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Operator
Greetings and welcome to the Fortuna Silver Mines first quarter 2023 financial and operational results call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode and a question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Carlos Vaca, Director of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.
Carlos Vaca
Thank you, Ali. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to welcome you to the Fortuna Silvermine's first quarter 2023 financial and operational results conference call. 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, David Whittle, Chief Operating Officer, West Africa, and Paul Whedon, Senior Vice President, Exploration. Today's earnings call presentation will be available on our website, fortunasilver.com. As a reminder, statements made during this call are subject to the reader's 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, President, Chief Executive Officer, and co-founder of Fortuna.
Ali
Thank you, Carlos. Good morning to all. Our business performed well during the first quarter. We recorded net income of $0.04 per share. achieved production of 94,110 gold equivalent ounces on track to meet annual guidance, and our costs were all in line with our guidance projections for the period. The sustained worldwide inflation and corresponding cost creep that we all experienced over the past couple of years has been compressing business margins across the precious metals mining industry This despite initiatives to optimize our operations and streamline the business. Gold and silver prices did not provide any significant relief on margins as of Q1 2023, but going into the second quarter, metal prices and margins for the business are looking much stronger. For average realized gold price for Q1 was $1,893. which is essentially flat against what we realized in the comparable quarter for 2022, and only 7% higher against a realized price two years ago in Q1 2021. For silver, the story is even a bit more difficult. For 2023, we realized, for this Q1, we realized $22.52, which is 14% lower against the $26.20 we realized in Q1 2021. Over the last year, quarter against comparable quarter or consolidated cash cost per ounce went from $772 per ounce to $923 per ounce, up 20%. Despite all this, Evita came in at a healthy $65 million, and the business generated net cash from operating activities of $41.8 million. After meeting all our sustaining capital demands, funding corporate expenses, and paying $12.9 million in taxes, the business generated free cash flow of $8.7 million. Luis will expand on our management discussion of financial results later in this presentation. Subsequent to the end of the quarter, we have had a few relevant events of importance that I want to mention. During April at the San Jose mine in Mexico, we had to contend with a 15-day stoppage derived from a union claim demanding increasing profit sharing. Beyond what's stipulated by law, this dispute has been resolved and operations resumed. In early May as well, the Mexican government approved a new mining reform, which we view as negative for investment in the country, unfortunately. For starters, mineral exploration in open ground becomes an activity reserved for the government. And existing mineral concessions and mine operations will be subject to many questionable articles in the law, which provide for higher costs and uncertainties to investment. we expect there will be many constitutional appeals filed with the Supreme Court of Justice in Mexico against the new law coming from mining companies and other interest groups. Another item to be aware of is our first gold pour at the newly built Seguela mine, which is imminent, and we expect the pour in this second half of May. And on May 8th, we announced we reached an agreement with Chesser Resources to acquire 100% of the company for an all-share consideration, representing approximately 5.1% of the pro forma fortuna. We expect this transaction to close in late August. Chesser is of great strategic fit to fortuna. Geographically, the Chesser properties are located in Senegal, a near-neighboring country to our existing operations in Côte d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso, a mining-friendly jurisdiction, Senegal, and a place where we can leverage our West African management infrastructure and expertise. The Diambasut project is a high-value advanced exploration opportunity with multiple targets still to be drill tested. Located in the heart of the Senegal-Mali shear zone, within a few kilometers of Tier 1 mines in the portafolio of gold majors. And the preliminary economic assessment carried by Chesser on the AMBA suit outlined a conventional open pit and CIL process that even with a sub-million ounce gold resource as it stands today can deliver robust internal rates of return above our minimum investment threshold. Paul Whedon, our Senior Vice President of Exploration, is with us. Paul, can you please share our views on the exploration opportunities that CHSAR presents to us?
