Centerra Gold Inc. Common Shares

Greetings and welcome to the Centera Gold 2020 fourth quarter and year end results conference call and webcast. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question and answer session. If you have a question, please press the 1 followed by the 4 on your telephone. If at any time during the conference you need to reach an operator, please press star 0. As a reminder, this call has been recorded Wednesday, February 24, 2021. I would now like to turn the conference over to John Pearson, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Carlos. Welcome, everyone, to Sentera Gold's 2020 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Results Conference Call. And today, we will also present an update on the extended mine life at Coomptor, as detailed in the new Coomptor 43-101 Technical Report filed on CDAR today. Summary slides are available on Sentara Gold's website to accompany each speaker's remarks. Today's call is open to all members of the investment community and media in listen-only mode. Following the formal remarks, the operator will give the instructions for asking a question, and then we will open the phone line to questions. Please note that all figures are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. As we continue to work remotely, Joining me on the call today is Scott Perry, President and Chief Executive Officer, Darren Millman, Chief Financial Officer, Dan Desjardins, Chief Operating Officer, Malcolm Stallman, our Vice President, Exploration, and Yusuf Raymond, our General Counsel. I would also like to caution everyone that certain statements made today may be forward-looking statements and as such are subject to known and unknown risk which may cause our actual results to differ from those expressed or implied. Also, certain of the measures we will discuss today are non-GAAP measures. Please refer to the description of non-GAAP measures in our news release and MD&A issued this morning. For a more detailed discussion of the material assumptions, risks, and uncertainties, please refer to our news release and MD&A, along with the audited financial statements and notes, and our other filings, all of which can be found on CDAR and the company's website at centeragold.com. And now I'll turn the call over to Scott.

Thanks, John, and good day, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our call. I'm just going to be referencing our accompanying presentation slide deck, and I'm just starting off on slide number four. But just in the top left here on slide number four, a number of sort of key highlights that I'd just like to expand on. Just starting with the first bullet point, you can see 2020, it was a very strong year for the company. In terms of our gold output profile, we finished with 824,000 ounces of gold, which was above the upper end of our guidance. Mount Milligan Mine produced 82.8 million pounds of copper. And our corresponding oil and sustaining costs was a very low competitive $729 per ounce, which was below, favorably below our guidance. So an excellent operating result for the company. Subsequent to year end, we announced that we had divested our 50% share in the Greenstone Gold Mines Partnership for some $200 million in cash consideration, plus additional contingent payments of up to $75 million. Just looking at the third and fourth bullet points, you can see that the strong level of production and the corresponding low unit costs really resulted in some significant profitability. In terms of operating cash flow during the calendar year, we generated $930 million. And then if you look at the fourth bullet point, in terms of the free cash flow metric, company-wide, our portfolio generated $604 million of positive free cash flow. As you can see in parentheses, each of our individual operations contributed very meaningfully Comtour generating $438 million, Mount Milligan generating $150 million, and then OXSERP, which is our newest operation in our portfolio, in its inaugural year of operations, it contributed $105 million of positive free cash flow. The next bullet point below, obviously, the strong level of free cash flow. You can see that we're quickly establishing a peer-leading balance sheet. It's a debt-free balance sheet, and we finished the year with some $545 million US of cash reserves. One of the other key highlights in today's announcements is we've also released our new technical report, our new 43-101 life mine plan for Kumtor. It features a five-year extension to the mine life. The new delineated mineral reserves are some 6 million ounces of gold, which is an increase of some 3.1 million ounces. And also in terms of the grade, the in situ reserve grade, it's increased by approximately 15%. So this is a fantastic development. And Dan, our chief operating officer, will expand on this shortly. You can see the chart down the bottom here on slide four. You can see all of our operations were generating meaningful levels of free cash flow throughout the year. I think what really strikes me is the third chart just on OPSERT. This is pretty exciting. This is our newest operating mine. We brought this mine into operations in January of last year where we poured first gold. At the end of May, we declared commercial production. And then you can see in Q3, Q4, just the very meaningful levels of free cash flow and profitability that the mine is already demonstrating. So it's exciting as we make our way into this year and beyond just in terms of having a third source of high-quality, low-cost production and just what that means for our fundamentals moving forward. Just moving on to slide five, just in terms of Sinterra's ESG profile, just a few bullet points here I'll reference. The first bullet point, you know, obviously our focus is on zero harm operations. We have a number of leading, sort of safety leading initiatives underway as we speak. We are seeing some benefits of our WorkSafe, HomeSafe program. I think two notable milestones during the year, Oxsert, our mine in Turkey, celebrated 4 million hours of lost time incident-free operations. And at Kumto, as we speak, we're getting relatively close to being one year of last-time incident-free operations, where as of today, we're now at 331 consecutive days. Second bullet point is in terms of our social license to operate. We've now extended this record to 90 consecutive months. without having any interruptions at any of our operations globally. So that's in good stead. And the third bullet point, just in terms of environmental incidents, we had no reportable environmental incidents in the quarter, as it should be. So that was great to see. And I'll just touch on the last bullet point. We, Sinterra, are a member of the World Gold Council. And the World Gold Council recently rolled out their responsible gold mining principles. We are a signatory to these principles. There's 51 key sort of ESG principles, and we're looking to roll all of these out and obtain compliance over the three-year period. We're in good stead at all of our operations. And, in fact, at Oxford, we're actually well ahead of schedule, whereby we've already established assurance in 2020, albeit that's not required until 2022. So it's progressing very well. Just moving on to slide six, just a number of key corporate highlights here. I'll just reference three or four. But just the fourth bullet point, I think one of the things that really differentiates Interra is our low unit operating cost profile. You can see here on a company-wide basis, our oil sustaining cost was $729 per ounce. It was very competitive. As I mentioned, that was favorably leveled in guidance. You can see in parenthesis there, just each of the individual mines, they really are operating at that sort of first quartile relative to the world industry cost. The Kumtor at $741, Mount Milligan at $541, and Oxford at $494. That obviously always positions us really well just in terms of our margins, regardless of what prevailing gold price environment we're in. The sixth bullet point, I mentioned this at the outset, a key update today is our new life mine plan for Kumtor. It's a five-year extension in the reserve mine life, and that's going to extend operations to 2031, which equates an 11-year delineated mine life moving forward. With today's release, the next bullet point, we're providing our guidance for 2021, which is a component of our new multi-year, three-year guidance. But in terms of the 2021 guidance, you can see, you know, we're guiding for a midpoint of 780,000 ounces of gold and some 75 million pounds of copper. Last bullet point, at this level of sort of metal output, as well as the associated oil and sustaining cost guidance, we think the business will be generating cash flow from operations of 750 to 800 million dollars. and corresponding free cash flow of $350 to $400 million. This is assuming a gold price of $1,750 per ounce. Just on the next slide, on slide seven, just some of the key financial highlights. You know, the first bullet point, you know, it was a good year financially for the company. We finished the year of calendar earnings of, sorry, we finished the calendar year of net earnings of $408.5 million, which equates to $1.39 per share. The third bullet point, as I mentioned earlier, very strong year in terms of free cash flow, $604 million was generated during the calendar year. Fourth bullet point, that allowed us to finish the year with a very strong treasury position. We've got a debt-free balance sheet and finishing the year with cash reserves of some $545 million. And just the fifth bullet point there, yesterday the board again declared and approved a quarterly dividend of Canadian 5 cents per share. Just moving on to slide 8. So slide 8 just gives you a little bit more detail just on our guidance for 2021. You can see just in terms of the first row here is our gold production guidance. So at Coombe Toll we're guiding up to 510,000 ounces of gold, Mount Milligan up to 200,000 ounces of gold and Oxford up to 110,000 ounces of gold production. Just wanted to provide a bit of additional sort of commentary just on the quarterly profile within the calendar year. So just in terms of Kumtor, gold production is expected to rise steadily throughout the year, with the first quarter contributing approximately 15% of the annual gold production target. And that will then be rising to approximately 35% of the annual target in the fourth quarter of 2021. In terms of Mount Milligan, both gold and copper production are expected to be slightly back-end weighted in 2021, with the first half of the year representing 45% or more of the annual target, whilst the second half of the year will represent up to 55% of the annual target. And then just lastly at Oxford, gold production is expected to be back-end weighted in the calendar year, with the first half of this year representing 35% or more of the annual target, while the second half of this year will represent up to 65% of the annual target. But again, as I said earlier, when I look at this sort of metal output profile that we're guiding to, as well as the sort of corresponding operating cost structure. Again, assuming a gold price of $1,750, we're expecting this year to be another meaningful year and guiding to free cash flow of $350 to $400 million U.S. Just moving on to slide nine, this is our new multi-year guidance. So we're now providing a three-year outlook for the business, and I think it really does illustrate the medium-term strength of our business You can see the fourth row here, we're expecting a growing level of gold production here over the three-year period. And that's being underpinned really by each of the operations. If you look at the first, second and third rows, each of the mines are generally increasing their levels of gold output moving forward, which is a nice profile. Because then when you look down at the seventh row, just in terms of the oil and sustaining costs, That is kind of having a favorable economies of scale deflationary impact in terms of our cost profile decreasing over that period of time. So again, relative to the sort of current gold price environment, I think this is going to position us well just in terms of the margins within our business. And as we demonstrated in 2020, I think over this three-year period, we're very well positioned for growing growth. growing levels of profitability and positive free cash flow. So that really concludes the first part of our call. And as John mentioned in his introduction, I'd like to move into the second part of our call, and I'm going to look to past proceedings over to Dan Desjardins and Malcolm Storm. And obviously one of the key highlights today was the release of our new life and mind plan for Kumtor. As I mentioned, it's a five-year extension. It's the addition of some 3.1 million ounces. of new gold reserves, and more importantly, the in-situ reserve rate has increased by some 15%. So it's a fantastic development, and what I'll do now is I'll pass it over to Dan, our Chief Operating Officer, and he can provide a lot more color on that. So Dan, over to you, please.

