Avino Silver & Gold Mines Ltd.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Avino Silver and Goldmine's fourth quarter and year-end 2021 financial results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in a listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jennifer North, Manager, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Avino Silver and Gold Mines Limited Q4 and year-end 2021 financial results conference call and webcast. On the call today, we have the company's president and CEO, David Wolfen. our Chief Financial Officer, Nathan Hart, our Chief Operating Officer, Carlos Rodriguez, and our VP of Technical Services, Peter Latta. Before we get started, please note that certain statements made today on this call by the management team may include forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results to be materially different than those expressed by or implied by such forward looking statements. The company does not intend to and does not assume any obligation to update such forward looking statements or information other than as required by applicable law. For more information, we refer you to our detailed cautionary note in the presentation accompanying this call on our press release of yesterday's date. I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded and will be available for replay later today. Replay information and the presentation slides accompanying this conference call and webcast will be available on the website. Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Aveeno's President and CEO, David Wolfen. David.

Thanks, Jen. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Avino's Q4 and year-end 2021 financial results conference call and webcast. Thanks for joining us. Before we begin, please note that the full financial statements and MD&A are now available on our website. On today's call, we will cover the highlights of our fourth quarter and year-end 2021 financial and operating performance and our plans for 2022, and then we will open it up for questions. Please note that all figures are stated in US dollars unless otherwise noted. Overall, 2021 was a year highlighted by many positives. We ended the year with fourth quarter production numbers that exceeded our expectations. We resumed operations at the Aveeno mine in August. We planned and executed on a comprehensive drill program and the conversion to dry stack tailings is on track for completion in 2022. with the filter building nearing completion. In October, we announced that we'll be acquiring the neighboring La Preciosa development property. When this transaction closes, it has the potential to be transformational for Aveeno. The addition of La Preciosa substantially increases our 43-101 compliant mineral resource to 290 million ounces of silver equivalent. I am also pleased to announce that we have received co-fee approval for the acquisition in Mexico, which was the final regulatory approval required before completing the acquisition. The acquisition is still anticipated to occur before the end of Q1 2022. In addition, the company made its final payment of the term facility in September, which is a significant milestone for Aveeno. Cash and working capital at the end of 2021 had doubled over the year. At the end of the year, the exploration campaign for 2021 had completed 15,500 meters of drilling and focused on several targets. Additional areas for exploration include the main Aveeno vein below current mine activities and the La Podocina vein. The initial results from La Potosina were recently announced, and we are excited to continue exploring La Potosina as it factors in prominently as one of our high-grade near-surface targets. We believe La Potosina has the potential to supplement our current mill feed from Aveeno in the near to medium term. On the oxide tailings resource area, 124 holes have been drilled, 110 of the holes have reported assays and are currently under review by our technical team. In the fourth quarter, production came in from the avianomine only compared to Q3 2021, which was the most recent quarter of production. Silver equivalent production increased by 101% to 541,000 ounces. Silver production increased by 139% to 164,000 ounces. copper production increased by 68% to 1.1 million pounds, and gold production increased by 92% to 2,100 ounces. The full year production highlights are as follows. 842,000 silver equivalent ounces consisting of just over 245,000 ounces of silver, 3,400 ounces of gold, and 1.9 million pounds of copper. Also in the quarter, as I mentioned earlier, we continued with our plans to convert to dry stack tailings, a safer form of tailings management than the conventional wet tailings management process. The team in Durango made significant progress during Q4 on the facility which includes the infrastructure associated with transporting the dry stack tailings. The project is expected to be fully operational in the second half of this year and brings the company towards achieving the guidelines with the global industry standard on tailings management. We have posted a great time lapse video on our website that shows the construction of the tailings filter plant. So I encourage you to go to the video section on the website under the investor tab and watch it. On October 27th, 2021, we announced the acquisition of La Preciosa. As I touched on during the Q3 call, I have always believed the Aveeno and La Preciosa belonged under a common ownership, given the clear synergies and common infrastructure. La Preciosa is an excellent strategic fit within Aveeno's existing operations and further strengthens our presence in Durango by adding not only a large, high-quality silver development project with near-term production potential to our portfolio, but also increasing our mineral exploration concessions by more than sevenfold to over 7,000 hectares. We expect a large portion of the existing La Preciosa resource could be mined via underground to potentially improve Aveeno's production and organic growth profile. We expect the transaction to close in the current quarter. Looking at other junior comparable companies, this acquisition should elevate Aveeno within the silver sector. Our ESG initiatives continue to move forward as we incorporate principles of sustainability and social responsibility. During the fourth quarter, the company continued its training of local workforce at the mine. Additional ESG initiatives completed during the fourth quarter were as follows. Assisted the local schools, their Christmas parties, and supplied food and entertainment. Continued to support the communities of Zaragoza, Panuca de Coronado, and San Jose de Ovino in their waste dump cleanup efforts. Maintenance for local roads and town streets for Zaragoza and San Jose de Avino. Road maintenance within the communities, which include painting speed bumps, maintenance of cattle guards, and general cleanup. Current ESG initiatives include supporting the community of Panuca de Coronado with their project to extend the community cemetery. supporting the community of Zaragoza to extend the water line to areas that currently do not have this resource available. 600 meters of excavation taking approximately 25 hours. Taking a look at the metals and mining outlook for the year, it's clear that the recent invasion of Ukraine by Russia has been the main focus during the last couple of weeks and has made for a jittery market. We have seen the price of gold and silver climb and fall, with daily volatility being the norm. We continue to believe that the outlook for silver is positive. According to the World Silver Institute, the silver demand should see solid growth for 2022 onward, and they have also predicted that global supply demand could rise by 8% from 2021 to a record 1.1 billion ounces this year. The rise is expected to be driven by record silver industrial fabrication, which is forecast to rise by 5% as consumption increases in traditional and green technologies. Investment demand for physical silver bars and bullion coins is expected to jump 13% this year to a seven-year high. Demand for silver to be used in jewelry is expected to rise by 11%. Demand for silverware is forecast to climb by 21%. All this bodes well for the silver miners and their shareholders. The best leverage to silver is owning producers such as Aveeno. I will now ask Nathan Hart, Aveeno's Chief Financial Officer, to present the financial results for Q4 2021.