Superior Gold Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Superior Gold's first quarter 2021 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 and the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the pound key. If you have any difficulties hearing the conference, please press star then zero for an operator assistance at any time. As a reminder, this conference call is being broadcast live on the internet and recorded. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Tamara Brown, Interim Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, Ms. Brown.

Thanks, Samantha, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today to discuss Superior Gold's first quarter 2021 results. I hope that you and your families are all safe and well. As a reminder, please refer to slide two of our presentation. It's posted on the website to review our cautionary language regarding forward-looking statements and note that all amounts discussed today are in US dollars unless otherwise indicated. Joining me this morning are Paul Olmsted, our CFO, and Keith Boyle, our COO. So just as a reminder, we believe the key investment highlights of Superior Gold are that we have our operations located in Western Australia, which is one of the top mining jurisdictions in the world. We own a world-class operating gold mine with significant established infrastructure. We've got a clear and concise optimisation and expansion plan, which I'll discuss in more detail on the next slide. We have significant mineral resource base plus additional exploration upside, given our very large and underexplored mineralised system. And finally, probably the most compelling attribute is the re-rate opportunity that we represent compared to our peers. Taking a look at our growth strategy, first we're working to reestablish steady state production from the underground mine, and we're encouraged to see it return to a state of free cash flow during this quarter. To supplement this underground feed, we're adding open pit production from a number of near mill path producing open pits, including Platonic East, which is scheduled to commence mining shortly, then Perch, Salmon, Hermes South and Hermes. The timeframe and capex to put these smaller pits into production is relatively short, relatively low and with the announcement of the platonic main pushback project at the end of 2020 we now have a potentially much longer steady supply of open pit feed here at platonic the third pillar of growth is recommissioning our second mill it's currently on care and maintenance sources of feed for this mill could come from exploration on our existing property or from several other sources along the platonic miramar gold belt This provides the opportunity to increase production at Platonic to well above the current levels with minimal capex because of the significant infrastructure that's already in place. And finally, there's a potential for a new discovery as we invest in exploration at Platonic. We have certainly had some encouraging exploration drill results so far this year, and we look forward to releasing new results going forward. Turning to safety, above everything else, the health and safety of our people is our top priority. We continue to successfully operate through COVID, and to adhere to the strict measures that we put in place a year ago to mitigate this threat. To date, happy to report we have no incidences of COVID at our operation or corporate offices for a fifth consecutive quarter. We're also putting a lot of effort into introducing a safety culture here at Petonic that's committed to a workplace free of accidents. So as part of this, we continue to conduct regular safety workshops, as well as put emphasis on SLAM, hazard identification cards, and our Sculpt Leadership Program. All of this is having a positive impact, and obviously we're trying to ensure that our people know they are the most important priority for us. Taking a quick look at the first quarter, highlights include that we increased production by 11% quarter over quarter to 17,603 ounces of gold, with sales of 17,538 ounces, all at a realized gold price of $17.77, which is a record. Total cash costs were $13.86 an ounce, and all-in sustaining costs came down noticeably to $15.10 per ounce sold. The all-in sustaining cost drop is about 10% relative to the previous quarter. However, I do note that the US dollar denominated all-in sustaining costs continue to be impacted by that strengthening of the Australian US dollar exchange, which is currently sitting around five-year highs. We significantly improved our cash flow from operations this quarter to $4.9 million. That's before changes in working capital and the gold loan repayment. And we generated free cash flow, which resulted in an improved cash position at the quarter end of $17.9 million. We also improved our stoke grade by a further 13% to 3.5 grams per tonne, representing an improvement over the third quarter and a big jump over the second quarter of 2020. An improved understanding of geology and mineralisation at Potomac has led to establishing two new mining fronts, And we've demonstrated some exciting draw results coming out of the Baltic Gap and the Western Mining Front. So now I'm going to turn it over to Keith, who will discuss their operating results for the quarter.

Thanks, Tamara. As we mentioned, Platonic produced 17,603 ounces of gold in the first quarter, as compared to 16,351 ounces of gold in the same period of 2020. The increase is large as a result of an increase in the contribution of higher-grade stope material that reduced the proportion of the lower-grade legacy stockpile being milled. Total material milled during the first quarter decreased by 3% to 356,000 tons compared to the same period in 2030, partially as a result of processing fewer tons from the low-grade stockpile. legacy stockpiles in the first quarter. As the legacy stockpiles processed included oxide ore, which required the mill to operate at a slightly reduced throughput rate. Recoveries were 86% for the first quarter, representing a continued improvement following the finalization of our gravity circuit, recommissioning of our gravity circuit during the quarter. The highlight of the quarter was the underground stope grade mined at three and a half grams per ton, which represents a 13% increase over the fourth quarter of 2020. Operationally, we continue to focus on improving productivities, which has benefited from the recent arrival of the new mobile mining equipment aimed at improving both equipment availability and lowering our maintenance costs. In addition, An enhanced understanding of the geology and mineralization at Plutonic has improved our ability to predict the areas of higher-grade mineralization at the underground operation. We've seen a steady improvement in the results following the operational improvements we've implemented at Plutonic, as illustrated on slide 9. The underground mine stope grade of 3.5 grams in the first quarter represents an increase of almost 50% over the second quarter of 2020. We'll continue to target the mine stope grades above 3 grams on average. As a result, the average head grade has increased by 25% since the second quarter of 2020, and overall quarterly production has increased by 16%. highlighting the importance of mine slope rate to our overall profitability at Plutonic. I'll now turn the call over to Paul Olmstead, Chief Financial Officer, to discuss our financial results for the quarter.