Thanks, Scott. Good morning, everyone. Before I get started, I'd like to recognize the efforts of the many employees, contractors, consultants who worked tirelessly over the past year to bring forward this new technical report and extend the life of mine for Coomptor. I'd especially like to thank the Coomptor employees for the results that they put forward in 2020 under such challenging circumstances during COVID and after our tragic accident that we had in 2019 and early 2020. Since then, as Scott has indicated, We've had an excellent safety record at Coombe Tor where today we are at 331 consecutive days without a lost time incident. I take you to the next slide, the agenda. This is the agenda we'll be going through. I will take you through the technical highlights of which Malcolm Stallman after, he's our VP of Exploration. He'll discuss the Coombe Tor exploration potential. As an introduction, We've been operating the Kumpur mine now for some 24 years and have been operating since 2009 under the concession agreement, which was a comprehensive rights agreement that runs until 2042. During this time, we have not had a meaningful operational interruption and we anticipate to be able to continue under the terms of this agreement going forward. If you go to slide 13, This is the layout of the concession. The gray area in the center is the footprint of the ultimate pits, and you can see that our central pit and Sarator Southwest are now coming together along strike length, which extends both to the southwest and the northeast. Go to slide 14. Coomptor is certainly a world-class asset. There have been many years with production in excess of 500,000 ounces, and we anticipate this level going forward with this new life of mine plan. At the end of 2020, Coomptor has now produced more than 13 million ounces of gold at a sustained and average grade of 3 grams per ton. The future sees us extending the pit in both directions and at depth with the new cutback hockey stick, to the southwest and cut back 21 and 22 to the northeast. Next slide. In terms of performance, as a very large open pit with substantial ore stockpiles that we blend for the mill feed, Coombe Tor operates at a fairly steady gold production rate between 500,000 and 600,000 ounces per year at an all-in sustaining cost of between $600 and $1,000 per ounce. The reserve has now increased to 6 million ounces at an average grade of 2.66. The previous announced increase in resources have been reduced because of this conversion. Just in the past year, in 2020, Coomptor had an operating cash flow of 661 million and a free cash flow of $438 million U.S., which shows the quality of the asset. With the exploration drilling program that commenced two years ago, that had been previously stopped for five years, we successfully increased the proven and probable reserves by 87%. We have continued our near mine exploration program in 2021 with the goal to identify further extensions of the current pits as well as nearby mineralization. Currently, we're not anticipating a start to the underground as current plans require access from the bottom of the central pit which is currently an active mining phase. This opportunity continues to be analyzed and better understood. If I take you to slide 16, as a result of additional reserves, the mine life has now extended from 2026 to 2031. As part of the life mine extension, we have planned to add a small percentage of new equipment, which I'll detail out in a future slide. The new life of mine reflects a $1.96 billion net cash flow at $1,350. This increases to just over $3 billion at $1,600 gold. There is limited additional capital requirement, but we have planned for focused capital improvements in the plant to increase recovery and throughput. These include additional leach tanks and a new tower mill. The new life of mine calls for increasing the tailings dam each year in the same way that we have over the past few years by adding additional capacity as required within the current footprint. Finally, our near mine exploration drilling has outlined significant oxide potential and future near term drilling will be focused on this as well as extending the sulfide reserve and resources. Taking you to the next slide, 17. Here highlighted in red, you can see the reserves have increased to just over 6 million ounces. The year-over-year change in reserve and resources reflects a strong conversion of resources to reserves. The 87% increase in reserves gives Coomptor an additional five full years of production. Note the grade in the reserves also increased from 2.31 to 2.66, giving robust economics at 1,350 in the technical report. The Coomptor underground resource stays fairly much constant at 3.1 million ounces, and we continue to do engineering work to tighten up different approaches that it would take once the central open pit is completed. On the next slide, slide 18, at 1350 gold for 2021 is reflecting a break even in terms of net cash flow. This is a transformation year to allow the large stripping of cutback 20 and accessing substantial ore starting in the second half of 2021. We are currently feeding from lower grade stockpile for the first half of this year. From 2022 to 2026, the release of ore is sufficient to feed the mill at a steady grade of an excess of 3.1 grams per ton. Thus, we are forecasting to produce up to 600,000 ounces per year for these five years. For the years 2027 to 2031, the current plan is to feed full tonnage, but a lower grade blend, therefore averaging 330,000 ounces per year. As a result of the current near mine exploration, and as we learn more, the potential to bring forward higher grade blend to these future years to full potential is planned. The reason for final year of the life of mine being higher than previous years is we plan to mine out the step out we did for cutback 19 that was taken to increase the stability of the pit wall below the plant. This step out is a higher grade ore area, but will only be accessed near the end of the open pit life. Again, at 1350 gold, the overall net cash flow from 2020 to the end of the mine life is 1.96 billion, fairly spread over the years. Taking you to the next slide, every sheet on stewardship for the Coomber mine. Sentara currently takes its stewardship of the Coomber mine very seriously and is making all efforts to fulfill its ECG obligations for the benefit of all stakeholders. On slide 20, As a very large industrial operation in Kyrgyzstan, KUMTOR is a substantial tax contributor to the state. Since inception, KUMTOR has invested more than 2 billion U.S., paid in excess of 1.4 billion in taxes, and is near 10% of the GDP of the country. We also contribute to other social programs, both locally and nationally, The extended life of mine is projected to contribute a further $1 billion in taxes and royalties. Taking you to the next slide, Qumtar has a very skilled national workforce with only 1% of workers coming from outside the country. Our competitive wages gives us stability and helps us reduce our turnover, thus giving us the ability to retain our top talent. Coomptor's payroll is near $100 million per year, and a very large percentage of our near 4,000 employees and contractors live in the region of the mine. A number of our Kyrgyz employees have been promoted to positions in Canada where we utilize their technical expertise that is world class. As leaders in their respective communities, our employees participate in many ways to help improve the lives of their fellow citizens. In terms of supporting strategic community development, as part of our commitment to the stakeholders, Coomptor works closely with local communities with a focus on sustainable activities, female employment, youth employment and training, as well as all other local community development and investment. The microcredit agency that Coomptor initiated have helped small businesses start and develop and is credited for helping to create near 5,000 new jobs in the region. The extended mine life will contribute a further 17 million in direct support to these many activities. Take you to slide 23 now. As part of our commitment to our host country, Coomptor has embraced the goal of local procurement. Over 25% of Coomptor supplies are procured locally from near 400 different suppliers. since the beginning of the mine life Coomptor has purchased in excess of 1 billion US locally. A particular note for the past five years, 100% of the food required for our 1800 person camp is locally sourced. The additional mine life will mean an additional local procurement of near 700 million for the country. Slide 24. In terms of environmental stewardship, as an important part of Sentara's social license, Coomptor applies the highest standards towards the approach of managing the environmental effects. We hold ourselves to the highest international standards and focus on transparency. Not only do we do constant monitoring on site, we also contribute to the local area in terms of water management for farming, supply of clean water to local communities, and participate in waste management strategies in the region. We have a substantial budget and highly skilled environmental employees and consultants to help us achieve our goals and plan to spend in excess of $50 million over the life of the mine. Now I'll take you to slide 26 and get back to the reserves and resources. As indicated, the reserves over the year have increased 87% from $3.2 million the 6 million ounces reflecting the extension of the central pit on both sides. On slide 27, this is a reflection of the changes of the dates of the technical report from July 1 of 2020 to our announced reserve at year end. This reflects the depletion of the ore from stockpiles during the latter half of 2020 as we were stripping waste from cutback 20 during this time. Slide 28, in terms of the plan view, there is only a small expansion of the footprint of the resource pit shell. The resource pit shell in the blue from 2019 is expanded only marginally to the left in the hockey stick zone and on the right as part of cutback 21 and 22. The total ounces in the resource shell only changed slightly, but the major change is moving ounces from resource to reserve. On slide 29, you can see that this is a sectional view over in cutback 21. You can see that we have lowered the pit angle on the right side to account for better understanding of the geotextability as a result both actual mining and additional drilling. The section to the left shows that we are not changing the slope substantially due to good stability in this area. To note, the upper green line is the bottom of the pit at July 1, 2020. I move you forward now to slide 31. These are pictures of the open pit design. The ultimate mine pit plan are depicted here. The pictures on the top right labels the mining zones. It is important to note that we are not developing any new pit. On the right, you can see the areas that we call Cutback 22. Both Cutback 21 and Cutback 20 are below this cutback. On the left, you see the Hockey Stick and Southwest Cerator, there to the west of the Hockey Stick zone. We are mining Cutback 20 currently up until mid-2022. Then we