VGZ

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Vista Gold's second quarter 2026 financial results and corporate update conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. At that time, participants are asked to press star one to register for a question. For assistance during the call, please press star zero. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. Today is Thursday, July 30th, 2026. It's now my pleasure to introduce Pamela Solly, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Joanna. Good day, everyone. Thank you for joining the Vista Gold Corp second quarter 2026 financial results and corporate update conference call. I'm Pamela Solly, Vice President of Investor Relations. Also on the call today is Fred Earnest, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Doug Tobler, Chief Financial Officer. On July 29th, 2026, Vista reported its financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2026. For additional details, our full financial statements and MD&A are included in our Form 10-Q available for review at sec.gov or sedarplus.ca. Copies of the news release and quarterly report on Form 10-Q are also available on our website at www.vistagold.com. During the course of this call and the question and answer session, we will be making forward-looking statements.

These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results, performance, or achievements of Vista to be materially different from results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Please refer to our most recently filed Form 10-K for details of risks and other important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in our forward-looking statements and the cautionary note regarding estimates on mineral resources and mineral reserves. I will now turn the call over to Fred Earnest.

Thank you, Pam. Thank you everyone for joining us on the call today. We will begin with an overview of our second quarter achievements and then discuss our outlook for the remainder of the year. During the second quarter, we continued to execute our strategy to develop the Mt Todd gold project on a standalone basis. We achieved meaningful progress on permitting, added to our Australia-based project leadership team, progressed technical optimization programs, and advanced project execution planning in line with our plans to commence detailed engineering and design in 2027. With our strong cash position at quarter end, we are well funded to continue achieving our interim project development activities while systematically reducing development risk. As we build our Australian leadership team and complete the technical and regulatory milestones ahead of us, we are positioning,

Mt Todd for the start of detailed engineering and design in 2027 and the commencement of an approximate 27-month period encompassing construction and commissioning. I will discuss these topics in greater detail later in the call, I now turn the time over to Doug Tobler for a review of our financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2026.

Thanks, Fred. For those of you on the call, thanks for joining. We very much appreciate your interest. My comments will provide a recap of our financial position and our results of operations as presented in the second quarter Form 10-Q. All the dollar amounts that I will talk about today will be in U.S. dollars. I'm pleased to report that we maintained a strong balance sheet at the end of the second quarter. We had cash on hand of $49.5 million compared to a cash balance of $13.6 million at the end of 2025. This increase in cash is based on having completed the March 2026 offering for net proceeds of $42 million, which is supporting the work that Fred will discuss during this call. We continue to have no debt. Turning to our results of operations.

For the second quarter, we reported a net loss of $3 million for the three months ended June 30, 2026, which compares to a net loss of $2.4 million for the three months ended June 30, 2025. For the six months ended June 30, 2026 and 2025, we reported net losses of $6 million and $5.1 million respectively. There were three main drivers of the increases in net losses for the three and six months period ended June 30, 2026. First, exploration, property valuation, and holding costs were $2.5 million and $1.8 million for the comparative three and six months ended June 30, 2026 and 2025 respectively, and they were $4.2 million and $3.3 million for the six months period ended June 30, 2026 and 2025 respectively.

The increases in the 2026 for the three and six months period resulted mostly from the addition of executive and project management team members in Australia and higher power costs incurred to meet our water management pumping requirements. These increases were partially offset by lower project program costs in 2026 compared to the prior year when work on the Mt Todd feasibility study was in progress. Our corporate administrative costs were $850,000 and $680,000 during the three months ended June 30, 2026 and 2025 respectively. They were $2.5 million and $2 million for the six months ended June 30, 2026 and 2025 respectively. These increases for the three and six months period resulted from additional legal, consulting, and board costs to support our increasing pre-development activities at Mt Todd.

We partially offset the increases in costs with about $300,000 of greater interest income for the three and six months period into June 30, 2026. That concludes my comments for today. I'll turn the call back to you, Fred.

Thank you, Doug. The second quarter was another period of steady progress as we continued to execute our key initiatives in line with our development strategy for Mt Todd. We remain focused on achieving the important milestones that will position the project for the next phase of development. I'll begin with an update on permitting activities. Our work to obtain approvals for the permit modifications required to align existing approvals with the 2025 feasibility study is progressing as planned. We are actively working with regulators, consultants, and stakeholders to obtain these modifications. Some modifications have already been submitted, and programs to support other submissions are in progress. I'm pleased to report that we have received authorization for certain modifications that are expected to lead to additional approvals being granted in the second half of 2026, with final approvals anticipated in 2027.

