Kinross Gold Corporation

Good morning. My name is Devin, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Ken Ross Gold fourth quarter 2022 results conference call and webcast. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question at any time, press the pound key. Thank you for your patience. I now turn the call over to Chris Lichtenheld, Vice President of Investor Relations, you may begin the conference.

Thank you and good morning. With us today, we have Paul Rowlinson, President and CEO, and from the Kinross Senior Leadership Team, Andrew Freeborough, Claude Schemper, Ned Jalil, and Jeff Gold. For a complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties which may lead to actual results differing from estimates contained in our forward-looking information, please refer to page three of this presentation, Our news release dated February 15th, 2023. The MD&A for the period ended December 31st, 2022, and our most recently filed AIF, all of which are available on our website. I will now turn the call over to Paul.

Thanks, Chris, and thank you all for joining us. Most of you will be aware that we hosted a conference call earlier this week to provide an update on Great Bear. If you haven't had the opportunity to listen to our presentation, we encourage you to access the replay through our website. Today, we will focus on our fourth quarter and full year results and our outlook going forward. We faced a number of headwinds in 2022, most significantly related to geopolitical events and substantial cost inflation. I'm proud of how we navigated the challenges and believe we are well positioned going forward. I believe we have the right team in place to meet our commitments and deliver strong results from our portfolio. Looking at the fourth quarter specifically, we had our strongest quarter of the year in terms of production and cash flow. We made progress across the portfolio, producing just under 600,000 ounces in the quarter and approximately 2 million ounces in 2022. Perica 2 had an exceptional quarter, Tassius had record production and grades, and La Coypa continued to improve, reaching our targeted production levels in the fourth quarter. In today's environment, our business is well-positioned to continue generating significant cash flow going forward. Last year, through our regular dividend and our enhanced share buyback program, we returned approximately $455 million to shareholders. And on a cumulative basis, we have repurchased approximately 100 million shares since we launched our buyback program in the second half of 2021. This year, we will continue to pay our quarterly dividend of 3 cents per share and continue with our flexible buyback program. Moving to our outlook, Andrea will elaborate on some of the detail, but we are reaffirming our stable production outlook of 2.1 million ounces in 2023 and 2024, followed by 2 million ounces in 2025. With our portfolio anchored by Perikatu and Tassius, and further complemented by La Coypa, the Tassius 24K project and Manchot coming online next year we are well positioned to maintain our production. Costs are expected to be slightly higher in 2023 relative to last year, mainly as we have a full year with elevated input costs that we experienced in the second half of 2022. Looking longer term, our portfolio maintains excellent optionality. In particular, We will continue to evaluate opportunities for expansion in Nevada and remain excited about our underground potential. Before turning it over to Andrea, I want to comment on ESG. We are proud of our consistently strong performance in this area. In 2022, we were awarded the Alaska Miners Association Environmental Stewardship Award for our abandoned mine restoration initiative. We advanced our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion across the company. We allocated financial aid, humanitarian aid, and other contributions in Mauritania to help the country manage the impact of extreme weather events. And we advanced our green energy targets with the construction of the Tassius solar plant which is expected to come online in the second half of this year. With that, I will now turn the call over to Andrea.