shift to approximately 25% of our efforts over to Southwest and 25% to hockey stick beginning in 2021. Southwest is completed by 2023, but hockey stick continues all until 2025. Cutback 22 starts after hockey stick in 2026, and it is our final mining cutback ending in 2028. Saratoga starts during that period of time in 2026 and is completed in 2027. as we need to release the ore while we're doing the large stripping of 2022. Next slide, slide 32. We've had questions before about the fleet. Coomber has a very large fleet of cat haul trucks combined with Liebherr and Hideachi shovels. The truck fleet is in excellent condition, but due to the longer hauling distances, that Life of Mine calls for an additional 29 trucks. In anticipation of this requirement, QMTOR did procure 11 used 789s from Chile in 2020 last year, as well as ordering 10 new 789D trucks from CAT. The first 11 trucks are on site operating and two of our new trucks have already arrived. The remaining eight of these trucks are are in transit three are in country and five more will be arriving and operating by april due to productivity improvements though including more fully utilizing the mind sense technology improving loading and efficiency truck speeds we have postponed the final eight trucks and will only procure them if if required this is why our 2021 capital expenditures are forecasted to be less than what we reported in this technical report due to the eight trucks being purchased, deferred, and potentially canceled. As for shovels, the Liebherr shovels are our smallest and oldest shovels, so we are looking to trade in the four for four larger shovels, and that's what's depicted in the plan. The plan has not been finalized and will be continued to be studied. The smaller graders of the fleet are being replaced by larger graders as they are retired, giving the capability to maintain the longer haul distances. The remaining replacement equipment is simply to shut down the older equipment as conditions warrant and replace them with new equipment. I take you to the next slide, the mining schedule. In the mining schedule, you can see the phasing of ore release in Central Pitt and separately Sarator and Southwest. The central pit cutbacks of cutback 20, cutback 21, and cutback 22 are large. Each take two or even three years, and a majority of the ore in these respective cutbacks are in their last year. To balance the ore release, the plan is to have ore released from Hockey Stick, Cerro Corn Southwest during these large stripping segments. The plan is to keep the feed grade at over three grams per ton to have enough ore in stockpile to always have targeted feed tonnage for the plant. Slide 34, in 2020, we had focused on cutback 20 in the Northeast with the majority of the waste going to Central Valley dump as we would gain permission to utilize the Lisi waste dump. On the next slide, 35, currently all of our equipment is in cutback 20 and 50% of the waste is going to Lisi and 50% is going to Central Valley. We will shift a small amount of equipment to the southwest later in the year. Slide 36. In 2020, we are much more spread out in our mining zones in the central pit as well as a large cutback in the southwest. Slide 37. In 2023, a majority of the focus is the hockey stick and we begin to do cutback 21 again back on the top. This is a projection of our stockpile balances, both in past years and the future years. Coomptor has a number of large areas for stockpiling ore with different grades. 100% of the blend of our mill is managed by our metallurgist team to ensure maximum recovery. A large amount of ore is released by cutback 20, starting in the latter half of 2021, but a very high amount in 2022, thus reflecting the large stockpile at the end of 2022, which is subsequently depleted during 2023. You can see the same movements that we had in previous cutbacks during 2018, 19, and 2020. This is the addition and subsequent depletion from cutback 18 on the plant side and from cutback 19, which was the cutback below cutback 20. The next slide, slide 39, Humtor has three main dumps. From left to right, they are Cerator, Central, and on the right, Lisi. These dumps have all been permitted for their footprints, and no new dumps are planned at this time. Over the remaining life of mine, Central will receive 40% of the waste, while Cerator and Lisi receive 30% each. The loading of each waste dump is tightly managed to limit any risk of movement. Now we shift to the mill. The process flow of the plant, slide 41, has only one change, that being the addition of a tower mill, which is planned to be commissioned in October of this year. The additional leach tanks have been delayed from the targeted operation in late of 2020 due to construction issues mostly caused by limited manpower due to COVID. They are anticipated now to be operational in the second quarter of this year. In terms of mill statistics, slide 42, the Coomptor mill has an excellent mechanical availability of 97%, which has been demonstrated over the past few years. We have a strategy that two times per year, a full maintenance shutdown, and it has proven very successful to keep the mechanical availability high. The plan is to run the plant at 6.5 million tons per year, and with the additional leach time due to the new tanks, and finer grinding with the tower mill, the recoveries are expected to be in the mid-80s with most of the different feeds. Recovery will vary due to grade and ore type, but that is taken into account in our planning and focused on when we decide on ore blends by our metallurgists. Slide 43 shows the tower mill and leach tanks. The capital addition of the tower mill and leach tanks are well in progress and both will be contributing to improving our recoveries and increasing our ounces starting this year and will continue for the life of mine. On the next slide, 44, the current tailing storage facility is very robust. With the additional five years of life, the current footprint is only slightly increased and the lifts each year will give us sufficient capacity for nonstop operations. The following slide shows some details on the raising of the dam. The dam is engineered to world-class standards by third-party experts and external experts to do an annual audit and inspection of the condition and help us manage the dam. To improve stability, the strategy of excavating a shear key at the foot of the dam to the depth of 20 meters into the base has proven to be very effective. As can be seen on the table, the capital cost of the tailings raising is spread over the remaining life of mine. Construction is contracted out to local earthwork contractors and is completed during the warmer summer months of April through to October of each year. Finally, we'll bring you to the financials in slide 47. As indicated in the summary highlights, the new life of mine reflects 1.96 billion in free cash flow at 1,350 gold. Starting in 2022, we have five solid years of production, each producing near 200 million free cash flow at 1,350. The all-in sustaining cost during the same time is in the $650 to $900 range, and the life of mine comes in at a very competitive $828 an ounce. Mining costs per ton were higher in 2020 due to the reduced tonnage, but at full mining rates, the mine can run at an average of $1.39 a life of mine. Milling costs are steady near average at $11.34 a ton milled, and administration costs come in at $9.07.87 a life of mine. The next slide for net cash flow at 1350, it is only during the large stripping years of 2021 this year and 2027 where we are feeding lower grade stockpile or resulting in a breakeven cash flow. The NPV comes in at a robust 1.55 billion at a 5% discount rate and 1.37 billion at an 8% discount rate. Next slide, in terms of operating costs, quickly, Sentara has a long history and experience operating the Kumtor mine. Therefore, the costs of operating are well understood and very world competitive. Even with including sustaining capital, the mining cost comes in at $1.66 U.S. per ton mined. The milling cost is just over $12 per ton milled and administration just over $8 per ton milled. On the next slide, slide 50, as Coombe Tor is well established and the additional life is extension of their current pits, there is little growth capital required to extend the life of mine. Our all-in sustaining cost per year in the full mining years ranges between $400 and $510 million per year. Once mining is completed in 2028, then the remaining three years, the all-in sustaining cost drops to $250 to $300 million per year. The whole life of mine average all in sustaining cost per ounce comes in at the $853 per ounce. And inclusive of gross revenue tax and capital growth, we are still very competitive at just over $1,000 at $1,044 per ounce. In terms of capital expenditures on slide 51, A majority of new equipment needed to execute the plan is scheduled to be purchased in the first three years. After that, the majority capital is mobile component replacement, then the annual raising of our tailings dam, followed by our annual mill maintenance type repairs. If you look at sensitivities, at a 5% discount rate, the NPV does come in at $1.6 billion. The value fluctuates most with the price of gold. When gold is increased 20% to $1,620 an ounce, the NPV increases to $2.5 billion. At a 20% decrease in gold price down to $1,080, the NPV is still $600 million. The NPV is second most sensitive to our operating costs, and with an additional 20% of operating costs, the NPV drops to $950 million. Both FX and capital fluctuations have little effect on the overall life of mine and PV of Comptor. And finally, Comptor's opportunities of the future. We call it the golden sunrise. There are a number of large opportunities that we are investigating with Comptor. The current extension of Comptor's life of mine has all been well assessed. There are also a number of additional opportunities that we can add substantial value to the company First, the gold in the Coomptor ore is very fine with the recovery over life of mine of 83%, giving an opportunity to continue to find ways to improve that. As the Coomptor pit deepens, it is now constrained to the northwest by our plant. Additional drilling has shown the ore body does extend in this direction. Therefore, at some point, it may be economic to develop a new plant. This is also tied to the opportunity, number three, as exploration is uncovering a potential oxide resource. This would also require a new processing plant, which could be tied to movement of the old plant. Currently, the operation utilizes a truck shovel configuration. As mining methods change, there may be an opportunity to move to a conveyor or the like type system, which would also change the location of the waste dumps. and potentially use green hydropower. The company has been doing work on testing different methods of recovering gold through the tailings processing. Currently, there are in excess of 3 million ounces in our tailings. Finally, the underground resource is well delineated and open in a number of directions, and we continue to study that. Now, Malcolm will take us through the QMTORS exploration opportunities.

