Kinross Gold Corporation

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 the star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press the star one again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to David Shaver, Senior Vice President of Kinrose Gold. Please go ahead.

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 three of this presentation. Our news release dated February 12, 2025. the MD&A for the period ended December 31st, 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, David, and thank you all for joining us. This morning, I will provide an overview of our fourth quarter and full year results, highlight our operations, projects, and provide an outlook for the business going forward and make a few comments on our achievements in sustainability. I will then hand the call over to Andrea, Claude, and Will to provide more detail. With respect to Q4, we delivered a strong quarter, producing just over 500,000 ounces. With respect to the full year, once again, we achieved our market commitments delivering over 2.1 million ounces. We also delivered on our full year cost of sales and all in sustaining cost guide, which demonstrates our strong focus on rigorous cost discipline. As a result, we generated record free cash flow of more than $1.3 billion, which more than doubled against the prior year. This record cash flow generation also benefited from strong operating margin expansion, which outpaced the relative increase in the gold price. Our operating margins increased by 37% compared to a 23% increase in the realized gold price, maximizing the benefit of the gold price for our company. With respect to our operations, Our two largest assets, Tassius and Perica 2, were both standouts, together accounting for approximately 1.2 million ounces for more than half of our production. Tassius had an exceptional year, delivering record annual throughput, production, and cash flow, and once again was our highest margin operation in the portfolio. Paracouture delivered a full-year production exceeding the midpoint of guidance and exceeding 500,000 ounces for the seventh consecutive year. At La Coypa, we delivered on full-year production guidance as work continues on long-term optimization of the mill. At our U.S. operations, we had another solid year with production and costs on plan. Turning now to updates on our projects. In 2024, we continue to make excellent progress across our pipeline. In particular, we reached an important milestone at Great Bear with the release of the PEA in September. With the PEA, we have confirmed the top tier potential of this asset with estimated average annual production of approximately 500,000 ounces at an impressive all-in sustaining cost of approximately $800 per ounce. For the Great Bear Advanced Exploration Program, we have received all the necessary permits for our current activities, and we expect to receive the two remaining permits when they are required later in the year. The yearly works activities, including tree clearing and earthworks, commence prior to year end and construction of the exploration decline is planned to commence later this year. Regarding permitting for the main project, we continue to work with the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, and we plan to file the impact statement later this year. At Round Mountain, underground development at Phase X is progressing well, with over 3,300 meters developed to date and 21 kilometers of drilling completed last year. As outlined in our news release, we are continuing to see strong exploration results from Phase X, reaffirming our vision for a high productivity, low cost underground mining operation. At Bald Mountain, we have unlocked additional value from the approximate 4 million ounce resource base with the conversion of nearly 1 million ounces into reserves. This conversion marks an important first step in extending the mine life at Bald, where we now see a strong case to proceed with initial mining at the Redbird pit. We are proceeding with a disciplined approach, expecting that Redbird could ultimately extend production from Bald through 2031. Will is going to discuss more on this opportunity later. We also continue to advance work on Curlew in Washington State and Lobo Marte in Chile. Before moving to our outlook, I'd like to comment on our year-end reserve and resource pricing update. Given the stronger prevailing gold price environment, we have revised our gold price assumptions, which aligns with industry peers. Our reserves are now determined on a $1,600 per ounce gold price and our resources on a $2,000 per ounce gold price. Although our price assumptions have moved higher, we are not planning to reduce the cutoff grades to our mills as our focus remains on maintaining strong margins. Moving to our outlook. we are reaffirming our stable multi-year production profile. Production of 2 million ounces for 2025 remains consistent with our previous guidance. As previously guided, based on mine plan sequencing, production from Tassius will be lower this year, and Perica 2 remains on track to deliver higher production this year. Looking to 2026, our production outlook of 2 million ounces remains consistent with previous guidance. We are introducing a new year of production of 2 million ounces for 2027. Beyond 2027, we expect production to remain around 2 million ounces through the end of the decade. Maintaining production at this level will be based on future production from our pipeline of project opportunities, which include Redbird Extensions at Bald, Open Pit Extensions at La Coypa, SpaceX Underground at Round, Curlew in Washington State, and Great Bear to round out the decade. We will continue to advance these initiatives, and we plan to update you on our progress as we move forward. With respect to capital allocation, in 2024, we prioritized debt repayment, and we have now fully repaid our $1 billion term loan. Our quarterly dividend remains in place as our baseline return of capital. In the current gold price environment, our business is generating significant cash flow. And if this current gold price holds, We are planning to return additional capital to shareholders later this year in the form of a share buyback. Andrea will speak more on this shortly. I'd like to comment on some of our achievements in sustainability. In 2024, we once again demonstrated a strong commitment to sustainability by operating responsibly and advancing our strategy across this important area. In May, we will publish our 2024 sustainability report, which will provide a detailed review on our sustainability performance and initiatives throughout the year. Some highlights from this past year include completing more than 15 energy efficiency projects across the portfolio, placing us on track to achieve a 30% reduction in emissions intensity by 2030. We provided flood relief aid to communities in Brazil and Mauritania. We received a sustainability award from the Canadian Council for the Americas. And we were the top scoring gold company and top 10% overall in the Globe and Mail's annual corporate governance survey. Lastly, I'd like to take a moment to thank Catherine McLeod-Seltzer for her significant contributions to Kinross and the board over her 20 year directorship with Kinross. Catherine has been an independent board member since 2005 and chair of the board since 2019. Catherine will be retiring from her role at our AGM in May. And we are pleased to announce Kelly Osborne will take on Catherine's previous role of independent chair. With that, I will now turn the call over to Andrea.

