Q4 2023 i-80 Gold Corp Earnings Call
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Good morning, My name is <unk> and Avia countries. Operator today at this time I would like to welcome everyone to the AEP Gold Corp, fourth quarter and full year 2023 financial and operating results conference call.
All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.
The speakers remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question. During this time simply package star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad.
If you would like to withdraw your question press the star followed by Ben and Viki.
Mr. Downey you may begin your conference.
Hi, and thank you for attending today's them at Q4 and year end.
2023 financial and operating results presentation. We are on the second slide of the presentation. The people who are attending on behalf of the company or myself.
Matt Gili.
Chief operating officer, Ryan Snow, our CFO, and Matt <unk> Executive Vice President.
At the end of the presentation, we will take a few questions. We've got another commitment.
Shortly after.
And so we will only be taking two or three but as always people can contact the company. If you have any further questions.
Slide three is our standard disclaimer statement I urge everybody to read it.
Prior to or in conjunction with this presentation today.
On slide four 2023, despite the challenging market conditions was the year that we realized numerous achievements.
The Ruby Hill property was consolidated through the acquisition of Pei Court had secured 100%.
Of the high grade Fad deposit that is expected to be one of the highest grade poly metallic deposit if not the highest grade poly metallic deposit in our portfolio. Once we bring it to 43 101 resource.
We completed more than 60000 meters of drilling to increase quality of our mineral resources and also to expand mineralization and we realized significant success in those exploration and expansion programs.
We also completed nearly 4000 meters of underground development as we continue to do the test mining program at Granite Creek and we also secured a long term dewatering strategy that included the <unk>.
Installation of a new deeper well to enhance our dewatering capabilities, there that will allow us to progress to develop the south Pacific zone that is expected to become the primary.
Deposit.
In that at that project.
We also.
We're able to secure in the difficult market sufficient capital to advance our strategy to become the second largest producer in the state of Nevada.
The.
The realization of a joint venture we announced during the year, our intention to bring in a partner to assist in the.
Advancement of their Ruby Hill project that was done partially to assist with our financing capabilities and also our partner who can assist when it comes to poly metallic mineralization.
Our partnership agreements are actively being advanced and we expect those to.
That partnership to be announced during the second quarter of this year.
The exploration success, we had at all projects with wells in my opinion very significant.
A reconciliation in the definition drilling both at Mccoy Cove and at Granite Creek has been quite exceptional will be touching on that in our in our upcoming slides.
The delineation of the expansion in the hilltop target at Ruby Hill.
That remains wide open result was saw some of the best results, we released as a company today.
And we also demonstrated that both the fad deposit and the blackjack deposits are also wide open for expansion and we get to Ruby Hill I'll also talk about some are single hole, we drilled for the expansion of gold that did intersected the very significant intercept so with that I'm going to hand over the next few.
Slides, two our chief financial Officer, Brian Snow.
To talk about the gold we did sell we haven't yet declared commercial production, we are still doing additional drilling to firm up reserves.
Now with that we expect to ultimately deliver our first feasibility study on granite Creek and also the.
The announcement of full production for that site, so with that I'll hand, it over to Ryan.
Thanks, Ewen yesterday after market close the company reported our financial statements and M. DNA for the fourth quarter and full year of 2023, they can be found on SEDAR Edgar and our website.
On slide five of the presentation, we provide a graph of our production and sales by quarter for the year.
This production is from residual leaching activities at both Ruby Hill in laundry and the oxide material on Leach from Granite Creek that we have produced and sold.
In addition in the fourth quarter, we sold 29512 times of sulfide mineralized material from granite Creek containing approximately 7700 ounces.
Sales were 11049 ounces for the quarter, and 22000, and 312 ounces for the year, including the sulfide mineralized material and discussed in the Q3 update the company saw a significant increase in gold sales in Q4 related to the sale of the sulphide material.