We are encouraged by this progress and are grateful for the past and ongoing work of the agencies in the Northern Territory. Turning to site dewatering. Some of you will remember that the Northern Territory received far greater than normal precipitation in the recent wet season. The inventory of water on the Mt Todd mine site is accordingly much higher than we expected. We have commenced the initial phase of a dewatering program at the Batman pit and tailings storage facility, with additional phases planned to commence later this year. I'll now provide an update on the progress of our pre-development optimization programs as they were identified in the Mt Todd feasibility study, which will support detailed engineering and further de-risk the project.

A comprehensive metallurgical test program to optimize grind size and gold recoveries while generating data to support process plant design and equipment selection is entering its final stages. Highlights of the initial results include confirmation of the relationship between grind size and gold recoveries across the complete range of anticipated head grades, and the suitability of water collected below the waste rock dump for process makeup water. Characterization of tailings properties is also in progress. Final results of the program are anticipated late this quarter. The geotechnical program designed to evaluate opportunities to steepen the west pit wall, reduce waste stripping, and potentially convert mineral resources to additional mineral reserves at depth is also nearing completion. We have also completed refinements to the site layout design and are preparing for field investigations related to tailings embankment engineering design. At the same time, we continue to advance project execution planning.

Let me turn now and talk about people. We continue to build our Australia-based executive leadership and project development teams to support the next phase of the project. The executive team is based in Perth, Western Australia, with the project development team being assigned to the Northern Territory, including certain fly in, fly out roles. Since the beginning of this year, we have made significant progress in strengthening our corporate capabilities across key functions, including projects and technical services, external relations and social performance, legal, and permitting. Recruiting is ongoing for executive and project development team members to further strengthen our project execution capabilities in Australia. As part of this effort, we are well advanced in our search for a managing director to be based in Australia with a proven track record in project development and building successful organizations to lead the development of Mt Todd.

I now turn to safety and our environmental and social and governance commitments. During the quarter, we remained firmly committed to safety, environmental stewardship, and the interests of our shareholders and stakeholders. Our site team continued to manage the Mt Todd site and successfully advanced our environmental initiatives with zero reportable incidents. I'm pleased to report that we have commenced a new social impact assessment as part of our commitment to understand the needs and concerns of the local communities and to assist us in our project execution planning. We have also maintained our ongoing engagement with the Jawoyn Association Aboriginal Corporation and other key stakeholders. Looking ahead. We believe the key to greater shareholder value is found in the work we're doing to secure final authorizations and establish the basis for an efficient start to detailed engineering design.

With this in mind, Mt Todd holds tremendous intrinsic value and represents an exceptional investment opportunity at conservative long-term gold prices. With an all-in sustaining cost of $1,500 per ounce and a very conservative gold price of $3,300 an ounce, substantially less than today's price, the Mt Todd gold project will generate $300 million of free cash flow annually. At that same gold price, the feasibility study net asset value per share is estimated to be $14.89, nearly nine times our current share price. We have recently seen considerable volatility in the gold price. Even with this volatility, Mt Todd is positioned as one of the most attractive large resource development stage projects in the gold sector. Its strong project economics at current gold prices, favorable jurisdiction, permitting status, and existing infrastructure make it well-suited for near-term development.

We are confident this is the right market environment in which to move Mt Todd into the next phase of development. In conclusion, Vista is committed to seeing the Mt Todd project developed in compliance with the highest mining and ESG standards and is diligently working toward that goal. For more information about Vista Gold and the Mt Todd project, I refer you to our corporate presentation, which can be found on our website at www.vistagold.com. We believe that Vista Gold represents an exceptional investment opportunity and that current prices present a tremendous opportunity to establish a position or increase one's holdings in Vista Gold. This concludes our formal remarks. We will now respond to any questions from participants on this call.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. Should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your touch tone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. If you wish to decline from the polling process, please press star followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. As a reminder, for any questions, please press star one now. There appear to be no questions. I will turn the call back over to Fred Earnest, President and CEO, for closing remarks.

Thank you, Joanna. Thank you to all of those who have joined the call today and who will listen to this call in recorded form in the coming days and weeks. We're very pleased with the progress that we've achieved in the second quarter of this year. We continue to have a strong balance sheet. We look forward to the activities and the ongoing execution of the strategy as we've laid out in our plan. This quarter will be a busy quarter for us with participation in a number of conferences, including the Diggers & Dealers Conference in Australia, Precious Metals Summit, the Gold Forum Americas in Colorado Springs, as well as the Wainwright Conference in New York City.

We're very excited about the opportunity to share the story, provide updates. We encourage all to pay attention to the news in the coming weeks and months that will capture and highlight results of studies, as well as successes achieved in permitting and our ongoing efforts to build an exceptional team to deliver the Mt Todd project in Australia. With that, I thank you again for your interest and your participation in the call and wish each of you a very pleasant day.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating, and we ask that you please disconnect your lines.