Great. Thank you, Dan, and good morning to everyone. I will now briefly discuss the exploration completed at Coombe Tor in the recent past, and will then outline the planned exploration for 2021 and beyond. The first slide will be slide 55. As mentioned, exploration drilling resumed at Coombe Tor in mid-2018 after a five-year hiatus. In 2018 and 2019, Drilling was mainly focused on the development of resources in the hockey stick and stock work zones, and this work defined mineralisation outside of the ultimate open pits in these areas. The photo on this slide is looking towards the southwest and shows the hockey stick zone, and you can see the substantial size of the central pit. In 2020, drilling focused on extending sulphide mineralisation at the southwest and Surrey Soil deposit resources, evaluating oxide gold mineralization potential along the Coombe Tor lower thrust at Surrey Tor, Oak, Triangle, Worcester Sioux, and Northeast. And also we began testing the potential of peripheral targets in the Bordeaux, Akbel, Leesy Gap, and Petrov areas. At slide 56, sorry, back on slide 55, the map on the left, You can see the Coomptor concession area in red and the location of the main prospects. The Coomptor gold trend runs through the concession in a northeasterly direction for a distance of over 15 kilometres. It should be noted that only around six kilometres or so of the trend has been subjected to substantial exploration. Slide 56. This slide shows the extended mine life out to 2031 based on the updated reserves. There is significant potential for aggressive exploration in the coming years to extend the mine life even further, and in particular to fill in the drop in ounces that occurs after 2027. Slide 57. Qumtur is a world-class orogenic gold deposit located on the Tien Shan suture zone in southern Kyrgyzstan. Within the Qumtur concession, Brownfields X targets include sulphide gold mineralisation in the vicinity of existing pits, and oxide gold mineralisation outside the existing pits. Greenfield's targets include new styles of mineralisation and previously underexplored targets along the strike of the Coontour Gold Trend. Infill drilling will also be undertaken to update resource categories around the existing pits. Since exploration drilling resumed in mid-2018, 550 drill holes have been completed for over 143,000 metres of mainly diamond drilling. For 2021, we have a $21 million exploration budget, which will include 75,000 metres of drilling. We believe that there is significant potential to increase the existing sulphide gold resources and to delineate new oxide gold resources within the Coombe Torcan session. Slide 58. This slide gives more specific information on the main areas to be drilled in 2021. I won't go into the details for each area, as you can read them from the slide. but there are some main takeaways from this slide. Firstly, preliminary metallurgical test work in the form of bottle roll tests on oxide gold material from the Saratorra and Hope areas has returned gold recoveries in excess of 80%. Detailed metallurgical test work will commence in 2021. Secondly, some very significant drill intercepts were returned from the southwest deep oxide zone late last year, and I'll refer to these again later on. Thirdly, there is a gap known as the Lisey Gap of over one kilometre between the central and northeast deposits that has previously been drill tested with only a handful of holes. This gap was covered by the Lisey Glacier, but as the glacier is retreating due to the effects of climate change, the potential of this zone to host sulphide gold mineralisation can now be tested. Slide 59. This slide shows a cross section which is looking towards the northeast. and it explains a simple schematic model for the three main types of gold mineralisation at Coomptor. On the right hand, or southeastern side, the majority of the sulphide gold resources at Coomptor are hosted within Unit 2, which comprises phyllites and black shales. Moving to the left, or further northwest, oxide gold mineralisation is hosted within Unit 0, which comprises sandstone, siltstone and limestone. And moving further to the northwest again, Dispersed gold mineralisation is mineralisation that has been eroded from both Unit 2 and Unit 0 and is hosted in much younger conglomerate rocks. The dispersed mineralisation is also oxidised. There have been no resources calculated at this stage for the oxide and dispersed styles mineralisation. Slide 60. This slide shows the ultimate pit outlines in pale green. The zones of sulphide gold mineralisation are shown in red, and these are hosted by Unit 2, which is in pink. The oxide gold mineralisation in the sector to date is shown in orange and is hosted in Unit 0, which is shown in green. And it can be seen from this map that there are substantial intervals within Unit 0 that have not been tested by drilling. I will now show a series of cross-sections through some of the deposits. All the sections are looking towards the northeast. Slide 61 shows a section through the central deposit. On the right-hand side, you can see that there are zones of sulphide gold mineralisation within Unit 2, below the ultimate pit. The pit outline is a faint grey line. Apologies, it's a little hard to see. Moving to the left or north-west, the potential for oxide gold mineralisation within Unit 0 remains largely untested in this area. Further to the northwest, drilling has intersected wide zones of low-grade dispersed-stole oxide gold mineralization, which require follow-up. Slide 62, this shows the section through the southwest deposit. On the right-hand side, you can see that there are zones of sulfide gold mineralization within Unit 2 below the ultimate PIP, again shown as a gray line. Moving to the left or northwest, oxide gold mineralization has been intersected at depth within Unit 0 in the deep oxide zone. where whole SW2317 returned 158 metres at 2.95 grams per tonne gold. Further to the northwest, a shallower zone of oxide gold mineralisation called the Hope Zone has returned some significant drill intercepts. And then further to the northwest again, drilling has intersected dispersed-style oxide gold mineralisation, which requires further follow-up. Slide 63 shows a section 40 metres further to the southwest of the previous slide Here, recent drilling returned oxide gold mineralization at depth in the deep oxide zone. Hole 2386 returned 222 meters at 4.11 grams per ton gold. Slide 64 shows another section 40 meters further to the southwest again. Again, recent drilling returned oxide gold mineralization at depth in the deep oxide zone. Hole SW2380 returned 225 meters at 3.11 grams per ton gold. Slide 65 shows a section through the Saratorre deposit. On the right-hand side, you can see that there are zones of sulphide gold mineralisation within Unit 2 below the ultimate pit, again shown as a grey line. Moving to the northwest, shallow oxide gold mineralisation has been intersected within Unit 0. Slide 66 shows a section through the northeast deposit at the other end of the Koolmatoor gold trend. On the right-hand side, you can see that there are zones of sulphide gold mineralisation within Unit 1 in pale pink. Generally, we don't see significant gold mineralisation in Unit 1, so this may open up new zones with potential for sulphide gold mineralisation. Moving to the left and north-west, shallow mixed oxide and sulphide gold mineralisation has been intersected within Unit 0. Slide 67. This slide shows an image from an airborne electromagnetic survey that was completed in 2019. The bright pink colours on the left represent zones of low resistivity that relate to altered and potentially gold mineralised rocks along the Kumtor Gold Trend. The four main deposits are shown and it can be seen that there is still a considerable strike length of the Kumtor Gold Trend that is under explored. Slide 68. This slide summarises what has been achieved over the last few years and what our objectives will be over the coming years. After restarting exploration in 2018, we successfully increased measured and indicated resources by 112%, which is now reflected in the expanded reserve and longer mine life. In 2020, drilling focused on further expanding sulphide and oxide gold mineralisation in a number of areas. For 2021, our exploration budget is $21 million, representing some 75,000 metres of drilling. And going forward, we would expect to maintain this level of spending. Our four key objectives this year are to expand the southwest, Surrey Tor and northeast sulphide gold resources, evaluate oxide gold mineralisation potential along the Coombe Tor lower thrust at Surrey Tor, Hope, Triangle, Muzdasu and northeast, and test potential of peripheral targets in the Bordeaux, Akbel, Leasigap and Petrov areas. We aim to be calculating maiden resources for the Hope, North East and Koshaloo zones at the end of 2021 or early 2022. Thank you. That now completes the Kumbh Tor exploration update. I'll now pass back to Scott.

