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Thanks very much, Miles, and good morning to everyone joining us for this quarterly conference call. I'm joined here in the Perth office by Lee-Anne de Bruin, Resolute's Chief Financial Officer; David Kelly, Chief Operating Officer; John Wheeler, Project Director; Tommy Heng, General Manager of Finances; Brett Ascott, our Technical Services Manager; and Jeremy Meynert, our Business Development and Investor Relations Manager.And thank you very much for joining us on this call. I think the headline sums up very much the results of the quarterly in that a very strong quarterly production result has been impacted by the Syama roaster repairs that are currently underway. And today's quarterly activities report is obviously following on from previous information we've published on the quarterly -- the quarterly production update, which we released on the 7th of October, which disclosed our gold production of 103,000 ounces for the quarter and the very strong performance of our new mine in Senegal, Mako as well as strong performance from the Syama oxide plant, improving performance from Ravenswood, and ultimately, disappointing performance from the Syama sulphide circuit. And obviously, as part of this call, I'll be providing an update on the sulphide circuit, and most specifically, the roaster repair program.After that production update, on the 10th of October, we disclosed the -- that we'd identified a crack in the roaster and indicated that, that was being investigated, and we updated the market. And on the 25th, we provided an update of those repairs and our confidence that the roaster will be fully operational by early to mid-December and some details of what those repairs consist of. And as I said, I'll come back and talk about that and very happy to answer questions around that.Looking at the headlines of the quarter outside of the Syama sulphide roaster issues. Up until that maintenance repair issue we had in September and now the crack that we're repairing, we actually had very strong performance from the Syama sulphide circuit, particularly in relation to a key focus of Resolute over the last several years, which is our commitment to deliver the outcomes of Project 85, which are consistent, sustainable recoveries from that circuit above 85%. And one of the key outcomes from the quarter was that we're now achieving that, both on a daily basis. As we've disclosed in this report, we had a daily recovery from that circuit of 92%, which if not a record, is certainly the best result we've had in many, many years from processing the double refractory sulphide ore at Syama. And we're very confident that the improvements we've made to that circuit and its operating dynamics will deliver the results that we need. Obviously, those strong recoveries and that confidence has been somewhat mitigated by the fact that it's currently offline. And anyone looking at this report and particularly, the significant part of the market that focuses very much on unit costs, and particularly, the all-in sustaining cost metric that Resolute and others publish along World Gold Council guidelines, you'll see that the all-in sustaining cost numbers for the Syama sulphide circuit, which are more than $4,000 an ounce, they're obviously very disappointing and ugly. And obviously, that relates to the lack of production from that circuit. But outside of that, we are confident in its high recoveries and the work we're doing. Most importantly, when discussing the Syama sulphide operations, the main focus of the quarter remained the commissioning of our new underground mine and its automated system. Site acceptance testing progressed very well during the quarter. And being on-site 2 weeks ago as part of reviewing the roaster and its repair plan, it was extremely positive to look at -- to be in the control room and seeing the automated loop functioning, the commissioning going well. We are now loading trucks in full automated mode, and we have a fully automated -- all fully delivering ore to the ROM pad. So that operations are ongoing. And we're now speeding that up along our expectations and delivering one of the most advanced technology underground mines in the world and remain very confident that we're going to achieve our life of mine ambitions for that mine of bringing the all-in sustaining costs across that life of mine down to around USD 750 an ounce. That journey has been several years in the making. We always knew that this period was the bottom of the hockey stick in terms of turning around the Syama operations, and the focus of the bottom of that hockey stick has, obviously, become far more acute with the issues that we have on the roaster. But the quarterly does disclose a number of positives in relation to that underground mine, the commissioning of the mine, and ultimately, the 2 things that drive the positive outcomes for Resolute shareholders for many years to come. The success we're having in establishing the cave, particularly in relation to the amount of ore that we're currently blasting in the mine, our experience in Mt. Wright and the success we've had at the sub-level cave that we are the owner-operators of in Queensland informs us of the importance of understanding the cave and establishing a very strong ore blanket. So we always knew that we would have a significant under-core in these early stages of the mine. You see that in the graph that we've published in relation to the amount of ore that we're blasting underground. And the percentage of that, that we're