Aya Gold & Silver Inc.

Good morning, everyone. I will now turn the call over to Elizabeth Hamawi, AYA Gold and Silver's Director of Corporate and Financial Communications. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and welcome everyone to AYA's fourth quarter and full year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Here with me today, I have Benoit Lassalle, President and CEO, Hugo Landry-Tolschak, Chief Financial Officer, Elias Elias, Chief Legal and Sustainability Officer, Raphael Beaudoin, Vice President of Operations, and David Lalonde, Vice President of Exploration. We will be referring to a presentation on this call, which is available via the webcast and is also posted on our website. We will be making forward-looking statements during the call. Please refer to our cautionary notes included in the presentation, news release, and MD&A, as well as the risk factors included in our AIF. Technical information in this presentation has been reviewed and approved by Raphael Beaudoin, IAS VP of Operations, and Daniel David Lalonde, IAS VP of Exploration, both of whom are IAS qualified persons as defined under National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. I would also like to remind everyone that our presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Benoit Lassalle.

Elizabeth, thank you. Welcome, everybody, to this Q4 2025 presentation and full year 2025 as well. I would like to remind everybody that's for AYA. The year 2025 is a ramp-up year. That's when we started after the commissioning, which was in December of 2024. We did the commissioning of the new plant, and then we went into the ramp-up year. So obviously, each quarter saw some improvement. And today, we're pleased to report that the fourth quarter was an excellent quarter and that the year overall is finishing very, very strong. So in the presentation that you have, I would ask you to go to page four. And you see here that we have record revenue, record net income, and operating cash flows. So for the year 2025, our revenues are at 202 million, always reporting in US dollars. So 202 million compared to 39 million for the previous year. Our net income stands at 46 million after tax and compared to a loss of 26 million in 2024. I also would like to point out that the 46 million is after more than $14 million of stock-based compensation, which is our three-year option program for senior management, which is being expensed. So when you look at it on an earnings per share basis, at $46 million after tax, it's an earnings per share of $33, $32. and 32 or 33 cents per share. But when you look at it before stock-based compensation, you need to add 10 cents to the earnings per share basis. The cash flow is very strong. We had a cash flow of operating cash flow of 72 million compared to 9 million negative on the previous year. So we have a very strong position. And we're ending the year with a cash balance unrestricted of $136 million. And to that, you need to include $16 million of restricted cash, which is in an account for EBRD, just as part of our long-term $100 million loan that we've obtained from EBRD for the construction of Zgunde. So globally, a very strong Q4. and a very strong year, knowing that it's a ramp-up year. Moving to slide number five, which is where the KPIs are, which I've been telling you about, and how we manage, starting on the left-hand side, on the mining tonnage. If you see in Q4, we've mined more tons than we've processed, which is a great sign, meaning that now the mine is putting through more ore than we need at the plant. Therefore, we are increasing our stockpiles. You recall that in Q1, Q2, and Q3, we were processing more than we were mining. Now, in Q4, we are mining more than we're processing. If you look at it on a yearly basis, you can see that we mine a million tons and we process 1.1 million tons. For the year, we did eat up a little bit of our rum pad, but for the quarter, we have changed the trend, and we're now building rum pads, which is excellent. The total mining came 62% from the open pit. You know our goal is to be 70-30. We're getting there. But for the year 2025, we are at 62% from the open pit. The milling rate, which is in the middle on page five, is, you see the milling rate, how interesting it is? If you look at Q4 of last year, we were at 1,200 ton a day. You recall that historically we were at 700 ton a day. We were just commissioning the new plant. By the end of Q1, we were at 2,800 ton a day, nameplate capacity. So it took one quarter And we were at nameplate capacity. And then you see Q2, we were at 3,000 ton a day. Q3, we were at 3,300. And now Q4, we're 3,800 ton a day average. So by one year of ramp up, we're 1,000 ton a day above the nameplate of 2,700. So it's about 40% higher than nameplate. Exceptional plant. Very well built. And if you go to the right and you look at the recoveries and the availability, well, that tells you everything. So not only are we operating 40% above nameplate, if the recovery for the year is at 88.4%, But the recovery for Q4 is at 91%. Again, you recall that in Q1 2025, we had issues with the oxygen plant. The recoveries were in the low 80s. We told you we would fix that. It was under designed during the construction and the planning. We corrected it. And now you have a recovery rate of 91.2 in Q4, which is exceptional. It's actually above The design, when we did the feasibility study, our average was supposed to be around 88, and now we're exceeding that by 3 to 4 points. Plant availability, you see it on the right-hand side of the slide, page 5. Plant availability in Q4 is 99%. I don't think you can beat that. It's extremely high. For the year, we're at 96%. Obviously, it's a brand-new plant, so we're comfortable with this. But all in all, what this is telling us is the plant is absolutely running well. It was billed, you recall, a little bit under budget. We commissioned it on time. We ramped