Good morning, welcome to the Victoria Gold video and conference call to discuss the company's fourth quarter and annual 2022 financial results. Listeners are encouraged to read Victoria's 2022 annual audited financial results report and MD&A available both on the company's website and SEDAR. Joining me on the call today are John McConnell, President and CEO, and Mark Ayranto, Chief Operating Officer. I am Marty Rendall, Chief Financial Officer. Please note that listeners and viewers will be muted while management provides a short review of the results. After the review, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To register a question during the presentation, please do so in the chat function, and the question will be addressed during the Q&A session after the review.
Also note that this video call will be recorded and will be available for playback on the company's website. We will be making forward-looking statements on this call and encourage participants to see our disclosure documents, including our corporate presentation, AIF, and MD&A, and the cautionary notes therein, which can all be found on SEDAR and the company's website. I'll now turn it over to John McConnell, Director and CEO.
Thank you all for joining the call. I'll provide a brief summary of the year and fourth quarter and then pass the call to Marty and Mark to provide more details. First and foremost, starting with safety. We have had one lost time injury in the fourth quarter, our first LTI in over two years. Our TRIF, or total recordable injury frequency, for 2022 was 1.5, which compares favorably against our industry peers. Although the Eagle Mine has an impressive safety track record, we have redoubled our focus on health and safety, and aim to achieve year-over-year improvements on these metrics in 2023. Operationally, the fourth quarter capped off a challenging year for Eagle. The failure of our main overland conveyor early in the quarter caused three weeks of downtime at the mine and resulted in us retracting our original 2022 production guidance.
This was particularly disappointing as prior to this failure, we were on track to meet the lower end of the original guidance range. Looking forward, we have significantly improved our operational and maintenance staffing and protocols and expect to achieve material higher gold production in 2023, as demonstrated by our production guidance for the year we released yesterday. In addition, we expect to release an updated mine plan for Eagle in the coming days that we expect will outline sustained production growth at reduced costs over the long mine life. An updated resource estimate for our exciting Raven discovery is also imminent and will include 25,000 m of drilling we conducted at the deposit in 2022. In summary, we anticipate 2023 will be an exciting year of growth for Victoria and our shareholders on both the production and exploration fronts.
I will now turn the call over to Marty Rendall, our Chief Financial Officer.
I will briefly discuss our financials before passing it back over to Mark to discuss operations. Currency will be in Canadian dollars unless specifically mentioned otherwise. During the quarter, we produced about 44,000 oz of gold and sold about 41,000 oz, resulting in revenue of about CAD 92 million. That is about 17% lower than the CAD 110 million in revenue that was generated during the fourth quarter of 2021. The revenue differential is the result of reduced ounces sold. Realized gold prices in U.S. dollars were lower than the quarter of the previous year. The lower U.S. Dollar gold price was almost entirely offset by higher Canadian/U.S. dollar exchange rates, meaning quarter-over-quarter, we received approximately the same gold price in Canadian dollars.
Cost of goods sold was CAD 51 million during the quarter, compared to CAD 45 million in the fourth quarter of the previous year. The increase is primarily due to inflation. Lower gold sales and revenues, combined with higher costs year-over-year, certainly reduced our profit margins. Both gross profit at CAD 23 million and operating earnings, also at CAD 23 million, remained positive. Net income after tax was a positive CAD 10 million during the quarter, and earnings per share were CAD 0.15.
At the end of December 2022, the company held cash and equivalents of CAD 21 million, compared to CAD 31 million at the end of December 2021. I would like to remind listeners that we do use a revolving credit facility to manage our treasury, and therefore our cash balance generally stays fairly constant and relatively low, while debt will fluctuate to match the liquidity needs of the company while keeping interest lower. Working capital at the end of December 2022 was CAD 94 million, compared to CAD 63 million at the end of December 2021. The increase in accounts payable year-over-year was more than offset by increases in inventory values, which includes both warehouse inventory and gold in process inventory. During the most recent quarter, total capital expenditures were CAD 25 million, while 12 months year-to-date total capital expenditures were CAD 113 million.