currently hauling to the ROM pad, that's entirely in line with our expectations and sets up this cave for future success. And that front-end investment does come back to us in terms of lower costs in future. Moving on from the Syama underground. This quarter was obviously a key milestone for Resolute in terms of the acquisition and the full integration of a new mine into our operation. The 10th Resolute gold mine now a key part of our African footprint being the Mako Gold mine in Eastern Senegal, and that's joined our portfolio following the successful acquisition of Toro Gold Limited, a private company. And you can immediately see why we've been pursuing value-creative acquisition opportunities. This is a highly cash flow-generative asset. We're delighted with the strong cultural alignment and operating cultural methodology that we share with the Mako team, and that's allowed us to structure a transaction where, through the support of our financiers and the ability of our team as well as the operating characteristics of the Toro Gold team, we've been...[Technical Difficulty]
Ladies and gentlemen, pardon me. This is the operator. Your speaker is currently experiencing some technical difficulties with their line. Please stand by while we address the situation. Your line will be placed back on music hold until the conference resumes. We thank you for your patience. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience. We have the speaker back on the line. I will now hand the conference back to John. Thank you. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much, Miles. Apologies to everyone listening. It appears that the lines into our Perth building here, Australia Place in Perth, just all dropped out, so apologies. We've been obviously working to make sure nothing else goes wrong at Resolute, but we can't help the phone system. I believe I was talking about the automation system at Syama. We've obviously done a lot of work during the quarter on that automation loop. It was great to be on-site 2 weeks ago and see that working, automated loading, automated haulage, a key part of the system that continues, and we've indicated our strong belief that, that performance will result in us achieving full running capacity during the current quarter. Importantly, the cave dynamics are working well. The grade profile that we're getting out of that mine, the ore that we're blasting, the blanket that we're achieving are all as we would expect. I then went on to talk about how that knowledge base that we're using at Syama very much within Resolute comes from the success of our Mt. Wright underground operation in the sublevel cave; we've been owner-operators of there since 2009. Those operations are coming to an end during the current quarter. And I wanted to acknowledge and congratulate everyone involved in the Mt. Wright success for Resolute, many of whom are currently working for us on-site in Queensland and many of whom will cease working for Resolute as those operations are put on suspension. I often talk about the -- our achievements in mining a 2.5 gram ore body to a depth of 900 meters underground at a delivered cash cost across the life of mine of Mt. Wright of AUD 850 an ounce. It's a remarkable achievement. It's one that we're going to use as part of the ultimate success of Syama. And I thank and congratulate everyone involved at Mt. Wright. I did discuss -- hopefully, I was still on the line when I spoke about Mako, our acquisition of Mako and its integration. That's gone very well. You can see how valuable a performer it is for Resolute. Discussing Ravenswood. During the quarter, we made a significant increase to our gold inventory and now have a reserve at Ravenswood of almost 3 million ounces of gold, places it in a unique position in the Australian gold landscape. We remain very excited about the potential that we have with the Ravenswood expansion project, the success we've had in our partnership with the Queensland government in approving all of the major approvals we need for that development plan and that major expansion. It's now focused on delivering an ultimate mine where we believe we can produce 200,000 ounces from that mining inventory annually at Ravenswood for more than 10 years, and that's an exceptional growth opportunity.Very significantly, right now, we're having a lot of success with our expansion of the mill to 5 million tonnes per annum. And the available stockpiles at Ravenswood, which now consist of more than 30 million tonnes of previously mined material and provide huge flexibility in the timing of that expansion project. And the expansion we're doing now will enable us to process that material and produce around 80,000 ounces of gold at what is currently a very strong margin in the Australian dollar landscape. And so Ravenswood, while in a very low production period during this year, and we guided 60,000 ounces from Ravenswood, remains a very important asset as we focus on building an African portfolio. I mentioned we previously summarized the September quarterly production numbers. Obviously, the tables on Page 3 and 4 of today's quarterly provide a summary, both from a quarter and then also from a year-to-date perspective and clearly, disclose the impact that the roaster and processing issues we've had at Syama in the current quarter have had. You can see that the all-in sustaining cost metric in our Syama sulphide business for the September quarter is roughly AUD 4,200 an ounce or USD 2,900 an ounce. That's a very ugly number and it's one that, obviously, represents the