Thanks, Paul. This morning, I will review our financial highlights from the quarter and full year, provide an overview of our balance sheet and our capital allocation plans, and discuss our guidance and outlook. As Paul noted, we delivered production in line with guidance in 2024. Full year attributable production was 2.13 million ounces, with production of 501,000 ounces in the fourth quarter. Q4 sales of 518,000 ounces were slightly above production due to timing. Cost of sales of $1,096 per ounce and all unsustaining costs of $1,510 per ounce in the fourth quarter were higher compared to the prior quarter, as expected, mainly due to lower planned production from Tassius and Perica 2. Full year cost of sales of $1,021 per ounce and full year all in sustaining costs of $1,388 per ounce were also in line with guidance. Margins were strong at $1,567 per ounce sold in Q4 and $1,372 per ounce for the full year. Our adjusted earnings were 20 cents per share in Q4 and 68 cents per share for the full year. Adjusted operating cash flow was $614 million in Q4 and approximately $2.1 billion for the full year. Attributable CapEx was $279 million in Q4 and $1.05 billion for the full year in line with full year guidance. Attributable free cash flow was a record $434 million in Q4 and was also a record $1.34 billion for the full year. Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the year with $612 million in cash and approximately $2.3 billion of total liquidity. We repaid an impressive $800 million against our term loan in 2024, and after making a subsequent repayment of $200 million, our $1 billion term loan has now been fully repaid. We have now fully paid for the acquisition of Great Bear on just the third anniversary with fewer shares outstanding than prior to the transaction. Over the last 24 months, we have reduced our net debt by approximately $1.4 billion and our net debt to EBITDA from 1.7 times to 0.3 times as of year end. Our business is generating strong cash flow in the current gold price environment and with the term loan now fully repaid, we are well positioned to consider additional return of capital for our shareholders. We are in the process of renewing our NCIB, and based on recent gold prices, we expect to initiate a share buyback program later this year. As typical for us, we expect Q1 to be a cash outflow quarter. In addition to the $200 million term loan repayment that we made in February, We also have our annual income tax payments in Brazil and now Mauritania, and our semiannual interest payments. As such, we'll provide an update on our return to capital plans with our Q1 results in May. Turning to our guidance and outlook. As Paul noted, we're forecasting production in the range of 2 million ounces for 2025, remaining consistent with previous guidance. For costs, we're guiding $1,120 per ounce for cost of sales, and $1,500 per ounce for ASIC. Cost of sales and ASIC are both up approximately 10% compared with 2024. The expected increase is driven by three factors, which mainly include structural changes to our portfolio this year. First, production guidance of 2 million ounces relative to 2.1 million ounces last year, resulting in a denominator impact on our fixed costs and not sustaining capital in the case of always sustaining costs. Second, with a lower planned contribution from TASCIA this year, we will see a smaller benefit from our lowest cost mine. Last, modest overall cost inflation of 3 to 4%. Our capital expenditure guidance of $1.15 billion for 2025 reflects annual inflation and planned higher capital spend as we continue to advance Great Bear. Approximately $615 million of our total CapEx is expected to be non-sustaining. Looking ahead to 2026, our production guidance of 2 million ounces remains unchanged from our guidance update last year. Beyond 2026, We have introduced another year of production guidance of 2 million ounces for 2027 in line with 2025 and 2026. Object to ongoing inflation, attributable CapEx is expected to be consistent in 2026 and 2027 in order to continue to bring projects within our pipeline into production. I'll now turn the call over to Claude to discuss our operation.

