Avino Silver & Gold Mines Ltd.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Aveeno Silver and Gold Mines second quarter 2023 conference call and webcast. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there'll 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, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Avino Silver and Goldmine Limited Second Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call and Webcast. To join this webcast and call, there is a link in our news release dated August 3rd and in our news release of yesterday's date, which can be found on our website under News 2023. As well, you may find a link under the Investors tab, then click on Events, and you will see the link at the top of the page. 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, 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 related to this call or on our press release of yesterday's date. Please note that the full financial statements in MD&A are now available on our website under the Investors tab, then click on Financial Statements. As well, the full statements are available on Avino's profile on CDAR and on EDBAR. 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 hand over the call to Aveeno's President and CEO, David Wolfen. David?

Thanks, Jen. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Aveeno's Q2 2023 Financial Results Conference Call and Webcast. Please note that the full financial statements and MD&A are now available on our website. Also note that all figures are stated in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. On today's call, we will cover the highlights of the second quarter financial and operating performance, and in addition, we will go over the work that we are currently performing, and then we will open it up for questions. I will begin with the a discussion on operations for Q2, and then I will turn it over to Nathan Hart, Aveeno CFO, to discuss the financial performance for the second quarter, and Jennifer North, our Head of Investor Relations, for an overview of Q2 ESG initiatives. Turning to slide five, I will go over the second quarter highlights, which include the following. Avino achieved production results of just over 587,000 silver equivalent ounces, which was a slight decrease of 10% when compared to Q2 2022. The Avino mine continues to provide stable production results, although it was impacted by mining in lower-grade areas and equipment delivery delays, which are now behind us. the time to implement upgrades to the haulage ramp that have since allowed us to increase haulage rates. Just subsequent to the quarter, we announced the best drill intercept in company history. We released results of three drill holes from below level 17, the deepest workings of the Aveeno mine. Drill hole ET 2309 shows 57 meters true width of mineralization. The mineralized intercept is exceptionally wide and has very high silver, gold, and copper grades. We were thrilled by these results and the Q2 drill results from May of this year, which included 10 holes from below level 17. The drilling demonstrated that the Aveeno mine continues to get better as we explore at depth. I will expand further on the exploration program later in the call. Also during the quarter, the metallurgical testing was completed on the oxide tailings project, and the pre-feasibility study is now underway. I will go over this information a bit later in the presentation. The dry stack tailings facility is completed and operational, and during the quarter, the conveyor system is currently transporting the pressed dry tailings to the Aveeno open pit area. At La Preciosa, the company continues with It's community engagement in nearby towns adjacent to the property. We are fully committed to moving this project forward as it factors in prominently into our five-year growth plan. Here on slide six, we show our Q2 production results. As mentioned earlier, the production results from the Avino mine were stable. The production results were announced on July 20th and the news release can be found on our website. Highlights are as follows and are compared to production results from Q1 2022. Silver equivalent production decreased 10% to 587,000 ounces. Silver production increased by 3% to 232,000 ounces. Copper production decreased by 12% to 1.45 million pounds. Gold production increased by 13% to 1,000 520 ounces. Mill throughput increased by 33% to just over 157,000 tons. We expect production to catch up to our internal guidance in the second half of the year as we continue our clear path to transformational growth. Our five year growth plan takes us from production levels of 2.8 to 3 million ounces of silver equivalent to between eight and 10 million ounces of silvery equivalent by 2028. Turning to slide seven, I will now touch on the exploration results and ongoing program. During the quarter, we focused on further drilling below level 17 at the ET area of the Avena Mine. 8,000 meters of drilling is planned for the full year, and during the second quarter, 3,075 meters were drilled, bringing the total end of the first half of 2023 to 7,100 meters. We released results on May 23rd that included 10 drill holes from below level 17, and on July 5th, which was just subsequent to the end of the quarter, we released a further three holes. Results from May indicate that the Aveeno vein was extended a further 500 meters and that the extent of the vein has been established to be at least 1,100 meters down dip from surface outcrop. In addition, a previously undiscovered breccia vein was intersected approximately 15 to 30 meters in the footwall intrusive rocks, which was very high grade. The full intercepts and drill data can be viewed in the news release, which is on our website. Moving on to slide eight, the title says it all. Aveeno drills the best intercept in company history. On July 5th, we released a further three holes and one of the intercepts drill hole ET2309 showed 57 meters true width mineralization and is a step out of 50 meters to the west of Aveeno's most westerly drill hole at 200 meters down dip below level 17. The whole assayed 296 silver equivalent grams over 57 meters of true width, including 407 silver equivalent grams over 37 meters of true width, and 2,866 silver equivalent grams over 3.43 meters of true width. There are two images on the slide. The one at the top is a longitudinal view of the abino veins showing the drill hole locations and the projection of the mineralization in red. And the lower image is a cross section of the above mentioned hole ET23 and the down dip extension from the current mine workings. The exceptionally wide and very high grade silver, gold, and copper grades are extremely encouraging for continued exploration of the Aveeno vein and associated stock work in Breccia at depth and suggests a much more complex mineralization system. We are still open a long strike and at depth. Aveeno has enlisted several world-renowned structural geologists to contribute to the geological theory to help understand the structural controls of the Aveeno vein. Turning to slide 9 now, on April 5th, we announced the results of our comprehensive metallurgical program on the oxide tailings project. I know that we went over this on our Q1 call. However, the oxide tailings project forms part of our growth story, so I feel it's important to briefly touch on the results again. The results were favorable. with up to 90% recovery on the ancient oxides for both gold and silver, as well as 86% and 83% recovery on gold and silver, respectively, for the more recent oxide material. Both the ancient and recent oxide materials make up all the mineralized resource shown in the table here. This table also highlights the mineral resource growth from approximately 150 holes that were drilled during the mine closure, which also allowed us to move the project forward. You can see here the measured and indicated has grown by over 400%, providing us with a higher degree of confidence of the contained resource within the tailings deposits. At this time, I will now hand it over to Nathan Hart, Avino CFO, to continue with Avino Q2 financial results. Nathan?