K92 Mining Inc.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the 2023 first quarter financial results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there'll be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then one 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 David Metalik, President. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and thanks, everyone, for attending K92 Mining's first quarter 2023 results conference call. We hope you and your families are doing well. In addition to myself, we have on the line John Lewins, Chief Executive Officer and Director, and Justin Blanchett, Chief Financial Officer. I would also like to remind everyone that after the remarks from management, the call will be followed by a Q&A session. As we will be making forward-looking statements during the call, please refer to the cautionary notes and risk disclosure in our MD&A and slide 2 of the webcast presentation. Also, please bear in mind that all dollar amounts mentioned in the conference call are in United States dollars unless otherwise noted. Now, I'll turn over to John to provide you with an overview.

Well, thank you, David, and welcome, everyone. So, during the first quarter, the operation continued to progress on multiple fronts, performing strongly in all areas other than greater. And that was due to some unexpected short-term challenges, which will go into this presentation. So I was in Papua New Guinea late last month. The operation is certainly on top of those challenges, and the mine has performed well since mid-April. There is a major focus on increasing our operational flexibility on multiple fronts, and this is obviously something that will continue. I think it's important to highlight that we've got a strong mining track record, having successfully mined core of five years. and Judd for almost three years, while at the same time successfully expanding our whole operation during this time, increasing throughput by 250% in a pandemic environment. There are multiple positives from Q1 and we'll continue to build off those. Process plant performance has been very strong, exceeding our expectations and continuing to set throughput records. which has been a major focus, delivered another consecutive quarterly development advance record. And then finally, K92 achieved multiple growth catalysts and milestones during the quarter, including strong exploration results on Cora, Cora South, Chad South, and also commencing exploration drilling for the first time ever on the A1 copper-gold porphyry target, which we see very much as our number one target. So on the safety front, we recorded no lost time injuries during the first quarter. And as the chart shows, since commercial production commenced in 2018, K92 has operated with a lost time injury frequency rate well below industry average. However, as previously reported subsequent to the end of the quarter, with some profound sadness, we had to report that on May the 2nd, two individuals were fatally injured during a vehicular accident. Now, the accident occurred offsite, so it wasn't on the mining lease area. In fact, it was on a remote country road, some distance from the mine. So mining operations were not impacted. I would like to say on behalf of K92 Mining to the family, the friends, the co-workers of our two colleagues, we offer our sincerest condolences and heartfelt prayers during this time. Safety has been, always will be, a major focus for K92. On the ESG front, I'd like to begin with providing very positive progress update on our tax credit scheme. So after multiple meetings last year, the committee has now been formed and the endorsement of the first round of projects is planned in the near term. So for clarity, tax credit scheme allows for 2% of K92's accessible taxable income to be allocated to eligible projects, primarily focused on infrastructure. and then we get a commensurate tax credit granted. So the program effectively partners with government to deliver even more projects and benefits to communities. And multiple priority targets have been identified. Importantly, the tax credit scheme is in addition to our existing community programs. Now, while in Papua New Guinea in late April, we had the pleasure of hosting the Board of Directors of K92 for a site visit to our operations, plus meetings in Port Moresby with a wide range of stakeholders, including representatives of the government, Papua New Guinea Chamber of Mines and Petroleum, suppliers, service providers, industry, academia, and, of course, the media. The picture here shows our chair, Angie Ardini, with this year's recipients of our K92 Mining Tertiary Scholarship Program, plus two recipients from a scholarship from our JV partner, Pagini. Now, each K92 scholarship recipient receives a medal, which honors a senior Papua New Guinean leader within K92. The program itself is an annual program. and it's to third year students in the study of mining, metallurgy, geology. This year we added women in mining. Scholar recipients also, when they complete their fourth year, they then join the mine and go into our two-year graduate training program. I'd also like to announce that this coming year we will be adding a further scholarship, which will be a postgraduate scholarship, which will be the Tukey Angus Memorial Scholarship in honour of having dinner with the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, the Honourable James Murapi, the Governor of Eastern Highlands Province, the Honourable Simon Sear, and Member of Parliament for Penantu District, the Honourable William Hagahuno. And of course, the support of government continues to be a major factor in our success. Now, moving to operational performance during the quarter, we produced 21,488 ounces of gold equivalent. with 117,903 tons processed at a head rate of 6.35 grams per ton, gold equivalent. Now that compares with Q1 2022, all process increased 18%. Cash costs $758 per ounce, and all in sustaining costs $1,506 per ounce. Production during the quarter, as we've alluded to, was impacted by two short-term issues, which gave us eight days of unplanned plant maintenance, and then the challenging ground conditions localized area at Cora, which I will discuss in some detail later in the presentation. In terms of the key operational quarterly physicals, Kenantu delivered near-record wartime process and mine, plus record development. which we see is particularly strong when you consider the short-term challenges it faced during the quarter. As noted in previous conference calls, increasing our development rate continues to remain a major focus as we catch up on the development that was impacted due to COVID and, of course, subsequent to COVID supply chain issues. Therefore, I'm really pleased with the development rates that we've achieved in the past two quarters with the arrival of another jumbo during the last quarter. And then we have a further jumbo to mid-year and another one by the end of 2024. So we'll be looking to build on these two quarters and continue to expand and increase our development rates. Now, in addition to the strong development advance rates, a major positive in the first quarter has been the performance of the plant. In March, we set a new monthly record, averaging 1,490 tonnes per day. That's 9% above the Stage 2A expansion rate. The plant also set four new daily records during the quarter, as shown on the chart here, with the current record now standing at 1,815 tonnes processed in a single day. So Stage 2A expansion is currently undergoing its final commissioning, and we see the potential for a further throughput upside with this. As previously reported during the first quarter, unexpected operational challenges occurred in both the process plant and the mine. At the mine, notably more challenging ground conditions than expected were encountered in the localized area in late February, and that impacted on production stoping rates and access to a large high-grade Volca stoping area, which is circled here in the diagram. Generally in this situation, the mill feed will be supplemented by mining from additional higher-grade mining fronts, as we mine through this diagram. Our backup stops would have been located on the 1285 level at Cora, but that top access for a Volca The 1305 level was not yet completely developed, and that really comes down to below-budget development rates for several quarters during COVID, which we've shown previously. And you saw in our operating results. So as a result, the meal feed was supplemented with lower-grade material from underground as well as some low-grade stockpile material that we maintained. I think it's important to highlight, firstly, that we do intend to mine this area in the future. So it will come back into our production. And that when we introduce paste fill, which is part of that stage three expansion, that will provide a big boost to our geotech and mining sequence flexibility and better enable us to manage any future situations such as these. I think for our stopping sequence, it's also important to highlight that Judd has extremely and so we will have multiple large stopping areas going forward, as you can see in this diagram, which does drive our guidance. Looking at the underground line performance for QT, moderately impacted first half of the vehicle due to the challenges noted in the previous slide, however, Since then, the mine has been performing well. The stopping sequences set ourselves up for a strong second half of the year. On the process plant front, as previously mentioned, there were a total of eight days of unexpected plant downtime. Now, that was due to a mill trunnion bearing failure and a limited electrical fire in a cable tray in the wet section of the plant. Pleased to report that post those, the plant has performed extremely well. and in fact to set new records on the throughput front. I think it's also important to highlight that we see the underground mine continuing to strengthen as the year progresses. There are multiple positive factors driving this. Firstly, our development rates have been very strong for each of those last two quarters, each one being a new record. And we see that very much as a leading indicator. Secondly, we've received key pieces of equipment already this year to date and more expected going forward. And that provides a boost to our capabilities underground. We'll show some photos later in the presentation on that. And then lastly, after commencing underground development of the twin incline in 2020, we expect to mine the first ore tons from the lower mine in Q4. Now that is well ahead of schedule and that's been driven by strong advance rates in between incline. So four tons from this area were not planned until 2024. Now we will actually see our first tons come out in 2023. So that establishes a major mining front to debt and supported by obviously the large and very efficient infrastructure. I'd also like to highlight that the localized area of challenging geotechnical conditions that we faced in Q1, there is also an opportunity there for us. And as much as the subparallel structure is mineralized, it's not currently in any of the mine plans in the DFS, the PEA, and potentially provides us with a significant upside in throughput. So we're working with our own people and consultants to determine its resource potential and the best way to unlock it through the mining. Lastly, I'd like to reiterate that K92 has a significant plus five-year track record of mining and expanding operations. Long-haul stopping commenced in early 2020 and has been successfully executed and ramped up. We maintain our outlook for production to be within our guidance range, albeit in the lower half. So I'll now turn over to our Chief Financial Officer, Justin Blanchet, to discuss our financial results for the first quarter. Thank you, John.