TRX Gold Corporation (AMEX:TRX) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

TRX Gold Corporation (AMEX:TRX) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript April 15, 2026

Operator: Hello, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to today’s presentation. My name is Julia Perron, a virtual event moderator here at Renmark Financial Communications. On behalf of our team, we’d like to thank everyone for joining us today for TRX Gold Corporation Second Quarter 2026 results. TRX Gold is trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol, TRX, and on the NYSE American under the ticker symbol, TRX. Presenting today is Stephen Mullowney, Chief Executive Officer; Michael Leonard, Chief Financial Officer; Khalaf Rashid, Senior Vice President, Tanzania; and Richard Boffey, Chief Operating Officer. [Operator Instructions] With that being said, I will now hand it over to Stephen.

Stephen Mullowney: Yes. Thank you, Julia, and thanks, everyone, for joining this morning. I know it’s quite early, and our results were released this morning. A great quarter. Lots of growth, as we mentioned last week in our update on our plant expansion. And today, we’re going to go through our presentation, give you an overview of the company again as well as our growth profile, and it’s going to focus a lot on growing the valuation metrics underlying the company and how we’re going to do that over the next 12 to 18 months. On the line today, we have Richard is joining us from Australia. He might pop in and out here. Then we have Mike and Khalaf with myself as well. So first and foremost, obviously, I got to say the disclaimer.

You can go to our website to get this. We will be talking about forward-looking statements. So just a normal securities publicly listed disclaimer and forward-looking statements. As I mentioned, Richard is joining me as well as Mike and Khalaf. So TRX Gold, we are in Tanzania. We trade in NYSE American under — and TSX under symbol TRX. Shares outstanding as of today is roughly 326 million with a market cap of over USD 0.5 billion. Very healthy cash position now at $26 million with limited borrowings. We’re underpinned by 1.5 million ounces of gold at the Buckreef Gold Project as of our last PEA in 2025. We’ll be updating that given where the gold prices are last resource profile was done at $1,900 gold. We’ll be doing it around $3,000 gold.

So thus, the cutoff grade will go down. More than likely resources will rise, although at a lower grade given the way the mine plans work. Under that PEA that was released last year, again, which is getting updated, very healthy net present values at $4,000 gold, very healthy cash cost of around $1,000 an ounce to $1,200 an ounce, which would be one of the lowest in the industry. As we continue to execute and expand, the LTM numbers or last 12-month numbers are becoming quite healthy. We’ve done 25,000 ounces in the last 12 months, and that’s growing around $95 million of revenue and $50 million of adjusted EBITDA. Last quarter alone had $20 million of adjusted EBITDA at a very healthy margin. Mike will get into that in a few minutes. Obviously, that times that by 4, the run rate EBITDA is quite healthy to execute on our expansion plans.

As I mentioned, we’re going to focus today’s presentation on a couple of areas. And the major area is what underpins the valuation of mining companies. Obviously, cash flow and EBITDA is extremely important and the growth of cash flow and EBITDA. One of the things that investors do look at is net asset value as well. That gives the longevity of the project of the asset. The last 2025 PEA had an 18-year mine life average of 62,000 ounces. We plan to be higher than that. And of course, obviously, you want to increase the production profile that comes through over time as well as your NAV. And in order to do that, you want to replenish your resource base. So exploration is very, very important. So as we released last week, we are going to expand.

The new expansion plans is for around a 3,500 tonne per day SAG/Ball Mill combination as well as operating the existing plant in conjunction with that. So a combined operation of a new circuit that’s 3,500 tonnes roughly as well as the existing 2,000 tonne per day plant. So you can go additive on that. The actual amounts that will be throughput will be determined based on our mine plan that gets updated and what is possible from a mine plan perspective. That is in process. As part of that mine plan update, we will update the PEA, which will then update the valuation metrics around net asset value and give the market another sense of where production can go over time, what the CapEx plans are. We do expect the open pit to be longer now than the last PEA, which is around 3 years.

