[Abrupt Start] Quarter Results and Project Update Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Melanie Hennessey, Vice President, Corporate Communications. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Claudia. Good morning, everyone. We are pleased that you have joined us for NovaGold’s 2020 first quarter financial results and for an update on the Donlin Gold project. On today’s call, we have Dr. Thomas Kaplan, NovaGold’s Chairman; Greg Lang, NovaGold’s President and CEO; and David Ottewell, NovaGold’s Vice President and CFO. At the end of the webcast, we will take questions both by phone and by tech. Before we get started, I would like to remind our listeners that, as stated on Slide 3, any statements made today may contain forward-looking information, such as projections and goals, which are likely to involve risks detailed in our various EDGAR and SEDAR filings and forward-looking disclaimers included in this presentation. With that, I have the pleasure of introducing Greg Lang, NovaGold’s President and CEO. Greg?

Thank you, Melanie and good morning everyone. These are unprecedented times. And our most important objective right now is to secure the health and safety of our employees, partners, and contractors. In that regard, our employees are working from home avoiding all nonessential travel, and if they must visit the office, of course, they’re engaged in social distancing. NovaGold and our partner through Donlin Gold LLC have implemented a wide-ranging set of policies consistent with the state of Alaska’s health and social service requirements and recommendations. These precautions include screening all employees and contractors visiting to the site, evaluating any individual who might be exhibiting symptoms to determine if they need to be isolated, implementing more frequent sanitation practices, and conducting safety meetings to address the current situation. The Donlin Gold drill program commenced as planned in February and continued through March. However, Donlin Gold will temporarily pause the program and go into care and maintenance until travel restrictions and other COVID-19 measures in the region are eased and it is safe for our employees and contractors to return to the site. Moving to Slide 5, Donlin Gold in Alaska is a 50-50 joint venture with Barrick. Alaska mining is an important part of the Alaskan economy and becoming even more important as the oil industry and tourism are collapsing. There are six producing mines and numerous exploration and development projects that are advancing across the state, as shown on the map. The future of smaller communities is a serious concern for many residents of Western Alaska, and Donlin Gold offers a brighter future with training and opportunities for young people to live closer to home and continue their substance way of life. With other resource industries experiencing low or no growth, the opportunities in mining present good paying jobs…

Thank you, Greg. First quarter 2020 cash flows are highlighted on Slide 10. Cash used in operations was $2.6 million higher than in 2019. The majority of the increase resulted from higher Donlin Gold funding in advance of the drill program and withholding taxes paid on vested PSUs in addition to lower interest income. The increase in our stock price and its performance in relation to the S&P/TSX Global Gold Index led to a higher vested value of PSUs and resulted in more taxes withheld. We ended the quarter with cash and term deposits of $140.7 million. On Slide 10, highlights of our operating performance for the first quarter of 2020. Our net loss increased by $0.3 million to $6.6 million, primarily due to higher G&A and Donlin costs as well as lower interest income. The G&A increase resulted from higher share-based compensation and regulatory costs. Donlin Gold expenses increased due to preparations for the drill program. On Slide 12, we note our healthy treasury. We continue to anticipate spending of approximately $31 million within 2020, which includes $20 million to fund our share of expenditures of the Donlin Gold project and $11 million for general and administrative costs. At Donlin Gold, $11 million is planned for the drilling program, and with the remaining $9 million for permitting and community engagement. Back to our CEO, Greg Lang.

