SSR Mining Inc.

hello everyone and welcome to ssr mining's fourth quarter and full year 2023 financial results conference call this call is being recorded at this time for opening remarks and introductions i would like to turn the call over to alex huncheck from ssr mining please go ahead thank you operator and hello everyone thank you for joining today's conference call

during which you'll provide an update on the Chopler incident, as well as a brief review of our fourth quarter and full-year financial results. Our 2023 Consultative Financial Statements have been presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP. These financial statements have been filed on EDGAR, CDAR, the ASX, and are also available on our website. To accompany our call, there is an online webcast, and you will find the information to access the webcast in our news release related to this call. Please note that all figures discussed during the call are in US dollars unless otherwise indicated. Today's discussion will include forward-looking statements, so please read the disclosures in the relevant documents. Additionally, we will refer to non-GAAP financial measures during our discussion and in the accompanying slides. Please see our press release for information about the comparable GAAP measures. Rod Antle, Executive Chairman, will lead today's call. I will now turn the line over to Rod for his opening remarks. Thank you, Alex.

I'm going to speak to the ongoing situation at Cherfla. Firstly, I want to pass on our deepest sympathies and condolences to the families, friends, colleagues and communities of the nine personnel who remain missing. This is an incredibly difficult time for everyone who has been impacted by the incident. and we're still processing this tragic loss. It will be for some time. In a sign of respect, I would like to take a moment of silence. Thank you. I'm sure you can appreciate that the situation at Chirpah is dynamic And while I will provide some detail today, there are many more questions you may have that I'm not able to answer at this time. I would appreciate your understanding during the Q&A. The focus of the discussion today will be on the incident itself and the activities and priorities of Chirpeler at this time. So let's walk through the facts as they currently stand. At approximately 6.30 a.m. Eastern Time on the 13th of February, a significant slip occurred from the heat fledge pad with an estimated 18 to 20 million tons sliding into the Suburli Valley and the Manganese Pit. All operations at Chirpa were immediately suspended. It was confirmed that nine personnel were unaccounted for once the confirmatory headcounts were completed in the hours following the incident. Immediate efforts were focused on safely conducting search and rescue. Various government agencies were immediately deployed to Chirplla, including the search and rescue teams. Instead, we have been supporting the activities at site under the direction of the various government agencies. I would like to recognise and thank the Turkish authorities for the rapid response and overwhelming support today. Rather than repeat all the details contained in the press releases that are available on our website, let me summarise the current situation and focus at Chirpler. The immediate focus was on the search and rescue efforts. This was initially suspended due to the instability of the heat bleach pad, but efforts to locate the personnel have since resumed. Our priority is to safely recover and return our people to their families. In addition, efforts have been focused on three other areas. First, to agree on and initiate a plan to stabilise the heat bleach pad allowing work to safely continue on the recovery of our missing people. Initial work began on February 23 to stabilise portions of the heat bleach pad and extensive monitoring is taking place using drones and radar. The work to determine the final overall plan and approach to stabilise the pad including the use of remote equipment, is continuing to advance. The second priority has been on the containment of the Suburly Creek area. In this regard, the containment pond was immediately constructed and the installation of a concrete curtain at the bottom of the valley is underway. Water diversion systems at the top of the Suburly Valley are also underway. The Turkish Government is conducting environmental monitoring of surface water, groundwater, soil and air quality in the region. Public comments from the Turkish Government to date indicate that test results have been negative with respect to potential contamination in the locations being monitored. These results are preliminary and additional testing will continue. Finally in number three is the ongoing discussion with the various government ministries to determine the permanent storage location for the heap leach material. Moving on to just a few other facts. As a result of the incident, the Chirpler EIA has been revoked. Six personnel are being detained and are facing charges in relation to the incident and we're ensuring they receive the necessary support while respecting the Turkish legal process. Investigations led by the Turkish government are underway to determine the causal factors leading to the slip. We expect this to take some time to complete and until then have no further comments to make. As we look ahead, we continue to work closely with government officials and regulators and will update the market as facts present themselves moving forward. With respect to our financial results, given a lot of the information was pre-released with the technical reports on the 13th of February, I intend only to highlight a couple of key points. First, the business ended 2023 with a strong liquidity position with total cash of $492 million, no near-term debt maturities and continued cash flow generation from our three other operations. Looking forward, the Churba incident will have an impact on our financial results in 2024. We continue to evaluate and assess these potential impacts as laid out in today's 10K filings. In the first quarter of 24, and as noted in the 10K, we anticipate recording an impairment of the heap leach inventory directly impacted by the Chirpeler incident, and we'll also evaluate the Chirpeler long-lived asset group for any additional impairments. Given the uncertainty surrounding these items, we are taking some steps to preserve our cash position until we have more fidelity around the forward-looking cash requirements of the business. As a result, we have suspended our quarterly dividend and automatic share purchase plan we put in place last year. Given our focus is on Turkiat, is on Sherpa, we've also temporarily placed further investment at Hot Madden on hold at this time. We will revisit the timeline and approach in due course. This has obviously been a very difficult time for everyone impacted by the events of February 13, and we are doing everything we can to support our colleagues and the various stakeholders on the ground in Turkey. Clearly, we are in a period of some uncertainty, and there is no doubt that we have some challenges ahead as we focus on the recovery efforts at Chirklow. In the meantime, operations are continuing at Marigold, Seabee and Coonah. As I turn the line back to the operator for any questions, I will again note that I will keep the discussions on the incident to my prepared remarks That said, we will do our utmost to answer questions related to the 2023 operating and financial results of the other properties. So operator, please go ahead with questions.

