Aya Gold & Silver Inc (Quebec) (AYA) 2024 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good day, and thank you for standing by, and welcome to Aya Gold & Silver's first quarter 2024 results conference call. (Operator Instructions) Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the call over to Ruth Hanna, Manager of Investor Relations and Communications of IR. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Aya's first quarter 2024 results conference call. My name is Ruth Hanna. I'm dialing in with the IR team from Montreal on Marrakesh this morning.

On the call today, we have Benoit La Salle, President and CEO; Ugo Landry-Tolszczuk, CFO; Raphaël Beaudoin, Vice President, Operations; and David Lalonde, Head of Exploration. We will finish today's event with the Q&A session with the team. Please contact our IR team directly with any follow-up questions that are not addressed during the call.

Before we begin, I'd like to remind listeners that today's event will contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Details of the forward-looking statements are contained in our May 15, news release, as well as on SEDAR+ and on www.ayagoldsilver.com.

With that, I would like to turn the conference over to Aya's President and CEO, Benoit La Salle. Benoit, please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. And thank you, Ruth. Thank you, everyone for being on the call this morning. As we indicated last time, 2024 is a transition year into a new Aya with a new production profile.

So let me take you through some of the highlights of the quarter. So I will be on slide number three of the presentation that you have. So as the first milestone of the quarter, which I think is probably one of the most important one, we've continued advancing Zgounder Mine expansion to plan. We are on time, and we are on budget for commissioning in Q2 2024, which means in June of 2024.

An important element we had indicated previously that we were aiming for a stockpile of 260,000 tonne of ore to start the commissioning. And I'm pleased to say that at the end of the quarter, we are at 275,000 tonne of ore for commissioning of the new mill. Another milestone we've delivered a steady quarter provides during the way for delivering objective and guidance.

We are maintaining guidance. In the quarter, we produced 366,000 ounces, which is lower than what some of you expected, but is in line with our planning because we knew that we were getting into lower grade material in the benches part of the open pit mine, we had to strip the first two benches which we knew were lower grade and were oxidized.

We also were getting into the underground stope extension. And into stope extension we had seen that there was lower grade material, but we wanted to get that material out before we start backfilling those stopes. So and in addition, there's always some sequencing.

The revenue for the quarter stand at $5.1 million, clearly lower than anticipated, but we know that we took 157,000 ounces of silver that we have now in inventory. And this is why we say that there's a temporary increase in silver concentrate and we push those over to Q2 where we were able to get $4 an ounce improvement on the selling price.

And there is a net loss for the quarter of $2.5 million and which also has directly affected our cash cost because of the lower production and the lower sale. It has directly affected our cash cost, which is at $20.31, which is not representative of the cash costs of this company going forward, nor it's a question of denominator in the quarter.

As well we end the quarter with improved liquidity. We closed the quarter with $111 million in cash and cash equivalent. You know, we're reporting in USD, so $111 million, which is a major improvement from the previous quarters. We drew down an additional $25 million on our EBRD loan for a total of $85 million. We won yesterday a price on the EBRD loan for Africa as one of the top natural resource alone in our industry.

We finished the quarter with a strengthened portfolio and we delivered an updated Boumadine Mineral Resource on April 15, of this year and which is a very strong baseline for continued development and expansion. Furthermore, we've also increased the land package at the margin. Currently, we've increased our land package by 346%.

Moving on to slide number 4, it's extremely important for us to tell you and to reiterate that we are maintaining guidance for the year, though the production for Q1 is at 366,000 ounces. We're maintaining guidance between 2.6 and 3.2. We're maintaining our cash cost guidance between 13 and 14.5 and the average grade process between 250 and 240, regardless of the fact that in Q1 we were lower because we knew and I explained why we are lower and it was planned accordingly.

The mill recoveries were at 81.8% in this quarter, lower than what we normally see. And this is because of oxidized material coming from the open pit. The oxidized material in with our current two plants, doesn't get the same recovery. In the new plant it will get the same recovery of the high 80s or low 90s, but in the current to plant it doesn't. So this is why this quarter we have a lower recovery.

On the other end, we have a very good availability KPI, the two plants were available at 96% and therefore extremely high KPIs on availability.