Reminder, this conference call is being recorded. Today is Friday, May 1, 2026. It is now my pleasure to introduce Pamela Solly, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Jenny, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining the Vista Gold Corp. Q1 2026 Financial Results and Corporate Update conference call. I'm Pamela Solly, Vice President of Investor Relations. Also on the call today is Fred Earnest, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Doug Tobler, Chief Financial Officer. On April 30, 2026, Vista reported its results for the quarter ended March 31, 2026. For additional details, our full financial statements and MD&A are included in our Form 10-Q, available for review at sec.gov or sedarplus.ca. Copies of the news release and quarterly report on Form 10-Q are also available on our website at www.vistagold.com. During the course of this call and the question-and-answer session, we will be making forward-looking statements.

These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results, performance, or achievements of Vista to be materially different from results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Please refer to our most recently filed Form 10-K for details of results, I'm sorry, risks and other important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in our forward-looking statements and the cautionary note regarding estimates of mineral resources and mineral reserves. I will now turn the call over to Fred Earnest.

Thank you, Pam. And thank you everyone for joining us on the call today. We will begin with an overview of our Q1 achievements and then discuss our outlook for the remainder of the year. During the Q1, we completed a public offering for aggregate gross proceeds of $44.85 million and net proceeds of $42 million. We also made significant progress toward achieving our 2026 objectives. Our priorities for 2026 include all activities leading to permit modification approvals to align existing permits with the 2025 feasibility study designs, completing pre-development optimizations to provide key inputs for detailed engineering and design, expanding corporate capability by building an Australian-based team to lead project development, and advancing project execution planning.

I will discuss these topics in greater detail later in the call, but I will now turn the time over to Doug Tobler, our CFO, for a review of our financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2026.

Thanks, Fred, and for those of you on the call, thanks for joining us this morning. My comments will provide a recap of our financial position and results of operation as presented in our Q1 2026 Form 10-Q. All the amounts that I discuss today will be in U.S. dollars. I'm pleased to report that we ended the Q1 with a strong balance sheet. We had cash on hand of $52.7 million compared to a cash balance of $13.6 million at year-end 2025. This increase reflects the proceeds of the public offering that closed on March 9, offset by spending during the Q1. As Fred mentioned about the offering, it included issuance of 17.94 million common shares for gross proceeds of $44.85 million.

And after the deduction of transaction expenses, the net proceeds were $42 million. We were very pleased to receive such strong support for this financing, and this funding provides us with the ability to move forward immediately with key programs and add the appropriate resources to our organization to support the beginning of detailed engineering. It's important to note that we also continued to have a clean balance sheet with no debt at March 31, 2026. Turning to our results of operations for the quarter. We reported a net loss of $3.1 million for the three months ended March 31, 2026, which compares to a net loss of $2.7 million for the three months ended March 31, 2025.

Mt Todd project-related recurring costs increased by about $100,000 due to addition of project management team members and higher power costs due to water management pumping requirements. These were offset partially by lower project program costs in 2026 compared to the prior year, which included work on the 2025 feasibility study. Corporate expenses accounted for the balance of the increase in the net loss on a quarter-over-quarter basis. These expenses increased about $300,000, which resulted from additional legal, consulting, and board costs associated with ongoing advancement of Mt Todd. Now, just as a general comment about our results of operation, we are pleased to report that our overall financial results are tracking in line with our expectations. The results that we are achieving are being completed efficiently and support our target of commencing detailed engineering and design in 2027. Thank you.

That concludes my remarks. I'll turn the call back to Fred.

Thank you, Doug. The strength of our balance sheet resulting from the successful financing that Doug has just described is fundamental to our success going forward. We now have the financial resources to successfully complete the tasks of obtaining final project authorizations, building a project development team, and undertaking the work to accelerate and optimize the start of detailed engineering and design. I'll begin with an update of our permitting activities. In January, we appointed Dr. Francis Kuranchie as our approvals manager based in Darwin. His primary responsibility is overseeing the permit modification and approval processes. The work that Francis is managing includes the conversion of existing approvals to be in compliance with legislative changes in the Northern Territory. These approvals are under review by the agency at this time, and approval is expected early in Q3.

The application of an additional authorization under the Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority Act to complement the two authorizations that the company already holds. This work, including engagement with the Aboriginal custodians, is in progress with authorization expected later this year. Next, involves ecological field investigations and the preparation of the application to request a renewed authorization under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. We expect to file the application early in the Q4 with the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. Our modification of the EIS through the Northern Territory EPA referral process is the next activity. We are preparing the referral documentation and expect to file once we have clarity on the new Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority authorization.

