Hemlo Mining Corp.

Good morning. My name is Melissa and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Hemlo Mining First Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star 1 again. Thank you. I would like to turn the meeting over to Jason Banducci, Vice President, Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Mr. Banducci.

Thank you, Operator. I would also like to welcome everyone to HEMO Mining's first quarter 2026 Financial and Operating Results Conference Call. Before we begin, I would like to note that we will be making forward-looking statements during today's call. I will direct you to the second slide of the earnings presentation, which contains important cautionary notes regarding these forward-looking statements. Earnings presentation, including the cautionary notes, can be found on Hemlo Mining's corporate website. All dollar amounts discussed today will refer to US dollars unless otherwise indicated. Our news release, MD&A, and financial statements for the first quarter of 2026 are available on CDAR Plus and on our corporate website at HemadolMining.com. On the call today, I'm joined by our President, CEO, and Director, Jason Kosick, Chief Financial Officer, John Case, Chief Operating Officer, Eric Trombley, Vice President, Operations, and General Manager, Garrett McDonald, and Vice President Exploration, Rafael Dutote. Also joining us today is our Executive Chair, Jonathan Odd. Today, we are pleased to provide an operating and financial update for the first quarter of 2026, followed by a live Q&A session. With that, I would like to hand the call over to Jason Kosick to kick things off.

Thanks a lot, Jason. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. The first quarter of 2026 marked a defining chapter in Hemlo Mining's history. Our first full quarter as owner and operator of the Hemlo Gold Mine. For those new to the story, Hemlo Mining is a Canadian gold producer focused on operating and enhancing the Hemlo Gold Camp in Northwestern Ontario. Our flagship asset, the Hemlo Gold Mine, has produced approximately 25 million ounces of gold since 1985 from both underground and open pit operations placing it among the most prolific gold mines in canadian history with a long reserve life exceptional existing infrastructure and significant exploration upside along with the proven hemlo greenstone belt we believe we are positioned to unlock the next chapter of growth at one of canada's premier gold districts Our vision is straightforward to build the next generation of a Canadian gold champion, a nimble owner driven company that scales into an intermediate multi asset producer through resiliency, precision and unrelenting focus on performance and zero harm. The first quarter of 2026 was about laying the foundation to deliver on that vision. As we will outline today, we made significant progress on every front from safety, operations, exploration, financial strength, and capital markets positioning. Turning to slide five, we have highlighted the key metrics that underscore what was a transformational quarter for the company. In our first corridor's operator, the Hemlo mine produced approximately 29,000 attributable ounces of gold at average recoveries of 95.6% and sold approximately 32,000 attributable ounces. And Truville Mine Site owns the same costs for the corridor for 1805 per ounce. Revenue was 186 million. supported by an average realized gold price of $4,923 per ounce. Net income was 22 million or 7 cents per share. We ended the quarter with a strong cash balance of 123 million after repaying 75 million balance on a revolving credit facility, bringing the balance under the credit facility to nil. Beyond the financial results, the quarter was defined by execution across our strategic priorities. On the safety side, the Hemel mine recorded zero lost time injuries, and our underground team was awarded the National 2025 John T. Ryan Trophy by the CIM. During the quarter, we also completed the transition from a contract underground mining workforce to an owner-operator model two weeks ahead of schedule, with 97% of the contractor workforce accepting positions with the company. And we added key members across our executive and site teams. On the exploration front, we launched our 130,000-meter drill program, one of the largest single-asset drill programs underway in Canada this year. Rafael will speak to the results of the program shortly. Lastly, we reinvested $20 million across sustaining and growth capital at the mine, executed a strategic royalty buyback over the past producing David Bell property, and grew our sell side coverage from one to six analysts. And subsequent to the quarter end, announced a conditional approval to graduate to the TSX, the scope and the momentum of execution in the first quarter reinforces our confidence in the opportunity ahead at Hemlo. With that, I'll hand the call over to Eric to review the quarter's operating results.

