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- Dakota Gold's presentation at the Gold Forum Americas, September 2024

- Presenter: Jonathan Awde, President and CEO of Dakota Gold 

Previous presentations today have been centered around permitting and that's one of the things that I will discuss a little bit today is the benefits of permitting when being on private ground . Both of our principal projects are on private ground in the USA. Roughly 14,000 acres of our 50,000 acres are on private ground.

Dakota Gold trades on the NYSE American under the symbol DC.

I'll try to keep a lot of my opinions to myself, but we likely will make a few forward looking statements.

Our two principal projects are in the Homestake District in Lead, South Dakota. The Maitland project which is contiguous with the Homestake mine just to the north. We've made two discoveries at Maitland over the last couple of years, including the discovery of a new ledge system which I'll talk to you about in a few minutes. And then our other project is the Richmond Hill Gold project which is under option with Barrick. That's about a mile and a half to the west of Maitland. Again, on private ground. We came out with a maiden S-K 1300 resource at the end of April 2024, and we'll be updating that in early Q1 of 2025. So because the historic Homestake mine has been shut down since 2001. A lot of people don't understand that this is still the largest single gold mine in the history of the US. Over 40 million ounces of gold came out of the ground here at between 8 and 9 g/t Au.  When Barrick acquired the Homestake Mining Company in the early 2000's, they didn't acquire it for assets that the Homestake Mining Compnay owned in South Dakota, they acquired it for other assets in the companies portfolio. So we acquired these assets from Barrick out of their closure group in 2020 through end of 2021 and early 2022.  Dakota Gold is the third company born out of, out of acquiring assets from Barrick's closure group. With the other two companies being Skena and K92, and both of those companies have done very well. And then just about a mile and a half south of Richmond Hill is Coeur Mining's Wharf Mine, the state's only producing gold mine. Wharf does about 85 to 90,000 ounces a year and it's been a pretty consistent producer, and its a great free cash flow generator for Coeur, which is also on private ground. And I'll talk about some of the permitting opportunities that have gone on there.

Turning to our long section map, this is really what drove us to put money into this opportunity in South Dakota and to consolidate the district. On the right hand side of the page is the old Homestake mine. There are about nine ledges in the mine and combined together, they produced roughly 40 million ounces of gold. We have more recently recharacterize our discovery at Maitland, which is just on the left hand side of the page in that JB Gold Zone where we have multiple high grade hits and three ledges which we are calling 34, 35 and 36 ledges. In the Homestake Mine, the West Ledge system (17, 19 and 21 ledge), produced 6 million ounces of the total 40 million ounces of gold in the Homestake Mine. We've analyzed and looked at almost 1,000 drill holes from the data set we acquired from Barrick, which gave us exclusive access to 125 years of data and we have found similar grades, and similar thickness in our three ledges at Maitland as the West Ledge system.  We now have 44 high grade hits into those three ledges at Maitland. 

But our first discovery at Maitland was the Unionville Zone which is Tertiary epithermal mineralization. This is something that could be very interesting because we would potentially blend this material with our material from our Richmond Hill Gold project just a few miles to the west.

Also on the long section map, you'll see the North Drift label, that is the a discovery that Homestake made back in the mid nineties and their discovery hole there was 5 m of 12 g. So very similar to the kind of mineralization and thickness that we're encountering in the JB Gold Zone. We do want to drill the up dip portion of North Drift later this year and into the first half of 2025. As part of a last effort to keep the historic Homestake Mine open, Homestake drilled a series of widely spaced drill holes north along the corridor. So there are mineralized intercepts in Homestake formation at Blind Gold, which is another target we'd like to test going forward.

Turning to the next slide, you'll see on the right hand side of the page, an image of the option that we have with Barrick. So the option over the old mine was for almost 6000 acres of private ground, but it gave us exclusive access to all of Homestake's data over its 125 year history which was invaluable for us to consolidate the district and go from 5000 acres to almost 50,000 acres. But really informative in this phase one and phase two exploration program which has led to two discoveries on our Maitland project, the area in yellow there, that was the 4.5 m of 25 g/t gold that we announced in April that really made James Berry, our Vice President of Exploration, recharacterize our discovery JB Gold Zone into three distinct ledges.

