Earnings call transcript: Thor Explorations reports record Q4 2025 revenue

Thor Explorations Ltd. reported record revenue for Q4 2025, reaching $108.75 million, reflecting strong operational performance. The stock initially rose by 9.22% post-announcement but later fell by 3.25%, closing at $1.49. The EPS for the quarter was $0.11, with no forecast provided for comparison.

Key Takeaways

• Thor Explorations achieved record quarterly revenue in Q4 2025.
• The company’s cash balance grew significantly, reaching $154 million in Q1 2026.
• Gold production remained consistent, aligning with guidance.
• The stock saw a volatile reaction, initially rising before a subsequent decline.

Company Performance

Thor Explorations demonstrated strong financial and operational performance in Q4 2025, with gold production nearing 92,000 ounces for the year. The company’s strategic focus on cost management and operational efficiency contributed to its record revenue figures. Despite a slight decrease in head grade for Q1 2026, production levels remained consistent with company guidance.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $108.75 million for Q4 2025 (record high)
• Earnings per share: $0.11 for Q4 2025
• Cash balance: $154 million in Q1 2026, expected to approach $200 million by year-end

Earnings vs. Forecast

Due to the absence of forecast data, a comparison of actual results against market expectations is unavailable. However, the record revenue and strong cash position suggest positive performance.

Market Reaction

Thor Explorations’ stock experienced a 9.22% increase immediately following the earnings announcement, reflecting investor optimism. However, the subsequent 3.25% decrease indicates mixed sentiment, possibly due to profit-taking or concerns over future guidance.

Outlook & Guidance

Thor Explorations projects continued strong performance in 2026, with gold production expected to remain within the 75,000-85,000 ounce range. The company plans to maintain its dividend policy, supported by robust cash generation and a debt-free balance sheet.

Executive Commentary

CEO Segun Lawson stated, "Our record revenue in Q4 2025 underscores the success of our operational strategy and cost management. We remain committed to delivering value to our shareholders through consistent production and strategic growth initiatives."

Risks and Challenges

• Potential fluctuations in gold prices could impact revenue and profitability.
• Future guidance indicates a lower EPS forecast for FY+2, which may concern investors.
• Operational risks include maintaining production levels and managing costs amid potential market volatility.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the company’s future production targets and strategies for maintaining cost efficiency. Executives emphasized their focus on operational excellence and strategic investments in exploration and resource development to support long-term growth.

Full transcript - Thor Explorations Ltd. (THX) Q4 2025:

Unknown, Presentation Moderator, Investor Meet Company: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Thor Explorations Limited full-year results investor presentation. Questions are encouraged. They can be submitted at any time via the Q&A tab that’s just situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. Please just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and will publish our responses where it’s appropriate to do so on the Investor Meet Company platform. Before we begin, we would just like to submit the following poll, and if you could give that your kind attention, I’m sure the company would be most grateful. I would now like to hand you over to CEO, Segun Lawson. Segun, good afternoon, sir.

Segun Lawson, Chief Executive Officer, Thor Explorations Limited: Good afternoon and welcome everyone to our full-year presentation for the full year of 2025. There’s a disclaimer here as we will have some forward-looking statements. For those who are new here, I’ll give a brief overview of the company. Thor Explorations, West Africa-focused gold producer. We’re advancing projects in three West African countries, in Nigeria, in Senegal, and in Côte d’Ivoire. In Nigeria, we are producing gold from our flagship 100%-owned Segilola Gold Project in Osun State, which is based around a DFS open-pit reserve of just over half a million ounces, grading at 4.2 grams per ton.

We completed a very successful year of production, in which we produced just under 92,000 ounces of gold at an all-in sustaining cost in line with our guidance, which resulted in a very profitable year for us amidst the very high, record high should I say, gold price environment we were producing in. In Senegal, where we are positioned for organic growth, we just, after the end of the year, completed our preliminary feasibility study, which showed a very strong, economically robust gold project with a mine life of over 12 years, which we believe we can continue to optimize and extend. We are looking forward to going into the development of that project later on this year with a final investment decision targeted at Q3 this year.

