Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Endeavour Mining Q1 2021 results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After management's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one on your telephone. Today's conference call is being recorded, and a transcript of the call will be available on Endeavour's website tomorrow. I would now like to hand the call over to management. Please go ahead.
Hi, everyone. I am Martino, Vice President, Strategy, and Investor Relations. I'd like to welcome you to our Q1 2021 results website. On the call, I am joined by Sébastien, Mark, Joanna, and Patrick. Today's call will follow our usual format. We'll first present our results at a group level and then dive into by asset. We'll be as quick as possible to leave time for questions at the end. Before we start, please note our usual disclaimer. Now I'll hand it over to our CEO, Sébastien, to walk through our Q1 results. Sébastien?
Thank you, Martino. I'm very excited to share our results for the quarter, as it shows the success of the transformation we have executed over the past year and resulted in a more resilient business. We are well-positioned to deliver strong cash flow and organic growth, while at the same time rewarding shareholders through our dividend and buyback programs. You can see a summary of our Q1 results here on slide six. We achieved a great outcome in our first quarter, both operationally and financially, and we are on track to meet guidance. Production more than doubled versus Q1 2020, due of course to our acquisitions and in particular, the recent successful integration of the Teranga assets.
Looking at our per share metrics, our operating cash flow per share is up nearly 50%, while the adjusted EPS is up 111%, consistent with our expectation that the transactions would be accretive to our shareholders, while also benefiting from the continued strong gold price environment. Strategically, we are focused on ensuring our shareholders realize strong returns. As such, we have paid out our first $60 million dividend in January and started during Q2 our buyback program, which will run over the year. On slide seven, you can see some of our key performance indicators for the quarter. We've continued to focus on our safety performance with our ultimate goal of zero harm.
On production, we are solidly on track relative to our full-year guidance. We will see a full quarter of production at Sabodala-Massawa and Wahgnion included in our results in Q2. We anticipate our run rate to increase for the balance of the year. It is important to note that for Q1, it is only one month and a half out of three for the Teranga asset that is consolidated here. Similarly, all-in sustaining costs came in at the bottom half of our target range for the year. Again, we expect to see the impact of a full quarter from the lower-cost Sabodala-Massawa operation in Q2 and no further impact from the higher-cost Agbaou operation that was sold in March. As such, we are confident in our progress towards our full-year target range of $850-$900 per ounce.
Safety, as I mentioned earlier, we continue to focus on improving our safety performance across the board. With several operations added into our platform, we are pleased with the strong safety culture at our newly acquired operation. You can see that our LTI remains low. However, with four LTIs that we have suffered in the last 12 months, we always seek to improve, and we continue to evaluate ways to move towards a zero on this metric. On slide nine, you can see our production and all-in sustaining cost results for the past five quarters. The key to remember here is that we had what was truly an exceptional quarter from the Endeavour and former SEMAFO assets in Q4 last year, which returned to a more normalized output in Q1. The quarter also factors in the sale of Agbaou and part of a quarter's production from Sabodala-Massawa and Wahgnion.
We therefore expect improving consolidated production numbers in the upcoming quarters as we will report a full quarter of operations across our assets. On the right side of the page, you can see that our consolidated production has increased by 175,000 ounces in Q1 2021 versus Q1 2020, while our production per share has increased by 23% year-over-year. On slide 10, I'd like to point out our portfolio's strong diversification across both assets and countries. This is a big shift compared to the portfolio we had 12 months ago. The pie chart shows the relative contribution of our operations to our production versus the same quarter last year. We've gone from four operations in two countries, with two mines contributing 2/3 of our production, to now seven operations in three countries, with no single operation accounting for more than 25% of our production.
This contributes significantly to a reduction in our risk profile and helps to ensure that we can meet our guidance based on greater flexibility within the portfolio. Moving to slide 11, you can see how our all-in sustaining margin has trended over the last several quarters. As discussed previously, our production increased modestly with just over one and a half months of Sabodala-Massawa and Wahgnion included in Q1, and Agbaou was sold. We were ultimately in a weaker gold price environment during the first quarter, which impacted margin versus Q4.
Nevertheless, on a year-over-year basis, our all-in sustaining margin increased by $220 million from Q1 2020 to the current quarter, while all-in sustaining margin per share increased by 30%. On slide 12, you can see the trend of our operating cash flow, which increased by $137 million over the prior year quarter, with operating cash flow per share and working cash flow increasing by 47% compared with last year. A lower gold price resulting in a relatively modest decrease in the quarter under review. Looking now at slide 13, you can see the steady improvement in the strength of our balance sheet from the completion of the major build of our Ity mine in 2019 through to the end of 2020, when we reached a net cash position. As part of the Teranga acquisition, we took about $332 million in net debt on the balance sheet.
