Good day and welcome to the Hochschild Mining 2nd Quarter 2024 Production Results Conference call. Throughout today's recorded presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. You may press star one at any time to register for questions. I will now hand you over to Eduardo Landin, CEO, to begin. Eduardo, please go ahead.
Good afternoon, everyone, or good morning, viewing the Americas. Hello and welcome to our conference call to discuss our second quarter production results. I'm here in Lima with Eduardo Noriega, our CFO, and in London, Charlie Gordon, who is our head of investor relations. Group production in the quarter was just over 83,000 gold equivalent ounces or 6.9 million silver equivalent ounces, which is a solid 19% improvement on the first quarter and clearly shows the first material contribution from our new Mara Rosa mine. The half-year results were almost 153,000 ounces of gold equivalent or 12.7 million silver equivalent ounces. At Inmaculada, output was 35,300 ounces of gold and 1.6 million ounces of silver, which is a gold equivalent total of 54,300 ounces. This is a considerably 18% improvement on the same quarter of last year when delays to the permit decision impacted mine development and consequently production.
Recent continuing improvement projects at the site have also contributed to a better than expected tonnage and grade. Production for the six months of the year was 109,500 gold equivalent ounces. In Argentina, I have to report that after the customary short first quarter, which contained the staff seasonal vacations, the operation delivered better than forecast grades, although this was partially offset by lower tonnage. Output increased by 9% versus the first quarter to 2.5 million silver equivalent ounces, which gives a first half total of 4.7 million ounces. This mine has always been weighed towards the remaining quarters of the year, and we expect the same in 2024. Turning to our new Mara Rosa mine in Brazil, as you know, we reached commercial production in mid-May. Since then, we have seen the plant reach 7,000 tons per day, which is its nominal capacity expected.
There are a number of optimization initiatives running at the operation at the moment, and therefore we believe that we can reach a stable 8,000 tons per day target in the near future. We expect the second half of 2024 in Brazil to be very strong. In particular, the fourth quarter is forecast by almost 45% of the total production of the year. In terms of cost, the company as a whole, I am pleased to say that we are reiterating our 2024 guidance, which, if you remember, is between $1,510 and $1,550 per gold equivalent ounces. Our brownfield campaign has continued in the second quarter, sorry, and I am pleased to report that we have had some encouraging results at Mara Rosa, where we are currently drilling to add resources below the existing pit.
In addition, results at Inmaculada have been consistently strong, especially with the new Tesoro and Nicolas veins. We expect to be able to deliver substantial additions at Inmaculada resources base by the time the year ends. Let me say also that Monte do Carmo, Cerrado Gold shareholder meeting approved our option, and at the moment we are doing some technical and brownfield exploration works in order to take the decision on the option that we acquired next year, basically. On the financial side, we have approximately $89 million of cash, which translates to a net debt of $270 million and a net debt to the last 12 months EBITDA of 0.8x.
In summary, we have delivered another solid quarter with the operations very much on track to meet our 2024 production and cost guidance target, and we are excited by the prospect of a strong second half at Mara Rosa and our other operation. We continue with strong precious metals, and this should lead to a significant cash flow generation. With that, I would like to open for questions. Thank you very much and good afternoon.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. And please make sure the mute function on your phone is switched off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, please press star one to ask a question. We will now take our first question from Laura Chan from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hello, can you guys hear me?
Yes, we can.
Oh, perfect. Thanks so much for the call. I just have two questions on my side. The first one is, are you still looking to expand the capacity of the processing plant at San Jose, and have you spent CapEx on that yet? And for my second question, I just wanted to know if you could provide some guidance on the grade profile for Inmaculada, and are you expecting similar grades for the rest of the year, and what part of the better performance is due to those improvement projects at the mine?
Okay, let me first tell you that we are already spending CapEx money in San Jose, expanding the plant up to 2,000 tons, and we expect to finish that project at the end of this year. So, I mean, it will be around $10 million. And the second question was about the improvement projects in Inmaculada. We have had consultants working with the team, and we have been able to improve efficiencies at the mine. To give you an idea, today we have 40,000 tons in addition to the production that was budgeted at the beginning of the year.
Perfect. Thanks so much. That's super clear.
You're very welcome. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take our next question from Cody Hayden from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, and thank you for taking my question. It's on the Monte do Carmo project, and specifically the $45 million to be paid in installments of the options exercise. I was wondering if you would be able to share any detail on the structure of the installments, as well as on any timeline that can be shared on deciding if the option will be exercised. Thank you.
Eduardo, go ahead. I mean, you can answer this question. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Thanks for the question, Monte do Carmo. So we have paid already $15 million, $15 million to have the option, and now that the option has been approved by Cerrado shareholders, as Eduardo described, we are working on the exploration plans and doing some technical work. The next payment will be associated on us accepting the option. So depending on when that occurs, we will have to pay at that time or close to that time $10 million. Then we will have to pay on the first year anniversary of the option, another $20 million. And then finally, we will pay an additional amount when the mine starts production. So $45 million in total is the remaining payment to secure the acquisition of Monte do Carmo if we decide to exercise the option.
That is clear. Thank you.
Thank you. And as a reminder, to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one. We will pause for just a moment till you tell us to signal. And is there no further questions at this time? I'd like to hand the call back over to Eduardo Landin for any additional or closing remarks. Over to you, sir.
Thank you very much. Well, nothing else, really. Thank you for being here, especially at the end of July, that I know that it's a holiday time in Europe. So thank you very much, and we will keep in contact. If you have any further questions, please refer those questions to Charlie Gordon or to Eduardo Noriega, or to me, to our emails. Thank you and good afternoon.