Fortitude Gold Corp

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Fortitude Gold Corp.' 's 2024 Q1 conference call.

Following my comments and associated presentation for those who joined online, we will have a brief question and answer period. And joining me on the call today for the Q&A portion will be Mr. John LaBate, our Chief Financial Officer. Let me remind everyone that certain statements made on this call are not historical facts and are considered forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties as described in our annual report on Form 10-K and other SEC filings, which could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by our comments. Forward-looking statements in the earnings release that we issued yesterday along with the comments on this call are made only as of today, May 8, 2024, and we undertake no obligation to publicly update any of these forward-looking statements as actual events unfold. You can find a reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures referred to in our remarks in our Form 10-K filed with the SEC for the year ended December 31, 2023. The first quarter of 2024 was successful on numerous fronts despite the ongoing permit delays and approval to mine the high-grade gold deeper in the Isabella Pearl pit. We had 8.2 million net sales, 983 gold bounces produced, 2.9 million paid to shareholders in cash dividends, 4.2 million mine gross profit, 661 total cash costs, 777 all-in sustaining cash costs, 3.6 million exploration expenditures, and a strong cash balance of 41.9 million. We continue to work with the permit agencies on numerous permits with a focus on the Isabella Pearl deep permit and county line permit to begin construction. We have permit submittals ready to turn in once others are received like the Isabella Pearl mine plan boundary expansion to encompass the scarlet target which looks to be growing toward a potential second open pit mine on the Isabella Pearl trend. We plan to submit that expansion permit as soon as we receive the IP deep approval. The agencies continue to be understaffed and overworked, but we are seeing positive movement, albeit slower than we would have liked. During the quarter, we aggressively explored our properties and had as many as six drills operating focused on our County Line project, the Isabella Pearl Scarlet Target, and East Camp Douglas. We intercepted from surface 90 feet grading 1.49 grams per ton at East Camp Douglas North veins as well as 5 feet grading over 1 ounce per ton at the same target area. Our southern lithocap target at East Camp Douglas returned 40 feet grading 2.9 grams per ton gold where we believe we may have discovered our first feeder zone into the lithocap. We also released successful drill results from our Isabella Pearl Scarlet North target where we drilled 70 feet of 1.14 grams per ton gold from surface. The Scarlet North Target, just 700 meters away from the processing facility, has great potential to become an additional open pit on the larger Isabella Pearl property. Subsequent to quarter end, we also released exciting drill results from the County Line property, including 16.76 meters grading 2.19 grams per ton gold. 7.62 meters, grading 1.28 grams per ton gold, and 6.1 meters, grading 1.49 grams per ton gold. We see strong potential to continue to add gold ounces to County Line's mineral resource. Overall, we feel very fortunate to have acquired this exceptional land portfolio of eight gold properties we own 100% in Nevada, now encompassing over 40,000 acres. Early in 2024, we announced the acquisition of two additional gold properties along the Walker Lane mineral belt, the Dauntless and the Intrepid properties. Our initial drill programs have made a gold discovery at Intrepid, and we are excited to share those results in a press release soon. We have also recently commenced our first drill program at our Dauntless property. Before we turn the call over to any potential questions, I would like to thank John Labade for his service the past three years as Fortitude Gold's Chief Financial Officer. John's last day with the company will be June 1st, after which he will be focusing on retirement. I had the pleasure of working with John at a prior company and felt very fortunate to pull him out of retirement to join us at Fortitude Gold. John has done an incredible job over these past years and has been a positive asset to this company. We wish him all the best in retirement. I would also like to congratulate Janet Turner on her promotion to Chief Financial Officer of 42 Gold. I've also had the pleasure of working with Janet for several years, and I look forward to working with her in her new role as 42 Gold's CFO. With that, I would like to thank everyone for their time today on this conference call. And operator, if you can please open up the lines for a possible Q&A. And after you announce how they do that, I do have some written Q&A I will get to.

Certainly. Everyone at this time will be conducting a question and answer session. If you have any questions or comments, please press star 1 on your phone at this time. We do ask that while posing your question, please pick up your handset if you're listening on speakerphone to provide optimum sound quality. Once again, if you have any questions or comments, please press star 1 on your phone.