Despite this, at the end of March, we were still left with a very healthy balance sheet. Our goal is to quickly build strong net cash position, which at current gold prices should happen over the next quarters. Having this strong balance sheet position with a net debt to EBITDA leverage ratio currently sitting below 2.2 times, gives us the flexibility to focus on both shareholder returns and on investing to unlock our organic growth potential. One of the best features of our new portfolio is the ability to generate sufficient cash to pay dividends and do buybacks, while also being able to reinvest in the business to support organic growth projects and exploration. On the next slide, we highlight the strength of some of the near-term development projects. The phase I expansion at Sabodala-Massawa is well underway.
Phase I will allow the plant to better handle the higher-grade ore, which come from the newly added high-grade deposits on Massawa property for a very modest investment of around $20 million in the back end of the balance. The DFS for phase II is underway for the BIOX, which will focus on processing the significant quantity of high-grade refractory ore from Massawa through a newly built BIOX plant. Beyond Sabodala-Massawa, we have the Fetekro and the Kalana projects, respectively in Côte d'Ivoire and in Mali, who recently the results of positive pre-feasibility studies, which show the projects to have attractive operating metrics and attractive economic returns. We are focused on strong returns across the business, this package of growth project is a great example of how we intend to continue to build on our existing portfolio to deliver just that.
Moving to slide 15, you can see the key target areas for our 2021 exploration budget of between $70 million-$90 million. Patrick and his team are expected to break a new record this year with over 600,000 meters of drilling. A large portion will be targeted at our most recently acquired assets. We see significant opportunities to apply our proven exploration model to newly acquired assets. In addition, we will continue to allocate a meaningful portion of our exploration budget to greenfield exploration, where we have repeatedly created value through the drill bit. In Q1, $16 million was spent at the newly acquired assets, as well as at Houndé and Ity, where a series of new targets are being delineated. In addition, about $4 million was spent on greenfield and development projects.
We anticipate activity will continue to ramp up in Q2 ahead of the rainy season before slowing down again during Q3. I am truly excited to see all of the organic opportunities that will play out over the course of the year. Moving now on to section two, I will now hand things over to Joanna, who will take you through the financial results in detail. Joanna?
Thanks, Sébastien. On slide 17, we break down our all-in sustaining margin on a nominal and a per ounce basis. Of the substantial changes within our portfolio of assets, this tells a more interesting story than on a nominal basis alone. At a group level, we had a strong improvement in our all-in sustaining margin, which was up $150 an ounce. For reference, on this page, we inserted various explanation for key line items. Overall, the margin was helped by a stronger gold price, lower cash cost per ounce, and lower sustaining capital. Moving to slide 18, you can see a breakdown of our free cash flow, beginning with the all-in sustaining margin. As we talked about, the all-in sustaining margin has increased over Q1 2020 by a nominal $20 million to $103 million in Q1 of this year. Similarly, our all-in margin increased by $190 million.
This in turn led to a total cash inflow of $164 million during the quarter. The main cash outflows during the quarter were an increase in our working capital, primarily from our acquired businesses, cash used in financing activities from our discontinued operations for the payment of dividends and taxes prior to the disposition, an increase in taxes paid due to the larger portfolio of operations, and increased spending on growth projects, primarily due to the acquisition of the Fetekro license in the quarter. These were offset by cash inflows from financing activities related to placements, which were completed at the end of the quarter, as well as additional grants on the financing. On slide 19, we have a waterfall to show how cash positions evolved during the quarter.
Our operations generated $198 million of net cash, we used approximately $105 million on our properties and paid $20 million to increase our ownership of Fetekro, while we also added $27 million in cash from the acquisition of Teranga. In the financing column, we received $200 million from the financial near the end of the quarter, as well as $47 million in cash from the financing of long-term debt, offset by the $60 million dividends that we paid in Q1, as well as $50 million paid to settle Teranga's gold offtake liability. We ended the quarter with a net debt of only $162 million, despite absorbing approximately $332 million of net debt from Teranga, which corresponds to a ratio of about 0.2 times. At current gold prices, we expect to quickly return to a net cash position. Moving to slide 20, we have a detailed breakdown of our net earnings.
I won't go through every line here, will go through the most significant items. I do want to start from the bottom of the slide where you can see that we achieved 111% improvement in earnings per share from continuing operations compared to the prior year quarter. This is an important measure to consider as we look at the success of our recent corporate transactions, which has clearly contributed to improvements on a per basis. Perhaps the most significant single line item impacting our earnings at level are increased current income tax expense. This is higher in Q1 2021 due primarily to the inclusion of the tax expenses from our newly acquired operations. Beyond that, we saw higher corporate costs coming from our larger overall business, as well as increased acquisition and restructuring costs related to Teranga and SEMAFO acquisitions.
