Allied Gold Corp (AAUC) 2025 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Thank you all for joining us this morning. Before I turn the call over, I need to advise that certain statements made during this call today may contain forward-looking information, and actual results could differ from the conclusions or projections in that forward-looking information, which include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the estimation of mineral reserve and resources, the timing and amount of estimated future production, cost of production, capital expenditures, future metal prices and the cost and timing of the development of new projects.

For a complete discussion of the risks, uncertainties, and factors which may lead to actual financial results and performance being different from the estimates contained in the forward-looking statements, please refer to Allied Gold's press release issued yesterday evening announcing Q1 2025 operating and financial results.

I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded and will be available for replay later on today. Replay information and the presentation slides accompanying this conference call and webcast are available on Allied Gold's website at alliedgold.com.

I will now turn the call over to Daniel Racine, President of Allied Gold. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us. I wanted to take this opportunity to provide an update on operational improvements, project progress, sustainability initiatives and business -- and our business in general. Peter, Jason and the rest of our senior management teams are here, and they'll be available during the Q&A at the end of the presentation.

Before we start, let me remind everyone that we will have our Shareholders Annual General and Special Meetings at 11:00 today available online or in person at the Conservatory lounge at 150 King Street West, on the 16th floor. It will also be available for replay and the details are available on our website. Peter will be officiating that meeting.

I'll start by highlighting our strong start for 2025, building on a strong finish in 2024 and the operational improvements we have been working on. Production for the quarter came in slightly above what we planned, at over 80,000 -- 84,000 ounces at an all-in sustaining cost of $1,811 per ounce sold.

We are executing on our growth strategy. We continue to improve and optimize our operation, and we are advancing our transformative project at Kurmuk and Sadiola on schedule and on budget. Our balance sheet remains strong, ending the quarter with a cash balances of $232 million, which was further improved with day closed equity offering. We have improved our sustainability framework and performance with slightly better health and safety metrics in Q1 compared to the same period last year.

We've made strategic leadership changes, including completing the transition of our Chief Exploration Officer role, and we continue to enhance our technical and management capability at the site. Progress continues toward our New York Stock Exchange listing for which we're aiming for mid-June, which should enhance trading liquidity and index eligibility.

At Sadiola, we are advancing on strategic arrangements, including power supply alternative and partnership, while we are also in discussion with the local authorities to pursue potential new opportunities. Finally, as this happened subsequent to the quarter end, we've recently extended our gold price protection program with a net zero collar -- cost collar. The program ensure a minimum price of $3,048 per ounces and a full upside to $4,000 per ounces on gold production.

It is approximately 15,500 ounces per month from June 2025 through the end of March 2026, equaling a total of 155,000 ounces. This represents approximately 75% of the total production in that period. Putting this in place is consistent with advice we've received from our shareholders, and it ensures robust margin and cash flows as we complete the development of Kurmuk.

Financially, we delivered strong results with revenue of over $346 million and operating cash flow of nearly $145 million. Adjusted net earnings were $0.14 per share, up significantly from last year. As I noted before, our cash balance at the end of the quarter, first quarter stood at $232 million, which was augmented with an equity offer in April for approximately $65 million in gross proceeds. In summary, a strong start of the year and making good progress in all areas.

I will now hand the call over to Johannes to discuss our operating performance.

Thank you, Daniel, and good morning, everybody. Indeed, we have a good start to the year, and I feel very proud of the team's performance and achievements, in particular the improved safety metrics and leading indicators compared to last year. We remain committed to improve our safety and our sustainability performance.

At Sadiola, production was nearly 45,200 ounces with higher grades as planned and underpinned by ore contribution from Korali. We have also upgraded the plant instrumentation and improved automation capabilities to reduce cost and improve our plant performance.

On cost, we achieved AISC of near $1,800 per ounce, in line with our expectations despite higher gold price and related higher royalties. I note in our disclosure during the quarter, we have priority to the ore to Korali maximize cash flow given its higher grade and higher recoveries. We've expected contributions for Korali to reduce by the third quarter as other oxides ore sources are put into the production line like Sekekoto West and Tambali.

And then further in the fourth quarter, we expect to have the first expansion phase in production which would allow us to produce higher grade fresh rock and establish a platform of production between 200,000 and 230,000 ounces per year. Bonikro produced near 19,700 ounces, in line with plan and driven by a strong mill throughput.

Cost performance was in line with expectations with AISC of $1,582 per ounce. We continue to advance the stripping activities, which will expose higher grade ore in the latter part of the year, which we expect to drive strong production in the fourth quarter and underpin the performance in the following years.

