together, to get finances, procurement, technical services together and it's paying off big time. It w it's worth about two bucks a ton, ok? Across both minds. So 7.5 to 8 million tons a year. We can all do that math. And then when we talk about our ability to produce, as I mentioned, this year will be about 260 to 280,000 ounces, ok? We're on a trajectory to get to over 500,000 ounces a year at Viani, we will be going underground in mid 2025. And when that gets fully baked, that's when we push past 500,000 ounces a year. these this projection, by the way is just based upon the N I 43 101 reports that we issued for both mines in April of this year. When we get into indicated, we get out past the 10 year mine life at Toronto, we get past the 14 year mine life at Piani. So in 2024 much different from 2002. OK. ESG is a big part of our business. If you don't get it right, you're not gonna have a business. We were fortunate to acquire Toronto from Kinross. We were fortunate to acquire Viviani from resolute. Both companies do a great job. We were able to take both programs, integrate them, put a Ghanaian flavor into the into the programs. And we are where we are. We were graded on an independent audit by Digby in 2022 as a double B in 2023. We were again graded as a a on an A basis. This year, we're targeting an A plus. The reason for that is every year we look to improve. And as part of the Digby process, we, we inherit an action plan, we execute against that action plan and we find ourselves in a better place than we were last year. So we adhere to all the common practices for human rights security cyanide code and so forth across our business. And of course, we do all the normal things that mining companies do around the world. We run schools, hospitals. We operate a professional sports team that's the Viviani gold stars. They're fourth on the premiership. This year, we train operators. We also train people who want to work in the mining business, but maybe we don't have a job for them. So we we help to find pe have people find a path forward with their lives, not just at our minds. And again, at Toronto, it's a similar program. So when we take a look at the corridor, the Bibiana and Toronto Shear in the last 100 years have produced 8 million ounces in the next 10 years. We'll produce 5 million ounces. And as we keep exploring, our budget is about 8 to $10 million a year at both mines. As we keep exploring, we keep finding more gold. So when we talk about Bian, this is now one of my favorite slides. I'm not sure what I have. Do I have a pointer here? Sorry. Is there a pointer on this pointer? No. Ok. Maybe I'll just wave my hands. The picture on the top is what we, what was recently permitted and completed is a bypass road that takes out a road, a highway that used to intersect our open pit. Ok. It took us a little bit of effort. Took a little bit of time to get this road in. You can see it in the top photograph. OK? That has got to be the nicest road in Ghana. It is beautiful, at least it is beautiful to me. OK. What it does for us is free up 400,000 ounces. OK? And those are the easiest ounces on the on the lease. OK. About 100 and 70,000 are oxide and the remainder is sulfide that supports the vision for our company to develop a significant open pit that's going to operate over 10 years. And what you can see on the bottom is about two weeks after that road was commissioned. We're well down into the ore, we're developing more platforms. That photo was taken in early July as it is. Now we're down below that green vegetation. So that's moving forward nicely. What it does is paint a picture that's coming into 2025. We're gonna produce from the main pit big time while we continue to produce from our satellite pits. This is a great section if you're biased, if you can take a look at some of those great latches in the bottom of that section, those are sts that were developed in the 2000 or in the 19 twenties and the 19 thirties when they were mining about two or three ounces per ton. Obviously, we take a different view. Our life of mind for Bian main pit underground is about 3 g per ton. Over the next 10 years, the Bian will be feeding the mill at about 2.4 with a blended open pit plus underground. And just to, to point out, when we took over Bian, we had about a 2 million ounce of reserve. Ok. We've been drilling and mapping and planning and so forth. We're now with the reserve resource at about 3.5 million ounces. And again, these drill holes were installed by resolute. Resolute had to focus on the underground workings. Only awful nice intercepts here. I've shown this slide many times and I think you're gonna have to put up with it cause I'm gonna show it a lot more in the future, some great intercepts. And we're talking like 21 g 40 g as we move down through that ore body, excellent mining width as well. And when we go underground at Bian, we'll be mining with transverse scoping, which is what we're also doing at Toronto. Of course, that gives us very good very good dilution and high productivity. So, on a five year basis, you can see it, Bian next year will be the peak year for the open pit will be going underground in 2025 and starting to produce big time from 2027 forward. Ultimately, the Bibiana mine will be going a lot deeper for a lot longer with great grades. So there's been a many investments, many many actions taken at Bian to improve operation., both in terms of, getting oxygen into the leach, getting that highway cut. That was, that was immense for us. It's like having my hands untied. Ok. We're looking at a 14 year mine life when we start to lo looking at the inferred resources. Ok. Throughput by the end of this year will be at about 4 million tons a year. And of course, improvements in grade as we go deeper and bring in the underground workings. So Viani historically has just been about the main pit. What we have found is that there's several satellite opportunities we are living in a gold belt. Ok. We've developed a Walsh pit. It delivered over 100,000 ounces. We developed grasshopper in the top right there that delivered 55,000 ounces. Today is a big day for Asante. Today we started mining at Russell South. That starter pit will deliver over 200,000 ounces. Its strike length is just about 900 m and it's open at depth. So we're gonna see a lot