Golden Minerals Company

Greetings. Welcome to the Golden Minerals Company third quarter 2021 earnings webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero and the telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Karen Winkler, Director of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. On behalf of the Golden Minerals team, I'd like to welcome you to today's earnings call, during which we will be discussing operating and financial results for the third quarter 2021. Before we get started, please note that certain statements made by management today will be forward-looking within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risk. uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results or performance to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such statements. Please refer to our most recently filed Form 10-Q for details of risks and other important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in our forward-looking statements. On the call today are Golden Minerals President and CEO Warren Rang and our Chief Financial Officer Bob Vogels. Following their prepared remarks, they will be available to answer questions. This webcast will also be available for replay on the company's website tomorrow and remain posted for approximately 30 days. I will now turn the call over to Warren. Thank you, Karen.

I'm pleased to report that Golden Minerals just completed its first ever profitable quarter from mine operating income. This is a great milestone. and it is validation of successfully executing our plan to become a profitable producer. And this profitability is despite increased exploration spending in the quarter, mostly focused on expanding the Rodeo resource and extending the life of mine, which I'm sure we can all agree, given the strong performance of Rodeo, is a worthy goal. Rodeo continues to perform well, Production and revenue for Mordea were both strong in Q3 with a quarter over quarter gain of 38% in gold production and a 44% gain in revenue. Our cost per ounce of gold produced has improved significantly since Q2 and is now in the mid $800 net of silver credits. We are on track to meet our annual guidance for gold production of between 12,000 and 14,000 ounces, and we have already exceeded guidance for silver production for the year. Our guidance for net operating margin of 10 million to 11.5 million is also right on track. We're seeing increases in the metallurgical recovery of gold in our plants based on some adjustments we have made in improving the fineness of the grind by grinding a bit less material per day and grinding it longer. We are injecting more air into the tanks to increase the oxygen levels in the agitated leach train, which is also increasing the gold recovery. Given the recovery gains, partly based on the finer grind, we plan to maintain daily production levels at about 500 dry metric tons per day, as we have been since late September. We completed our resource expansion drilling near the Rodeo pit, and we'll be releasing the complete results from the program this quarter. We have seen numerous mill grade gold intercepts that are outside of the current resource. We expect to see an increase in the size of the gold and silver resource, which should yield a modest extension of the mine life for Rodeo. We plan to have that information incorporated into our mine plan before the end of the year. Our advancement of Delardegna is continuing to progress through detailed selective mining studies and additional final testing to define the details of the proposed bio-oxidation or BIOX plant. We have determined that it is not in the company's best interest to start the mine until we have approved the construction of the BIOX plants and they're closer to the possible completion date. The economics of operating without receiving good payables for the gold are simply not attractive enough to justify the risks. We will not get good payables for the gold until we have the biox plant operating and can extract the gold using our oxide plant. This pushes a possible restart date out into 2022. Once we have the results from our current test work, now underway in South Africa, we will have a much more accurate estimate of the capital cost of the biox plant and we will have a firm schedule for possible construction. With this information, we will be able to evaluate the restart proposal and, assuming the economics are still favorable, approve the startup plan. This could happen in the first half of 2022, which would potentially allow for resumption of production at Velardeña as soon as the second half of 2022 or early 2023. We have finished the first phase of drilling at our Cerita Este project in Argentina, and we are awaiting drill results. This drill program and related expenditures were required to satisfy the terms of our earn-in option. The property is immediately adjacent to the giant Takataka copper porphyry deposit in western Salta Province and has excellent potential for copper deposits and also for high sulfidation epithermal gold-silver deposits. Once all results are received, we will release the results. In mid-October, we started our second round of drilling at our Yoquivo project in Chihuahua, Mexico, designed to follow up on some excellent gold and silver intercepts that we released early this year. The project has district scale, we control about 5,000 hectares, and continued positive drill results would be significant for the company. We should see assay results early next year. Our plans for production growth and sustainable profitability are in place and advancing well. With Velardeña producing possibly as soon as next year, we will be on track with our initial plan and potentially be producing and selling silver lead and separately zinc concentrates in 2022 while we are constructing the bio-oxidation facility. Once the bio-oxidation plant is complete, our projections show annual production of 2 million silver equivalent ounces per year from the operation at excellent margins, assuming continued strong gold and silver prices. Our production from Velardeña once in full swing will be about twice the equivalent gold production from Rodeo and will have a projected mine life of a decade and possibly more with additional exploration success. I will now hand the call to Bob Vogels, our Chief Financial Officer, to present the financial results for the third quarter 2021.