Amaroq Ltd.

Amaroq Ltd.

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Q4 FY2025 · Earnings Call TranscriptMarch 26, 2026

Edward Westropp

Thanks very much. Welcome everyone to the Amaroq Minerals full-year 2025 results webcast.

Thanks for joining us. We're going to do a slightly different format than usual, there's no conference call line, all questions will be written in via the webcast service, please if you have any questions add those in and we'll deal with those at the end of the call.

We'll follow the normal form today. Eldur Ólafsson, the Chief Executive, will take you through the summary of the year and some strategic areas.

Ellert Arnarson will take you through some of the financials, and I'll finish off and host the Q&A at the end. Thanks very much for joining.

Welcome. Eldur, hand over to you.

Eldur Ólafsson

Thank you, Ed. Good morning everybody.

It's good to be with you here today. I want to turn your attention to the first slide.

I want to start this meeting here just to kind of set the scene a little bit where Amaroq is at the moment. Now, we have an operating mine where we've guided 25 to 35,000 ounces for 2026, a full year, first full year of production for our Nalunaq mine.

We have the West Greenland Hub, which is our next development project, which we are focused on putting together a feasibility study and some resource development this year to start developing of that mine in 2027, 2028. Then we have the Nanoq gold project, which we are actively pursuing to bring into resources.

Now, in Gardar, we are drilling two early-stage projects, but very impactful projects, both in rare earth element and iron ore. Then the two enablers to allow us to do all of this is Sulliaq and Immik.

Sulliaq being service venture that we've set up, and we've just announced this morning about a cooperation with IFU and other Greenlandic funds on that. This will help our working capital, it will help other mining companies and infrastructure company in Greenland working capital.

Then Immik, where we have finalized our feasibility study to start producing green energy at site, which will decrease our usage of diesel by 1.6 million liters, which will lower our operating costs and give more stability. Now, at a glance, you can see we are one of the largest license holder, very prospective licenses.

We have developed a mine now in Greenland, we're operating a mine, we are actively pursuing exploration, we have a large resource scale both in Black Angel and in Nalunaq, and effectively, we have multiple company makers within Amaroq as it stands. We intend to use the experience from the great team that we built up today to develop these other opportunities as fast as possible.

Now, taking you over to the next slide. This is how we do it.

This is effectively, you can look at this as a 5 to 7-year plan within Amaroq. Now, what you see here on the right is the Nalunaq phase one operating, which is now in full-scale production, where we are producing through gravity recovery, making a doré bar on-site every month now, generating good cash flow.

Phase two, which is the flotation recovery, that means that we are moving the recovery of the gold from each ton from 65% all the way up about 90% recovery. Phase two is progressing on plan, on schedule.

We will have that operating by June. Phase three is what we are analyzing now, is to grow the potential production in Nalunaq from 300 ton per day to 450 ton per day, so that is still being assessed, but we've redesigned it.

This is where the production is going, where the free cash flow is providing the group. Now Black Angel has a previous feasibility study that we are updating.

It was a mine, we know the operating procedure, we're doing the same thing again, similar kind of a scale in terms of investment and in terms of timing from a very high-yielding asset. Then we're moving up the which we call the elephants in Nanoq, Kangerluarsuk, Paatusoq, Illuko up the value curve by drilling them and defining them.

We can see that there's a huge value potential that we are building up within Amaroq. Now, if we turn focus on the next slide, year-to-date, the production was above 6,000 ounces last year.

We got our initial revenues, we went through various different aspects of selling, moving the gold out, selling it, we got on average gold price about $3,600 per ounce. We transitioned our mining operation from kind of a contractor to an owner-operating operation.

This means that on-site, our biggest cost on-site is effectively people. We now control all of our mining equipment, our own people.

This has given us more efficiency, more control, and lower costs in the end. This has been very, very successful process so far.

We acquired the West Greenland Hub in May last year. This sets us up, so as you can see, now we're operating and generating cash flow from Nalunaq, we have a whole development team that is now moving towards the West Greenland Hub to bring that mine into production.

While we've been doing that, we've been had very successful exploration program in other assets and mainly Nanoq. That was what we drilled about 5,000 m last year.