Thanks, Jason. Good morning, everyone. Turning to slide six, we have a live operational matrix for the quarter on the left and key takeaways on the right. The first full quarter as owner of the MLO mine represents a strong start to the year with production in line with internal expectations and meaningful progress on the operational foundation that will support our growth and vision. Starting with safety, the MLO mine record no last time injury and no remontoma compliance during the quarter. marking 33 consecutive months and more than 4 million hours worked without a lost time injury. As Jason mentioned, the team was awarded the National John T. Ryan Trophy from CIM. One of the most prestigious safety award in Canadian mining Ernesto Esqueda-UC Riverside P.E.: : Presented annually by CIM to recognize the operation with the lowest reportable injury frequency in their category. Ernesto Esqueda-UC Riverside P.E.: : This award reflects the deeply embedded safety culture that we are committed to preserving and building on as new owners. Turning to operations. The Emerald Mine produced 29,699 attributable ounces in the quarter, with William producing 230,000 tons at an average grade of 3.37 grams per ton gold, and Interlake producing 92,000 tons of an average grade of 3.51 grams per ton gold. RECOVERY FOR THE COMBINED OPERATION WAS 95.6%. AS A REMINDER, AFTER VISIBLE PRODUCTION, IT PRESENTED NET OF FRANCO NEVADA 50% NET PROFIT INTEREST ROYALTY ON THE EMTLA CLAIM. CONSISTENT WITH PRIOR YEAR We expect Enterlake to contribute approximately 25 to 35% of the overall mine production in 2026. On unit cost, mining costs were $113.15 per tonne mine and milling costs were $32.81 per tonne mill with mine size G&H at $20.75 per tonne mill. A trutable total site cash costs were $1,285 per ounce sold, and a trutable mine site on-end sustaining costs were $1,805 per ounce sold. The most significant operational milestone of the quarter was the completion of a transition from contractor underground mining to an older operator model on March 16th. two weeks ahead of schedule. As Jason Kozik noted, 97% of the contractor workforce accepted positions with the company, and we fill an additional 42 positions during the quarter to support optimization and future production growth. While the primary underground mining task has been transitioned to owner of Herden Mining, we expect to maintain long-term partnerships with certain contractors for a portion of our on-the-ground development, our LMAG mining method, and the production drilling. This transition is foundational of our fit-for-purpose strategy, aligning incentives and vetting accountability and creating the operational platform required to scale production. On the maintenance and fleet side, We made significant progress during the quarter. The most notable item was the refurbishment of one of the underground crusher and the replacement of the production oil cable, which was complete two months ahead of schedule. We also commissioned two of the 21 planned piece of new model equipment in the quarter, with the reminder to follow over the balance of 2026. The objective is to have seven jumbo drills and matches number of bolster in operations by year end, which will significantly increase development rate and open several new mining areas. Looking ahead with regard to 2026 guidance, we expect to provide formal production and cost guidance in the second half of the year. Once we have a longer track record under ownership, and the benefits of the operational improvement currently underway. I will now pass the call to Garrett to walk through the key component of the optimization and growth strategy at the mine.

Thanks, Eric. Turning to slide seven, I would like to walk you through the four pillars of our optimization and growth strategy at the Hamel Mine. This is the framework that will guide our work over the next 18 to 24 months and shape the technical report we plan to release in the second half of 2027. The first pillar is mineral reserve and mineral resource optimization. As Raphael will discuss in detail on the next slide, the 130,000 meter drill program initiated in January is designed to convert inferred mineral resources to the indicated category materially, de-risk the near-term mine plan and test growth targets outside of the current resource footprint. We expect this program to drive incremental resources, support a lower cutoff rate in future mine plans, and ultimately extend mine life beyond the current reserve base. The second pillar is mine optimization. Our focus areas include improving mine sequencing to extract complete sectors before moving on, reintroducing bottom-up mining where appropriate, Increasing our production rate to better utilize hoisting capacity. And pursuing a phase ramp up to 6000 tons per day from the underground mine. These initiatives are interrelated and execution requires the additional mining fleet development rates and operational discipline that the owner operator transition is built to deliver. Third pillar is infrastructure optimization, which we believe represents one of the most compelling near term value drivers at HEMLO. The mill is currently operating at approximately 3,800 tons per day with current capacity of approximately 6,000 tons per day available with no major upgrades required. And the historical capacity of 10,000 tons per day demonstrated. Underground, our hoisting capacity is approximately 6,000 tons per day of ore with current utilization at approximately 60% of installed capacity. Plan mill upgrades in 2026. including the sag mill liner redesign and on-stream analyzer replacement are designed to support this throughput growth. The fourth pillar is brownfields exploration. EMLO is one of the most productive mineral systems in Canadian gold mining history, and the operation has a long track record of successfully replacing reserves. We are bringing a significantly increased exploration budget in 2026 with a strong focus on both near mine and regional opportunities. With that, I will now hand the call over to Raphael to discuss the 2026 drill program in detail.