Lastly, we are in Côte d’Ivoire, where we have continued to build a prospective early-stage gold exploration portfolio, where we are carrying out exploration across all our entire portfolio. We have the Guitry project where we completed our maiden drilling campaign last year, the Boundiali project, the Marahui project, which we’re currently drilling, and recently in early 2026, we added a project in the northeast of the country, the Loudiba license. We also have an early-stage lithium portfolio in Nigeria, where we continue to advance through low-cost exploration in Nigeria, whilst our main focus remains on our gold production and exploration. We’re listed on the TSXV market of the Toronto Stock Exchange and the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange. We have our year-to-date share price performance.

It has been a volatile three months, given the volatility of the gold price and the sector performance in general, the global economic investor climate. However, I think it’s very important to note that our fundamentals have remained the same. We have a full-year gold production guidance of between 75,000 and 85,000 ounces for this year. We believe we’re on track to achieve that. We have a full-year all-in sustaining cost guidance of between $1,000 and $1,200, and we believe we are still positioned to achieve that. There is the risk of higher oil and diesel prices. However, we do believe, given the fact we have stocked up on other key consumables such as ammonium nitrates for the remainder of the year, we believe we’re still in line to maintain our all-in sustaining cost guidance.

Hence, we believe we’re still well-positioned for a strong margin gold production this year, which should ultimately result in continuing increasing balance sheet strength, strong cash flows, and obviously correspondingly, an increasingly strong net cash position. We have on our shareholder registers, our institutional long-term shareholders continue to support us and remain on our register. As you can see in the bottom right-hand side, our broker coverage, our target prices still suggest there continues to be re-rating opportunity. How did we do last year? If we look at the graphs, we can look at the chronological trends. First of all, in our revenues, we’ve fully benefited from a high gold price environment. We are completely unhedged. We were completely unhedged throughout the course of last year and remain so. We continue to take the exposure to the gold price.

We have been very efficient with our costs, which has meant our margin has grown. Our all-in sustaining costs and our cash costs through the course of the last five quarters, we’ve been extremely disciplined on, and this has happened whilst the gold price has continued to increase. Our margins have continued to increase. Our cash position, our liquidity continues to improve. At the end of 2024, we made our final debt repayments. We’ve now been on a quarterly basis, or should I say even on a monthly basis, continued to generate strong cash, finishing the year with $137.7 million in our cash accounts. This has been reflected in our net cash position, finishing the year with a $151 million net cash position. We did all this whilst at the same time returning money to our shareholders.

We announced a dividend policy last year of one and a quarter cents to be paid per quarter per share. That was paid for all four quarters, and given our surplus cash position at the end of the year, we paid a bonus dividend of one and a half cents per quarter. Through the four quarters of last year, we returned $32 million US to our shareholders, and we believe this is in line with our policy to return money sustainably to our shareholders. This dividend policy will continue through the course of this year. Our fourth quarter was characterized by a record revenue in the quarter of $108 million. We still had a bullion inventory of just over 3,000 ounces of gold. That was carried out in Q4. As you can see, the project has now been operating in a steady state.

We managed to mine more ore, and also more waste... Sorry, we managed to mine a lot more ore material, even though it was at a lower grade. And if you look at our daily mining rate, it was over 6,000 tons per day in Q4, which also meant our stockpile, our policy of putting sub one-gram material to the stockpile continued. Our stockpile grew from 44,000 ounces at the end of Q3 to over 50,000 ounces at the end of the year. Meaning, at today’s gold price, there’s a significant amount of gold and buffer of an economic value of, if we use $4,500 per ounce, well over $220 million worth of gold still on our stockpile. We managed to maintain a consistent blend of gold going through the processing plant of just over 3.3 grams per ton, and our recovery rates continue to improve.