it up in one year or in three quarters, and now we're running above nameplate. So it's a very robust plant. plant that we have. We produce in Q4 1,547,000 ounces, some of which came from Boumadine, because you know that Boumadine, we're processing stockpile. So globally, it was a very strong quarter. Going to page six, I think that is the summary of our industry. On the left-hand side, you see it's all about now margin. It's all about margin. Q4, 2024, the margin was, at the time, because we were in ramp up, so in commissioning even, so the margins were very, very small. And then you see to Q1, we get into a margin of $13. Q2, we have, well, $13 margin. And then in Q3, the margin becomes almost $20. Now the margin's $38 in Q4. And the margin for Q1, because we're now done Q1, we know that the average realized price for the period of Q1 is more like $80. So we're about $20 above Q4. But that is everything. This is what our industry is all about right now, is the margin. So the margin is very high. It's something that helps us manage the mining, the grade, the cutoff, but also is showing us and is creating a lot of liquidity. So on the right-hand side of the slide, you see the revenue from Q1 at $34 million to all the way up to Q4 at $75 million. And that Q4 at $75 million is based on a net realized silver price of $58 dollars. So you can imagine that going forward, we are a believer in the silver price. I mean, it's just going to get better. If you look at the net income, Q1, in the ramp-up, and I said that in the previous quarters, how many times do you see net income in a ramp-up period? So net income of $7 million in Q1, of $9 million in Q2, $12 million in Q3, and $18 million in Q4. So very strong Q4 again, and in Q4 with an earnings per share of 12 cents and for the year of 32 cents. Again, and this is after 10 cents of stock-based compensation. So very strong quarter. The plant's running well. The profitability is there. The margins are there. And we have enough cash, and that's what takes us to slide number seven is we have a very strong balance sheet with 136 million in cash. In Q4 of this year, we generated before working caps 68 million of cash flow before working cap changes, 68 million. For Q4, it was 35, so 68 for the year, 35 for the quarter, That pays for all of our expenses. So, you know, the CAPEX, the capital expenditure for the year was $33 million. The expiration was $42 million. That's for 2025. Now, for 2026, capital and expiration are similar, a bit higher on expiration. But you can see that the cash flow generated covers more than the capital expenditure and the expiration expense. Very strong year again. The cash position unrestricted is at 136. And we also have a little credit facility of 10 million available with EBRD. It's a 25 million. We did draw on 15 on it just because we have it and we did not want the credit facility to end. But we still have 10 million readily available. So these are the results, but we're looking at the year 2025. So we just talked about the financial results, the operation, the fact that the mine is producing more than what the mill needs. So the mine's running well. The underground's running where we want it to be. The open pit is running where we want it to be. The open pit needs to increase a little bit. It's throughput, but we're exceeding what we need at the plant. What we did as well in 2025 was a new resource, a reserve resource update at Gounder. So we reviewed the mine plan. We reviewed all the geological model. We've changed the mining approach. going from selective, very restrictive mining, where we would take the high-grade zone, and we went to more of a bulk mining scenario. And the reason is because Gunder is very unique geologically. It's not a vein system. You're not following a vein like most silver mines, where you mine what you see, and you mine the vein, and you have, most of the time, silver, a little bit of gold, some have lead and zinc. Here, it's not the case. Here, the Zgunder mine is a loaf of bread. It's 200 meter wide. It's 1.4 kilometer long. It's 700 meter deep, and it's mineralized. In there, you have some structures where the fluids went by, and those structures are extremely high grade. But globally, the envelope is mineralized. So we've changed the approach. We've reviewed what was there. Of course, with the new silver price, it's extremely important to understand the geology because we do not want to leave behind pockets of 100 gram per tonne silver, though they're not in the model or they were deemed to be non-economical four years ago. Today, this is absolutely economical. So what we have is we now mine the entire structure. We have created stockpiles, so a lower-grade stockpile between 40 and 80 gram, which is set aside for later. We have the regular stockpile, which we quantify. Of that, we have 250,000 tons on the regular stockpile, and we follow the mining based on our mine model. But what we are mining is not, again, not a vein, but a really a mineralized loaf of bread, which is, you know, we've gone from selective mining to bulk mining. Makes a big difference. And you see it on page nine. So on page nine, you have the new mine plan. The new mine plan accounts for six million ounces of production per year for 11 years. It has an average cash cost for the period of $16.26 and ASIC of around $19. And if you look at the mine plan in the 43-101 document, you see that for 2026, we're forecasting in that mine plan 5.8%. million ounces per year with a cash cost of around 21 and the reason is because of the strip is we're at the beginning of the open pit we have a lot of strip strip ratios between 13 and 15 so we have a lot of strip and hence that increases the cash cost in the first few years and it reduces the cash costs will reduce in the later years as the strip is going to be coming down Seriously. So today's Gounder is done. It's built. It's debugged. It's running smoothly. It has its