Thanks, Garrett. Turning to slide eight, as Garrett mentioned, in January, we initiated 130,000 meters exploration drill program at the Hemlo mine, one of the largest single asset drill program underway in Canadian gold mining this year. The program took you across three pillars, resource conversion, high definition drilling, and growth drilling. Approximately 70,000 meters of the program is allocated to potential mineral resource conversion, with a focus on upgrading infant mineral resources to indicated categories to support reserves growth ahead of a dated technical study in the second half of 2037. Drilling will focus on multiple areas across the mine, with particular emphasis on the western portion of the operation, including the C-zone and the newly defined E-zone, where significant ounces of inferred resources are already defined and remain open at death. Mineralization proximal to historic rankings represent an additional conversion opportunity. A portion of this material was previously excluded from the resource estimate due to limited drill density rather than the lack of mineralization. At the $2,500 per ounce gold price, we are targeting the potential upgrade of approximately 800,000 ounces from inferred to indicated. Approximately 30,000 meters is allocated to high-definition drilling. These components focus on materially risking the short-term mine plan over the next 24 months by applying tighter drill spacing in areas scheduled for extraction. The objective is to improve geological confidence, refine grade and tonnage estimate, and enhance operational predictability during planned production ramp-up. The remaining 30,000 meters is allocated to gross drilling, testing new mineralized zones outside of the current resource footprint across four priority targets. These targets have returned encouraging historical results, but have not been systematically tested with modern drilling technique and modern geological interpretation. The David Bell historic area in particular contains significant mineralization that was left behind at significantly lower gold price, and we see meaningful long-term exploration upside at that. Subsequent to quarter end on May 14th, we announced the first growth drilling results from the program focused on South Rim. A newly recognized high-grade mineralized domain hosted within the regional meta-sediment and located within 50 to 150 meters from active mining in Seasall. The first seven of 20 planned hole confirmed mineralization. with all 765, 26, or 6 intersecting 16 or 7 gram per ton gold over 8.1 meters, including 59.7 grams per ton over 2 meters. South Stream remain open along strike and down plunge and represents what we believe to be a significant new low capital resource growth opportunity at Hemlo. As of today, we have completed approximately 32,000 meters across all three program pillars. with seven grills active on site and three more starting in June. We expect to release additional results from South Stream and other zones over the coming months. I will now hand out the call over to John to walk through the financial results.

Thanks, Raphael. Turning to slide nine, the first quarter of 2026 was highlighted by strong operating margins and significant balance sheet deleveraging in our first full quarter of operations. Revenue for the quarter was 186.3 million generated from 38,685 gold ounces sold versus gold ounces produced of 34,764. Excluding deliveries made under our streaming agreement, the average price sold per ounce was $4,923. The company generated cash flow from operating activities before working capital changes of $54.4 million and cash flows after working capital changes of $87.9 million. The main driver for the difference was current income tax expense of $31.8 million. EBITDA in the quarter was $86.6 million and free cash flow came in at $71.5 million during the quarter. Net income was $22.1 million or $0.07 a share in the quarter. Total capital expenditures during the quarter were $20.1 million, comprised of $12.4 million of sustaining capital, directed primarily to underground mine development, mining fleet additions, entailing storage facility work, and $7.7 million of growth capital, primarily for mining fleet additions. Turning to the balance sheet, we closed the quarter with a strong financial position. Cash on hand was $123.6 million at quarter end. In March, the company repaid $75 million on the revolving credit facility, reducing the balance owing on the facility to nil. The revolving credit facility remains available to the company for general corporate purposes and working capital needs, with approximately $96.4 million of undrawn capacity. Net debt at quarter end was $26.4 million, down from $93 million at the end of 2025. On our transition service agreement, we've made significant progress on establishing key systems and preparing to take over full control of HEMLO's IT and OT infrastructure. We are now live with our own instance of SAP, and we expect to announce the completion of the transition service agreement ahead of schedule. I'd like to call out BEREC and thank them as they have been terrific partners on these initiatives. With that, I will hand the call back to Jason to walk through our key objectives and corporate timeline.

