SSR Mining Inc.

Hello everyone and welcome to SSR mining's fourth quarter and year end 2024 conference call. Please be advised that this call is being recorded. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and then zero. At this time, for opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to Alex Hunczek from SSR mining. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and hello everyone. Thank you for joining today's conference call to discuss SSR mining's fourth quarter and full year financial results. Our consolidated financial statements have been presented in accordance with US GAAP. These financial statements have been filed on EDGAR, CDAR, the ASX, and are also available on our website. There is an online webcast accompanying this call, and you will find the information to access the webcast in this afternoon's news release and on our corporate website. 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 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 be joined by Michael Sparks, Chief Financial Officer, and Bill McNevin, EVP Operations and Sustainability on today's call. I will now turn the line over to Rod.

Rod, your line may be muted. Pardon me. This is the conference operator. Rod, your line may be muted.

Thanks, Alex. I want to start today's call by acknowledging that February 13 marked the one-year anniversary of the tragic incident at Cherokee. An emotional memorial service was held at site to reflect on the 9th anniversary of the tragic incident that left 9 lost colleagues. This incident has left an indelible mark on all of us here at SSR, and I want to acknowledge the hard work and dedication demonstrated by everyone across this entire organisation in 2024. We have made good progress at Cherokee, especially in recent months. Constructive discussions continue with the relevant Turkish authorities on a pathway to advance the restart of the operations. Bill will provide further update on the current activities at Cherokee later in the call. Now looking at our results for 2024, I'm pleased to report that we close the year on a strong note with solid operating results, a -over-year increase to our consolidated reserves, and a major strategic announcement with the acquisition of Cripple Creek and Victor Mine from Newmont. As a result, CCNV will increase our scale, free cash flow, and portfolio diversification, and we have made excellent progress on the integration planning since announcing the transaction in December. Our consolidated 2025 cost and production guidance, including CCNV, will be released shortly after the transaction closes in the coming weeks. Looking forward, and as we progress our efforts at Cherokee, we have several important priorities and catalysts on the horizon in 2025. These include the delivery of a technical report and updated life of mine plan for CCNV, advancing hot madden towards a construction decision, continued progress on an updated and extended life of mine for Kuna, including potential laybacks into chairs, and evaluation of a longer-term potential of cordaderas. Advancing the Buffalo Valley deposit at Marigold, which now hosts more than 500,000 ounces in its maiden reserve. Ongoing exploration activities across the portfolio as we evaluate other opportunities for mine life extension at each one of the operations, and most importantly continuing to advance Cherokee to a restart. I also want to highlight two significant milestones achieved by SSR team in 2024. At Marigold, we celebrated five million ounces of life of mine gold production from the asset on December 30, a huge accomplishment and a testament to the quality of the mine and the team. Additionally, Kuna produced 10.5 million ounces of silver in 2024, which was a record for the operation's 15 years life, and hitting the top end of its previously increased production guidance. We are proud of our team in Argentina for their efforts in building Kuna into one of the previous silver mines. Let's turn to slide four for discussion on the MRMR update. Our consolidated reserves totaled eight million gold equivalent ounces at the end of 2024, excluding any contributions from CCNV or Hot Madam. This was a 3% increase over 2023 after mine depletion, which is a strong result that showcases the success of our resource development drilling. Notably, Marigold's reserves increased 14% year over year, driven by the declaration of a ,000-ounce maiden reserve for Buffalo Valley, which will be a key life of mine extension opportunity for Marigold going forward. It is also worth noting that metal price changes were not a material driver in this reserve growth. Gold price assumptions at Chirpler and CB was unchanged from 2023, while Marigold and Kuna increased their metal price assumptions by just 3% over the prior year. Our gold equivalent resources, exclusive of reserves, were down just 1% year over year, despite the strong reserve conversion and unchanged metal price assumptions. Gold-only M&I resources increased 9% over 2023, driven in part by continued resource additions at CB. Further, the addition of both Hot Madam and CCNV will deliver meaningful reserve and resource growth in 2025, and we will continue advancing resource development activities across the portfolio as we strive to extend mine lives at each one of the producing assets. This includes the progress at Marigold's New Millennium and Buffalo Valley deposits, CB's Porky's Target and at Kuna the quarter-deris project. Now I'm going to hand the call over to Michael to discuss the quarter on slide number five.

