RE:Scarcity value and the importance of 200k oz Cdn producersQ from BMO:
Jackie Przybylowski
I have two questions. The first one is on your Eagle asset. You've got a 5% NSR on the properties of Eagle. Given that Victoria Gold is in what might be some sort of M&A speculation or at least a large investment by core. Can you give us maybe a comment on how you're thinking about that NSR? I mean it's significant enough in size that it might be sort of a prohibiting step for anyone who might be looking to take over Victoria? Is that something that you guys would be willing to renegotiate? Or is there any wiggle room from OR perspective on that royalty?
Sandeep Singh
Jackie, short answer is absolutely not. So the point is, we don't think it's an inhibitor at all. Victoria as a company was working just fine with it. Even in a ramp-up phase, the fact that Kerr was willing to buy or swap for 18% of the stock in place, I think it's pretty safe to say that anyone who's interested in Victoria is interested in it with that royalty in place. And I'm sure it assumes that, that royalty is not going anywhere. If there was a doubt, I'll take that away. But we think, as I said earlier, all that to us -- I'm sure it causes some stress within the system from Victoria this week, for shareholders, I don't think it's anything -- Victoria, anything but a positive.
I think it just shows you that there's a lot of interest in that story. The mine is working well. It's kind of coming into the stride. You could certainly see the timing of that being a little opportunistic. Ultimately, they'll do what's best for them. From us, it just reinforces that it's a quality asset that's sought after. If eventually, it ends up in a bigger counterparty with deeper pockets who can get it up to production -- higher production faster, can explore faster, that wouldn't be a bad thing. But we're certainly happy with the work that Victoria has been doing there. They've done the hard work. It seems like they're ready for the payoff, which helps them and helps us as well.