Carlos
Yes, certainly. Thank you, Jorge. As Jorge said, CHSAR represents the next step for West African growth, and it follows the Sagada development. And this is a project we've also been tracking for a few years now and watching it grow over time. So just a quick summary. It's located in Senegal. It's actually located in the southeast corner of Senegal, about 680 kilometres from Dakar. Easy to access. It's a well-serviced, major regional road that runs down through that way. It's a highway. Low security risk. It's a mining-friendly jurisdiction, and we've got several Tier 1-scale mines within 50 kilometres of the project. Chester's scoping studies highlighted a technically simple open pit mining concept across several pits with a conventional 2 million ton pranam operation. And we would see that as something we'd continue to pursue. We would also anticipate this being a project that we would follow very closely behind us again at Development Park, given that when we acquired that four years ago, we had an inferred resource of probably 1,000 ounces. And today we're back to poor gold. So I don't anticipate that we'd see a similar growth down the road. Just moving across to the geology side of it, why do we really like it? It's located in the really highly prospective Kinnearby-Kadugu Inlayer, which is a world-class mining district, host to several large T1 operations. The Dairiesford project itself is located on a series of splays that come off the main centre of the Marley Shear Zone, which is host to the majority of those large deposits. And I really like the structurally complex nature of the deposit that's there. It highlights regional prospectivity. And also you see there's a lot of similarities to the nearby Focola and Gungotto and Ulay operations of B2 Gold and Barrick. They're all within, the closest to those is 12 kilometres away. So far, the Chester folks have identified four shallow gold deposits with a very well-developed oxide supergene signature to them. And we'd certainly see that evolving further The further exploration work we'll be looking to carry out later on this year will resume that work. At the moment, though, it's a very attractive exploration play for us. They've got the resources. They've currently got 625,000 ounces of indicators at 1.9 grams and a further 235,000 ounces of inferred at 1.5 grams. We see those growing over time, as well as the work we've got to do, as Chessie's announced, the recent work at Casa Soco, There's been some decent rise intervals reported there at Gumba Gumba Nord and at the Western Splay. So these are all drill-ready targets with some preliminary work done to date. In addition to those, there's several new additional targets that we've identified using their datasets, and that's really one of the highlights for us. There's a portfolio here of new targets available for us to walk up and test. And then there's also the potential there for a wider regional consolidation. We see a lot of encouragement there. Direct and immediately adjacent to us is Cadbury West. We share a lease boundary with them. They've got a project there which is looking quite interesting. And then to the immediate west, we also have Africa's Karakani Project, which is also, again, highlighting the potential that we see through the area. So, you know, in short, what we see here is an advanced exploration play that we could see moving through the phases to feasibility in a fairly short order of time. much with a high potential for growth very simple geology in the sense that we know what's there it's got a nice degree of structural complexity which adds a bit more excitement to the process but it's a project which you think we can carry through fairly quickly and looking forward to getting onto the ground later on this year thank you hawaii thank you paul and uh we'll move now to get uh
Ali
an update from our operations, from our Chief Operating Officer. So, David, do you want to get going?
Yaramoko
Thanks, Jorge.
spk08
Operations in West Africa continued the solid performance during Q1 2023, with Yaramoko delivering gold production of 26,437 ounces. This was ahead of the mine plan. the additional production contributing to Yaramoka is all in sustaining costs and cash costs of $1,509 per ounce and $819 per ounce respectively, both ahead of the lower end of annual guidance. The gala's construction remains on time and on budget, with the first load board projected for this month. Safety performance at Yaramoko was strong with no injuries reported. Unfortunately, at Tagela, an exploration contractor received a finger injury which was later classified as an LTI. In early April, a failure of the impact tunneling structure at the Yaramoko portal occurred which resulted in the loss of the access to the underground mine. for a period of 27 days whilst rehabilitation operations took place. Normal underground operations resumed on 1st of May, with the processing plant treating existing stockpiles throughout the rehabilitation period.