In addition to the gold ounces sold the company sold 31711 tons of mineralized material under the ore purchase agreement in the quarter, bringing the year to date total to 54421 tons of mineralized material sold these sales generated revenue of $6 5 million and $13 8 million respective.
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Additional highlights on slide six of the presentation show our revenue for the quarter of $25 $8 million, bringing year to date revenue to $54 9 million.
The company generated mine operating income of $2 6 million for the fourth quarter, reducing the year to date mine operating loss to $5 1 million.
Operating losses year to date were primarily the result of write downs of Leach pad inventory at both Ruby Hill at Lone tree totaling $9 9 million.
The company reported a net loss for the quarter of $31 9 million or <unk> 11 per share when adjusted for the impact of Mark to market losses on the company's convertible debt outstanding warrants gold prepay and silver purchase and sale agreements.
The loss was $21 5 million or seven cents per share.
For the year. The company was in a loss position of $65 2 million or <unk> 24 cents per share and when adjusted for the items previously mentioned reported adjusted loss for the year of $86 9 million or <unk> 32 per share.
During the quarter. The company continued to invest in exploration evaluation and pre development was $8 8 million invested bringing the total 2023 investments to $38 9 million.
This investment continued to produce many great assay results.
Summary of which were provided in our press release yesterday and will be touched on later in this call.
Slide seven of the presentation highlights the company's liquidity position in 2024, the company raised sufficient capital to advance our strategy we.
We made the first second third and fourth contingent payments related to the acquisition of Ruby Hill totaling $47 million of which approximately half was cash and we ended the year with $16 6 million in cash 44 million and restricted cash and had an inventory balance of $11 4 million.
Finally, I'd like to point out that the subsequent to year end the company completed a private placement of shares totaling approximately 23 million Canadian dollars.
Now I'll turn the call back over to you and Danny.
Thank you Ryan sorry.
So I'm going to talk a bit about what we've done as a company during 'twenty three and what we're looking to achieve here in 2024, I think we've seen a pretty significant.
We've seen a pretty significant increase in gold price early this year.
And that is starting to translate into some additional interest in the gold sector.
Interests that we didnt see very much in that in 2023 years, most gold investors gold mining companies can attached to.
However, I think there's that platform for gold here to move significantly higher.
Has a perfect setup with the debt of various countries, including the United States I think underpins the value of gold and assuming that there is going to be some reduction in the interest rate levels I would expect that that'll be a perfect storm for.
For gold to to appreciate significantly higher so I'm looking forward to a very strong year for the gold sector for the gold price and with that we should see improved and transfer gold companies.
So looking at slide eight of our presentation.
The goal that is a pure play gold producer focused entirely on the United States.
100% of our projects are in Nevada, Nevada is currently ranked as one of the world's most favorable mining jurisdictions and is currently ranked number one by the Fraser Institute.
We are currently one of the largest holders of gold and silver resources in all of the United States and we're looking to transition those resources into production over the next several years to become the second largest gold producer in the United States on a gold equivalent basis.
We've been very successful at building a very strong management team.
And the operations team in Nevada, and that's headed by Matt Gili Who's our president and runs the renal office for the company.
Looking at some of the team on slide nine we value. This team has very deep experience in building operating mines in Nevada, and also in construction of plants.
Including refractory plants, which is very important for the longevity of the company in the state.
On the next slide slide 10.
Why are we in Nevada only.
Primarily because it is a great state for working Theres as security of land ownership very stable government.
Long standing history of being able to permit and build mines almost like no other place I've ever worked.
And and.
An interesting statistic is if Nevada were a country it would rank amongst the world's top five gold producing nations.
And that's significant especially when we see some of the issues that have been happening globally with the Russia, Ukraine conflict, we we've seen mines in Russia taken away from North American companies, we've recently seen issues in Panama.
