Wesdome Gold Mines Ltd.

Good morning. Welcome to Westom Goldmine's conference call to discuss the company's financial and operating results for the three and six months ended June 30, 2024. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. Your host for today is Trish Moran, Westom's Vice President of Investor Relations. Ms. Moran, please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Before we get started, I would like to point out that during today's call, We may make forward-looking statements as defined under Canadian securities law. I ask that you review our slide presentation for cautionary language regarding forward-looking statements and the risk factors pertaining to these statements. Please note that all figures discussed today on this call are in Canadian dollars, unless otherwise noted. Our press release, MD&A, and financial statements are available both on CDAR Plus and our corporate website, westdome.com. With us on today's call is Anthea Bath, Westone's President and CEO. Fred Mercier-Langevin, our COO. Fernando Ragone, our CFO. Neil de Bruyne, our Director of Geology. And Raj Gill, SVP Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Following management's formal remarks, we will then open the call to questions. And now over to Anthea.

Thank you, Trish, and good morning to everyone. The second quarter marked a breakthrough for Westone with record-setting results. Safety is a top priority for us, and we continue to improve our safety culture through a structured approach with key initiatives developed and implemented across the operating site. Our safety stats continue to improve, and we had the best quarter in recent history. On a year-to-date basis, there have been zero last-time incidents. I'd like to thank the team at Westone for all their efforts in this regard. In addition to safety, Q2 also set a record for production, which significantly boosts our free cash flow position to its highest point in over two years. The strong performance led to an increase in our cash balance, which topped $50 million as at June this year, and enabled us to pay off our revolver. I'm pleased to say that we are now debt-free and expect the balance sheet to continue to strengthen going forward. Of course, a major driver of this course's success was our milestone achievement at Kena. As planned in Q2, Kena was able to commence mining and processing of the high-grade ore from the Kena Deep 129 level horizon. This is a significant milestone for Kena. We're now mining as per the original anticipated plan, showcasing the step-changing grade and therefore the increase in gold produced and the subsequent reduction in site oil and sustaining costs when compared with both quarter one of 2024 and quarter two of 2023. Over Eagle River, our cornerstone mine maintained a decade-long history of delivering high grades and consistent performance. With its proven track record, Eagle remains a key part of West Ham's future. While the immediate future is secured through the great work of our teams, we are excited about the prospects for Westerm. With both operations running well and positioned to meet their respective 2024 targets, we are focused on positioning Westerm for the medium to the long term. Given our strong balance sheets, we are able to be deliberate in how we think about driving value for the long term. Now that Kena is set up for success in 2024 and well beyond the end of this decade, we are focused on further extending its growth profile. We have set in motion several initiatives, which we believe will add value in the near term to the Kina mine and have more longer-term initiatives planned out. Since Kina Deep is contributing to production, we can now turn our attention to honing in on costs and focusing our efforts toward optimization of the current profile and the model. As well, we're making good progress on the development of the Preskill exploration ramp, which will serve to further enhance Kina's operations, exploration, and strategic flexibility. We will thus be able to leverage the 33 level. Kina has an extensive portfolio of exploration targets, which is a key strategic imperative. We continue to prioritize the multiple opportunities across a highly prospective 75 square kilometers land package on the Gold Corridor in Maldore. This is a prolific gold area and is known for its interesting geology and we're still very early on in our exploration phase. The team at Kina have checked many boxes over the past 12 months. and will continue to work on delivering high-grade ore and improving profitability. Moving on to Eagle River, with a strategic growth initiative, born from a rich resource base having provided 30 years of mining of some of the highest grades in Canada, it continues to maintain its position as a high-grade producer today. The Eagle River mine has always had three to five years of mine life ahead of it, and we're now looking to increase that duration and increase output over the coming years. Our strategy to deliver this is straightforward. full-term ongoing mine plan optimization, improving our cost profile, and more drilling. Optimization remains a key priority at Eagle, where costs have escalated over the last number of years, impacting our resource conversion and the value of our asset. We have identified initiatives that are at various stages of execution and anticipate that results will yield value over the next year. We're in the process of examining productivity drivers, cost inputs, and our maintenance practices for value. Based on our history of discoveries, we're very excited about our exploration activities. It's a large structured program, and the team has completed significant upfront technical work. For several years, Western has focused on funding growth at Keenis with a cash flow generator, the Eagle River. Going forward, we're restoring the balance to set both sides up for many more years of success. As well as the two producing mines, we're working on company-wide strategic initiatives to draw value. This includes achieving synergies and supply chain efficiencies and constructing a global resource model. More about this in the coming quarters. Now over to Fred to review the quarter's operating highlights.