difficulties we've had, particularly, the shortfall in production. We have pointed out in the narrative that it also represents the changing accounting treatment around our success in announcing commercial production. But the vast majority of that ugly number is the lack of a denominator. Our fixed costs at Syama are quite significant. And ultimately, we expect the Syama sulphide circuit to produce 45,000 to 50,000 ounces a quarter. And you can see what would happen if you just look at the fact that we're producing less than 15,000 ounces. Effectively, we need to multiply that by 3 or 4x, and that's what will drive the ongoing ability for us to reduce those all-in sustaining cost numbers, and ultimately, achieve our ambition of a life of mine at all-in sustaining cost of $750 an ounce. From a portfolio perspective, and looking at the year-to-date numbers, it is significant that our run rate at the moment is 280,000 ounces of production up until the 30th of September, at an all-in sustaining cost of USD 966 an ounce, and worth pausing and talking about our guidance. Our original guidance for calendar 2019 for Resolute was 330,000 ounces of gold at an all-in sustaining cost of USD 980 an ounce. We adjusted that upon the acquisition of the Mako Gold mine, forecasting that we believed, under our ownership, we would add 70,000 ounces of production from Mako for the remainder of the calendar year, and that the low-cost nature of that production would bring our all-in sustaining cost down from USD 980 to USD 960. And so up until today, our public guidance was to produce 400,000 ounces at USD 960 an ounce. And the year-to-date production, notwithstanding the significant impact that the sulphide circuit had on this September quarter, indicates that up until the current roaster issues, we were very much on track for that guidance. Responding to the roaster issues and in our update on the 25th, we've indicated that we believe we are still on track for production of 400,000 ounces of gold. Obviously, the mix of that across our assets has changed. We've had a significant loss of production from the Syama sulphide circuit. But during the year-to-date, and particularly during the current quarter, we expect the outperformance of the Syama oxide business to continue. And we're certainly delighted with the above-budget performance we continue to enjoy from Mako as well as improving performances from Ravenswood. And that gives us confidence that we can still produce 400,000 ounces of gold or, in fact, on track to do so. We have, however, been forced to update our costs due to that impact on the roaster, and that is what's driving the revision from USD 960 an ounce for that annualized production to today's update that we expect that now to be USD 1,020 an ounce. The important update from the Syama sulphide repairs, which are very much underway and ongoing at Syama at the moment. Ultimately, we will have a team of more than 70 people who are responsible for those repairs over the next 5 to 6 weeks. That includes more than a dozen welders. We've got 28 procurement packages underway. Today, we're stripping back the roaster. We're going to start the welding, which is a key part of that repair project. We have the original constructors and our main consultants on the operation of the roaster, AutoTech, on-site as well as 4 or 5 other key contractors as part of that specialist team. We separated that out as a project being run by our Project Director, John Wheeler, who's joined me here on today's call, electricians, scaffolders, refractory experts, structural engineers. And we're also making the additional step of reviewing all other aspects of that sulphide circuit during this period of downtime. We remain confident that, that repair program is on track and remains on schedule for the roaster to be fully operational in early or at the latest mid-December. We continue to mine. We continue to ramp up the underground mine. You can see that, that will result in a significant stockpile of available high-grade ore from the underground. And that gives us very strong confidence that the back end of December and certainly Q1 2020, we will achieve maximum throughput and very strong production from the Syama sulphide circuit. And so we are going to turn the corner from those ugly all-in sustaining costs that we have reported today and will report again in December in that first quarter of 2020. You can also see that during the September quarter, due to the 18 days, the roaster was shut, we did add to our gold in circuit, and the majority of that additional gold in circuit represents concentrate stocks that are available at Syama. And during the current shutdown, we expect that to continue. So in addition to the significant ore we have on the ROM pad, we'll have available concentrate stocks. And again, that's expected to produce a very strong production profile going forward. I mentioned the ore blanket, there's some other summary there within the quarterly activities report on that repair program. We summarized, again, the success of the Mako acquisition, our operations at Ravenswood and the support we're having from the expansion plan. I mentioned that we have all the approvals from the Queensland government. I'm also delighted as part of that Mako acquisition to have formed a new partnership with the Senegal government and a very progressive mining ministry. We see a huge opportunity to expand our operations in Senegal, and are very excited around partnership opportunities we have in that jurisdiction. While I'm discussing partnership, I