That will mean either we go early into underground or we defer underground and that related CapEx. We released the CapEx numbers for the expanded plant for the open pit last week, and that will be funded from cash flow from operations, as well as we’re going to get into — we’ve done a geophysics survey. We’re now completing that up in this month for targets, as you would have seen in our management discussion and analysis. There are 10 very good targets. Some of them overlap with our current discoveries like Stamford Bridge and Anfield, but we certainly are very, very, what I’ll say, excited for the potential of what else is on the Buckreef Gold Project. So now I’m going to hand it over to Mike, who’s going to go through our 2026 Q2 results, which were quite good.

And Richard will supplement Mike as well.

Michael Leonard: Well, thank you, Stephen. Can I have you just advance the slide to Slide #6, please? Terrific. So thank you, everybody, for joining us here today. We were very excited to put our Q2 results out into the market this morning. It was a record quarter for the company. We saw increases in virtually all financial and operational metrics versus last quarter as well as the prior year comparative period. Gold production of just under 7,500 ounces was a quarterly production record for the company. That was coupled with a record average realized gold price of $4,655 an ounce. And those record numbers led to quarterly record financial metrics, including revenue of over $34 million for the quarter, gross profit of over $21 million or a 62% gross profit margin.

We had adjusted net income of almost $12 million and adjusted EBITDA of over $20 million for the quarter. And on an annualized basis, that’s over $80 million of EBITDA annualized. So I’m very excited about those metrics and the record numbers that we put into the market today. These quarterly records really demonstrate the company’s ability to both increase production while maintaining a low-cost operation and really has demonstrated that we can provide leverage to these record gold prices that we’re currently seeing in the market and a gold price that looks like it’s back on the rise. During the quarter, we also strengthened our working capital position. We talked a little bit about this last year in the middle of what was a strip campaign that provided access to the high-grade ore blocks that we’re benefiting from now.

But the increased working capital position that we saw this quarter was through increased production, the record operating cash flow that we put out into the market, improved liquidity as well as increased investment in our ROM pad and crushed ore stockpile. The ROM pad alone has over 20,000 ounces of gold on the stockpile. And at today’s gold prices, the fair value of that stockpile alone is over $100 million, while ensuring that we have steady, consistent, steady mill feed to fill our 2,000 tonne a day mill. Our cash position is over $26 million as at Q2. Accounts payable balances are current within [ 30 ] to 45 days. And our working capital ratio is now a very robust 2.4x or $32 million positive. And you couple that with access to credit lines of over $12 million, we’re very, very well positioned to execute on our expansion plans that Stephen touched on earlier.

In terms of guidance, we remain on track to achieve our full year production guidance of between 25,000 and 30,000 ounces as well as our cash cost guidance of $1,400 to $1,600 an ounce. Our year-to-date cash cost of $1,507 per ounce is expected to improve in the second half of the year as mining cost is expected to benefit from a higher proportion of our owner-managed fleet assisting in supplementing mining and tailings storage facility construction, and that comes at a substantially lower cost than our current contractor rate as well as processing cost per tonne. That’s expected to improve and benefit from some of the upgrades that we’re currently making to the existing processing plant, including things like the addition of the thickener, the Aachen reactor that’s up and running, the ADR plant, which is in progress as well as additional oxygenation, which should reduce things like reagents and consumable input costs.

Full year CapEx continues to be towards the upper end of the $15 million to $20 million guidance range as we work through those upgrades to the process plant that I just touched on as well as construction of a life of mine tailings storage facility. Now subject to gold prices and cash flow in the second half of the year, we may expedite expenditures related to the larger plant expansion that Stephen just touched on, really to kick start that procurement process. But we’ll update the market accordingly at that time when we make some of those decisions about the plant that we look to bring online. And finally, we do continue to expect exploration to be in the range of $3 million to $5 million. During Q2, you might have seen that we did commission our first drill rig on the property, and we’re using that with the goal of upgrading the mineral resource at the Eastern Porphyry as well as coupling that with the results of the induced polarization survey that Stephen touched on to identify additional areas of prospectivity and to help us prioritize drilling over the second half of the year.

So stay tuned on that. With that, Stephen, I think that’s what I had for the Q2 results. So I’ll pass it back to you to take us through the rest of the presentation.