I just want to put this into perspective to the market that we drilled about 27 holes, more than 63% of the holes that we drilled were hit gold mineralization. To put this into perspective, in Nalunaq, one out of eight hole gave us grade.

In this instance, we were getting more than 63% of the holes, we're getting thick intersection all the way from 1.5 m up to 9 m with really, really high grade. Now our intention this year is that we are starting the infill drilling of this area, focusing on creating a maiden resource, and then multiplying the scale of drilling to declare, hopefully, what we think could be a resource and a scalable kind of potential world-class resources.

Last year we obviously finished getting to a 300 ton per day. We finalized our phase one activities in terms of construction, the last quarter last year was very construction-heavy, which was a great result for us because it gave us the opportunity to produce really well during this first quarter and finalize phase two during this quarter and next quarter.

I'm going to turn now over to Ellert to walk you a little bit through our finances before we go again on giving you a bit of an outlook for this year.

Ellert Arnarson

Thanks, Eldur. In Q4, we had sales of 1,949 ounces for gross proceeds of CA$10.7 million.

The average prices we were able to sell at was $3,920 US per ounce. In comparison, gross revenue in Q3 was slightly higher at $12.8 million.

It was lower in Q4 due to the plant shutdown for commissioning activities that took place in the quarter. As Eldur mentioned, for the year as a whole, we recorded revenues of $27 million from the sale of 5,310 ounces.

Exploration and evaluation expenses were $4.6 million in the quarter, most of it was incurred at the Nanoq campaign, where we drilled roughly 5,000 m this year with good results, as mentioned. After incorporating other income and expenses, the company recorded a net loss of $3.2 million for the period.

Moving on, please. On the balance sheet side, cash balance at year-end sits at $21.5 million, compared to $55 million at the end of September.

This is mainly driven by continued capex, which was quite heavy in the quarter at Nalunaq, mainly processing plant construction as well as stocking up of spares and consumables in relation to finalizing commissioning of phase one, and also driven by investments in the new mining fleet alongside taking over mining operations in Q4. We continue to see an increase in metals inventory, which stands at $15.8 million at quarter-end, compared to $11 million at the end of Q3.

This represents our gold contained in ore stockpiles, gold in circuit in the processing plant, and as well as gold-bearing tailings, which we'll be bringing back to the processing plant once phase two is operational in Q2. That puts us at total current assets of $67 million at year-end.

On the non-current assets, the main movement here, consistent with prior periods, is a $30 million increase in capital assets to $252.7 million at year-end, again driven by the Nalunaq project and the 300 ton per day processing plant. On the liability side, accounts payable stayed roughly the same between quarters at around $20 million.

The main change here between current and non-current liabilities is the amendment to our RCF facilities we announced in Q4, where we extended the facilities to February 2028, so that takes them from current liabilities to non-current liabilities. Total liabilities at $74.4 million at year-end, which results in an equity ratio of 79%.

On the bottom there, you will see cash balance at Gardar, our joint venture, at $2.6 million, with not very much activity in Q4. Moving on to cash flow.

We recorded a net loss of $18.6 million for the year. After adjusting for non-cash items, cash flow used in operating activities, negative $30 million roughly, and cash flow used for investing activities at $84 million roughly, which represents the capex at our Nalunaq project predominantly.

Against that, we had positive cash flow from financing activities of $90 million, which is mostly due to an equity raise that was closed in June of last year of $80 million roughly, and a drawdown on our facilities of about $10 million. All in all, this results in a reduction of cash of $23 million throughout the year, $23.6 million, and our cash balance was sitting at $21.5 million at year-end.

In excess of that, we had undrawn credit facilities of $8.9 million at year-end. The table on the bottom is where we show the main cash flow movements in relation to the Nalunaq project in and of itself.

Now that is closing to completion, we had a total of about, yeah, $25 million roughly outflow of cash due to additions to capital assets. Then we had, as previously stated, we were stocking up on supplies and consumables in relation to the commissioning of phase one and increasing our metals inventory as well.

I think that's it on this one. Thank you, Ed.

Back to Eldur.