own team. It's accountable. And we know, and it's predictable. So it will be $6 million right now based on what we know in geology, because, of course, we're always looking for more. But what we know, it's 6 million ounces per year, per 11 years, with an all-in, with a cash cost of $16.26 million. Also this year, and going to page 10, this year being 2025, we've completed the PEA on Boumadzine. Now, that's been in the making for a couple of years. We've done a lot of drilling. We knew that this was a very robust project, and we did it on the 2024 resource, which was available at the beginning of 2025, and we did a very thorough PEA with a lot of the work done to higher than a PA level. And what this is showing us, the highlight of the PA is the low initial capex. That's the highlight of the PA, $446 million of capex to build a company or a project that will be producing per year for the first five years 400,000 ounces of gold equivalent or 37.5 million ounces of silver equivalent. Now, we're showing it to you on a one to five years because year six and after will be compensated by putting in the 2025 drill program, which was not put in at the time, and we are doing this as we speak, and that will be ready for the end of June, beginning of July, And that's going to change the mine plan, and it's going to change your production profile in the later years. So, but based on the 2024 results, you have a project using $2,800 gold and $30 silver. You have a project on a pre-tax basis that gives us $2.2 billion of net present value. It's got a capex efficiency ratio of 5 to 1, capex to NPV. an internal rate of return of 69% and a payback of 1.3 years, and that is using $2,800 gold and $30 silver. So you can imagine that at the current price and with the production that's going to be updated, this project is even more robust than what we're seeing. And all of that for year one to five, the ASIC on a gold equivalent production will be around $920. So where do you have that kind of a project that can produce 400,000 ounces of gold equivalent on an ASIC of low 900 and a CAPEX of 446? Extremely unique, extremely rare in a great jurisdiction, and that's what Boumediene is all about. When we looked at Boumadine on page 11, it's a district-scale project with low initial capex, extremely rare, extremely unique. It has a strong production profile with high-grade material. The mining permit is in hand. strong economic base on production of three marketable concentrates. Now, that's very important, is you have a lead concentrate, you have a zinc concentrate, and then you have a pyrite concentrate. And out of the three concentrates, we will recover silver or gold, silver, lead, and zinc. Now, the pyrite concentrate, which historically people thought was a problem, well, it's actually now an asset. Because following the war and following what's been happening in the Middle East, sulfur has gone from $100 a ton to $500 a ton and is expected to go as high as $800 a ton. Sulfur comes from the pyrite concentrate because we have sulfur in the pyrite concentrate. So the value of our concentrate has never been as good before. as it is right now and is expected to continue. So historically, when people were saying projects like that are complicated and all that, sure, if you have low grade material, it can be more complicated. But in this case, with a project where on a silver equivalent basis, you're at 450 gram per ton or in a gold equivalent basis, you're almost five gram per ton, you're in an open pit situation and underground, and you have 45% sulfur in your pyrite concentrate, this is really a valuable concentrate. So we're fast tracking this. We're pushing now on the revised PEA. which to show you exactly how profitable this project is going to be once we've inputted the new reserve resource model and some of the new data that we have, especially on the marketing side of the concentrate. Again, to close the year 2025, we did a lot of drilling. As I always say, AYA is an exploration company, but it has You know, one project in operation, one project in development, and we do a lot of drilling. So at Gunder this year, we completed 28,000 meters of drilling. The budget was $25,000, and the average cost of meter is $144. So extremely good cost. This is all core drilling. It's all diamond drilling. It's giving us a lot of information. We have many new targets. We have... discovered extension to the Gounder main project. And we also have many new targets that we will be drilling this year. At Boumadzine, we've drilled 150,000 meters this year, this year being 2025. The target was 140. We exceeded the target. Our cost of drilling is also similar at $144 a meter, diamond drilling. We have discovered extension to the zones, the three mineralized zones that we have, and we've also discovered new zones in the Boumadine complex. Boumadine is a very large piece of land. It's a district. This year, we've added 10 new permits. We have a footprint that is in excess of 300 square kilometer under the expiration permit. And we have an additional 500 kilometer under a reconnaissance permit, which is an expiration permit, but not yet turned into the expiration permit that gets transferred into a mining permit. So it's different steps in how they approach expiration in Morocco. So we have, we've had a fantastic year. drilling almost 180,000 meters in 2025 with beautiful results at Gounder and at Boumediene. Moving just to the guidance, this is already public. We told you that this year we expect to produce between 6.2 and 6.8. We know that in the mine plan that's good there, it's based for 5.8 million. Again, just to be conservative, we've given a guidance of 5.2 to 5.8, and we've put in 1 million ounces silver equivalent at Boumadine where we're treating tailings. The cash cost at Gounder is as per the mine plan. Again, I would refer to you to the 43-101 document, F-2150, and Boumadine is at $10. That is extremely