Moving on to slide number 5, just a quick charts on tracking the last five quarters. So you see that the silver production is lower this quarter. But as we indicated, 2024 is a transition year into a very strong 2025 year where the new plant will be in production. Same thing when you look at the bottom left, when you look at grade 173, this is where you know we would.

This is the reality of what we buy in this quarter, but it does not represent the long-term grade of this project. Mill recoveries, I just explained to you. The reason we lost five point is because of the oxidized material as something that will not yield happened again, as we have taking up the two benches, the top benches of the open pit and now we're into fresh rock.

And a tonne process that is very, very good and that's an extremely good point. The two plants are running extremely well. And we were running almost at 900 tonne a day. And you remember that when we took over four years ago, we were running it to 300 tonne a day. And now we're running above nameplate capacity even above 15% nameplate capacity. So this is a very strong KPI.

Moving to page 6, cash flow from operation. Clearly because of the fact that we've delayed the revenue and that we produce a little bit less than anticipated, we have a negative cash flow. However, the $10 million is overstated as we also reduced the payable by $9 million. So the operating cash flow from activity, if you remove the payables, is more like negative $1 million.

The gross margin is affected because of the low revenue, which is a function of the fact that we pushed over 157,000 ounces of silver to Q2. Our cost of sale is in line with the revenue that we recognize. And the cash costs, as indicated is a function of the denominator. It does not represent the cash cost going forward.

Moving to slide number 8. Zgounder expansion, we've been showing you monthly videos of the expansion you can track and you can see it. The expansion is moving smoothly. Very happy to say again at the end of this quarter that we are on budget and that we will be completing the plant expansion by the end of June before we get into commissioning and that we will be on budget as all the items have been secured all the equipment is on site and now it is really a matter of construction.

The underground development is on track as well, 94% of the lateral, the lateral development is done and 83% of the vertical development is completed. The vertical development is not the one that's needed for decommissioning is really more of the lateral development. The important items that can always affect your timing, the powerline Merrill-Crowe, Silver room, all of that is on time and on budget. It will all be completed in the next few weeks.

The haulage and the open pit road you've seen thoes on the videos they're really looking very good. They're well done and are functional at the moment and the garage you will see that hopefully in the next video, we have a beautiful underground garage that is complete and that's been completed and is very well built.

So the all the civil and concrete work is completed, the cyanidation tanks are there the electrical substation you will see warehouse and workshops have been completed. So we are coming to the end of the construction in the next few weeks and getting into commissioning.

And another element is we've been through a forward audited by EBRD on all of our ESG for the loan, the $100 million loan that we have. So you see this on page 9, you see one of the water reservoir, you see the 87% completion of the plan, the electrical substation, and we have therefore completed the audit with EBRD and for a fourth time we are in compliance with all the requirements.

Moving to slide 10 in the presentation, it's about exploration. Aya in 2024 will be drilling 145,000 meters on Boumadine and on Zgounder, mainly obviously on Boumadine. And at the end of the quarter of a program of 15,000 meters as Zgounder Mine zone, we have 8,700 meters completed. We have five drills between five and six drills turning as Zgounder at all time.

And Azegour regional we've completed 3,000 meters out of 10,000 meters there. We're working with the team on identifying targets and testing some targets on this Zgounde regional. Whereas Azegour Mine, we're drilling the the main structure, which we are mining now and some very close structures that are to the east and to the south of the current mine.

At Boumadine where we're drilling and we have a program of 120,000 meters at the end of the quarter, we were 11,332 meters done. That 120,000 meters you recall is divided into 60,000 meters to expand a 4.2 kilometer strike. That was part of the resource update that we published on April 15, that is ongoing, and there's 60,000 meters on new target that is also ongoing.

Furthermore, the MobileMT Geophysics is probably 80% completed at Boumadine, and it's just been completed at Tirzzit.

And moving to page 11, just in the quarter, we had some again very strong drill results at the main zone at Zgounder. We are 50% completed, as I just said, and some of the results, especially the ones getting closer to the granite at the bottom of the structure. We are hitting some very, very nice zone of 1,000 gram per tonne over 30 meters and 322 gram per tonne over 70 meters.

So again, this is ongoing there will be more resolve. The drilling is going well. We have four underground drills that are turning 24/7 and we intend to have all of this drill in the coming months.

On page 12, is a review of the Boumadine permit. That's the first permit, that's the original permit that you see on page 12. That's the one that we acquired in 2012 way before our time. That's the one we did the geophysics 18 months ago and understood that there was a mineralized zone, which we've drilled.