We had an excellent quarter in Q4 last year, recoveries of 94.6%, and that resulted in us pouring just under 24,000 ounces of gold. We are extremely happy with our operational performance. We did this whilst being extremely disciplined with our costs, and the results were there for all to see, record quarter by all our financial metrics in terms of revenue, in terms of profitability, in terms of our net cash position. That wrapped up really what was an excellent year for us. It was the profitable year since we started this journey and since building this mine. We’ve moved into Q1 with a very strong start. We announced earlier this morning our initial operating highlights for Q1. Given our annual guidance of 75,000 ounces-85,000 ounces, producing just over 20,000 ounces for the quarter is in line with the midsection of our guidance.

We’re very encouraged with the start that we had. We sold 15,417 ounces at a gold price of $4,829 per ounce, growing our cash balance from the end of December of $137.7 million to $154 million. We do have a gold bullion inventory of 4,000 ounces, which we hadn’t sold, and we are unwinding through the course of April. Using today’s gold price, that would give us a net cash position at the end of the quarter of Q1 of $173 million. We also have a gold doré inventory, which was poured over through the course of the end of the period, that’s still in the process of being refined, of 2,077 ounces. The company has a very healthy balance sheet. We’re approaching $200 million in cash over the next few weeks, should I say, and that has left us very well positioned.

We’ve done this by, again, maintaining our very high operating standard. Our gold is produced from 239,000 tons, which were milled at a slightly lower head grade than the previous quarters, 2.54 grams per ton, and recovery of 93.1%. Again, I think another key point to note here would be we added another 3,844 ounces to the stockpile, which was sub one-gram material, growing our stockpile to just over 54,000 ounces. We’re in a very healthy position. We have strong cash. We have no debt. We have no issues with our payables. We’re able to fund all our activities across all our jurisdictions without any requirements for external cash. We’re able to carry out aggressive programs across all our jurisdictions funded entirely from our cash flow as well.

Where we are deploying that cash, first and foremost, I would say is the most important area, which is at Segilola underneath the pit. We have been drilling Segilola underneath the pit now for a good 15 months-18 months, trying to understand a lot more of the structural controls. We know we have a significant amount of gold underneath the pit, which hasn’t been included in our financial forecasts. We do believe there’s a significant upside potential. We are working towards a resource upgrade, but this has continued to be a work in progress. This has been quite a learning curve for us. We have six rigs drilling. We are trying to understand more the structural controls of these high-grade shoots. I think the key takeaways from here is we continue to intersect mineable high-grade widths of gold underneath the pit.

If you look at some of the results that we’ve had over the course of the last six months-12 months, you can see, I think, the first point where we continue to intersect high-grade gold. We continue to do this at the deeper depths than we’ve ever done before. I think, look at our deepest holes, over 400 meters in depth, over 350 meters in depth. This mine does continue, and I think, importantly, we are continuing to intersect very wide mineralization underneath the pit. This is mineable high-grade gold, well below the final pit profile. What we’re trying to achieve right now is trying to aggregate enough tonnage to push us towards that investment decision, and also in line with that, in parallel with that, the resource upgrade. We have drilled 21,000 meters. There has been a lot of trial and error here.

If we take a step back and look at the takeaways, we’re very encouraged by the fact that we’re continuing to understand this. We’re continuing to intersect gold mineralization. We don’t want to release a resource update prematurely. I think I can sit here and confidently say that we are continuing to add valuable economic ounces to our resource. Over the course of the next few months, when we continue to chase down these shoots and we hit this critical minimum number of ounces, we will come up with this updated resource and extended mine plan. We’re working towards that. We can’t give the exact timeline yet. What we will start doing now is, now we do have a bit more understanding of the structural controls, we can release results on a more timely basis, and we will continue to do so. The drilling continues.

Our understanding of this deposit continues to evolve as well. We know there’s significantly more gold here than the open pit design, and we’re currently working towards having this updated. We’re also doing this on a regional basis. We have now converted one of our satellite pits into a mining license. We have now designed a mine plan for this, and after the rainy season, we will be looking to start the process of mining one of these pits, the southern prospect, Kajola, which is a high-grade small deposit, and stockpiling this with our existing low-grade stockpile. We continue to make progress with exploration through Nigeria. We continue to work on the area to the south, where we have consolidated six licenses. We have a drilling program ongoing there, and we’re looking forward to getting these results out. Moving on to Senegal.