Agbaou delivered nearly 19,100 ounces, benefiting from higher grades in some of the areas and improved plant throughput. Our team continues to enhance productivity, grade control and sequencing, aiming to increase grades in the future quarters. Across the portfolio, we are executing well and on track towards guidance.

If I can step over to slide 5 and the progress at Kurmuk. Moving to Kurmuk, the project is progressing well with construction on schedule and budget. Safety is also a priority in the project, and we're very proud to share that we accomplished 1 million man hours during the quarter without lost time in the project.

Mining activities started in the first quarter ahead of schedule using our pioneer fleet and established access to Dish Mountain and progress in Ashashire. We had our team in place, and we are building our team in anticipation of the main fleet arrival, which is on route and shown at the top left picture.

As you can see on the right slide, we are busy advancing concrete activities in the plant area with the CIL circuiting crushing and ball mill foundations completed in the quarter and the SAG mill foundation port recently. Steel fabrication is progressing well and main equipment transportation to site is also ongoing and progressing according to plan.

The main water dam was almost complete, as you can see at the bottom left image and other infrastructure works are advancing well. We spent nearly $54 million in the quarter, and we expect to see a ramp-up of capital expenditure quarter over quarter as construction activities continue to ramp up. We remain on track for substantial mechanical completion in late 2025 and the first gold in mid-2026.

If we step over to slide 6 and the guidance, I don't propose to go over all the figures on this slide as it has been disclosed before, but I will focus on key messages. We are well positioned to meet our annual production guidance of 375,000 to 400,000 ounces, at AISC between $1,690 and $1,790 per ounce. As we discussed, we expect a 45-55 split percentage from the production first to the last quarter -- the first half of the year to the last half of the year. And Q4 will be our strongest quarter, mostly driven by Sadiola expansion and the increased grade from Bonikro.

As noted before, we are on track to well achieve our targets and deploy capital in the growth projects. And to explain how they're tracking against the exploration plan, I'd like to pass over to Don.

Thanks, Johannes. Good morning, everybody. As an explorationist, I'm quite pleased that at Allied, exploration is central to our growth. To that end, exploration has been active in all three of our project areas with approximately 56,000 meters of drilling, and we have extended mineralized zones in all three project areas.

At Sadiola in Mali, we are focusing on low-cost ounces to boost near-term cash flow. In the first quarter and continuing likely for the rest of the year, we are continuing to test a specific 10-kilometer long geological trend, trend that we are already setting up to mine at the southern end at the Sekekoto oxide deposit.

Further north, we are getting encouraging results from a 2.2-kilometer part of the trend that is just south of the past-producing FE2 gold deposit. We are also testing the 1.75 kilometer long fresh rock Tambali deposit with good results.

In Côte d'Ivoire, we completed an infill and expansion drill program at our Oumé discovery. We're adding new oxide gold resources on the Hiri mine site and continuing to detail the down dip portions of the Agbaou deposit group. In addition, we are chasing specific exploration targets outside of the mine compensation areas that we hope will lead to new discoveries in the future.

In Ethiopia, exploration in the first quarter focused on the Dish deposit area, where we worked to upgrade inferred mineral resources and test extensions to the mineralized zones that could result in changes to the pit envelopes. Drill testing and trenching was also carried out at the south end of the 7-kilometer long Senegal target and initial results at the southern end look quite promising.

Work in Q2 and for the rest of the year, we will continue to focus on Senegal and further drilling at our Ashashire deposit, where approximately half of the Kurmuk reserves lie. We have quite a few high-priority targets that meet testing and validation at all three project areas and anticipate a busy next three quarters.

I'll now pass the baton back to Daniel.

Thank you, Don. We have several major milestones in 2025 and Q1 next year. We expect to be listed in the New York Stock Exchange by mid-June, which we expect will increase trading liquidity, investor access, index inclusion and ultimately, better alignment between our market value and the inherent value we see in the company. We will provide an update on Kurmuk and Oumé in Q3, in late 2025, respectively.

And in terms of the project, we will start production from Sadiola Phase 1 in the fourth quarter of this year, and the first gold ore at Kurmuk is expected by midyear 2026, which is a little over a year from now. I think it's clear to see that we have a lot of positive things happening as we are executing on our strategy. And we are very excited about our progress across the company.

With that, I'll hand things to Peter, our Chairman and CEO, before the Q&A.

So thank you very much to all the members of management. And ladies and gentlemen, just to recap, a fortified balance sheet, strong cash balances, strong EBITDA and cash flow, taking actions to protect our margins, including the gold price protection program of this company, and we have manageable CapEx for the balance of the year and into next year as we complete our growth phase.

We have improvements in management and enhancements in leadership. This is a people business as much as it is about assets. And this has been an important issue for us and for me personally to professionalize our management and especially at an operations level as much as at an executive level. We are seeing improvements to operations. We have established strengthened in-country relationships, including with governmental persons.