Thank you, Mr. Antal. We will now begin the question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. The first question comes from Don DeMarco with National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, Rod and team. First, my condolences to everyone with the company, and in particular the missing personnel and their families and colleagues. Now, Rod, I don't want to overstep what your intentions were for this call, but maybe if you could just clarify, did you want no questions on the Tripler incident, or am I able to ask a few questions to get additional color on some of the points that you made?

You can ask questions. Just be respectful to the fact that the incident is only two weeks old. Clearly, we're focused on those areas that I mentioned in the call, but I'll do my best to answer anything else.

Thank you. Is there any chance that the slip... Could you talk about your insurance? Is it the potential that the slip might be insured?

As normal calls, we have notified our insurers... of this slip, and I will continue to work with them in the ordinary course as the final investigations and facts come to hand. But at this stage, I've been notified.

Okay. And so as you described, one of the big efforts right now is in containing the extent of the contamination. a big earthworks process underway. Do you have any sense about the cost per tonne to move the material? And is the material accessible or is there parts where some of the slipped heat might be difficult to reach given steep slopes and other factors?

Yeah, at this stage, Don, there's really no fidelity around the numbers. I'll just tell you what the areas of focus are. for us is we continue to work actively on the heap leach pad stabilisation. That's really the key priority so we can continue with those efforts to recover the missing people to return to their families. The containment area around the Suburli Valley in particular is well advanced, as I mentioned. and we'll continue until we've finished that work. And then really the last piece around the discussions with the various government authorities around the final area for the material to be placed is really only just got underway, so too early to put any more colour on that.

Okay, fair enough. And then maybe just as a final question, in the release this afternoon, it mentioned that there's a potential impairment charge in Q1, and it stated $73 million, and it referenced that that makes up 19% of the Chirpler total gold inventory. I just want to clarify, does that represent 19% of the heap leach gold inventory or the total heap leach and sulfide gold inventory?

It is the total of both the oxides and sulfides, Don. It's all the imagery at Sherpa. And the amount that we're referring to is the off-sites.

Okay. Thank you for that. And once again, my condolences to the SSRM team and everyone involved. Put it back to the operator.

We appreciate that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Don.

This concludes the question and answer session. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Antal for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you, operator. And again, thank you all for joining us. And goodbye for now.

This concludes the conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.