We have a strategic land holding there where we’ve grown a very nice footprint, which consists of three exploration licenses. We took some giant strides over the last six months in Senegal. First of all, prior to completing our preliminary feasibility study, we acquired additional ground, the Bousankhoba license, taking our total footprint in the area to 541 sq km. Further to that, we only owned, or should I say, we owned 70% of the Douta license and the Douta West license. We have now, in the last six months, taken our ownership to 100% of both licenses. These are the licenses that contain the entire deposits. We upgraded our resources and reserves. We took the total resource size, the indicated component from just under 1 million ounces to 1.7 million ounces. Converting that indicated resource, we converted the reserve component to 1.2 million ounces.

This was all fed into our preliminary feasibility study, which was announced in January this year. I won’t go through every detail. These are all on our website. However, the preliminary feasibility study showed a very economically robust project with a very fast payback of under one year at a $3,500 gold price. We’re extremely encouraged by this. Since releasing this preliminary feasibility study, we have been carrying out drilling programs and exploration programs to achieve a couple of critical items. First of all, we were looking to convert a lot of the inferred material within the pit shells to indicated, which would also add to the economics.

However, given the phase nature of the project, the oxide ore phase and the primary ore phase, we are looking to increase the size of the oxide ore resource and thus increase the duration of the oxide ore phase, which is currently four years. That program has been ongoing as well. We’ve been doing all this while at the same time progressing our project, should I say, regulatory requirements. We’ve made all our full submissions to the government of Senegal for the conversion to a mining license. We are in the process now to finalize negotiations on our mining convention, having fully received our ESIA, Environmental Social Impact Assessment certificate as well. That’s all we’re working towards that as well. I think given our strong cash flow in Nigeria, we are looking at funding this project entirely without any third-party cash, equity should I say.

We would see no shareholder dilution through the development of this project. Yeah. I’ve spoken about the resource and the reserve, which is healthy. It shows a mine life of 12.5 years with significant opportunity to grow. Here is, should I say, one of the key areas of growth outside the Douta and Douta West license that we have been working on this year. The Bousankhoba license, which is the big license in the middle where we are yet to drill. We’ve carried out geophysics, soil geochemistry, some rock chip sampling and auger sampling, and we have now identified several high-grade structures with strike lengths ranging between half a kilometer and two km long and with very high-grade, consistent rock chip gold assay values.

We’ve designed drill programs across the entirety of all of them, have 40,000 meters of drilling to go on that’s been going on, a program that’s been designed across all three licenses that’s going on through the first half of the year. The first quarter of the year, I would have to say, we’ve unfortunately suffered extreme delays in turnaround times in getting assay results, really due to our assays being carried out in Côte d’Ivoire and no longer driving directly through Mali. There has been a longer turnaround time getting drill results out. However, we’ve now got a sufficient, should I say, backlog that has been cleared to now consistently release our drilling results over Q2 and we look forward to doing so soon after this update. We’re very encouraged by this. We do see this project growing significantly.

We do see the oxide phase of the project continuing to grow. We are looking to get to financial final investment decision in the second half of this year. We are looking to be pouring and producing gold in the first half of 2028 from here. It’s a fast-track development timeline in Senegal. I think a key point alongside our development process is ordering the long lead items, which is coming up very soon. We’re in the final stages of negotiations for that. We are looking to, like I say, pull this project together without any third-party equity. Our financing discussions are kicking off now, and we’re looking at a target close over the next two and a half months. I think the biggest point here is signing off our mining convention with the Senegalese government over the next couple of months.

Like I mentioned earlier, all our submissions have been made and that process has started. Finally, going into Côte d’Ivoire, where we entered at a very low cost through the acquisition of Guitry. We’ve now continued to build our presence there. We have the Guitry project, the Boundiali project, the Marahui project, and we’ve now added the Loudiba license in the same region as the Marahui area. The Loudiba license was characterized by some sparse artisanal activity, strong geology, and we are very encouraged by the initial reconnaissance results we got from our visits there. We intend on working up drill targets there over the next six months and looking forward to hopefully getting that into a stage where we have sufficient drill meters to kick off a drilling campaign, either Q4 this year or Q1 next year.

