Iamgold Corporation Ordinary Shares

Thank you for standing by. This is the Chorus Call Conference Operator. Welcome to the IAMGOLD First Quarter 2020 Operating and Financial Results Conference Call and Webcast. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Indi Gopinathan, Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications for IAMGOLD. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much, Ariel, and welcome everyone to the IAMGOLD first quarter 2020 conference call. Joining me today on the call are Gord Stothert, President and Chief Executive Officer of Carol Banducci, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Bruno Lemelin, Senior Vice President, Operations and Projects, Craig McDougall, Senior Vice President, Exploration, and Jeff Snow, Senior Vice President, Business Development and General Counsel. Our remarks on this call will include forward-looking statements. Please refer to the cautionary language regarding forward-looking information in our disclosure documents and be advised that the same cautionary language applies to our remarks during the call. The slides referenced on this call can be viewed on our website. I will now turn the call over to our President and CEO, Gordon Stothert.

Well, thank you, Indy. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I hope everyone is safe and healthy and managing through their own little private Groundhog Day experience. Anyways, so last night we issued our first quarter 2020 results. which demonstrate our leverage to the gold price and strong operating cash flows. Before we get into the discussion of the quarter, I wanted to touch on the current environment and how our company is situated. In this uncertain environment caused by the global COVID-19 crisis, IAM Gold is fortunate to be operating from a position of strength. We have a strong balance sheet to withstand operational and or market disruptions. We have operations in diverse jurisdictions, which in turn diversifies our risk of exposure to the current crisis. Our team has enacted an effective multi-level crisis management process very early on in the outbreak, which has enabled timely implementation of strict protocols and a quick and agile response to a fluid situation. IAMGOLD has a deep bench strength across the organization at both the operations and corporate level to support the business and we have been successful in taking a collaborative approach to government and community relations. Despite the challenges of the current situation, we have continued to move the business forward, as evidenced by the completion of the Saramaca UJB agreement with the Surinamese state-owned petroleum company Statsoli that we announced a couple weeks ago. Bruno will provide some additional details a little later, but I'd like to say that Statsoli represents a solid partner for Roosevelt, given their experience as a partner with Newmont over the past several years on the Miriam Mine in Suriname. So our strengths have enabled us to respond in a timely and effective manner to the global COVID-19 crisis, once again reflecting our commitment to zero harm. Our response started with the activation of our cross-functional crisis committees, which combine expertise from various disciplines across the company to assess and plan actions. From a health and safety perspective, we've taken extensive steps to protect the health and safety of employees and contractors. And Bruno will be sharing some pictures in a few minutes to give you a better sense of what has been implemented. In addition, we've been working with our host regional and local governments to safeguard vulnerable communities by bolstering food security, donating medical equipment, and contributing to COVID-19 relief programs. The crisis had a limited impact on our mining operations in Q1, with production uninterrupted at Essican and Rosabelle. While the impact to Westwood was limited to the six days in March, the operation was placed on care and maintenance, along with other mining companies province-wide, following a directive from the Quebec provincial government. However, sales were impacted at Essican as they were postponed at the quarter end due to the global COVID-19 crisis. Those Those gold ounces not sold in March, we have sold since in April. I Am Gold is committed to achieving high standards in environmental, social, and government practices. It has been very straightforward for the organization to maintain these standards as they are perfectly aligned with our zero harm vision, which has been a guiding principle of the company for over a dozen years. One of the recent highlights is a public-private partnership with the Canadian government and the One Drop Foundation, and CoWater on the Triangle de L'eau project in Burkina Faso in order to bring potable water to 200,000 people around the Essekan mine over the past few years. We have also developed the Suriname Community Fund this past year with initial funding of $2.5 million to provide grants to local projects which demonstrate positive economic and social impacts. I'm very pleased to announce that we strengthened our leadership, technical, and stakeholder engagement talent with the appointment of Bruno Lemelin to Senior Vice President, Operations and Projects, who will speak a little later, and also the appointment of Umar Togayeni to Senior Vice President, International Affairs and Sustainability. In his new role, Bruno has oversight of all operational and project development activities across the organization. Having joined the company in 2014, after a 10-year career with Extrata, now Glencore, and then with SNC-Lavalin. Bruno transitions from the role of Regional Vice President Americas for IAMGOLD. Umar's new responsibilities will be to manage IAMGOLD's relationships with overseas host governments and other stakeholders in West Africa and South America. Umar joined IAMGOLD in 2012, bringing over 25 years' experience in exploration, project development and operations for various commodities including gold, base metals, and bauxite in Africa, Europe, South America, and the Caribbean. Umar transitions from the role of Regional Vice President West Africa for IAMGOLD. Following our review of 2020 guidance, in the context of impacts of the COVID-19 crisis to date, we have made the following revisions. We have lowered production guidance for Essican to the range of 350,000 to 370,000 ounces. We have slightly increased production guidance for Roosevelt to the range of 250,000 to 270,000 ounces. We have lowered production guidance for Westwood to 85,000 to 100,000 ounces, largely due to the impact of the mandated care and maintenance shutdown from March 26th through April 15th, combined with the restart activities and adjustments to new working protocols. These changes shift attributable guidance for the company down about 2% to the range of 685,000 ounces to 740,000 ounces for 2020. With the impact on production and the adjustments we are all making, we have adjusted cost guidance as follows. Cost of sales between $955 and $995 per ounce sold. Total cash costs of $920 and $960 per ounce produced. all in sustaining costs of between $1,195 and $1,245 per ounce sold. Our outlook for capital expenditures was also adjusted in the context of COVID-19. The main changes are at EFACAN, a reduction of non-sustaining costs to $80 million from $100 million due to lower levels of capitalized stripping and timing of spend. At Roosevelt, an increase of $5 million of sustaining capital due to a shift of spend from non-sustaining capital. At Westwood, a reduction of $10 million in non-sustaining capital due to reduced development. At Cote, our planned capital expenditures for 2020 were increased by $10 million to $45 million to support progress on the early works phase, including site tree clearing work from the first quarter access road development, advancement of the construction camp facilities, and advancement of detailed project engineering. At BOTO, planned capital expenditures in 2020 are reduced by $5 million to $25 million. In total, these adjustments comprise a net increase of $5 million in sustained capital and a net decrease of $30 million in non-sustaining capital. And the total capital spend in 2020 is is planned at $345 million, a net decrease of $25 million. I'll note here that our 2021 guidance remains unchanged, but is under review as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds and we better understand the effect of 2020 adjustments on our plans for 2021. As we continue to optimize our existing operations and de-risk our development projects, we have a number of catalysts upcoming in 2020. We are currently working on the NI43-101 report for Westwood for mid-2020. This is expected to outline the details of a safe, profitable, and long-life mine plan. At Roosevelt, the main haul road is substantially complete for Saramaca, and we're hauling on it now. we expect to be at the target run rate for mining at Saramaca later in the year. The mill optimization project at Ethicen, aimed at increasing throughput by about 10%, is ongoing, and we hope to get that online toward the end of the year. In exploration, we are working on further resource delineation programs at various projects, including Nelligan and the Rouen project in Quebec, Gosselin at Côté in Ontario, and the new Carita discovery in Guinea. And we continue to review our options for strategic growth with a pending decision as to which of our shovel-ready greenfields projects, Bodo or Cote, will move forward into construction once it is appropriate to do so. Our work plan for 2020 sets up 2021 for Westwood to expand production in accordance with the new mine plans announced last December, for Roosevelt production to increase with Saramaca online, and for an optimized Esseken mill demonstrating increased throughput. On that note, I will now pass the call over to Carol to review our financial results.