Our corporate exploration expense also increased due to increased greenfield exploration activity, primarily on the newly acquired Teranga assets. I'll now hand things over to Mark, who will go through the details of our operations on a mine-by-mine basis. Thank you.
Thank you, Joanna. Hello to everyone on the call. I've just returned from visiting a number of mines and will happily trade the 40-degree heat at Sabodala-Massawa for the current English weather any day. Starting on slide 22, you can see our production reach, which primarily shows the significant positive impacts of the recently acquired operations and organic improvement at Houndé and Ity. Houndé, in particular, the difference derives from the fact that the processing camp was idle for a number of months in late 2019 and early 2020, compared to a full quarter of operating in quarter one this year. As you have heard, the last quarter results includes only a month and a half of performance from Sabodala-Massawa and Wahgnion. Overall, our production has increased by 175,000 ounces compared to the prior year's quarter.
Moving to slide 23, I will begin the review of our individual mining operations with Sabodala-Massawa, which is now our flagship asset. I was at the mine yesterday and can attest that the field team have continued to make progress. Digging in the pit is continuing with another new Komatsu PC3000 shovel commissioned during the quarter, so the digging fleet is in good shape. The ore construction to enable us to mine the in fill bodies is progressing well, as are other renovations to the former Barrick exploration camp, which is housing the mining crews for the Massawa pit. Moving to slide 24, you can see an overview of our phase I expansion plan. The first phase of upgrades to the processing plant are focused on debottlenecking the back end of the existing CIL to increase capacity to process the higher grade free- milling Massawa ore.
The civil works for the various work packages are all progressing well and are largely complete. The electrowinning cell has been installed and the elution column, acid wash column, and regeneration are all on site. Erection of circuit will commence in the coming weeks. These upgrades are anticipated to be completed in quarter four and have the potential ore production of up to 90,000 ounces per year by allowing the processing of higher grade ore without excessive loss of gold to tailings. On slide 25, you can see some pictures illustrating the phase I work in progress. Starting at the top left, the foundations for the electric carbon regeneration kiln and various transfer tanks are complete. Part of the steel structure has been preassembled in the background. On the top right, the crew is finalizing preparations for the last concrete pour for the elution and acid wash column.
In the bottom left, the kiln and the two columns are now on site. The last photo shows the leaching bases with the concrete to be completed by next week. Enikon, who are undertaking both the civils and SMP work, are currently fabricating various components in readiness for the next phase of construction. On slide 26, you can see an indicative schematic of the proposed phase II expansion of the processing plant to incorporate the BIOX circuit to treat the refractory ore. Phase II includes refractory plant, tailings facilities, water management, and power station upgrade. The DFS will incorporate several optimizations of the PFS completed by Teranga, including improved geometallurgical modeling to incorporate more information on sulfur and arsenic, which are key drivers of the BIOX process, and pit optimization to determine the appropriate split of ore between the two processing plants.
Further processing optimization will be undertaken in the crushing, milling, and flotation circuit. We anticipate completion of the DFS in Q4 this year. Moving now to slide 27, which outlines progress at the Houndé mine in more detail. I was also at Houndé last week and want to congratulate the team for their fantastic safety performance, which has passed 22 million man-hours LTI free. Now that the asset has been in operation for more than three years, we can see the maturity in the team yielding great results. Our short- and long-term planning has improved with experience and with increased mine flexibility through opening up the Kari Pit. Kari Pump has been the big focus since the end of last year, and the team is now looking to Kari West, where advanced grade control drilling is underway.
There is a lot of enthusiasm at Houndé, and this is all thanks to the strong operational performance and exploration success. Reviewing the past quarter, production decreased as expected, at East Tons Mill for offset by lower grade and recoveries as the high-grade ore material from Kari Pump was blended with increased proportion of ore from other pits. Sustainable cost increase, in part due to lower production, as well as the expected increase in strip ratio at Kari Pump. In future quarters, we anticipate the completion of mining from Lower A Pit and the current stage of the Bouéré pit. Kari Pump will be the main production source until Kari West commences. Stripping is set to increase at Bouéré Main. The grades are expected to increase in the latter part of the year due to the tenor of the ore zones being mined at Kari Pump.