On that mineralized zone that we've put out a resource update. So as we indicated, you know, it's 120,000 meter drill program as of now year to date, we're 27,000 meter done. At the end of the quarter, we were 15,000 meter done. And just recently this week, we put out some results. So it's post the end of the quarter, but it's within this week where we've announced that we extended the mineralized zone from 4.2 kilometer up to 5 kilometers.

You recall that this is a geophysics anomaly that we see at surface on 6 kilometers. We're also seeing it on surface, but not with the geophysics to go all the way to the north of the border and going south as well. So this is with our Boumadine project and it's continuing, we're drilling on it and we've added many, many new permits to increase the footprint of this district that we're currently developing.

The med test were announced last year. Nothing new, except that we're continuing the test, and we're continuing the work for to identify what method will be used in the processing, but that's going to come much later in the year.

On page 13, you have just some recent highlights of the drill results. Again, seeing some very good grade at Boumadine in a very good gold grade of 6 grams per tonne, 116 gram per tonne silver, zinc, lead and copper at this project is polymetallic and the results that we showed you at the beginning of the week are still extremely strong result.

Moving to page 14 and 15, just a quick update of the resource that we've put out that we put out on April 15, we had indicated an inferred resource, the summary is on page 15. What we were showing is in silver equivalent it's 352 million ounces in silver equivalent and gold equivalent it's 4.1 million ounces of gold equivalent.

But at the end of the day, if you look at the metal per se, it's 72 million ounces of silver and it's 2 million ounces of gold and the actual metal, all of that at very good grade. So it's a strong project. We're we will be reporting more resolve as we keep drilling, but that the on April 15, we put out the first resource from our team, which is the beginning of many more updates to come in the months and years to come.

Closing on the ESG And on page 16, as you all know, we're extremely involved locally, the ESG values are really within our values at higher. And hence, the reason where we were able to obtain that $100 million of funding with EBRD. So we have on health and safety we have deals for small incidents. This quarter we had none last quarter for small incidents this quarter with subcontractors.

That's where we had a few last days on the training, though we've increased the number of hours by 150%, to, almost 3,000 hours of the health and safety training in the quarter. As if you are part of our LinkedIn group, you will see pictures of the health and safety and all the programs that we have in place because we do post regularly what is being done on site.

On the EBRD CTF milestones were 90% completed for this second milestone. You recall that this gives us a rate reduction and interest rate reduction on our CTF funding. So it's we're almost there we should be there in the next quarter.

On community development, we have launched classrooms for children and for some of the villages on literacy classes on maths classes. And we have very good participation from the local communities. We also organize health clinics. So we had our geology clinics, mobile clinics in two of the villages around the mine.

And we also have agriculture, which you know is a e-value to a buyer and we do help the local population with agriculture in the region where we are, it is saffron that is being cultivated. And we are helping the local families and small farms with new technology, and we're really helping them in getting better yield from their small farms.

To conclude and the takeaway is that Boumadine is really moving on all cylinders. And with 120,000 meters of drilling, seven drills are turning 24/7 results are coming in. And this is a key asset to Aya and we are on track with the program and we are waiting for the geophysics, because the you see the picture on page 17, the helicopter with doing the geophysics, and then we are on track to get the geophysics in June and the inversion of the geophysics in June, in order to identify additional targets on all of the new permits that we have obtained and on our original permit as well.

The second takeaway is 25,000 meters of drilling Zgounder regional, that is on track. There's a team on this as well, and we're looking at many new targets. On the construction, the 2024 milestone for the plant expansion, as we indicated, commissioning will start. We will communicate when we start and what section of the plants being commissioned and that you can expect that in the coming few weeks, we expect commercial production in Q4 of 2024.

We are maintaining, again, guidance we're maintaining cost and production guidance. So that is a fact. And you we're saying it again. And we're also maintaining our ESG milestone and values. It's part of our values, it's part of our team, and that's something that we have completely integrated from top to bottom of the organization.

And on page 18, I'd like to show you our power line. We're very proud of our power line. It is 340 pylon. It is a beautiful power line, high voltage that is coming from the bottom of the valley all the way up to 2,200 meters where the plant is we have started risks, commissioning it slowly or we did it with the government. And it's we're almost done.