Thanks, Sean. Turning to slide 10. We have laid out our key objectives and corporate timeline through 2027. Looking at the corporate work streams, our most important near-term milestone is graduation to the TSX. On April 20th, we announced that we received conditional approval to list are common shares on the TSX subject to fulfilling all the TSX requirements by July 2026. The TSX up listing will provide a meaningful step up in trading liquidity, institutional accessibility, and investor awareness. We expect to formally issue 2026 guidance in the second half of the year. We are targeting index inclusion in the GDXJ as our public market profile continues to develop. Looking further out, we're also evaluating a future U.S. listing to broaden our access to global capital markets. On the operation side, our priorities for the year include executing on the additional mobile equipment plan conducting various technical and trade-off studies to support our production growth plans. Through the balance of 2026, we expect to ramp up production at our underground mine with our phase ramp up toward approximately 6,000 tons per day, maximizing our hoisting capacity by the end of 2027. We expect to provide more detail on production trajectory when we issue formal guidance in the second half of 2026. On the exploration side of things, in addition to the 130,000 meter drill program that Raphael walked you through, we are advancing an updated technical report planned for the second half of 2027. The report will reflect updated reserves, resources, and future throughput potential and underscore what lies ahead for this foundational asset. Turning to slide 11, I'd like to close the formal portion of this presentation with five reasons why we believe HEMLO mining represents a differentiated opportunity in the Canadian gold mining space. First, a historic asset. We own and operate one of the most significant mines in Canadian gold mining history. An asset that has produced approximately 25 million ounces since 1985 and meaningful exploration upside along the Hemlo greenstone belt. Second, a fit for purpose strategy. We are executing on an operationally focused plan to optimize reserves, resources, the mine and mill, a clear path to becoming a leading Canadian mid-tier gold producer. The work underway today is not theoretical. It is being delivered on the ground as we speak. Third, peer leading growth trajectory, driven by mining optimization, the capitalization of underutilized infrastructure, and a strong focus on near mine exploration. Our growth trajectory and our view among the most compelling in our peer group. Importantly, this organic growth from an asset we already own. Fourth, the right team. We have assembled a hand-selected executive team with deep operational exploration, finance, and capital markets experience. supported by an experienced site team that brings deep knowledge of the HEMLO ore body and operations. Fifth, strong backing. HEMLO Mining benefits from significant insider ownership alongside a high quality roster of institutional investors and strategic financial partners. Before I close, I want to thank our shareholders for their continued support and the entire Hemlo team for the work they have put in to deliver a strong first quarter. We are in the early innings of what we believe will be a multi-year value creation story, and the foundation we have laid in Q1 sets us up well for the balance of 2026 and beyond. At this point, I will turn the call back to the operator and begin the Q&A session of this call.

At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star one again. Please pick up your handset when asking a question. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Ralph Profiti with Stifel Financial. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Thanks, operator. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I'd like to ask how the mine is reconciling on the per ton site operating costs. You know, when you compare mining, processing, NG&A versus those Barrick numbers. Just wondering if we would expect to see improvement in all three of those key areas, if all goes according to plan.

Yeah, thanks for your question, Ralph. It's Jason Kosick. You know, as we increase production rates and bring in more people and basically increase the denominator, you will see those impacts towards the second half of 2026 that being said you know we can give a clearer picture once we put out formal guidance uh in the second half of this year okay thanks uh looking forward to that and as a follow-up um i'm just wondering how much work has been done on you know converting the stope sequencing to uh top-down

methodology versus bottom up. Have you had any indications on the impact that that's having on productivity? And maybe could you lay that out in sort of the next few quarters and years on how influential that's going to be on achieving the plan?