Turning now to Ity on slide 28. We're very happy with the performance of Ity, which achieved its best quarter of production to date. The team had many challenges last year due to COVID, which was compounded by the TSF raised construction and waste extraction. The work to open up the different mining areas during 2020 is paying off, giving the greater mining flexibility. Similar to Houndé, the team at Ity is excited for the future given both the operational improvements achieved and ongoing resources that there is mining. We now begin mining after the rainy season. Looking at the quarter, you can see that production has increased to higher throughput than recovery, while all-in sustaining costs increased due to low mining and processing units. Quarter one was better than expected. Higher grade recovery was brought forward and outperformed.
Going forward, we plan to continue to source multiple ways with the Daapleu on track for quarter four. The team's been working on numerous initiatives to improve mill throughput. It's a high moisture content oxide, and we look forward to seeing the benefit these will bring as the wet season gets underway. On slide 29, Boungou has now completed its second full quarter since the restart of mining operations in quarter three 2020. Looking at quarter one, performance was better than initially expected, as higher grade ore extraction was brought forward. Production declined moderately over quarter four due to lower throughput and grades. Recovery remained strong. All sustaining costs is the higher unit sustaining cost and a higher strip ratio, offset in part by lower mining unit cost and the commissioning of new contractor mining equipment.
Plant feed is expected to continue from the West pit, with waste stripping occurring at the East pit throughout the year. Throughput is expected to remain steady while recoveries will decline slightly. Mining will focus on waste extraction, which will lead to a modest decline in processed grade based on the location in the pit from where the ore is sourced, with an improvement expected later in the year. Moving to slide 30 for Mana. I would like to thank the team for their hard work as they focus on optimizing the asset. Out of all the mines we have recently acquired, given its long operating history, Mana is where we find the most optimization.
The main change being the decision not to proceed with the One & All Stage four cutback, and instead to mine the Mana South Stage two and three cutbacks while setting up One & All for an underground operation, as highlighted in our recently published reserves and annual information fund. We've promoted a number of workers into management positions and put in place a strong technical support team, which is starting to pay off with a renewed enthusiasm across the site. Looking at the quarter, you can see that, as expected, production from Mana decreased and all-in sustaining costs increased moderately as a result of lower processed grades from Mana South and slightly lower plant throughput, coupled with higher open pit mine costs due to longer haul distances and higher underground unit mining costs due to increased stope fill.
Partially offset by lower processing costs due to lower power costs as some of the older gen sets have been replaced. Overall, I am very happy with Mana's performance, which was better than budgeted in the first quarter, driven by better than planned mill throughput and grade. Looking ahead, tonnes processed are expected to decline moderately due to an increased proportion of fresh ore from Mana South, while the process grade is expected to increase in the latter part of the year due to higher underground stope grades. Moving on to slide 31, where we will be discussing the Wahgnion mine for the first time.
I was at the mine last week and impressed with the way in which the team is focused on some of the important development projects, including construction of the second cell for the TSF, new airstrip, completion of the Foukora resettlement grant, and commencement of mining at the Foukora satellite pit. In quarter one, Wahgnion increased production compared with the previous quarter, with increased grades and a modest decrease in throughput, while recoveries were flat. Looking forward to the balance of 2021, we anticipate an increase in waste extraction, resulting in a higher strip ratio, but this will be offset somewhat as we will provide access to higher grade oxide ore from the Foukora and Nogbélé South pits in the latter portion of the year. Plant throughput and recoveries are anticipated to decrease marginally during the wet season. Finally, on slide 32, let me discuss our Karma mine.
Karma saw lower production in quarter four relative to prior quarters, as the stacked grade and recoveries declined with most of the ore for the quarter sourced from the GG1 pit. There was an increase in gold in circuit on account of the longer than normal leach time of the GG1 ore. Decreased production was partially offset by increased tonnes stacked, with good overall performance from the agglomerator and stacking system. All-in sustaining costs increased due to higher royalty, that was partially offset by lower mining, processing, and G&A unit costs, driven by lower production drilling, blasting, rehandling, and reagent. Looking ahead, the strip ratio is expected to increase in coming quarters, while production is expected to increase in the second half of the year due to high grade and recoveries at Karma.
As you can see, performance across our operations has been strong in quarter one, and all mines are on track to achieve their production and all-in sustaining costs guidance for 2021. This is testament to the overall quality of our portfolio and the capabilities and great work of our operating team. With that, I'll hand to Sébastien to close out the presentation.
Thank you, Mark and Joanna, for your overviews. On slide 34, we have a summary outlining our key priorities for the year. They are based on our guide framework to continue building a resilient business that is a trusted partner and rewards shareholders properly. We are pleased to be executing against each of these priorities, and we work hard to continue doing so in the coming months and years. We believe that the resilient business needs to first be underpinned by a high-quality portfolio, which after five years of hard work, we now have. Our priority is now to generate stable cash flows while advancing our organic growth and exploration efforts. Having a high-quality portfolio of mines which are profitable and boast long mine lives allows us to better plan for the future. This is a key element of being able to be a trusted partner.
