Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Endeavour Silver Corp First Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. The conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press Star, then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing Star and zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Galina Meleger, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. Before we get started, I ask that you view our MD&A precautionary language regarding forward-looking statements and the risk factors pertaining to these statements. Our MD&A and financial statements are available on our website at edrsilver.com. With us on today's call is Dan Dickson, Endeavour Silver's CEO, Christine West, our Chief Financial Officer, and Don Gray, Endeavour's COO. Following Dan's formal remarks, we will open the call for questions. Over to Dan.
Thank you, Galina. Welcome everyone. 2023 is off to a strong start. Not only was it a good quarter for our operating mines, we also attained significant milestones towards building the long-term future of the company. Consolidated Q1 silver equivalent production was up 18% year-over-year to 2.4 million silver equivalent ounces. Ultimately, this performance puts us in great shape to achieve this year's production guidance of between 8.6 million-9.5 million silver equivalent ounces. Once again, from a production standpoint, Guanacevi had a positive quarter, driven by robust silver and gold grades. However, mill performance was impacted due to the extended maintenance on our mill liners and concentrate filter cloth changes in February.
While throughput returned to planned levels in March, it was down 13% quarter-over-quarter, averaging 1,138 tons per day for the quarter. The performance of our other operating mine, Bolañitos, remained steady. There was increased silver production offset by lower gold production. We continue to evaluate opportunities to increase mine life at Bolañitos and are cognizant of Bolañitos in the current landscape. Their operating team has done a good job meeting their targets. Moving to financials, we reported top-line revenue of $56 million with cost of sales of $40 million for mine operating earnings of $16 million. After exploration and G&A, we report net earnings of $6.5 million or $0.03 per share. At the site level, Guanacevi delivered mine free cash flow of $9 million, and Bolañitos contributed just under $1 million for the quarter.
Regarding operating costs, we've seen pressures across several inputs driven by foreign exchange and inflation, so our direct costs per ton were up 14%. Specifically, the Mexican peso strengthened substantially, up 7% from year-end and 9% from Q1 2022, which increased our local costs in U.S. dollar terms. Additionally, Guanacevi and Bolañitos continues to increase labor costs, power and consumable costs, and steel and processing for items such as cyanide and zinc. Lastly, I sourced more production from royalty concession areas which result in increased royalty fees. The combination of these cost pressures has placed both the quarterly cash costs and the all-in sustaining costs slightly above the upper bounds of our guidance at $11.12 per ounce for cash costs and $20.16 per ounce for all-in sustaining costs.
While inflation is an industry-wide issue that's expect to persist throughout the year, we're closely reviewing our purchasing practices to see where and how we can mitigate this impact. Containing costs will continue to be a key focus as we work to improve the efficiencies of our operations. The higher-than-planned ore grades continues to offset the higher direct cost per ton, and with the recent strengthening of the gold price, we benefit from a higher by-product credit on a per-ounce reporting metrics. To be clear, cost improvement continues to be a focus. As at March 31st, we had a cash on hand of $62 million and working capital of $93 million. Cash decreased as $12 million was spent on development activities at Terronera, and prepaids went up to account for deposits and payments on various items.
As mentioned earlier, we announced an exciting milestone in March. Sorry, in April. Board approval to formally proceed with the construction of an underground mine and mill at Terronera. The green light comes on the back of a financing commitment for $120 million in senior secured debt from SocGen and ING Capital. Overall, I'm very pleased with the terms and details of the project loan. We worked very hard to secure favorable terms to protect the upside of the project for our shareholders. The facility has a term of 8.5 years at a secured overnight financing rate of +3.75% once the project is in full production. The loan has a two-year grace period during the construction phase, there are no hedging requirements on silver production.
That said, there is hedging program for foreign exchange and then for up to 68,000 ounces of gold over the first two years of production at Terronera. Given the additional cost pressures that the industry has faced, we updated our development plans and initial capital costs for Terronera. As the last feasibility study was completed almost two years ago. The updated mine plan increases the initial CapEx to $230 million from $175 million, while the processing plant capacity increases to 2,000 tons per day from the 1,700 tons in the feasibility study. The updated plan provides increased operating flexibility, includes inflationary cost estimates, and brings forward capital investment. Life of mine sustaining capital estimates decreases to $88 million compared to $106 million in the feasibility study, as those costs have been included in initial CapEx.
