Newmont Corporation

After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Tom Palmer, President and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call today. Please note our cautionary statement and refer to our FTC filings, which can be found on our website. Today, I'm joined by my executive leadership team, including Natasha William and Karen Ogleman, and we'll all be available to answer your questions at the end of the call. I'd also like to take a moment to acknowledge our friend and colleague, Rob Atkinson. Our Chief Operating Officer for the past five years, Rob will leave Newmont in early May, although his legacy will endure. Through his visible self-leadership, Rob has driven our fatality risk management program, achieving five years fatality-free performance. Throughout the pandemic, Rob navigated our operations through challenges, including periods of care and maintenance, border closures, and vaccine implementation. Rob also represented the very best of our values when he guided Penosquito through two major challenges. resolving a community blockade in 2019 and an unjustified strike last year. In both situations, Rob found sustainable solutions that protected the long-term value of Newmont. Over the last five months, Rob and Natasha have conducted a thorough handover of accountabilities and Rob will remain with us to support Natasha and me before finishing up and heading back to the UK spend more time with family. Before we get started, it is with great sadness that I share the tragic news regarding a fatal incident at our recently acquired Bruce Jack operation on December 20th last year. I'd like to take a moment to remember our colleague, Adam Kennedy. Adam was only 44 years old. He was a partner, a son, a brother, an uncle, a best friend and a valued colleague. Our condolences go out to Adam's loved ones during this difficult time and we are again reminded how important it is to maintain a sense of chronic unease when it comes to the safety of everyone who works at Newmont. Beddy fatality is totally unacceptable. We fully understand the fatality risks in our industry and the critical controls that need to be in place at all times to manage them. So we have been taking the time to conduct a safety reset across all Newmont sites, not just the five new to Newmont operations, with a later focus on the implementation of our fatality risk management system. This reset work includes training delivered by our line leaders, our managing directors, our general managers and our senior health and safety leaders. Training on our fatality risk management standards and our critical control verification process. We're also concluding our thorough investigation into this tragic incident, which is being led by Dave Thornton, the managing director of our Africa business unit. We are applying the lessons learned from this investigation at all of our managed operations globally and we will share them widely with our mining industry peers. Nothing is more important than our commitment to the health and safety of our workforce and we are determined to create an environment where every person working at Newmont across all locations returns home safe and well to their families and loved ones at the end of each and every shift. Turning to our performance in 2023, GMOD finished the year with a solid fourth quarter, putting us in line with the revised stand-alone output that we issued following the resolution of the strike at Pedestrito. In summary, we produced five and a half million ounces of gold at all its sustaining costs of $1,444 an ounce. In addition to gold, we produced nearly 900,000 gold equivalent ounces from copper, silver, lead and zinc over the course of the year. This performance enabled us to deliver $4.2 billion in adjusted EBITDA, return more than $1.4 billion to shareholders and end the year with liquidity above $6 billion. In a few minutes, Natasha and I will expand on how we expect to improve upon this performance in 2024 and beyond with a focus on delivering meaningful value to our shareholders. But before we do that, I would like to describe how we are transforming our business into a unique collection of the world's best gold and copper operations and projects following last year's transactions. When we announced our binding agreement to acquire Newcrest in May last year, we outlined a powerful value proposition built around four key commitments. First, to set the new sustainability standard and strengthen Newmont's position as the gold sector's recognised sustainability leader. Second, to create the industry's strongest portfolio of world-class gold and copper assets in the most favourable mining jurisdictions. Third, to deliver $500 million of annual synergies and realise over $2 billion in cash from portfolio optimisation. And finally, to continue driving a disciplined, balanced approach to capital allocation. After closing the transaction on November 6 last year, The integration of the five new operations into our Newmont operating model has been progressing very well. And as we enter this critically important year of integration and transformation, I'll be holding myself and my executive