Thanks, Rod, and good afternoon, everyone. The fourth quarter of 2024 was our strongest of the year, with 124,000 gold equivalent ounces produced at -in-sustaining costs of $18.57 per ounce. For the full year, we produced 399,000 gold equivalent ounces at AISC of $18.78 per ounce. Production of Marigold, CB and Kuna combined to produce 371,000 gold equivalent ounces in 2024 at an AISC of $15.42 per ounce. As a reminder, under U.S. GAAP, we do not adjust for care and maintenance costs incurred during the year, and the cash impact of these expenses are reflected in our AISC numbers. Excluding the approximately $178 per ounce of cash care and maintenance costs incurred at Cherpiller and CB in Q4, AISC for the quarter was $1,679 per ounce. For the full year, excluding care and maintenance costs, AISC was $16.99 per ounce. At Cherpiller, full year reclamation and remediation spend was $128 million. We also spent approximately $14 million advancing Hod Madden in the fourth quarter, bringing full year spend at the project to $42 million as we progressed engineering and preliminary site development activities. Lastly, as Rod mentioned, we had a good year at the drill bit in 2024 and look forward to continued advancement of these brown-filled opportunities in 2025. Moving to our financial results on slide six. We recorded a tributable net income of $0.03 per diluted share in the fourth quarter and adjusted net income of $0.10 per diluted share. Care and maintenance costs at Cherpiller and CB, which totaled $36 million in the fourth quarter, accounts for $0.18 per diluted share. Fourth quarter operating cash flow was $95 million and free cash flow was $56 million, a very strong result to close out 2024. We finished the year with $388 million in total cash, a net cash position of $158 million and total liquidity of approximately $890 million. With this existing liquidity and an outlook for continued free cash flow generation in 2025, we have closed the year in a strong position financially, and we are well positioned to manage remediation costs at Cherpiller as well as our reinvestment needs across the business. Furthermore, we expect CC&V will contribute immediate free cash flow to our business upon integration, enabling a rapid payback of the transaction's $100 million upfront consideration, particularly at these gold prices. Now over to Bill for slide eight.

Thanks, Michael. I will start with a brief update on Cherpiller. In the fourth quarter of 2024, we continued to advance reclamation and remediation activities at site, and we have now removed all of the displaced heap leach material from the Severley Valley. We are continuing discussions with Turkish government officials around the final remediation plan at Cherpiller. Positively, we continue to note public commentary from Turkish officials, affirming that there was no recordable contamination to local soil, water or air in the location sampled. Following the incident, we commissioned Kohl & Nicholas Inc. or CNI, an international mining consultant firm, to conduct an independent review of the Cherpiller heap leach failure. This was an important body of work for us as we sought to determine the cause of the Cherpiller incident. CNI determined the most likely cause of the Cherpiller incident was a deep-rooted flaw in the third-party engineering design of the heap leach pad, namely an overestimation of the shear strength properties of the liner system at the base of the heap leach. This error inflated the calculated factor of safety and resulted in insufficient shear strength along the liner interface to support the as-designed heap leach facility. CNI also determined that in all material aspects, the heap leach pad construction and operation was carried out in conformance with the issued for construction engineered design parameters, and that there was no substantiation that excess water, ground vibrations from blasting or stacking beyond the design caused the event. These outcomes provide clarity and understanding for our team on the ground as we seek to restart the Cherpiller mine, and we continue to work closely with relevant authorities on this front. As a reminder, we expect Cherpiller could be restarted within 20 days from the seed of the necessary permits, with initial operations consisting of processing a combination of stockpiled ore and ore mined from Chuck McTepay whilst the remediation work continues. Now let's move on to slide 8 for some commentary on Marigold. Marigold produced 60,000 ounces in the fourth quarter, its strongest period of the year, and marking 5 million ounces of total production over the mine's 35-year operating life. This is a significant milestone for any gold mine and is a clear testament to the quality of the people we have on the ground in Nevada.

