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GCM Mining Corp
TSX:GCM

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GCM Mining Corp
TSX:GCM
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Price: 3.42 CAD 0.29% Market Closed
Updated: Apr 27, 2024

Earnings Call Transcript

Earnings Call Transcript
2023-Q1

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Operator

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Aris Mining's First Quarter 2023 Operational and Earnings Results Call. We will begin with an overview from management followed by a question-and-answer period. Please view the accompanying deck located on the Aris Mining website, which management will refer to during the call. [Operator Instructions] And the conference is being recorded.

I will now turn the call over to Neil Woodyer, Chief Executive Officer.

N
Neil Woodyer
executive

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to the call. I'll provide a brief overview of our business this quarter before handing over to our CFO, Doug Bowlby, to review of our financial results; and then to Richard Thomas, for a recap on the operating results, after which, we'll take a few questions.

Starting from Slide 3 of the presentation. In the first quarter of the year, we produced combined 50,900 ounces of gold, with 18% of our production sourced from small miner partnerships in Segovia. We are particularly proud of our ongoing commitment to this program. And in April, we signed a new landmark partnership agreement with traditional miners in Marmato with the Colombian Minister of Mines and Energy in attendance. This is the first agreement [ signed ] more than 450 years of artisanal and small-scale mining in the area. We continue to view these partnerships as the key to unlocking Columbia's mineral wealth to the benefit of all stakeholders, included in the regional communities where we operate.

We continue to invest heavily in these communities. And during the quarter, Aris contributed $2.4 million to social programs under a new restructured and transparent investment policy. As I've said before, ESG is the core of the DNA of Aris Mining, and we encourage you to visit our sustainability web page for further information. We continue to pursue additional partnerships with artisanal and small-scale miners at Segovia, Marmato and Soto Norte.

At Segovia, [indiscernible] the processing plant were completed ahead of schedule. And in April, the plant achieved a throughput of 2,100 tonnes per day, exceeding the 2,000 tonnes per day nameplate capacity. We also announced an updated resource and reserve estimate at Segovia and we again fully replaced ounces mined in 2022.

Our planned exploration drilling program of 84,500 meters of Segovia is focused on further increase in mineral reserves and our mine life plan, extending known resources at the 4 producing mines and exploring strategic high priority [indiscernible] targets located adjacent to the current mining properties. We continue to be focused on leveraging the stable production profile and community partnerships at Segovia. As we move to our next large expansion, Marmato lower mine, and provide a new develop plan for Toroparu. Now I'll hand the call over to Doug to review our financial results.

D
Douglas Bowlby
executive

Thanks, Neil. I would like to now turn your attention to Slide 4, and we'll walk through the financial highlights of the first quarter. We produced and sold approximately 50,000 ounces of gold which is in line with Q1 of 2022, but does lag production on a quarter-over-quarter basis. This is a result of only processing 150,000 tonnes at the Segovia operations this quarter, which compares to 156,000 tonnes in Q4 of 2022. So our gold production is down and all-in sustaining costs per ounce have increased to $1,214 per ounce on a consolidated basis. But this is a short-term capacity issue at the Segovia operations that has been resolved as we will soon discuss further.

On a quarter-over-quarter basis, cost of goods sold was down, and we generated income from mining operations of $33 million. We have achieved a notable reduction in G&A costs down to $2.4 million in the quarter, which compares to $7.5 million in Q4 of 2022 and $6.1 million a year ago. This reduction in G&A costs should give an indication of the significant level of reorganization we are implementing in Colombia and corporately. These cost savings have helped improve our income from operations to $27 million and adjusted EBITDA to $39 million, with both amounts reflecting increases on a quarter-over-quarter basis. During Q1 of 2023, we had a few significant cash movements. Our operations generated net operating inflows of $19.7 million. We then invested this cash flow into $21 million of capital investments. And in March of 2023, we completed the acquisition of our 20% joint venture interest in the Soto Norte project and paid [indiscernible] the remaining $50 million purchase price plus a 7.5% financing fee.

During the quarter, Aris Mining share of the Soto Norte cost for approximately $1.2 million as we only pay our 20% share of project costs. We then had outflows of $12.9 million, mostly related to net interest cost on our debt, and we ended the quarter with $229 million of cash as of March 31.

Turning to Slide 5. I would like to highlight that our production and cost guidance for the full year remains unchanged between 230,000 and 270,000 ounces of gold produced at an all-in sustaining cost per ounce of between $1,050 per ounce and $1,150 per ounce on a consolidated basis.

I'll now hand over to our COO, Richard Thomas, to discuss our operations in more detail.

