Thanks DT. Much appreciated!

I’d submit I’ve already had my day in the sun with West Africa for a number of years now, with a number of companies being taken over in past years where I was able to exit on the takeover news (Gryphon Minerals, Avnel Gold, Savary, Teranga, and Roxgold). There were other takeovers I was not a part of like True Gold, and Semafo, so really West Africa has seen more M&A over the last decade than most other jurisdictions I follow.

Additionally I’ve had one heck of a nice run trading Orezone for the last 5 years (from explorer, to developer, to producer), and am still in it for the optionality to rising gold prices and to see if they also get picked off by a larger company.

Currently, my exposure to West Africa is smaller than it has been in the past, as it is getting just a little bit more dicey in certain countries and regions, but there are a handful of companies that I still have high conviction in and good cost basis in where I like their team/project/work strategy:

– Orezone just mentioned above. One of the best-in-class companies over the last half decade from explorer all the way to producer… still plenty of upside expansion potential

– Thor Explorations (the interview above speaks for itself) – gold producer, larger development project, new lithium exploration claims. Also, I think a lot of the Thor team as they have continually done exactly what they said they would, hit their milestones and guidance, and delivered on the exploration front the last few years. Sadly that is quite rare in this sector.

– Fortuna (sold initially on the takeover news of Roxgold, but got back into FSM last year because I believe those gold assets that Roxgold used to hold will provide unrecognized upside for the company in addition to their silver optionality)

– Montage Gold huge optionality to gold price, and I don’t think they are getting anywhere even remotely close to the valuation they should for their 4+ million ounces of gold in the ground. Also the small acquisition of land they made and are exploring on is far more important than the market realizes and gives them a smaller but higher-grade mineralized area to start their mining development plan with, that really helps out the front-end economics and payback timeline.

– Galiano Gold – This single-asset gold producers used to be called Asanko under a different era years ago and different management teams and had all kinds of problems and a pit wall collapse and became a bit of a hot mess as investors scurried for the exit doors. I kept tabs on it for years, curious to see if it would close down, or if they were going to high-grade out the core of the deposit as some postulated, and had used it as an example of risks and what could go wrong in the mining sector for some time. Then new teams came in mid 2021 with a good pedigree and started cleaning up the mess and started tracking it much closer. In 2022 I started accumulating a position and traded around that a few times but I’m happy with the stake and cost basis I have at this point that is in the money.

Galiano has had more exploration success and showed a better path forward with a new mine plan and economic study that is ready to kick off later this year. It’s still one of my “Ugly Duckling” turn-around stories, like Americas Gold & Silver, or McEwen Mining, that I feel already hit the proverbial rock-bottom, and is in the slow climb back out to prove itself to the markets once again. I see this mine as strategic in West Africa and a takeover candidate (They have a 45% interest in the project with one of the big boy majors = Gold Fields). I could see Gold Fields just taking over the rest of the company in 2024, or another major coming in and picking them up for their nearly half stake in the mine to partner with Gold Fields. Hopefully there is time for the gold price to run and for them to get rerated much higher before an offer would come in, but it Galiano gets scooped up then I’d sell on that news for the profitable exit.

I think that is all of my West African exposure in individual mining companies at this time, aside from royalty companies with exposure to projects in West Africa.