Having confidence in knowing that we will have a presence in our communities and host countries for many years to come means that we can invest in building our long-term partnerships with employees, communities, and governments. We will be hosting a teaching later this month, where we look forward to sharing the many ESG initiatives going across our business. Finally, having a high-quality portfolio with a strong balance sheet underpinned by a social license to operate means that we can reward our shareholders across cycles. It took us five years to get to this stage, and we are now proud to have recently initiated our dividend payments. For me, this marked the full turnaround of our business. In recent weeks, given the confidence that we have in our business and our cash flow, we started to supplement our dividend with buybacks.
We also believe that our shareholders will be rewarded once we complete the process to obtain a premium listing on the LSE. This is expected to drive incremental demand for our shares and therefore be a strong catalyst. We are pleased with the progress made, and we remain on track to list on the LSE in mid-June. Finally, to conclude on slide 36, you can see the key upcoming catalysts. In the near term, we will host a capital markets teaching event to familiarize London-based investors and capital market participants with our business ahead of our listing in mid-June. We also anticipate releasing an initial resource estimate on the Afema project, which we recently acquired from Teranga. We will have an exploration update on Sabodala-Massawa.
We also expect to provide a refreshed five-year exploration strategy as we reach the goal of our first five-year exploration plan later this year. In the fourth quarter, we are anticipating the phase I expansion at Sabodala, as well as the DFS for phase II and the DFS for Fetekro. Despite the transformation that I talked about at the beginning, we do not stand still. We took great strides in the last 12 months to reposition our business. Today, we can truly say we've built a resilient business. More importantly, we have a clear roadmap ahead of us to ensure our business remains robust and continues to deliver returns for our shareholders. With that, I'd like to thank you all for dialing in and open the line up for questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now be the question and answer session. As a reminder, if you will ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A queue, which will only take a few minutes. If you wish to send a question, please press hash. Once again, please press star if you wish to ask a question. The first question comes from the line of Ovais Habib from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
Thanks, operator. Congratulations, Sébastien and Endeavour team for a good quarter, and thanks for taking my questions. My first question, Sébastien, is on the Teranga assets that you've acquired. Sébastien, Endeavour now has had these Teranga assets for about two months under the Endeavour umbrella. Can you give us some color on how the integration is going with these assets, especially at Sabodala-Massawa?
Sure. Good morning, Ovais. What I would say that since the announcement of the transaction, I've probably been now four times, I mean, to Massawa, Sabodala-Massawa. Mark was on the line just yesterday again from Sabodala-Massawa, looked at the progress in terms of the upgrades, the CIL plant, the back end of the CIL plant for the phase I of the Sabodala-Massawa project. I can say that we're extremely pleased with the progress. We were saying since the closing that the integration is going extremely smoothly, and has progressed very well, because the culture of the companies were very similar at the operating level. Yeah, it's very pleasing to see those assets well integrated into our portfolio. Mark, maybe you want to, based on your trip yesterday, do you want to comment?
Sure. I guess one thing also to mention, and this was something that we knew about right from the beginning, was the incumbent general manager was going to finish this year. That transition has literally just taken place. We're very confident that it'll be a smooth transition. We see lots of really good work done by the Teranga team and lots of good opportunities still. I think it's a fantastic asset with a really, really strong team there. Everything that I've seen just suggests that there's good opportunities for us to just sort of continue to take the asset forward.
Thanks, Mark. I think it's fair to say that one of our strongest GM, Christo Waelbroeck, who was at Houndé, just arrived at Sabodala-Massawa. Christo has been doing an amazing job at Agbaou and then at Houndé. Having him now at Sabodala-Massawa will even accelerate the integration of the asset into our portfolio and get the mindset to the same standards and culture that we have in the rest of the organization. Extremely pleased by this integration progress.
Thanks for the color, Sébastien and Mark. My next question is regarding your pipeline of projects. Now, Sébastien, you've got several projects now in the feasibility stage and others that you're looking to advance as well. Are there any of these projects that you would consider divesting or maybe bringing in a JV partner to advance those assets while you advance Fetekro and Kalana also?