Stephen Mullowney: Yes. Thanks for that, Mike. And one of the things I don’t know if Richard is still on the line is he’s popping in and out. But with regards to the processing cost, there’s been a — we now understand the metallurgy much better. And particularly around oxygenation, we’re using hydrogen peroxide right now for oxygenation. That’s increased recovery rates significantly. But when we get the oxygen plant up and running, then that’s not as needed as much. So the processing costs will come down. So it’s been a balance between, yes, we’ve had more reagents, but we’ve also had a lot more gold production and recovery rates as a result. And that will come down significantly. Richard, are you online? No, I think he’s dropped off.

Okay. That’s fine. So let’s get into the next slide, which is rapid EBITDA growth. So now we’re starting to put a track record here of continued growth. We are now going to do another expansion as we just mentioned. Procurement is well underway at Ball Mill and SAG mill for the new line. Obviously, there’s other components that we are going to be in the market procuring for that line as well. But as you can see, and as Mike has said, the fiscal 2026 guidance, we have reconfirmed for this year. Currently, we’ve done 14,000 ounces year-to-date. We are on track for our guidance of 25,000 to 30,000 ounces. As we released in our MD&A, we expect the second half to be higher than the first half. And so we’re quite comfortable with that. The mill expansion, when it comes online, as I mentioned before, it will be larger than what we assumed in the PEA.

The PEA at 62,000 ounces per year. Obviously, the amounts will go up from there, but it’s not quite linear given the fact that you do change your mine plan and you do get a different grade profile going through the mill. What that exactly looks like, we are in process with that, but it — certainly, it’s going to look better than what we had in our last 2025 PEA. Richard, you’re joining in and out. You got anything to add with regards to our procurement process on our SAG and Ball Mill. I’ve mentioned that, that’s well underway and time periods for this expansion as we released in our MD&A of Q2 next year.

Richard Boffey: The [indiscernible] for the SAG and the Ball Mill and they are the longest lead items. So the range of lead times amongst the 7 suppliers is 28 weeks to 50 weeks. So I’m expecting we’ll be looking at something between 30 to 40 weeks, which probably gives us between delivery and then construction probably 12 to 13 period from commissioning the SAG and [indiscernible] fine grind should also be [indiscernible].

Stephen Mullowney: Okay. Thank you, Richard. You’re coming in and out given your location, Richard is traveling today in Australia. So we’re well underway of getting to this growth profile that we mentioned here in fiscal 2027 and beyond. Guideline will be in the new PEA that will come out in the near future. So with regards to how the financial metrics are going to look as a result of that, the financial metrics for the year-to-date, we’re showing $60 million of revenue with a very healthy adjusted EBITDA of $33 million. As Mike mentioned, last quarter was $20 million in and of itself, times that by 4, and that’s quite healthy $80 million. Some of the numbers in the PEA, and we’ll get into this in a second, that was in 2025.

As I mentioned, our goal is to exceed these numbers. had revenue in averaging around $250 million at $4,000 gold and average EBITDA of $176 million, which is — which does in the fourth or fifth year, really peak well over $200 million. So we have a rapid financial profile ahead of us as we get through and put this plant into construction and then into operation. We’ve done all of this from the original capital raise of net around $20 million. As it was mentioned in the press release a couple of weeks ago, the warrants have been exercised, and now we have a completely clean capital structure and a well-capitalized balance sheet as a result. We’ve made over $80 million of investment to date since joining after doing that original $20 million capital raise from cash flow from operations.

Mike, anything to add here while we keep G&A under check.

Michael Leonard: No, I think that was well said, Stephen. Again, prudent capital management continues to be a focus of ours and expect to be able to fund the upcoming plant expansion out of that robust cash flow that you just spoke to. So stay tuned.

Stephen Mullowney: So with regards to the EBITDA growth and NAV expansion, obviously, we put plans into the market and baselines in our studies. These are some of the results of last year’s study, which is getting updated. It was done at 3,000 tonnes per day. As I mentioned, the plant will be larger than that now at 3,500 tonnes for the SAG and Ball Mill itself as well as the existing plant, which is around 2,000 tonnes a day. So you can get additive with that. EBITDA and cash flow is quite robust. Growth CapEx is manageable in that environment given the current gold prices and our current production profile. And then we would have a very low-cost operation, driving great pretax NAVs and after-tax net asset values. So to give you a sense of the cash flow profile in the last study.

