Torex Gold Resources Inc.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Torex Gold Resources, Inc. 3rd Quarter 2020 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 Dan Rollins, Vice President, Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. On behalf of the Torex team, welcome to our third quarter 2020 conference call. Before we begin the presentation, please note that certain statements to be made today by the management team may contain forward-looking information. so please refer to the detailed cautionary note in today's MD&A. On the call today, we have Jody Kazenko, President and CEO, as well as Stephen Thomas, CFO. Following the presentation, they will be available for the question and answer period. This conference call is being webcast and will be available for replay on our website. This morning's press release and the accompanying financial statements and MD&A are posted on our website and have been filed on CDAR. Also, please note that all amounts mentioned in this call are U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated. I'll now turn the call over to Jody.

Well, thank you, Dan, and good morning to all on the line. Welcome to the Torex Gold Q3 results release. Given the results of the quarter, it's most fitting that this call is happening on a Super Tuesday. Q3 was undoubtedly a memorable one as we rebounded from our government-mandated COVID shutdown in Q2. and we rebounded in an impressive fashion, achieving record-worthy performance on a number of facets of the business. Our record-breaking performance on safety continues. We produced more than 131,000 ounces of gold, our second highest-producing quarter ever. That production performance, coupled with a strong gold price, effectively broke all quarterly financial records that we have achieved as a company, including record gold sales, realized gold price, EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA, record realized margins, record net income and adjusted net income, and importantly, record operating cash flow and free cash flow. At the same time, we leveraged our balance sheet further by paying down $72 million of debt, concluding the quarter in a net cash position for the first time since commercial production. Importantly, we did all of these things while maintaining strict adherence with our COVID controls, and all of the challenges that came along with that, truly demonstrating that the team can thrive in the face of adversity. Clearly, this quarter is one for the history books on many counts. In terms of the agenda for the call, I'll start with a word about COVID, then provide you with a brief ESG update, followed by commentary on our operational performance. After that, Steve Thomas will step you through the detailed financial results, And finally, I will update you on some of the work we are doing around the future of the company, including a progress report on our exploration and optimization of ELG underground, a quick report out on Medialuna, and a status update on Makahai. Starting with commentary around COVID, it really is hard to believe that we have been in some form of a COVID control environment for nine months now, with no apparent end in sight anywhere in the world. At the operations, we continued to produce with the enhanced COVID protocols and the multi-layered screening approach to employee symptom screening that was implemented early on. Importantly, our supply chain remains robust. As at the end of the third quarter, there were 43 confirmed cases of COVID within our workforce. Of these, 40 individuals displayed symptoms and tested positive at home. The three individuals who tested positive at site were quarantined and we completed contact tracing to isolate anyone potentially at risk. Ongoing support has been provided for COVID management in neighboring communities, including the continuation of education campaigns and the donation of medical equipment to mitigate the spread of the virus. In light of all of this effort, I'm proud to report that just this past week, we were recognized by the National Mexican Institute of Social Security. for our leadership on the development of COVID-19 precautionary measures and the protocols implemented to mitigate the risks of contagion at the workplace. Not at all why we designed and implemented all of the controls, but nice to be recognized nonetheless. In terms of ESG, our discipline in adhering to COVID protocols continues to extend to our approach to safety at all levels of our organization. As of today, our lost time injury frequency continues to sit at zero. and we have operated more than 9 million hours without a lost time injury. This is industry leading performance and really a credit to the strong safety culture built within our workforce, supported by robust systems and thoughtful rules. Further on the ESG front, there were no reportable environmental spills in the quarter and our relationships with the local communities and AHITOs remains positive and mutually productive. Of note, a post-quarter event of significance was the negotiation of a new two-year collective bargaining agreement with the CTM Union in Mexico for our unionized employees at ELG. While the norm in the country is for mining companies and unions to negotiate CBAs on an annual basis, the company and the union came together to sign a two-year agreement. This sets a new standard and will take us out to the end of 2022. At a time when Mexico, like many countries around the world, is facing significant economic turbulence in the wake of COVID, this collective bargaining agreement provides longer-term certainty for our business, in turn providing additional certainty for our employees, their families, and the surrounding communities. Turning now to production. Coming out of our government-declared shutdown in Q2, the return to production has been exceptional. In spite of all of the complexity associated with our strict COVID protocols and battling wet season rainfall events, our open pits did not disappoint and produced over 15,000 tons per day of ore at an average mine grade of 2.86 grams per ton. Not to be outdone, our underground mines had a very strong quarter as well, achieving an average of more than 1,200 tons per day at an average grade of 6.76 grams per ton. Note on the underground that I used the word mines, plural. This is because, as planned, we are now into the first stages of production out of the lower levels of Elimo Deep, below the area where Makahai is being tested. In the corridor, we produced 1,700 ounces out of Elimo Deep to complement sub-sill production. Moving forward, we expect more out of ELD and to continue to actively mine in both areas in order to achieve our target of 20,000 ounces per quarter from the underground assets. The dominant production story for the quarter has been the improvement in uptime through the grinding circuit of the process plant, achieving a record 92% availability in Q3. This includes a planned 78-hour shutdown through the month of August to change the liners on both the sag and the ball mills. This performance is a testament to our planning, scheduling, and execution systems, and our preventative and predictive maintenance work coming together to realize the full potential of our assets. And it positions us nicely to deliver the top end of production guidance at the end of the year. With gold prices at their current levels, producing this amount of gold has allowed us to generate a significant amount of cash, which Steve Thomas will take you through now.