For

the full year, Marigold produced 160,000 ounces, an ASIC of $1,711 per ounce, with costs reflecting increased royalty expenses given the current gold price, and also continued cost pressures with respect to OEM components. We expect these costs to remain elevated in 2025. As Rod noted in the MR update, we made some great progress with brownfield exploration and studies at Buffalo Valley, enabling the declaration of a 523,000 ounce made in mineral reserve at the deposit. We also delivered mineral resource growth at New Millennium and will continue to advance brownfield drilling activity at Marigold in 2025 to build on these positive outcomes. Now on to CB on slide 9. Operations restarted CB on October 11, and the mine closed the year with its strongest quarter of 2024, with production in 28,000 ounces at an ASIC of $1,214 per ounce. This strong production was driven by higher than expected head growth, which averaged 9.7 grams per tonne in the quarter. Thanks to the strong fourth quarter, CB finished the year above its previously revised production guidance with 79,000 ounces ASIC and an ASIC of $1,515 per ounce. The team continued evaluating the drilling at the Porky and Porky West targets in 2024, which helped deliver an 88% increase in measured and indicated mineral resources for CB. We're advancing further drilling and technical studies to better delineate the opportunity to potentially extend the operating life at CB through both additional mineralization at Santoy and a potential new development pathway at the Porky targets. Now on to Pooner. Pooner produced 3 million ounces of silver in the fourth quarter, driving record full year production of 10.5 million ounces of silver. This production meant the top end of Pooner's previously increased guidance, bringing a strong close to a truly exceptional year for the operation. Full year ASIC at Pooner was $15.56 per ounce, delivering significant free cash flow margins in the current silver price environment. We made good progress evaluating life extension opportunities at Pooner in 2024, including at both Chinchis Pit and Cotaderas target. We expect to be in a position to provide further updates on these initiatives within 2025 and are excited to be in a position to build on Pooner's recent success by delivering a longer mine life and continued economic benefits for our local stakeholders. Before I turn back to Rod, I would quickly speak to the Cripple Creek and Victor acquisition. I've personally overseen the integration process since we announced the transaction in December, and I'm confident we'll be in a position to realize significant value from CCMV right out of the gate. Our due diligence identified meaningful opportunities to build on the sizeable mineral reserves and resources that already exist at the asset. And we look forward to demonstrating other opportunities to deliver additional value from the asset in an updated life mine plan for CCMV within 2025. I'm thrilled to bring an asset and team of this caliber into our portfolio and look forward to discussing our long term plans for the mine in the near future. I'll turn back to Rod for closing remarks.

Thank you, Bill, and thanks, Michael. When I close this call at the end of the third quarter, I noted that we were looking forward to a strong close in 2024. I'm happy to say that we delivered on those expectations and we look forward to continuing this positive momentum by delivering a number of catalysts in 2025. With the CCMV transaction closing in the coming weeks, we have added another long lived and free cash flow generative asset to our portfolio. And we look forward to sharing our consolidated production and cost outlook for the company before the end of the quarter. At the same time, we continue to diligently advance towards a potential restart of operations at Chirpla. Chirpla is a meaningful contributor to the local and national economies in Turkey, and we are keen to return to operations while we continue the remediation and reclamation efforts in 2025 and beyond. I'm proud of the tremendous resilience of our teams and the business demonstrated in 2024. We have entered a new year with renewed optimism, and while we have a busy year ahead, we look forward to servicing value across all of our assets in 2025. So with that, I'm going to turn the call over to operator for questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ental. 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 are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. And to withdraw your question, please press star and then two. We will pause for a moment as callers join the queue. And your first question today will come from Ovez Habib with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Thanks, operator. Hi, Rod and SSR team. Just a couple of questions for me. Just starting off with CB. Obviously, I had a great quarter in 2024. Should we expect any sort of performance like this to continue into 2025?

Thanks

for the question. It was a great quarter. We obviously hit some very, very special grades. We continue to search and do further exploration in Santoy. Cannot expect those grades to continue each and every other every quarter, but we do expect to continue along that same vein year in, year out. But as you know, if you've been tracking CB, there's times where we hit some of that better grade and this quarter was definitely one of them.

Thanks for that, Bill. And just then moving to Chopra. Rod, just in terms of, you know, is there any sort of key information or study the regulators are waiting for before they make any sort of decision on moving forward with the restart of operations? Or was the recent findings of CNI enough for the regulators to make their decision to move forward?

Yeah, look, I think the simple way to think about it, Ovez, it's a package of work. If you think about in the year that we've had since the incident, we've made tremendous progress as we've been continually reporting all through 2024 and obviously now with our full year financials. And the priorities that we set ourselves and the aggressive timetable that we set ourselves to achieve what we've actually done in terms of, you know, control the site. Ensure we didn't have any environmental contamination to remediate and clear the Saburalee Valley, to make the site safe. Are all sort of precursors to a restart, as you would expect. Similarly, the CNI report itself obviously isn't a precursor, but it's important to understand as we're talking and working with the regulators. And the last few pieces are really around locking down and agreeing on what the closure plans will be. And that is in respect to the storage facility that Bill mentioned. So that's concluding now, as well as the final heap leach closure itself. So it's all been a package, if you like, as a progression to where we are today to get us into this place as we're looking forward to a restart. We've still got work to do as similarly as we always will. You know, remediation efforts will continue beyond even when Chirpler restarts, as we've talked about before, et cetera, et cetera. So restart doesn't necessarily mean there's not more work to be done. But I think as I think back to where we were this time last year, where clearly we're all shocked about what happened and to where we are now, we've come a long ways. And obviously we're working confidently with the regulators to seek a permission and permits to get restarted at Chirpler.

