Gold Resource Corporation

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to Gold Resource Corporation's third quarter 2021 conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the prepared remarks, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. If you have any questions or comments, please press star 1 to join the queue. I would now like to turn the conference over to Anne Wilkinson, Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Affairs. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Kate, and good morning, everyone. On behalf of the Gold Resource Team, I would like to welcome everyone to our conference call covering our third quarter 2021 results. Before we begin the call, there are certain housekeeping matters I would like to cover. Please note that certain statements to be made today by the management team are forward-looking in nature. and as such are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties as described in our quarterly report on Form 10Q and other SEC filings. On the call today, we have Alan Palmier, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kim Perry, Chief Financial Officer, and Alberto Reyes, Chief Operating Officer. Following Alan and Kim's prepared remarks, all three will be available to answer your questions. This conference call is being webcast. For those of you joining us on the webcast, you can download a PDF copy of the conference call slides from the Materials tab under the Ask a Question tab. The event will also be available for replay on our website later today. Yesterday's news release issued following the close of the market and the accompanying financial statements and MD&A contained in our 10Q have been filed with the SEC on EDGAR and are available on our website at www.goldresourcecorp.com. Also, please note that all amounts mentioned in this call are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated. I will now turn the call over to Alan.

Thank you, Alan, and good morning, everyone. I want to thank the listeners for taking the time to join us on this call. Following my opening remarks concerning our Don David Goldmine, Kim Perry, our CFO, will describe our financial results. I will then provide to you our thinking on the timelines relating to the permitting and development of the Back 40 project, the principal asset we are acquiring as part of the acquisition of Aquila, followed by a few other closing remarks, and then we will take your questions. With the intention of delivering excellence and sustainability, Our team holds itself accountable to the highest environmental, social, and governance standards, which allows us to deliver benefits to all our stakeholders, including our employees and local communities. As part of our sustainability report issued September 24th, we showed significant progress in 2020 over 2019, including a 23% decline in tons of CO2 equivalent produced per ton of ore processed, a 15% decline in the fresh water withdrawn and a 31% decline in the fresh water consumed, both per tonne of ore processed. And finally, we increased the percentage of tailings recycled through the paste plant to 26% from 5.7%. The decline in tonnes of CO2 equivalent produced is largely due to the conversion to the electrical grid from using diesel gensets to generate electricity. We are focused on identifying additional opportunities to lower our power consumption and improve efficiency. The declines in water consumption were due to the installation of the paste tailings plant as water is recycled back to the processing plant from this process. As I indicated, I will provide some color on our plans for the Back Forty project, Aquila's principal asset, in my closing remarks. But I will note here that we've negotiated the arrangement agreement with AQUILA. The meeting materials for the special meeting of shareholders of AQUILA have been mailed and we look forward to the AQUILA shareholder vote on the acquisition to be held November 17th of this year. Working safely continues to underpin all that we do with our goal of developing a zero harm workplace for our employees, the environment and our local communities. As we noted previously, during the first half of the year, we initiated a global health and safety directive with an objective to lower first aid, medical aid, lost time accidents, and near misses. This program builds on the safety protocols already in place and provides our personnel with a common approach to achieving our safety objectives. On the right-hand side of this slide, you can see the 12 golden rules developed as part of the program. More recently, our safety program objectives have been focused on identification and monitoring of leading indicators of a safe workplace, such as leadership in the field, regular and consistent risk assessment, behavioral observations, training records, and department safety meetings. On our investments in infrastructure, construction of the water filtration plant and dry stack tailings facilities is 95% complete. Dry stack facilities will conserve water, accelerate reclamation of certain areas of the old open pit mine, as well as extend the life of tailing storage facilities, supporting our objectives of delivering excellence in sustainability. As we indicated previously, we are undertaking a comprehensive review of our geological database. Our geological interpretation of the mineralization, the block models derived from them, and ultimately the mine production models. The key objective of this initiative is to ensure reliable mine planning and forecasting. In addition, mining methods and ground control methods are being reviewed. During the first half of 2021, changes to the mine plan were made to allow management to put into effect more effective ground support measures in the switchback area of our underground mines. Accordingly, we changed our mining approach to ensure stability and to reduce dilution. During the third quarter, mining resumed in the Soledad vein of switchback, which improved our mining productivity due to wider mining widths at higher ore grades. We completed 10 holes totaling 3,800 meters in our underground drill program, as well as 38 infill and definition holes for another 3,800 meters in our arista and switchback areas. The results of drilling have confirmed mineralization below current mining levels in the southeastern switchback zone, particularly the presence of high-grade gold, silver, and zinc, which will enable us to advance development planning below current mine limits. There is excellent potential to add precious metal-bearing mineralization that is amenable to mining in the short term. Our geologists continue to focus on exploring new areas and identifying additional mineralization along strike as well as up and down dip of the current mine workings. Turning to the third quarter results of operations, I'm pleased to report that we sold approximately 5,800 ounces of gold, 255,000 ounces of silver, 270 tons of copper, over 1,500 tons of lead, and 3,100 tons of zinc. During the third quarter, we processed ore at an average rate of 1,350 tons per day compared with 1,700 tons per day in Q3 2020 due to the 12-day shutdown induced by our COVID outbreak and the related impact of enhanced safety and quarantine protocols. For the first nine months, we've averaged 1500 tons per day consistent with our mine plan, despite the disruptions earlier in the year with ground control and in August and September with cold. During the third quarter, the majority of the ore process came from the Arista underground with an average gold grade of 2.7 grams per ton and silver grade of 91 grams per ton. 114% and 20% higher respectively consistent with mine sequencing and the current year mine plan. Overall, base metal grades are consistent year over year and in line with the mine plan. With that, I'll turn the call over to Kim to discuss our financial results.