It's high-voltage you remember, it's a green energy, it's a PPA, a 20-year PPA signed with a local company. It's green energy is high voltage. And if it's less expensive than the current energy that we're receiving, which is the regular grid. So this is almost done. It's an important project for the mine, and it will be ready and commissioned for the beginning of commissioning of the other parts of the plant.

So operator, that completes the official presentation of Q1. We are ready for questions.

(Operator Instructions)

Eleanor Magdzinski, SCP Resource Finance.

Can everyone hear me, okay?

Eleanor, can you speak up a little bit?

Yeah, it's classic headphone case. Can you hear me better now?

Much better? Yes.

Okay, wonderful. Thanks very much, Benoit La and team for the presentation this morning and great work to everyone. As for the efforts over the last quarter. I just wanted to ask a question about upcoming. I guess throughput while commissioning, we kind of anticipate the grades to be a bit on the lower side because that's typical in the commissioning stages. Just curious what the plant capacity is kind of budgeted or expected over the next I guess Q2 and Q3 while commissioning takesplace?

So Eleanor, first of all, we're going to be running this with the stockpile. So clearly, as you know, now we have at the end of the quarter, we have 275,000 tonne on the stockpile, which runs around 170 grams per tonne, which we've been accumulating. We and that's what we're going to be using and on the commissioning front.

Well, look, we'll start at the end of June, and we'll know and very slowly our we hope that we're going to have. Yeah, we have completed that at the end of September, beginning of October where technically the new plant is 2,000 tonne. But I don't believe we're going to be running at 2000 tonnes to start, that would be a dream, but we did it would be very, very difficult.

It's still very difficult to say the beauty of the two, all the plants are running at almost 900 tonne a day that's going to continue. And after that, it's going to be a normal ramp up. Raphaël, and is there any number you have in mind to it

Well, the the plant is designed for 2000 tonne a day, and we've taken nominal contingency on it as we should. So as to maintain guidance we start commissioning in June, and we'll have a ramp up of we hope that it's fast and to have commercial production in Q4. So we'll have a ramp up during Q3 and hopefully achieve full capacity through Q3 and have stable base operation in Q4.

Okay, awesome. And just one last follow-up, I guess. So in Q4, I mean assuming kind of everything kind of goes as planned over the next little bit of commissioning and you have steady-state at 2000 tonnes per day after the new plant, what sort of grades are, I guess are expected or anticipated as for your the end of end of year, it does seem like you will be kind of end loaded, which makes sense given the timing for the commissioning and things like that. But just curious if you could speak on that at all and how that's expected to change over the next couple of quarters?

So for the grade, it's upper guidance. So grade will continue to go up through the year and we have a stockpile, but we won't only see the new mail from the stockpile will feed a new nail from the stockpile and also the ongoing two mines that we have. So we have three different stores that we can feed the new mail and adjust accordingly. But onto our guided a grade will continue to go up through the year and we'll adjust with the open pit with the underground, which talks about the benefit as much as we can from the performance of the new plant.

Okay, awesome. Thank you so much, but that's my only question for today and really appreciate it. And I look forward to chatting soon. Thank you.

John Sclodnick, Desjardins.

Yeah, thanks, guys, for taking my question and good to hear. The expansion is on track and budget. I guess just on following up on Eleanor questions there and I guess trying to get a little more specific on the quarterly cadence of production? Is it fair to think that in Q4 we could be better something like 40% of the annual production in that quarter alone?

That's the 40% of the $3 million just for simplicity would be 1.2. Which, it's hard, it's difficult to say. It depends on the ramp-up John, but we know that the brand is getting better that we know because of the open pit has got better grade and sort of the underground like John last unless the last month, I think you know, we give annual guidance. We're in a ramp up.

Our objective is to hit annual guidance for sure. I think we gave you a pretty good idea of when we think commissioning is going to be when we think ramp-up is going to be. So I think we'll stick to that. And look, we expect to meet guidance from here to the end of the year.

Fair enough, yeah. I was a sticky way to ask for quarterly guidance. And I guess the other one, just any curiosity concentrate that was held in inventory that was just a shipping timing issue I'm assuming today?

That's right. That was we waited for the concentrate. We were looking at the $21 price. We did not like that and we had 157,000 we could have shipped before the end of the quarter after the end of the quarter. And we waited and we didn't do that in the past. But this was if you look at Q1, the average selling price was lower. And you know, we kind of made the right decision because we've got $4 extra.