Thank you, Andrea. In the fourth quarter, we officially launched our health and safety brand called SafeGround and commenced work on establishing SafeGround leadership development programs that will be tailored and delivered to four specific groups, executives, managers, frontline supervisors, and operators. In 2024, our operations delivered on our full year production and cost guidance. And we are encouraged to see our culture of operational excellence continue to drive strong results from our operations. Production of 501,000 ounces in the fourth quarter as planned. Starting with Tassius, the mine delivered record throughput, production, and cash flow. Record full year production of 622,000 ounces at an impressive cost of sales of $681 pounds drove record free cash flow from our lowest cost operations. In the fourth quarter, TASIUS delivered production of 139,000 ounces at a cost of sales of $725 an ounce. Production was lower over the prior quarter due to a planned reduction in grade. Production at TASIUS is expected to be lower in 2025 as mining continues transitioning into lower grades. TASIUS is expected to deliver 500,000 ounces with a target cost of sales of $860 per ounce and is expected to be our lowest cost operation once again this year. Paraca 2 delivered another strong year with production of 529,000 ounces exceeding the midpoint of guidance and the cost of sales of $1,039 pounds, which was below the midpoint of guidance. As planned, mine sequencing continued to transition into higher grades in the fourth quarter. Production of 124,000 ounces was lower over the prior quarter, as stronger grades were offset by lower throughput, resulting from the timing of some mill maintenance and mine sequencing. Production at Barricade 2 is expected to be higher and cost lower this year as mining continues in the higher grade portion of the pit. Barricade 2 is expected to produce 585,000 ounces at a cost of sales of $1,025 per ounce, in 2025. At La Coypa, fourth quarter production of approximately 59,000 ounces improved over the prior quarter on stronger mill throughput, which offset lower grades. Full year production of 246,000 ounces was in line with guidance. The site team continues to manage throughput while long-term mill optimization initiatives are being implemented. At La Coypa's anticipated to produce 230 000 ounces at a cost of sales of a thousand and sixty dollars bounce in 2025. moving to our u.s operations production was stronger in the second half of the year as expected following the start of production from mancho early in the third quarter collectively the u.s sites delivered full year production of 731 000 ounces at a cost of sales one thousand three hundred and thirteen dollars pounds, which was in line with guidance. Production of one hundred and seventy nine thousand ounces in the final quarter was unplanned. In Alaska, fourth quarter production of ninety two thousand ounces was lower compared to the prior quarter. And cost of sales of one thousand three hundred and twenty dollars pounds was higher due to the timing of the processing of the man show or. At Bald Mountain, we produced 45,000 ounces at a cost of sales of $1,144 per ounce. And production was in line over the prior quarter, while cost was slightly lower due to the timing of sales. At Round Mountain, production of 43,000 ounces was in line compared to the prior quarter. Cost of sales of $1,764 per ounce was higher due to the accounting of higher cost ounces from the leach beds. Mining at the Phase S open pit remains on schedule, with initial production expected to begin in the second half of the year. With that, I'll now pass the call over to William to discuss our projects.