We are also working on a water treatment and discharge license, known as the waste discharge license, to allow us to treat the water accumulated in the Batman Pit and discharge it as we have in the past. This application has been submitted, approval is expected in the coming months. And finally, an amendment of our environmental mining license, previously known as the Mining Management Plan, to align this authorization with the plans for the project as described in the 2025 feasibility study. We expect the approval process to run concurrently with the EPA referral process. As you will note, there is a lot of activity in this area.

Some authorizations are expected in the very near future, others later this year or early next year, with the final or last authorization under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act expected sometime in the middle or latter part of 2027. As each of these permits has previously been approved for a larger scale project, we are confident that approvals will be granted, and we are working to manage the approvals process to achieve final results in the most expedient manner possible. Now, switching over to technical studies. We are advancing pre-development optimizations in line with the recommendations presented in the 2025 Mt Todd feasibility study and are evaluating certain preliminary engineering activities that would transition to front-end engineering design and allow us to accelerate and optimize detailed engineering. We have also commenced project execution planning.

Specifically, metallurgical testing is underway at ALS Ammtec in Perth, Australia. The core for this testing was recovered from holes drilled for the express purpose of this program. The objectives of the program are to optimize the grind size and gold recoveries and provide data for the sizing and selection of key equipment components in the process plant. A geotechnical review has commenced with drilling and geotechnical mapping in progress in the Batman Pit to assess the opportunity to steepen the west pit wall. The outcomes of this work will be used to update our mine plans with the potential to reduce the amount of waste mined and/or convert additional mineral resources to mineral reserves. Completing this work, along with the permit modifications, are important prerequisites to initiating detailed engineering and design, which we expect to begin in 2027.

The decision to commence detailed engineering and design is expected to mark the start of design, construction, and commissioning, culminating in first gold production. Now, let me talk about what we're doing to build a project development team in Australia. Since the beginning of the year, we have established a greater corporate presence in Australia. To date, we have hired four senior project management team members based in Perth and an approvals manager based in Darwin. We have expanded our executive capacity in the areas of projects and technical services, external relations and social performance, legal, and administration and finance. Recruiting is ongoing for an Australian-based managing director who will be responsible for the overall delivery of the Mt Todd project. Later this year, we plan to begin building the broader project development team. Now, switching over to safety and other social matters.

During the quarter, we maintained our strong safety and environmental performance. I note that the recently concluded wet season in the Northern Territory was the most severe wet season in 20 years, with approximately 50% more rainfall at site than we would normally expect. Some of you may have seen or read reports of widespread flooding in the Northern Territory and Western Australia. Despite these challenging conditions, our site personnel delivered exceptional performance, effectively implemented our water management activities in accordance with our protocols and maintained operational control throughout these events. Their diligence and commitment ensured that our activities were conducted both safely and effectively. I'm pleased to report that aside from an abnormally high accumulation of water in the ponds on site, we experienced only minor damage to roads on site and no other losses.

Looking ahead, we believe the key to unlocking the value of Mt Todd is found in the work we are doing to secure the final authorizations and establish the basis for an efficient start to detailed engineering design. With this in mind, Mt Todd holds tremendous intrinsic value and represents an exceptional investment opportunity at conservative long-term gold prices. With an all-in sustaining cost of approximately $1,500 per ounce and a very conservative gold price of $3,300 per ounce, the Mt Todd gold project will generate $300 million, that's U.S. dollars, of free cash flow annually. At the same gold price, the feasibility study net asset value per share is $14.89, nearly seven times our current share price.

Today, with much higher gold prices and growing investor interest, Mt Todd is positioned as one of the most attractive development stage projects in the gold sector. Its strong project economics, favorable jurisdiction, permitting status, and existing infrastructure make it well-suited for near-term development. We are confident that this is the right market in which to advance Mt Todd. In conclusion, Vista is committed to seeing the Mt Todd project developed in compliance with the highest mining and ESG standards and is diligently working toward this goal. For more information about Vista Gold and the Mt Todd project, I refer you to our corporate presentation, which can be found on our website at www.vistagold.com. We believe that Vista Gold represents an exceptional investment opportunity and that current prices represent a tremendous opportunity to establish a position or increase one's holdings in Vista Gold.

This concludes our formal remarks, and we will now respond to any questions from participants on this call.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Should we have a question. Please press the star followed by the one in your touch down phone. Should you wish to cancel to your request, please press the star followed by the two. If your are using a speaker phone, please lift your hands up before pressing any keys. Once again, that is a star one, should you wish to ask a question. We have no questions. I will now hand the call back to Fred Earnest for the closing remarks.