And as I mentioned, there’s — with differences in grade profile throughout the deposit. This assumes a 3-year open pit, years 1 to 4 in the study with underground thereafter. Richard and his team are going through that now. Richard, do you want to give an overview of what you’re kind of — it’s not perfect yet, but what your expectations are for the way the mine plan is going to come out here open pit versus underground.

Richard Boffey: Sure, Stephen. Well, the work we’ve done so far has seen the open pit drop by between 100 and 130 meters from its — the PEA design. That will, therefore, delay and defer the underground mining of the main zone underneath the pit by at least [indiscernible]. It does give us the opportunity to develop underground on Stamford Bridge. And this is one of our first exploration targets to Stamford Bridge resources. So the gold price increase, we’re obviously adding quite a few more ounces to our reserves, albeit at a slightly lower head grade, which we obviously intend to compensate with much significantly higher through, we think within a few weeks, we’ll have a pretty solid mine plan that we can then feed in knowing that we’ve got this significant capacity at the plant to try and optimize and maximize throughput through that with what we’ve got.

Stephen Mullowney: Yes. And so that’s in progress. Obviously, you need to wrap that all into a report. So we’re not going to release to the market in a couple of weeks what that mine plan looks like because it needs to be incorporated into a more comprehensive report, which we’ll report to the market thereafter. So thank you for that, Richard. So in summary, as Richard mentioned, I know his communication this morning is a little bit choppy is — with the increase in gold price, the resource profile and cutoff grade will come down a little bit, but that brings a lot more ounces into the mine plan and a lot more resources into the profile to be mined. Part of it is going deeper from an underground perspective and wider. There will be some footwall and hanging wall amounts coming in there.

And then that will go through a much larger expanded mill than was anticipated in the PEA. So with regards to next area is the increase in resource base over time. As Mike mentioned, we do have a drill rig on site. We are in a very prospective area in Tanzania with some very large companies. On this page, we have Barrick and AngloGold Ashanti with some of the largest mines. Perseus is currently undergoing a $0.5 billion project at Nyanzaga down the street from us. And there’s a lot of gold in this region. We’re hopeful that in our exploration programs to find more Buckreef, but there may be also the opportunity to pick up other lands around in this area that may be highly prospective as well. So with regards to what we’ve done, what we’ve done thus far this year is really step back and take a focus on geophysics and figure out where we should be really drilling.

We did discover Stamford Bridge and Anfield in the last 3 years or so. And we want to make sure that we got all areas covered on our property in order to maximize the returns. So what we’ve done is a geophysics study in 810 line-kilometer magnetic survey, which is then going to be followed up by a 40 line-kilometer gradient array resistivity and induced polarization survey. And what I’ve done here is we have the geophysics survey in the chart on our special mining license as well as the dots of the 10 to 11 really, really good targets that we will be looking at advancing quite quickly over the next year or so. A lot of them do overlap with Stamford Bridge and Anfield, not surprising because that’s where we discovered. But this is well underway of advancing this, and this has never been done on our property before.

Richard, you got anything else to add to that?

Richard Boffey: Nothing excessive. We’ve advanced quite well already. The grading array portion of the GAIP is completed. So now we’re doing the dipole to dipole surveys. And yes, we’re pretty excited about some of the targets we’re seeing, but we’ll just have to wait for the full survey to be completed, and then we’ll set our drill targets up and start drilling. Our first — we’ve got one diamond drill on site already. We’ve also got an RC drill rig. We’re receiving a second diamond drill sometime in May. So — and then probably a second RC drill rig around June or July. So yes, we’re really gearing up.

Stephen Mullowney: Yes, exactly. And this will be quite exciting. So the way we’re going to be setting this up is everything that I talked about around mine planning and growth profile and production is based on the Buckreef Main Zone. So that is all Buckreef Main. So over time, as we drill out the property and bring in more resources, that mine plan will consistently change. We’re hopeful that we will find cheaper resources to mine both in Eastern Porphyry, Anfield, Stamford Bridge. And then as they get a higher level of confidence, then the mine plans will be consistently revised and brought into the resource profile and revised mine plans over time. This is a 3-, 5-, 7-, 10-year type journey as you find more and more gold resources.