think this bottom of the hockey period that we have currently, represented by this quarter, it's an appropriate point to also talk about our more direct partners in our business. And I wanted to thank our key partners across the business for the performance and the work that we're currently doing. Our underground mining contractors at Syama, Byrnecut and their African business, RUGS, Perenti and AMS, who not only are our contract miner as part of the very successful Tabakoroni open pit operations, but now we've expanded our partnership with them due to their contract mining position at the Mako Gold mine in Senegal. Clearly, a key partner of us is Sandvik and the success that we've announced in our site acceptance testing is very much part of the strong partnership we have with them in delivering one of the most advanced technology mines in the world, and the world's first fully automated mine at Syama. AutoTech are on site and very much a key partner of ours. We have a range of other Malian contractors, SFTP, [ ZFM ] road haulage contractors, and across our business, I wanted to thank them for their strong support and their performance as represented in the summary of the activities report. We've also summarized, obviously, our changing balance sheet position with the bridge loan that we've taken on board as part of the acquisition of Toro and that was provided by Taurus Funds Management. I thank them for their support in this transaction. They are the existing lender to the Toro Gold Group. And there's a project facility within Toro that has actually been paid down during the quarter. Total debt within the Toro Group is around USD 190 million. And a key focus of the current quarter is our plans to refinance that debt and certainly, the bridge facility with Taurus and bring that into the Resolute Group in a more structured senior debt position. And talking of partnerships, in addition to the support we've had from Taurus in the acquisition, I wanted to acknowledge the strong support that we're receiving from our banking syndicate as part of that refinance: Nedbank; BNP Paribas; and our long-term partners, Investec and Citi, who we've banked with for a long time, are highly supportive. We've had the benefit of a very low-cost USD 150 million revolver provided by that syndicate. And we're very much appreciating the support and the enthusiasm they have to look at the expansion of that facility as part of the ultimate refinancing and repositioning of Resolute for a very strong start to 2020. I'm sure there are many questions around the quarterly performance and further -- happy to provide further color on both our performance at all of our assets and the roaster repairs. And so, Miles, I'll pass it back to you for questions. And again, apologies for the break in the middle of the call.
[Operator Instructions] And your first question today comes from the line of Matthew Frydman from Goldman Sachs.
Two somewhat related questions for me, please. Firstly, it was great to see the progress on mining automation during the quarter. Evidently, it seems like the communication systems in Mali might be a step above what you've got in Perth. But just, I guess, on the rollout of that, you spent $40 million -- $42 million across the group in the quarter on development CapEx, even though you transferred a chunk of the ongoing development cost at Syama into operating costs. So I guess, firstly, just wondering how much CapEx, including that capital development remains at the Syama underground now that we've seen the first full quarter of commercial production? And then, secondly, connected to that question, the underground mining cost during the quarter was around USD 25 million or around USD 60 a tonne. You talked in your introductory statements about the hockey stick effect. I guess, just wondering if you can describe the pathway to the USD 20 a tonne life-of-mine target that you guys are targeting in the DFS. And I guess, specifically, what's changing to reduce the cost base that you experienced in that -- in this quarter? What's changing? And over what time period are you expecting those changes to be able to achieve that life-of-mine target number?
Thanks a lot, Matt, and they're very good questions. So on the first point around communication systems. Yes, we're enjoying 3B Internet connection at Syama, which is about 3x as fast as my nbn connection here in my house in Claremont, in Western Australia, so something for us to aim for in the Australian context. More specifically, your question about development CapEx and the $42 million we spent in September quarter. We expect nonsustaining capital at Syama this quarter to be around USD 18 million as we complete that underground mine. In relation to mining costs, our expectations for mining costs from the Syama underground mine are around $20 a tonne, and we expect that to drop quite quickly as we ramp up. And the key driver of that in terms of what's going to change that is the mix between our development ore and stoping ore. So during the quarter, a lot of the ore that we processed was effectively development ore. It's higher cost ore, and it doesn't represent the run-of-mine automation system, which will -- from certainly December onwards, will be providing the vast majority of that ore, and that's what will drive that $20 a tonne in the regions of mining cost.
Okay. That's helpful. Can you -- do you have an idea of, I guess, what your long-run stoping to development split is going to be? And I guess, when you're expecting to achieve that point in the transition?
