Agnico Eagle Mines Limited

Good morning, my name is Ludi and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Agnico Eagle Q1 2024 conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press the star followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press the star followed by the number 2. Thank you. Mr. Amar Aljandi, you may begin your conference.

Thank you and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. I have the great pleasure, along with my colleagues, to report on another strong quarter for Agnico Eagle. But before we get into that, I'd like to acknowledge that the reason we're having another strong quarter is because of all the hard work of all of our employees Our people at the Rock Face work every day, sometimes in tough conditions. Our geologists who are away from their families, sometimes for weeks at a time. Our engineers and professionals who do the studies. I want to thank all of you for delivering. Again, it makes our job easier here at corporate. We'll have a number of executives talking about a good quarter. But again, it's thanks to all of you. Please keep yourself safe. Keep the community safe. and the environment safe. Before we jump into the presentation, I'd ask you to turn your attention to the forward-looking notes. We will be talking about some expected good results going forward, but again, please take a look at the forward-looking notes and statements. And if I could ask, operator, if we could start, I see on page six, that's great. We're going to cover a lot this morning. But there's really three key takeaways. One, we've had a very good start to the year. Two, we continue to make excellent progress on some of our key value drivers and the catalysts that will really move this company forward over the next 12 to 36 months. And three, we've had some tremendous drill results that we are excited to share with you today. On the strong start to the year, solid operating results, approximately 880,000 ounces of production, good cost control, reiterating guidance, both production guidance and cost guidance. Those strong operating results, along with an excellent gold price, has delivered strong financial results, as you would expect. Jamie will review these, but some of the highlights include our second consecutive quarter of record operating margins and our second consecutive quarter of record free cash flow. On the key projects and the value drivers, detour to a million ounces. We said a couple of years ago that we thought detour had the potential to get to a million ounces a year. The team has been working very hard on that since, systematically, professionally, and we're making good progress. And we remain on target to talk about this mid-year. In fact, we expect at this point to have a technical session in June followed by a site visit at which point we will talk about the project parameters as we see them at this point and we will talk about the next step and we've talked we've hinted about what that next step will be and it will be likely an exploration ramp that will allow us to get into the ore body take some bulk samples confirm continuity put in an exploration platform and really the first step of what we think will be an exciting project and clearly that exploration ramp will become an important part of a future production ramp. At Upper Beaver also very good progress also on target also confirming that we expect to provide an update towards the middle of the year. With Upper Beaver it'll likely be with our second quarter results at which point we will be outlining the parameters of the project as we see it, and again, the next step. And the next step, as we've already discussed in February, is what you would expect, the logical next step, an exploration shaft and an exploration ramp that will allow us to take a couple of bulk samples, again, confirm continuity, again, put in exploration platforms. At Mallardic, we continue to make excellent progress. The shaft is continuing well, and the underground development, as I think most of you know, is ahead of schedule, and the initial stoves are generating positive reconciliation. With Malartic, however, there's also been some excellent drill results, and that leads us to our third key takeaway today. Guy will be discussing some frankly pretty amazing drill results at Malartic, at Detour and at Hope Bay, big assets in good parts of the world that really just continue to deliver. We think that these are potentially big enough to move the needle and causing us to rethink in a positive way some of our growth options going forward. And because of that, we've added a little extra time at the end of today for Guy to talk about it. At $2,300 gold, you should fully have expected us to report strong results, and we are. We continue to be very constructive on the gold price. You know, I came into this business in 1999. Gold was $290. People have hated the gold price since, and it's now $2,350. And we think that we are just starting a long-term secular move. That said... And important, and we want to emphasize this, we do not take this higher gold price for granted. We remain absolutely focused on cost control, we remain focused on per share metrics, and we remain focused on capital discipline. We are absolutely determined at Agnico that increases in gold price go to our owners, and these increases are not going to be eaten away with higher costs. In fact, when Dominic and Natasha go through their sections, and they'll So go through it briefly, but the overriding theme you will hear over and over again is a theme of continued focus on business improvement at every mine and every opportunity. Our focus on costs at $2,300 is as strong as ever, and our key projects, Detour, Upper Beaver, Mallardic, Wassamak, Amalgamated, Kirkland, et cetera, those are the same projects at $2,300 as they were at $1,800. We're remaining focused. So a very good start to the year, but at Agnico Eagle, we believe strongly that it's not only what you do, but how you do it. And with that, our next speaker is Carol Plummer, our EVP Sustainability People and Culture, who will discuss our 15th Annual Sustainability Report.

Thank you, Ammar, and good morning, everybody. We're certainly happy to release this 15th Annual Sustainability Report, which is titled Global Approach, Regional Focus. This report highlights how we are deeply rooted in and committed to the regions in which we operate even as we grow and evolve as an organization. While our vision and goals are global, our strategies are tailored to each region, taking into account their environmental, social, and economic context, and adapting to their specific needs, priorities, and challenges. We're proud of our people who are working every day, not only to complete the work of a global miner, but doing it safely and respecting our commitment to the environment and our communities. ESG is central to our strategy, and it's through the stories of our people, the partnerships they have created, the relationships that they maintain, and the challenges that they face that you can see how it is integrated into the very fabric of our company. We prioritize close collaboration with local communities and indigenous peoples, valuing their perspective as integral components of our operational approach. This is how we make mining work for everyone. Working together, we can reduce our environmental impact, increase social benefits and positively contribute to local economies. You can see on this slide some of the highlights from 2023. I'm particularly happy to point out the safety record and a 34% improvement in safety frequency year on year. We continue to work on our decarbonization plans, we invested in our communities, and we worked with our employees to make sure that we can maintain our commitment to mine responsibly. The full report can be found on our website or by clicking on the link in the press release, and I will now pass on to Jamie to discuss the Q1 results.