Thanks, Malcolm. And congratulations to yourself and Dan and your respective teams. This is a very meaningful development and still a lot of excitement. There's still some significant exploration potential here for further success moving forward. So, again, congratulations. Just on slide 70, just to wrap things up. Just in terms of our three-year outlook again, really on the back of Comtor's optimized and expanded life and mind plan, you can see it's really going to underpin a significant increase in our company-wide gold output levels. You can see that in the fourth row here in this table. Likewise, just in terms of the corresponding unit costs, if I look at the all-interstanding cost metric, for example, in the seventh row, you can see we're going to have a peer-leading cost structure. here in the medium term, is obviously going to make for, you know, very robust margins, and that's going to really benefit the organization when it comes to our sort of go-forward profitability and free cash flow. And I think that's going to see us, you know, continuing to strengthen our peer-leading financial profile. So pretty exciting developments, you know, particularly so as we look to, you know, continue delivering sustainable value and growth for the organization and our shareholders. So, look, with that, Carlos, our operator, if I can pass it back to you, and we can open up the call for the Q&A session, please.

Thank you very much, sir. If you would like to register a question, please press the 1 followed by the 4 on your telephone. You will hear a three-tone prompt to acknowledge request. If your question has been answered and you would like to withdraw your registration, please press 1-3. One moment, please, for the first question. Our first question comes from the line of Fahad Tariq, Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning.

Thanks for taking my two questions. Maybe first on offsuit and the difference between 2020 production and 2021 production. Can you just provide more commentary on, I know you've given more guidance on grades and things like that, but just is that what was expected previously? Were our grades expected to be lower than before? Any color around kind of the cadence of the production and And the grade specifically would be helpful.

Yeah, it's Scott here. I'll go first, and then you can chime in with any additional commentary. But it's really just a function of grade. If you look at last year, 2020 calendar year, our stacked grade was 1.4 grams per tonne. this year, 2021, we're budgeting for a stacked grade of approximately 1.27 grams per ton. So that's really what's driving the year-over-year profile. But then in terms of our sort of mine sequencing, mine phasing, as you would depict from our three-year outlook, we're going to be moving into a very high-grade sequence in calendar year 2022, 2023, and you're going to see very significant increases in Oxford's gold output profile. So short answer. It's really just a function of the mine grade and, you know, how that's disseminated for the ore body and, you know, where we're currently sequencing in terms of our mine plants. Dan, is there anything I missed there or anything that you want to add to that?

No, you hit it spot on. It is the sequencing and there is just differences a little bit between the original technical reports and what we're executing now, but certainly, you know, we're seeing a good positive reconciliation against our resource models, so that's all bold as well, but It's simply the release of the different grades, or as we blend it, put it on the heap.

Okay, great. That's helpful. And then my only other question, on capital allocation, maybe provide your most recent thoughts on how you're thinking about it. I know previously you had indicated that you've done an exercise comparing distribution as a percentage of free cash flow, and there was an opportunity to maybe raise the dividend. Maybe talk about how you're thinking about capital allocation now, knowing the revised concurrent life of mine plan.

Thanks. Yeah, look, it's an ongoing discussion. You know, with our board of directors, it's pretty much a standing agenda item at each board meeting. And, you know, as you'd expect, it's obviously a board decision. You know, we have been, you know, consulting or liaising with, you know, all of our key shareholders, taking their views as well in terms of, you know, what they think would be, you know, the best measure or the best step in terms of going forward capital return initiatives. Likewise, now that we've published this new Life and Mind study for Qumtor, we're also looking to reach out to the political leadership in Kyrgyzstan. Obviously, Kyrgyzstan is our largest shareholder, so looking to get their views as well. But really, everything's on the table. We've been having discussions around potential share buyback initiatives all the way through to our regular quarterly dividend program. Unfortunately, I can't provide any additional information sort of color other than it's all under evaluation. And we continue to revisit that with the board at each of our board meetings.

Okay, great. That's it for me. Thanks.

Our next question comes from the line of Brian McArthur, Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Good morning. I just want to follow up on the OXU permit, because obviously there's a fair bit of growth going in there. What actually has to be done there to get that permit to get to the higher grade in 2022?

Ben, do you want to take that question?

Certainly. The effect on the grade in both 2021 and 2022, there is no effect by the permitting. right now. What we have is we have an update in our environmental permit, but we're looking for a final forest free footprint permit in our Goonantepi pit. So as if we were to get that earlier, we could access more ore from Goonantepi earlier, but right now there is no effect against our three year guidance that we've just put out in terms of the timing of receiving that permit.

Okay, so just so I'm clear, that permit for that, that other pit is post, that other, I thought when I read it, that other pit you're saying could be accelerated even faster into it if you get that forestry permit, so that it could be even better in 22 and 23? That's just what I'm trying to figure out.

We have not scheduled the ore from Guntepi in 2021-22. That's correct. So because of needing that forestry permit.

