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Yamana Gold Inc.
7/29/2022
And please continue to stand by. We thank you for your patience. This conference has been recorded. Our participants, please stand by.
Your conference is ready to begin. Thank you all for joining us this morning. Before I turn the call over, I need to advise that certain statements made during this call today may contain forward-looking information and actual results could differ from the conclusions or projections in that forward-looking information, which include but are not limited to statements with respect to the estimation of mineral reserves and resources, the timing and amount of estimated future production, cost of production, capital expenditures, future metal prices, and the cost and timing of the development of new projects. For a complete discussion of the risks, uncertainties, and factors which may lead to the actual financial results and performance being different from the estimates contained in the forward-looking statements, please refer to Yamana's press release issued yesterday announcing second quarter 2022 results, as well as the management discussions and analysis for the same period and other regulatory filings in Canada and the United States. I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded and will be available for replay today at 12 p.m. Eastern Time. Replay information and the presentation slides accompanying this conference call and webcast are available on Yamuna's website at Yamuna.com. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Daniel Racine, the President and CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Well, thank you, operator. Thank you all for joining us, and welcome to our second quarter 2022 conference call and webcast. Presenting with me today is Jason LeBlanc, our Senior VP Finance and Chief Financial Officer. Peter Moroney, our Executive Chairman, will also talk about the Goldfield Agreement. The rest of the senior management team is also available for the Q&A portion of the call. Peter is in transit, returning from meetings with South African shareholders, so we hope his connection remains adequate throughout the call. The health and safety of our employees always come first. Our total recordable injury rate was 0.81 for the first six months of 2022. And I would like to thank all our employees for remaining focused and committed to our safety values. Despite our excellent track record, this is something we are always working on improving and getting better at. The company continued to implement its climate action strategy during the quarter. including work on the analysis to support the conversion of approximately 50% of Cerro Moro's electricity requirement from diesel to wind power. This will help meet the greenhouse gas emission reduction required between now and 2030 to achieve the company's 1.5-degree Celsius science-based target and also reduce operating costs. expanded mineral reserves, and extend the mine life. Work also continues to progress on other climate action objectives, including advancing the evaluation of other operational projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the estimation of our Scope 3 emissions. I'm very pleased with Yamana Names, one of Canada's best 50 corporate citizens by Corporate Night magazine for the second consecutive year. The company's ranking improved to 30th overall, and we remain the top-ranked Canadian mining company on the list. We are very proud of this exceptional recognition achieved by the dedication and hard work of our all employees and business partners. Further demonstrating our deep commitment to ESG excellence, earlier this week, Yamana's ESG rating, as determined by the MSCI, was upgraded to an A from BBB. The upgrade is the result of improvement in our corporate governance rating, which reflects our effort to further improve our corporate governance and management policies and practices. Yamana has a long history of prioritizing the health and safety of its people, protecting the environment and the community where we operate, and we are committed to continuing to improve our responsible development strategy. Turning now to our second quarter highlight, we continue our track record of operation excellence and produce over 232,000 ounces of gold, exceeding our plan for the quarter. The standout results were driven by Canadian Malartic, Cerro Moro, Jacobina and El Pinyon. Notably, Jacobina achieved record quarterly gold production. Silver production of nearly 2.36 million ounces was in line with plan, as Cerro Morro delivered strong results with increased mill feed from higher-grade zones. GEO production of nearly 261,000 ounces was in line with plan despite the gold-to-silver ratio being near an all-time high and significantly above budget. With the strong year-to-date performance, Yamana is well positioned to meet its annual guidance. As you know, during the quarter, Yamana entered into arrangement agreement with Goldfield. More information will be provided by Peter later on the call. While I won't spend too much time on the numbers on this slide, given that we pre-release our operating result, I do want to take the opportunity to comment on our operational staff and the excellent result achieved to date. Turning to the individual drivers of our performance, Canadian Malartic delivered a strong second quarter, which exceeded our plan. We are also continuing to advance the development of the Underground Odyssey project, which remains on budget and on schedule. The underground ramp is now at 380-metre vertical depth below surface and 2.3 kilometres of ramp completed to date. Shaft sinking is scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter of this year, and we are expecting first production from Odyssey South during the first quarter of 2023. We continue to see huge opportunities at Odyssey in the future. Exploration work has delivered promising results at East Goldie, extending mineralization to the east, as well as the Odyssey South internal zone, which demonstrates the potential to add mineral resources. Jacobina had a record quarter driven by higher ore-ton mine with production for 2022 on track to increase the ninth month for the ninth consecutive year. Underground mine development work continues to gain access to new mining panels. All in all, and together with the higher ore-ton mine, provides additional flexibility to the development of stockpiles