Revival Gold: Consolidating Mercur Ahead of a 2028 Production Decision

0:17Trevor Hall: Hugh Agro, we, uh, it hasn't been very long since I spoke. No, but we're in Zurich this time. I know, in front, face to face, in the flesh. and you guys have been publishing a lot of news and actually you have new news. You're consolidating some land outside of Merkur. Tell me about the consolidation, why this is important for the continued development of the project. Yeah, this is another step as we take Merkur forward to a production decision in 2028. Recall that earlier this year we bought almost a thousand acre parcel of land to the south of the project. This time around we're picking up a parcel of land in the northern part of the project.

0:59It'll give us some flexibility around how we develop the site and there's some exploration potential on it as well that we'll pursue. Additionally, we've closed transactions, option agreements around claims in the center of the main Merkur area. So this follows on the back of the close of the Barrick transaction, bringing the Barrick claims with the legacy infrastructure all into one company's hands and the first time ever. Okay. Is there more land that you need to consolidate?

1:32Trevor Hall: You see the big picture here. There are little pieces that you still need to find to put the puzzle together. I think we're pretty much done here now. We're now about 19 ,000 acres in total. This is an assemblage that comes from Barrick, as we've discussed, from Homestake, a successor company, and then a freshly staked ground, which was part of the concept to expand the exploration potential to the west limb of the anticline, going into those undercover targets. So I think we've got what we need here, and it's a pretty rare situation. where they've got the entirety of this Carlin system, over 15 kilometers of strike, and all the exploration potential, which we'll get into next year with the drilling.

2:21Trevor Hall: There was a little part in this news release. You've secured two peripheral 10-year mineral leases. Tell me about this and why is it important? We're on state claims with that lease. and so most of our, all of our resources, all of our infrastructure will be on private land but there are also some opportunities for state land claims and this is one of those. So the fees go to the state, it's an added incentive for the state to be supportive of responsible exploration and mining and it's a nice benefit for us because they're much easier to deal with and the land tenure is much more straightforward than some of these federal claims that have a long history and, of course, date back to the U.S.

3:11mining law in the 18th century.

3:13Trevor Hall: I loved your presentation yesterday. You were in the session that I chaired, and you spent the first couple minutes And it's actually less about Merck or BearTruck or Nett and more about the actual gold market history of gold. Why do you take such an approach when you have a limited 15 minutes? Why take a chunk of that and just talk about gold itself? I think it's important. We're investing in these companies for a reason. And it's different than the reason you invest in just gold. You can buy an ounce of gold for$4 ,000 an ounce. You can buy a senior gold producer for$600 an ounce or thereabouts.

3:50And you can buy a developer sitting here at about$25 an ounce with all kinds of exploration potential beyond that. So I think there's a lot of leverage. There's a lot of benefit to owning a gold developer. If you believe in gold, find a good gold developer in a good geographic location on a fast track to production. and you're basically beating the market to that$4 ,000 an ounce. And that's important, I think, for investors to hear from CEOs of companies leading these companies.

4:21Trevor Hall: A U.S.-based gold developer, has there been questions about developing in the U.S. as you're here in Zurich the last couple of days? There have, and certainly have. And this is where the benefits really of being on private land come through. You've never heard me talk about Fast 41, the benefits of a Trump White House around regulation and policy. I think generally the public gets it. Mining is an important part of the overall economy. We just happen to be on private land and without need for a complex federal process. And so I think we're standing in as good a shape as today as we were before the election results and the turn of the House.

5:11Trevor Hall: Okay. You had mentioned to me previously about a debt process starting in the spring, 2027, to help fund market. I'm assuming those deals and conversations are already happening. time. But that's going to be a real important and pivotal time, not only for the project, but for the company. And a lot of things can change. The macro can change. Yields can change. The market can change. But what is the expectation when you walk into 2027 saying that we put spring, the timeline, to really start negotiating some of those terms? What are the expectations that you think investors should be watching here as we get into the new year?

5:51Well, it's really interesting to me that we've seen some new players, some non-bank players in the space funding these projects. I look at some of our peers recently, such as Mayfair and Cisco and others doing non-traditional financing approaches, convertibles, Nordic bonds, private credit. And so I guess by starting that process in April and giving ourselves a good window of time, we want to get around to all of those different parties. We definitely see a lot of appetite, and you're right. We've been out investigating the bank finance market. There is project finance available for single-asset companies today, especially in good geographic locations.

6:43Some of the usual suspects, and we've been out to those folks. But we also want to test the ground with some of these non-bank solutions, which may bring a more comprehensive solution to the financing on a project like Merkur. With such high margins in such a good geographic location, there's no shortage of opportunities for construction financing.

7:06Trevor Hall: So a non-bank solution would be a royalty or a stream or something outside of that? Some of those have been suggested to us, but also convertibles. I mentioned the public bonds. And then there's, of course, private credit. So we've got a slew of private credit providers that are in the market. And then you've got the traders looking for offtake arrangements that will pay for that little bit of volatility around the gold price. So there's a lot of work that goes into analyzing that, optimizing it. I think the objective is to maximize cost of capital and flexibility around repayment. That's a key.

7:50We know that as these projects move into production, we often get changes in plans or schedules. And we need to make sure that we've got some flexibility and some optionality around the financing structure. We've got ability to refinance once we're in production. and have better terms available to us. But at the same time, we want to try and get as low a rate as we can for our owners.

8:17Trevor Hall: Okay. I do want to talk about, obviously, BearTracker net real quick. Just quick comments. State of Idaho is still very hot. Probably second best out of Nevada as far as states go. Utah not far behind, I would argue. But is it hard to get contractors up in Idaho right now because it's just so much exploration going on. Yeah, as a matter of fact, there is a lot of work. There's a lot of pressure on drilling companies and others. But as you know, you've been at the Idaho Mining Conference. It's a very well-attended event now. I think the contractors, service providers are realizing that there's a lot of opportunity around what's happening in the state.

9:03I understand there was about 80 university students that were trucked into the conference this year. It's great to see the young people arriving because there's a lot of jobs for them. And likewise, we do the same thing in Utah with the Utah Mining Association having their conference just now finished and reaching out to the universities to embrace them and get these kids working. There's lots of jobs and good jobs to be had. All right, awesome.

9:31Trevor Hall: All right, Hugh, we're going to keep it short and sweet. We'll probably talk next week. I don't know. It's been quite a few times, but it's good to see you on the road here. One quick note, Revival Gold does trade on the venture with RVG and on the OTCQX with RVLGF, and they are a partner of the podcast. Hugh, we'll talk to you again. Thank you so much. Thank you, Trevor. The information presented should not be considered investment advice. Mining Stock Daily Yen's affiliates are not responsible for any loss arising from any investment decision in connection with the material presented herein.

10:03Trevor Hall: Please do your own research or speak with a licensed financial representative before making any investment decisions.