<unk> also incurred extend where our mine was confiscated so that I think it's never been more important with the kind of political turmoil, we're seeing around the world to be in safe jurisdictions to develop mines and never for the U S importance has it been more important.
To see development of operations in their own country, rather than looking for metals elsewhere. Nevada is currently ranked number one by the Fraser Institute in terms of investment attractiveness and policy perception.
And we operate on brownfield sites that are either fully permitted or essentially on their way to being fully permitted for operations and we have two existing permitted and constructed processing facilities.
Slide 11 is it really an introduction to where we are we're not all over in Nevada, We're actually located in when I called the central the North Central District of Nevada. That's the portion of the postage stamp you see on slide 11 within the state of Nevada, There is host to the.
Carlin Battle Mountain and Gatchell trends these.
Trends collectively represent the world's most productive gold district, and the largest producer in this area is Nevada gold mines, which is the Barrick Newmont JV all of their operations are shown in this picture and if Nevada gold mines, we're a separate company from its two owners that are there.
The largest in the second largest gold producers, Nevada gold mines would actually be the fourth largest gold producing company in the world.
And all of their production comes in this region.
We've been very successful in assembling a portfolio of projects, we have five active project areas within the assigned North Central District.
Actively now with 6.45465 million ounces of measured and indicated resources eight over 8 million ounces, given inferred gold resources and combined MNI inferred over 180 million ounces of silver. In addition to that we have demonstrated that we.
We are we have defined.
Three very significant poly metallic deposits at Ruby Hill those deposits are not yet included in this resource as we are currently working now towards.
Resource moving those three deposits to 43 101 resource for released to the public.
Probably about mid year this year.
That will include the fad, the hilltop and the blackjack deposits. So we do expect to see a pretty material increase in our overall resources.
The projects that you see in this area are range from being down in the South are Ruby Hill project, which is our flagship project is in the what we call. The Eureka district at the South end of the Carlin trend.
Kuwait Cove immediately south of the Phoenix Operation of Nevada Gold mines is our core gold project the lone tree processing facility fits right on the Interstate 80, or the Ied highway and to the north of that up by adjacent to the twin creeks operation.
Our twin creeks and turquoise ridge operation of Nevada Gold mines is our granite Creek project.
On the next slide Slide 12, we show the location of our two processing facilities and this is what I believe really gives us a competitive advantage is.
In the mining industry, one of the more difficult.
Initiatives. After you complete drilling out our successful deposit is actually getting a permit and then building your facility. So we are quite.
Blessed to have two existing permitted and constructed.
Processing facilities be laundry facility includes an autoclave and autoclave and roasters are extremely important in Nevada has the easier.
Two process oxide deposits have been largely depleted or at least a higher grade.
Oxide deposits and the states have been largely completed and over the past couple of decades, most production at least for Nevada Gold mines has transition to deeper sulfide or higher grade sulfide mineralization, which is most often refractory in the state of Nevada.
So if you don't have the ability to process refractory mineralization your future in the stage two in my opinion is very limited and we are quite fortunate that we were able to secure the laundry facility from Nevada gold mines about two years ago and are looking to implement it could be coming.
A core part of our growth strategy over the next several years.
We are also mining significant oxide mineralization out of the granite Creek operation.
And we were able to secure a sale of that material. So we we reported as revenue rather than ounces sold.
But as we.
We have been successful at negotiating a contract to sell those ounces and you'll see that in the revenue of the company for that for the year of 2020.
Three with that really a record quarter for sales both of our gold and oxide material that occur occurring in the fourth quarter.
Slide 13, and I'll just quickly touch on our tolling resources. The SaaS shows. These this graph shows the total resources held by companies in the state of Nevada, Obviously, Nevada gold mines, there that the large producer in the state is the largest.
Has the most significant resource base. We currently sit number three but we are expecting to see significant increases in resources over the next couple of years as we continue to drill out our deposits and we bring more importantly, the poly metallic mineralized deposits this year into <unk>.
43 101 resource.