With regards to Stamford Bridge, we always like to talk about Stamford Bridge, and it’s not because of Chelsea. Both Richard and Khalaf are Liverpool fans. So they prefer Anfield. But Stamford Bridge, as we mentioned before, and Richard has mentioned here, we will be looking at bringing that into the mine plan over time and drilling that out first. And the results, as we consistently talk about are great and the highest grade zones on our property that need to be brought into mine plans over time as we get a higher level of confidence. So with regards to valuation. So as I mentioned before, we’re growing the underlying valuation metrics. We’re moving up this curve because we’re doing it and we have a growth profile. So in my former life, I used to do this a lot.

And one thing that I did always notice is if you had a 2-year growth rate higher than other people, you got a higher [indiscernible]. And that correlation coefficient was always above 90%. So that is the way we’ve angled our growth plans here is to consistently grow, particularly with the plant expansion, and then we’ll get a relative valuation. But also, what you got to remember is if EBITDA goes from $50 million to $100 million, you usually get the multiple of that expansion as well. So you get an uplift in your underlying re-rate or multiple amounts as well as an uplift in the actual denominator or what you’re multiplying that by if your EBITDA grows, for instance. And the goal here is to do all this without issuing a lot more capital. And thus, your denominator of your enterprise value or your market cap divided by a number of shares.

Obviously, if you keep the number of shares consistent, it’s higher. And it’s as simple as that, the same thing with a price to net asset value, whereas a number of shares as well. So as we revise our studies, the goal is to get a higher net asset value in our mine plans. We’re pretty confident in that. And then if you go and put the drill bit in, you get more resources, you get a longer mine plan, you may be able to expand your plant again and get more and more growth. That’s the goal here, and that’s where we’re really orientated towards. So with regards to how we’ve been trading, as we’ve discussed before, as we came through last year’s strip campaign and started to really get better capitalized and the growth profile was more and more assured or the market at least got more assurance that the growth profile was there without dilution, then our stock price really started to take off.

We are holding in there. With the war in Iran, there’s been some pressure on the markets. We’ve been hanging in there, and we expect to hopefully start to rise again as we get through — as the world gets through that into a more normal setting. We do have an extremely clean balance sheet now and capital structure. So the warrants, as I mentioned, have been exercised. Cash balance is quite healthy. We have all our supplementary liquidity lines in place, which is going to enable Richard to go and put in some orders in order to get that capital expenditure plan going. So key investment highlights. Growth, continued growth. The team that you see on the screen here have a lot of experience in this company and others and operational track record, and we’re very disciplined in doing that.

We have a robust study in front of us, which we’re updating. We are very comfortable operating in Tanzania. And on the ground, we have both at corporate and on the ground, we have a very experienced management team. So now I’ll open the floor up to questions.

Q&A Session

Operator: Thank you all for the presentation. We now start with the Q&A. Your first question for today comes from Jake Sekelsky from Alliance Global Partners. The question is, circling back to the potential third cutback of the open pit, is this something that could potentially take precedence over officially going underground? Or is this more of an in addition to type scenario?

Stephen Mullowney: Richard, did you get that question?

Richard Boffey: Just to be clear, it’s definitely a deferral of the main zone underground, which was the majority of the underground mine plan and the PEA. It doesn’t prohibit us from going underground elsewhere, but it certainly will defer it by at least 2 or 3 years and main zone by at least 5 years. So it’s for most purposes is a deferral of underground.

Operator: Thank you for that response, Richard. Your next question is, have there been any issues in regards to migration into the Tanzania area? If so, how do you foresee this affecting production, scaling, et cetera?

Stephen Mullowney: Not quite sure that exact question, but we haven’t seen — I assume it’s around artisanal mining. We haven’t seen any changes in our artisanal mining activity in our areas. Obviously, artisanal mining is quite active for small-scale mining in and around our property, and it’s closely monitored and we coexist quite well.