Yes. Sure, Matt. The long run is about 90% stoping and 10% development, but it's not always linear. And one of the advantages, particularly of potential lateral development and other factors is that we -- as we had that about right, may be able to slow development during periods of time. But if it was linear, ultimately, it will be about 90% stoping and 10% development. Currently, roughly, it's in periods been 50-50 or 60-40. So that's what's going to drive a significant change.
[Operator Instructions] And your next question comes from the line of Reg Spencer from Canaccord.
Just starting with a question at Mako. I was just wondering if you could help me reconcile your stated throughput rates through the mill, running above design versus the throughput rate in the quarter of about 300,000 tonnes. I noted from memory that the first half, you were running at about 1 million tonnes in the first half '19. So I was just wondering if you can help me reconcile throughput versus what you're stating here as your annualized rate, please?
Yes, sure. Thanks for the question, Reg. And as you can imagine, I'm delighted to discuss Mako performance at any level. In reconciling those numbers, obviously, we've made the acquisition during the quarter. So the throughput rates represent the throughput through the mill from the day we took acquisition until the end of the quarter, which represents 2 months. From a production point of view, obviously, we announced the gold that we poured and shipped from site. So the 44,000 ounces were all shipped following our acquisition date. But obviously, at that acquisition point doesn't represent the 44,000 ounces all come from the 300,000 tonnes that we've processed. So effectively, there's a gold in circuit or a -- in addition to bullion and gold in transit, we've effectively got a timing benefit of the fact that due to the timing pause at Mako, we had the benefit of ore that had been previously milled and processed and was ready to pour in terms of how that circuit is running. So clearly, there's a one-off benefit for that in terms of the extra production that we've recorded. Ongoing, you'll be able to reconcile, obviously, throughputs and the quarterly pour and production date as you would usually. I just want to [indiscernible]. In the narrative, we made it quite clear, that we -- the 8,000 ounces of bullion that we had on hand is not included in our production. That had already been poured and shipped by Toro Gold from Mako. But the 44,000 ounces were poured and shipped during the 2 months. But obviously, some of those ounces would have generated from ore that had been previously milled and crushed. Does that explain?
Understood. Yes. No, that makes a lot of sense, John. Secondly, back to Syama, good to see recoveries at that level, which is really positive. How might the eventual inclusion of a low-carbon roaster impact expectations for life-of-mine recoveries? If you're achieving sort of mid-80s up to 90s already, without the inclusion of a low-carbon roaster, if you were ultimately going to opt for that, does that change how we think about long term? Or might you not need to install the low-carbon roaster? Or is it too early to tell?
No, it's a very good question. And we expect the low-carbon roaster boosts recoveries by about 4%. And the analysis I like to do on the circuit is more from the loss side of it. So start at the front, you've got 100%. At the back, we're aiming currently for 85%, and look at all the gold that we lose. So the low-carbon roaster, we're very confident, is in the order of a potential feasible gain of an extra 4%. And certainly, we would expect most of that to be generated by that project. So if we're getting 85%, and we add the low-carbon roaster, we'd get 89%. If we're obviously at 87%, we still see that recovery because it's from gold that we're currently losing. Obviously, we've also, as we do every quarter, recorded the inventory of concentrates we have on site. Some of those, as we've mentioned earlier on this call, are available run-of-mine concentrates that we will be able to process. But the vast majority of that significant, more than USD 100 million of concentrate, are actually at what we call a carbon-rich concentrate, which to get the sort of recoveries we would expect, could only be processed through the carbon roaster. So we -- there is an additional advantage about accessing that concentrate revenue by the low-carbon roaster project. Obviously, our priority at the moment is to have the roaster up and running sustainably, reliably at full capacity and generating 85% recoveries from early to mid-December onwards. But there is a very, very highly value-accretive project in the development of the low-carbon roaster. It is something we will do. But for capital as well as operating reasons, we haven't made that decision yet. The team on site are 100% focused on bedding down our existing operations and delivering our expectations of 2.4 million tonnes per annum from the underground mine and a minimum of sustainable, regular, ongoing recoveries at 85%. But the low-carbon roaster will boost that if and when we implement that project as well as providing us access to that significant gold in circuit inventory.
That's fantastic, John. And just one last quick question around your guidance. Great to see that you can get some makeup ounces there. I was just wondering if you could indicate what the expected split would be between better production out of the oxides in Mako, versus running those legacy stockpile through the back end of the sulphide circuit?