The map also shows a lot of openness here and that was one of the really appealing aspects of getting involved with this company because there wasn't a lot of exploration going on in the district. And despite the active gold mine at Wharf, just a few miles to the west, not a lot of exploration has been done here over the last 20 years. One of the main reasons it has been inactive is because these assets sat in Barricks closure group for almost 20 years.

Moving onto the next slide. We show this map to try to show that the outline of the mineralization that we've been encountering at our JB Gold Zone is a similar footprint to what Homestake mined in the West Ledge system. So if you look at over 1000 drill holes that Homestake drilled into the West Ledges, the average thickness was roughly 6 m of just under 12 g/t gold. And what we're seeing right now in over 44 gold mineralized intercepts that we've encountered. We're seeing roughly 4 m of just over 10 g/t gold. So similar, a lot of room for us. I think the biggest change that we're seeing in the JB Gold Zone is that we're encountering mineralization at 1200 ft. Whereas the mineralization in the West Ledges in the old Homestake mine didn't start until 4000 ft. So a lot of opportunity, a lot of room for us to grow this thing. And again, this is one of three windows of mineralized Homestake formation that have, and we've only drilled one, we know, there's also a discovery in the North Drift that Homestake made, and Homestake did bracket a certain number of ounces around that. So it's certainly a very compelling target with very similar intercepts to what we're seeing in the JB Gold Zone.

Moving on, one of the unique things about Maitland is that we do have an opportunity to hit two kinds of mineralization, two styles of mineralization. In the blue there on the map, that is the Tertiary epithermal mineralization. That's the Unionville Zone discovery that we made about 18 months ago. We can trace this now for over two miles in strike length and we are encountering Homestake formation as we go both to the north and south into those Blind Gold and North Drift targets, I will talk just a minute or two on the Tertiary. Our Vice President of Exploration, James Berry shown on the left side of this slide worked underground at Homestake and was a part of the team that discovered the North Drift discovery, but he also spent time working at the Wharf mine within the Tertiary.  Almost 4 million ounce of gold has been mined from Tertiary mineralization in the disrict. So it's a very compelling opportunity for us. We can trace this structure for now over two miles and you'll see those sub parallel yellow structures as well that are mineralized. We're not calling them a discovery just yet. We'd like to get a few more pierce points in there. And the Unionville Zone discovery hole there in Teriary was 36 m of 3.5 g/t gold. This could be an interesting opportunity for us to blend material with Richmond Hill as the overall grade that we're seeing there are more in that 1.5 to 2.5 g/t gold. We do have some higher grade spikes within that but certainly a very compelling opportunity for us.  The Tertiary mineralization at Maitland is open both to the south and north. A lot of the drill holes that we drill here are designed to go through both kinds of units of mineralization and we've had multiple holes that have both Tertiary and Homestake mineralization in there.

I am now going to switch over to Richmond Hill.  This project is about a mile and a half to the west of Maitland on private ground. And again the experience that I've had with the Nevada bias being on BLM ground, we think Richmond Hill could possibly be an 18 month to two year timeline to permit becase its on private ground. We do have other federal, BLM and US forest service ground elsewhere but Miatland and Richmond Hill are both on private. Roughly 14,000 of our 50,000 acres is on private ground. 

We came out with a S-K 1300 maiden resource on April 30th of this year. When you look at how much money we spent to acquire the project and how much money that's gone into the ground it has basically cost $9 an ounce to get to that 2.4 million ounces. We are  drilling here right now. You can see the, the Chism Gulch area to the to the east and that Richmond Hill area to the south. These are areas where we feel there's a lot of opportunity for us to grow this resource. One of our objectives as a company is to have the largest gold resource on private ground in the lower 48. We work with the DANR which is the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Coeur Mining just permitted an expansion at Wharf to the South of us last year for about 250 new acres that was outside of their plan of operations and that took them six months. It is encouraging to see that there's a very straightforward permitting platform. Our deposit at Richmond Hill is totally open.

