Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Eldorado Gold Skouries Project Update and Updated Guidance Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there'll 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, then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Lynette Gould, Vice President, Investor Relations, Communications, and External Affairs. Please go ahead, Ms. Gould.
Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to our conference call to provide an update on our Skouries project, details of our 2025 guidance, and an overview of our three-year growth outlook. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that we will be making forward-looking statements and referring to non-IFRS measures during the call. Please refer to the cautionary statements included in yesterday's news release and the disclosure on non-IFRS measures and risk factors in our third quarter management's discussion and analysis. Joining me on the call today, we have George Burns, President and Chief Executive Officer, Simon Hille, Executive Vice President, Operations and Technical Services, Paul Ferneyhough, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Louw Smith, Executive Vice President, Development Greece. Our news release yesterday details the update on the Skouries project and our 2025 guidance and three-year outlook.
It has also been filed on SEDAR+ and EDGAR. All dollar figures discussed today are U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated. We will be speaking to the slides that accompany this webcast, and you can download a copy of those slides from our website. After the prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A. At this time, we will invite analysts to queue for questions. I will now turn the call over to George.
Thanks, Lynette. Welcome, everyone, to our call today to discuss the update to the Skouries Project schedule and cost estimate. This will be followed by a discussion of our 2025 guidance and three-year outlook. For the Skouries Project, in early 2024, we outlined the need to achieve 1,300 personnel on site by the end of 2024 to remain on schedule for first production in the third quarter of 2025. We did experience a steady ramp-up of personnel on site, going from approximately 500 at the end of January 2024 to approximately 840 by midyear and approximately 1,000 by the end of the third quarter. As we progressed through the year, we were comfortable we could achieve that ramp-up. During the quarter, we started to feel the impact of the tight construction labor market within Greece.
As mentioned, we were taking proactive measures to address these challenges, including holding local community job fairs, sourcing additional Greek subcontractors, hiring laborers to support our trade workers, and sourcing additional workers outside of Greece. However, as we approached the end of 2024, we were unable to fully scale up to 1,300 personnel as planned, and we ended the year at approximately 1,050 personnel. As a result, progress in certain areas of the project was delayed, largely driven by slow progress on concrete compared to our expectations. Consequently, we undertook a full evaluation to determine the impact of the labor situation and other factors, including the substantial completion of detailed engineering on the project schedule and total capital costs required to bring the project into commercial production.
I, along with other members of the executive team, just returned from Greece, where we have spent two weeks with our Skouries team completing a comprehensive bottom-up analysis to evaluate and, where possible, mitigate the impact on the project schedule and cost. This analysis included an optimization of the open pit, underground, and milling production plan. We now expect first production at Skouries in the first quarter of 2026, followed by commercial production expected in mid-2026. The revised project capital cost estimate incorporates an increase of approximately $143 million, or 15.5%, over the most recent capital cost estimate for a total of approximately $1.06 billion. On slide four, we have broken out each of the key drivers of this capital increase, which includes indirect cost, increased quantities, and other.
Furthermore, we expect to complete additional pre-commercial production mining and have accelerated the purchase of higher capacity mobile mining equipment originally expected to be purchased post-commercial production. This has resulted in $154 million of accelerated operational capital expected prior to commercial production. The revised schedule and cost estimates remain sensitive to a successful workforce ramp-up, with a target of achieving and maintaining approximately 1,300 people on site at the peak of construction. We have made progress, achieving a daily on-site total of 1,150 workers at the end of January. Workforce risk will remain as we continue to add different skill sets as construction progresses towards commercial production. Obviously, the revised schedule and increase in the capital cost is not what we expected. However, the tight construction labor situation in Greece has resulted in a slower ramp-up of personnel, resulting in the adjustments to the schedule and the capital costs.