Interesting. Okay. That's kind of a bit of a new approach and I guess in terms of getting Canadian leverage, would you ever think about adding keeping a little bit on the balance sheet?

Well, we normally do. If you look at the every time you look at the quarter end there's always, you know, because of the delivery time because of the ingots, there's always some at the end we haven't used this as a it's not we're not in the business of holding, unlike others do. And but look, we have the liquidity to be patient and we do have the liquidity. So we were patient in Q1.

Perfect. I appreciate that. And yeah, great to see you guys there. Good financial position to finish this wrap up and then it's on track and on budget. So yeah, congrats, and looking forward to more success.

Thanks, John.

Stephen Soock, Stifel.

Hi, guys. Thanks for the presentation great to see the ramp up or sorry, the end of construction still going apace here. I just a quick one for me. I know the oxide material going through the mill obviously impacted recoveries this quarter. Should we expect a degree of that through Q2 and maybe Q3 as well or is that pretty much all of through?

So we tried to keep as much of the oxidized ore for the new plant because we expect performance to be excellent we do process a little bit. And we've adjusted since the plant because we do have the luxury of having two mills in operation and we expect recoveries to be happening in Q2 and even more as we go along in the rest of the year. And as we expose fresh ore from the open pit?

Correct. Yeah. Okay. Makes sense. And then just one other one for me here. On the cost side now with the open pit really kind of getting into the heart of mining, are costs coming in kind of as expected, are you seeing any sort of early indications of variation from the tech report on the cost side there?

Yeah, on the cost side and I will make reference to it like the contractor is going very, very well on both on cost and on performance. So it is as we expect.

That's great to hear. That's it for me. Appreciate the answers, and I'll leave the line open for someone else.

Don DeMarco, National Bank Financial.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, Benoit and team. Congratulations on reiterating guidance and development on time on budget. So on, but I'm going to shift over to boom again from my questions on for (inaudible) just a refresh on the timing of the regional geophysics and if you're drilling any of these regional targets outside sort of the main zone to the zone when first assays might be available from those other targets?

Well, done on the geophysics and then David is on the line. So you'll be able to add. But the geophysics that was about 80% completed when we took the helicopter over to Tirzzit because until we know it's a flat structure with and we wanted to see what would be the at the readout of the geophysics on this flat structure, which was mine historically by the previous owners.

So we did that and we were waiting for the helicopter to come back to Boumadine. And it's soon as back. We will complete whatever is missing to the east into the west and the for the geophysics program. But that once we have that, then we are going to get the inversion of the geophysics data, which we'll show at depth.

The structure and what we could be looking for or will identify some target. And only then will we look at drilling those targets. So we will review the priority targets either on our ground or on the additional ground that we have obtained. And then with David and his team are going to decide what are the priority targets. Obviously, the deeper target to the southeast is the southwest sorry, is extremely important. But until we have the data, we don't know if it's how deep it is and what how big the target is.

Okay. We'll stay tuned for that and thank you for that. And also Boumadine, I recognize that the processing that is not finalized. You're looking at a number of different options rolling up some, but based on the testing has been done to date, what's the range of recoveries that you might expect for the different metals?

Well, we have it on the presentation if you go back to the presentation that we've given you, let me just go to it. On page 12, at the bottom through the initial metallurgical test work the initial recoveries for silver, gold, lead and zinc were shown there. So obviously, this is just the beginning. It's -- we did quite a bit of work, but it's just the beginning of what we're going to be doing this year and for the beginning of next year in identifying what's the best method.

But we wanted to debug this system and to show that regardless of the fact that the second transformation is where the gold and silver gets liberated, the technology exists, it is available and it's just a matter of completing the PEA. But for us to complete the PEA, we need to know quantity and the size of the deposit and that we don't know yet, and that's it's all about geology.

So David, he's got a plan and a very large budget, as you know, to drill this. And if we need to drill even more we will to understand the size. And with that, then we'll be able to define what method we want to use.

Okay. And are you seeing that you would potentially apply the same method over all areas? Or are you seeing sort of differences in mineralogy that might warrant a different method and for some areas for some growth?

