DPM Metals Inc.

and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Dundee Precious Metals first quarter 2024 earnings results conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising that your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand over to our first speaker for today, Jennifer Cameron, Director, Investor Relations. Go ahead, Jennifer.

Thank you, and good morning. I'm Jennifer Cameron. I'm Director, Investor Relations, and I'd like to welcome you to the Dundee Purchase Metals First Quarter Conference Calls. Joining us today are members of our senior management team, including David Ray, President and CEO, and Navin Dayal, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that all forward-looking information provided during this call is subject to the forward-looking qualification, which is detailed in our news release and incorporated in full for the purposes of today's call. Certain financial measures referred to during this call are not measures recognized under IFRS and are referred to as non-GAAP measures or ratios. These measures have no standardized meanings under IFRS and may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other companies. The definitions established and calculations performed by DPM are based on management's reasonable judgment and are consistently applied. These measures are intended to provide additional information and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for measures prepared in accordance with IFRS. Please refer to the non-GAAP financial measures section of our most recent MDMA for reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures. Please note that unless otherwise stated, operational and financial information communicated during this call are related to continuing operations that have generally been rounded, references to 2023 pertain to the comparable periods in 2023, and references to averages are based on midpoints of our outlook or guidance. I'll now turn the call over to David Ray.

Thanks, Jennifer. Good morning and thank you all for joining us. As you would have seen from our news release circulated last night, our first quarter was a solid start to the year. a result of strong production, our low-cost structure, and the benefit of higher metal prices improving our already robust margins. This morning, Nevin and I will provide a brief update on our first quarter results and discuss why we believe that DPM continues to be well-positioned to deliver value to all of our stakeholders now and over the long term. Since the beginning of the year, we've had a significant amount of news flow, and I'd like to take a few moments to provide some strategic context about those developments in our portfolio. First, at the beginning of March, we announced the sale of the SUMED smelter to Sinemite, including all assets and liabilities for $49 million. Since we acquired the smelter in 2010, it was viewed as a strategic asset in our portfolio, providing a secure processing outlet for the complex concentrate produced by Chaliphatch. However, with the developments in our global smelting markets, we've been able to place Chalapetch at several other third-party smelters, providing secure and reliable processing at favorable commercial terms without the need to own and operate the smelter. Therefore, SUMAP is no longer strategic to our portfolio, and this transaction simplifies our portfolio going forward and is consistent with our strategic objective of focusing on our gold mining assets. We're extremely proud of the investments that we have made to transform CEMEP's operational and environmental performance into a specialized custom smelter with a highly skilled workforce. And we'll be working closely with Sinemite to ensure a smooth transition as we advance towards closing the transaction, which is expected in the third quarter. Second, last week we were excited to announce a significant milestone with respect to the Ciocca Roquita project in Serbia. sharing the results of the preliminary economic assessment, which we completed during the quarter. I'll touch on the results of the PEA and next steps for the projects in more detail in a minute, but at a high level, the results from the PEA confirm our view that Choco Rikida is a highly attractive project and demonstrates the project's potential to add very high-margin gold production growth to our portfolio and generate robust economic returns. Finally, at the end of February, we decided to walk away from an opportunity we saw in the proposed transaction of Aceno Resources after Aceno received a superior bid. While it was a disappointing development, we firmly believe it was the right decision, one which demonstrates our disciplined approach to M&A and how we prioritize value accretion to our shareholders. We continue to prioritize M&A opportunities that we see as accretive on an out-of-the-share basis with high-quality assets in prospective regions. and where we see a strong strategic fit with our portfolio and our capabilities. DPM has really strong fundamentals to producing assets, strong free cash flow generation, a low-cost structure, a high-quality growth asset in Choco Rikita, which we will continue to fast-track for development, and a strong financial position to fund our internal growth pipeline while paying a dividend. We are, therefore, in a position to be very disciplined as we assess opportunity. Turning now to our results, highlights from our first quarter include solid production of approximately 63,000 ounces of gold and 7 million pounds of copper, all in sustaining costs of $883 per ounce in line with our guidance for the year, strong free cash flow generation of $62 million, and continued