If you look at what we've done in the past, we have all the options available. It's a question of capital allocation for us. I think it's too early to say decisions that we will be taking for 2022. Obviously, we've got three strong projects which are progressing well from PFS to DFS, with on one side the BIOX plant for Sabodala-Massawa phase II, Fetekro in Côte d'Ivoire, and Kalana in Mali. Clearly, we won't launch three projects at the same time in 2022, we will make some decisions once we see the numbers, and we'll focus on the products which are giving the best returns for the company and for our shareholders.
Thanks, Sébastien. Just one final question before I jump back into you. Are you noticing any inflationary pressures on your current operations or projects that you plan to advance into construction?
We had this question several times over the last few months. I would say probably since the beginning of the year. I would say that on the core supplies, we don't see yet significant or important inflation, partly due to the fact that we are integrating progressively all the acquired assets, the SEMAFO ones and the Teranga ones, into our supply chain, which in fact gives us even more bargaining power with our suppliers. We've been able to, across the board, either keep the same prices or even reduce some of the prices on core supplies. We are still monitoring how things will evolve, in particular on steel prices that are for our projects. If we feel at some point that there are risks of seeing spike in prices, then we might accelerate or anticipate or lock in some prices for our projects for future.
We remain extremely flexible and reactive to ensure that we continue to make the right capital allocation choices and to protect our returns.
Perfect. That's it for me. Congrats again on a great quarter.
Thank you very much, Ovais Habib.
Next question comes from the line of Raj Ray from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, Sébastien and team. I've just a couple of questions. First up on the LSE listing. You've probably been asked this question 1,000 times. You are now closer to the listing being done. Just wanted to get a sense if you have more clarity on whether the S&P/TSX Composite inclusion is going to stay that way, and the demand you expect from the LSE listing with respect to different indexing. My second question is with respect to the assets you bought through the SEMAFO acquisition. Last year, Mana and Boungou. Can you give us some visibility on the growth aspects, specifically Mana is Wona underground. Are you looking at Wona underground or any other growth options? Boungou, what's the best exploration upside that you're looking at?
Sure. Maybe on the first question, which is something which has popped up a lot over the last few days, and I'll let Martino to complement if required. First of all, what is clear is that we got confirmation from S&P that they will review the index in September. Something is going to happen before September. As we've probably said several times, we are expected to be listed sometime in June on the LSE, in the same way we would be integrated into FTSE indices in September. Our current view is that we shouldn't be taken out from the S&P/TSX indices. At the same time, we should be integrated into the FTSE indices in September. That's our current views. I understand that some investors have been worried about that.
I can just confirm, based on our exchange with TSX and S&P, that they are not intending to review those indices before September, and that based on the information we currently have, we do not expect some changes as in the indices. Martino, I don't know if you want to add something specific on this.
The last thing to add would be that we're in a particular situation where we are not a Canadian domicile today. We are already a foreign entity in Canada, being Cayman domicile. We're moving from being foreign Cayman to foreign U.K. Canadian active, they're looking at it much more from a liquidity lens where most of the shares are being traded. We expect that to remain on TSX given we are not issuing equity in the U.K.
Okay. Thanks, Martino.
Second question, if you may just ask again the second question? Something with around Mana gold.
Yeah. Sure, Sébastien. Mana, what's the growth opportunity beyond Wona underground? Is Wona underground something you're going to look at? At Boungou, any exploration upside you're seeing there?
On Mana, it's a fair point, and we believe that there is potentially a very interesting Wona underground potential at Mana. In fact, we've been working on the PFS already, preliminary pre-feasibility study for Wona underground. We would expect to move that forward over the next few months. Don't be surprised if as part of our, let's say, history in September, we're able to disclose a bit more information around Wona underground. It seems the economics are more attractive than into continuing the open pit side, in particular on the north, where grades are falling down and therefore costs are being higher. Yeah, quite interested in seeing the Wona underground opportunity to move forward. In parallel, we are obviously aggressively start exploration around Mana, and I'll let maybe Patrick comment a bit on this as well as Boungou, which is important.
There has been very limited exploration done in the past by SEMAFO Boungou. We started to put drilling campaigns there, and we will see that accelerating in Q2 and Q4. Patrick, do you want to give a quick feedback on Mana and Boungou?
Yes.
Hi, everybody. Well, actually, Mana has been the place where we have been the more aggressive in the first quarter. Actually, we have been drilling over 30,000 meters, which is quite a lot. Basically, what we are doing, we are checking quite a significant number of small size targets, but mostly looking at oxide. We are developing a former discovery named Mana, which is partly to the southeast, southwest the exploitation license, and also extending into the exploration license. We are working also on trying redoing the resource model on Ouanga to looking at the Ouanga underground stuff, and we are also conducting quite important exploration into a few north areas to complete a possible target. Also, for a few underground possibility because we see some shoot going in that depth. That's most of it for the first quarter on Mana.