leadership team accountable for delivering on these commitments. And this will be our key focus in 2024. To support this work, Earlier today, we announced four key actions that together will enhance our ability to deliver on our clear and consistent strategy. First, we plan to divest six high-quality but non-core assets this year. From this point forward, our world-class portfolio will consist entirely of Tier 1 and emerging Tier 1 operations and districts. And it will have a significant exposure to growth in copper and gold from our industry-leading organic project pipeline. Second, we provided a 2024 and five-year outlook, giving a clear picture of the work we're doing today to expand margins and appropriately sequence our projects to deliver sustainable value. Third, with the clarity, simplicity and focus that our Tier 1 portfolio provides, we have committed to deliver a further $500 million in cost and productivity improvements across the entire portfolio. And these improvements are over and above our synergy commitment from the Newcrest acquisition. we expect to hit this $500 million annual run rate of improvement by the end of 2025. And finally, we announced a balanced shareholder return framework consisting of a $1 per share annualized base dividend and a new $1 billion share repurchase program. Our go-forward UMON portfolio is focused on Tier 1 gold and copper operations and projects located in the world's most favourable mining jurisdictions. And it has four key features. First, it contains 10 Tier 1 operations, representing more than half of the world's Tier 1 gold mines in the Newmont portfolio. Second, it has three emerging Tier 1 operations, that each has a clear path for growth. And we have the opportunity to create a Tier 1 district in British Columbia, a district in which Newmont will be operating for at least the next century. And third, it has an unmatched organic development pipeline with six large-scale copper-gold projects. And fourth, Underpinning our Tier 1 portfolio is the industry's most robust foundation of reserves and resources. Going forward, Dumont has the industry's largest gold resource base and we also have the largest base of copper resources in the gold industry. To put these numbers into perspective, Dumont has an almost 30% larger gold reserve resource base than our nearest peer. And we have a 40% larger copper reserve resource base than our nearest gold peer. No other gold producer in the world can offer the depth and quality that Newmont's Tier 1 portfolio can today. Later on, I'll provide a little bit more colour about Newmont's longer-term outlook and the exciting gold and copper opportunities ahead of us, but first I'd like to step back and give some insight into how we are framing the year ahead. 2023 brought with it a number of unique challenges which are now certainly behind us. The 120-day labour dispute at Penasquito, asset integrity issues that were inherent in the original design of equipment at Harpo, and wildfires in Canada impacting Eleanor. Those three events meant that our final production number did not reflect the full capability of our assets. As we emerge on the other side of these events, I am proud of the decisions that we took to protect the long-term interests of our company rather than looking to seek short-term expedient solutions. I'm also not happy with the underlying level of our operating performance. We have the opportunity to improve our compliance to mine plans, to improve our fixed and mobile equipment reliability, and to improve our mill triples and recoveries. So our focus for 2024 will be on safely integrating new teams, new operations into our Newmont operating model and culture, transforming our portfolio and laying the groundwork for sustainable operating performance, margin expansion and strong returns. Finally, this morning we also announced that we have extended the completion date and increased the projected capital cost for our TATAMI2 expansion project. In the second half of last year, we completed the concrete lining of the top half or 700 metres of this one and a half kilometre deep production shaft. This milestone gave us the opportunity to assess the condition of the known overbreak and ground conditions at the very bottom of the shaft, as well as incorporate the lessons learned from lining the top half of the shaft into the costs and schedule for the run home. We have critically assessed a number of options to safely address the known overbreak and line the lower section of the shaft. This work included key third-party reviews before we landed on a method. And it was this methodology and subsequent decision that had informed the cost and schedule update we provided today. Although I'm not happy with the extension of time and cost, I am confident that we have chosen a method that is safe and will ensure the shaft construction is of the quality necessary to reliably service the tantamized prolific ore body for many, many years to come. So with that, I'll hand it over to Natasha to walk you through our operational priorities for 2024 and what we are doing to ensure that we deliver on our commitments this year. Over to you, Natasha.