I’ll start off with the Guitry project, which we inherited with over 11,000 meters of drilling. We drilled over 4,000 meters last year, 4,600 meters, and that resulted in an initial discovery. We have now extended our exploration to other areas of the license where we have worked up significant drill targets and/or through soil geochemistry and rock chip sampling, where we continue to get high-grade rocks. These areas have never been drilled before, where we get high-grade results, apologies. These areas have never been drilled before, and we are looking forward to getting them into drilling programs here. Here in Côte d’Ivoire here, we believe this Guitry project is what we would constitute a discovery. We’re now trying to scale this up through the drilling of other areas.

If we can replicate the success we achieved through last year’s drilling, in these other areas which we identified, we will be looking at something that the company is very excited about. You can see from the drilling project, the area we drilled last year, we did delineate a number of high-grade mineralized lodes. We are now working to extend them. Like I say, we’ve carried out auger drilling and soil geochem sampling on the other areas of the license, and we’re getting them ready to drill and carry out RC drilling campaigns. What I would deem a success this year would be to replicate this in another two areas, at least of the license, and then we start looking at really scaling this project up. Again, we’ll be looking at getting these results out now on a more frequent basis now we’re near Q2.

We also have the Marahui project where we had identified these high-grade drilling target areas. We have previously mentioned these high-grade rock chip and soil results in this very prospective area of Birimian greenstone where we were getting consistent rock chip results up to 29.9 grams per tonne, and 28 on some very interesting contacts. We then went out and found a parallel structure. We have now carried out even further exploration, where in the right kind of rocks, we’re getting very high-grade in situ mineralization here. We’ve designed a 6,000-meter drill program to test both contacts. That drill program has commenced, and we are very excited to get these results out as well in Q2. We do have a lot of news flow coming from Nigeria, Senegal, and Côte d’Ivoire, I think, from this quarter through the course of the rest of the year.

Our outlook for this year. We have a production guidance of 75.5-85,000 ounces. We’ve started very strongly. We started with 20,000 ounces, which is, if we extrapolate that through the course of the year, that’s bang in the middle of our guidance of just over 80,000 ounces. We are confident with our cost guidance of between $1,000 and $1,200 per ounce. We’re spending aggressively on exploration. We’re going to spend about $30 million across all three jurisdictions, and we believe we will unlock a lot of value through exploration and through the drill bit by doing so. We continue to target an extension of the Segilola mine life from the definition of additional underground resources and near-mine satellite resources. We’ve been very encouraged by what we’ve drilled before. We know the gold hasn’t disappeared.

We’ve now continued to intersect gold mineralization deeper than we ever have historically, and it’s now a case of trying to build up the sufficient tonnage to take us to that investment decision of the underground, and obviously, in parallel, update the resource. We’re finalizing our permitting in Douta for final investment decision and looking to construction in the second half of this year, where this is taking us another step in our evolution to become a multi-mine producer. We’re looking forward to having our second mine built. We have the mine building experience and mine operating experience, and the fact that we’re now positioned to do this organically without any shareholder dilution, we are extremely encouraged by. Côte d’Ivoire gives us plenty of exploration upside. We have the Guitry project, where we are expanding into other areas.

We have the Marahui project, which has had excellent initial exploration results, which we’re very encouraged by and very excited to carry out this drilling campaign. We look forward to updating our shareholders with that. Lastly, we continue to return shareholders’ money through the form of a dividend on a quarterly basis. Last year, we were in a surplus cash position at the end of the year, and we returned a bonus dividend to our shareholder. If we’re in the same situation at the end of this year, we will certainly be doing the same. Thank you very much.

