Fortuna Mining Corp

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Fortuna Silver Mines Q1 2022 Financial and Operational Results Call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for questions and comments after the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Carlos Baca. Sir, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Jenny. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to welcome you to Fortuna Silver Mines and to our financial and operations results call for the first quarter of 2022. Hosting the call today on behalf of Fortuna will be Jorge Alberto Ganosa, President and Chief Executive Officer, Luis Darío Ganosa, Chief Financial Officer, Cesar Velasco, Chief Operating Officer, Latin America, and Paul Criddle, Chief Operating Officer, West Africa. Today's Earnings call presentation is available on the featured presentation box on our homepage at fortunasilver.com. As a reminder, statements made during this call are subject to the reader advisories included in yesterday's news release and in the earnings call presentation. Financial figures contained in the presentation and discussed in today's call are presented in U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated. Before I turn over the call to Jorge, I would like to indicate that this earnings call contains forward-looking information that is based on the company's current expectations, estimates, and beliefs. This forward-looking information is subject to a number of risks, uncertainties, and other factors. Actual results could differ materially from a conclusion, forecast, or projection in the forward-looking information. Certain material factors or assumptions were applied in drawing a conclusion or making a forecast or projection as reflected in the forward-looking information. Additional information about the material factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the conclusion, forecast, or projection in the forward-looking information and the material factors or assumptions that were applied in drawing a conclusion or making a forecast or projection as reflected in the forward-looking information is contained in the company's annual information form and MD&A, which are publicly available on CDER. The company assumes no obligation to update such forward-looking information in the future, except as required by law. I would now like to turn the call over to Jorge Alberto Ganosa, co-founder of Fortuna.

Thank you, Carlos, and good morning to all. Thanks for joining us today. Our business performed very well in the first quarter of the year. We realized a silver price of $24 per ounce and $1,884 per ounce of gold. We recorded net income of $27 million, or $0.09 per share. After adjustments for unrealized losses on derivative contracts for a portion of our byproduct think production and the write-down of exploration investments at a prospect in central Mexico, our adjusted net income came in at a record $33 million, or 11 cents per share, beating analyst consensus of 10 cents per share. Our adjusted EBITDA was 80 million, with a robust margin over sales of 44%. As of the end of the quarter, the company maintained a strong balance sheet with low debt leverage and liquidity available of $150 million, which is more than adequate to meet all our capital and growth plans. With respect to our key growth project, CEGELA, Paul Criddle, our Chief Operating Officer for West Africa, will be providing an update for you in a minute. But I can advance, construction is 48% complete as of the end of March, and as of the latest report provided, to me, as of the end of April, completion is at 55%. The project remains on time and on budget for our first gold pour in mid-2023. Of note at Segueda as well is the mainland inferred mineral resource for the Sunbird Discovery, comprising 3.5 million tons, averaging 3.2 grams of gold per ton, containing 350,000 ounces of gold. We made a news release of this on March 15th. Sandberg remains open with high-grade gold intercepts in multiple directions. We plan to continue drilling Sandberg and other targets at Seguela for all of this year. The Sandberg discovery is incremental to what is already a mine in the making with gold reserves for a decade of production. Looking at our consolidated production, all our mines performed well and in line with our annual guidance projections for 6.2 to 6.9 million ounces of silver and 244,000 to 280,000 ounces of gold. During the quarter, we produced 67,000 ounces of gold and 1.7 million ounces of silver. Compared to the first quarter of last year, we show a significant increase of 93% in gold production. The increase is driven by contributions from the Yaramoko mine and the ramp-up completion of our Lindero mine in the province of South Argentina. Silver production declined by 13%, and this is explained by lower head grades at our San Jose mine. These lower grades are in line with reserves and mine plans. In the quarter, gold accounted for 71% of sales and silver for 19% of sales. The 10% balance is made of by-product lead and zinc out of our Cayomo mine in Peru. On the side of costs, all our mines performed within the ranges we provided for in our annual guidance. Our costs are quite competitive at all our mines, giving the company resilience as we navigate through the precious metals price cycles and short-term price swings. Lindero produced gold at an all-in sustaining cost of $1,038, and Yanamoco at an all-in sustaining cost of $1,147 per ounce. At our silver mines, Cayoma produced silver at an all-in sustaining cost of $17.80, and San Jose at $15 per ounce. With 4 million ounces of gold equivalents in mineral reserves, diversified production from mines located in two of the most important mining regions in the world, competitive costs, short-term growth in the pipeline, and a healthy balance sheet, Fortuna is well positioned to continue harvesting high-value opportunities within the portfolio as we advance our business. The company has put in place a non-course issuer bid program for the repurchase of up to 5% of the shares issued and outstanding. We intend to make use of the program this year. In doing so, management will be considering the timing of capital requirements of our growth project and, of course, assessing the value of the company. With that now, we can have Cesar provide us a quick glance of our LATAM operations, Cesar.