Yeah, Ralph. As you know, it's like turning a supertanker around. And there's one section that we're working on currently to go bottom up from top down, and that'll have a significant impact currently And historically, they're skipping about 70% of the waste to surface, which we don't want to be doing in the future. Again, we've got to get the development in place to change over that sequencing to realize those benefits, which will occur in the second half of the year. The team has done an amazing job just looking at the whole soap sequence process to increase cycle times for stope. We're very fortunate that Barrick was very much ahead of all of their developments. So right now, you know, 90 to 95% of all the stopes that we're going to be taking in 2026 and in Q1 of 2027 are already developed.

Okay, great. Yeah, those were the answers I was looking for. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Luke Bertozzi with CIBC. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, Jason and team. Congrats on a strong first quarter. My first question relates to labour. We're hearing from other Ontario operators that labour availability and costs remain pressure points. First, are you seeing the same thing at HEMLO? And second, as you ramp up, throughput through the year can help frame how much incremental staff is required.

Thanks, Luke. As everyone has highlighted across our industry, labor is our number one issue, as you've seen so much atrophy industry-wide. From the labor inflation perspective, that is correct. The number one pressure to inflation for us is definitely the labor market. We're very fortunate that from a fuel price perspective, we're one of the least susceptibles in the industry from that. You know, the hiring that we are doing is, to be honest, so be determined. We've, as we mentioned, we've hired and trained over 40 people. We'll have to significantly increase those numbers towards the back half of the year but as we mentioned on the call those hires or a lot of them are already in queue and as our mobile fleet increases those people will slowly be brought brought into the company okay thanks that's that's it for my questions

Your next question comes from the line of Ofez Habib with Scotiabank. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Thanks, operator. Hi, Jason and Hendo team. Congrats on the first full quarter of operations and also congrats on a good quarter. This is despite being in a transaction quarter with the contractor. Some of my questions have been answered, but I do have a couple of questions just starting off. Again, you mentioned that 90% of this year's production stoves have been developed, so that's really great to see. You also mentioned that there's a lot of optimization studies ongoing. Have you started to implement any of this optimization work, or is this something that you would start implementing after the transition to owner operated is complete? and you have additional equipment at hand.

Thanks, Oves. So the first quarter was really laying out all the optimization work and looking at the full stope cycle sequence and the policies and procedures pertaining to that. What you will see, and we were limited to what we can do with the contractor in place. So those benefits and optimization work will be factored in. They are being factored in as we speak again. So you will see those benefits towards the second half of the year and they're significant.

Got it. And then just the second part of this question, you know, again, you know, you guys are looking to increase money rates from the current rates to the 6,000 tons per day. Again, what you guys need to see right now in terms of, is it equipment? Is it more ventilation to start wrapping up those mining rates?

OVACE is quite frankly the easiest way to answer that question. It's just more butts in seats. We're pretty much doubling our mobile equipment fleet, which will have a significant impact on our material handling. That being said, we are putting in a vent raise and ventilation on demand to handle the ventilation challenges that we see as we increase the mobile fleet in the future, especially in the bottom portions of Interlake.

Got it. Okay. And then just moving quickly to exploration, you mentioned that you've got a 130,000-meter build program currently underway. Is the focus more kind of on the C and E zone extension? Or will you be targeting additional mineralization potential at this new south rim zone and the Golden Giant? You've got the Table Bell areas as well. What areas do you feel carries the most potential?

You want to talk about growth potential or resource to reserve conversion potential, Alvarez?

I think more on the growth potential is my question.

Yeah, biggest growth where we are seeing is definitely in South Rim, E-Zone, and within the footwall in the B-Zone.

Okay, thanks for that. And guys, I think that's it for me. Thanks for taking my questions, and I look forward to getting to your site in July. Thanks a lot, Obaze.

There are no further questions at this time. Mr. I will turn the call over back to you.

Thanks a lot everyone. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much operator. I just want to flag that within the 1st, 6 months of ownership. The momentum in the cadence that our team has delivered is is unparallel. You know, we've built an executive team. We've replaced a GM. We've replaced a contractor. We've executed a hundred and thirty thousand year drill program of an updated resource. We've completed our trade off study. We've significantly de-leveraged our balance sheet. We've updated the mine plan. We've completed a loyalty buyback. We've hired and trained over 40 people. We're almost completely off the transition service agreement. and very much still in line or above Barrick's Q1 in 2025. So with that summary, I'd really just like to thank our executive team and our site team and our shareholders for their continued support.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.