There was over 800 historical drill holes that were drilled mostly by LAC and which were mostly very shallow. I think we've been pleasantly surprised with the areas for the resource to be open, and expand within the oxide. We're also going to be introducing a new silver resource to the market. Historically, there was anywhere from kind of a 5 to 7 to 1 silver to gold. So it's a nice incremental add on to this opportunity. And for the volume that we look at right now, we don't think it's a huge arm wave and a stretch to look at potentially doubling the inventory of ounces here. That's certainly one of the goals that that we have. So when you look at the the depth of the oxide, you know, it's very shallow. We're looking at a sort of sub 1 to 1 strip for that oxide. In February of 2025 we will update this resource to include about 15,000 m of new drilling.  We really have done a lot of work on the metallurgy, you know, variability, hard boundaries. So you will see a significant growth across measured, indicated and inferred, and of course, with introducing that silver component to it.

We have done some initial site work for where leach pads could go. We have a couple of sites that are 70 million tons and up to 130 million tons, which is important from the standpoint of not having to re handle that material several times. So you look at apples to apples comparison with Richmond Hill and Wharf. Coeur does a marvelous job operating the Wharf mine, you know, $1250 ASIC and they rehandle the material up to five times. Their largest leach pad is between 4 and 5 million tons. Wharf is an asset that doesn't require a lot of capital and that's one of the magical things about it. It generates about $85 to $90 million a year in free cash flow.

So with the resource at Richmond Hill, we think that there's an opportunity for us to increase the grade and the oxide to be more in line with what you're seeing at Wharf, which is in that 0.7 to 0.75. Initially, when we picked up this deposit, we thought and still think today that there's a lot of opportunities within the mix and the sulfide underneath that oxide cap, we have only partially drill tested three of the six known brecia pipes here. Our best intersect was 30 m of 6 g/t gold. There is high grade gold here as noted in the three holes that you see in that fourth bullet point on the left hand side of the slide, 60 m of 1.68 g/t gold, 42 of 1.7 g/t gold. There's opportunities for more high grade and that's in the oxide and some mixed. The areas that we're focusing on now around the Richmond Hill Brecia pipe where you see that big red blob and the Chism Gulch area up to the northeast. These are two areas that are kind of low hanging fruit that, that we think there's a pretty significant opportunity for us to add ounces. Then you'll see a pretty powerful west, northwest trend that goes through that Chism Gulch and goes west through the MW3 zone and Twin Tunnels. We did drill a few holes there last year and we intersected good grades. We're going to look to try to fill in that gap as well.

Dakota Gold has been consistent with our strategy of consolidating as much private ground as we could through some of those acquisitions and it has opened up new areas of opportunity for Richmond Hill. This Southeast Richmond Hill area you'll see on the project pipeline map is an opportunity that we're going to get a few holes into this year. The drilling cut off is November 1st in order to be included in the updated resource we are planning to come out in February of 2025. We've got a few sites located and that Perkins Goodell and these are all shallow oxide. LAC Minerals and Saint Jude did drill a few holes here that we were able to get the drill data from as a part of the acquisitions with Barrick. So there's a lot of openness to this deposit.

And again, similar to what happened in Nevada in the late eighties and nineties, a lot of companies were drilling very shallow 100 m holes, 150 m holes with RC. We were really the first company that came in here with a core rig and it really opened up our eyes to what this project could become. In February we plan to deliver the updated resource, and in May we look at having a initial assessment with cash flow. Because we're a US company, that's what it's called, but it's a PEA.  The resource will be an oxide and the portion of mix that can go on to a leach pad, plus the silver. We'll host conference calls with for both the updated resource and the inital assessment with cash flow. Our objective is to get the resource out just before the BMO conference and then kind of the May time period for the initial assessment with cash flow.

