K92 Mining Inc.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the K92 Mining 2024 Third Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in a listen-only mode, and the conference call is being recorded. After the presentation, there will 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 then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. David Medelak, President and COO. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Operator. Thanks, everyone, for attending K92 Money's 2024 Third Quarter 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 Blanchard, 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 two 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 it over to John to provide you with an overview.

Thank you, David, and welcome everyone. We begin with safety, K92's number one priority as always. I'm pleased to report there have been no lost time injuries in the third quarter. marking yet another major safety milestone with now five consecutive zero LTI quarters. During this time, two independent safety audits were completed. From these audits, a number of actions were identified, and many actions have already taken place and been completed. Safety technology on site has been enhanced, including a proximity and collision avoidance system and in-cab monitoring. With more systems planned in the future, particularly once our underground communication system upgrade is complete, which I will speak to later in the presentation. Personnel changes have been implemented, and resources for safety and training have been and continue to be expanded. Actually, there's also been multiple positive leading safety indicators. As shown in the charts, for several consecutive quarters, there's been a significant increase in job safety assessments to reinforce our safety first mindset. And the number of safety warnings from our NCAT monitoring system has significantly reduced. As stated on previous conference calls, we take the increased lost term injury frequency rate in 2023 very seriously. while also noting that historically K92 has operated with one of the best safety records in Papua New Guinea and the broader Australasia region, as shown in the previous slide. However, I'd like to reiterate that K92 relentlessly pursues our goal of achieving zero harm among our workforce. On the ESG front, we're pleased to provide a progress update on our Infrastructure Tax Credit Scheme, also referred to as ITCS, and its inaugural project, the upgrade of the Konkua-Bulimaya Road, which commenced in May 2024. This $6.6 million project and other ITCS projects are expected to be transformational for many of our communities. This road, through the construction of reliable and efficient sealed road access, will connect many of our communities to the main road network and ultimately lead to significant opportunities for increased trade and business development, as well as improving access to education. Funding for the project is through a tax credit scheme with up to 2% of our annual accessible income to be allocated by K92 for government-approved community projects and deducted from future corporate tax payable. Importantly, the program structure means that as our mine grows, our income grows, taxes and tax credits grow to the benefit of our communities. Based on the updated integrated development plan, or as we refer to it, the updated IDP, the PEA case at $1,900 per ounce, we forecast an additional $118 million allocated to the program from the current life of mine, which will clearly be very transformational to our local communities. We obviously highly commend the government of Papua New Guinea for creating this program and note that this program is in addition to our existing community development programs. K92 is extremely proud of the positive impact it is having on the prosperity and development of Papua New Guinea and we encourage you to read our latest sustainability report found at www.k92mining.com. Now moving on to operational performance. During the quarter, the Kanantu Gold Mine delivered a record quarterly production of 44,304 ounces gold equivalent. A total of 104,992 tons was processed at a head grade of 13.8 grams per ton gold equivalent, which is the highest head grade since Q4 2020 and above budget. This benefited from higher stoke grades in Q2, reporting in Q3, in addition to a moderate positive gold grade reconciliation versus the independent mineral resource due to the higher grades throughput through the plant was deliberately reduced to maximize recoveries the strong production delivered a significant decrease to our cash cost and all in sustaining costs recording 584 dollars per ounce cash cost and $941 per ounce gold all in sustaining costs. This is significantly below our 2024 operational guidance of $820 to $880 per gold ounce cash cost and $1440 to $1540 per gold ounce all in sustaining costs. Well positioning the company for its 2024 cost guidance. As annotated in the chart, all in sustaining costs have been elevated for the past few quarters as the company continues to make a considerable investment in the Stage 3 expansion, particularly in 2024, with costs expected to decline considerably after delivering the expansion, which will be discussed later in the presentation. With over 80% of gold equivalent production for the lower end of our guidance delivered in the first nine months of the year, K92 is well positioned to meet its production guidance for 2024 of 120,000 to 140,000 ounces gold equivalent. In terms of our key operational quarterly physicals, material movements and development delivered a notable increase from Q2, while plant throughput increased slightly. As noted, it was held at a reduced rate to maximize recoveries during this period of higher rates. In terms of development, subsequent to quarter end, we're pleased to report that October delivered a new monthly advanced record of 904 meters. Now, this is particularly encouraging as it's ahead of various key enablers which fully integrate to increase lateral development rates. Firstly, power upgrades and interim water supply for the main mine was recently completed and we benefited from this in October. Secondly, as shown in the chart, the number of headings is expected to significantly increase by approximately 80% by year end and 200% by mid 2025. Importantly, Each step change in additional headings is effectively driven by an additional mining front being fully activated, allowing us to work in independent mining zones with reduced congestion and increased mining flexibility and productivity. We have eight operational jumbles within the company, four active, two operating spares. The other two are currently undergoing more extensive maintenance with the first jumble scheduled to be reactivated in December. From this, it is clear that we have significant jumbo capacity to hit our targets once the number of headings increase and infrastructure upgrades are completed. Thirdly, we have been expanding our mining team and including recruitment of additional management and supervisory levels, specific personnel with high-speed development expertise, and these are being onboarded over the coming weeks. Lastly, our interim ventilation Upgrade is on track for completion by the end of this month. This is expected to deliver a notable increase in the main mine ventilation ahead of the life of mine upgrade from the Puma incline. In short, based on the updated IDP, we're ramping up to 1,200 meters of advance per month. We're already over 75% of that in October, and this was achieved before the vast majority of the key enablers came into effect. We expect to realize the initial benefits of the enablers in the first quarter, 2025. The process plan has obviously been a major positive for 2024, delivering multiple daily, weekly, and monthly throughput records. As a result, the nameplate throughput has been upgraded by GR Engineering for the updated IDP from 500,000 tons per annum to 600,000 tons per annum of 1,644 tons per day, a 20% increase as shown on the chart. Importantly, even with the upgraded nameplate, our monthly, weekly, and daily throughput records exceed the upgraded 2A throughput by 12%, 31%, and 45% respectively, clearly demonstrating that with the tons in front of it from the mine, it's extremely capable and provides significant optionality going forward. The records also highlight the potential that the Stage 3 process plant, which was designed on the same throughput parameters as the Stage 2a process plant, is more capable than its 1.2 million tonnes per annum nameplate design. In the third quarter, the process plant set records in terms of metallurgical recovery. As shown in the bar chart, Gold achieved record quarterly recovery of 95.3%, significantly greater than the 92.6 average recovery in the updated IDP. September delivered a record monthly recovery of 96.5%. Copper recoveries have also been strong and better than the updated IDP, recording recoveries in Q3 of 95.1% versus 94% in the updated IDP. We see additional upside to recoveries upon the delivery of the Stage 3 process plant under construction, which is a more optimal plant design plus more modern instrumentation, including online analysis. I'll now turn over to our Chief Financial Officer, Justin Blanchet, to discuss our financial results for the first quarter.