Great. Thank you. So I just was making sure I read that right. And the second question, sorry to go back to this, Scott, and I know you're somewhat constrained, but on the dividend for capital return, you know, some of your competitors, you know, obviously you sold Hard Rock, which is even more money. And with your cash flow, you have a billion dollars potential at the end of next year. Is there any thought given to, I mean, some of the other companies have dividended out the, what I would call excess proceeds from sales. Is that even being considered? And I realize it's a board decision.

Yeah, I mean, look, Brian, we had our board meeting yesterday, and we actually spoke about that in terms of what Barrick, for example, in terms of what they're doing with their... I'm going to designate it as a special dividend, the way they're doing it, but in terms of what they're doing, we discussed that. I think it's just difficult right now. We've got new political leadership in Kyrgyzstan. They are our largest shareholder, and there are some preliminary discussions underway with regards to... you know, what we could be doing with regards to capital return initiatives, but we have not concluded those discussions. So that's a key data point that I would like to have in hand, and I think the board would like to have in hand. And until we have that, it's just difficult to talk about it any further.

Great. Thanks. That's very helpful, Collier Scott. Thanks very much.

Next question comes from the line of Trevor Trumbull, Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thank you. I had a question maybe on the Kumtor mine plan, just specifically on mining costs. I know that you've talked a little bit about longer haulage distances with the waste dump configurations, and we can see the overall costs, and they look very good, but I was just curious, have unit costs gone up given the longer haulage? Can you just kind of give us a sense of kind of where they are today and and what they are kind of assuming in the new mine plan?

I'll let you tell that, Dan, please.

Sure. Actually, we're doing very well today. As an example, the last month of the year and January, we are well below the life of mine estimate. We have done some sensitivities on the life of mine, but... Because it's a large open pit, in terms of hauling an extra kilometer, kilometer and a half each way is not putting much additional cost. And we are actually operating now substantially below the estimate in the new technical report.

Okay. And I just haven't had a chance. I know you've posted it, which is great. So we will have a chance to go through it. Can you give us a sense of what is that unit cost in the new report? I haven't had a chance to see it yet.

I believe it's $1.35 per ton.

Okay, that's close enough. I was just curious. I did have a question also just with respect to the new reserves you guys have put out. I know you're using 1250 for Mount Milligan and Oxsuit, and I'm trying to remember if that's also what you've told us in the past, Scott, that you've used to look at project evaluation, things like Hard Rock. But I was wondering why the difference at Coombe Tor, why that one is slightly different at 1350 versus the 1250 in the other parts of the company.

Yeah, Trevor, just your previous question. I've got it in front of me. It's $1.39. So Dan was essentially correct. He quoted $1.35. It's $1.39 when you get a chance to review the report. Trevor, when we were looking at the economic analysis for Greenstone and Comet, the long-term gold price assumption that we've always used is $13.50. So you and I may just not be recollecting correctly, but in past conversations, it has always been $1,350. And then, yeah, you're correct. As you noted, that's the same gold price assumption that we've used in Qumto's 43-101. So I don't think there's been any change.

Sorry, yeah, I couldn't remember. And that's partly why I was asking. So why still stick with $1,250 on Mount Milligan and Oxwood? Is that just for historic reasons rather than kind of true it all up to the same level?

Primary reason being that with this year, with the reserve compilation that we did, it's just a depletion of the existing 2019 year in reserve. And so given that we're just depleting it, we just left all the assumptions the same.

OK. Yeah, that makes sense. And maybe just a quick question with respect to project evaluation. You know, Brian was mentioning you've certainly got a lot of cash. You're on track to have more cash, and you've divested of some non-core projects. Going forward, when you do look at things and opportunities, is one of the things you factor into the economics when you say look at a project at $1,350,000? Do you also factor in any acquisition costs that go with that? Does that have to get factored into the economics at 1350 to make that decision, or is the project kind of X the acquisition cost?

If we were to be looking at an acquisition opportunity, absolutely our board would insist that the acquisition cost is included. So what we'd be looking at is the all-in acquisition cost rate of return? The answer is yes, absolutely. The acquisition cost would have to be included in the economic analysis.

Right. Okay. And then I guess my final question, just going back to KUMTOR and the government, it doesn't sound like from some of your answers that you've had a chance to really sit down and go through the new mine plan with the government yet. Can you remind us kind of what the next step from the government is with respect to the new mine plan? Do they have to issue approvals, still give you annual approvals? Do they need to look at this new mine plan and then get back to you on anything going forward?

No, in terms of approvals and our permits and what have you, it's just that's issued annually and we received all of those approvals back in December of last year, so we're fully permitted for calendar year 2021. Yeah, in terms of this new life and mind plan, we welcome the opportunity to sit down with the government and discuss this because I think it's a fantastic development for Kyrgyzstan just in terms of ongoing contributions as Dan spoke to in those various stewardship slides. Dan, do you want to chime in? I can't think of anything else that we'd need in terms of sitting down with the government in terms of approvals and what have you.

No, you hit it exactly right. We get an annual approval of subsoil and safety and environment and you can only apply for them two months ahead of time so we do that near the end of the year and And we've had a really excellent relationship with the state agencies in the last few years. So we're always working closely with them.

Since the elections and the new government, have you had them reaching out or Kyrgyzstan kind of reaching out to you at all with respect to KUMTOR? I know there's been a few. headlines out of the country with respect to mining in general, but has Coomptor come up at all or have they initiated any discussion on their end?

No, not really, Trevor. I mean, obviously, we've got three directors on our board who are representatives of the Kyrgyz government. So we've had a lot of discussions, you know, with those three directors. But, you know, in terms of liaising with Kyrgyz Olden, you know, the most recent correspondence was really with regards to this, you know, new life and mind plan that we issued today, you know, whereby they were looking to understand, you know, what is kind of our go forward, you know, development plan for the next five years plus for Kuntur. So now that we've got this in the public forum, it's going to really facilitate good, healthy discussions.

And just with respect to the directors, there's been a little bit of a change, I think, in the exact people from the Kyrgyz-Altan side. Is that fairly typical that as governments change that the directors representing the Kyrgyz-Altan interests tend to change as well?

I would say in the time that I've been with the company, Trevor, which is five and a half years, yeah, it has been typical. When you've seen a change in leadership, we have often seen some changes in terms of their representatives, in terms of their appointee to the board. As you noted, I think it was back in December of last year, one of the directors, there was a change. But to the best of my knowledge, we've got an annual general meeting coming up. To the best of my knowledge, the current three appointees likely to be continuing moving forward over the next 12 months.

Okay. That's all I had. Thanks, Scott.

Our next question comes from the line of Mike Parking, National Bank. Please go ahead.

Thanks, guys, for taking my questions. With respect to, like, if you go back into the early slides of 61, 62 and This oxide zone that you're drilling, you know, you've got really big widths, very decent grades. What's the thought on that? Is it something that you would approach through an open pit, or is it something given that kind of width and a potentially implied strip, you'd prefer to go at it as an underground? Dan, do you want to take that, please?

Certainly, obviously, still in the exploration phase, but I believe right now all of the plans we'd be starting to look at would be open pit. The ground material in the whole concession is very, very weak, and it would be very tricky to do anything like that underground, but... But right now, our whole focus and our whole setup is open pit. But we still have to bring it to much further study. These are exploration results. We don't have a resource pitch yet to bring it to that stage. But right now, I would be thinking that we'd be at a large open pit. Okay.

And on that, you mentioned plans to have some maiden resources. Will you have maiden resources on the oxides or just are you focused more on getting that maiden resource focused on the additional sulfides in that region or a combination thereof?

Malcolm, do you want to respond to that one, please? Yes, it'll be a combination. Some of the shallow oxide material, we hope to have maiden resources on that. and also some of the extensions to the sulfides, like the Koshilu zone, for instance. We hope to have resources announced on that towards the end of the year or early next year.

All right, super. That's it for me, guys. Thanks very much, and congrats on that KUM tour. Like the mine, very impressive.

Thanks, Mike.

Next question from the line of Dalton Barreto. Can I quote? Please go ahead.