The other thing that I think really stands out in terms of our projects as shown on slide 14 is the grades.
We don't want people to forget that we do have three significant open pit deposits within our portfolio that in our opinion represent the next stage of growth for production for the company. These deposits are not included in our near term plans, but are going to be included in our longer term sort of our 10 year.
<unk> for the company.
Granite Creek open pit project, which is an oxide pits has a grade of over 1.3 grams per tonne, which would make it one of the highest grade oxide projects in the United States.
As I said isn't in isn't being constructed in the next couple of years in our plan, but it is definitely the next project when we look at what we wanted to do.
B.
Underground deposits rank amongst the highest you'll find anywhere in North America, both Colvin granite Creek have MNI grades in excess of 10 grams per tonne.
We haven't released the new resource yet for Ruby deeps, but based on the work we've done and some of the preliminary economic work. We've completed we are definitely expecting to see a significant increase in the grade of Ruby deeps, when we publish our next resource.
Slide 15.
It's showing our longer term plan our plan is to sequence our two processing facilities. So at lone tree, we have the autoclave facility. The plan is to construct three underground operations are high grade underground gold mining operations to feed that facility.
And we need those three facilities running in order to start the autoclave facility Cove is even though we have done the underground program.
First phase of the underground there is actually the third that we expect to come online. It's the timing of coal that we will realize the timing of our planned to start laundry.
In advance of that though we are looking to potentially start up the Ruby Hill complex Ruby Hill, we have completed the first phase.
Engineering work or.
The work that would be required to convert the plant you see in the lower image.
From a flow gold plant to a flotation base metal plan the estimate for the capital for that project was well under $100 million. So a very limited capital project to to construct that or to convert that facility to meet our poly metallic needs is something we are looking.
And potentially fast tracking as early as later in 'twenty four or in 2025 more likely would be the startup of the conversion of that plant.
That funding of that we expect would largely come from our incoming partner once we complete all of their transactional documents that are required to instill the formal joint venture between ourselves and the third party.
Slide 16 is a V.
You are of the Lone tree mine the Lone tree mine site, we are continuing to do our residual leaching on the heap Leach pad you see in the background.
We are continuing to get gold ounces as you could see in our our year end results and that is continuing into 2024 from this facility are central.
Our core cutting facility and assay lab, we have our own operational assay lab at this site and we have the autoclave facility shown here.
I will point out that only two companies in United States have autoclave ourselves and Nevada gold mines.
So that's what really gives us a competitive advantage and the fact as you can see here that the site is permanent it is constructed there's grid power as you can see roads.
If we were able to permit and rebuild the site I would expect it would be multiples of our current market cap to get a facility like this.
It also contains a 1.8 million ton a year flotation circuit and that flotation circuit could be used for alternative types of deposits. If we were able to either find one of our secure one in the area or if we were able to develop sufficient refractory or we could look at using that flotation circuit.
As a second crushing facility and add an autoclave vessel. If we wanted to increase our refractory production coming out of the site. So there is a lot of Optionality that this plan gives us to grow in the future. If we continue to be successful at finding new deposits.
And making those large enough that we may one day consider going larger in terms of production.
Granite Creek as shown on Slide 17 is our most advanced project essentially this is what we're looking to repeat.
Almost identically add both Ruby Hill, and cold, which is putting underground declines either proximal to or within existing.
Pits or.
Historic mine workings. So these are already disturbed areas as you can see and makes the permitting process much smoother because these are not greenfield sites.
On slide 18.
I'd like to highlight the location of the Granite Creek project on the image on the right.
So immediately to the North you can see at twin creeks is where the processing facility of Nevada Gold mines is in this area. The turquoise Ridge mine occurs immediately on strike to the north of our Granite Creek mine and is the third largest gold producing mine in the United States currently.