Yaramoko
Production for Q2 and we do not anticipate any
spk08
Yarramoto Underground Grave Control and Brown Three Lords exploration programs continued with encouraging results, extending our planned mining boundaries on the western side of the ore body and increasing soap tonnages within the existing reserve boundaries. Construction progress at Sagala continues on time and on budget, with the project being 99% complete as of the end of April. April saw a ramp up of mining and processing activities as all was delivered to the run path from the Antenna pit, which is the first deposit being mined. Delivered to the crushing and milling circuits and grade control drilling of the initial benches at Antenna with more than 12,000 metres drilled. Road clearing and construction to the Antenna pit The second deposit being mined is currently taking place with great control drilling expected to start in late May 2023. All mining major equipment is now being mobilized to site and Motor Angle, the mining contractor, is now in the final stages of the construction of key infrastructure. In parallel with excellent progress on the ground, operational readiness scopes are advancing well. The mining, technical, processing, and maintenance teams have all been recruited, with Motor Angle scheduled to recruit the remaining members of the mining team over the coming months. Back to you, Jorge.
Yaramoko
Thank you, David.
Ali
Cesar, can you give us your update on LATAM operations, please?
spk06
Jorge, thank you very much. And as you mentioned before, you know, last week our San Jose mine in Mexico resumed operations after a 15-day illegal blockade. We are now working on the production recovery plan and don't anticipate any impact on annual guidance at this stage. We're also assessing potential impacts on the additional costs related to the agreements reached with the union. as well as production targets and safety performance for the year. During the first quarter, San Jose produced 1.3 million ounces of silver and 8,231 ounces of gold. These results are slightly below Q1 2022 due to lower grades than planned as a result of higher dilution in one of the sub-level stopping areas and the small delay in the mining sequence at level 800. We anticipate mining better grade stoves in the upcoming months though. Cash cost per ounce at San Jose has come under pressure from a stronger Mexican peso, coupled with higher inflation and lower head grades. All these sustaining costs for the quarter is in line with annual guidance. as lower production and higher cost of sales were offset by timing in CapEx execution. Moving down to Argentina, gold production of the Lindero mine was 25,258 ounces, aligned with the mining sequence for the quarter. Head grades are expected to improve in the upcoming mining zones as per mine plan. Mine production for the quarter was 1.6 million tons of mineralized material with a stripping ratio of 1.07 to one, which is aligned with the operations plan for the year of 1.17 to one. Lindero's ASIC is in line with guidance for the year. Cash cost per ounce was impacted by higher labor and one time services cost, as well as the effect of lower grades, but partially offset by lower capex execution and savings in key consumables. ASIC is expected to come in at the high end of guidance for the year. In Peru, despite social unrest and numerous road blockades throughout the country in January and February, operations at the Cayoma mine have not been significantly affected. The operation delivered strong production for the first quarter with 8, 19, and 10% higher production for silver, lead, and zinc respectively. The operation benefited from better head grades at levels 16 and 17, the deepest levels of the mine, and higher tones processed during the period. CAYOMA's all-in sustaining cost for the quarter benefited from higher production, lower cash cost, and lower capex execution, and it's on target to achieve the lower cost range of annual guidance. That covers the three Latin American operations. Jorge, back to you.
Ali
Thank you. Luis, you want to give your report on financial results, please?
spk01
Yes, good morning. So sales were $175.6 billion in the quarter. a decrease of $6.7 million, or 4%, compared to Q1 2021. A slight decrease was driven by 7% lower silver prices and 14% lower zinc prices. The volume effect on our sales year-over-year was neutral, as slightly lower gold and silver sales were offset by higher zinc production at our Cayoma mine. Year over year, our key financial metrics reflect the impact from inflation rates experienced throughout 2022, as well as lower operating margins at Yaramoco and Lindero related to scheduled decreases in head rate. These impacts resulted in cash cost per gold equivalent unsold of $916 for Q1 2023, which was $144 above the prior year. So I just mentioned this increase is a combined effect of higher input costs across our operations, more processed tonnage to produce a lower number of ounces at Yeramoco and Lindero, and the negative effect of relative prices in the calculation of gold equivalent production of approximately $29 per ounce. So adjusted net income for the quarter was $13.2 million, down $20 million year-over-year. And adjusted EBITDA was $65.3 million, down $15 million