Thank you, Jenny, and thank you to all of you who have taken the time this morning at the start of your day to listen to our Q1 results and corporate update conference call. As I noted, with the completion of the financing in the Q1, we now have the strength of balance sheet that will allow us to be able to move forward with all of the activities to advance Mt Todd. We have the resources to be able to obtain the final project authorizations. We're building a project development team and very happy with the people that have already joined our team in Australia, and we look forward to the addition of others as the year progresses.

I'm very pleased with the work that's being undertaken to advance the engineering studies, and we look forward to being able to announce the results of those studies as they as things progress. We've seen a lot of volatility in the gold price since the first of the year. We believe long term that the gold price will continue to rise. We're not surprised by the volatility and the conditions that we see throughout the world. And with the financing completed, we're now in a position to establish a strong basis and continue to grow the value of the company for our shareholders. We're excited for those of you who have already joined us on this journey, and we invite others to come along as we seek to create greater value for all shareholders.

As always, if there are others who have additional questions, we invite you to reach out to the company. We'll be happy to spend the time and discuss the questions that you have. Until then, we wish all of you a very pleasant day, and thank you for joining us this morning.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. The conference has now ended. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Vista Gold's 2025 Financial Results and Corporate Update Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. Today is Friday, March 13, 2026. It's now my pleasure to introduce Pamela Solly, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, John, and good day, everyone. Thank you for joining the Vista Gold 2025 Financial Results and Corporate Update Conference Call. I'm Pamela Solly, Vice President of Investor Relations. On the call today is Fred Earnest, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Doug Tobler, Chief Financial Officer. On March 11, 2026, Vista reported its operating and financial results for the year ended December 31, 2025. Copies of the news release and the annual report on Form 10-K are available on our website at www.vistagold.com. During the course of this call and the question-and-answer session, we will be making forward-looking statements. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements of Vista to be materially different from results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Please refer to our most recently filed Form 10-K for details of risks and other important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in our forward-looking statements and the cautionary note regarding estimates of mineral resources and mineral reserves. I'll now turn the call over to Fred Earnest.

Thank you, Pam, and thank you, everyone, for joining us on the call today. We'll begin with an overview of our 2025 achievements and then discuss our outlook for 2026. Our achievements in 2025 underscore our commitment to creating greater value for our shareholders and positioning Vista and Mt Todd for long-term success. 2025 was a pivotal year for our company. The completion of the Mt Todd feasibility study in July marked an important milestone for both the project and Vista. Throughout the year, we remain focused on safety, environmental stewardship, financial discipline and delivering value for our shareholders. In November, we surpassed 4 years without a workplace incident and maintained 0 reportable environmental events and ended the year with a strong treasury. further strengthened by a recent equity raise that will support permitting, technical studies and early engineering work as we continue to advance Mt Todd. Earlier this week, we closed a $44.85 million public offering, and we're pleased with the demand and broad range of interest from resource investors. We are committed to prioritizing the efficient use of our cash and creating value for our shareholders through disciplined execution of our strategy for the Mt Todd gold project. I will discuss some of these topics in greater detail later in the call, but I'll now turn the time over to Doug Tobler for a review of our financial results for the year ended December 31, 2025.

Thank you, Fred. Thanks, everybody, for joining the call as well. My comments today will provide a recap of our financial position and results of operation as presented in our 2025 Form 10-K. For additional details about our audited financial statements, this 10-K is available for review at sec.gov or sedarplus.ca. And all of the amounts that I mentioned today will be in U.S. dollars. Vista ended 2025 with cash on hand of $13.6 million and has recently completed an equity offering with net proceeds of $41.9 million. Securing these funds comes at a very important time because it provides Vista with immediate ability to fund the programs that Fred will mention later in this discussion. We are now well positioned from a financial perspective to execute on our objective to begin detailed engineering in 2027. We also continue to have a clean balance sheet with no debt. Turning to our results of operations. 2025 concluded as we expected with the majority of our expenditures relating to Mt Todd, while we held our corporate costs consistent with 2024. Overall, Vista reported a net loss of $7.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2025. This compared to net income of $11.2 million for 2024. The swing between years is largely accounted for by 3 things. First, we recognized a $16.9 million gain in 2024 that related to our grant of a royalty interest to Wheaton Precious Metals. Secondly, during 2024, we capitalized a $1.9 million of drilling and other cost expenditures that qualified as development costs. And lastly, we sold used mill equipment in 2024 for net proceeds of $800,000. Key components of our results of operations include Mt Todd-related expenditures and corporate administration. Our exploration and other expenses for Mt Todd were $5.6 million in 2025 compared to $3.5 million in 2024. This variance is mostly the result of having capitalized $1.9 million of development costs in '24, as I mentioned previously. Aside from our recurring site-related activities at Mt Todd, our priorities in '25 were largely associated with completing the 2025 feasibility study, while in '24, we carried out a drilling program in the area of the Batman pit and the South Cross Lode. And as I mentioned, we continue to hold our corporate administration expenses steady on a year-over-year basis. In 2025, these expenses totaled $3.6 million compared to $3.7 million for 2024. That concludes my remarks. I'll turn the call back to Fred now. Thank you.