It's a very large operation twin creeks and turquoise ridge have 40 to 50 million ounces of production reserves and resources, making it what we truly term as an elephant type deposit are mineralization at granite Creek is immediately on trend to the south and the same rock types and <unk>.
Lee the metallurgical characteristics of the mineralization is identical.
The large fault structure that runs along the eastern edge of the intrusive complex is the controlling feature for the gold mineralization here and our property covers approximately six kilometers of that.
Stratigraphy along strike from the Turquoise Ridge operation.
Slide 19 is just showing some of the success we've had over the last couple of years, the delineation of the South Pacific Zone, which is shown in red to the north of the <unk> zone. On this image has been a real success story for this property the strike length of mineralization.
From what you see in the upper parts, where the auto Adam peak zones are to what we see at the deepest extents of our drilling right now have gone from about 100 meters of true.
Strike length of mineralization in the upper parts of the existing mine to over 600 meters. When you look at the O G and South Pacific zones at the deeper part of what we've drilled to date.
The north most intercept that we've drilled so far intersected 6.6 meters of 15 seven grams.
Demonstrating this deposit is completely open to the north the deepest intercepts have that are in terms of true wind's, our widest intercepts to date and in the 'twenty three program. The deepest hole, we drilled during 'twenty three intersected almost 20 meters of over 15 grams per tonne.
We also began in the second half of the year some delineation drilling in the upper parts of the South Pacific Zone from underground from some of the workings, we have or in the <unk> zone and this reserve we've only put out the initial results from this drilling but as you can see in the same.
<unk> very very high grade mineralization considerably higher grade on average to date and what we see in our current MNI resources B. Some of the analysts did publish notes on this drilling and as we show here one of those notes set said that the average of these intercepts.
With 22 grams per tonne over seven four meters.
And that is is demonstrating that this zone does have really good continuity of high grade mineralization, when we tighten up the drilling and with the dewatering well that we have actually commissioned here in the first quarter of this year, we can now drop the water table to provide access to.
The South Pacific Zone.
In the lower image on the last night, what we point out here is a whole 22 26, our north most hall that he had 15 seven grams and we interpret that that contact the upper and lower Comus geological contact will continue north.
Up to the very northern extents of our properties and is almost untested at these depths.
All the way up to the boundary, which from Hall H P. C 175, that's a historic homestay call that intersected similar mineralization that.
To what we're seeing in the South Pacific Zone, a further 400 meters to the north and north of that there is no drill holes into that structure.
All the way to the boundary, which is another map mile to the North and then immediately north of that boundaries of turquoise Ridge operation.
So we see the very significant expansion potential and again on slide 20, what we show is the conceptual mine plan were putting together as we do the infill drilling we're defining what our long term mining operation would look like here here, we're inferring going at least to 28.
And some of the drilling we did from surface. We drilled 12 of 28 holes that were planned during the year that was a bit because of budget constraints, but we did do a drill.
Drilling to start expanding our mineralization, there and had a very high hit ratio of high grade mineralization.
Similar to what we saw from earlier drilling from surface, we do see some pinching and swelling, but every hole about one intersected in excess of eight grams per ton and I believe 10 of the 12 holes intersected higher than 10 grams per tonne within your Samsung nearly 30 grams.
Yes.
We also need to do some drilling around 20 to 18, which was drilled in 2022, where we intersected six four meters of $44 four grams.
And the plan to do some additional drilling there either from surface or underground to expand that and bring it into the <unk> category.
As you can see around an up dip there other intercepts of very high grade mineralization that have yet to be followed up so we see the upside of this project is being very significant.
Slide 21, as an introduction to Ruby Hill.
One of Nevada's largest gold deposits when you can combine the open pits to the open pit mineralization with the underground mineralization and soon the poly metallic mineralization, we're looking to bring to resource.
On slide 22.
We see this property is having the ultimate Optionality, we have poly metallic mineralization, both CRD and Scone proximal to the historic.