Thank you, Tom, and good morning. Since joining Newmont in October, I have visited 14 of Newmont's 17 managed operations. And I've been really impressed by the quality of the assets, the dedication of our people, and the commitment from our operational leaders to drive safe and profitable production. Now, before I begin, I'd like to provide a brief introduction to the operational team focused on integration and value delivery in 2024. As mentioned last quarter, within our global operating model, we have six regional business units, each headed up by a world-class, experienced Newmont leader, who you can see on this slide. This scalable, integrated operating model enables alignment across our operating leadership team. while also empowering our managing directors to apply the extensive local and technical knowledge and draw on the global functional expertise to lead each unique operation. To support our operations from the project execution side, we have a dedicated, restructured project delivery team. This team of subject matter experts is working across the full spectrum of our organic pipeline. including studies, project development, construction, and commissioning of projects. They strengthen our operating model with block-guiding capability and an understanding of industry-leading practices in project development. This year, we will have a larger focus on the performance of our 11 managed operations in our Go Forward portfolio, while also guiding our six non-poor assets through a safe and productive process for divestment. As we work to deliver efficiency and reliability from our global portfolio, we are committed to progressing our four key projects in execution and keeping them on track in 2024. As a result, we are entering the year with a strong focus on integration and the safe delivery of our targets. Our success in 2024 will be largely determined by the performance of our six managed Tier 1 operations, Boddington, Tanami, Penesquito, Ahofo, Lihiu, and KDO, not underestimating the significant impact of the delivery from the full portfolio of operating assets. I will also separately touch on Telfo, and how we are ensuring tailings dam integrity at this new to Newmont operation. We are very clear on the key priorities to integrate and deliver 2024 and how to set up operations for the next five years. And I will touch on some of these at each of the Tier 1 managed operations. At Boddington, we are progressing the stripping of the current laybacks in the north and south widths as planned with improved productivity from our fully autonomous haulage fleet. At our polymetallic mine, the Mosquito, our focus is on delivering strong silver, lead, and zinc from the Chile, Colorado pit, and continuing waste stripping in the Canosco pit to deliver higher gold grade in 2025. At our Harfo, we remain on track to replace the defective girth gear in the second quarter to maximize processing rates. At Tanami, we are improving material movement through the decline as we progress deeper underground. The Leahy team will be focused on simplifying the mine plan and improving asset reliability. And at our other new to Newmont operation, Cadia, we are commissioning the next block cave and progressing some important tailings rectification and expansion work to set up for the next decade of ore feed. we have full potential teams on the ground at Lahur and Kaidea actively working through our diagnosis phase and designing the initiatives to extract value and deliver the opportunities identified. So taking these key priorities into account, we anticipate that the production will be around 53% weighted towards the second half of the year. As we return to full processing rates at our half-hours, reach higher grades from the liberator or body at Tannamai, and safely integrate the new to Newmont sites into the Newmont operating model. I'm touching briefly on TALFA, a non-core operation in Australia. We are focused on remediating sinkholes and cracks detected at the tailing storage facility in December, when we stop the mould to complete first phase of remediation work. In early February, we temporarily restarted the plant while evaluating options for further remediation of an adjacent tiling facility, and we'll provide an update on that work on our first water earnings call. And with a focus on fatality risk management, respect at work, and full potential in place, we remain firmly on track to deliver on our commitments this year. On top of delivering in 2024 operationally, we are working to bring forward new low-cost ounces from the four key projects we have in execution. These projects include the second expansion at Tanami, as Tom just covered, where our focus is on sidely lining the lower section of the shaft and continuing to construct the crushing and conveying infrastructure underground. two block cave projects at Cadia to recover both gold and copper, where we have just delivered first ore as we ramp up the first of these caves. And our new mine, Ahafo North, where we are making good progress on the construction of the mill and other supporting infrastructure, along with waste stripping to allow us to start accessing the ore for stockpiling. When this new and a very exciting mine is combined with the underground potential of Subicca, Benso and Amonso, we have a Tier 1 harbour district that will be capable of producing around 850,000 ounces of gold per year, out to and beyond 2050, which would make it one of the world's top gold mining districts by any measure. Now, bringing all of this together, As we focus on integration and size delivery this year, we expect our Tier 1 portfolio to produce around 5.6 million ounces of gold and an all-in sustaining cost of $1,300 per ounce, combined with a very significant 1.9 million gold equivalent ounces from copper, silver, lead, zinc, and molybdenum. Our unit costs are expected to improve compared to 2023 due to steady production volumes and the delivery of synergies and full potential improvements, with the lowest unit costs coming from Newmont's managed Tier 1 portfolio. Our capital reinvestment remains in line with the pre-acquisition spending levels as we continue to focus our disciplined delivery and a balanced approach to capital allocation. stable production and structured reinvestment, we are strongly positioned to integrate and deliver on our commitments in 2024, setting the stage to future-proof these world-class assets with benchmark performance and meaningful growth in 2025 and beyond. And with that, I'll turn it back to Tom.