Eldur Ólafsson

Thank you. Now, kind of turning our attention to 2026 and walking you through a little bit what really, really exciting year we have ahead of us.

If we look at our guidance for 2026, this will be our first full year of operating the Nalunaq mine, and our guidance is 25 to 35,000 ounces. Now, using the current gold prices to date, we are looking at a cash flow of anywhere between $112 to $160 million US within this year.

If we then look at the costs for the overall year, that sits, if you take into account all-in sustaining costs for Nalunaq, investments in Nalunaq, as well as the base case of exploration outside Nalunaq, of a total of $100 million. The free cash flow generation will be or is targeting on these kind of gold prices to be very, very good.

Now, to give us ample liquidity throughout the year and to even fast-track some of our programs, because we have the potential to grow our exploration budgets and develop faster this year, this means that we're effectively to do more this year, we have announced this morning that we have increased the loan facility we have by another $35 million, taking it from $35 to $70 million, doubling it, and lowering the interest rate at the same time. This shows really the development of where we are going from more of a development or exploration company to a more of a cash flow generating business, which is great to see.

To help further on enabling our strategy of developing faster, creating value quicker, we have now come to an understanding with one of our largest investor, IFU, to support us in the venture of setting up Sulliaq, which is the servicing venture we have in Greenland. Now, to give you an idea why this is important, not only for our company, but for all mining and infrastructure company in Greenland, working capital in Greenland is of importance.

You need to buy equipment, drill rigs, maritime equipment, and mining equipment up front, and that obviously binds a lot of capital. Having a servicing venture in Greenland will help us and a lot of other opportunities in Greenland, and it will be a very good business because this is a very growing market.

We're extremely pleased with that, not only for this year, but for also years to come. This will allow a lot more equipment availability in a country like Greenland, as well as consumables and others.

We're extremely pleased with that. Underpinning all of that, we have announced to the market in this quarter that we are going on the main market in London this year.

We appointed Citi Group to assist us in that progress. All we can say right now is that the work is progressing really well, and we're getting a lot of very good feedback from the market there.

We have subsequently delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange. The focus here is a little bit of plumbing of the business, to say, in a way that we want more and more liquidity to remain within fewer markets to help with indexing and various other liquidity for the company as a whole.

Overall, we couldn't be more excited about the starting going forward. We have extremely strong team, both on the ground in operation, development, and exploration, standardizing everything within the business, and this will be a transformational year for the business as we see it.

Over to you, Ed.

Edward Westropp

Thanks, Eldur. I just thought we might dive a little bit into that exploration program.

It is the busiest we've done to date, and it's across the whole portfolio, and it's I think the first time we've been so polymetallic in our exploration campaign. Clearly focusing on the Nalunaq mine to begin with, we're going to continue the underground exploration.

We're looking at, if you take our current MRE, we're at 400, about 485,000 ounces, which gives us around a 10-year mine life. The idea is we're going to replace resources each year through underground exploration to try and tap into some of that over 2-million-ounce exploration target that we've got.

That will be the strategy going forward at Nalunaq, and we'll continue to talk about it in that way and give detail on the results of that this year, but we're extremely excited about the opportunity there. Nanoq, which Eldur has talked about briefly there, is an incredibly exciting opportunity for us.

Given the results we got from last year, we're going to continue drilling this year on that. We've already winterized the rigs, they're at site already, there's infrastructure there in place, so as soon as the exploration season starts, we'll be there drilling, looking to target a maiden mineral resource estimate, as Eldur highlighted earlier.

Again, look out for that this year. That's a very exciting next gold project for us.

Then around that you've got the satellite gold. We'll continue to define targets there.

We'll continue to do some geophysical work on those as we look to derisk that whole Nanortalik gold belt that we talked about down in the south there. Outside of that, we've got our critical minerals asset base.

Black Angel, we've talked about. Clearly after the acquisition last year and the completion of it, there's been a lot of work on the technical data.

James and Will and the team in the geologists and his geological team have been doing quite a lot of work on the data sets that they've now received post-completion, and quite excited about that. Clearly since the successful re-assay of the stockpiles, there's also really interesting internal discussions going on around the commercialization of the germanium and gallium that we have there, which is quite a topic at the moment generally in the world.