Operator: Excellent. Thank you, Stephen. Moving on to your next question. Are there still plans to add 1,000 tonnes per day oxide plant?

Stephen Mullowney: That would be a question that would go way, way back 4 or 5 years ago. There’s a 2,000 tonne per day plant on site now that processes both oxides and sulfides. So that is a very — that’s a 4-year-old question. We’re well past that.

Operator: Understandable. Thank you. Your next question a viewer asks, considering record prices for gold, how do you think it would impact your bottom line and company financial health a possible gold price drop to anywhere around $4,200?

Stephen Mullowney: Yes. So mining business is all about keeping your costs in check. As I mentioned, we are a low-cost operation. So obviously, like all miners, that’s going to come off of your margin. But what you want to make sure of is you maintain your cost versus others. I would expect that the gold price, normally what ends up happening, and it’s different given the current circumstances, which will pass over time with the war in Iran is when you see a gold price drop, you usually see an oil price drop, which is a drop in your operating cost. Now we haven’t seen that in the last couple of weeks. But certainly, things will always revert back to the mean.

Michael Leonard: And maybe just to supplement that, Julia, to reiterate my earlier comment, our cash costs are currently tracking around $1,500 an ounce. So at $4,200 an ounce gold, we’re still running at 60% margin.

Operator: Thank you for shedding light on that.

Richard Boffey: Add one more factor into there and — our mine planning has been iterated between — we’ve taken from the PEA value of $1,900 an ounce. We’ve taken it all the way up to nearly $4,000 an ounce, and we’ve settled on a sort of a pit design modeling profile of around $3,000 to $3,300 an ounce. I think we’re pretty — we’re putting ourselves in a strong position to withstand any drops in the gold price from a long-term planning perspective as well.

Operator: Thank you all for your answers. Moving on to your next question, a viewer commented. I’m proud to be a long-time shareholder. What I’m hearing at this presentation is more good news. May I ask, with all the success, when can shareholders expect share in the wealth? Will dividends be paid this year?

Stephen Mullowney: Lots of CapEx plans, so dividends will not be paid this year. As I mentioned, the underlying valuation metrics is what the focus is, particularly growing EBITDA, net asset value and resources. That does require capital to do that and shareholders should benefit from an increase in valuation if that plan is successful.

Operator: Thank you, Stephen, for your response. Your next question a viewer asks, can you address the current split with the government and time lines for the possible change in percentages?

Stephen Mullowney: So the current split is 55-45 with TRX holding 55%. We are — we get our capital loan back first as well as any future capital contributions from corporate down into Buckreef would be subject to equity capital calls that would have the government or STAMICO have to contribute the same amounts in their proportions or else get diluted. With regards to time line around government negotiations, they continue. As I mentioned before, I continue to mention, it is fluid. Politics are involved and the time line is always uncertain, although we would like to have it yesterday.

Operator: Thank you, Stephen. Moving on to your next question, a viewer asks, when are the upgrades of the processing plant to 3,500 tonnes per day expected to be completed? Has there been dilution of stock in the last 3 years? And if yes, by how many?

Stephen Mullowney: So with regards to the processing plant, and I’ll get Richard to add to this. The processing plant is envisioned 3,500 tonnes per day is a separate SAG/Ball Mill as well as Ball Mill combination that feeds into the broader circuit. What will operate alongside of that is the existing crushing and Ball Mill circuit that’s currently in operation that has a nameplate of around 2,000 tonnes per day. So both of them will operate in conjunction with one another. With regards to time line, Richard went through the time lines for procurement. The goal is to have this done by the end of June of next year. So when I say Q2, I mean calendar as opposed to our fiscal year. Richard, anything else to add?

Richard Boffey: Right, Stephen. I think we’ll hopefully have our fully expanded plant fully operational in the end of Q2, start of Q3 2027. That’s right.

Stephen Mullowney: With regards to dilution in the last 3 years, the only capital raises that have been done are the warrant exercises, which was beyond the control of management, given they were put on line well over 5 years ago in order to recapitalize the business at that point in time, which only had $2 million in an expansion plan or a build to do at that particular point in time. And as I mentioned, we raised net $20 million, but warrants came along with that.