year-over-year. We have disclosed for the quarter consolidated all-in sustaining costs, including corporate expenses, of $1,514 per gold equivalent ounce sold. which represents an increase of $230 per ounce year over year. The increase is explained by higher cost per ounce sold described before, higher sustaining capex of $109, of which two-thirds is timing of payments in the prior year, with an offset from lower corporate GNA of $24 per gold equivalent ounce sold. For Q2 of 2023, we expect to see somewhat higher consolidated all-in sustaining costs due to a pickup in sustaining capex and stoppage at San Jose. And for Q3 and Q4 of this year, we expect to see a trend towards lower levels as Seguela starts weighing positively on our all-in sustaining cost performance. Moving on to cash flows, net cash from operating activities in the quarter was $41.8 million compared to $33.2 million in Q1 of 2022, as changes in working capital and lower income taxes paid compensated for the lower EBITDA of $15 million year over year. Free cash flow from operations. was $8.5 million compared to $9.6 million in the prior year. As Jorge emphasized, our reported free cash flow figure is after sustaining CAPEX, brownfields exploration, and corporate expenses. It does exclude Seguela construction and greenfields exploration. Our additions to mineral properties and properties plant and equipment as per the cash flow statement was $61.5 million, which consisted mainly of $30 million of sustaining CAPEX and brownfields exploration, $17.3 million Seguela construction expenditures, $4.5 million of other pre-production activities at Seguela, $3.7 million of greenfields exploration and capitalized interest of $2.8 million. Onto the balance sheet, we closed the quarter with a liquidity position of $129.7 million, which includes $45 million and drawn under our existing credit facility as of the end of March. The remaining cash to be spent on the Seguela construction as of the end of the quarter was approximately $23 million. And finally, our total net debt, including the outstanding convertible debenture is $166 million, resulting in a leverage ratio of total net debt to adjusted EBITDA of 0.7. Back to you Jorge.
Ali
Thank you. That concludes the management discussion. So, Carlos, for the Q&A.
Yaramoko
Thank you, Jorge. We would now like to open the call to any questions that you may have.
Operator
Thank you. At this time we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. And for participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment please while we poll for questions.
Yaramoko
Thank you.
Operator
We have a question from Tony Christ with Odyssey Investments. You may proceed.
Tony
Thank you. My name is Chris. Jorge, could you give any more specific indication of what you expect from the gold mine starting production this month? What you expect in the future? And the other comment I have is I imagine You gentlemen are looking forward to a very exciting future.
Yaramoko
Thank you for the question, Chris.
Ali
We already provided for 2023 our guidance estimates for Seguela. We have guided for goal production between 60 and 75,000 ounces. And for all in sustaining costs, we have provided a range that goes from $880 to $1,080 per ounce. So that is our more immediate estimation based on our best assessment of where we are with the project and how the project has been evolving. which is really on time, on budget. I can only commend the good work that the entire West African team has achieved and delivered throughout the construction commissioning and now ramping up. We expect first gold pour in the coming days. It's imminent. Before the end of this month, we should be having our first gold. But looking forward, looking at the bigger picture, Segela is a flagship asset for the company. It has many key features. One is meaningful production. Second is low cost. It will be our lowest cost mine operation. Third, it has today a long life of reserves. Today, as we see the mine based on reserves and the conversion work we're doing on Sandberg resources, we can easily see beyond a decade of mining based on reserves. And beyond that is tremendous exploration potential. We hold a commanding land position in the Segela camp. I call it a camp. We have 30 kilometers of from north to south along what's a most prospective and productive mineralized gold belt. So sometimes I am asked, so what follows after Seguela? And my immediate response to that is more Seguela. We have the expectation that Seguela can be a much more larger mind than what we are bringing into production today, which is already quite meaningful.
Yaramoko
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Operator
We have another question from Adrian Vey with Adrian Vey Asset Management. You may proceed.
spk03
Yeah, good afternoon. Two questions, if I may. First one, Do you have a sort of budget for exploration at the Diembersud project for the next year? And then the second question would be, you know, I just wondered if you had any high-level views that you can give on the geographic spread of the company. And do you look... you know, are you looking at region, are you wanting to emphasize particular regions, or are you looking purely at each mine, each opportunity as it comes along?