Unknown, Presentation Moderator, Investor Meet Company: Perfect, Segun. That’s great. If I may just jump back in there, thank you very much indeed for your presentation this afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the Q&A tab that’s situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. Just while Segun takes a few moments to review those questions that have been submitted already, just like to remind you that a recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A, can all be accessed via your investor dashboard. Segun, we have received a number of questions throughout your presentation this afternoon. Thank you to all of those on the call for taking the time to submit their questions.

Segun, at this point, sir, if I may just hand back to you to read out those questions and give your responses where it’s appropriate to do so. If I pick up from you at the end, that’d be great. Thank you.

Segun Lawson, Chief Executive Officer, Thor Explorations Limited: Great. Sure. Okay. Yeah, look, I’ll read all the questions. Let me just see how many we’ve got. Okay. I’m going to answer all the questions. I’ll start with the first one. When will we begin to see regular flow of exploration drill results? With the $30 million exploration budgets, one would expect there would be much to talk about. Yes. We are kicking off drilling results as early as this quarter, and it should be regular. There has been a lot of focus on Senegal development and also getting things drill ready in Côte d’Ivoire. In Nigeria, we drilled round about 21,000 meters of drilling, and a lot of that was spent trying to define these narrow high-grade sheets. We released some of the Nigeria results in our MD&A. We will continue to do that.

I think we’ve now got a nice head start and sufficient runway in front of us after the building up a massive backlog with delays. Now we’re very well positioned to have frequent drilling updates from all three countries. When do you expect to release the updated resource report for Segilola? Yeah, sure. As discussed, or should I say, as mentioned in the presentation, it’s not as straightforward as just giving a timeline where we’re succeeding in drilling this mineralization. The question then becomes how do we continue to understand the structural controls, how to continue to guide our drilling and to build up that critical mass of tonnage, should I say, to get us to that minimum point where we want to make that investment decision. Look, we will continue to update with drill results. It’s hard to give the exact timeline for the resource itself.

I think the two biggest takeaways here, number one, we are succeeding in drilling and finding more gold. Number two, we have a good buffer of satellite, small satellite deposits and a stockpile. We will be looking to update this resource at least this year. If you think of the original PFS where we were scheduled to have produced only 41,000 ounces in this year and then the mine would have started dwindling away. You can see we’ve already started, we’re already continuing to overachieve that, and we believe, through the continued exploration, we will still be able to push this further. Unfortunately, I’m afraid I can’t give an exact timeline just yet. We are aiming to do regardless to update the resource this year.

We think it’s critical and very important that we continue to drill, we continue to define this underground resource, and we continue to increase this tonnage, and that’s what we’re doing at the moment. Pioneer Status Incentive, can you confirm the expiry date? Yes. The expiry date is 31st of December this year for the Pioneer Status. However, we are in the process of the extension application. The underground resource update. Okay, I’ve just already answered that. Douta financing. Given the commitment to no shareholder dilution, can you confirm the financing instrument being pursued for Douta construction CapEx, specifically whether heads of terms have been agreed with any project debt lender? At the moment, I’m not in a position to say it’s not public information.

All I would say is we’re very confident that we will be able to finance this project, and we will be able to achieve financial close in Q3 this year without any equity dilution. Once that information is public, then obviously I’ll be able to say more. Next question, dividend through 2027. With Douta construction CapEx peaking in 2027 and Segilola production declining, does the Board intend to maintain the minimum $0.05 dividend through 2026 and 2027 or is a pause possible? We believe we’re in a very strong cash position, and we will be at the end of this year. We don’t intend on reducing or pausing our dividend. We believe we’re in a strong enough position to achieve all our ambitions of exploration, of development and returning shareholders their dividend at the minimum value of $0.05 per share per quarter.

Currently, the policy is only through to the end of 2026. From a personal point of view, I don’t think we’re in a position of risk of pausing that in 2027. We do believe we can carry that through to Douta production. Great results in 2025. May I check if the company is looking for establishing stock buybacks, uplisting to TSX, other exchanges from venture or new readily production accretive acquisitions to increase shareholder value? Also, when will the mine life extension be announced? Thanks. Okay. I think we’ve addressed the mine life extension. That’s all ongoing at the moment, and the drilling continues to be encouraging, and we continue to learn from what we’re drilling. The share buybacks, at the moment, that’s not on the cards.