conservative. You will see that in Q4, we were a lot lower than this. Sustaining and growth capital for the year is at $36 million, which is at Gounder mainly, is to Bush. the ramp down to the granite, to the contact of the granite, where we see high-grade mineralization. So we're going to be pushing this all the way down. We will also be putting in an ore sorter, and we are working on increasing throughput capacity. Though we are at 3,800, we're putting a little bit of work to bring our throughput capacity to exceed 4,000 tons per day. So very reasonable capital to be spent this year. And the exploration program, of course, the $60 million in exploration program, and that is mainly 200,000 meters at Boumadine, which we really hope to exceed. And I have to say that as of now, we are ahead of schedule there on our drilling, and we will be drilling 20,000 meters at Zgounder as well. So going forward for 2026, the guidance is straightforward. The costs are well under control as we are now in cruising speed at Zgounder. So just to close, what's the focus and and where are we going so the focus is to accelerate boom admin we do not need debt financing we don't need new equity financing we can do boom engine with our own cash we totally have 130 million in cash if everything stays where we are right now we could be generating net net of all expenses 200 million this year so we can fast track the feasibility study in which we are fast-tracking feasibility study, all the work that needs to be done, every chapter in the feasibility study is being worked on right now. And we will start the construction of every element that is completed in this feasibility study as quickly as possible. The drilling, as I've mentioned, is ongoing at 180,000 meters. of infill drilling on the main structures, which is to convert inferred resource into measured and indicated. And regional is really depending on what we see and what we find, but currently budgeted at 20,000 meters. But again, this is completely open as we're drilling some very high priority targets on the Boumadzine regional plate. At secondaire, We will continue to optimize mining operation. As I said, we want to increase the open pit a little bit more. We want to better control the grade in the open pit. We still need to work on that. Of all the KPIs, the only one left is to really control the grade in the open pit a little bit better. The underground is done. The throughput is done with the underground. So we will continue to optimize mining operation. We have steady-state production. Of course, our goal is to take the 3,700 tons per day and push it up to 4,000 tons per day. And we always look at other means to increase plant capacity. So, the story is very simple. If you have an asset that's in production, that's built, that's debugged, that has 100 million ounces of measured and indicated resource, that will give you Six million ounces a year at an ASIC of $19. Let's put it 16 cash costs plus about three. So let's say $20. So you have six million ounces with a $20 all in cash costs or costs, not cash costs. And with that, it generates enough money to build the second asset, which is currently in development, which is called Boumadzine. Boumadzine today stands at 450 million ounces of silver equivalent, but that is being updated because that did not take into account the 2025 drill results. That's being put in as we speak. We'll have the revised PEA available for you in a couple of months. But on page 15, To the right, that to me is the future of AYA. If you look at AYA and what kind of strength it has, well, it has a project that will produce six million ounces called GUNDER, and it has a second project which is discovered, geology done, metallurgy done, flow sheet done, water identified, power from the grid, People available were taking the same construction team. Many suppliers are the same. And that project, once built, will produce 37 million ounces per year of silver equivalent. So as a company, we will be approximately 43 million ounces silver equivalent as a company. So when you look at this and you compare this level to others, we're clearly the up and coming silver producer with these two assets, not taking into account Gounder Regional, Boumediene Regional, and the other assets that we have. So going to page 16 to close is I always say that to be successful, you need three things, and these are the three, the end of each of the triangle is you need geology, which we have in Morocco, You need jurisdiction, which we have in Morocco because it is absolutely one of the best jurisdictions in the world. And you need the people that have done it, that have built mines, have developed mines, have made discoveries, and we have that. So if you have geology, you have jurisdiction, you have people, and you are disciplined in not issuing too many shares, this is the successful to have the best return on equity, meaning you have strong production, and we have here. So if you look at our triangle, geology is at the top, strong growth profile, absolutely, moving from 6 million ounces to 43 million ounces of silver equivalent. Core asset strength, we have two districts, and we're adding more districts to the story as we're putting in more permits. Expiration track record, I think we have the best in the industry, having discovered 550 million ounces of silver equivalent in the last five years. So you have a tight capital structure with only 141 million shares outstanding. No need to increase that number. We have cash in the bank. We're generating cash and we're building a tier one asset, which is, you imagine, that will add 37 million ounces of silver equivalent as soon as it's ready to get into production. So when you look at this triangle, this is why you want to be with us in AYA, because you have the three elements that really create success. So this completes the formal part of the presentation. I will now, operator, open it up for questions.