supporting higher throughput expected from the ongoing phased expansion. This positive trend should continue as the Phase 2 expansion throughput objective was realized in July, establishing Jacobina's sustainable production profile at 230,000 ounces per year. Cerro Morro continued to benefit from access to additional mining phases, which supported the increase in mill feed coming from higher-grade underground ore, which accounts for over 80% of the now-stabilized throughput. At Cerro Morro, we are continuing to advance in parallel the scalable plant expansion study and potential heap leach project and are evaluating options for alternative sources of power, which include a connection to the grid and wind power. Increased mill field feed coming from higher-grade underground ore and improved recoveries contributed to step change in year-over-year production. This trend is expected to continue in 2022 with additional contribution of ore from ZOE. As planned, El Pinyon delivered solid gold production, results driven by access to higher gold grade. We expect that gold production will remain stable throughout the year, but a strong second half will account for approximately 60% of the silver production due to mine sequencing. One of the key strategies to increase value at El Pinyon is to establish additional mining sectors and increase mining flexibility. With exploration success, the objective at El Pinyon is to utilize the excess plant capacity and increase production. Minera Florida delivered production in line with plan and we expect annual results to be in line with the plan. Operational efficiencies remain an area of focus at Minera Florida and we have identified several new opportunities to increase recovery at the processing plant as we continue to work towards the plant study which is expected to allow for increased throughput in 2025 when it receives its permits. Yamana continues to advance strategic initiatives across its portfolio, and we were pleased with our partner Agnico Eagle to announce positive exploration results at Odyssey and Wazamak on Wednesday. These results further support the strategic outlook and the company's effort to meaningfully extend its sustainable production platform. Notable highlights at Odyssey include East Goldie exploration and infield drilling, which continues to highlight significant expansion potential. Recent drilling has extended the East Goldie deposit to the west by approximately 225 metres. and to the east and depth by approximately 500 metres to more than 1,700 metres from the current mineral resource outline. Shallow drilling at the East Goldie extension also extended the mineralised plain an additional 900 metre up dip from previously reported drilling. With 12 surface diamond drill active on East Goldie as well as four underground drills on Odyssey South, Ongoing drilling is expected to convert a significant portion of the 2021 year-end inferred mineral resources to indicated mineral resources for 2022 year-end reporting, and as well significantly expand inferred resources envelope. These new indicated resources will provide the basis for the updated technical study in 2023 that will allow definition of mineral reserve for Odyssey underground project over the next few years starting at the end of 2022. We are very excited about the generational mine life potential at Odyssey and the project represents one important step towards realizing the board approved Yamana 1.5 plan as it will establish a large sustainable annual gold production platform between 500 and 600,000 ounces on a 100% basis with a strategic mine life well into the 2040s. Importantly, only 47% of the current mineral resources are included in the 2021 mine plan. And as our exploration success has shown, we believe this potential for significantly higher production well into the future. Equally as important, the capital expenditure to achieve this is largely offset by pre-commercial production. Assuming the current gold price, 72% of the initial expansionary capital through 2028 will effectively be offset by pre-commercial production as we move into the upper part of the ore body starting in early 2023. The exploration success continued at our WASAMAC development project. Infield drilling results continue to confirm or exceed expected grade and width, highlighting the continuity and tenor of mineralization. Exploration drilling also delivered a positive step-out drill result from Wildcat South, where drill holes provided confirmation of the new mineralized plain, which remained open at depth and along straight. Additional exploration targets on the property, including the adjacent Franca, Arnfield, and Lac-Fortune properties, provide further upside. The positive infill and exploration drilling result to date provides support for an expanded production scenario within and adjacent to the known mineral envelope. We believe there is a potential for a strategic mine life of 10 to 15 years at 200 to 250,000 ounces of gold per year compared to the life of mine average of 169,000 ounces in the feasibility study at very attractive all-in sustaining costs. These explorations result together with Jacobinos reaching the phase 2 target throughout Tootput and the Wasamak bot sample approved by our board demonstrate that we are delivering step by step on the sensible growth and value creation laid out in our Yamana 1.5 plant. Our board approved Yamana 1.5 plant has identified a path to progressively increase production to 1.5 million gold equivalent ounces via a series of projects and optimization with very modest capital requirement and low capital intensity. This responsible growth is fully aligned with our capital allocation strategy, which balances the shareholder return, balance sheet, and low capital intensity growth. This low capital growth will strengthen our already leading free cash flow generation. It's also important to note that this responsible growth is underpinned by multiple low-risk, low-capital projects that have the ability to be mixed and matched to optimize free cash flow generation. Such flexibility allows us to rearrange, adjust, defer, or move forward projects at our discretion, thus having confidence in achieving our overall growth plan, while ensuring cash flow growth and growing shareholder return. And with that, I will now pass the call over to Jason, who can go over our quarterly result in more detail.
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