Thanks, Claude. We've just released our annual reserve and resource, so I'd like to start out by providing that update, and then I'll discuss the growth projects that sit in our resource and underpin our potential future production profile. We are currently in a phase where we are focused on drilling and developing our earlier stage higher grade growth projects like Great Bear, Phase X, Lobo Marte, and Curlew. As a result, the majority of our additions this year came in the inferred category where we saw a 1.7 million ounce increase. We did also see some additions in the M&I category, which were largely offset by conversion of 1 million ounces out of M&I into reserve at Bull Mountain. We have updated our reserve and resource gold price assumptions from 1400 to 1600 and from 1700 to 2000, respectively. The intention of this was to be more reflective of the current gold price environment. With the increase in our gold price, we are taking a balanced approach and our objective was not to drop cutoff grades to grow resources. Instead, we are focused on margin and quality of our resource additions to extend our mine lives and bring on higher grade growth projects. as you can see by the overall increase in resource grade. To that end, you can see on this slide an overview of the significant resource optionality for both mine life extensions at our existing mines and new production from growth projects, with 26 million ounces in M&I and another 13 million ounces in inferred. These resources form the pipeline of potential opportunities that we are progressing to support our production profile through the end of the decade and into the 2030s. This slide gives an indication of the level of study of these opportunities. We have our base case, which includes reserves and already approved projects and provides the production in our guidance window through 2027. Second, we have several growth projects at an advanced stage of study that offer potential to add production both through the end of the decade and beyond into the 30s. And third, we have several opportunities within our project pipeline that are at an earlier stage of study and offer potential to contribute to our 2030s production profile. We remain excited about our internal prospects, which are further augmented by today's strong gold price, and we will continue to maintain a disciplined approach to progressing these projects into our production profile with a focus on margin and return. Bald Mountain offers a recent example of bringing these pipeline opportunities into our production profile. In mid-2024, we received our permits for the juniper package, and on the back of this, we have converted approximately 1 million ounces of resource to reserve in the Redbird pit. We have split Redbird into two phases. We have approved and already started mining phase one, which contains 270,000 ounces, and will take production into 2028. Phase two, containing approximately 690,000 ounces of M&I, could begin in 2026, and extend production from Bald Mountain through 2031. This phased approach lowers the initial capex and risk and pulls forward earlier production from phase one into 2027 while we continue to optimize our design execution plan for phase two. The initial capex of 120 million for phase one is primarily pre-stripping costs as phase one leverages the existing leach pad capacity, thereby minimizing our initial capital risk. project has an all-in sustaining cost of $1,500 per ounce and a strong return at today's gold price. We also continue to focus on additional optionality at Bald Mountain outside of Redbird, including looking at small satellite pit opportunities that could be combined with Redbird 2. At Tassius, we have completed a new mine plan on the back of the 2024 reserve update. Tassius production over the next three years is expected to be lower driven by mine plan sequencing and lower mill grades as we focus on stripping in Wind Branch 5. It has been a focus for the TASIUS team to increase production in the 25 through 27 window through operational improvements, design optimizations, and unlocking satellite opportunities. This work has added approximately 100,000 ounces over this three-year period as compared to the mine plan update we provided in 2023. Optimization at TASIUS is ongoing, additional satellite opportunities being evaluated studies to explore underground potential are also progressing with recent drilling at west branch intersecting wide mineralization 700 meters down plunge of the existing resource moving from our operations to our growth projects the curlew team has been successful in adding high quality resources over the last couple years further enhancing the potential of the project Part of our year-end resource update, we were pleased to report a high-grade resource addition at Curlew. This is the addition of 125,000 ounces at nine grams per ton in the Stealth Zone, which continues to be open both long strike and depth. Not only are we seeing strong grades in the zone, but it's also coming in at a very good mineable width, averaging just over five meters. This focus on high-grade extensions at Stealth will continue in 2025 with an expanded drill program target further extensions at depth. Now shifting focus to Phase X, where development and drilling continues to progress well, we have now expanded drilling into the upper zone of the exploration target, and you can see the results continue to support our thesis of a bulk underground operation in the range of three to four grams per ton, providing potential for higher margin supplemental production at Rail Mountain. In 2025, we will be completing our initial infill drilling program at Phase X and we anticipate the release of an initial underground resource with our 25-year end resource update. At Gray Bear, early works construction for advanced exploration commenced in November. As can be seen on the slide, tree clearing is now complete and earthworks for exploration for the exploration infrastructure has commenced. We are excited to have broken ground and are focused on progressing civil works and permitting over the coming quarters to allow us to start the exploration decline later this year. Moving to the broader exploration update, our team had another strong campaign in 2024 with approximately 320 kilometers of drilling completed across Minax, brownfields, and greenfields. As detailed in our press release, this program produced notable results across several locations. We provided an update on Great Bear back in September, highlighting the successful addition of over 500,000 ounces of high-grade inferred resource at depths and the strong results of our PEA. We also highlighted the drilling at depths below the PEA inventory and resource that demonstrates the significant upside potential for further resource additions. Following the success of this 2024 drilling and the results of the PEA, we've shifted our focus at Great Bear to regional exploration work on the 120-square-kilometer land package. We've already provided updates on Curlew and Phase X, so I will move on to our other U.S. assets. At Fort Knox, the program focused on two main areas, growth around the Fort Knox pit and around the Gill Saddle. We saw some good intercepts across both areas, indicating potential for additional mill feed, and this work will be followed up on in 2025. At Bold Mountain, with near-term mine extensions established through the approval of Redbird 1, the 2025 exploration campaign will focus on conversion of the inferred resource in Redbird 2 and on generative projects. At Tassiust, we added 110,000 ounces to reserves in 2024 through the addition of the Fennec satellite pit. Exploration in 2025 will focus on further expanding mineralization at the underground target and drilling out additional satellite pit opportunities on the wider land package. Moving to Chile, our brownfields program further delineated porphyry mineralization, and in 2025, we will follow up on these results and also progress exploration of known trends on the La Coypa license. In Brazil, our brownfields program focused on testing targets along the northwest corridor from Perak 2, with results showing similar style and grade of mineralization to the Perak 2 deposit. Moving to our greenfields program, approximately 45 kilometers of drilling was completed on targets located in Canada, the U.S., and Finland. In Manitoba, our drilling at Laguna continued to define high-grade, shear-hosted vein systems, and in 2025, we will focus on increasing the critical mass of mineralization to support further work. In Nevada, drilling was completed across several prospective properties with the potential for carlin and low-sulfidation gold mineralization. Drilling included an initial diamond drill hole at the PWCJV project in September, which successfully intersected lower plate carbonates associated with the Cortez district at depth. In Finland, we progressed both base of till drilling for target delineation and follow-up diamond drilling, which showed some high-grade intercepts at Long East. In Finland, we will follow up on these successes in 2025 and continue our exploration of this underexplored greenstone belt. Overall, we are encouraged with our success, identifying and progressing earlier stage opportunities such as Phase X, Curlew, and Great Bear. I will now turn it back to Paul for closing remarks.

Thanks, Will. After delivering on our commitments in 2024, we are well positioned for a successful 2025. Our business is in great shape, both operationally and financially, with a number of key milestones for the year ahead, including Repayment of our term loan. Pre-stripping at Redbird. Advancing permitting across Great Bear, Curlew, La Coypa, and Lobo Marte. Advancing exploration decline infrastructure at Great Bear. Restating our share buyback plan. Initial production from Phase S. Satellite mining at FNAT. and an anticipated year-end resource at phase X. In summary, we are excited about our future. We have a strong production profile. We are generating significant free cash flow. We have an excellent balance sheet. We have an attractive dividend and plan on returning additional capital. We have an exciting pipeline of both exploration and development opportunities. We are very proud of our commitment to responsible mining that continues to make us a leader in sustainability. With that operator, I'd like to open up the line for questions.

Thank you. And we will now begin the question and answer session. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press the star one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press the star one again. Once again, please press the star one to ask a question. Your first question comes from the line of Mike Parkin with National Bank. Please go ahead.

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Great presentation. Really like slide 20 and 21 there in terms of all the upside you've got that you're working on. So looking forward to updates there. Just a question on Kinross's task is that operation of the fourth quarter. How many days was that shutdown?

Hi, Mike. It's Claude. Yeah, we did a shutdown for about four to five days. We did some relining stuff and changing some belts and things, so we're right on line. And from a production point of view, because we entered into the lower grade section, which was in anticipation of this year going forward, we still maintained our throughput average.

