Lake Victoria Gold has two projects in Tanzania: Imwelo, a fully permitted open-pit gold project located about 12 km west of AngloGold Ashanti’s Geita Gold Mine in the Lake Victoria Greenstone Belt, and Tembo, a district-scale exploration asset adjacent to Barrick’s Bulyanhulu Mine. This interview, with President and CEO Marc Cernovitch, covered the company’s path to first gold at Imwelo, its financing strategy centred on a Monetary Metals gold loan facility, ongoing sterilization and infill drilling, metallurgical results, and a near-term maiden resource at Tembo.
TL;DR
The story is all about whether LVG can close its Monetary Metals gold loan facility, which is described as the key trigger to order the processing plant and break ground at Imwelo. Cernovitch said they have about C$4 million in the bank from a recently closed convertible debenture (raised roughly C$3.8 million to date, targeting C$5 million), which covers preconstruction activities, but the gold loan, sized at up to US$25 million, is what funds the actual plant and gets them to first gold. He is targeting first production around mid-2027 on a 12-month construction timeline, starting at 500 tonnes per day, or roughly 12,000 to 13,000 ounces per year, with a planned expansion to 1,000 t/d in year three. At Tembo, a maiden resource estimate is imminent, and a tight-spaced infill drill program at the Nagula 1 target is being planned to support a near-term toll-milling production opportunity.
What Have They Done for Shareholders Lately?
In late 2024 LVG acquired the Imwelo mining license outright for the equivalent of C$5.5 million from the original Australian private group, renewing the license for a fresh 10-year term effective April 2025. Since then the team completed metallurgical testwork on Area C drill core returning up to 97% gold recovery using conventional gravity and carbon-in-leach processing, which closely matched results from three earlier test programs. They drilled below Area C in late 2025 and intersected mineralization down to 250 metres, roughly doubling the depth envelope of the historical resource (which previously reached only about 100 metres). They recently hired a Tanzania-based CFO (Joseph Ntiga) and a Compliance Officer (Cosmas Tungaraza), and sterilization drilling at Imwelo started on May 12, 2026 to support final infrastructure placement and site layout. They have also partially closed the convertible debenture financing.
How Much Money Do They Have and What Are They Spending It On?
Cernovitch said they have approximately C$4 million in the bank following the partial close of a non-brokered unsecured convertible debenture. The debenture carries 5% annual interest paid semi-annually, matures in 36 months, converts into common shares at C$0.30 per share, and comes with warrants equal to 50% of the conversion shares at an exercise price of C$0.40, also for 36 months. The financing has raised roughly C$3.8 million to date and is being upsized to a maximum of C$5 million, resulting in approximately 6.4 million warrants issued. The key unfunded piece is the Monetary Metals gold loan facility of up to US$25 million, which remains subject to Tanzanian regulatory approvals and is described as “just about there.” The current C$4 million is sufficient only for preconstruction activities, not to order the plant. The proceeds from the gold loan are explicitly earmarked for plant construction and working capital, not incremental exploration. G&A is described as rising due to team buildout but no specific figure was provided. The company’s IR and marketing spend is approximately C$500,000 per year.
Upcoming Catalysts
Technical / Operational: Imwelo sterilization drilling program results and completion (commenced May 2026); final engineering completion at Imwelo (described as underway at time of interview); breaking ground on preconstruction activities including access road upgrade; Tembo maiden resource estimate publication (described as imminent); infill drill program at Tembo’s Nagula 1 target over a 300-metre strike length on a 20 x 20 m grid.
Corporate / Financing: Closing of the Monetary Metals US$25 million gold loan facility (described as the key near-term unlock); possible upsizing of the convertible debenture to the full C$5 million; ordering the Imwelo processing plant following financing close; issuing a detailed construction timeline and schedule; and a broader news flow expected in the weeks and months following the interview.
Risks
The single largest near-term risk, as Cernovitch himself framed it, is closing the Monetary Metals gold loan on time. This requires clearing Tanzanian regulatory approvals that have been “worked on tirelessly” for several months, and a delay would push out the plant order, the construction start, and the 2027 first-gold target. Beyond financing, he flagged Tanzanian bureaucratic timelines as an ongoing challenge, which is one reason he relocated to Tanzania in person, and noted that new local regulations introduced in late 2025 required rework of some construction plans. Geological risk at Imwelo centres on the narrow, high-grade vein nature of the deposit, which can be nuggetty and has inherent grade continuity uncertainty between drill holes. The project is proceeding toward construction without a fully updated NI 43-101-compliant bankable feasibility study, which is acknowledged as a risk in the company’s own press releases. Tanzania jurisdiction perception risk among investors, particularly given West Africa instability, was noted as the most common pushback he receives on roadshows.
Lake Victoria CEO Interview
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