Fortitude Gold Corp

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Fortitude Gold 2024 year-end conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. If anyone should require operator assistance during this conference, please press star zero on your phone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Jason Reid, CEO and President. Jason, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Jenny. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Fortitude Gold Corp's 2024 year-end conference call. Following my brief comments and associated presentation for those who joined online, we will have a brief question and answer period. Joining me on the call today for the Q&A portion will be Ms. Janet Turner, 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 February 26, 2025, 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 on our Form 10-K filed with the SEC for the year ended December 31, 2024. 2024 was another successful year of low-cost gold production and strong shareholder dividends for Fortitude Gold. Despite the long and arduous four challenging years for the resource extractive industries, including permit backlogs caused by the Biden administration and its anti-mining BLM lead, any shareholder who voted for that administration and for what would have been a devastating continuation of a Harris administration did so while voting against their investment and financial interests in Fortitude. For four years, it's been widely known among shareholders, including countless comments made by me on these conference calls, that Fortitude's business plan of layering production from several mines on top of one another was derailed by the Biden administration. Even staunch Biden supporters that are shareholders are coming out of the woodwork, acknowledging to us how bad the previous administration was for our industry and and our company's business plan. Had Harris won, Fortitude would surely return to the ranks of an exploration stage company, likely not receiving any new mine development permits and having squeezed everything possible out of the Isabella Pearl's depleting asset. But it is fortuitous. Most of America spoke, and we are excited about the next four years under the Trump administration. Trump previously demonstrated support for natural resource extraction in the United States, under which our Isabella Pearl mine was granted its permits. Trump's proposed replacement for the BLM head is a pro-business, pro-extractive industry professional, and I am excited to watch the confirmation hearings. What a novel idea to appoint such a good candidate to the BLM lead for the benefit and interest of Fortitude shareholders. 2024 year-end results, including 37.3 million net sales, 27.1 million cash balance, 16,472 gold ounces produced, 37.7 million working capital, 11.6 million paid to shareholders in cash dividends, 1.4 million pre-tax income, which did swing to a 2 million loss after taxes, 18.3 million mine gross profit, 12.9 million exploration expenditures, and 966 all-in sustaining cash costs. A substantial exploration budget of 12.9 million was deployed in 2024, which focused on the County Line, Golden Mile, and Isabella Pearl Trends, Scarlet North Area, and East Camp Douglas. All of these properties returned high-grade gold intercepts reflected in the numerous press releases issued throughout the year. As we look to conserve cash while waiting for permits, We have limited our drill exploration programs and are focusing on mapping new areas and modeling known mineralized zones. For 2025, our mine operations are targeting additional mineral opportunities that Isabella Pearl found outside of the original mine plan. We also remain highly focused on our county line project as our next Nevada USA mine build, along with scarlet expansion at our Isabella Pearl trend and our Golden Mile project. We will remain focused on obtaining as many mine permits as possible during these next four years. It is not a coincidence that the week after the election, the attitude and stance of the regulators began to change. We are seeing continued positive movement in our mine permit efforts within the agency since the election. Don't let anyone tell you an administration doesn't impact everything. Operationally, we estimate 43,000 recoverable gold ounces on the heap leach pad at the year-end 2024 to be recovered in future years. As of March, we will have effectively completed the mining of the Isabella Pearl Mine Plan and are evaluating the economics of a pit layback to access high-grade oxide and oxide transitional gold that continues into the southeast corner of the Pearl Pit Deep. But our long-term objective and focus is on obtaining the needed permits to mine County Line, Scarlet, North, and Golden Mile. Our ability to execute our business plan is directly tied to our ability to acquire the needed permits to bring new mines into production. While the exact timing of BLM permits is out of our hand, we optimistically await the new administration's pro-business and pro-mining team to be compiled, solidified, and deployed on fixing the Biden permit backlog. For years, we have heard from the BLM that they were understaffed as one of the reasons for their delays. We are now hearing from the BLM that they are nearing full staff. Again, the federal administration makes all the difference. Even one whose reputation precedes them and is proving yet again to execute on an expedited basis on numerous fronts. We are ready to build more minds. We have been pivoting, creating opportunity and tightening our belt during the last four years in the Biden desert from which that administration caused damage to Fortitude's business plan. We received our last mine permit for the Isabella Pearl mine under Trump's first term. It is not a coincidence that we did not receive a mine permit during Biden's term. So thankfully, we optimistically await our opportunity to put County Line into production under Trump's second term. With that, I would like to thank everyone for their time today on this conference call. Operator, please open up the lines. or any possible Q&A.

Thank you very much. We'll be opening the floor for questions. If you would like to ask a question via the webcast, you can click on the Ask Question box on the left side of your screen, type in your question, and hit Submit. If you would like to ask a question via the phone lines, please press Star 1 on your phone keypad now. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the queue. You may press Star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. If you are using speaker equipment, it might be necessary to pick up your handset before you press the keys. Please wait a moment while we poll for questions.