Well, any deposit would have different mythologies and different fractions, which would react differently to the process. So part of the PEA and the next study will be to include your metallurgy to trying to capture that which we have done a bit so far. And in this test work was done on composites from all current infection of the deposit.

Okay. Well, thanks, a lot. That's all for me and then well, good luck with the start of commissioning this quarter.

Thank you, Dan.

Puneet Singh, Eight Capital .

Thanks. Good morning, guys. I just want to stick with Boumadine, I wanted to talk about the Tirzzit on the geology there looks different and you have that big 8,000 grams per tonne. And just wanted to get a view on, why that looks different and what are you initially seeing?

We are dedicated to us saying we need. So we're going to use that scale.

Okay. Hello, Puneet. And we'll move on to answer the question as good as possible. First of all Tirzzit is very similar to Boumadine. The only geological differences that we have a little bit more of a magic dikes in the surroundings, but otherwise Tirzzit is the same massive sulphides as we have throughout the deposit. The intersection with the 7,800 gram, as mentioned in the press release, is related to a different geology, different events that cross cuts the deposit.

So this is an intersection of the East-West structure that we know we have through the whole property, but the new the further drilling will target does express Lisa, we'll know a bit more. But so far, we see no sedation, epidermal geology. So a quartz carbonate being read sheer time with some bandings in pace external picture with lots of silver, Rich, Kevin and I and most likely silver, Rich, Sulphur, Salt in that.

So this intersection does not represent Tirzzit, it mostly represent East-West late structures that crosscut. So it's a new type of intersection that we haven't got much so far on the property because we were never drilling does specifically. So those structures are basically parallel to the main drilling section that we are doing in order to test Tirzzit and before that as a name. But as we progress through the year, we will have some specific drilling targeting those structures.

Okay. Got it. So it's kind of too early to say kind of how this fits in with the other targets, right? You guys do geophysics and then and then you'll kind of decide what you want to chase?

Yeah, exactly. For the geophysics, the geophysics will probably show the more Boumadine type structures that Tirzzit type structure and because of the abundance of pyrite and other sulfides, so highly conductors. But we are tracking closely the North 30 the North 70 in the East-West structure, both with the mapping and the field work and also the drilling. But that would progress and evolve as the year goes on. And we will always reallocate a priority where we have the belief it can return more ounces in the resource.

Okay, got it. Thanks.

Thank you. At this time, I would now like to turn the conference back order Benoit La Salle, President and CEO for closing remarks.

Thank you, operator. In closing, let me just walk you by -- walk you through some of the the key milestone of the quarter and as we indicated, it is a transition quarter is a transition year as we're gearing up for a new production profile next year. But the highlight of the quarter is the construction of the new plant is on time and it's on budget and the commissioning will be starting in a couple of weeks.

One of the highlight of the quarter is there is 157,000 ounces that was produced in Q1 but sold in Q2. It will come into the revenue of Q2, and that was done creating a profit or an additional revenue of $4 an ounce. So in hindsight, we can see that it was the right decision. At the open pit is now ready to expose higher grade ore, which is what we were looking for.

And that is now that is done the stockpile is an important element because it is security for commissioning and at the end of the quarter, we were at 275,000 tonne. As of now, we are at 290, which is, as I indicated, the original planning was to be at to 60. So we're ahead on mining, and we have almost three months of stockpile once we're up and running through end throughout the commissioning and to finish the Boumadine program is continuing.

There are seven drills turning. We are drilling this the 60,000 meters on the current geophysical anomaly, which we know is six kilometer long. We now have drilled it on five kilometer. We've reported resource on 4.2 kilometers. And this will continue and as we will receive the geophysics interpretation and the inversion of the data, we will identify new targets and we will drill on some of the new targets.

And to close, I would like to say that we are fully funded you saw that at quarter end, our cash position is USD111 million. As good there, as you know, is cash flow positive on a yearly basis. It pays for all of its exploration and we will be spending this year in exploration, approximately $35 million between Boumadine and Zgounder. And we do not expect to need money we will always maintain a cash position that will exceed $50 million.

So we are in a very good position to see through all of our exploration programs. Of course, the construction is just about done and that is fully funded. So we have a company where we have a lot of geological upside and where the construction risk and the financing risk is behind us. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for being there today, and we will obviously talk to you during the course of the quarter. And if not at the next conference call. Thank you, and thank you, operator.

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