Iamgold Corporation Ordinary Shares

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the I AM GOLD first quarter 2021 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 you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Indi Gilpinathan, Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications for IAM Gold. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much, Ariel, and welcome everyone to the IAM Gold First Quarter 2021 Operating and Financial Results Conference Call. Joining me today on the call are Gordon Stothert, President and Chief Executive Officer, Daniela Dimitrov, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Craig McDougall, Executive Vice President, Growth, Bruno Lamelin, Senior Vice President, Operations and Projects, and Tim Bradburn, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. 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. During the call, non-GAAP measures will be referenced and we will direct you to review the reconciliations in our disclosures relating to these measures. With respect to the technical information to be discussed, please refer to the technical information and qualified person slide. 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 Stothart.

Well, thank you, Indy. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. I hope everyone is happy and healthy in these fun times. I'd like to start by saying how pleased I am to introduce Daniela Dimitrov as our new CFO. Daniela joined us at the end of March upon the retirement of Carol Banducci, who had been with IAMGOLD for almost 15 years. I'm sure that Daniela is well known to many of you, having been involved in our sector as a seasoned executive in the investment, corporate and banking components of the mining industry at various times through her career. I'm very happy that she's agreed to join us, bringing her wide skill set to further enhance our strong executive and finance teams as we move forward through this exciting growth phase we're in. Now, let's get into our overview of our first quarter of 2021. So at the corporate and strategic level, IAM Gold generated $89.5 million in mine site free cash flow during the period with adjusted earnings of $6 million or one cent per share. On our balance sheet at quarter end, we have $968 million in cash and approximately $1.5 billion in total liquidity, which fully funds our construction plans. For each of our sites, we have continued our proactive management of COVID-19 with rapid response and strict protocols some of which I will expand on in a moment. We continue our comprehensive community engagement programs, including funding the infrastructure improvement projects through the Roosevelt Community Fund in Suriname, and starting the planning for Phase 2 of the Burkina Faso Triangle d'eau project to bring much-needed potable water to the communities around Essekan in northeastern Burkina. The board has amended its renewal and diversity policies targeting the average tenure of the board to be 10 years or less and 30% or better female representation. As well, the policy has been adjusted to limit the board chair and each committee chair to a maximum tenure of 10 years in their respective roles. From an operations and growth perspective, we continue to execute our growth plan with Cote construction well underway and advancing rapidly. and the project achieving 18% overall completion at quarter end. Overall completion is a composite metric taking into account progress on all aspects of the project, including engineering, procurement, fabrication, construction, and commissioning. At ESSECAN, we delivered strong operating performance and we have completed the CIL upgrade project. At Rosabelle, our first quarter of the year was impacted by heavy rain and camp capacity restrictions. However, we are expecting a much stronger second half with the completion of the camp expansion in Q2 and as we move past the rainy season. At Westwood, we continue to take a cautious approach, targeting a safe restart of the underground operations in the second half of the year following a decision point this quarter. In addition, we continue to advance our development pipeline by de-risking the Boto Gold project, continuing delineation drilling at the Gosselin target near Côté, and advancing exploration work at targets, including at Nelligan and in the Bamboo District. Bruno and Craig will provide some additional colour on all of this activity in a few minutes. I Am Gold is committed to achieving high standards in environmental, social and governance practices, which reflect our long-held zero harm vision. In the first quarter, we committed to investing $950,000 in a four-year Giants of Africa program aimed at encouraging the development of youth through sports in Burkina Faso, Senegal, and Mali. We also joined a few of our like-minded peer companies in sponsorship of the Artemis project, which aims to promote female business owners and entrepreneurs in the mining sector, including innovative and award-winning social and natural scientists. As mentioned earlier, we applied $400,000 in funding from the Roosevelt Community Fund towards solar and LED streetlights for public security, electrification, and potable water supply in the communities around Roosevelt and Saramaca. And we continue our public-private partnership with Canada's government, the One Drop Foundation, and CoWater on the Triangle d'Eau project by completing Phase 1, which provides potable water to 60,000 people near Essican, and advancing Phase 2, which aims to bring potable water to an additional 75,000 people. We are humbled to receive recognition for our efforts, and we were recognized in the prestigious Corporate Night's 2021 Global 100 