Resolute Mining Limited

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. This is Terry Houlihan, the Chief Executive of Resolute. I am joined today by Chris Egger, who's our CFO, and we'd like to take you through our performance over the first quarter of 2024. You'll be able to follow the presentation as I take you through. It should be on the webcast platform in front of you, but also the slides are fully available on our website. If I move to slide number two, that shows our disclaimer. I just want to highlight there that the guidance is there of 345,000 to 365,000 ounces for this year at a cost of between $1,300 and $1,400 per ounce. What will unfold going forward through this presentation that we are very comfortable with these numbers after what we think is a very comfortable and good performing Q1. As we move across to slide three, just to remind you who we are, we have the two gold mines in Siyama, Mali, and Mako in Senegal, and we're conducting exploration in both those two countries as well as Guinea, and we're very excited about the results that we're starting to achieve. If we move across to slide four, we produced 76,000 ounces, which is exactly where we expected to be given the sulphide plant shut that we performed. And I'll go into that in a bit more detail later. What is particularly pleasing is our all-in costs of 1487. Despite the lower production, we maintained it plus or minus where we were in last quarter at a much higher production rate. And this is because of the ongoing initiatives that we've put in place over the last year. And we do expect these costs to come down, as I alluded to with our guidance going forward. In terms of cash flow, we're now making really strong numbers. We're starting to see 62 million after the working capital changes, and that's put us in a very good position. And Chris will take us through those numbers in a bit more detail later. Capital expenditures all on track, and we're starting to hit our strides now for 2024 with all the projects that we've got going. On the exploration, what is really exciting is the Tomba and Koto mineral resource estimate that we put out where we've initially seen 400,000 ounces at inferred. grading about 1.2 gram a tonne, but it is fully open on depth and on strike. We're actually drilling as we speak right now. What is really exciting there is that all these results are within 100 metres and eyeballing the models, the strip ratios are looking particularly good. We will give you a further update later. In Guinea, we are drilling at the Mansala project and expect to produce an initial estimate in the second half of this year. The big news for us is, as we expected, our net cash is now growing. We are at 34 million at the end of this quarter compared to 14 million at year end. We have now paid the final tranche on our term loan facility and we're actually unhedged going forward, which is very exciting. Cash and bullion at the end of the quarter, 81 million, as we expected, compared to 75 at the end of the previous quarter. In terms of ESG, we're now LTI-free for 2.6 years. This is from our MACO site, whereas, as I've told you before, Siyama, we're comfortably over five and a half years now, lost-time injury-free. And it says here we have no significant environmental incidents, regulatory, we've got no non-compliances going all the way back to 2020. So we're really proud of our stats as we present them here today. Moving to slide five, we show our near-term and medium to long-term growth. We believe we're now fully on track to take this company all the way to 500,000 ounces within the next five years. The main areas of organic growth that we're focusing on is initially the phase one sulfide conversion, where we're converting the oxide plant to be able to treat sulfide. That will take us to 250,000 ounces plus at Sea Armour by the middle of next year. We're working closely now with the Maiko Mine Life Extensions, where we've got the three satellite projects with Tombow now significantly progressing. We've kicked off the studies for the Phase 2 Seama expansion, which will take the Seama operation up to 400,000 ounces or more. And with the studies commencing now, we expect to give you an update on that in the second half of this year. Also with Guinea, we are starting to hit metal there and we expect to have, as I mentioned previously, our first or initial mineral resource estimate by the second half of this year. Moving to slide seven, let's go into a bit more detail on SIAMA. I'll talk initially about the sulphide operation, where we noted the mine grade has come up slightly. We're now very confident that throughout the year we can achieve our originally planned grades of over 2.6 gram a tonne. Moving on to the sulphide plant, as I mentioned, we took the plant offline for two weeks. This was to do some significant maintenance on the plant, given that we did the major overhaul two years ago. We stripped out the mills right back down to the backing plate so we can clean them out and refurbish them to give them five years life going forward. We took off the roaster plant to check everything was 100% correct there. We did a few ancillary improvements and we got the plant back online during February 2021. Last week, Chief Operating Officer Jeff and myself went to visit site to have a look at all the improvements that were made right through the crushing plant. If you remember, we've been talking about the crushing plant for a year. That is completely de-bottlenecked now. So all the focus now is on the mills. Over the shut, we took the mills offline, as I mentioned, and we're happy now slowly inching up the throughput through those mills. So we're really excited about that plant. It's going to perform slightly above target, we believe, for this year. Moving over to the oxide operations, in terms of tons mined, we had some delays on the PaySans pit. We've corrected those now and we'll catch up that material that was deferred from Q1. We'll mine it over Q2 and start processing it over to Q2. We lost about 1,000 ounces there, but we will recover that later down the track. Instead, we did use a lot of our stockpile material. Just for information, we do have over 2.4 million tons of stocks at 1.3 gram a ton, and we are planning this year to be processing a lot of that. If we look at the oxide recoveries, We maintained our 85%, but as I mentioned, our gold poured is about 1,000 ounces down for the quarter, but we will recover that later when we get the Paysans material back into the plant. So in summary, we're very comfortable with the Sayama operations going forward. If you remember, we've got a range of 205,000 to 215,000 ounces. We think we're going to hit that somewhere in the middle. And if you look at the cost there at 1418,000, dollars per ounce, we think that's very aggressive already, given that our range here that we set was 1400 to 1500. So I think with all the initiatives still on the go in terms of cost at SIAMA, we should see some exciting numbers towards the end of the year on cost. Moving on to slide eight, On the Mako operational highlights, we had a very good quarter, as expected. Tons mined is good. Mine grade is starting to creep up now, and we expect that towards the middle of the year to start going over to 2 grams a tonne, and end the year on 2.3 grams a tonne, which will just ramp up the ounces produced from this operation. On the processing side, you can see we're up on tonnes, and that was because of all the work that's been done over this last year. with the mill slicer and the crushing stages, focusing on crushing. And also it's very interesting to note that our recovery now is stabilizing at 93%, given we put the oxygen plant in at the end of last year. If you look at the Mako costs, 1451, That is as expected, but if you remember our guidance, given the grade's going to come up for the rest of the year, we are comfortable we're going to be somewhere between the $1,100 and $1,200 per ounce produced, given that all that large strip that we've done over Stage 7 has been completed, and we're now starting to park up some of the equipment. So we're comfortable with the 140,000 to 150,000 ounces that we'll produce out of Mako this year at a very, very good price. Moving on to slide 9, it shows our Senegal exploration. As I mentioned, we've got three satellite projects we're very keen to develop over this next two years. Tombrancoto, as I mentioned, we put out a mineral resource estimate. We've got three drills now turning, and we're locating another drill for the next one, which is the Bantaco project. Chris was actually on site last week and he came back after talking to the geologists and explained that we're really excited about the drill results that are coming out there with those drills turning at the moment and we will be publishing a new mineral resource update in H2F24. We've also given the mineralization that we can see there. We've already started our mining studies with a view to support an open pit mining operation out there. And what is particularly pleasing is the strip ratios there look very, very good, given that this is a surface deposit. On slide 10, on the Guinea, as I mentioned, we do have drillings happening at this point in time there. We have five properties on the Seguri Basin. We did recognize some mineralization last year, and we're doing the infilling as we speak right now. We will also have a result of the mineral resource estimate, and we will publish that in the second half of this year. So again, this is another exciting area for us to be focusing on. With that, I'm going to hand over to Chris, and he's going to take us through a bit more detail on the financials.