Thank you, Dave. Past couple of months have been memorable to the gold markets, and at times like these that we are particularly reassured to be invested in a unique project like Donlin Gold. Federally permitted project in a jurisdiction where the rule of law is not a novelty with strong long-term partnerships with Calista and TKC, which are all rare attributes in today’s world of declining grades and smaller deposits. On Slide 13, we compare Donlin Gold’s 40 million ounces with 13 other development stage projects in the industry. If you look at the peer group, Donlin’s resource is better than twice the size of the nearest competitors and 5x the size of the average. While the scale of the resource is rare, another is the grade, as shown on Slide 14. The average grade of Donlin sets it apart from other large-scale open pit deposits at 2.25 grams per ton, it is more than twice the industry average. It’s also noteworthy that the global average grade continued to decrease year-over-year from 2018 to 2019. With scale and grade, if it was built today, Donlin Gold would be the largest producing gold mine in the industry. For the long-term investor, there’s additional value that comes with a mine that has a multi-decade lifespan, almost 30 years of production just from the current resource. As Envision, Donlin Gold would average 1.5 million ounces over the first 5 years and over 1 million ounces per year life of mine. There are a few mines in the world existing or proposed with that level of gold production. The ACMA and Lewis deposits can be seen on Slide 16, as you can see, the topography at Donlin is favorable for development. It is rare in mining projects today that both the mineral and…

Thank you very much, Greg. And I certainly hope that all of you who are on the call and those of our friends and shareholders who aren’t that our words fall upon you in a state of safety and good health. These are unfortunately, the very interesting times that the Chinese would refer to. And all of us have to be an even greater cognizant of the challenges that we’ll be facing in the years ahead. With that, let’s remind ourselves what we have in Donlin and what makes it not just something that is a Tier 1 asset, an expression to which I’m indebted to Mark Bristow at Barrick, but also something which Greg himself referred to as unique. As many of you know, Greg came from Barrick, where he was the President of Barrick North America for many, many years, running an operation that was actually producing more gold than Goldcorp at the time. When he came into NovaGold, I came into NovaGold. I’d already been an investor from the end of 2008. But when Greg became CEO, I became Chairman. We celebrated 8 years together and during that time, I’m very confident that every statement that we’ve made, every promise that we have expressed has been met with success. The primary reason for that is because of not just the management team, but the fact that Donlin is not just a "world-class asset", it really is unique. There is no other development stage asset in the world, which combines the reserve grade, production capability, the exploration potential, the mine life, the leverage to gold and superimposed on to all of that in a jurisdiction that will allow you to keep the fruits of the leverage when the time comes for you to ring the cash register. But…

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We would now open the line for questions.

Thank you, sir. [Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Lucas Pipes with B. Riley FBR. Please go ahead.

Hey good morning everyone. I hope everybody is safe and healthy. I do have a good, safe place here to get through this unprecedented time. Tom and Greg, I wanted to ask first about kind of a question I get fairly frequently these days, and that’s in terms of the potential to develop the mine here, obviously, not right now with the health concerns out there. But with gold prices generally stronger, what are your thoughts at this point? What would you have to see from here to go into development and appreciate your thoughts? Thank you.

Greg, should I begin from a macro standpoint?

Sure. And I’ll fill in the blanks.

Super. Thank you very much, Lucas. Very good to hear your voice. I hope you and your loved ones are doing fine. To answer your question, we have always said that the time to build Donlin extrinsic of the studies that are being done and optimizations and drilling and the partner is all being ready to go, extrinsic of that. Our view being that we are very bullish on the price of gold is the time is on our side. We don’t have use it or lose it provisions. And my sense is that the moment will come in not the similar way to the way the Justice Potter Stewart once answered the question, how do you define pornography? I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it. And my sense is that we will see that with NovaGold stock in the 20s and in the 30s with gold going to or approaching new highs. When Barrick shareholders are clamoring for growth and in safe places, and so I think that we are more attuned perhaps also because of the fact that we keep in close contact with some really, really superb mines as shareholders, we are very attuned to the fact that this is the kind of thing that you’ll know it when you see it. The truth is that every month that goes by, another jurisdiction becomes more challenging and uninvestable. And unfortunately, I strongly believe that, that’s a trend that is not going to abate in any way. And so, our view is that as NovaGold becomes a go-to stock because of its pure-play status with Donlin, you are going to see different scenarios open up. But I want to see the stock price really multiples of where it is. I think that’s exactly the scenario that we are going to see. So far, this scenario is playing out almost as if I scripted it. And so, the best answer that I can see is we have smart people who are shareholders. We keep in close touch with them. As they say, the owner lives above the store, we know how to crystallize the value. The play is proceeding as it was written, watch this space. Greg, do you want to answer on some of the things that we are doing, meanwhile?