In Boungou, due to security particularity in this area, we are concentrating for the time being all around the mine. We've been drilling between two pits, between West Pit and East Pit. We are waiting for some results. We are concentrating right now mostly in an area which is at the northwest, which is called Natougou Northwest, and just at the junction between an area called Boungou Underground and the West Pit. That's where we have quite good results. Basically, we are working on a concentric way in Boungou, going slowly by slowly a bit further out, and organizing ourselves to start to go out of the fence zone. Basically, that's what I can. As it was said previously, Mana and Boungou are two main areas where we are going to concentrate this year.
On Boungou and Mana, we should have a higher budget that we had this year on either Ity or Houndé, which looking at the possibility in Houndé and Ity is quite significant effort for us, together with Touissat and Sabodala also, where we are going to increase the exploration budget.
Thanks, Patrick.
Thanks a lot, Patrick, and thanks, Sébastien. That's from me.
Thank you. Next question comes the line of Don DeMarco from National Bank. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Hi, Seb and team. Strong operational quarter. You guys are pulling levers such as the dividend, the NCIB, the London listing. There's talk of Endeavour being positioned to become the new Randgold. Randgold traded at a premium, whereas we're seeing a valuation discrepancy between Endeavour and some other peers that have lower free cash flow and fewer development pipeline options. My question is, what other levers do you have to increase your profile or close this valuation gap? Is it just a matter of time? Be interested in your comments. Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks. I think that you're completely right. I think it's also a question of time. If you take Randgold with Mark Bristow, has been on the LSE for 15 years and has been building his reputation and his multiple over years. It took some years to get where he was. If you take even B2Gold, having sometimes a better multiple than we have, same thing. I think that Clive has been around for a while, and the success of B2Gold over the last 10, 15 years, again it takes time to create, I would say, that visibility and credibility. I think we are exactly on the verge. We've just completed this five-year turnaround plan.
We are now getting strong cash flow, being able to roll out all the levers that other more mature companies have been doing over the past years, with dividends, buyback, and much more visibility with the London listing while peers had already either London listing or New York listing. I think that we now will be in a position from June and September to re-compete at the same level with all those peers that tend to have better valuation than us, which in fact makes us extremely attractive from an entry point for investors. That's why I would expect this gap to very quickly disappear and hopefully in the years to come, demonstrate that yes, we are the new Randgold.
Okay, great. Okay. You mentioned the NCIB and so on. I'm looking at, in terms of capital allocation, you paid out $60 million in dividends in Q1. What I agreed to is that you bought back about CAD 30 million at least worth of shares in Q2. On the NCIB, do you expect that pace to continue that we saw in Q2, in April rather? What are your thoughts going forward on that? You've been pretty active.
I think that you should see the NCIB getting much more active going forward. We were only active in like a few days, started in April. It was only a few days that the NCIB kicked in. Therefore, I would expect much more activity from this quarter and Q3 on the NCIB. Yeah.
Okay, great. Maybe just finally, since the MD&A noted higher grades at Sabodala and Massawa in the latter part of the year, Q1 grade was 2.53 grams per ton. What kind of grades should we model in H2? How much higher would they be than that 2.53 grams per ton?
Martino or Mark, you want to give some color on H2?
Sure. We expect grade to come up to about 2.8 in Q3 and going above 3 grams in Q4.
Okay. Thanks so much, guys. That's all from me.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Anita Soni. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Sebastian and team. First off, I just want to comment for disclosure the guys put in your MD&A financials. It's awesome and actually makes sense into my model, and I do find that for the senior team, if you do that, your multiples on multiples, it's not a sort of black box for investors. I think my question, a little bit more pickier than everybody's got to the gritty. Firstly, could you give us a rundown of the countries you operate in terms of an update on the political situation and then security as well? Senegal, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire. The second question, just in terms of M&A, obviously, there's been a transition in your part of the world and your name along with B2Gold come up as maybe potentially interested.
I was just wondering if you could give a comment, reiteration, or prior view on M&A or whatever you feel fit and I will leave it at that.
Sure. No problem. In terms of countries where we operate, Senegal, I would say Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire are obviously very stable politically. You probably saw that there was sometime in Q1, I think it was around March, there was two days of riots in the capital city. That was mainly a political, I would say, issue where the youth were trying to protect a potential candidate for the next presidential election who was charged for, I think it was rape, and therefore it created a bit of tension. After 48 hours, it all cooled down. We received during that period, of course, because people thought the country was going on fire. I said, "Look, do we have investors calling Apple company or Tesla, and there is riots in Chicago?" The answer is no.