This is comprised of sustaining capital, capitalized stripping and growth capital and growth exploration. A detailed breakdown of the capital over the year is shared within our MD&A. We expect sustaining capital expenditures to fall materially in 2023 from 2021 and 2022 levels. 2023 sustaining capital is expected to be CAD 30 million compared to CAD 60 million in 2022. 2023 capitalized stripping is expected to be CAD 50 million, while growth capital is estimated at CAD 25 million, which includes both heap leach pad expansion and growth exploration initiatives. A quick note on the accounting behind capitalized stripping. Each quarter we'll capitalize a portion of operating costs if the strip ratio for that quarter is higher than the life of mine strip ratio.
Capitalized stripping can vary quite widely quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year, depending on the mine plan. If you do see high capitalized stripping in one quarter or one year, you should expect to see lower or no capitalized stripping at some point in the future when our strip ratio is below life of mine strip ratio. I'll now review our non-IFRS performance measures. Once again, the detailed numerical breakdown along with commentary on the calculation is within our MD&A. During this section, I will switch to U.S. dollars to allow for unit-based comparisons with our peers. The average realized price per ounce of gold sold during the most recent quarter was $1,678 per ounce.
This compares to the fourth quarter of 2021, where we realized $1,786 per ounce. Cash cost per ounce of gold sold during the most recent quarter were $920 . This compares to the fourth quarter of 2021, where cash costs were $718 per ounce. all-in sustaining cost per ounce of gold sold during the most recent quarter were $1,376 . This compares to the fourth quarter of 2021, where 2021 all-in sustaining costs were $1,052 per ounce. During 2023, we expect all-in sustaining costs to fall between $1,350 and $1,550 per ounce of gold sold.
Free cash flow during the most recent quarter was negative CAD 9 million. This compares to the fourth quarter of 2021, where free cash flow was positive CAD 31 million, with the differences already discussed being ounces of gold produced and higher operating costs. EBITDA, earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation and amortization in the fourth quarter was positive CAD 35 million. This compares to the fourth quarter of 2021, where EBITDA was CAD 66 million. I'll now turn it over to Mark, our Chief Operating Officer.
Thanks, Marty. Good morning, everybody. In the fourth quarter of 2022, the Eagle Mine produced approximately 44,000 oz of gold, a slight decrease year-over-year from approximately 49,000 oz of gold produced in the fourth quarter of 2021. The decrease primarily related to our stacking operations being down for three weeks in October, as John had mentioned. We stacked 1.4 million tons of ore grading 0.9 g per ton in the fourth quarter, for a total of 6.6 million tons grading 0.85 g per ton stacked for the year. The mining rate in the fourth quarter was 49,000 tons per day, which is in line with the annual average of 48,000 tons per day.
We ended 2022 with 150,000 oz produced. Despite production challenges we faced in 2022, there have been some real notable positives. On our heap leach pad performance, it remains strong for the fourth quarter. Recoveries are continuing to trend in line with our forecasted levels. For the second quarter in a row, we saw a reduction in our in-pad inventory of recoverable gold. With a net of approximately 5,000 oz recovered from in-pad inventory in the fourth quarter. Grades stacked in Q4 remain strong, as the Eagle reserve continues to reconcile well to actual production results. In fact, since commencing operations in mid-2019, we've encountered a total of over 4 million tons of bonus ore, which is material above and beyond what was included in our reserve model.
Our production guidance for 2023 of 160,000 oz -180,000 oz is a notable improvement from our 2022 annual production. This is achievable with our existing crushing and conveying circuit and our existing mine fleet. As Marty outlined, our capital guidance for 2023 has decreased markedly year-over-year, which reflects the reality that we have everything we need at site and available to us to deliver on the increased production profile. We've optimized our maintenance schedules, our supply chain and inventory and labor force, and are seeing our crushing and conveying assets show improvement, improved availability as these improvements have been implemented.
One notable change for 2023 is that as we've gained operational experience at Eagle over the past few years, and with respect to cold weather heap leaching, we've been able to extend the number of months during the winter period that we stack fresh ore onto the pad. These efforts are ongoing currently. We expect to report a significant increase in tons and recoverable ounces stacked year-over-year when we release our first quarter 2023 production results. John, back to you for concluding remarks.
In summary, 2022 did not meet our expectation in terms of operational performance and production. We have implemented a number of changes to support our 2023 guidance and show year-over-year production growth at the Eagle Mine. With an updated mine plan for Eagle and an updated resource for Raven, both on the near-term horizon, we expect to demonstrate that the long-term future of the operation is secure, and that we believe we are starting to define a true gold camp on the Dublin-Gulch property. Thank you all for listening, and I will now open the call for Q&A.