financial stress as we ended the quarter with a consolidated cash balance of $626 million. With higher grades and recoveries expected at both operations over the balance of the year, I'm pleased to say that both mines are on track to achieve the 2024 production and cost guidance. Looking at our operations in more detail, Chalapetch continued its track record of strong performance in the first quarter, producing approximately 37,000 ounces of gold and 6.7 million pounds of copper. with an oil and sustaining cost of $849 per gold ounce sold within our expectations for the quarter. With improved grades and recoveries forecast for the balance of the year, Chalapetch is on track to meet its 2024 guidance for production and costs. We continue to focus on extending Chalapetch's mine life through its successful in-mine exploration program and an aggressive brownfields exploration program. I'd like to highlight the Charlotte Dairy Prospect, which is located within the Chalopech Mine Concession and proximal to existing Chalopech Underground Development, where we saw positive results from drilling last year that highlighted potential for further mine life extensions at Chalopech. We plan to follow up on those drilling results with further input drilling in the second quarter to support potential inclusion in a mineral resource for Charlotte Dairy in the Chalopech Life of Mine Plan. Adatepe produced approximately 25,000 ounces of gold in the first quarter in line with our expectations, all in sustaining costs of $583 per ounce of gold sold, which was below the low end of our Adatepe guidance range for the year. Adatepe has consistently outperformed our expectations since commissioning in 2019, and we are confident that Adatepe will continue to deliver strong results. Turning to our development projects, I'll start with our activities in service. At the beginning of 2023, we were pleased to announce this new high-grade discovery at the Chocowikita Prospect, located three kilometers southeast of the TMOP project. In the 16 months since that announcement, we have continued an aggressive in-the-fill and scout drilling program, completed an initial mineral resource estimate, demonstrating a high-grade 1.8 million ounce resource, and published the results of the PEA. This rapid progress is not only a testament to the quality of the Choctawikita project, but also to our exploration and technical teams. The PEA assumes the start of construction in mid-2026, with the first production of concentrate targeted for the first half of 2028. We have initiated a PFS and we are advancing project permitting activities in support of this timeline, with good support and engagement from key regional and national authorities. This includes preparations for the EIA, which we expect to submit in the first quarter of 2026. What makes CHOCA Rikida particularly exciting is that not only is it an attractive project on a standalone basis, with an IRR of 33% at a $1,700 gold price, but that it's also got significant exploration potential that we see across our four licenses. We are continuing our SCAR drilling program, which is focused on aggressively pursuing additional SCAR targets and following up on the positive results we published at the end of February. Overall, we're very excited by Chocoriquita's potential in a region where we have had a presence for many years and where we've developed strong relationships with local stakeholders. Turning to Loma Lagoa in Ecuador, we continue to progress activities related to permitting and stakeholder relations and to support the government in fulfilling the requirements of the August 2023 ruling. During the course of the government commenced the environmental consultation process, completed the informal phase of the process in April. An interim procedure for the prior free and informed consultation process for the Loma Lago project has been outlined by the Ministry of Energy and Mines, and the baseline ecosystem and water studies are currently in progress and expected to be completed by August 2024. At the Tierras Coloradas concession, which is located 200 kilometers south of Loma Lago, in Ecuador's Loja Province, the 10,000-meter drilling program is nearing completion. This program is designed to further assess the extension and geometry of the Apericida and Latuna vein systems and to test other additional epithermal veins. We will continue to take a disciplined approach with respect to future investments and activities in Ecuador, which will be based on the project achieving key milestones. the overall operating environment in the country, and other capital allocation priorities. Before closing, I'm pleased to share that we will be publishing our 2023 Sustainability Performance Data Supplement in the next few weeks, which will provide a view into our performance in this key area of our business over the past year. Highlights include our progress towards our greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, environmental performance, and what we've engaged with in terms of human rights. We look forward to sharing the report, which will be published on our website. To wrap up on the quarter, results demonstrate the strengths that cause DPM to stand out in the gold industry. We are a unique position in the industry with a strong base of production, attractive oil and sustained costs, significant free cash flow generation, and the financial strength to fund our growth pipeline and exploration prospects, while at the same time continuing to return capital to shareholders. I'll now turn the call over to Navin for a review of our financial results and the outlook, following which we will open the call to questions.