Well, yeah, that's what I was kind of getting at is like when I adjust for that on 87 operating days, you're over 25,000 tons per day. So that's like the second consecutive quarter. You're not quite 10% above nameplate, but consistently kind of hitting above the target. What's kind of driving that is that just you've got some spare capacity in the front of the circuit that you're utilizing. Do you see that kind of continuing going forward? And what was the baseline assumption in terms of throughput for guidance?

Yeah, Mike, all of that is as planned. In order to do an average of 24,000 a day, you need to do some days at 26,000, 27,000. So we're well within the nameplate. It's really just about our ability to use our CI initiatives and all of these things have more and longer extended runs at a higher rate. So we had a tremendous quarter in terms of throughput. And as I said, we moved to a lower grade, so the production was slightly down. But we're well set up, and we've started the year very strongly as well now, given that we've taken the opportunity to maintain when we could.

Okay.

And in terms of the limiting factor there, are you more focused mill constraint or pit constraint in terms of getting ore either out of the pit or through the mill?

I think the ultimate constraint is the plant because we've got some stockpiles and as we manage through from phase four at the bottom of the pit now going into phase five stripping, we will balance production through stockpiles and mine performance. Ultimately, we've designed this a plant to run an average of 24,000. There'll be times that we average slightly above that and other times slightly below, but we're just come along strong after some tough years and we're pushing the boundaries and the limits and we constantly learn more about the plant and how certain things behave. And it will be a balance of making sure we maintain our recovery levels. So don't push the tons too hard to then start losing on recovery.

Okay.

And then switching over to the exploration side of things and the reserve and resources, the underground at Round Mountain, you keep hitting these really high-grade structures. How is that being kind of captured in the reported reserves and resources with respect to where is your capping grade set at? Just kind of trying to understand what you're reporting versus what you're kind of realizing with the drill bit.

Yeah, we don't have an underground reserve or resource at Phase Act at Round Mountain yet. The resources on the books and reserves are all open pit. We're hoping after this infill drilling that we're doing now, that's the reason we're doing it is to get an initial underground resource out at the end of the year this year with our annual update.

I think I remember you guys guided the market to kind of three to four grams historically in terms of where the underground could kind of shape up. Is that the feeling that's maybe a bit conservative given the consistent, you know, really good drill results you're putting out in the market from that?

We don't want to get ahead of ourselves, and that is why we're doing the infill drilling. And you can see on slide 25 in what we released that we've got a pretty extensive table on the right-hand side. That shows all of the drilling in that upper right portion of the exploration target. And you can see there both the wider intervals and the narrower intervals with the higher-grade highlights. We want to get the bigger resource and we want to get the bulkier deposit so you can see a more representative idea of the grade in those wider intervals. And we do still see it being in that three to four gram per ton range. But that's ultimately how we're going to maximize the economics on this is by going to bulk mining with these pretty exceptional wide zones.

Okay. Well, looking forward to the update. Congrats then.

And your next question comes from the line of Anita Suni with CIBC. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, Paul and team, and congratulations to the whole team on a very successful year on many fronts. And I agree with Mike on that slide, 20 and 21. It's good to see those slides again, especially from companies with a track record of actually executing on what they say they will do. A question on the Redbird additions. On the Phase 2, could you give us an idea what additional incremental capital would be needed to get that additional 700,000 ounces in?

Yeah, look, we're still working on Phase 2. That's why we approved Phase 1. The main benefit of – well, one of the many benefits of phasing this is that the Phase 1 cash flow that comes from those early ounces It's intended to pay the majority of the CapEx for phase two to keep that site relatively cash flow neutral as it strips phase two. So we don't have an exact sense of the CapEx yet and we need to complete our work, but that's the idea is to try and keep our current gold prices above zero as we strip phase two.

Okay. And then just a question for finance team and Paul, just wondering, when it comes to the share buybacks that you were talking about in the second half of the year, is it just basically kind of getting through the cash outflows that you're expecting in Q1 and then at gold price of state where they are, you can start executing on that in Q2, or is it more back half of the year?

No, I think that's exactly as you described it, Anita. Again, from my perspective, we have been consistent with our capital allocation philosophy. As we say all the time, it's needs of the business, needs of the balance sheet, return of capital to shareholders. We did, of course, repay the debt. That was our priority in 24. But as Andrea said, all the cash we've built up here, while we've been paying down debt, we're about to pay a bunch of that out as we do seasonally in Q1. So we want to get through that, kind of get our cash back up. Hopefully we're still in the same kind of gold price environment, and we think that is the right time to be thinking about turning back on the buyback.

Okay. Another question just on a big picture, I guess a great bear, and I'm just wondering if you've seen any On the permitting front, have you seen any change in, I guess, the government standpoint in terms of how motivated they are to get these permits to?

Yeah, look, I mean, I think it's a safe assumption that when there's an election, things kind of slow down in terms of the bureaucrats. But I'll get Jeff to kind of expand on it. He's on the front line of that one.

