Good morning and welcome to the West African Resources Investor Webinar and Conference Call. All attendees are in a listen-only mode. If you would like to ask a question directly to the company, please use the raise hand function within Zoom. I'll now hand over to West African Resources Executive Chairman and CEO Richard Hyde. Thank you, Richard.
Thanks, Nathan, and good morning, and thanks for joining us for our December 2024 quarterly call. With me on the call, I've also got Padraig O'Donoghue and Todd Giltay, who will talk about our financial report later in the call. We delivered another strong quarter of gold production at our Sanbrado Operation in Burkina Faso, with just over 51,000 ounces produced at an all-in sustaining cost of $1,216 an ounce. Our performance in December saw us finish the year with 206,622 ounces produced at an all-in sustaining cost of $1,240 an ounce. This meant we achieved our 2024 production and cost guidance for the fourth consecutive year, and I thank all our staff and contractors on site for again working hard to deliver this. We will be providing our updated 2025 guidance in the coming weeks.
In terms of mining at Sanbrado, open pit production increased 32% from the previous quarter, from a 39% increase in all tons mined during the quarter. Underground mined ounces also improved 8% on the previous quarter, which reflected a 7% increase in pit grade. Processing at Sanbrado continued a strong performance, with 897,000 tons milled at a head grade of 1.9 grams of gold per ton and a recovery of 92.4%. Our gold production increased 7% from the previous quarter, which was mainly due to a 5% higher mill throughput after the planned shutdown was completed in Q3 to realign the mill. The closing ROM stockpile inventory of 86,340 ounces of contained gold was a 24% increase against the previous quarter.
We were very proud to have Sanbrado be awarded the National Order of Honor Medal by the Government of Burkina Faso during the quarter, and this recognizes our significant contribution to municipalities and local communities. This recognition reflects our commitment to empowering communities through Sanbrado's social investment programs, and we look forward to expanding those programs around Kiaka over the coming months and years. Safety remains a top priority, and we ended the quarter with a total recordable injury frequency rate, TRIFR, of 1.51, which is well below the average for Western Australian projects. However, there were two lost time injuries in Q4, and apart from that, there were no further significant or serious health incidents across our operations.
Also, during the quarter, our emergency response team from Sanbrado came from Burkina Faso down to Perth and competed in the 2024 MERC event in Perth against seasoned Australian international teams. We're very proud of this team. They placed fourth overall, which is an outstanding effort, including coming first in a couple of categories and second in a number of categories. So it's a ripping effort from our team. During the quarter, we invested $ 117 million on the development of Kiaka, and we're well positioned to cover the remaining costs to bring the project into production. Post-quarter end, on the 15th of January, the Government of Burkina Faso signed two agreements for Toega and Sanbrado, so we have new five-year mining agreements, which have been signed under very similar terms to Sanbrado's previous mining agreement.
Construction at Kiaka has continued to progress during the quarter, and the project is now more than 80% complete. We've achieved many milestones in Q4, including the completion of the major crusher and reclaim concrete pours, top-of-tank steel module placement, placement of all major mill components, and installation of the cyclone cluster. Also at Kiaka, the major grade control program confirmed consistent zones of gold mineralization, with mineralization more than 200 meters wide near surface. So this is going to really help our ramp up from getting near surface oxide or early in the mine plan. The Kiaka mining fleet and ancillary equipment is coming together. So most equipment is mobilized to site for assembly and commissioning ahead of the planned start of open-pit mining later this quarter. Construction of the explosives plant, as well as recruitment of technical and operation personnel, is all progressing according to plan.
Overall, the project remains on budget, and we remain on track to pour first gold at Kiaka in Q3 this year. I'll now hand over to Padraig O'Donoghue to discuss the financial report for Q4 2024. Padraig.
Thank you, Richard. In terms of revenue, we sold 48,000 ounces of gold in Q4 at an average price of $2,690 per ounce. This equates to almost $ 200 million of gold sales revenue, $ 198 million of gold sales revenue for the quarter, and the company remains unhedged. In terms of cash, we closed the quarter with a healthy cash balance of $ 392 million and also held $ 54 million of unsold gold bullion. We generated $ 76 million of operating cash flow in the quarter after paying $ 18 million of Burkina Faso income taxes. Our capital investing activities in Q4 used $ 132 million of cash, which was mostly comprised of $ 117 million for development of Kiaka. You'll see that in our 5B. Finance activities used $ 13 million of cash in Q4, mostly comprised of $ 10 million of interest paid on our borrowings.
Also stated in the quarterly, WAF is strongly positioned to cover the total remaining estimated approximately $135 million of capital development costs to be incurred to bring Kiaka into production in the third quarter of 2025. And now hand back to Richard for his comments.
Thanks, Padraig. And thanks to you and your team for another excellent quarter of year 2024. And obviously, big thank you to our operation and construction teams in country.
Likewise.