Thank you, Terry. Now moving to slide 12. So we had a very strong quarter with 76,000 ounces of gold production. However, we only sold 69,000 ounces. As some of you may remember, the quarter ended on the Easter holiday weekend. And so the banks with their closed days, we had a lot of trouble selling the gold. And that's why there was significant difference between what was sold versus produced. Also worth noting that in the quarter, the average sales price was $1,950 versus was actually achieved in the market of $2,070. This negative impact was a result of the remaining hedges that are now completely extinguished, and we are now fully unhedged as a business, which we're very excited about. Also, as Terry highlighted, our all-sustaining cost came in at $1,487, which is pretty much in line with our previous quarter. We're very pleased with this number as it really is showing our cost initiatives working through the system because of the lower production in ounces this quarter over next. CapEx came in at $25 million, which was an increase over last year. As you remember from our guidance, we expect CapEx to be between $115 and $145 million for the whole entire year. And so we're expecting CapEx to increase in Q2, Q3, and Q4. mostly as a result of the expansion project spent coming through in the remaining quarters. And finally, on operating cash flow, we were very pleased with the quarter that we achieved a $53 million operating cash flow versus $39 million from the previous quarter. Again, this is a result of the strong ounces that we've produced and at the lower cost profile. And we expect operating cash flow to continually increase throughout the year. So moving to slide 13, we remain really excited about the cash flow generation of this business as was attributed in the first quarter with net cash increasing to $34 million from $14 million at the end of last year. So this strong cash flow generation was achieved obviously because of the strong operating cash flow as you can see. We're also making significant strides in monetizing our working capital, driving inventory down, extending payable terms, and being a lot more efficient in the quarter that resulted in close to $9 million of savings. And we also expect that number to increase. So again, for the full year, we're expecting to generate substantial cash, ideally well over $100 million of free cash flow that will be used for future growth profiles. What was also very exciting in Q1 is that we repaid our final tranche of our term loan facility of $25 million, and we are now fully on hedge. So within our, call it banking facilities, we have a number of overdraft facilities, which we use to manage working capitals in both Mali and Senegal, and we'll continue to do so. But we currently have no senior facilities in place at this time. That being said, we are working on putting in a possible new facility in place, and we'll provide announcements in due course. So at the end of the quarter, we had available liquidity of $81 million, which included cash of $46 million and bullying of $35 million. So we remain well on track to hit our guidance for the year, both in production, ASICs, and CapEx. And with that, I'll turn it back over to Terry.

