Eldorado Gold Corporation

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the El Dorado Gold Corporation Q2 2021 Financial and Operational Results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Lisa Wilkinson, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Ms. Wilkinson.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to our second quarter 2021 conference call. On the call today, we have George Burns, President and Chief Executive Officer, Phil Yee, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Joe Dick, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, and Jason Cho, Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer. Our release yesterday details our 2021 second quarter financial and operating results. This should be read in conjunction with our second quarter financial statements and management's discussion and analysis, both of which are available on our website. They have also been filed on CDAR and EDGAR. All dollar figures discussed today are US dollars, unless otherwise stated. We will be speaking to the slides that accompany this webcast. You can download a copy of these slides from our website. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that we will be making forward-looking statements during the call. Please refer to the cautionary statements included in the presentation as well as the risk factors set out in our annual information form. I will now turn the call over to George.

Thanks, Lisa, and good day, everyone. Here is the outline for today's call. I'll provide a brief overview of Q2 results and highlights before passing it to Phil to go through the financials. Joe will follow by reviewing operational performance, and then we'll open it up for questions. In the second quarter, we had strong project and operating results at Kisada, FN Chukuru, and Lamak. However, Olympias was affected by work slowdowns as we progressed our transformation efforts at the Cassandra mines. We continue to be on track for 2021 production and cost guidance. Our transformation focus on increasing productivity across the Cassandra assets which is essential to create value. We are actively engaging with our stakeholders on this initiative, and we are confident with their cooperation we will make meaningful progress. Joe will discuss our transformation plans at Cassandra Mines in more detail later on the call, but first I want to touch on a few highlights. During the quarter, we reduced our debt and maintained our strong liquidity position while investing to grow our business. We end the quarter with a cash balance of $410 million, and our balance sheet continues to emerge as a major strength. It will enable us to fund growth and maximize the opportunities ahead of us. In the second quarter of 2021, we successfully completed the acquisition of QMX, which significantly increased Eldorado's position in the Abitibi Greenstone Belt and is consistent with our strategy to invest in world-class mining jurisdictions. addition of qmx to our portfolio opens a range of opportunities to expand our activities in the region and to leverage our existing infrastructure and el dorado strong operational exploration and stakeholder expertise shifting gears and looking ahead to the second half of 2021 and into 2022 we have several upcoming catalysts that i will discuss on this slide starting with turkey Commissioning of the high-pressure grinding roll circuit at Kisada is now scheduled to initiate at the start of Q4. We expect the HPGR to increase gold recovery by approximately 4% and enhance the already positive results achieved with the CIC trains and the new carbon regeneration kiln that were completed in the first half of the year. In Canada, at Lamarck, The decline connecting the Sigma mill with the Triangle Underground mine is progressing on schedule. It is expected to be complete in the fourth quarter. Work continues to progress on the Lamarck PEA with expected completion in the first quarter of 2022. We have taken some extra time with this study as our operational performance has improved, exceeding nameplate at the mill. As a result, the PE will reflect the optimization of the asset. moving to Greece. The updated feasibility study for scurries continues to advance, and we expect to complete it in the fourth quarter. The revised schedule is largely driven by our focus on capital discipline with respect to the additional scope for infrastructure related to legislative changes, climate change impacts on water management, and inflationary cost pressures. The study will support our process of finalizing financing and a decision by management and our board to restart construction for this world-class project. With a timely completion of construction in two and a half years, low-cost production from scurries represents significant upside in our current five-year production profile. In parallel, we're also working towards submitting an updated EIA for the Cassandra Mines in Q4. To be clear, the updated EIA will accommodate future Olympias expansion and Spittoni Port modernization. Finally, at Paramahill, an updated technical study remains on schedule for completion in early 2022. In parallel with the study work, we will be working with regulators to efficiently permit the project, leveraging our recent successes with the recent amendment to the Cassandra EIA for the use of dry stack tailings. We continue to monitor cost and capex inflation across our operations. In Turkey, inflationary pressures have been mostly offset by the weakening lira. In Canada, mining project activity has picked up in the Val d'Or area, which is putting pressure on our contractor and labor rates. COVID-19 has impacted supply chain, causing minor shipment delays. In June, we released our 2020 sustainability report, which showcases details of the sustainability framework and our ESG performance. We achieved our sustainability targets, which included developing a sustainability integrated management system, having zero fatalities and zero environmental and regulatory noncompliance incidents. We originally targeted a 10% reduction in our lost time frequency rate, And in fact, we reduced it by 43%. We also aimed at a 10% reduction in our total reportable injury frequency rate and surpassed our goal there too by reducing it by 27%. We continue to focus on safety improvements with a strong emphasis at the Cassandra Mines as part of our transformation efforts. Our sustainability framework is our foundation for how we approach responsible mining. It articulates our four key pillars that are commitments across environment, social, and governance indicators as follows. Number one, first and foremost, safe, inclusive, and innovative operations. Second, engaged and prosperous communities. Third, responsibly produced products. And finally, healthy environment, now and for the future. This slide highlights from our 2020 sustainability report grouped under each of these four pillars of our sustainability framework. I'm very proud for achieving these successes. In delivery on our commitments, we believe we will continue to be a preferred partner for host communities and countries and have the access to capital to grow our business to benefit all stakeholders. With that, I will turn things over to Phil for review of the second quarter financial results.