The current plant design optimizes the recoveries while the construction schedule is 21 months, with initial production expected in the fourth quarter of 2024. With a seasoned development team in place, we are committed to delivering on time and budget. With significant early works already underway, we've spent $58 million to date on direct development. If you're interested in seeing photos of the construction progress, I encourage you to visit our website under the Terronera page. Let me recap some of our recent developments. The full mobile mining fleet is now on site. We ordered all the major equipment, plant equipment, and expect most of that to arrive this summer. Upgrades to the access road totaling almost 7 kilometers is nearly complete. We're nearing completion of the permanent camp. We are nearly finished excavating the plant site, and we are advancing underground mine access.
Supported by these results, our main focus now is progressing mine development, finalizing earthworks, and pouring concrete for the mill platform before the rainy season. Through all these operational milestones and advances, we continue to demonstrate our commitment to responsible and sustainable mining. To learn more about these and other efforts, I encourage you to read our latest sustainability report, which we released yesterday. The report captures our efforts in 2022 to maximize our positive impacts on society and the environment. This past year, we started executing our 2022- 2024 sustainability strategy. I'm pleased with how our team delivered on our priorities, especially in areas like health and safety and embedded ESG practices deeper into our operations. Let me highlight just a few examples. We continued to achieve commendable safety performance in 2022.
It's part of our four-year downward trend with our reportable injury rate dropping to 0.87. We recycled over 90% of water used in our operations, minimizing our fresh use of water. We performed climate scenario analysis to assess potential climate-related risks and impacts and prepared our inaugural climate report aligned to TCFD framework. Lastly, I want to touch on the recent development of the new Mexican mining laws. Of course, this has been a topic with a lot of uncertainty and unfortunately moved swiftly through the Mexican government. From an operating standpoint, our expectation is the new law will increase compliance requirements, specifically around water use and reclamation activities. Don't expect a disruption of our operations or construction activities. There's still uncertainty of the details. Unfortunately, these new laws could discourage future investment into Mexico's exploration sector.
We will see these new laws challenged through the courts and hopefully have more clarity in the coming weeks and months with regarding its impact. I think that wraps up my formal comment for today. Myself, Don Gray, our COO, and Christine are happy to answer any questions that you may have. Over to you, operator, for Q&A.
Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Once again, to join the question queue, please press star then one now. Our first question comes from Craig Hutchison of TD Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon, guys.
Hey, Craig.
Hey, just a question on the inflationary pressures. On the labor front, are there any more pressures you see there over the next sort of 12 months? Have you any labor negotiations to come here, or is that largely wrapped up in just more of a broader inflation kind of theme?
Yeah. Right now that's wrapped up. We finished that typically in February, sometimes spilled into March, we gave a 5% increase to the unions at Guanacevi and Bolañitos. Really where the impact hurting us from a labor standpoint really comes down to foreign exchange. About 33% of our costs are incurred in Mexican pesos for labor. With the appreciation of the peso this past quarter, obviously impacted straight to the bottom line. I think short term, we see some strength in the peso, but hopefully long term it reverts back to what we've seen for the last 20 years, and that's kind of depreciation against the US dollar.
Okay. How about on the energy front? Are you seeing any pressures kind of coming off on that front, or is that still just similar to levels you guys experienced in Q1?
Yeah. I think we're gonna see similar costs, most of our power obviously comes through CFE, the commission, electric commission in Mexico. Our expectation is it's gonna stay where it's at from Q1. As we've seen, for the last kinda five, six quarters, inflation has been a factor. If the Mexican government or the commission decides to increase rates, that will obviously impact us. Most of the power costs impact us through a plant standpoint, and then pumping, water pumping at Guanacevi as well. Again, hopefully we see that kind of flatten out here and maintain where the levels are.