Operator: Thank you for your answers. Moving on to your next question. When does the drilling season start and end? And when and how frequently can we expect drilling update?

Stephen Mullowney: So drilling season isn’t dependent in Tanzania. Obviously, it’s harder in the wet season, but you can still drill. Easier in the dry season, the ground is not as soft, but you still drill. So it’s not like Canada where you have a drilling season. You can drill all year around in Tanzania, although it’s easier to certain seasons than other seasons. And with regards to exploration results, as we mentioned, the RC drill rig is on site now focused on Eastern Porphyry and defining that resource better. There is a diamond drill rig focused on some geotech work, which will then move into exploration type work as well as a diamond drill rig coming in next month, as Richard mentioned. I would expect to see some drill hole results, Richard say, later Q4, fiscal Q4 and later half — back half of this calendar year.

Richard Boffey: That will be the best outcome we see from results at the end of our fourth financial year quarter, but more than likely, it will probably be the fourth calendar quarter. That’s right.

Operator: Thank you for your responses. Moving on to your next question. Since dividends are not in the plan, which is smart at this point, can you address possible stock buybacks with a portion of the profits, which would enhance stock value?

Stephen Mullowney: That is something that we will consider and have talked to advisers about. It’s certainly something that’s on our potential radar screen.

Operator: Thank you, Stephen. Your next question is, what are the primary criteria that major gold miners would consider in principle in evaluating a potential acquisition of TRX Gold?

Stephen Mullowney: Yes. So this question has been asked a lot, and my answer is fairly consistent. I think you need to have a decent resource profile and decent operations, which this enterprise has as we grow that resource profile and derisk it, particularly on the operations side. We know where we can get recovery rates now. We can mine this quite profitably. It will be putting a decent cash flow. So if you’re looking at who would potentially acquire an enterprise such as us, I think people come up with Barrick and Anglo all the time because they’re large. But there’s a lot of — I look at the slide here with Perseus on it, and there’s — they purchased Nyanzaga for their project. There’s all kinds of mid-tier miners around the world.

Operator: Thank you for your insight on that, Stephen. Your next question is, how does the prospect of restricted oil availability affect your production plans? What about spreading civil unrest?

Stephen Mullowney: Yes. So with regards to oil, we haven’t seen any impact in Tanzania at this point in time. Khalaf can chime in here, and he certainly is not lining up the gas station. The country has a good storage like other countries of fuels. It doesn’t have an oil refinery in Tanzania, but it does import quite a bit from, I believe, Indian refineries, which are still getting their share of world oil. We do have — in case you always have to look at worst-case scenarios, and potentially plan for them. So we do have plans in place if it did get to a squeeze position by making sure we have more storage on site. We also have a very healthy stockpile, so we could stop mining for a period of time if the proverbial s*** hit the fan.

Operator: Thank you, Stephen. Your next question a viewer asks, how safe do you feel in your jurisdiction?

Stephen Mullowney: Very safe, we drive around, go around on our own. I feel very safe in Tanzania, same with the management team. With regards to the prior question around civil unrest, we haven’t seen any civil unrest since the election.

Operator: Thank you for your comments on that. We’re coming up to your last 3 questions for today. The next question is, could you provide some details on drilling progress on the Bridge and Anfield [indiscernible]?

Stephen Mullowney: Yes. So as we mentioned before, the drill rigs are coming on site. There will be an increased focus in the second half of this year. And right now, we’re focused on the Eastern Porphyry some geotech in order to advance our shorter-term plans. And then we’ll get into a broader exploration on what I’ll call medium- to longer-term plans.

Operator: Thank you, Stephen. You touched on this, but I will still repeat the question. It is, is TRX Gold open to discussions with Barrick Gold or AngloGold Ashanti in Tanzania? What does the Buckreef Gold Project need to attract those companies into the underground development plan and away from the recent development at EcoGraf and Lake Victoria Gold?