Sure. And I think the best thing to do is go back in time two years ago, as we’ve been conducting our ongoing optimization studies. One of the concepts was build it in stages with a smaller, higher-grade starter project. So, about two years ago, we drilled 16 holes and tremendous thicknesses of high-grade intercepts. So we took that data and really updated our geologic model. And the program that we’ve just hit the pause button on was really intended about 80 holes, which is the biggest program at Donlin in many years, was intended to validate the new model with the high-grade structural controls. And also to look for extensions of high-grade mineralization that would be mined early in the life of the project, both of which would certainly enhance the value. So, events have overtaken us, but I’m optimistic that by midsummer, maybe later, we’ll resume drilling and answer the questions that we have posed to ourselves that could enhance the value of the project. So, at least the focus for this year will be on the drilling and geology of the project. I think everybody knows our partners’ CEO, Dr. Bristow is a geologist and a very keen interest in geology. So we’re all anxious to – when the time is right and we can do so safely, get back to our drilling. So that will really take us through probably to the end of the year and if not, early into next year, and that will then be in a position to make a decision on updating the feasibility study. And in the meantime, we will continue to wrap up the remaining state permits.

That’s very helpful. I appreciate all of that color. And then just a quick follow-up on kind of the gold market more broadly, Tom, you mentioned gold is still under owned, under allocated. Could you expand on that just a little bit? I think that’s a point, many of us that are a little bit closer to the gold investment space often overlook and forget. And then just in terms of the pathway from here, obviously the markets broadly, has been super choppy and gold miners got a little bit mixed up in that as well. So kind of when you think through that you may have in store, I know it’s difficult that markets are so turbulent, but how do you think kind of gold will navigate its way through that? I would appreciate your perspective on these questions. Thank you.

Sure. First of all, gold getting hit at the outset of a financial crisis is not unusual. In fact, it happened during the financial crisis in ‘08, ’09. When it really hit gold was nearly $700 an ounce. It went to $600. And I remember so many people were telling me or asking me, how could that possibly happen? It’s not working. And I said, wait, it is working. Well, how can you say that? I said, because it’s giving people an exit. There are no bids for what they want to sell, gold is something you can always find a buyer for, wait, watch what happens next. It will take out the $700, and you’ll see. That’s exactly what happened. When I was interviewed, and it’s even more the case in silver. But just to give you a sense of the sentiment, so in silver and I said this, it was on the Bloomberg show. What happens is in the financial crisis, silver takes it on the chin, big time. Then it gets really hard hit. Then as gold moves up as a monetary metal, silver’s monetary status moves it up in sympathy with gold, and then because it is the poor man’s gold, it outperforms gold. There is a rhythm to these things. So, gold getting hit initially is normal. When you see gold take out the $1700, you’re going to start to see much greater institutional interest in gold. When it takes out the $1900 level, the $2000, $2100 level, $2200 level, you’re going to see enormous interest in the ETFs and in the mining companies. I would not be surprised in those scenarios to see, and I prefacing this with all the cautionary statements that Melanie referenced at the beginning. I would not be surprised to…

Tom, this is very helpful. I really appreciate all your color. I may add that gold can also not get unchanged like Bitcoin with the quantum computer. So that will be something interesting to see over the years to come. But I hope everybody safe and stay healthy and best of luck during this time. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Lucas.

[Operator Instructions]

Well, I anticipate there are no further questions this morning. I want to thank everybody for taking the time to join us. I hope you and your loved ones, stay safe and healthy. And this too shall pass. Thank you, everyone.

Amen. Thank you all.

This concludes today’s conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Have a pleasant day.

Thank you, operator.