 I guess today folks is Fred Ernest. Fred is the CEO of Vista Gold. You've heard of many times on TFNN. We're going to get a nice update as to what's going on in the Mt Todd project in the northern territory of Australia. Fred Ernest, welcome back to TFNN. Good afternoon. How you been, man? You're well. Thank you. Well, you've been busy. You've been no doubt you've been busy. So let's talk about, you know, and if you go to, you know, to Vista Gold folks as VistaGold.com, you're going to see right on the very front that you have a Vista Gold is commencing a feasibility study for the Mt Todd project. Is that a good place to start, Fred? Absolutely. Yeah. We announced just this week that we've commenced the engineering to complete a feasibility study. It's important for everybody to realize that much of the engineering is already at feasibility study standards. And as a result, we're going to spend on the order of 3.3 million dollars to complete the feasibility study, and we expect to have it completed in the first quarter of next year. Nice. So let's talk a little bit about that because what you're saying specifically, so the work that you've done up to this place. So is it a legal term that we're talking about when you do a feasibility study for the security world? Is that how that works, Fred? Absolutely. There are standards for a PEA, a preliminary economics, preliminary feasibility study, and a feasibility study. And the feasibility study is obviously the most detailed. All of the cost estimates are based on material takeoff quantities, and it's a very refined estimate and usually is the basis for a definitive investment decision. Nice. So now if I back up a bit, you did a secondary prior to that, $13.5 million. So when I look at the $13.5 million, the bottom line, you want a more cash in the Treasury? Is that would that be correct? Absolutely. We've been very good about not deluding our shareholders. The last time we raised money was August of 2016. And with the announcement that the mine management plan had been approved in June, we were then in a position to make the decision with regards to a feasibility study. And we just needed to shore up Treasury to make sure that we've got the money to finish this and get across the finish line with finding a partner. Nice. Now, let's talk a little bit about the project itself. In case there's plenty of other folks, I'm sure that newer folks that are listening that don't understand the project in general. So can you tell us a little bit about the project and just the scope and how big it is? Yeah, Mount Todd is Australia's largest undeveloped gold project with a little over 9 million ounces of resource defined at this point in time. The reserves for the project are estimated to be 5.85 million ounces. And that's a number that will increase as we complete the feasibility study simply because the preliminary feasibility study was completed. The reserve estimate was completed in 2018, a very conservative gold price of $1,000. So we expect the reserved increase. This is a project that once fully, once developed as designed at 50,000 tons a day will produce just shy of 500,000 ounces of gold per year at an all-in-sustaining cost of approximately $690 an ounce. That's pretty amazing. And that's an all-in cost. So an all-in cost, when we say an all-in cost, is that the cost of the gold and the cost of bringing the land back after the whole fact? The all-in-sustaining cost is the cash cost plus the sustaining capital added on top of that on a per ounce basis. I see. And the aspect, let's talk a little about the drilling, because last time we were talking you were opening up the drilling a bit, right? You know, we've been drilling now at Mount Todd since last fall. We've been stepping out to the north. The objective of the drill program is to identify areas where future infill drilling can add resource ounces. And we've been drilling on sections stepping out 400, 200 meters. It depends on what we're encountering. The results that we announced last week, probably one of the best drill hole intercepts that we've had, we're starting to see some thickening of the mineralized structures, which is exactly what our geologists have been looking for. We've established the continuity of these structures. And this is confirming our belief that all of the known gold occurrences in the district, five kilometers north of the Batman deposit, are now, we're confirming that they're all interrelated, that they're all connected, that these structures are continuous. And we fully expect that there will be pinching and swelling and where there's a thickening or a swelling of the structures. That's the kind of target we're looking for. That's where we can add ounces in the future in the confined space. And can you give us a little history in the aspect of the gold business in general? You know, it seems like, so I've been in this business now, meaning specifically in the gold part of the business for 25 years. I've been in the financial business for like almost 40, but it's amazing to me that you have a piece of dirt. And then, and I am a geologist, I know, you know, I don't know how you sleep at night, because you wake up in the morning, it's like, am I going to find where this goes? So that happens in a lot of deposits, right, that you have a deposit. And then the hottest is one of the hardest things, tracing where that deposit has come from, where it expands to. You know, it's a simple fact that the best place to find more gold is next to someplace where you already have it. And understanding the geology, where the gold came from, how it got there, what rocks or the host for the gold is very important. And this process of tracking down, you know, where did it come from and how did it get there and what is it connected to? The only way we can do that efficiently is, you know, through core holes, through drilling and, you know, being able to get rock out of the ground and look at it and the geologists, you know, log it and they, and they, and we drill oriented course so we know what it, where it was oriented in the, in the earth. And then we're able to start to paint a picture to put, connect the dots and project where this is going. And it's really a, it's a fascinating science. And, you know, the early discoveries take a lot of luck, but, you know, once you make that early discovery, the geologists really do earn their, earn their wages as they apply the knowledge that they have and the understanding that they have about how these deposits form. There's no doubt. So, so let's picture, I just want to fast forward a bit, right? When you're building a mine, I know you need water, electricity, and then how to get it out. How do you, how are you situated in those three things? Well, water, we, one of the permits that we received in June, right after receiving the approval of the mine management plan, which is essentially the same as an operating permit, we received authorization of our water extraction permit. And what you see behind me in the picture up here, this is the freshwater storage reservoir right up here. Okay. Now have the authorization to be able to raise the dam and to a capacity that will have two years of operating storage capacity. We have the authorization to use 3.4 gigaliters of water per year, which is more than enough for the operation. So, we have the authorizations to create the storage facility and to harvest the water. With regards to electricity, we will generate our own power. We have a natural gas pipeline to the site. We can generate power with the power plant that is part of the project for, for about a third, a quarter to a third of the cost that we can buy it from the grid. And so, roughly 10% of the capex of the project is for the power plant that we will build and operate. With regards to metallurgy, we have spent a lot of time over the last five years optimizing and doing a lot more additional test work to improve the metallurgical flow sheet. We've added ore sorting. We've added two-stage grinding. This has allowed us to accomplish three things. One, we're grinding to a finer size. Second, that allows us to increase recovery. Our recoveries have increased from 81.7% to now just under 92%. And third, our total energy requirement as a result of these changes has gone down. We're actually being much more efficient in the way that we grind the rock. And so, we've, we've essentially with the, with the metallurgical testing that's happened, we have increased recovery, lowered our power costs, which will drive us down our own. Well, listen, man, congratulations. Look forward to having you on again, Fred. Great update. Really appreciate it, man. Have a great one, Fred. Have a safe one. Stay right there, folks. Come right back.