Thanks, Paul. Yeah, no, I Paul's right as a practical matter. There is a little bit of a slowdown, but we've spent a lot of time both provincially and federally connecting with the regulators and building relationships there. And as a result, those permits will continue to advance. And we're still expecting to get the remaining permits that we require.

um without uh without the length okay and then um lastly i just want to ask on um on fort knox man show um there's a bit of variability in the um in the tonnage that's coming through i understand some of it has to do with the weight restrictions and uh winter and i believe ice and things weighing more well i could be wrong about that but I just wanted to get an idea of what the standard kind of tonnage that we would expect out of Manchur would be. And those are pretty good grades this past quarter as well. So I just wanted to comment on that.

Yeah, Anita, you're correct. As we go through seasonal things in the north, we end up with different load restrictions. We also have one load restriction that came after the feasibility study that we've had to adjust for. And given the balanced number of trips, on a daily basis, but we expect to do an average of 200,000 to 220,000 batches when we do Manchur. Because as you can appreciate, we switch from very low-grade Fort Knox to high-grade Manchur, and then back to Fort Knox. So our average is about 220,000 per batch, and we expect to maintain sort of one-quarter

Sorry, so 220,000 K tons per quarter, and you batch out the shipment? Okay. All right. Okay, thank you very much. That's it for my question.

And your next question comes from the line of Josh Wolfson with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks very much. On the capital returns program, I understand the motivation to act maybe a bit conservatively, repay the debt, wait for some higher cash flow periods. I'm just wondering how the team is going to be evaluating the buyback in the context of how the share price has performed. It's been a phenomenal year to date, phenomenal year over year. Is that going to influence the quantum of the buyback or is it going to be a

know more mechanical or formulaic process thanks yeah i'll take that and feel free to jump in good question look i think it's all about the right balance i mean number one we still see our shares as undervalued um we also we'll think about that in the context of spot so you know you can look at our valuation share price and was you know in the sense of consensus With a consensus gold price, you can also look at it in the context of spot. And in both cases, we believe we're undervalued. Having said that, it's not lost on me or us that, you know, here we are, record gold prices, really good share prices. Is this the time to be buying back your shares? We still think it is. But I think it requires balance and focus, and that's how we're coming at it. We'll be thinking about it in those terms. It won't be just necessarily an automatic formula.

Good, thanks. And then one other question on the tax guidance that was issued. Should we be assuming going forward, I guess, full tax rates at both Tassius and LaCroix? But the number seems to have gone up year over year, and I just want to make sure that it's maybe a combination of maybe capital being repaid as well as gold prices having increased. Thanks.

Yeah, it is both, Josh. So, you know, starting with Mauritania, we've 2024 was the first year that we became income taxable in Mauritania. So if we look at the cash tax guidance, about $200 million of it is payments that we'll actually make in Q1 that are related to 2024. So yeah, that is both Mauritania coming in as well as higher school price. impacting Brazil and Chile, where we're also, you know, paying more significant taxes. And then the rest of that guidance is just tax installments that we expect to pay throughout 2025.

Go ahead, thanks. And sorry, just to clarify for taxes, should we be assuming, you know, the full corporate tax rate or 25%? Or is there, is it still a low tax year versus steady state?

No, it's... full normal tax gift.

Great. Thank you.

And your next question comes from . Sorry, go ahead.

We can advance to the next question, please.

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Kerry McCrory with Canacard Genuity. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, everyone. Just maybe back on capital allocation. I know there's more details to come there, but just in terms of the cash balance, are you guys thinking about building up a cash balance ahead of Great Bear? Is there a minimum cash balance that you want to maintain? And then I guess the second question is the term loan's gone. There's no debt due until 2027. You know, just broadly speaking in terms of debt, are you comfortable maintaining that debt, i.e., kind of keeping that leverage going forward, or would you even consider repaying debt down in the future?

Sure. Thanks, Kerry. I'll start with the debt part. You're sort of hitting it right on. We, you know, we look forward to the 2027 notes of the next maturity, and we do plan, we would like to repay those notes. that's kind of back of our minds as we think about the cash balance. And so if we think about, you know, what we'll allocate to share buybacks, we're balancing, as we always do, needs of the business. So, you know, that's the CapEx going forward for this year. And then with an eye to the balance sheet, again, in the back of our mind that we want to make sure we can repay those 2027 notes. And then balancing that with additional return of capital. So that's sort of how we're thinking about it. You know, our cash balance was a bit higher at the end of the year. But as Paul noted, some of that, you know, a lot of that gets paid out in Q1. With the $200 million we paid to finish repayments on the term loan, as well as the tax payments, and we've got some interest payments in Q1. So, you know, we'd like to get back to where we started the year, and then we'll look to allocating some of the excess cash out in the form of buybacks.

Great. And then maybe just a mechanical question, but just in terms of the quarterly sequence of production, you did 500,000 ounces in the quarter, 2 million ounces as the guidance. Should we be expecting relatively consistent production through the year or is there sort of seasonality that we should consider?

It's relatively even consistent as we look out to this year.

And then maybe just one last one on La Coypa. You mentioned permitting and some laybacks. Just wanted you to give us a bit of color on what that potentially leads to.