Historic Archimedes pit and also to the south at Fad Gary's numerous types of gold mineralization that includes refractory Carlin type that we see in Ruby Deeps before 28, and lower Jack deposits. We have an oxide open pit project, it's actually the largest deposit in our portfolio.
Which is the mineral point, that's a disseminated oxide gold deposit that is part of our longer term growth plans and we also have gold sulphide in intrusive mineralization in the tyche target down to this.
Over to the east so what's really unique about this project is the multiple types of gold mineralization and multiple types of poly metallic mineralization essentially fit either on top of them are beside each other allowing for an operation that we envision will produce both gold and base metals the base.
Mineralization being processed on site.
Slide 23 really highlights some of these some of these mineralized zones. The blackjack deposit that you see underneath the pit is a scarring.
Zinc garden deposit to the south of that we've discovered and Theyre now delineating the east hilltop zones met and that includes the CRD and its gardens zone. The upper Hilltop zone is partially oxidize sulfur CRD deposit that we discovered in 2022 and the <unk>.
Lower hilltop zone was a zone, that's been partially delineated our deepest of the CRD deposits located along the hilltop fault.
For 28 zone is a target that's only being tested by two holes one home by a high 80, and the 428 zone is situated between Ruby Deeps and blackjack that's.
Target that we would like to continue drilling this year to hopefully bring it into minute.
Our resource because of its grade the only hole, we drilled at that target was to follow up on historic 15, Gram intercept and we had 12 three grams over $10 seven meters, which is significantly higher than the existing Ruby deeps deposit resource grade.
But the Ruby Deeps deposit has significant wins true widths of almost 70 meters in places.
The deposit is open for expansion and in 'twenty, three we only drilled one hole a step out to the south to test for the extension of Ruby Deeps and that whole of successfully intersected 57 meters of six nine grams, including an intercept of eight grams over nearly 25 meters. So there is a.
Really good potential to continue stepping out to the south to build resources in the Ruby deeps deposit.
Slide 24 is really highlighting the poly metallic mineralization.
This garden deposits are east hilltop.
Furthest left are furthest right, which would be the furthest to the east and the blackjack deposits. These two deposits occur along the intrusive.
Intrusive the intrusive contact as shown in pink.
In both areas that need to be.
Intrusive contact is being tested which is that east hilltop and blackjack, we have seen scarring mineralization and the south most drill hole drilled in blackjack intersected 19, 4% zinc nearly 20 gram silver and half a gram gold over 34 meters Theres no drilling along that contact all the way to east Telecom.
Where we just really started to delineating that deposits in the second half of 'twenty three and the south most hole, we have drilled to date into that <unk> zone, intersected, 95% zinc, 0.3% copper and over 12 Gram silver over an impressive 114.
Meters, meaning it's completely open to the south within that we had $17, 7% zinc over $36 six meters with point for copper one thing I'd like to point out is we're really seeing elevated copper mineralization as we're drilling to the south and drilling deeper into this zone.
In future drilling will be testing the potential theory that this zinc scarring could transition into a proper scar net depth or along strike will also want to infill the hilltop zones, the east Telecom C or D and the lower hilltop CRD zones are complete the open for expansion we do.
See very high grade intercepts of lead zinc mineralization and needs to add these holes.
It is CRD mineralization. So there is combination of lead and zinc and some of the.
Holds we did for definition of upper Hilltop and final metallurgical work included intercepts as you can see in 'twenty $3 54, we intersected eight 8% zinc and nearly 19% lead and over eight ounces per ton silver with 0.6 grams gold over 32 meters. So streamed.
The high grade mineralization in.
In these deposits that are not yet part of our official resource, but we are looking to upgrade those.
Slide 23 is our vision for a longer term growth plan, we are partially.
Permitted now for the underground program. So we can start putting in the facilities.