Yes. Sure. So I mentioned our headline guidance numbers that we made earlier in the year and then updated. If you go back and look, we actually did provide an asset split and even down to a processing circuit split. And that original 330,000 ounces of guidance was made up of 60,000 ounces from Ravenswood, and then 160,000 ounces from the oxide circuit at Syama, and 110,000 ounces from the sulphide circuit as we expected to continue to process low-grade stockpiles and ramp up the underground mine. And then you add 70,000 to that, and that's what provided our updated guidance of 400,000. If you look at our year-to-date numbers, which we published in this quarterly, you can see that we're not currently on track to achieve 60,000 ounces from Ravenswood. And that the split between our Syama sulphide and oxide production hasn't gone as intended. We've obviously underperformed at the Syama sulphide circuit and particularly in this quarter compared to expectations. We always thought we'd have, obviously, increasing production from that circuit. And due to the roaster issues, that hasn't happened. And that's balanced by outperformance from the oxide business. So in maintaining 400,000, we now expect to produce, annualized for 2019, roughly 70,000 or 80,000 ounces from the sulphide circuit, potentially 190,000 ounces across that brilliantly performing Tabakoroni mine and oxide circuit for Syama. We're improving at Ravenswood, and so we're continuing to look at 50,000 to 60,000 ounces from that asset and potentially up to 85,000 ounces from Mako. And so if you add all of that together, you get in the region of or just over 400,000 ounces, and that's what we're aiming on delivering in the current quarter. We're obviously a month into that. We've got 2 months to go, and we'll very much focus on achieving, as we always would, the guidance that we provided. It hasn't worked out exactly as we intended, but it is the strength of our business and the strength in our teams that everyone is responding to the requirement. And that's the split of our current guidance. And obviously, we'll do everything we can to deliver as best a cost performance as we can. And looking at that and studying it, we're confident that the updated guidance of 1,020 is more than achievable.
[Operator Instructions] And your next question comes from the line of Warren Edney from Baillieu.
Yes, look, I'd just like to go back to the question Reg had about the milled tonnes at Mako. The annualized rate for milling is about 1.2 million and your comment there as well is that the annualized rate was 2.2 million. What's the difference? Hello?
Warren, sorry. I think -- look, I'm just trying to work out what the question was. So...
Sorry. So if you multiply the 324,000 by 4, you get 1.3-ish million tonnes for the ore milled during the quarter versus what you comment about the 2.2 million. Was the 2.2 million reached at the very end of the quarter? Or...
No. So the -- you wouldn't multiply it by 4 because it represents 2 months performance. So you'd multiply it by 6.
Ah, okay. All right. Yes.
Yes. So that's the key difference. So we effectively took control and operated the asset for 2 months. And so we've only recorded the tonnes that have gone through the mill during our ownership period. We've also recorded the production that's gone through the gold room during our ownership period. But there's a disconnect between the 2. It's a one-off acquisition issue, where due to gold in circuit and the timing of pause, we've effectively got the benefit of ore that was processed during both August and -- sorry, both the back end of June and July that's been poured and therefore produced in August and September and forms part of the 44,000 ounces. The -- one of the things that we monitored during our due diligence period of Toro was that potential increase in the throughput capacity, and we're very confident in that, that the annualized number that we've announced as part of the acquisition is achievable and is currently being run. Year-to-date is about 175,000 tonnes per month is its current operating performance. So that 300,000 ounces over 2 months is already being pushed up, and we're confident that from a quarterly basis, you'll see 450-and-perhaps-more thousand tonnes a quarter. And possibly as high as above 500,000 tonnes a quarter would be our current run rate, giving that sort of -- and ultimately, that 2.1 million, 2.2 million tonnes per annum.
Okay. Now that you've sort of operated for a couple of months, what's the sort of view about the grade? Has any of that sort of changed with the higher milling rates? Will you be mining lower grade material or -- to feed the higher milling rate?