Thanks, Chris. So I think in conclusion, we think we are in a very, very good position now as a company. We're already on a growth path, which we've put a lot of work into, and we've got the free cash flow now generating from the operations to be able to fund that. So our focus going forward is on organic growth, the assets, as well as productivity and cost improvements. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question at this time, please signal by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you find that your question has already been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star 2. Please make sure the mute function on your phone is switched off to allow the signal to reach our equipment. Again, it is star 1 to ask a question over the phone. Our first question comes from Justin Chan from SCP Reserve Finance. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Hi, Chris. Hi, Terry. Congrats on a good quarter. Just maybe my first question is on just operating cash flow and reconciling that with cash costs. So if I take your gold price received in 1950 and subtract 1418 cash costs, I get about 530 an ounce margin times times either 76,000 ounces produced or 69 sold, I get roughly 36 to 40 million of margin. And I'm just trying to reconcile that with 53 of all printing cash. Were there any rebates or other items that I've kind of mentioned from the CalCorp? Just trying to make the financials, why not, given that we don't have a full quarterly balance sheet, et cetera.

Yeah, hi, Justin. It's Chris here. Look, there will be a number of non-cash approvals that make its way into the ASIC number, and that's where you'll see some discrepancies. But I'll need to come offline and give you a bit more reconciliation. I don't have the full numbers in front of me, but that's usually what that difference is.

Okay, thanks. That's really helpful. And then I'm just curious on I guess the second quarter and the mine plan. So, Marco, I noted that you expect grades to come up to 2.3 for the rest of the year, and then Siam will be better as well. I'm just curious how much of that improvement should we expect in Q2 as opposed to the second half?