This is true in all jurisdictions in Mali, Côte d'Ivoire and in Ethiopia. We are well advanced with our growth projects. Sadiola's expansion is expected to be completed by the end of this year. We expect mechanical completion, as Daniel mentioned at Kurmuk by the end of the year and gold production, which is now just about one year from now. So literally just around the corner. As Johannes mentioned, we have begun mining for stockpile and pits that are opened by the time -- by about this time next year.

We've established strong strategic alliances and relationships with potential partners. We've demonstrated value in our assets, both in market and with those strategic partners and alliances. We've improved our liquidity. Daniel, thank you for reminding everyone that we expect to be listed on the senior exchange, the New York Stock Exchange before the middle of June.

We've advanced that very well. And on our Annual Shareholder Meeting that I will be officiating in a couple of hours, I encourage attendance. There will be a brief presentation. It will give us a chance to tie together what Q1 means to the bigger picture and what the bigger picture looks like. I think shareholders will be pleased with what we have to say.

So we look forward to seeing you there and if not in person, attending on our webcast.

Ladies and gentlemen, then let's open it up to questions, please.

(Operator Instructions)

Carey MacRury, Canaccord Genuity.

Just a question on Sadiola. It sounds like you're continuing your discussions with Ambrosia on the 50% sale of Sadiola, but you mentioned an alternative proposal. Just wondering if you can give a bit of color of where those discussions land or stand and also what the alternative proposal potentially looks like.

We remain committed to the Ambrosia deal for the reasons that we have given. We're continuing to advance those discussions. And as we said in our disclosure, Carey, we are now individually and collectively discussing with the Malian authorities the things that we need from them for the purposes -- approvals that we need for the purposes of transfers and the like.

It's the most advanced of the transactions that we have. But as we've been saying consistently, this has -- I'm not going to refer to it as a competitive process, but it is a process where there have been several interested parties.

And we felt obliged as our Board of Directors was presented with a proposal, we felt obliged to say that there is a proposal that has been presented. I won't go into the detail because at this point, it is nowhere near as advanced as Ambrosia. But what I would say is that they do provide a logistics solution. They are interested in a purchase of the mine. It would be a smaller purchase, but on comparable valuation.

But again, as I said, the starting point here is while we feel obliged to say that this is a process for us, while we feel obliged to say that there are -- there is the potential for others. And as I said a few moments ago, that there's recognition that there is value in our assets, that there is something that others see as opportunity. And hopefully, our shareholders will see as opportunity and new investors will see as opportunity. We are continuing to advance the Ambrosia transaction.

And the dividend in kind of 8,000 -- roughly 8,000 ounces to the government. Is that something you expect to occur in the future? Or is that sort of a onetime event?

No, we see that as a onetime event, Carey. It was something that was in discussion as part of the process last year when we were looking at the large-scale mining permitting process relating to Korali-Sud. So we see this as onetime occurrence, not something that would recur going forward.

Okay. Great. Maybe just one last one. Reuters was reporting yesterday a security incident in Mali regarding your mining contractor. Just wondering if you can provide any color on that.

Well, starting point is we don't know if it was regarding our mining contractor. We presume so. But I don't know that -- we don't know that this relates to Sadiola and equipment coming to Sadiola. We believe that it could be. Look, we discussed with our mine contractor an upgrade to equipment and bringing in new equipment.

We're troubled with several things, though, that don't relate to the company or to a mine contractor. We've got these big bright yellow trucks and they're on roads, being driven on roads, not on flatbeds. It's sort of like painting a big bull's eye. So we don't know what the security situation was. We don't know if it was a criminal element. We don't know if it was something else.

What we do know is that the security forces, so the government forces reacted very, very quickly. So clearly, there was an element of protection that was involved. But we're looking at this from the point of view of while Sadiola was mentioned, it really doesn't affect their operations. It was hundreds of kilometers away, and we're still struggling to understand why it is that the Caterpillar supplier was providing these trucks on roads that are not meant to be roadworthy rather than the way that they usually should be delivered, which is on flatbeds and with a little bit more obscurity and a little bit more a little bit less notoriety.

(Operator Instructions)

Mohamed Sidibe, National Bank.

So just a follow-up on the alternative proposal. One of the main benefits you had highlighted with the Ambrosia deal was the potential strengthening of the relationship with the Malian authorities given the DOE present in country. How do you weigh that compared to the alternative proposal as you're looking at both options and advancing discussion on Ambrosia?