Yeah, we've got, you know, our current way you see on the reserves takes us through 2027 in terms of the mine sign. And then the permitting that was discussed there in the press release is really just for further extensions of the open pits there. We've got additional oxide pits, very similar to what we've been doing. So kind of steady as she goes, but there is some permitting required as a part of that to bring that in through the end of the decade. So potential to take it out to like 2030 or so? Yeah, yeah, those, you know, it all depends on, I guess, gold price, but those should be able to take us at least through 2030. We do have a, you know, meaningful inventory potential there. You can see it on our resource statement. Potential it could go beyond that.

Great. And maybe one last quick one. You mentioned that TASIA's new mine plan. Should we be expecting a 43-101 report or no?

Yeah, we'll most likely update that report with our AIS this year. All right, great.

That's it for me. Thanks, everyone.

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Lawson Winder with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, guys. Nice update. Wanted to ask about your commentary on exploration at La Coypa. I just get a sense in terms of your optimism around the ability to add to resources there. Is that something we can expect to potentially see as soon as 2025?

yeah it's i mean our focus there really is we already have the resources on the books to carry us through 2030 so we're not massively focused on expanding a lot beyond that it looks like but there is a lot of you know a lot of good targets it's pretty prolific ground out there we've got a variety of historic pits in the area so we've mentioned we will be doing some testing around some of those pits looking for you know lower strip higher margin kind of pushbacks in those pits um so there's a lot of exploration potential But as you saw this year, our real focus right now is drilling off these new growth projects that are coming in at a higher grade to support pulling those ultimately into our production profile and reserves. But we will do some exploration of La Coypa as well.

And I'll just jump in on that. I mean, part of the consideration in that part of Chile where we're operating Region 3 Atacama is water. And we have existing permanent pumping water wells that support La Coypa. But we want to think about La Coypa's future and also Lobo Marte, which we're advancing. So we're trying to find the right balance between continuing to grow resources, looking to bring Lobo online towards the end of the decade, and working within our existing water permits.

That's perfect. You addressed my follow-up question. And then I would like to also just ask again about capital return and your thoughts on the dividend level, which is, I mean, I think abundantly sustainable at the current level and potentially sustainable at a higher level. Is that something you're also considering? Thank you.

Yeah, look, I think we just want to be careful. We want to be balanced. There was a question earlier, you know, does it make sense at the share price? We think it does, given our relative value. And so, as I said, needs of the business are well maintained. We keep a well-capitalized business, which we believe reduces operating risk. We focused on paying down the term loan. We've just completed that. Cash out quarter. We want to kind of strengthen the balance sheet again, so needs of the business, needs of the balance sheet, and then we should be in great shape to see where we are in the current, in that environment as we look out to the second quarter as to what the appropriate, what feels like the appropriate kind of proportion of free cash flow to allocate to the buyback.

So if I'm hearing your answer, the preference is buyback over dividend. Is that correct? That's correct. Great. Thank you very much.

And once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press the star one. And your next question comes from the line of Tanya Jackus-Koenig with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Yes. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for taking my questions, and congrats on making your guidance for 2024. Just wanted to go back to... maybe Claude, on the sequencing of your mine plans through 2025, can you just remind me of major shutdowns, if any, at any of your operations? I'm trying to offset the seasonality that you see at Fort Knox and the wet season in Brazil, so I'm just trying to see when your downtimes are at any of your other operations.

Yeah, Tanya, you know, for the last couple of years, we've been working towards flattening those jagged shark tooth type performances through scheduling maintenance activities in a way that they're more a part of the process. We don't have major upgrades and shutdowns at any of the sites now. So it's typical mill maintenance. Some of them will have four-day shutdowns through reliners. At Baraka 2, it's a couple more days, depending on which, whether it's the sag mill or the ball mills. So we're managing that. And to Andrea's point earlier on, this is the year that we've actually got the tightest range between every single quarter. So we're going to manage that and manage the performance of each of those sites accordingly.

Okay. That's good to hear. And maybe, Andrea, you didn't answer the question on what minimum cash do you think you need to hold on the balance sheet to run this 2 million ounce business?

Typically, if we look back over the last number of years, our average cash balance has been about 500 million. you know, that's where we typically like to be. And some of that is just, you know, efficiently moving cash around the world.

As a minimum. As a minimum. Right. But again, we are thinking about the future. We are thinking about those notes. And, you know, again, Tanya, we're going to look for the right balance, if you will, on free cash flow as to return and continuing to strengthen the balance sheet.

No, yeah, I appreciate that. Just wondered what that what you would feel comfortable on holding just for a 2 million ounce business. If I could just continue maybe to actually call for you, just I'm looking and listening to, and thank you for that slide on page 20, about your 2 million ounce production profile till the end of the decade. I think that would assume you have La Cuepa and those additional, you know, pits, laybacks, or whatever that gets you to the end of 2030, the end of the decade. When do you have curlew in? Like, is that a 28? Could we fit in? And I remember once conference calls would be about 100,000 ounces. Is that still feasible?