Or the surface facilities within the pit is now permanent and we're just waiting for the final permit for going ahead with the decline that decline will provide us access to both gold refractory gold mineralization and poly metallic mineralization, the hilltop and blackjack zone, so effectively when when we.
We drift to the to the north out of the north side of the pit essentially an identical plan is what we have at granite Creek. When you turn left you go to the gold deposits. When you turn right you go to the base metal deposits. These deposits are completely open for expansion. So we do expect to add significant resources in the future.
In addition to that approximately two kilometers to the south as shown on slide 26.
We now own the fab deposit Fad is a very high grade poly metallic CRD deposit we have done.
Initial metallurgy that we show here on this slide we're we're getting very good concentrates on mineralization Barry good recoveries very high silver with lead concentrate and this deposit is wide open as well hold 28 is the furthest east whole that we've drilled to date.
And the deposit open to the east we intersected 25 meters of nearly four grams gold 185 Gram silver.
And combined nearly 15% led zinc hold 22 is the western most hole, we drilled intersecting $14 six meters of nine nine grams gold 92 grams, silver and over 13% combined lead zinc the bulk of that being zinc mineralization.
So these deposits and the success we've had at hadn't attracted during 2023 significant external interest and out because of market conditions and our significant growth plans, we decided to consider a partnership and chose.
One that we believe will be a very accretive deal for our company.
Particulars of that as I said earlier, we expect to release in the second quarter of this year.
Slide 27 is the introduction to our anchor Gold project. The Cove property. When you look at I 80 in Nevada, even though I 80 is less than three years old as a company.
This project co was part of Premier prior to the formation of Ied. It was acquired more than a decade ago. So.
The our assembly of projects in Nevada started approximately 12 years ago with the first acquisitions, we did in the state. So we didn't build this portfolio in just a couple of years. It was built over more than a decade and coal is the project that we successfully took from an exploration concept to being permitted to go.
Underground with the acquisition of the Autoclave facility. We went ahead with the first phase of underground. This program was completed in 'twenty three so when you look at where we spend dollars in 'twenty three.
Good portion of that was in completing the first phase of underground here at Cove and that provides us for a platform as you see on slide 28 to begin delineating. What we believe is one of the highest grade development stage gold projects in all of North America.
Helen in the CSD gap deposits have now been partially drilled from underground the.
The green shows the holes that have been completed and the gray.
Your lines that you see are the plan holds to continue delineation of these deposits to upgrade this deposit too.
As much M&A is possible.
For a full feasibility and final permitting to go ahead and we also did a large scale pumping test in.
In the fourth quarter of 2023 that will go into the final dewatering strategy for this project as you can see the majority of our resources. Our inferred. So this program is designed primarily to upgrade to indicated and just last week, we announced the Tam.
The results from 2023 are still flowing in but you can see just below the image. The intercepts that we achieved in the last three holes that we've had we've got assays for into this deposit is the delineation of the Helen Zone continues I'd really like to highlight the upper and main zones.
Nice each hold the upper zone in these three holes at <unk>.
<unk> between $13 eight and 25 three grams per tonne over between nine and 10 meters.
So true width, because these are flat landing zones and the main zone in these intercepts graded anywhere from 22 grams per tonne.
At 22 to 32.9 grams with intercept widths of between $12 eight and nearly <unk>. Our just over 19 meters. So the reconciliation and the continuity of mineralization is definitely being demonstrated the deposit remains open underneath the historic Cove pit.
So the underground platform will give us the underground exploration platform that you see there will position us where we continue to expand mineralization under the pit following the delineation program.
Drilling as shown on slide 29.
Where are the gap the area will recall exploration potential there are a few drill holes that were drilled historically when this open pit mineral deposit was being mined up until the early two thousands were drilled to depth and did hit similar in mineralization to what we saw on the in the gap zone.
With intercepts again October 20 grams per tonne. So we believe that there is very significant expansion potential to this deposit.
Due to its location underneath the pit and the water in the pit, we just haven't been able to drill that area as yet, but the underground platform will provide.
