Kinross Gold Corporation

Thank you for standing by. My name is Jael and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the second quarter 2024 results conference call and webcast. Online has 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, press star one again. I would now like to turn the conference over to Chris Lichtenheld, Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Thank you and good morning. With us today, we have Paul Rawlinson, CEO, and from the Kinross Senior Leadership Team, Andrea Freeborough, Claude Schimper, Will Dunford, 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 two of this presentation. Our news release dated July 31, 2024, The MD&A for the period ended June 30, 2024, 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. This morning, I will discuss our Q2 margins and cash flow, provide high-level updates on our operations and projects, update you on our sustainability initiatives, and reaffirm our outlook. I will then hand the call over to Andrea, Claude, and Will to provide more detail. Following a strong start to the year in Q1, we delivered another strong quarter in Q2, establishing an excellent first half and positioning as well to meet our four-year guidance. In Q2, our operating margins grew by over 20% compared to the prior quarter. once again outpacing the relative increase in the gold price over the same period. As a result, free cash flow more than doubled in the second quarter to $346 million, the first half total of just under a half a billion dollars. Turning now to operations. Our production in the second quarter was on plan, delivering 535,000 ounces at a cost of sales of just over $1,000 per ounce. Our two largest assets, Tassius and Perica 2, both performed well with production costs improving over the prior quarter. Tassius had an excellent quarter and was once again the highest margin mine in our portfolio, driving significant free cash flow. Erica 2 continued its consistent contribution with strong throughput and recoveries, helping drive a steady quarter of production and cash flow. At La Coypa, production remains on track for the full year, and we continue to use strong mill grades and recoveries to optimize throughput in order to address some maintenance opportunities. At our U.S. operations, Production was on plan with notably stronger performance from Fort Knox. Turning now to our development activities in the second quarter. At Round Mountain, the Phase S open pit and the Phase X underground development work continues to advance well. Stripping at Phase S and the expansion of the heat bleach pad are progressing on schedule to support initial open pit production next year. At phase X, the development of the exploration decline is progressing on plan. As outlined in our press release, we are excited that the extension drilling at phase X intersected mineralization with strong grades and widths outside of the primary exploration target. These results demonstrate the potential for expansion of the primary resource target and are expected to support high productivity bulk mining. Moving to Alaska, consistent with our guidance, I was recently at Fort Knox to celebrate the first cold war from Manchot. This important milestone represents the hard work and dedication of our project team and partners to bring this high-grade mine into production both on budget and on schedule. Mining operations at Mancho are performing as planned, and the Fort Knox mill modifications are on track for final commissioning in Q3. As a result, we look forward to delivering several years of strong production at attractive costs from the combined operations in Alaska. At Great Bear, we continue to make strong progress in the second quarter. The ongoing exploration drilling campaign continues to focus on targeted extensions of the resource at depth. And in Q2, we drilled the deepest hole on the property to date. This hole intersected attractive grades and widths at a vertical depth of nearly 1.6 kilometers down plunge of the main LP zone. This intercept is outside of our current resource and demonstrates significant potential for further resource growth. Drilling at hinge and limb also returned attractive results for depth extensions at both zones, indicating strong upside potential to supplement the main LP zone from these satellites. It's important to note that this recent deep drilling will not be reflected in the upcoming PEA because the PEA is a point-in-time estimate and will only include drilling up to April. The PEA will provide visibility on the open pit and a window into the initial production scale cost and margins for the underground. Given the depth of the mineralization, the long-term potential of the resource will need to be drilled off from underground as we progress development ahead of mining. However, this deep drilling today shows the continuation of high-grade mineralization beyond the current resource in the PEA, indicating the potential for significant resource growth over time. We look forward to outlining more project details when we release the PEA in September. For the AEX, the start of surface construction is targeted for later this year. Regarding permitting for the main project, the federal impact assessment is underway. Baseline studies, permitting, and engineering for both the AEX and main project are all progressing well. In summary, we are very pleased with how things are progressing at Great Bear. Before I make a few comments on sustainability, we would be remiss to not address the recent incidents that have occurred around heap leach facilities within the mining industry. Will is going to discuss why we are confident in the quality of our heaps in more detail later on this call. Turning now to sustainability. Last night, we published our fourth annual climate report, which provides our latest comprehensive climate related disclosures. The report also outlines our progress towards our climate-related goals and provides details on our climate change strategy, including our plan to reduce greenhouse gas emission intensity. In 2023, we implemented 15 energy efficiency projects across our sites with combined greenhouse gas reductions of more than 29 kilotons of CO2. As a result, our percentage of renewable energy increased 23% of total energy consumed last year. Looking forward, we are on track to achieve our targeted 30% reduction in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emission intensity by 2030. In summary, we continue to be very proud of our work in the area of sustainability, and I encourage everyone to read our recent climate report to learn more. Turning now to our outlook, year to date, we have produced over 1 million ounces at a cost of sales in line with our guidance. Looking ahead, we remain on track to achieve our production and cost guidance for the full year. Our continued focus on costs is driving strong margins and significant free cash flow. With that, I will now turn the call over to Andrea.