Maybe just one last question for me. At Guanacevi, you guys, it looks like you're tracking already kind of above the guidance. When do you kind of expect maybe a reflection downwards in terms of grades? Or do you expect maybe lower throughput as I try and model through the kind of midpoint of your guidance, I assume it comes down at some point. Otherwise, you guys look like you might exceed. Just curious on terms of any kind of color on grades and when you might start seeing some.
Yeah, I mean...
dropping a little bit.
We've seen elevated grades because of El Curso for the last two years. Obviously we've been quite conservative in our reserve estimates on El Curso. Frankly, we should see our tons per day come up at Guanacevi. We had a tough February just with some maintenance requirements, mainly on the liner, and some clockwork that we had to do on the tailings, dry stack tailings facility. Ultimately our expectation is our tons come up, which hopefully drives down our cost per ton. As far as grades, like I say, we, for the last two years have kind of exceeded what we've had in reserves. I do essentially, and then us being conservative, see that kind of come back to what we have in our plan.
We just had a nice area in El Curso, and we seem to continue to get these, so maybe it stays elevated, and if it does, we'll come into the upper range of our guidance, if not, maybe beat. If we revert to what's in the mine plan, then we end up being where we are. We're not, at this point, ready to change guidance at Guanacevi and ultimately consolidate it.
All right. Perfect. Thanks, guys.
No problem. Thanks for the questions, Craig.
Once again, if you have a question, please press star then one. Our next question comes from Matt Taylor of PI Financial. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Thanks for that. Just a favor, a couple questions on our end. The spending at Terronera this quarter's a little lower than expected. Should we expect a ramp up through Q2, or would it be likely later in the year?
No. Now that we have formal construction decision, I would expect that ramp up, everything's kind of running now. Like I say, with the board's approval, the quicker we can move, the better obviously. I think if we can stay on time, we can stay on budget. Sometimes for things out of control, we build contingencies on that timeline, I guess we'd like to have spent a little bit more in Q1, meaning we've moved along. At the same time, without having that formal construction decision, we try to be conservative with just looking at early works. As far as expenditures between now and the end of 2024, when we get into the kind of production, I would say it's gonna be relatively homogenous payments over that kind of next seven quarters.
Again, hopefully things ramp up relatively quickly here in Q2.
Perfect. Cheers. Just switching over to Bolañitos. Should we expect an uptick in gold production later this year? I saw in Q1 it was slightly lagging. Just wondering.
Yeah.
going to do.
Yeah, for sure. I mean, absolutely, as Bolañitos has moved into kind of a gold operation, our expectation is gonna be more gold, less silver. In this quarter, we flipped, kind of silver grades came up, and gold grades come down. Similar to Guanacevi, I mean, we expect that to revert to our mine plan. On a proportional basis, I'd expect gold to come up and silver to slightly come down. Partly that's gonna be getting to certain areas that's in our mine plan. Like anything with the underground vein mining, sometimes there's areas that allow more ore tons to be able to come out, and things that are in resources are actually not even in our mine plan that are there. Ultimately, if we follow mine plan expectations, our gold comes up, silver comes slightly down.
Perfect. Cheers. Thanks a lot.
Thanks for the questions, Matt.
This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Dan Dickson for any closing remarks.
Well, thank you, operator. It's been an interesting quarter with regards to the changes in the Mexican mining laws and where we're seeing silver and gold prices. I think today's reflection of questions maybe just comes down to what's happening in the marketplace. We see silver kind of flipping all over the place. It was up to start the day, now it's down. Then I see some, the results in our share price suggests we're down. I think it's early in the year. Our goal to get our costs in line to where our expectations and where our guidance is, and ultimately we'll be working from that from an operations standpoint. I think it's an exciting year for Endeavour.
I think moving forward with the Terronera projects are gonna significantly change the profile of the company over the next two years, and it's something we're excited for. I look forward to next quarter's conference call to be able to give an update on where we're at with Terronera and hopefully continued good performance at Guanacevi and Bolañitos. Thank you everyone for attending today, and talk soon.
This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.