Ali
Thank you, Adrian. With respect to the AMBA suit budget, the transaction, the Chesire acquisition is expected to close in late August. So we are currently working on or plans for the work that will start once the transaction is consummated in August. That will, of course, encompass an expiration budget. We do not have a budget at this time. But I can advance to you that exploration will be a focus for the Diambasud work that's coming ahead. We also will likely be doing some engineering work. Diambasud has a published preliminary economic assessment and Chesser Management was working already on a feasibility study. So although completion of the feasibility study, I wouldn't call it a priority for us right now, certainly we will look at aspects of the feasibility study, looking to see opportunities for optimization and bringing our own expertise and thoughts to the design and conceptualization of what could be a future mine there. So exploration will be a priority, and we are working on those budgets and plans as we speak. We have some time because the transaction is set to close in August, as I explained. With respect to the more strategic question, your second question, on geographic spread for the company. And that is a key aspect of Fortuna. Fortuna is a company that today has a wide geographic spread, right? We operate in five different countries, in two continents. So this is a key strategic aspect of our business and the subject of strategic discussion or has been the subject of strategic discussion. So what you will see is Fortuna anchored in the two regions where we are already established. That's West Africa and the Latam Cordilleran Belt. Within these two most productive mining regions, you will see us focused, one, in the countries where we already operate, in the five countries where we operate. The five countries where we are established are mining jurisdictions, you know, Mexico, Peru, the province of Salta, which is proud of its mining heritage, Burkina Faso, the Ivory Coast, and now expanding into Senegal. But you will see us first focus in the countries where we are already established. And as a second priority is near neighbors. So what we want to do is be able to leverage the existing infrastructure we have in our management hubs in the city of Abidjan in Cote d'Ivoire and in the city of Lima in Peru. That's where our management hubs sit for the two regions and where we have expertise that we can leverage within the region. You should not look to see Fortuna stepping out of these regions. For example, sometimes I'm asked about Africa. Africa is quite a large place and diverse. We're not looking for opportunities across Africa. We're looking for opportunities in West Africa, in near neighbors, in the countries where we're already established. The same with LATAM. So we're not looking at opportunities in North America or Australia or the Philippines or places like that. Our core areas of focus are where we are already established. We feel very comfortable there growing our business, and we believe we can manage the geographic dispersion we have in place today.
Yaramoko
Okay, thank you. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is coming from Justin Stevens with PIE Financial. You may proceed.
Justin Stevens
Hey, guys, just a few questions from my side here, more sort of on the exploration and sort of upside end of things. I know there was some talk earlier this year about looking at Adizato. Can you just maybe give us an idea on what the timeline might be for the evaluation there, the potential to potentially bring that into the mine life and what would be needed from a permit side of things?
Ali
yes i can advance uh things on from the permit side of things uh is within our mining concession and uh any ore that we mine there will be fed to existing infrastructure so we don't see uh there any any significant issues with with permitting and for the exploration side of things i'll let paul uh talk to ariza well yeah thanks all right um yeah we've we've
Carlos
Last year, we wrapped up another phase of work around Arizona and were successful in expanding the footprint of the minimization there. We ran out of some good optimization results and certainly very encouraging. The grades that we've got are comparable to what Lendero is. Given Lendero's long life of mine, there's not a real need at the moment to continue to advance that. because it doesn't displace anything that's better value. So we're at the end of the Lendera mine life. There's still some work to be done on the optimization of it, but we've certainly got a reason-sized resource there at the moment. We will continue to look at the structural repeats of it. It's a polyphase intrusive that's here. And we do see some evidence of a reasonably strong reasonably coherent structural overprint that I don't think was recognized previously. But, yeah, we're not really doing a lot of work out there at Zorro for the next year or so.
Justin Stevens
Got it. That makes sense. Moving over to the gill end of things, though, obviously some pretty nice results coming out of Sunbird the last little while as you've been drilling up there, and good to see sort of that resource bump. Are you planning to put out another updated resource on that, or are you just sort of expecting that to fall into the usual annual cadence and sort of line up with the annual reserve and resource updates?
Yaramoko
Paul? Yeah, thanks for that.
Carlos
Yeah, look, we're just going to have the sunbirds. Sunbirds drilling is just wrapped up now. That's moved across to the ops guys to start the optimization and introduction into the life of mine. later on this year, so it'll come out as possibly regular uptake next year.