Sorry. Yeah, elsewhere, we can talk about exploration, which is close to my heart, and this year is going to be, like Donald Trump said, "Drill baby drill." It's going to be exciting. So we've released some more results for M1 S outh during the quarter, and these wide zones of high-grade gold have been intercepted below current underground ore reserves, and they underpin the significant upside at Sanbrado. We also have finished the first phase of grade control at Kiaka. That's going to really underpin the ramp up of early mining at Kiaka. We've also advanced the access across from M1 South towards M5 Deeps, and we expect to have a drill position very, very shortly on that, and we'll start drilling some deep holes in M5. So there's going to be plenty of news flow over the next few months.
But overall, it's been another solid quarter, and it wraps up an outstanding year for West African Resources. I'm very pleased with our progress, maintaining guidance for the fourth consecutive year and achieving many milestones while maintaining our operational excellence. With Kiaka nearing completion, we're set to become a more than 420,000 ounce per annum gold producer in the next six months. I'll now open up the call to questions.
Thank you, Richard. Just a reminder, if you would like to ask a question directly to the company, please use the raise hand function within Zoom. I'll just give people a couple of seconds to... Okay, your first question comes from Mike Millikan at Euroz Hartleys. Please go ahead, Mike. You're currently on mute.
Yeah, thanks very much for that and thanks, Richard. Another, obviously, very good quarter. Just in regards to the life of mine update and guidance, so is that kind of expected, as you said, in the next few weeks? Usual kind of timing, is that what we should expect?
Look, we'll probably push it out a bit because we've got a lot of drill programs underway we don't have all the results in. So we'll definitely provide production and cost guidance in the coming weeks, and we'll update the market fully then. But it's more likely that we'll put out the 10-year plan, which will obviously include what we expect to include Toega underground as well in that. So we've got a scope of study that we're working on for underground Toega. Also, it gives us a chance to get some results out of M5 and extend some resources there as well. And that helps us backfill the schedule. So we'd like to get it out this quarter, but it's just unlikely given that we've got drill programs that are underway and we haven't got results back. So I don't see that as material in the scheme of things.
We should have it out by the end of the June quarter.
Yeah, no problem. And also, obviously, a very large stockpile being built, like June, of course, in 86,000 ounces you're into. How should we expect that? Are you just going to bleed a little bit out through during the course of the next couple of years, or are you just a bit of optionality? It's something that's 0.7, but again, it's going to be good material to go through the expanded plan.
We're just giving ourselves a bit of operational flexibility there. We're taking the opportunity while we've got AMS, which is a subsidiary of Perenti, while they're on site. We're just maximizing how much mining we can get done before that contract expires. And that gives us more flexibility at Sanbrado, whether we bring another contractor on the site or whether we just hold mining at M5 for a while while we commence at Toega. So there's a bit of flexibility in the mine plan around what we do. But what we're trying to do is maximize the amount of mining that we do while we've got AMS on site. And that's really largely because there's been a change in local content regulations that we can't really continue with AMS. We're very happy with their performance. They've done a great job over the last five years.
Yeah. And still the expectation that Toega, a little bit of contribution in 2025 at this stage?
Yes. So it'll be a little bit of contribution this year, but it won't be material in the scheme of things. We really expect that to start, I guess, adding significant ounces of production profile in 2026 onwards.
Yeah, gotcha. Yeah, thanks very much for that, and thanks again for a very good quarter.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Richard Knights at Barrenjoey. Please go ahead, Richard.
Hi, Rich. Congrats on a good quarter. Just a quick one on Kiaka, maybe just to push you a little bit in terms of shorter-term guidance. I think at the time of the cap raise, you were sort of last year, you were expecting north of 150,000 ounces out of Kiaka this year. I mean, it looks like everything's going to plan. Is that still the objective?
We'll provide guidance in the next few weeks, Richard, but I think in last year's mine plan, we had 165,000 ounces for the second half of 2025. That's really dependent on when we start up Kiaka, so we're on track with most of the items there. Obviously, power is critical, so grid power is going well, but it's going to be tight to make that timetable. We've also purchased a full backup diesel set power station, which is yet to be shipped, so there's been a few delays around that. But I think when we provide guidance, we'll provide a range, and it won't be far off what we had in last year's production guidance. We just give ourselves a little bit of flexibility depending on when we ramp up to full production. I mean, the main thing is that we're well funded. Kiaka is a long-life, low-cost project.
I'd expect that we'd still bring it in Q3, but whether it's early or late Q3, that's sort of where the flex is right now.
Yep. Brilliant. Okay. Thanks very much.
No worries.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time, so I'll now hand back to Richard for closing remarks.
Thanks again for your interest in West African Resources and for joining our call today. We look forward to updating investors again at the end of this quarter for Q1 2025. We look forward to drilling results coming out in the next few weeks from Sanbrado and Kiaka, and also an update on Toega and further construction updates, obviously, from Kiaka. Stay tuned and thanks again for joining the call.