Outside of that, and within our Gardar JV, the Min-Turn, ISCG, and iron ore prospects in the far north, we had some really interesting and successful surface work done on that, indicating it's a very high-grade magnetite iron ore. This year it's going to be all about doing some scout drilling on that to see the depth and volumetrics of that.

This asset is right in the far north, right up just quite near Canada actually, in an area that It seems to be an Arctic desert, very flat. We're looking at all the logistics of that at the moment as well.

Down in the south again, we've got the Illuko rare earth element exploration campaign, again scout drilling on that, close to some really interesting surface work that we did last year. This is a pegmatite rare earth, sort of conventional rare earth.

Again, it's going to be working out the volumetrics of that through scout drilling, which will give us the opportunity then potentially to do some resource drilling on that thereafter. Stendalen, that's still very much in the portfolio, still looking to target the high-grade copper and nickel there.

We'll be doing some further geophysical work on that. We just wanted to lay out some of the exploration catalysts this year, which we're very excited about.

The last slide is a sort of nice to have really. This is just some photos showing you the work to date on phase two progress within Nalunaq.

Clearly you can see a lot of the civil works are already completed and a lot of the equipment is now being installed in there, as you can see. Really just to highlight that things are on track, very much on schedule, and a lot of work is going on there at the moment, which is great to see.

Certainly having gone through the winter season so far to date, we're really pleased with the progress there.

Eldur Ólafsson

Absolutely.

Edward Westropp

I think we'll wrap up there. What we're going to do is we'll take some questions from the line.

I'll just give us I'll just give us a couple of seconds for people if they want to just take a minute to to type in some of those questions there, and I'll I'll crack on and start asking them in the meantime. First question: could you please discuss the timeline to profitability and any potential significant investments from government agencies?

Eldur Ólafsson

Profitability is something we see within this year from an actual free cash flow, and we're in a positive EBITDA territory already this year. That is very good, and as we mentioned earlier, I reiterate here, in the current gold prices, the range from 25,000 ounces to 35,000 ounces, it ranges from $112 million up to $160 million in cash flow.

Now, that is on a $4,500 gold price. All of the capital investment within the group, both in terms of all-in costs of Nalunaq, further investments in Nalunaq, as well as all exploration expenditures within all of the group, we're still well above the free cash flow there for this year.

In addition to that, we have the new loan facility to give us even more wiggle room if we intend to do more this year. That puts it in a very good position.

Now, on what was said on various different agency being Denmark, European Union, and or US agency, we maintain a good dialogue with all of these different agencies. We have been in dialogue with all of these agencies now for four or five years, and we will continue doing so going forward.

Edward Westropp

Thanks, Eldur. Next one.

Does the potential RCF upsize and equity injections into Sulliaq mean you can now spend more than the minimum on exploration in 2026?

Eldur Ólafsson

Yes, it does. However, we also need to take into account operational efficiencies, meaning we need to make sure we have the people and the rigs and all of that estimate.

Now, the good thing about our programs is that most of the programs start around mid-summer, June, July, when a lot of our cash flow this year, as we've said in our release, in the first half of the year, we're looking at 7 to 10,000 ounces, and in the second half of the year, we are looking to produce more because then we're getting the flotation. Now that helps us assessing how much we want to spend and how much we want to do, but we need to make sure we can secure the rigs and secure all of the people to be able to do the work.

That is also an element there that we need to look into.

Edward Westropp

It makes sense. Question around Sulliaq: do you already have potential clients or customers, contacts who use these servicing, and do you currently have leases out with equipment to other companies?

Eldur Ólafsson

Currently, we don't have leases out to other companies, but we have been contacted by various different parties. The whole idea behind Sulliaq, being Sulliaq is servicing Amaroq, it can be servicing various different projects within Amaroq, who we either own 100% or partly.

The idea here is that we need to have an arm's-length agreement with Amaroq, meaning we will offer the same terms to anyone operating in Greenland. It's a cost-plus model, and therefore we've already had three inbounds to us and more, actually.