Thank you, Alfred. Scott and team, congrats on what looks like a very robust medium-term outlook here. Just a couple of quick questions from me. First of all, just on what Brian and Trevor were asking with regards to the new Kyrgyz leadership, I know you've just engaged and posted this mind plant, but do you have a sense for what stream the new leadership refers in terms of capital return to them? Are they happy with receiving dividends at the corporate level to Kirby's Alton? Are they looking at the revenue based tax number at all? Just anything around that?

Dalton, you know, they've always been, you know, they've always had a high affinity to our dividend distribution. So that is certainly on strategy from their perspective. And I think I'm comfortable saying that if we were to increase the level of our dividend distribution, that would be received well. But just in terms of some of our thinking, our evaluation, just some recent conversations, they are our largest shareholder. They own 26% of our, at the current entity level. And so, as you know, we've got a pretty much a peer-leading balance sheet that's continuing to grow. So, you know, in terms of our evaluations, we're also looking at, would there ever be merit in, you know, like doing a substantial issuer bid? Is that something that Kergies would want to participate in? You know, that could benefit both sides in terms of, you know, the Kergies, you know, taking some money off the table. But likewise, we're compressing our overall share count. They maintain the same equity ownership. You know, that's one scenario. Much, you know, need to have further discussions on that and do, you know, further evaluation. But you can imagine that the whole kind of hodgepodge of different capital return initiatives that we could be pursuing. And so these are the things that we're kind of, you know, deliberating on, discussing with our board as well. You know, does this make sense? Is it on strategy? And, you know, these kind of conversations will continue.

Okay, great. And then a somewhat related question. Now that you've sold Hard Rock, is M&A on the table at all? And do these discussions, you know, have to be a precursor to any M&A or can that happen separately?

You know, you look at the current sort of gold price environment that we're in and, you know, valuations, you know, kind of prohibitive in terms of finding, you know, compelling sort of acquisition opportunities. Right now, I feel that, you know, what we've been doing at Sinteros is trying to put our heads down and just, you know, really focus on execution. And I think that's served us well. particularly so at OXA, just in terms of, you know, the very smooth ramp-up, et cetera. But I find, by and large, we're pretty focused on just execution. But look, if an opportunity was to present itself that had, you know, a compelling, you know, all-in acquisition rate of return, then, you know, it's something we'd have to consider and evaluate. But right now, it's not something that we're going to be... Right now, we're not spending an inordinate amount of activity on that. We're still pretty internally focused. And, you know, as you get a chance to digest you know, the new 43-101 for Qumtor, as well as, you know, the expiration upside that we're seeing there, I actually think that's our most compelling short-term opportunity for the organization in terms of creating ongoing additional value. So that's where I would see us spending a significant amount of our time.

Okay, great. And then, so I have had a chance to actually take a brief look at the tech report. And, you know, a couple of questions for me. Number one, the tech report, you know, and I don't know how much of a risk it is. I'm hoping you can tell me, but the tech report flags the possibility that you may not get permitted to raise the tailings dam anymore, in which case you would need to build a new dam. Can you just give the sense for how much of a possibility or probability that is and, you know, what the associated costs would be if you did have to build a new tailings dam?

Yep. Dan, do you want to take that, please?

Yeah, certainly. Okay. Um, it's an outstanding item and that's why we, we included on the risk. Um, in terms of conversations we're having, we don't, we don't believe that would, it would be rejected. Our, our engineering information is such that, you know, it did well supports the raising, uh, and the stability of the dam. That being said that we do have areas, uh, where we currently excavate for material for the dam. Um, we haven't costed it all out, but, um, those are starting to be studied, not only for tailings capacity, but also for potential reprocessing, because we would need a second tailings dam anyway. But right now we don't have final engineering costs on that, but I wouldn't have thought it would be that much different than the raising of the current dam.

Okay, and then just maybe one last one for me. These Golden Sunrise projects look fairly compelling. What stage are some of these? I mean, can we expect to see feasibility level studies in some of these in the near to medium term? Or are these still very early stage?

Ben, do you want to take that, please?

Certainly. Obviously, they're all in different stages. We've already started, for example, we continue to look at, you know, our recoveries. But in terms of tailings reprocessing, We have taken a number of samples. We are working with different consulting companies to study those to see what type of methodology we could use to recover. So that is certainly early studying. In terms of understanding the ozone underneath the current plant, You know, it's part of our infill drilling and also some of the exploration drilling. So as we understand that better, but it's still certain early days. We haven't cost it up. We have a large range of what it would cost to build a new plant. But as we understand the oxide opportunity, that would substantially affect, you know, our approach to the size of plants and its ability to process different types of ores. Okay. In terms of conveyor belting, a couple of our engineers are taking a look at that, looking at different activities around the world to see how other people are approaching it, as well as other new methodologies for moving waste rock. Our strip ratio is quite high, and we've moved the rock a long ways, so certainly as part of our... embracing climate change activities and utilizing green power, we will continue to study that. But we're not at a point where we're getting engineering to a stage of pre-feasibility or anything like that on any of these opportunities.

Okay, thanks for that. And just maybe one last one for me, Scott. Kamash, given what copper prices have done, are you thinking any differently about that now?

We're not, Dalton. As you and I have discussed in the past, and hopefully I've discussed this in past earnings conference calls, but we had our strategy session back in September with the board, and we looked at both of our development projects, being Greenstone and Kamash, and based on our long-term assumptions, which was $13.50 gold and $2.50 copper, We're not seeing a compelling rate of return or a compelling value proposition on either project. So we've actually deprioritized both of those projects. As you've now seen, we've actually divested of the Greenstone project. In terms of commerce, where I think the current copper price environment comes into play is that if we have deprioritized it, is there an opportunity for us to surface value here for our shareholders in terms of, Is there some kind of earn-out structure that we could do by combining with a more strategic partner or someone who's got more of that skill set when it comes to underground block caving? Or even as part of those sort of discussions, you could end up seeing us doing an outright trade sale similar to Greenstone. So that's how I'd kind of characterize Cometh at the moment. So just to make sure I answer your question, the current copper price environment is having no influence on us. in terms of changing our mind on that project having been de-prioritized.

Makes sense to me. There's a lot of appetite for copper out there right now. Congrats, guys. Thank you.

Next question comes from the line of Anita Sonny, CIBC World Markets. Please go ahead.

Hi, so most of my questions have been asked, but one thing that I just wanted to clarify is when you do your ASIC, you're not including the stripping costs, are you?

In our quarterly results or in the new 43-101, capitalized stripping is included in our all-in sustaining cost metric. It is included.

It is included. So then what's the difference between the all-in sustaining cost and the all-in cost?

It is the gross revenue-based taxes that we pay. And if you're referring to the 43-101, it's also the additional growth capital, a large portion of which is associated with the mining equipment fleet expansion. Darren, I know you're on the line. Have I missed anything there? Well done. Ten points for your accounting there, Scott.

Thanks. And then in terms of the... resources on the Coombe tour that are not included in reserves. What I mean, first question is, what is your dilution rate as it goes from resources to reserve? And secondly, what would it take to get those that mineralization into the pipeline?

Dan, do you want to take that if you have that on hand?

I don't, but we do potentially Bob could potentially speak to that. Bob, please.

Yes, sure. Thank you. Yeah, we have dilution estimated between 8% to 10% in conversion from the resources to reserves. And the majority of the resources that hasn't been included currently are outside of the current ultimate pit design based on the current economical parameters.

Okay, so it might just be the gold price or, you know, is there a significant, is it the stripping ratio as well that might be impacting that?

It will be combination, of course. Stripping ratio would be correlated with the gold price, which would give us overall the profitability and potential coercion for the remaining resources, reserves.

Right, and what, I mean, can I just ask, you know, are, Maybe this is getting a little too fine-tuned, but when we're looking at where they are in proximity to the pit, are they evenly distributed around the pit wall and below the pit, or is it just predominantly maybe where the glaciers are?