We believe the current dividend policy is in line with where we want to be in terms of returning money to our shareholders. In terms of other exchanges, at the moment, we’re not in any advanced stages of looking at any other exchanges. In terms of acquisition of readily production accretive acquisitions, we’re constantly scanning the market for strong opportunities and will continue to do so. We haven’t found an opportunity that we think would be the optimal fit just yet. Please detail any risks around power and fuel with respect to the Iran conflict and global diesel shortages. Look, I think it’s been fortunate that we are in Nigeria. Our process plant is fueled on compressed natural gas, which is locally sourced. In Nigeria, there’s been obviously the incredibly successful Dangote Refinery, which was commissioned, where we’re able to source diesel locally.

It has meant there has been a significant material increase in our diesel costs, but we don’t believe, so far, there have been any issues with diesel supply or shortage issues. Is there a gold price at which you would consider hedging or selling forward a portion of production from Segilola? At the moment, we believe we have a very strong margin, with our maximum cost guidance of $1,200 and gold trading today, or over the last few months, of over $4,500 per ounce. That’s a $3,000 margin. We haven’t looked at hedging. At the moment, we believe we should be taking the gold price exposure given our margins at the moment.

Look, in the future, if we see a very strong drop in gold prices, perhaps we would look at that, but at the moment we don’t feel the need we should. Any plans to raise the dividends over the minimum given the large cash balance held on the balance sheet? My understanding is that Douta will be financed via debt. I think, look, last year, we finished the year with a surplus cash position above our budget. We paid a bonus dividend. I think a responsible way to continue with our dividend policy would be to have that minimum dividend policy and come the end of the year, if we are in another surplus cash position and if the gold prices stay where they are and our costs remain where they are, we should be in a surplus cash position.

If we are, we would look to return another bonus to our shareholders. Given the volatility in the diesel market, can you share any thoughts regarding sensitivity to fuel pricing for both Segilola and Douta? Yes. In Nigeria, I think I just touched on that a couple of questions ago. There has been a material increase in the local diesel price. We have managed to buffer that, really because of our reliance on compressed natural gas for power and also a lower mining rate. Given we’re moving to the southern end of the pit, a lower mining rate has meant we’re consuming less diesel. The Douta project, should I say, is more exposed to the diesel price as well. There is a sensitivity to it. It’s like ammonium nitrate, and it’s one of our key consumables as well.

We do think there is sufficient margin again in our Douta project to make the project continue to remain economically robust. The next question is about share buyback as well. I’ve already answered that. Is there a share price in mind you’d entertain a takeover bid? Wow. Would that be above or below GBP 2 a share? Look, from where we’re sitting now, we believe there’s a huge amount of value to unlock here. From our cash flow in Nigeria, where we continue to build a couple of $100 million a year, we should be sitting north of $300 million in cash at the end of this year. Even if we add next year’s production as well, we should continue to add to that. We have blue sky exploration potential.

Our Senegal project NPV is at $3,500 gold, is close to $1 billion, and we believe we will improve that through the optimization of our PFS and continuing to find more oxide resources. We have a fantastic portfolio in Côte d’Ivoire, where we believe out of our portfolio, we will be in a stage where we’ll be hoping to develop a mine and looking to go down that resource and development pathline in the medium to near term. I think, given the situation we’re in with our excellent organic portfolio, our strong cash flow, existing cash on our balance sheet, I think there’s a huge amount still to unlock for our shareholders, and at the moment, we’re not even considering any takeover bids, or we wouldn’t. Is there a sense as to how much CapEx would be required to make the transition to underground mining?

Are there any further ounces expected from the current open pit operation beyond what has previously been stated?" Okay. Yes, we have sent out some RFQs to get our internal understanding on the underground mining CapEx requirement. It’s not anything that would require third-party financing, equity or debt. If we choose to get third-party debt, it would just be for flexibility reasons. What’s the second part of the question? Further ounces from the current open pit. The higher gold price environment we’re in has allowed us to evaluate re-optimizing the transition point from open pit to underground. Those studies are constantly ongoing and evolving. There are additional ounces to take out from further open pit, and we will certainly be looking to incorporate that into our updated mine life. Segilola, mine life.