A great place to continue expanding mineralization. We also have a deeper deposit that isn't part of our near term development plans called it 20 to a one zone that is actually in a deeper rock unit than the <unk>.
Carlin type mineralization, we're defining that has a number of very high grade intercepts and the previous resource. We did demonstrate the grade of this zone of over 20 grams per tonne and it remains open as well.
So with that.
We're actually at 10 45, just quickly show, our ESG strategy and the summary.
Of the company and we were supposed to be.
Done by now because we have a few call setup for today, but we'll take a quick color too.
And then as always feel free to call the company and get any greater detail that you'd like to see.
Yeah.
I believe we have Jonathan Shaffer.
Yes. Your first question comes from the line of Justin Chan from FTE Pizza Lance Your line is open.
Hi, Josh for Chad.
Hey, guys. Thanks, I was just wondering on the.
On the terms of the.
Okay.
On the <unk>.
The or selling agreement.
Got it back out roughly about five three grams implied but I'm sure. There's a toll processing fee on that I'm, just trying to get a better sense of.
How to model.
Either grade <unk> or capabilities.
For the for the coming quarters, So maybe just two or three.
We gathered my question.
I guess.
Per ton basis, what if any guidance would you had one.
On how to model that either should we assume a great and then a capability or maybe just.
If you gave guidance on may be similar.
Dollar per ton.
That would be quite helpful.
I would say that the oxide mineralization that we are.
Mining other than development ore, which would be more lower grade material, but when were stoping that mineralization it would be.
And about the resource grade as we show as our resource.
It's a difficult one to answer because we sell it as a whole or.
And there is a charge obviously, so we don't get paid for 100% of the ounces under that arrangement.
But with the party that we have that contract with.
They would prefer us not not to release, who they are and what the terms of that are but maybe maybe ryan or Matt gili can give a bit bit better clarity on that mineralization.
Okay.
Yes.
Okay.
I can jump in on there, yes, as you pointed out.
Close lipped with.
With the terms, but I understand your question Justin Great justified we get so think of it this way think of the grade model degrade as the resource grade as you pointed out.
Then no on top of that.
Are you getting a recovery loss.
And I assume that the.
Toll milling charge so to speak.
Is that essentially kind of the same as that recovery loss.
Okay got it.
That's really helpful. And then just in terms of I guess I guess maybe.
A follow on on that just in terms of your tonnage this year.
It was a pretty good hand sold number in Q4 I'm just curious how you see this year.
I know the second half.
Civic John I guess.
So for the first half and the second half how you see fund development.
I'll touch on that.
On the from the tons mined the ounces mined.
Standpoint, and then hand over to Ryan. So we are continuing to ramp up we have we have tough months and we have some quarters that are better than other quarters, but we're continuing to ramp up as we develop more phases. If we were giving you.
My aimed guidance throughout the year, you would see a very steady ramp up in production and you would see that essentially one third of our production for the year came out of the fourth quarter from the mined ounces standpoint, we're continuing with that trend of ramping up.
And as we develop into the South Pacific Thats, when youre going to see the real inflection.
And that's that.
Entry into the opposite because half from around a right around the middle of it.
Okay.
Brian did you add one add on regards to the way that we're doing that where did that big spike.
Great.
No Matt I think you covered it.
Okay, Yeah, Jessica please feel free to call Matt Gili.
Afterwards, if you have any further questions.
For sure that's a good plan I'll clear up a lot and thanks Doug.
Okay.
I think that was our only question we have lined up so if and if anybody wants additional clarity on some of the items that were presented today. Please feel free to call the Nevada or the Canadian office and will be available most of the day or at least one of us should be available at all times and we can we can.
Rick you through any any additional detail you would like to have on the company.
Thank you everybody for attending today.
And we'll look forward to talking to you again soon.
Thank you for your centers and ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating you may now disconnect.
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