Don Nottoli, yeah no I think you're right in the zone there tanya when when people have asked us in the past about how we will maintain the 2 million ounces towards the end of the decade I I basically say. Don Nottoli, You know there's there's four things, two of which we just keep doing what we're doing that's we keep mining up the Kuiper we keep mining at ball mountain so that's the two that we keep doing. And there'll be two other things that are new that we haven't been doing. And that is curlew and phase X. And as you've seen with the results on the drilling, they're moving along very nicely. We're really happy with how they're going. Will, why don't you talk a little bit about timing and how those come in?

Yeah, I think, you know, you can see we've been expanding the resource at Curlew in a very positive way, which was the goal a couple of years ago. And we've gone to that point where we're, you know, more comfortable on the economics and the margins in return. There is, you know, one main remaining permitting action that we've spoken about before, which is really just getting the permit to increase the height of the tailing storage facility when we convert to dry stack tailings. The rest of our permits are in place. So that is a bit of a milestone permit in terms of controlling the timeline. After that, we're already at the ore body underground. We're already in a pretty good position to get into development fairly quickly. So we haven't released specific guidance yet, but 2028 is a reasonable assumption on how we go through that permitting and construction task.

Okay, and then how do you think about then external opportunities versus your internal opportunities? You've got a lot for mine, you know, life extension, and then obviously we've got Lobo Marte, Maracunga, you know, Great Bear all coming in towards the end of the decade and into the 2030s. How do you look at your, you know, evaluate external opportunities? Would you say you're more focused on production? versus development?

Look, I think the key here is we don't feel under pressure to go out and do anything necessarily to gain production immediately. We're very happy with our internal pipeline portfolio. That allows us You know, that allows us to be patient and really look for value, whether it's in an earlier stage or in a production. When I get the M&A question, which I get a lot, I mean, I think the history speaks a lot for what we have demonstrated in terms of discipline. I mean, really, if you go back and you look at what acquisitions have we done in the last 10 years, there's maybe three or four. You know, we did the Round Mountain Vault back in 2015. Bolton, Synergistic. We purchased some power plants in Brazil in 2018. You know, Manchot and Peacold in 2020. So we're very careful. We do look at external opportunities, but we have to see the value proposition. And if we do, we'll move forward. But it's, you know, it's It's challenging sometimes to find those value opportunities. Great Bear obviously was the last time we did an external. We purchased that in 22 and we're extremely pleased. We'd love to find more of those if they exist, but we're not feeling under pressure to go out and do something just for the sake of maybe getting higher production.

I appreciate that. I just wondered if you thought there's opportunities for you to add additional, you know, inventory, like beyond 2030, whether that made sense for you.

No, it's a good question. Yeah, look, and I think, you know, when I sometimes get the question, you know, I'm not, say, worried about towards the end of the decade. When I'm thinking about the future of the company, we are, we're thinking about mid-30s and beyond. So, you know, that's kind of the timeline, you know, we're thinking about. So, yeah, if there's good opportunities to add what we think is quality to the inventory, we'll look at it. But it's quality. And, again, I would say, you know, one of the advantages we've had over the last few years in terms of our constructure is a lot of the newer stuff that we have brought on, And some of this is internal, whether it was the restart of La Coypa or the ramping up of the Mill of Cassius, we've been bringing on quality, meaning better grades. And those better grades have driven our margins, which has been a natural offset to some of the cost pressures that maybe some others have faced.

Okay. If I could just squeeze one last question in for Jeff. Can you just give me an update on the two remaining permits that we require on the AEX program and negotiations with First Nations, how that's going and what's the timeline of getting all of that?

Sure, Tonya. So, yeah. So, let me, we'll start with your AEX question, if that's okay. You know, the two remaining permits that you're referring to, one is what we refer to as an industrial sewage treatment and construction permit, which we call an ECA, which stands for environmental compliance approval. And we don't obviously need that today, but we're targeting to get that sort of later in the spring. the second outstanding uh permit is is our uh operations permit to take water uh which again we don't require today but we're we're targeting uh the back half of 2025 later in 2025 for that particular permit we have to be clear we have everything we need uh for our current aex activities and um have received four of those permits uh to date um on uh On the First Nations question that you asked about, relations there are very strong. I won't go into a lot of detail on that one, but we are in the midst of negotiations with them on our project agreement, or what's more commonly called an IBA. We've exchanged drafts. We've had economic discussions. That's going well. And we are, you know, we're sort of, you know, targeting, you know, the back half of 2025 to get something done there. And last but not least, obviously, on the main project, we're in the midst of our federal permitting process there, which involves the filing of what we call an impact statement. And again, we're targeting the back half of 2025 to get that done. Does that answer your questions, Tanya?

Just on the negotiation with First Nations, would it be safe to assume that all the negotiations are just sort of the normal and classic, you know, items that are being done in other, you know, mining areas in the Red Lake District, let's say, that are normal to what's been already approved and done?

yes yes yeah we're yeah we're there isn't yes we're not we're not sort of trailblazing here where um you know you would expect to see the uh you know customary provisions that you would typically see in an IVA and we're discussing those uh in our uh in our negotiations okay great thank you and good luck

Thank you. And there are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn it back to Paul Rollinson for closing remarks.

Great. Well, thanks, operator. Thanks, everyone, for dialing in this morning. We look forward to catching up with you all in person in the coming weeks and months. Thank you.

Thank you, presenters. And ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.