R
Richard Thomas
executive

Thanks, Doug. We will start with Segovia on Slide 6. At the Segovia operations, we had some challenges in meeting our production target this quarter due to issues at the primary crusher, which resulted in roughly 100 hours of downtime. Fortunately, we were able to run our alternate crusher line to offset some of the lost capacity. And we have completed all repairs on the primary crusher line and on our back to make that capacity as of April. Segovia produced 46,530 ounces in the quarter compared to 49,864 ounces during the same period last year. Grades were down 16% versus the same period in 2022, but offset by the increased throughput at the Maria Dama plant following the completion of the expansion in quarter 3, 2022.

We incurred $7.3 million of sustaining capital expenditures in the quarter, which includes $3.1 million of ongoing exploration efforts to convert, expand and define resources at and around the 4 operating mines. We have a healthy budget of $17 million planned for exploration at Segovia this year to replace and expand reserves at this key asset. At Marmato, on Slide 7, we continue to operate the upper mine, where production was severely impacted by our national explosives and detonator shortage, resulting in 57% fewer tonnes processed and negative free cash flow. The shortage is expected to improve in quarter 2 as national stockpiles are replenished. We continue to focus on projects to optimize and improve the throughput, and we anticipate realizing the benefits of these initiatives later on this year.

Additionally, the landmark agreement of 260 local small miners will provide delivery of a new high-grade feed. At the lower mine, we continue to advance construction, notably the [indiscernible], which is slated for completion in quarter 3 this year. We continue to work collaboratively with our regulator, Corpocaldas, to address final queries related to our environmental management plan. We expect a mid-2023 as the time line for approval of this plan and start construction this year for our mechanized operation.

During the quarter, we spent $3.9 million capital on this project. Recall that our updated prefeasibility studies released last year [indiscernible] 20-year reserve life and a substantial production profile of 162,000 ounces per year at around about $1,000 per ounce all-in sustaining cost.

At Toroparu on Slide 8, we updated our mineral resources during the quarter, and we are progressing additional studies to optimize our development path in Guyana based on the conservative new resource estimate.

We continue to diligently focus on reducing expenditures during the reevaluation period and incurred $4.7 million in costs during the quarter compared to $60.4 million spent in 2022. Toroparu remains a sizable advanced projects with a measured and indicated resource of 5.4 million ounces of gold and 118,000 tonnes of copper and an inferred estimate of an additional 1.2 million ounces of gold.

At this point, I'd like to hand the call back to the operator for questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question is from Cameron Magee from Cormark Securities.

C
Cameron Magee
analyst

My first question is just on your 2023 guidance, which you reaffirmed. So obviously, you saw lower production, slightly higher costs in Q1 relative to guidance. So just looking ahead to quarters 2, 3 and 4, is there any variability in the production and cost profile for the remainder of the year? Or is this something that can be expected to remain relatively flat.

N
Neil Woodyer
executive

Richard, will you take that one?

R
Richard Thomas
executive

Yes. We expect to see an uptick in our production at both the operations. The explosive situation, we are managing that pretty well, and we are receiving an increased supply of explosives at Marmato, and we expect through the following 3 quarters to achieve close to guidance or [indiscernible] guidance. At Segovia, the issue with the pressure has been sorted out. We are now back to nameplate capacity. And we are confident that in the next 3 quarters, we would get -- we will get to guidance as well by the end of the year in both cost and in production.

C
Cameron Magee
analyst

Great. And then just secondly on CapEx. Did the fire at Segovia had any impact on the timing of sustaining CapEx? I'm basically just wondering if that event pulled any sustaining CapEx forward into Q1.

R
Richard Thomas
executive

That's a very poor line. Could you please repeat that?

N
Neil Woodyer
executive

Richard, I got that, so I will repeat the question. So Cameron is asking if the fire event in Q4, which dragged into Q1, whether that's simulated pulling forward of CapEx, like while you were in the crusher, making some repairs, did you incur additional CapEx. So is capital really front end waited for 2023 at Segovia is the question.

R
Richard Thomas
executive

Okay. Our capital profile will stay pretty much the same. Although the repairs, of course, will be incurred in that time, but there was no change in our CapEx profile at all.

C
Cameron Magee
analyst

Okay. Great. That's helpful. And then just 1 more for me. Shifting gears to Marmato lower mine. So that key contract tenders continue to be released in the quarter. So I'm just curious how that process is going, and if the initial quotes for overall pricing using the PFS are holding up well.

R
Richard Thomas
executive

Although we have gone out to tender on many, we have not yet consolidated all of the tenders to see where we are on that. That process is still ongoing, as I said, the major contract we haven't got that pricing yet, although they are out to tender and we are receiving both the portal and the mining [indiscernible] back pretty shortly. We have not yet evaluated that [indiscernible] to that extent.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] There are no further questions at this time. Please proceed.

N
Neil Woodyer
executive

Thank you very much, operator. I appreciate everyone dialing in this morning and making some time to catch up on the back of our quarter. If something comes up during the day, please reach out. We will make ourselves available. Thanks again, and enjoy the rest of your day.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now ended. Thank you all for joining. You may all disconnect.