There are 33 company in mining in Greenland, but mining is one thing, there is also a lot of infrastructure, there is hydro projects, there are governmental services, defense projects, there is a lot of interest here to set something up. I do want to emphasize the fact that this company comes as a servicing opportunity aside with all of the great Greenlandic servicing company who lack often the equipment, but have the people, there is a win-win scenario here for all parties involved.

Edward Westropp

Thanks, Eldur. Ellert, this is probably one for you: can you just confirm those 2026 cash flow numbers, were they in Canadian dollars or US dollars?

Ellert Arnarson

I think that's in relation to Eldur's comments earlier, and that would have been in US. In line with the guidance that we gave out.

Edward Westropp

When do you expect to move to the main market, when will that be completed, and what are the costs involved? Do you want me to take that?

Ellert Arnarson

We are,

Edward Westropp

as Eldur suggested, we're right in the midst of that process at the moment. The draft of the prospectus is in, there's a CPR being drafted in the background as well.

There are two windows, normally the end of June window and then the autumn window. We're working towards the first window if we can, but if we're not, then it will be in September.

Currently our expectation is we're trying to do it by the end of June. One of the reasons we're coming to the main market is because dropping a listing in Canada, etc., is to drop costs, whilst I'm not going to give the exact costs of the process, the point of it is to drop costs in the first place.

Thanks for that. Would it be possible for Eldur to comment on the data points he looks at that are coming in from Nalunaq, which gives him comfort on the 2026 build target?

Eldur Ólafsson

Yeah. No, I can, certainly.

I think I think the data points you want to be looking for there is the following. We are estimating not a full production this year, meaning in terms of tonnage, we we are estimating about 75% of tonnage of the total production just to give us to be kind of on the cautious side.

Now, what then controls the what the ounces will come out is the grade and it's the recovery. I can say, without going into details here, because we will update in the Q1, is that both the grade and the recovery are very good in this first quarter we're seeing them, and so we are confident on that.

Furthermore, from the drilling, underground drilling, the resource drilling we are doing, and resource conversion drilling, we're also seeing the grade, as well as what we call a call factor, that means what the mining model is telling us and what then actually comes out of the grade, these are all positive indicators so far. Therefore, yes, these are all all all all very positive for us, and and and therefore we are very confident for for for this guidance.

Edward Westropp

A question just on diesel and energy costs. Obviously, lower impact from using less diesel, which is great, but can you talk a bit about the sensitivity forecasts to diesel prices?

Eldur Ólafsson

Certainly. To give you a little bit of kind of idea of cost base, about 50, 60% of our cost base is actually people or something related to people.

Then we have travel and we have consumables and so on. Actually the energy cost in Nalunaq for the year, we're estimating about $8 million, which is only about 8% of our total cost in that all-in sustaining cost number.

We don't see a massive impact there. What is also important, we've purchased all of our diesel or energy up until mid-summer, we're quite well protected from there.

There is another angle here as well. Greenland, due to the fact that they are very much dependent on diesel for the heating of the towns and operating, they purchase much of their diesel and they fix the prices usually for two years at a time.

That can be negative, because sometimes the prices are higher than the market, but it can also be positive because then you're operating on a diesel price that doesn't have the impact of something that is happening in the Middle East at the moment. Very much is energy cost is not the big item in our cost category.

Effectively, we have diesel now up until mid-year. Thirdly, the Greenlandic government has purchased or Polar Oil has purchased a fair bit of diesel for the next two years for the country.

Edward Westropp

Thanks, Eldur. Ellert, maybe one for you: are we looking at putting a hedge in with gold prices high at the moment?

Ellert Arnarson

We haven't hedged gold prices at all up to this point, and we are looking into whether we can opportunistically hedge a part of our costs, capitalized costs this year. Other than that, we'll be opportunistic.

We're not too precious with kind of 100% no hedging at all, but we haven't done so so far. If we were to do it this year, it would be to cover the rest of the capex.

Yeah. As an example, we pre-sold 1,500 ounces a couple of weeks ago on a $5,000 per ounce, there are opportunities like that.

I don't want to say we are very good at predicting the prices here, but there are opportunities to cover your capital costs, for sure.