Sustainability Scorecard, where we have been ranked 10th out of 116 global mining companies reviewed and among 8,000 global companies spanning various industries. IAM Gold was recognized for a third consecutive year as part of Bloomberg's 2021 Gender Equality Index, among 380 global companies across various industries that foster a more inclusive and equitable workplace. And we received the Mining Association of Canada's prestigious Towards Sustainable Mining, or TSM, Excellent Award in the environmental category for innovative recycling of plastic at ESSACAN. ESSACAN recognized in 2010 that there was a need to enhance its public plastic waste management efforts particularly as there were no recycling facilities in the region, which meant public and plastic waste had to be buried. Working with local entrepreneurs, Essacan has been able to recycle rather than bury plastic, while supporting local businesses and creating jobs with over 65 tons recycled to date. On behalf of the whole company, I offer our congratulations to the Essacan team on their well-deserved recognition. COVID-19 health and safety protocols are embedded in our operations and projects. These protocols are continuously adapted and enhanced. And in the quarter, ESSACAN implemented additional measures, including thermal screening of all personnel and visitors entering the mine site and the Ouagadougou office. The 20-bed field hospital and medical confinement house established in Ouagadougou in 2020 remains available to accommodate any future COVID-19 cases. At Westwood, In addition to existing protocols, random antigen testing was implemented on site to further protect the workforce against COVID-19. And at Roosevelt, following the increase of COVID-19 cases in country, there was a temporary suspension of daily commuting by employees during the quarter with offsite employees required to main at site during their shift cycle. To enable mining capacity to increase to full site complement while respecting COVID-19 protocols and accommodating the workforce, Rosabelle added 150 beds to the camp in the first quarter with an additional 210 beds expected to be completed in the second quarter. And at Cote, in addition to existing protocols, a combination of PCR and antigen testing for all personnel and visitors entering the site has been established. Further, mandatory antigen testing at the Sudbury and Timmins bus terminals has been implemented to detect COVID-19 cases before there is an opportunity for contact as personnel board the bus. COVID-19 related community activities include financing the new Suriname Bureau of Public Health cooling system of the central laboratory, which provides critical testing capacity for HIV, malaria, influenza, tuberculosis, and more recently COVID-19. Funding was provided through the Roosevelt Community Fund, and the Suriname Environmental and Mining Foundation, also known as CEMIF, and both of these entities are funded wholly or partly by Rosabelle. As well, IAMGOLD contributed $250,000 to UNICEF to support the international ACT-A COVAX emergency vaccination response effort in West Africa. Now looking at our operating results, in the first quarter on a global basis, attributable production was 156,000 ounces. Total cash costs were $1,052 per ounce produced and all in sustaining costs were $1,238 per ounce sold. In addition, capital expenditures including both sustaining and expansion expenditures at our operating sites as well as capital spent at our construction and development projects was just over $102 million in the quarter. We've included a few bar charts to provide a comparison of results over time. Attributable gold production was low compared to recent quarters due to the heavy rains and COVID-19 restrictions impacting Roosevelt, as well as Westwood's reliance on open pit feed following the cessation and suspension of underground activities. Total cash costs have increased in the quarter due to the lower production base. All in sustaining costs were a bit lower in the quarter, primarily reflecting lower sustaining capital spend and operating capital expenditures were also relatively lower in the quarter due to lower capitalized stripping at Essican and impact of rainy season and COVID restrictions at Roosevelt. In the quarter, we made good progress in a number of areas while experiencing some setbacks in others. At Essican, the mill optimization project was completed with expected improvement in hard rock ore processing capacity over the balance of the year. The site is working on optimization following the upgrade. At Roosevelt, we achieved approximately 85% of mining capacity by the end of the quarter, with Saramaca non-critical path infrastructure work ongoing. At Westwood, we announced a couple of weeks ago that we have started recalling our underground employees for rehabilitation work underground and training in April. And we expect to make a decision this quarter on a second half restart of the mines. At the Côté construction project, we've commenced major earthworks ahead of our target schedule and continue to expand the construction camp. Bruno and I had an opportunity for a quick COVID safe visit to Côté a couple of weeks ago, and I'm very excited about the progress that I saw. We have continued to progress the access road construction and project infrastructure de-risking work at the Bodo project. And in exploration, resource delineation work continues at Gosselin where we are targeting a maiden resource later this year. Finally, we have ongoing resource delineation work at Nelligan, the RUAM project in a failed property in Quebec, at Diaca in Mali, and the Carita discovery in Guinea. I will now pass it over to Daniela to review our financial results.