Stephen Mullowney: That’s a different question. So as I mentioned before, anything that is a benefit for shareholders is anything that we’ll look at. We’re not going to hold back any shareholder value. We believe there’s more shareholder value to be had at this point in time in growing the asset and the underlying valuation metrics and a lot of uplift potential as a result of that as well as renegotiation of the joint venture agreement into a framework agreement. There’s a lot of value creation from that particular plan. If someone wanted to come and talk to us, obviously, if it’s in the benefit of shareholders, it will be discussed. That is a normal company, shareholders get an opportunity to decide upon that. That’s not ultimately our decision, that is shareholders’ decision.

I believe there’s more value to be had growing this enterprise at this point in time. We are still relatively small with great growth plans in front of us. With regards to the other properties and focus on those, I’m not sure where that question comes from with regards to Lake Victoria Gold and EcoGraf. We’re focused on what Buckreef Gold is doing and what TRX Gold is doing.

Operator: Thank you, Stephen. We’re actually coming up to your last 2 questions as one more just popped in. Your second to last question a viewer commented. Doesn’t hydropower mitigate oil costs?

Stephen Mullowney: Yes. So on site, as I mentioned, with regards to oil, our — predominantly our biggest oil cost is on mining. There is some diesel gensets, but yes, the electricity National Power Grid is online. We have a good connection there. I believe we’re up around, Richard, 95% on that line now, of power availability, somewhere in that range.

Richard Boffey: It fluctuates, Stephen. So yes, between 88% and 95% of availability of the local power grid.

Stephen Mullowney: So with regards to oil prices, we burn, Mike, I think we looked at this the other day, our cost on oil is around $0.5 million a month.

Michael Leonard: $0.5 million a month. So a 10%, 20%, 30% increase in oil prices doesn’t really have a material impact on our cost profile.

Stephen Mullowney: There you go, those are the answers.

Operator: Thank you all for your insights on that. And your last question for today is, what are the KPIs for the leading management team? How do you plan the development for the next 3 to 5 years? Martin Armstrong sees this as a rather turbulent time.

Stephen Mullowney: Yes. So with regards to the KPIs, the KPIs that grow the business in line with the business plan. That’s simple KPIs. I don’t like to overcomplicate KPIs. KPIs are then driven down into our management at site around maintaining mining, maintaining recovery rates, processing rates, maintenance schedules, being on time on CapEx spend, those sort of things. Those are all KPIs at the local level. The local level is incented as well around RSUs, just like the management team is on RSUs and options. So that’s the alignment there. And what was the second part of the question?

Operator: Of course, I can repeat it. The second part of the question was, how do you plan the development for the next 3 to 5 years? Martin Armstrong sees this as a rather turbulent time.

Stephen Mullowney: Look, I think if we look at the world, it’s been turbulent for a while, which has become a little bit more turbulent with regards to activities in the Middle East. It seems to be coming off again a little bit. With regards to us, we’ve developed and operated this project under turbulent times. I started at this company in COVID. I would consider that a turbulent period as well. Different turbulence, but turbulent nonetheless. We could still go to site and travel freely. We couldn’t do that during the COVID period. Logistics are much easier even in the current environment than it was under the COVID period. And the company was able to execute just fine. So in the next 3 to 5 years, I continually see this company and particularly at Buckreef having its head down and executing on the plans that have been in the PEA and what we’ve shown to be updated plans in a revised study in the next couple of months.

Operator: Excellent. Thank you all for your responses. That concludes the Q&A session. But before we go, I’ll turn it back to you, Stephen, for final remarks.

Stephen Mullowney: Yes. Thanks, everyone, for joining again this morning. As I mentioned, the focus is on growth and growth in the underlying valuation metrics. We have a management team that has done this before, and we’re doing it again. And we are very, very excited for what’s coming at Buckreef. I hope to see a lot of increase in revenue, EBITDA and resources over time that lead into a much larger project at Buckreef and will benefit all shareholders and stakeholders in Tanzania as well. So as there is saying in Tanzania [Foreign Language]. Thank you very much.

Operator: Excellent. Thank you, Stephen and the team for your presentation. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today for TRX Gold Corporation Second Quarter 2026 Results. TRX Gold is trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol TRX and on the NYSE American under the ticker symbol TRX. The playback will be available on our website 24 to 48 hours after this presentation under the VNDR Library tab. Stay tuned for the next quarterly call, and see you next time.