No, it's not reflected by the glaciers. This particular organization we are talking about, that's a strictly sulfide one that is on the main northeast-southwest strand of the Coontour deposit, And it's included in the boat in the central pit and the one, the smaller one to the southwest, Salitor and southwest. And they're below the current pit design. Simple like it's not currently economical to go deeper with the pit and get up and then pick up those because it would require pretty big pushback as well. And also keep in mind that we have a buffer zone due to the mill area. has then noticed that we have golden sunrise, and we have to evaluate all resources together, including oxide and potential additional sulfides, and how that new pit design will look in the future.

Okay. And then just moving back to Oxsuit for a minute, I know the old technical report had a different number, I think somewhat closer to 200,000 ounces for year two. Can you just walk me through that? what the changes were. I know you're talking about grade, but why a grade change? Most people are trying to get their capital costs back up front.

Dan, do you want to respond to that? I think it's the theme on the sequencing and the phasing.

Yeah, exactly. It is certainly both the combination of the sequencing between pits, Gunan Tepe and Kaltepe, but also the sequencing of the release of ore in Kaltepe. We've been studying the geotech stability on certain walls and we've just adjusted our mining plans to do further stripping ahead of hitting the higher grade ore at the bottom. So it's simply the sequencing within the current head shells.

Okay, so then what did the old technical report have at the end of this year? What would you have been in terms of your overall pit angle, and what are you changing it to?

Yeah, we'll have to take that offline.

Okay. All right. Okay, thank you very much.

Our next question comes from the line of John Tommaso. John Tommaso, Very Independent Research. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. Your stock trades at a single-digit PE, maybe it implies a discount rate of 12% by the market. What is your policy on share buybacks and how big of a discount would your stock have to trade at for you to buy back shares?

Hi, John. It's Scott. We don't actually have a formal policy when it comes to share buybacks. As I mentioned in responding to an earlier question, it is something that we've been discussing with our board. We are looking at potential possible capital return initiatives and we're looking at everything that's typical in terms of what you'd find in that sort of toolkit. So dividends, looking at normal cost issuer bids, substantial issuer bids. I mean, all of that is being deliberated and discussed. I've been having a number of discussions with our institutional shareholders, and I'm also looking for input from our number one shareholder, which is effectively the government of Kyrgyzstan, through Kyrgyzstan, also speaking there in Portland, and looking to take that all into account, and we'll discuss that with the board and see where we land, but it's hard for me to answer your question because we don't have any sort of formal policy in place.

With the sale of Hard Rock... and chemists being not a priority, what do you expect would be your largest capital needs over the next several years? And with acquisitions being expensive, does that sort of create return to capital by default?

I think that's something that we're evaluating, John, absolutely, because, you know, as you've noted, the balance sheet is strong. Your question with regards to capital expenditure requirements, I mean, all of our operations are positively free cash flowing, and we expect that to be the case, you know, as per our guidance for the next three years. But, you know, nonetheless, when it does come to sort of capital investment opportunities, I think, you know, the various opportunities that Dan and Malcolm spoke to at Quimtor in terms of some of those, you know, golden sunrise opportunities, we're going to continue to invest in drilling. It's potentially got this new oxide gold mineralization system, which is potentially exciting. And, you know, with the passing of time, if we can, you know, prove up the scale of that and prove up, you know, the merits of that, That could be an exciting step change for the property, which would come with a capital investment. None of this is currently reflected and now recently released, 43-101, but it's an exciting opportunity in terms of a subsequent chapter over and above what we're currently illustrating in the new life of mine.

If I could ask one more question, forgive me. It's sort of water over the dam. I was surprised the price... for selling half of hard rock wasn't a little bit more. And the projects would seem to have improved with Equinox arriving as the 50% partner. Was the rationale there simply capital cost avoidance?

The rationale there was that, you know, we use a long-term gold price assumption of 1350. And, you know, when you run it at that assumption, you look at the resultant sort of economics and value proposition, it wasn't meeting Sinterra's internal sort of hurdle rates. And so, as I mentioned, we deprioritized that project. I think it ended up being a win-win for both partners in terms of ourselves and Premier. The face value of that deal, the indicative valuation was approximately $300 million US. And from memory, that's at a 1650 gold price because I'm including the contingent consideration payment. But anyway, if you take that number, if you accept that number that I just quoted, 300 million US, as when we announced that deal, that was higher than the street consensus estimates for the value of the project. And I think it was received well. as and when we announced it, and we have had positive feedback from our shareholders, so I don't think we have any regrets in terms of that deal.

Thank you very much.

Our next question comes from the line of Terence Ortlund with TSO Mining Analysts. Please proceed with your question.

A couple of questions, Scott, to you actually as well. Just a fragment of it has shown up so far. With respect to capital allocation, how much of a room do you have to increase your exploration budget? Because so many juniors right now with great land positions but scarcity of capital. But the land positions are pretty important in the gold belts in North America, for instance. Given the geopolitics that you have, Would you be spending more exploration money in North and South America, for instance?

Our global exploration budget for this year is $50 to $55 million US, which is a significant increase relative to the trailing sort of five-year period. So we have been growing our exploration budget, and that's largely success-based driven. If you look at the majority of our budget, it's dedicated to Qumtoa, As Malcolm mentioned, we're attempting to achieve a record budget this year. We're looking to invest $21 million in drilling. But what we're targeting is an additional 75,000 meters of drilling. And if we can successfully achieve that, that'll be a record level. Again, that's just based on all these additional targets that we're now pursuing. The majority of our budget is really brownfield focused. So when I say brownfield, it's focused on our existing operations. So, you know, again, we've got meaningful budgets at Mount Milligan as well as Oxford in Turkey. And then in terms of our sort of greenfield exploration budgets, which is your sort of early stage opportunities, we tend to be focused on those jurisdictions where we're currently operating. So North America and, let's say, Central Asia, we don't have any presence in South America, which was a part of your question.

Okay, thanks. On KUMTOR, I have a few questions. How much flexibility is there if the price of gold on a sustaining basis goes above $1,600, $1,700, $1,800, let's say? How much flexibility is there for a cutoff grade change and also the expected mine plant?

Dan, do you want to say that, please?

Yes, certainly. So we're currently using a cutoff of 0.85 grams. We have studied that quite extensively. There isn't very – it's not a high percentage of ounces that are below that. So, you know, we already have a very high strip ratio, and the pit is very large. So, you know, we're obviously mining it all. But the cutoff is 0.85%. There's just not that many houses below that. So the higher price would not dictate them much of a change there.

Okay. Thank you for that. And in the discussions with the government that you have, it goes back to the revenue-based taxation that's been an issue in mining industry. How much of a discussion is there if revenue-based taxation changes which also will change your cutoff grade one more time. It's another reason for that. So there will be a longer mine life.

The revenue-based tax, so we remit 13%, 1-3 of our gross revenues to the government in the form of our annual taxes. We don't pay any income tax. That gross revenue tax of 13%, that's dictated by our 2009 investment agreement, which is like our stability agreement. And so that really dictates what is the fiscal code for Qumtor up until 2042, which is the length of duration of all of our concessions. So that's kind of, you know, it's a stability agreement. It's like a subject of international law, international arbitration. So that has not been a discussion with the government.

Okay, I'm not lucky to come up. Going back to the oxides at Qumtor, what were the magic number of grades and ounces that to justify a, let's say, an economic-sized mill to follow it up. Three grams, three million ounces, four versus four. What would be the minimal number you would consider to put a mill up there?

I apologize, Terrence. We're just not in a position to answer that right now. It's just too preliminary. We're going to do a lot more evaluation and what have you to fully appreciate what is the scale. It looks like it leaches well, but We've got a lot of engineering to do just to truly ascertain how you would develop and extract it, et cetera. So it's just too early.

Thanks. Great presentation. I'll come to it one more time. Thanks again, guys.

Thanks.

And we have no further questions on the phone line.

Okay. Thank you, Carlos. John, did you want to close the meeting or?

Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for joining us on our call today. And we will end the call right now. Thank you.

That concludes today's call. We thank you for your participation and ask you to please disconnect your lines.