Yeah, if you look at Q2 MACO, we expect that when we did about $28,000 in Q1, we expect another 10 on top of that now, this next quarter. And then Q3 will be a higher one. We think about 42 and then it'll come down about 37 for Q4. So really Q3 is going to be the peak quarter for MACO. That's when we get through to the really high-grading tool in stage seven.

Gotcha. And then at SIAMA, I guess, what are your expectations or just maybe could you give some guidance on the profile for the rest of the year? At SIAMA, yeah, we did about just under 35 now.

We're expecting 38 to 39 in Q2, Q3. from the sulfides and about 42 from the sulfides in Q4. On the oxides, we did close to 14. We'll probably do the same in Q2. We dipped down a little bit in Q3. You know, the rain does affect us. Just getting the material through the processing plant, come down about 11 and a half, then back up to sort of 14, 15 in Q4. So if you look at our profile, we're looking at, you know, 76, 90, 92, 96. So it's sort of ramping up consistently through the year. And what will happen is might kind of balance out the oxides in Q3.

Gotcha. Thanks very much for that. And then just maybe a last one, similar, same question, but on CapEx. Clearly, it takes some time to ramp up and we're a little bit below the guidance rate. Just curious, is that a fairly linear ramp up through the year or a little bit less in Q3 because of the rainy season? Just wondering.

It'll be pretty linear. It's going to keep ramping up because the expansion spend is going to start really building. The civil works are happening now, so we're going to see a much bigger Q2 capex spend, and it's going to continue to grow. So we think we will be right in the middle of that total guidance number.

Okay, got you. Thanks a lot, Chris. I'll free up the line, but thanks very much, and congratulations on a really cash flow quarter. Thanks, Justin.

Rach, Spencer, Canaccord, please go ahead.

Thanks, Terry and Chris. Yeah, echoing the prior call, a great quarter. Could you see things starting to hum? I was just wondering if you could, I might have missed it, so apologies, but if you could just maybe expand on those scheduling complications you had at the Oxfam.

Yeah, we had a few equipment problems. We had some discussions with the locals there. It's particularly hot and dry in this time of the year. I don't know if you've been watching temperatures in Siam. We've been up to 48 degrees. And it's been difficult to wet the roads, et cetera. So we've had some few discussions with the people. Everybody's excited about the project. But we actually backed off a little bit and then discussed it a bit more with them. Picked up a few things on the roads, et cetera, and everybody's happy again now. So we're ready to go forward. But we did have some renegotiation on equipment, et cetera, and we had a couple of downs on equipment. So it's a couple of things that were all piled in together, but it's all sorted out now. Everybody's happy.

Okay, good. Happy's good. Happy's really good. Okay, that's good to hear. And just on the, at MACCO, you talk about a high strip as you're getting to high-grade material, and maybe one for Chris, but are you able to quantify perhaps how much of that strip was capitalised?

Yes, I think there is in the press release, so I'm trying to dig through it, a breakout of the sustaining versus non-sustaining CapEx. But bear with me one second. If not, let me come back to you on it just so I don't hold up the line. But I will give back to you on the difference between what was sustaining and not sustaining from back up. It would have been several million dollars. Yeah, no problem.

Thanks, Chris. Okay, no problem. In Guinea, you talked about an initial resource there at Masala. I know you haven't been able to talk too much about what you think you might have there. And I think last quarter I might have asked you what your resource expectations were. I think you wanted to see a little bit more drilling under the belt first. But what are we expecting in Guinea? Because if we have a look at your long-term production growth chart and shooting for 500,000 ounces within five years. And if I look at your colon chart there, there's not an insignificant chunk of production potentially coming out of Guinea. Are you in a position to be able to give us a bit of a clue as to what it is that you think you've got there and how big it could be and what it might lead to?