Just a reminder, if you wanna ask a question, you can add it to the chat function, or you can raise your hand, within the Zoom app. To raise your hand, look at the reactions tab on the menu bar.
Hi, Marty. It's Lenora. I have a question here from Haiko. He's asking, can you provide some color on cash flow implications from the conveyor belt failure in the calendar 2022 and the calendar 2023? I assume the latter is extremely small, correct?
Yeah, I can comment on that one. The cost of the new belt and the cost to get it back up and running was fairly minor. Mark will correct me if I'm wrong, but it's in the CAD 1 million-CAD 2 million range. The real cost, as you'll all understand, is the lost production and the opportunity cost. Three weeks can add up to about 15,000 oz if we were operating for those three weeks. Most of those 15,000 ounces are lost in Q4, but there will be a small portion lost in Q1. We will see some small cash flow implications in Q1 due to the October down, but most of that has already been felt in Q4 production.
Okay, Andrew McKittrick has a question. Andrew, you just have to unmute. There we go.
Maybe Mark or John, could just somebody just comment generally on what is a reasonable grade expectation for 2023 or failing that, what are you expecting to stack any ROM ore that would average down from kind of the mined grade or the processed. Crushed grade, I guess.
Yeah.
Thanks, Andrew. I'll start, then Mark can chime in. First to your question of ROM, we have no intention of adding ROM to the leach pad this year. Just from a cost perspective, it's, and, you know, the capital required to put a proper road in, it's just not economic to use ROM, so we'll be stockpiling ROM. You'll see more about that when we release our life of mine plan later this week. What was the other part of your question there? Was, oh, what to expect for grade. Mark, you wanna comment on grade for 2023?
Yeah. Hey, Andrew. You know, our grade will be, as John mentioned, we're not planning on putting ROM to the pad in the near future. Grade expectations are fairly similar, certainly in line with what you saw in 2022. Probably slightly lower, but, you know, on the average about 0.8.
Thank you very much.
Don Blyth, sorry.
Hey there. Yeah, John, obviously, Q4 was a bit challenging there. Just a question on the guidance for 2023, 160,000 oz -180,000 oz . That sort of suggests 40,000 oz-45,000 oz per quarter run rate. Obviously, you know, we're more sort of talking 50,000 oz was the sort of often quoted production kinda steady run rate. What's the obviously you may be addressing this in the upcoming update, but what's the sort of biggest delta for 2023?
Yeah. I would say, you know, we still have some challenges at the mine. You know, the biggest one is still related to people. You know, we're short people and we have higher turnover rates than we like. You know, to address that, we beefed up our recruiting efforts as well as our training on site, and we're seeing the improvements in that. You know, we certainly think that, you know, the run rate of 50,000 oz per quarter is doable, but we're being cautious with our guidance for 2023. I think, you know, you'll see our long-term mine plan tomorrow and or the next day, and I think you'll be quite pleased with the numbers going forward.
Okay. you know, maybe you're just being a little conservative, to make sure that you hit guidance for 2023.
Yes.
Thanks.
I have a question here from Andrew. Can John or Mark reconfirm the expected release of the life of mine plan update?
Yeah. It's always dangerous, Andrew, but, you know, we've got everybody crossing the T's and dotting the I's today, and our desire is to release it tomorrow morning before the market opens. You know, that can slip if the guys find anything today, but I'm pretty confident you'll see it released tomorrow morning.
Yeah. Chris Thompson's got a hand up there.
Hey, guys, can you hear me?
We do, Chris.
Thank you. Just a quick question on the guidance there. What is your guidance for cash costs for this year?
Marty, do you have that at your fingertips?
No, I don't. We don't provide guidance on cash costs. Chris, you can assume the difference between cash costs and all-in sustaining costs for 2023 will be similar to 2022. Our sustaining capital is significantly lower, our capitalized stripping is a little higher, capital is similar year-over-year due to that capitalized stripping.
Okay, thanks. Just the final question, obviously, you've spoken a bit about grades. Can you give us a sense of tons that we can anticipate being stacked this year?
Yeah. Chris, we're on the order of 9 million tons -10 million tons for the year.
Great. Thanks, Mark. Thanks, guys. Look forward to the life of mine plan. Thank you.
Thanks, Chris.
As Marty said, this call will be available on our website later today if you wanna listen to it again. Other than that, I will close the session and have a great day.