There’s a lot of questions on the mine life, which I’ve addressed several times. Mine life. Another question on the mine life extension. What’s been the cause of the delay, which I believe I’ve answered in the presentation? Thor is extremely well-positioned over the next few years to deliver significant growth and will be an attractive M&A target. Okay, I’ve addressed that as well. Can you provide some color? Why do you keep increasing the number of licenses in Côte d’Ivoire instead of focusing on just one? Look, Côte d’Ivoire has been a success story for West Africa in terms of not just exploration, in terms of development, in terms of production, in terms of the regulatory environment, and it’s got fantastic geology, if you look at the number of mines that have just been built there over the last 10 years.

We’ve now established a presence there. Every time we establish a presence somewhere, we do look for the best opportunities there, and we believe the portfolio we’ve put together is extremely encouraging and has significant potential. Rather than just focus on one, we believe we have the resources to advance them at different paces, so we are able to prioritize the more encouraging ones, for example, Guitry and Marahui, and build that pipeline in Côte d’Ivoire. With a de-levered balance sheet, strong cash flow fundamentals from Segilola, well de-risked and strong Senegal mining fundamentals, why are we opting to deploy 100% equity for the Senegalese project? No, we’re not deploying 100% equity for the Senegalese project. There will be financing. There just won’t be third-party equity, so no dilution to our shareholders. We believe that is the most value-accretive way to develop the project.

Some of our own existing cash and also debt financing. Marahui, why only 6,000 meters? Is it a decrease from the previous plans? No, it’s an initial 6,000 meter drilling program, and then we will carry out a second phase if the results are encouraging, which would consist of an infill program and would take the meters up. The 6,000 meters is an initial program. Okay. I think I’ll just take one more question. There are a few just asking the same thing, so I’m just trying to see which one to answer. Okay. Well, stockpiles increased 36% year-over-year, a significant portion coming from low-grade material. Can you elaborate on stockpiling strategy, how this aligns with the mine plan and grade control strategy? Well, look, we’ve tried to maintain a head grade around about three grams per ton. We think that’s optimal for us.

Given the high gold price environment we’re in, anything sub one gram per ton, we are stockpiling. I think the big advantage here is that we are incurring the costs of mining this ore. However, when it comes to processing it, there will be no mining costs required processing this low grade. It’s optimal to put in the three-gram ore through the processing plant, and take full advantage of this high gold price, and then we can always come back when we don’t have diesel costs and we don’t have all the associated mining costs to process the stockpile, which is already there, with over 54,000 ounces. Look, I think that’s the questions I’m going to answer for now. There are one or two repetitive ones, really pertaining to the mine life extension.

I think it’s probably a good way to close off by saying that we have six rigs on this now. It’s our top priority. We’re extremely encouraged by the results we continue to drill. We are confident that we will continue. It is a longer process than we envisaged to drill this thing out, and to continue to hit this, what I would call, relatively narrow, high-grade shoots underneath the pit to delineate them. We’re continuing to do so. We continue to push ahead. We assure our shareholders we will be getting these results out, from this quarter onwards through the course of the year across all three jurisdictions. Yeah, if there are any further questions, please send by email and we will get back to you. Thank you very much.

Unknown, Presentation Moderator, Investor Meet Company: Perfect, Segun. That’s great. Thank you very much indeed for being so generous with your time and addressing all of those questions that came in. Of course, if there are any that come through on the platform, we’ll get those back to you immediately after the presentation has ended, just for you to review, and we’ll publish all those responses out on the platform. Apart from that, Segun, thank you very much indeed for updating investors this afternoon. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you will now be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order that the Management Team can only better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, but I’m sure it’ll be greatly valued by the company.

On behalf of the management team of Thor Explorations Ltd., we would like to thank you for attending today’s presentation. That now concludes today’s session. So good afternoon to you all

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