from Russell as we go forward and this I think if you read our press releases, you'll see, you will have seen some of these sections, so some really nice grades. It's on the side of the hill. So we get to the r pretty quickly. Ok. But if you take a look between Bian in the north and Torano in the south, there's a gap there where the two properties were not combined. We'll be drilling there in the future, obviously. And mining from the two, from the two shears for a long, long time north of Bibiana, between Bibiana and Toronto and south of Toronto. So we take a look at Toronto for a minute. I've got eight minutes left. We take a look at Toronto. It's been operating since 2005. It's been a great performer for Redback, a great performer for Kinross. We've done a lot of work in the mill, as I mentioned to improve metallurgical performance. We're doing a lot of work underground at Toronto to improve delivery of higher grade ore to to the process plant. We're also finding that the different ore bodies with a different gold price and with technical services being focused on that asset. We're expanding the, the life mine significantly. We're expanding the gold pro production significantly. We expect to be over 200,000 ounces a year within two years at Toronto. So what's happened at Toronto is over the years. It's been developed as a series of small open pits, small underground workings. Our focus is to make these underground workings last a lot longer and that's by first of all doing the work to combine the mines, but also putting in infrastructure so that we can haul ore or transport ore to the process plant with conveyors or larger trucks. Toronto has been really good to us. So far we see Abra and Sara Jehu connecting underground. We see Sara Jehu, mam and Mam now or north getting connected. So that open pit is gonna be about 2.5 kilometers long. As we look at Sarah, it's got a significant life underground as well. So there's a, there's easy money. I hate to use that term. There's easy money for us at at Toronto. But with a little bit more work, we see more exploration and more development going forward. So again, just like Viani, we're focused on exploration. The budget at Toronto is between eight and $10 million a year. When we bought the mine, we had about a million ounce reserve and a million ounce resource. We've now pumped that out past 3 million ounces. And as you can see here, our focus is on getting the underground ounces and getting the grade up. This doesn't mean we're gonna stop open pit mining. It just means that we've, we've stopped up. We, we don't plan what we don't know. So there'll be more open pit mines at Toronto, there'll be more development to the north and south. And if you take a look at what we achieved at Toronto. We made a lot of incremental improvements. We got the recovery up. We've got the mine life up, we've got the throughput up and we got the ounce production back to where it was historically. We'll finish off here. This is the Abau Abo deposit. It's, it's exactly halfway between Bibiana and Cran. it's on the Bibiana. She so at depth, it's going to have sulfide, which needs a little bit more work to get over 90% recovery. The early ore is gonna start coming out later this year with a starter pit. As we get deeper, the the sulfide ore will probably end up going to Bibiana. That decision hasn't been made yet. I want you to take a look at the length and the breadth of this deposit. It's over a kilometer long. It's about 1.2 kilometers. It's over 400 m wide. Ok? And when we start taking a look at the grade, the occurrence mineralogy and so forth. This is almost exactly what the Bian Maine Pit looked like in 1995. So we have some pretty positive projection. for Aba, Aba, we're very excited about it. You should also know that as part of our synergy project, we're putting a road between the two mines so that we can move people efficiently back and forth. Ultimately, that'll become a hall road. Everybody has to have a disclaimer. We have one. I'm not gonna read it for you and that's it for me. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Any, any questions for David? David? I was wondering if you can expand a little bit on this opportunity that I saw in between Bra and Sarajevo, right? Both down dip and a long strike linking that on, on that one particular slide, just wondering if you can expand on that a little bit because that seems like a significant opportunity. So we, we started mining Obra in 2023 and as we got to some depth, we put a cross cut over towards Sara. Yeh who and started to drill. OK. We now know that the two our bodies connect, OK? And they're connecting at about 2.5 to 4 g, give or take. So we know that the underground, those 22 mines are gonna connect at the same time if you look at that blank spot between Sarah who and now where it was blue, it's now green and yellow. OK? That's not published on a 43 101. But that's what I know from the briefing. I had three weeks ago when I was at site. So we're, we're gonna see in the North Complex. OK? Those mines are coming together, there'll be a conveyor coming from halfway between a Bra and Sarajevo to surface. OK? It'll end up much closer to the process plant, which means long term haulage costs are lower, which means we can drive those mines much deeper and just maybe stepping back a little bit at both Bib at Bian and Toronto is the benchmark. Some of the other mineral fields that we see at, say Lulu and Mali, right? Are you, are you using that as sort of benchmarking kind of like the the the orogenic capacity to be able to grow resources? I would say the benchmark that we relate most closely to in terms of how the structures were formed, in terms of how the gold was deposited mirrors two areas in the world that everybody here would know pretty well. One of them is called Carlin Nevada and the other one's called Kalgoorlie, Kambalda. So if you take a look at our land package and if you take a look at how the gold has been placed there 2 billion years ago, I wasn't around, I didn't see it, but if you take a look at how that was done, OK. Carlin and Kambalda are in our peer group. Excellent. Last call for questions from the floor. Great. Anyone with follow ups could reach David on sidebar. Thank you, David. Thank you.


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