Turning to our Sustainability, when we first put this company together, it was absolutely imperative for us to have boots on the ground and to have strong local ties to the community. Almost all of our employees at our head office in Lead are from South Dakota and went to the South Dakota School of Mines.

Bob Quartermain, who's one of our co-chairs and the second largest shareholder of the company does not receive any compensation. What he would normally receive as a co-chair goes into supporting our annual ESG causes.

We've had zero issues with any pushback from the community.

Turning to the next slide, just a couple of changes here, BMO recently launched coverage  a few weeks ago and that was great to get them involved. Orion Mine Finance is our largest shareholder, and we have a financing package in place with Orion should we choose to build something or acquire something for up to $300 million. Robert Quartermain, co-chair and I have had a long standing relationship with Orion. They came in at the end of Gold Standard and bought a 9.9% stake. It's a pretty good registry.

We are in the GDXJ where there's some rebalancing going on this Friday and we are also in the Russell 3000.

Having a look at our directors and managment list, you'll note Steve O'Rourke, Co-Chair of Dakota Gold who was the former head of Global Exploration for BHP. He's a large shareholder, went to the South Dakota School of Mines, lives in Rapid City, South Dakota and he's taken on a much more active role in the company.

Technically, this company is really led by Jerry Aberle and James Berry.  Jerry Aberle was the last mine manager when Homestake mine shut down.  James Berry previously worked both underground at Homestake and at the Wharf Mine. We did manage to hire Patrick Malone who ran Barricks, North American closure group. Patrick is an expert at navigating the different state and federal agencies and he's going to be a key person for us as we look to permit Richmond Hill.

Wrapping up, we are focused on Maitland and Richmond Hill. Again, both are on private ground. Ultimately at Maitland, we will have to get underground to drill off the Homestake style of mineralization. We may look to put out a resource for the Unionville discovery within the Tertiary epithermal there at Maitland, and we'd like to keep two rigs active there. Our other two rigs are going to be over at Richmond Hill looking at accelerating getting this resource out in February, and the economic study with cash flow in May, and then going straight to a feasability. Both of our co-chairs are supportive. To summarize, this is a brand new discovery of a new ledge system. Contiguous with America's largest gold mine on private ground, with one of three target windows that we've only drilled. And Richmond Hill is something that's on private ground, oxide, shallow, something that's bite size and very manageable for us to move forward and develop on our own.

I beleive I have a minute and a half left, I guess I'll maybe stop for some questions.

Question and Answer Period - 

Moderator - "Yeah, sure. Let's just see if there, if anybody does have a question."

Audience Question "Jon, do you wanna sort of hazard a guess as to what it would cost you or how much more drilling would be required or dollars to get to a resource at JB? Because that obviously could be significantly larger price?"

Jonathan Awde's Answer "You know, one of the things that I think we're getting better at is targeting, we are utilizing directional drilling. But I would say that in terms of confidence to get underground in terms of getting the market buying in, you know, it's probably another $10 to $15 million for us to be in that place to go underground. You know, for James Berry, he wants to go underground right now. He already has seen enough. But again, in terms of the market, I don't think the market's really bought in and has woken up to it yet. This is a brand new discovery contiguous with America's largest gold mine on private land." 

Moderator - "Adrian has a quick question for the last 30 seconds."

Adrian's Question - "This is an option from Barrick. First of all, is it both of the projects, Maitland and Richmond?"

Jonathan Awde's Answer - "So Maitland we own 100% of. The the options with Barrick are for the surface of the old Homestake Mine, and then for Richmond Hill. With the terms of that option if we exercise, we assume the bonds. So we're in discussions with Barrick to not have to actually post the bond until either receipt of final permit or commercial production. So pretty modest."

Moderator - "Ok, great. Ok. That's all the time we've got. Thank you, Jon. I appreciate it."