So we've -- obviously, given the production issues, we're looking to bring some grade forward at Mako. And we're saying that, we'll do -- clearly, there was a -- the life of mine average production from Mako is 140,000 ounces, but that's smoothing it out. And it is -- it's a wonderful mine. When you stand at the top of what is the heel of Mako and look down, you can actually see the grade profile of the ore body. That's effectively an open pit on the side of the hill. That's why it's a very simple operation. And it does allow you -- now there's 4 or 5 different areas of the pit that are currently being mined. And you can mine it very successfully, selectively in terms of grade without necessarily impacting the mine plan in terms of an overall efficiency at the open pit operations. So that sort of life-of-mine average grade of 2.3 grams per tonne is certainly where our expectations. But one of the ways, obviously, we're achieving our production guidance is looking to process more of the high-grade material that we'd have available on the ROM pad or can mine. And we would expect that to continue during the entire 2020, and you'll see that in a couple of months' time when we guide for the performance of Mako in 2020. As you'll know, last year, the mine produced 160,000 ounces. If you look at what it's produced to date and what I've just answered Reg in terms of what our expectations are for the rest of the year, you'll see that we'll do that or better in annual 2019 from the Mako Gold mine, ignoring when we took control. That will set us up for a similarly strong performance in 2020. If -- looking at the life-of-mine plan, that production would drop in 2021, but we're quite excited by the early indications we've had on some of the exploration work that is now ongoing and our renewed focus. And as we indicated, we're very confident in the mining inventory, but something to look out for is our expectations of how we might change that mine plan from the mine plan we inherited and the potential to add additional inventory.
Yes. And I understand it's a bit of a work-in-progress. And just finally, on the debt, you mentioned in the quarterly that you're looking at doing some restructuring. Can you give us any sort of vague guidance about what you're thinking you might be doing in terms of -- I guess, I'm thinking about future repayments of borrowing and stuff like that.
Yes. Sure. So look, we announced as part of the acquisition, the terms of the bridge facility. It's a 6-month facility provided by Taurus. It's allowed a huge debt flexibility and really drove -- one of the things we're seeing in this quarter is a massive boost in cash. And we were able to achieve that by the speed with which we were able to execute this transaction, 30 days from signing the documents to delivering the mine and taking the keys and running it. And one of the key aspects of that was the speed that we were able to put in place the financing package to secure that asset. When we talk about the refinancing, we're talking about, obviously, removing that bridge facility and the potential we also have as part of that to restructure the existing debt within Toro also provided by Taurus. We enjoy a lot lower cost of borrowing than a lot of our peers. We haven't traditionally sought funds from the flexible and ultimately higher-cost mining providers such as Taurus that look for a higher coupon and often a royalty payment. I mentioned our banking partners earlier, BNP Paribas, Nedbank, Investec and Citi. We have a very low-cost flexible revolving credit facility provided by those banks. Some of those banks have banked us for many decades. And the guideline that we've given on the refinancing is to expand that low-cost senior debt facility to include the Mako security. Currently, its key security is Ravenswood in Australia and Syama in Mali as well as the Bibiani gold mine that we own in Ghana. And we would see that the security package consisting of Bibiani, Syama, Ravenswood and Mako would sufficiently expand that revolver to repay the bridge facility and potentially restructure the entire project facility within Taurus so that we would have one debt facility and a unified security package within the company. And that's what we're looking to achieve by early 2020.
There are no further questions at this time. I will now hand back to John to wrap up.
Thanks very much, Warren, and thanks very much for everyone[Audio Gap]break in the middle of it.In summarizing the quarterly, I'll just say, obviously, appropriate focus should be put on the Syama sulphide circuit, acknowledging the ugly unit cost as a result of our current roaster issues. We're very focused and we have a very specialist team working on repairing that roaster. It's very important that we do so along the guidelines that we've given. More positively, that will provide us a very strong end to December and also a particularly positive first quarter of 2020. In looking forward to what 2020 might look like for Resolute, it is interesting to think about what our current quarter would have looked like if we had have achieved the performance from the sulphide circuit that we aimed for and would expect. We achieved 100,000 ounce quarter with a very minimal high cost component from the Syama sulphide circuit. If that circuit produced as we would have expected, 30,000 ounces this quarter, or if it was producing what we expect it to, which is almost 50,000 ounces a quarter, you can see what sort of performance we would have had this quarter and we will have. So we remain very focused and confident that we are delivering the business that we've always told our shareholders. We're coming to the end of the capital investment phase. We're turning the corner, and we're going to see those strong recoveries and throughputs from Syama building and building value for shareholders, and that's what we're focused on. I appreciate the support we've had from not only our partners, but also our shareholders. Myself and the team are available to answer any further questions, and we are very much focused on mining gold and creating value for Resolute shareholders. Thanks for your interest today.