Yes, it happens that sometimes you have these type of events, but I would say that Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire are extremely stable. The case of Côte d'Ivoire in particular since the re-election of President Ouattara, which is always good when you have a strong, I would say, liberal president, which have been successful so far. Côte d'Ivoire had between 7% to 9% GDP growth over the last five, six years. It's one of the fastest-growing country in Africa. Having the same president running the country for another five years, I think it's going to be very good in terms of stability. Burkina, obviously we are the largest gold producer also in Burkina. It's a key country for us.
A bit more tricky on the security standpoint with regular attacks in one particular area of the country, which is the north part of the country at the tri-border region. Tri-border between Mali, Burkina and Côte d'Ivoire. As you know, we've been operating those countries for years. We believe that we have the right relationship with the government and the right protocols with our security team to ensure we are able to protect the assets and the people, hence the fact that we were comfortable at the time to acquire SEMAFO assets, and in particular the Boungou assets that we successfully restarted back in Q3 last year. I would say that from a security standpoint in Burkina, it's improving, neither worsening.
There is a bit right now with the Burkinabé army being extremely active in the north with the French. Hopefully in the next few weeks, we should see some improvements on that front. That's I would say the high level picture on the three countries. In terms of M&A, as you said, I think we've done our share of the job in acquiring the right assets for our portfolio. We need now to continue to integrate those assets successfully. We are on track to deliver the $100 million of annual synergies that we are expecting from those two acquisitions. We now are really focusing on organics. We've got amazing projects coming up with phase I and II of Sabodala-Massawa. Then with Fetekro and Kalana. We're really going to focus on that and never been interested in Roxgold , for example.
It's funny to see, I would say, a Latin American silver company going right into Burkina, but let's see. It's going to be interesting to watch. For us, unless Clive Johnson wants to sell Fekola, which I don't think he intends to, we don't have any particular interest for it, for example.
Yeah. I hadn't thought about Clive Johnson selling Fekola. Yeah. Anyway, just on the Tesla comment, I think Elon Musk has his own problems this morning with the Bitcoin sell-off, I think. Thank you for answering my question.
No, thank you for your question. Anytime.
Next question comes from the line of Mark Bentley from ShareSoc. Please go ahead.
Hello, Sébastien and team. I have three questions today, if I may. The first one is, you paid $47 million to settle a Teranga Gold offtake agreement. Is that a full and final settlement, or are there any further payments due under that agreement?
It's full and final.
Great. Thank you. Second question, you currently have $700 million drawn on the corporate finance facility and $868 million of cash, which seems like an awful lot of cash. Could you just explain the board's rationale for keeping so much cash whilst still heavily drawn on that facility?
Sure. In fact, we are in the process of the restructuring of the balance sheet. As you might recall, we took up a lot of debt from the Teranga acquisition. As part of that, we had a bridge financing, and obviously the objective for us is to replace that bridge financing with more long-term, I would say, facilities. The right time we believe to do it is once the listing is completed in London, once we have proper rating in order to be able to get the best instruments in place for the restructuring of the balance sheet. In the meantime, in Q1, we repaid $100 million on RCF, shortly after receiving at the end of Q1, the $200 million cash injection from La Mancha. Beginning of Q2, we also repaid another $150 million that you don't see yet on the RCF.
Our objective is to make sure that, by Q3, we have a much cleaner balance sheet. I fully agree with you. The objective is not to keep a good amount of continuing to pay that interest on the other side. We're really in that process.
Sébastien, that's clear. A final question just on Boungou. Have there been any security incidents at Boungou over the last quarter, or has it all been peaceful?
I must say, all peaceful so far at Boungou. Obviously there have been some incidents, but the closest one was probably around 120 km away from Boungou. Nothing to report on Boungou on the mine itself. I think that the cooperation also with the government, and the unit, which has been allocated to protect the mine site and also the transport roads, is becoming more and more effective. It's ramping up progressively. We're getting more and more confident and as you know, the first decision we took is not to have any employee on the road between the capital city and the mine site. All our staff are flying in and out. So far, obviously it's a day-to-day evolving environment, and we are monitoring that very closely. We are so far happy with what has been put in place.
Good. If I understand correctly, as the situation improves, you're hoping to broaden your exploration activities beyond the mine site. Is that correct?
Yeah, that's exactly correct.
Good. Thank you very much, Sébastien.
Thank you for your time.
Okay.
There are no more questions at this time. Please continue.
As there are no more questions, we'll finish the call. I will, of course, remain available to address any additional questions offline. Have a good day, and stay safe, everyone.
That will conclude today's conference call. Thank you for participation. Ladies and gentlemen, you may now disconnect.