Yeah. So the line was a bit difficult for us to hear, Mohamed, but I think we caught your question. So lots have changed, and I would say somewhat positively. All the proposals that we have considered, all the parties with whom we have engaged would be geopolitically supportive of what we already have in the country. I want to make sure that's clear because that was an important part of our consideration to this, which is do we get some geopolitical support coming from a partner that can supplement the things that we are already doing and we think doing reasonably well in the country.

And so in the context of this alternative proposal, yes, that would be true in that case as well. And that's why our Board of Directors felt that it was important to consider it and to engage in those discussions. But something else is important, and I want to make sure that it's clear, we did say it in our disclosure. There are changes taking place, and those changes taking place in the country provide some encouragement. The country is looking for investment.

They're looking for private investment. That's been made very clear to us generally, but to me specifically, I was there a few weeks ago in Bamako, and that was a very clear message. They're not looking for aid. And sorry, that message is not coming only from governmental parties, but it's coming from other countries. ambassadors of other countries.

They're not looking for aid, they're looking for investment. They're looking for private investment. And in the context of that, they're also looking at what are the power solutions that can fortify and improve the grid, very similar to Ethiopia, where they've developed the idea of building up the infrastructure, including the power infrastructure to support investment and to support commerce.

I think that the Malians are coming to a similar conclusion. And so what we've done is we've begun a discussion with the Malian authorities on can we help provide a solution. We are familiar with third-party providers of power. Can we be a sponsor of bringing one of these companies into the country where we would be a minority participant. We would be a broker and putting a deal together given our familiarity with the parties in the country and with the players in the industry, and where we would also then take an offtake.

So we would have a power purchase agreement that would underpin the engagement in the country of these power suppliers. These are the things that we're continuing to advance. So again, I want to give a caution that these are all positive things, but encouraging things, but there are still challenges in front of us that we need to deal with and in the country that the country needs to deal with. But we are encouraged with some of these developments and our discussions relating to those developments.

Thanks a lot for that, Peter. And sorry about my line. Hopefully, I can come in a little bit better now. Just a follow-up on that. When do you expect to give us maybe an update on the advancement or the conclusion of either Ambrosia or the alternative proposal?

So we're now, as I said, individually and between with collectively, we're now in discussions with the Malian authorities on several things that will have to occur in the country. And so it's difficult for me to say how long do these things take. It could take several days and several weeks, and it could take a little bit longer than that. But I would anticipate that we're near the -- well, close, I guess, to the middle of the month. My hope is that by the time this time in June, we're in a position to be able to say this is the course that we are taking, and this is how we've advanced things.

And relating to Ambrosia, we've completed the arrangements and concluded the deal.

Great. And then just one final question on the operations at Sadiola. Just given the fact that you mined a little bit more ounces from Korali-Sud in Q1, how do we expect that to impact grade into Q2? Could that be lower? And just prior to the Phase 1 expansion, should we expect throughput to slightly increase quarter-over-quarter at Sadiola or maybe any color on that?

And that's my final question.

Thank you very much. There's no impact on quarter-on-quarter, although we've mined a little bit more ounces from Korali-Sud, it's consistent with our guidance and our budget. Your second question regarding the expansion of Sadiola, we have alternatives on the table that could potentially slightly increase production, but that's highly dependent on several aspects on logistics. But so far, we're in line with production and for the budget and on guidance.

Mohamed, let me add to that. The Korali was always intended as a bridge to the expansions at Sadiola. The full load of the 2023 mining code on Korali and the ownership construct of 65%, 35% versus Sadiola copper, which is 80/20 and the derogations that we have on royalties means that the cost load, the royalty load is heavier on Korali. It is better grade. And we took advantage of maximizing margins by producing more ounces in Q4 and Q1 coming from Korali.

But our objective is to find other bridges as well. And as Don mentioned, we have several of those. We think that there are significant opportunities within the main tenements. We've talked about Sekekoto West, S12, several of the others that are shown in the illustration in our presentation. And these are oxide ounces.

And those oxide ounces will make a meaningful difference to the production at Sadiola, both during this period as we complete the Phase 1 expansion and then with the Phase 1 expansion, remembering that the Phase 1 expansion until we get to Phase 2 in a couple of years, the Phase 1 expansion still requires 40% of the feed coming from oxide sources. And so we -- the more of that oxide source we find, that's a hot knife through butter. That's exactly the type of ounces that we want to put through the plant.

Thank you. There are no further questions registered at this time. I will turn the call back to Peter Marrone.

So ladies and gentlemen, thanks to management first for an excellent first quarter and for the presentation. Thank you to the participants on this call, and thank you in advance to our shareholders. We encourage you to attend our shareholder meeting either in person or on the webcast. That webcast will be available for replay as well for those who cannot attend. We look forward to seeing you there at 11:00.

Thank you.

Thank you. The conference has now ended. Please disconnect your lines at this time. And we thank you for your participation.