Thanks for that, Coler, Rod. And then just kind of number three on my end, you know, again, in terms of moving on to Hot Madden, does the commencement of the development of Hot Madden hinge anywhere on the restart of operations at Chirpler?

Yeah, I think the simple way to think about it, we might have talked about it before. You know, when we acquired our interest in Hot Madden, we did talk about the fact that we wanted to take the time to develop a plan. And when I say a plan, a technical study that represents our approach to developing the asset, you know, with the necessary detail around the execution plan, the necessary technical detail, particularly in the sort of, you know, years one, two, three, after you start the asset up to get a higher level of fidelity around what we expect in the asset in the initial years, because that's clearly where the payback is, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So that work's been working going on in the background and we're studiously working on all those components, exclusive of Chirpler. So that work will continue during this year until we're in such a stage where we can wrap all that up to basically redo the technical reports and then start the project financing discussions externally with the banks to bring Hot Madden into construction. So it's not hinged on Chirpler. And in fact, the work we've been doing and the way we've separated the teams and the efforts around the teams has set up to be mutually exclusive.

Perfect. Thanks for that. And then thanks for taking my questions, Rod. And looking forward to the guidance after the closing of CCNB.

Great. Thanks, Avaes. Appreciate it.

And your next question today will come from Cosmos2 with CIBC. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks, Rod and team. Maybe my first question is on Marigold. Good to see that you have declared an initial reserve at Buffalo Valley. Could you remind me in terms of how that slots into the production profile of Marigold?

Yeah, I'll let Bill answer the question. But I think what's important for most people to take away from the year, there could have been a period where we may have forgotten about the rest of the business. But the fact that we're able to achieve what we achieved with the challenge of Chirpler in respect to the operations performing as well as continuing to evolve and daylight the growth from the portfolio, I'm really proud of the team and what they've been able to do. And I want to make that declaration very public because we sort of forget, right? We just take it as, I think, for granted. But the efforts in the background to bring a Buffalo Valley now into a reserve shouldn't go unnoticed because it is important for the future of Marigold. And again, another really good indication of the focus that we've had and energy that we've got in the business. But Bill, why don't you answer the question around the sort of timing?

So, Cosmos, we're very excited about it. It's like a satellite of that main area. There was a lot of good work done already working it through this year. We're taking that further into feasibility study type work with a lot of engineering. And we'll be updating our life-mind plans as typically throughout this year. So in terms of the timing, it'll be driven by two things, the net value, which is, we believe, going to be high for Buffalo Valley. But we've also got to still go through the permitting processes. So it's still several years off. But it's definitely something that we're excited about progressing through the pipeline. And we'll be able to get more color to that later in the year after we've worked through our life-mind scheduling processes.

Great. And thanks, Bill. And echoing your comments, Rod, and that's why I wanted to ask that question in terms of, you know, I was pleasantly surprised as well that we were able to see progress. Some of these different assets, including Buffalo Valley. So I agree with what you said, Rod.

Yeah, I agree. I think the other thing, just one more thing on Marigold, just while you're talking about it. I think the other area of focus for us in 2025 beyond what Bill described for Buffalo Valley, which is important, will be people putting holes into the new Millennium target, which is another one that's progressed. Just not as far advanced as what Buffalo Valley is. Yeah, great.

And then, as you mentioned, you put out your updated mineral resource estimate today as well for the year. And as you mentioned, you used very conservative commodity price assumptions. 1500 for some of the assets, even lower for the other ones. Could you maybe talk about the decision to use these conservative commodity price assumptions? And what would have happened, you know, some of that, like Marigold, for example, I would imagine there's some answers that could come in into the pit if you were to have used a higher commodity price assumption. So two parts. Why did you continue to use a commodity price much lower than spot prices today? And what could have happened?

Yeah, I'm not going to speculate on what could happen because they're all sensitive in their own right. But what I'll say is the simple reason for where we ended up, because if you look at Chirpler, given the asset is on care and maintenance, we left the metal prices unchanged. It just made sense to until we get a restart. That was really key. CV, as you remember, is already at $1650 because of its relatively short mine life. So we saw we didn't see a reason to change it. And then the other ones increased slightly, obviously, as well. So that was a decision made as we were going through our assumptions. We also take a sort of view of consensus. We look at what our peers are doing. And that's how we ended up with the reserve and resource statements as they were. We'll continue to review that. We only do one sort of strategic mine plan review a year because otherwise, you know, it just becomes unwieldy. And we'll review that during 2025. Remember, we've also got to take into account now the acquisition of CC&B. And historically, Newmont have been fairly conservative in their resource and reserve statements. We'll have to wait and see what they do with their new resource and reserve statements here in the next little while. And we'll take that into account as we look at the sort of full portfolio review strategically through our mine plan process in 2025. So there could be some updates to it as we progress into this year or later in the year. How they impact, how the commodity prices impact, you know, the pitch shells, the optimal pitch shells, et cetera. They're all very differently positioned in terms of their sensitivity. So again, I'm not going to sort of go into wax lyrical about each one of them, but they will obviously have the benefit of a higher commodity price over the years. So more to come later this year.