Thank you, Doug. As I indicated previously, in July of 2025, we completed a new feasibility study for our Mt Todd gold project that presents a new vision for the project as a 15,000 tonne per day operation. The completion of the new feasibility study was a defining moment for Mt Todd and Vista. The study demonstrates an achievable path to near-term production centered on a smaller, initial operation that prioritizes higher grade ore to the processing plant, significantly lowers initial capital costs and incorporates contract services to reduce development and operational risks. At the feasibility study gold price of $2,500 per ounce, the net present value at a 5% discount rate or NPV5 was estimated to be $1.1 billion. The internal rate of return was estimated to be 27.8% and the payback period was 2.7 years. At a $3,300 gold price, the NPV5 was estimated to be $2.2 billion with an IRR or internal rate of return of 44.7% and a payback period of 1.7 years. At a $5,000 gold price, the NPV5 is estimated to be $4.5 billion, and the IRR is estimated to be 74.5% with a 1.3-year payback period. For additional information on the feasibility study results, please refer to Vista's news release dated July 29, 2025, and the feasibility study presentation, both of which can be found on our company website. Since completing the 2025 feasibility study, we have prioritized work to support the start of detailed engineering and design. Recent drilling has provided core for selective metallurgical testing to confirm grind size, gold recoveries and optimal selection and sizing of grinding equipment. We have completed a preliminary geotechnical review to assess the opportunity to steepen the west pit wall, reduce stripping and potentially convert additional mineral resources to mineral reserves. I'm pleased to report that based on this review, we plan to commence geotechnical drilling at the conclusion of the wet season at Mt Todd, in other words, in the next month or so, and complete a new geotechnical study for the Batman pit. During the fourth quarter of 2025, we began the process of modifying our existing key permits to align with the designs and operating plans in the 2025 Mt Todd feasibility study. Applications were submitted for several modifications with additional applications planned for this year. In January, we hired an approvals manager, Dr. Francis Kuranchie, to complement our operations team in Darwin. His primary responsibility is to manage the permit modification and approval processes. Talking for a moment about safety and ESG. Throughout 2025, we remain firmly committed to safety, environmental stewardship and the interest of our stakeholders. In November, we've surpassed 4 consecutive years without a workplace incident, which is a testament to our strong safety culture. Our site team continued to successfully advance Mt Todd's environmental initiatives with 0 reportable incidents and management continued its proactive engagement with the Jawoyn Aboriginal Association Corporation and other key stakeholders. In 2026, we are focused on building the technical and organizational foundation required for project execution. This includes advancing the technical studies I mentioned earlier, completing ongoing permit modification activities and building an Australian-based team to lead the development and operation of Mt Todd. This team is expected to include a small executive group based in Perth and a larger operational presence based in the Northern Territory. In addition to the recently hired approvals manager in February, we announced 2 key appointments to our Perth team, including an Executive General Manager of Projects and Technical Services and an Executive General Manager of External Relations and Social Performance. We expect to make additional announcements in the coming months as we continue to add to our project team. Completing this work is an important prerequisite to initiating detailed engineering and design, which we expect to begin in 2027. The decision to commence detailed engineering and design is expected to mark the start of an approximately 27-month period of design, construction and commissioning, culminating in first gold production. Looking ahead, we believe Mt Todd holds tremendous intrinsic value and represents an exceptional investment opportunity at conservative long-term gold prices. With an all-in sustaining cost of roughly $1,500 per ounce and a very conservative gold price of $3,300 per ounce, the Mt Todd project will generate $300 million of free cash flow annually. At a $2,500 gold price, the study net asset value per share is $7.31 per share on the currently number of issued and outstanding shares. And at a $3,300 gold price, the study net asset value per share is $14.89 per share, which is a little over 7x our current share price. We are very pleased with our share price performance in 2025, which reflects not only the rising gold price but also the market's strong support of the new Mt Todd 15,000 tonne per day feasibility study. For the year ended 2025, Vista's shares increased almost 252% compared to the year-end 2024. Following our recent financing that closed earlier this week, our current market capitalization is approximately $300 million. We anticipate that sustained strength in the gold price will continue to positively influence Vista's share price performance. Today, with higher gold prices and growing investor interest, Mt Todd is positioned as one of the most attractive development stage projects in the gold sector. Its strong project economics, favorable jurisdiction, permitting status and existing infrastructure make it well suited for near-term development. we are confident that this is the right market environment in which to advance Mt Todd. In conclusion, Vista is committed to seeing Mt Todd developed in compliance with the highest mining and ESG standards, and we will work diligently toward that goal. For more information about Mt Todd and Vista Gold, I refer you to our corporate presentation, which can be found on our website at www.vistagold.com. We believe that Vista Gold represents an exceptional investment opportunity and at current prices represent a tremendous opportunity to establish a position or increase one's holdings in Vista Gold. This concludes my formal remarks, and we will now respond to any questions from participants on the call.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Heiko Ihle from H.C. Wainwright.