Edward Westropp

Thanks, Ellert. Working capital outflows were consistent through 2025.

How do you see them flowing this year?

Ellert Arnarson

Yes. It will be different this year.

For the first 6 months, we'll continue capex and construction of the processing plant facilities, but that should recede quite quickly post Q2. The non-sustaining capex that we've guided on will be front-heavy, but then once the flotation recoveries kick in and the capex recedes, for the second half of the year, working capital will become quite benign.

We should see that reflected in the cash balance especially in H2.

Edward Westropp

Super, thanks. I think the next one is around capex and capital spend.

Can you confirm the 2026 capital spend, was it $100 million US, and this assumes the minimum for exploration?

Eldur Ólafsson

Yes, about that number, yes.

Edward Westropp

Is any of the 2026 capital spend on expanding to 450 tons per day?

Eldur Ólafsson

We will do some assessment on that, but just to give you a little bit on the assessment there and the idea of increasing to 450. When we designed the plant in Nalunaq, the only thing we need to expand is to put in a second mill.

The rest of the plant is designed for 450, we're doing the assessment now on the lead time of the mill and the construction. We will be updating in either next quarter or the following quarter with that plan.

Now, that needs to be followed with more mining, of course, and so having 450 ton per day doesn't only potentially give us more cash flow, it also gives us also the opportunity to have lower grade for the plant if that would be the case in future years, because the operating cost stays really the same if you're doing 450 ton per day versus 300 ton per day. That gives you an idea why we're looking at that.

Edward Westropp

Thanks, Eldur. This is a question regards sort of reconciliations of grades: can you give us any indication on how the grade in Nalunaq is now, when you've experienced with the processing compared to the drilling results?

Eldur Ólafsson

The call factor from the mine plan towards what we are mining is positive, we're getting higher grades. That is not only to look for is that we are getting higher grades, what we also have to kind of look into is, what is the dilution, how well we mining, and that has also been going really, really well.

Those are the two elements. Positive and positive on both how we mining it and also for the grade so far.

Edward Westropp

Thanks, Eldur. Ellert, maybe one for you here: could you give us more insight on the gross profit margins and how you see that going forward with increased scale?

Do you have a target margin in mind for the long term? Yeah.

Ellert Arnarson

We don't have a target margin in the long term, but I would say to point to the AISC really that we've guided on in Q4 being the range of $1,250 to $1,450 US dollars per ounce. Then depending on the gold price, you can calculate kind of net margins from those numbers.

A question on the impacts, obviously very pertinent at the moment: what's the impact from the current Iran situation on costs, and will our AISC be impacted by it? We don't see that as changing anything for now.

Obviously, we are impacted by kind of general inflationary effects, but again, as Eldur alluded to earlier, fuel costs are quite a low percentage of our overall costs, so that we don't see a large effect at this moment, no. We're reiterating our guidance today.

Clearly, Eldur highlighted the slight hedge we have on diesel costs and things, so that's actually

Eldur Ólafsson

Yes. Maybe this is a comment, it's a very reasonable question to ask.

In a mining operation where you have low grade, you need a lot of power to power big mills and so on, right? The impact of higher oil prices does have an impact.

Whereas in an operation like we have, that is high grade, high yielding, the impact of power and so on is much, much, much lower, right?

Edward Westropp

Thanks, Eldur. Last question, and so if anyone has any other questions, please add them in now, but this is the last question for the moment: could you please elaborate on the support that the executive management receives from the board in relation to any negotiations it has to have with government agencies in Denmark, Greenland, and the US?

Do you feel that the existing board is providing all the support and contact base that it has?

Eldur Ólafsson

Yes, the existing board is doing that, and the board is kept abreast to any discussion or potential opportunities within discussion with these agencies and government.

Edward Westropp

Thanks, Eldur. There are no further questions currently, but please, if you have any, please send them through to me, Ed Westropp, my email and details on the bottom of releases, etc., and we'll get to those if you need them.

Thanks very much for joining. We will be coming back for another one of these at the time of the Q1 results in May, look forward to speaking to you all then.

Thanks very much.