I've got to be careful just to say that we are actually modelling it now on the computer. We're looking at our initial resource estimate as we speak and we should have that on the model completed within two weeks or so. The drilling is there. We're drilling over a kilometre. We've done some geophys there, but it looks like it bifurcates, it splits at the top. So there should be maybe one and a half, maybe two kilometres of strikes close to surface. So I just don't want to come out with any numbers now, but I think you won't have to wait too long, Reg. I'm sorry. But we're excited about it.

That's okay. Thanks, Terry. And I'm sure you know how to do. I could be a little impatient with exciting things like that. Look, just a last question. It just relates to Marley. You know, obviously, we all know that there's been a little bit of negative press recently with respect to what's going on at Lula, Gudikoto and Barron. Are you able to perhaps comment on that, just to give us a little bit of comfort that you guys are sitting okay?

Yeah, everything's fine. As I mentioned on the call, Jeff and I were there last week. We're in the city there in Bamako. We're out on site. It's calm, it's quiet. I think the good thing is that all the noise with us on the code all died down at the end of last year. We're getting a lot of government support now, given the fact that they understand our investment thesis over the next five years. They're very, very supportive of that. So we feel we're in a very good position. And, you know, in terms of security, we don't see any risks. So you know where we are. We're in sort of the southeast corner, very close to Cote d'Ivoire. It's a very, very quiet area, and it remains that way. So we're very comfortable where we are at this stage.

Hey, Reg, it's Chris here. Just wanted to highlight, I found the number for you at MACO of the 5.8 million of total capital, 4.7 of million related to capitalized waste at stage seven.

Excellent. Thanks, Chris. And yeah, thanks, Terry. Thanks, God. I'll pass it on. Great quarter. Thanks. Thanks, Reg.

As a reminder, to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one. The next question is from Cody Hayden from Berenberg. Please go ahead.

Good morning and congratulations on the strong set of results. Just a quick question from myself. Now that the final $25 million repayment has been on the terminal facility, leaving you unhedged, is the intention to remain unhedged going forward, or how should we think about that? Thank you.

Yeah, no, that's correct. We should remain unhedged. I think, look, we are strategically reviewing all options, and we have discussions about this at all board meetings, but I think the current position is that we remain unhedged. As I said, we're making good progress on cost, fully funded for growth expansions, and so it really doesn't make a lot of sense to hedge at this stage, and so that's the current status.

Understood. Thank you so much. Thank you. And is there another phone questions at this time? I would like to hand the call back over to Scott for any webcast questions. Over to you, Scott.

Thanks very much for that, Sergey. We've had a few questions that have been on the webcast. A number of them have already been mentioned on the conference call. First question is, please can ResLoot provide an update on future Ravenswood payments?

So maybe I'll take this one. So with the Ravenswood arrangement, there is a $50 million due in 2027, a note. So that's still planned for 2027. And then there's, I'm sorry, those are Australian dollars. There's also a possible $50 million Australian dollars payable Once the Ravenswood mine produces 500,000 ounces, we think that may happen in Q2 of this year. And so we have a possible payable from Ravenswood of $50 million Australian dollars due to us in Q2 this year. And look, we'll provide updates to the market as that payable becomes due and gets paid. Okay.

Thank you for that. Any comments on the political situation in Mali and engaging with the Mali government?

I think there's nothing from our point of view that's affecting us at this stage. As you know, there's a mandate gone out there from the government saying that we shouldn't have any political discussions. We still think we're still waiting in terms of the government to understand where they are with the elections. They did say they would still consider elections. They haven't given us a timeline at this stage. They're still in negotiations with ECOWAS, whether they're going to rejoin that group or not, we're unsure. But with our dealings with the Minister of Mines and the Minister of Finance, it's all quiet from our point of view.

So we've got no further questions at the moment. Terry, if I can hand back to you for any closing remarks.

I'd just like to thank everybody for their attention today. I know it's a busy time and we look forward to reporting again in Q2, which we're already into, but we're very excited on the progress we're making. Thank you very much.