Of course. And maybe one last question. As you mentioned, sorry, bringing this back to Tripler here. As you mentioned, the remediation and containment costs overall, $250 to $300 million, you've spent $127-ish million so far. Could you remind us in terms of the timing of the remainder of that spend?

Yeah, I'm going to let Michael do that call,

but he's. Thanks, Cosmos. I think as you look at what Rod mentioned earlier in this call, a lot of the focus in 2024 was the Zuberle Valley. And that work has been completed. As we work for the engineering and the timeline for the eStorage facility, the material movement will be subdued throughout 2025. Once that facility is constructed, then the material movement will pick back up. So I would expect that remediation and reclamation spend to be lower than it was in 2024. And as we get that permitting and other things done for the eStorage facility, we'll ramp up that material movement again.

Great. We'll put that out with guidance, Cosmos, as best we can. The one thing I would say too is it's important you pronounce the numbers correctly in terms of the liability that we're carrying, because I think it's important that people understand it. The 250 to 300 million is still our estimate. That hasn't changed. That's sound. And we're obviously already churned through quite a lot of that with the 2024 effort. So the expectation is the rest of the spend will take place over a number of years beyond 2025 as we progressively build the eStorage facility and the remediation efforts on the pad, as Michael said. So I think taking away from that, if you think about overlaying that on our liquidity position, we're obviously in an extremely strong position. Great.

Thanks, Rod. Michael and Bill, those are the questions I have.

Thank you.

Thanks, Cos.

Your next question today will come from Lawson Winter with Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead.

Yes, thank you very much, Operator. Good morning or good evening, Rod and team. I wanted to ask about Marigold in advance of your guidance. I'm not going to ask you for a preview of the guidance, which conceptually Marigold a year ago was conceived to be going through a period of investment. So 2025 would have as a result experienced lower gold production and then a rebound in 26 and then still higher in 27. Just generally, is that still the concept or could there be a push out of the investment that was considered a year ago?

Sorry, Lawson, I had you on mute. I think if you use the tech report we put out this time last year as the placeholder for guidance, I think that still sounds so until we do it, I think that's the best reference point.

Okay, fantastic. And then to what extent can you provide us some additional color in terms of what Turkey is considering as conditions for reinstatement of the operating approvals for Turplers? So for example, is there any consideration to some increase in local ownership of part of the mine? Is there a consideration for a resubmission of a completely new EIA or what are some kind of the moving parts or do you have some stage gates that you can share with us to help us kind of think about potential timelines? Anything you could share would be very helpful.

Yeah, look, I think sort of I'll repeat what I sort of said a moment ago, but if you think about the incident itself, it was unprecedented, right? So yeah, there is no playbook to this in terms of what needs to be done for a restart. However, the efforts that we made and have made in themselves is entirely in alignment to seeking a restart. So we've made terrific progress on those fronts and we continue to make progress on those fronts. We believe we're getting to the pointy end of that work, which necessitates the completion of the engineering for the storage facility and the engineering around the heap leach pad remediation, which we're we're closing in fast to complete. And obviously those discussions are going on in parallel with the regulators to ensure that we're doing all the things that we need to do before we seek approval for the reinstatement of the temporary operating certificate. So there's no there's no condition precedent. There's no determinant around, you know, you have to do a new EIA. We will we will be operating under the 2014 EIA. And as I mentioned, I think probably on the last call, no matter what, we actually had to do a new EIA for Chirpler anyway, which we fully expect to complete this year for some meeting. So we're going to be working on a new EIA for the next year. And then we're going to be working on a new EIA for the next year. And then we're going to be working on a new EIA for the next year. And having to be done because of anything the other regulators want. So, so I think it's I think again, as we're moving forward, we're doing all the all the things we need to do. And we've got to just continue to deliver those and continue with that dialogue with the regulators.

Okay, thank you. Look forward to further updates on that. Appreciate it.

Good stuff. Thank you, Lawson.

We have the question and answer session as well as today's conference call. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.