It's [indiscernible] calling on behalf of Heiko. First question, given recent geopolitical events around the world, could you maybe provide a bit of color on where you see discount rates for projects in geopolitically safe jurisdictions such as yours headed?

Doug, would you like to respond to that?

Well, I think what you're going to see is for projects like Mt Todd sitting in the Northern Territory, which is really a Tier 1 jurisdiction. I think discount rates will be better. I think cost of debt will be better as we look to finance the project. And I think when you're looking at the NAV of the project, you can probably think in terms of a lower risk factor, so a lower discount rate. Anything that's within reach of the current conflicts and potential other conflicts, I think, will really struggle in the next couple of years.

And second question, we're still over $5,000 for gold and obviously, the value of Mt Todd is very sensitive to the price of gold. And in Australian dollar terms, we're pretty close to an all-time high. What kind of rumblings have you heard in regards to input cost changes given recent strength in gold price? And maybe if you could provide a bit of color on what concerns you may have with issues related to construction costs, if anything?

That's an interesting question. It's something that all of us are continually watching. While the gold price has gone up in the last 9 months significantly, so far and with the exception of the last week or so in Australia, fuel prices have remained pretty constant. Obviously, what's going on in the Middle East right now is affecting global energy costs, and we will continue to watch that. That's obviously one area of concern. You'll know that we intend to generate power for the project using natural gas, which is produced in the Northern Territory. And so far, we don't see any indications that natural gas prices are being affected by what's happening there. So we continue to watch these events and as they unfold worldwide. Certainly, it's reasonable to expect some modest increase year-on-year in equipment costs and what will ultimately be the construction costs of the project. But at this point in time, we don't see any real significant changes that would dissuade our views on Mt Todd. I would just want to add one final comment, and that is that Mt Todd is very leveraged to the price of gold. And certainly, the gold prices that we are seeing today and have seen since we completed the study in July certainly highlight the tremendous leverage that we have to the gold price in a very positive way.

Our next question comes from the line of Mike Schultz from -- a private investor.

My question, so it looks like the strategy now is pretty much to proceed with mining -- Vista mining the Mt Todd themselves, still open to a partnership because of indications of hiring management team and whatnot. In terms of when -- 27 months has been thrown out in terms of when gold could actually start being produced, but it's been thrown out over a couple of month period of time. So from like today, when would be the soonest that if no partner showed up that -- the first ounce could be produced. And I know it's an estimate, by the way, so...

Yes. Well, that's entirely dependent on the start of detailed engineering and design. What we've disclosed publicly is that looking at where we're at with the permit modification process that we expect that, that will occur in 2027. I think our best estimate today would be that we'll be in a position to make that decision mid-2027. So if you want to add 27 months on to that date, that will give you a rough estimate of when we would expect to see first gold poured.

Our next question comes from the line of Michael Johnson, private investor.

I just had 2 questions. One, so we just saw that you guys issued a bunch of additional outstanding shares in order to finance this part of the project. So if you guys do go -- I just want to know what your guys' options or your outlook on financing ahead and I guess, to the concern of the current shareholders that we're going to get diluted. So I just didn't know if you could speak on that a little bit.

Yes, I'll let Doug answer that. What's your second question, so we can address them orderly here.

And then my second question is, I noticed -- I don't know if it was Q3 or Q4 of last year that Sun Valley Gold was -- it seemed like they were dumping a lot of your share -- of the shares of their holdings of Vista Gold. I didn't know if you guys had any more information about that or why that would be happening or anything?

Yes, certainly. I'll respond to the second question, but first, let Doug respond to the question about financing.