Justin Stevens
Got it. That makes sense. And just on that, I mean, obviously, you know, it's looking like it's got a decent amount of size there. What sort of, you know, two different ways either either what sort of potential flexibility do you have in uh deep bottlenecking the plant or what do you sort of see as the the main segala you know process bottleneck if you were to try to look at increasing the throughput david you want to address this question on the bottlenecking of segala's plant and what are
Ali
or plans are with respect to assessing the expansion of the mill?
Yaramoko
Yeah, I can answer that one, Hugo.
spk08
Within the initially anticipated setup of the plant and the TFS It was expected that we would be able to increase the throughput of the plant around year three to about 1.5, 1.6 million tons a year. That was ultimately based around changes with grind size and a couple of other modifications through the plant. The design of the plant also has an option for the installation of a ball mill and a paddle crusher later on in life as well to further expand the throughput. At the moment, obviously, the focus will be to see where the real boundaries exist in the existing plant. At the moment we're just establishing operation of the plant and we're feeding oxide ore so it's a little bit early to be able to go through that process but by a little bit later on this year we should be starting to feed fresh ore and we should be able to start looking at where some of the bottlenecks lie and be able to work on removing those bottlenecks. I think Sagala over the following years is going to be a very, very dynamic environment with the Sunbird deposit coming into the mine plan and some other good exploration opportunities. I think the mine plan is going to be very dynamic over the next few years and there's going to be probably a lot of engineering work to do really determine where the production from Sagala sits and whether the constricting factor will really be planned through before the mine. I think both will be pushing each other along for a good couple of years later.
Yaramoko
Great. That's what we want to hear. That's it for me, though. Thanks.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is coming from Jasper Wijk with Valpa. Sir, you may proceed.
Paul
Thank you, operator. Most of my questions have already been answered, but I have one question on your recent acquisition of Chester Resources. You will be focusing on exploration and finding more ounces and more satellite pits at the at the ambassador but do you have any sort of target in amount of ounces that you would like that you would be able to settle for before moving into development and and devising a feasibility study on the ambassador thank you thank you that's a that's a good question uh jasper we have a a threshold
Ali
and a view that the AMBA suit with the work that Paul has outlined has a fair chance to go beyond a million ounces. So that's with work in the immediate area of deposits that have been discovered and drilled. and also with some of the other initiatives outlined by Paul. So our view is that it can certainly get beyond a million ounces. Now, how big? Well, the drill bit will tell us, right? But beyond a million ounces is, we believe, a reasonable expectation based on the information and our understanding today. And we have certain criteria. We want to see a life of reserves that support a mine for over a decade. We would like to see in our mine portfolio all of the assets at 10 years plus in reserves. And we would like to see production that for a company of our size, annual production from each asset nor in the range of 150,000, 120,000 ounces annually. So with respect to physical metrics, that is what we would like to see in every asset. And then of course we have our financial thresholds with respect to our expectations on internal rates of return and things like that. more on the physical side of metrics, 10 years of reserves minimum and meaningful production at competitive costs, of course, right? And with the grades that we have at Diambasud, you know, over a gram and a half, you know, we believe we can achieve low-cost rounds and it's conventional mining, conventional processing, So we just need to focus on the exploration and get it beyond that mount, which is the million ounces. Today it's a sub-million ounce deposit. And as we have said in the past, it looks very much like a Seguela look to the exploration team back in the day when the Seguela acquisition was made. When the Seguela acquisition was made back in 2019, Segela was a 400,000-ounce deposit. Today, it's touching 2 million ounces and continues to show potential to grow. So we see a similar opportunity in general terms.
Paul
Thank you, Jorge. That was a great answer, and you provided some great call on that. Sounds reasonable. That was it for me, Operator.
Operator
Thank you so much. At this time, we have no further questions on the telephone lines, so I will hand the call back over to management.
Carlos Vaca
Thank you, Ali. If there are no further questions, I would like to thank everyone for listening to today's earnings call. Have a great day.
Operator
Thank you. This does conclude today's conference and you may disconnect your lines at this time. We thank you for your participation.
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