Sure. So if you look at the production profile for Mt Todd, it's one of the better projects I've seen in terms of structuring for financing. And financing in this day and age can take many different forms. It doesn't have to be just traditional bank debt, but that's obviously a very common source. And frankly, there's a lot of deals getting done that way as well. But if you take a project that's got the Mt Todd production profile, which is 3 years of roughly 175,000 ounces and then about 15 more years after that at very steady 150,000 ounces, that's exactly what lenders like to see. They like to see big cash flow upfront, so they can get paid back and then that puts the shareholders in line after that. So we're at the very front end of that process of looking at what avenue of leverage we'll put on the project, but early numbers would tell us that something in the order of 65% to 70% of the project can be financed, I'll call it debt, but levered. And then the balance of that would have to be equity. So when we look at what that does on a shareholder basis, on a per share basis, one of the critical things for us is making sure that we get to pay back quickly for shareholders and also that when we're done with the financing, it's accretive. So even though we will still have to issue shares for that additional 30-odd percent of the project financing, we look at it from the standpoint of where are we today. And then if we look at what our potential net asset value can be once the project is built and cash flowing and you actually switch from somewhat of an NAV model to more of a times free cash flow basis, we see the uplift as very, very significant. And when you divide that new valuation once you're in operations by an estimate of what your shares would be, it's still quite accretive to see the project go into operations. And you can see that with a number of other companies that as they ramp up towards production and get into production, their share prices move quite dramatically upward. So that's the direction that we're trying to head. So yes, there will be more shares out, but we're very focused on making sure the outcome of that on a per share basis is actually accretive, not dilutive.

And Michael, with regard to your question about Sun Valley Gold, we are aware that the Sun Valley Gold Fund, who was previously a large shareholder of Vista Gold has been converted to a family office and that managed funds have been redistributed to individual investors or may have been sold. And we don't know the exact numbers. What we can disclose is what's publicly available is that Peter Palmedo, who was the President of Sun Valley Gold Fund personally holds about 933,000 shares and there's another 2.6 million shares or so that are held in Palmedo Holdings LLP. We believe that there are several tranches of a couple of million shares that were distributed to investors that continue to hold those shares in Vista Gold. But I think that the important answer to your question is that this was not necessarily Sun Valley Gold selling shares because they no longer liked Vista Gold, but rather Sun Valley Gold Fund winding down and redistributing. But because of the reporting requirements, that reporting showed up as sales when, in fact, it may not have been. So Peter Palmedo individually continues to be a very strong holder of Vista Gold as manifested by the roughly 3.5 million shares that he continues to hold as a personal investment. And the rest of that holding was obviously managed money, and we don't know with certainty whether those funds were ultimately sold or continue to be held. I hope that helps.

[Operator Instructions] There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to Fred Earnest. Please continue, sir.

Thank you, John. And again, thank you to all of you who have taken time to join the call today. As we look backward at 2025, we see that, that was a very successful year, a pivotal year for the project and for Vista Gold, obviously, additionally for the sector as a whole with the tremendous rise in the gold price. The feasibility study that we completed in July has changed the course and the trajectory for developing Mt Todd. This year, we have a very exciting year before us. As I indicated, we are adding people to our team to form the basis for the technical and organizational team that will advance and build and operate Mt Todd. And I'm very pleased with the quality of people that we've been able to attract to our organization and look forward to announcements that we'll make in the coming months as we continue to build this team. As we indicated, we have commenced the process of modifying the permits that we hold and to align them with the designs and operational plans as defined in the July 2025 feasibility study. I'm very excited to have an approvals manager, Dr. Kuranchie on our team managing those efforts, and we have filed some of those modification applications, and we'll be filing other applications in the near future and as the year goes on. Third is the work that we're doing with the technical studies. And these studies are laying the groundwork for the start of detailed engineering and design. They will be providing some of the final answers to questions that were identified as part of the feasibility study. The core has been cut and is ready to be shipped from the Mt Todd site and we'll be going to the assay lab here in the coming weeks. The geotechnical program, the driller has been selected and we're waiting for a little bit of a break in the weather at Mt Todd to be able to get him on site and start drilling. And we're very excited about that. We'll also be doing some test work and confirmation work related to the design of a water treatment plant for the site. So these things are all progressing. I'm very pleased with the support that was shown to us as a management team and to the project in the form of the financing. We're delighted to have a number of new core shareholders in the register, and we're thankful for their support, and we look forward to an ongoing relationship with each of them. I'm excited about the prospects for this year. I think that as we continue to advance that we will see tremendous growth in the share price and the value -- shareholder value for Vista Gold. I'm grateful for each of you for taking time to join us on the call this morning. Certainly, as you may have further questions, I invite you to reach out to Pamela Solly, our Vice President of Investor Relations. And if needs to be, Pam will connect you with the appropriate technical people or other in the company to help you fully understand and getting answered your questions. With that, I again thank you and encourage you to join us in this journey of value creation. I think that there's a tremendous opportunity before us. And I thank you for joining us and wish each of you a very pleasant and a very happy day.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.