Our financial position remains strong, with approximately $857 million of cash and cash equivalents and a total liquidity of approximately $1.1 billion as of December 31st, 2024. The project remains fully funded through a combination of our balance sheet and remaining undrawn amounts on the project finance facility. Our liquidity was augmented by the divestment of our G Mining Ventures holdings for proceeds of $155 million, which was completed in January 2025. Turning to slide five, I would like to provide more context on the tight labor market in Greece. It is part of an unfolding broader and well-documented workforce challenge in Greece, particularly in the skilled trades and technical roles, resulting in a large increase in infrastructure investments. Fortunately, the tightness is particularly pronounced in construction, as the demand for skilled trades outpaces supply more than in other sectors.
Throughout our recruitment processes, we have continued to prioritize hiring qualified talent from local communities. We are proud that 99% of our global workforce are nationals of the country they work in. However, with the growing demand for construction workers in Greece due to large-scale infrastructure projects, the labor market has tightened, starting in Athens and expanding across the country. While we remain committed to exploring every possible in-country hiring avenue and supporting the communities around the project, we are extending our search beyond Greece to meet our workforce needs while we construct Skouries. During construction, we are focused on upskilling and providing training programs to prepare for operations, beginning with the open pit mining this year. We expect the vast majority of our workforce to come from the local area.
Before moving on to discuss guidance, I also think it's important to remind the market the impact that Skouries is expected to have on Eldorado once in commercial production. The Skouries Copper -Gold Project continues to be a transformational opportunity for Eldorado and is expected to produce annually an average of 140,000 ounces of gold and 67 million pounds of copper over its initial 20-year mine life. Skouries is a long-life asset, a high-quality asset, and we expect it to change Eldorado and generate significant cash flow. I will now turn the call over to Simon to go through our 2025 production and cost guidance and three-year outlook.
Thanks, George. Turning to our 2025 guidance and three-year outlook, the change to our production timing on Skouries impacts our overall guidance this year, and we wanted to provide a company-wide perspective with today's update to the market. Slide six provides the consolidated guidance for 2025 and our three-year production growth profile. Over the next three years, we anticipate increasing our production by approximately 33% from 2024, maintaining our prior guidance growth rate of approximately 43% from 2023 to 2027. This growth is driven by the solid foundation of our existing operations and the addition of Skouries, which will be transformational for our company. On slide seven, we have provided the mine-by-mine detailed production guidance for 2025. In 2025, we expect gold production to be between 460,000 and 500,000 ounces. This reflects the reschedule of first production at Skouries to 2026.
At Kisladag, expected production has been impacted by longer-than-planned leach cycles, coarser HPGR center product, and lower grade stacked as a result of minor pit resizing. At Olympias, production guidance has been impacted by the delay in the 650,000-ton-per-annum mill expansion commissioning in early 2026. Total cash costs are expected to be between $980-$1,080 per ounce sold, while sustaining costs are expected to be between $1,370-$1,470 per ounce sold. The expected 2025 costs are driven by forecasts that higher labor costs driven by inflation, particularly in Turkey, as well as lower production, increased sustaining capital, and higher royalty expense, partially offset by higher byproduct credits. Sustaining capital at our operations is expected to be between $145-$170 million. Sustaining capital includes underground mine development, resource conversion drilling, waste stripping, processing improvements, equipment overhauls, and end-of-cycle equipment replacements.
Growth capital at our operating mines is expected to be between $245 million and $270 million, driven by development and infrastructure to access the Ormaque deposit at the Lamaque complex, construction of the North Basin water management structure, and paste plant backfill for the Triangle and Ormaque underground mines. At Kisladag, we are advancing waste stripping and phase expansion of the North Heap Leach pad, along with engineering studies for plant optimization. At Efemçukuru, we are progressing the development and infrastructure for the expansion of the Kokarpinar vein system, including portal construction, along with development of the Bati vein system. At Olympias, capital is primarily focused around the mill and flotation expansion to support the ramp-up to 650,000 tons per annum in the processing facility, along with mine development costs.
At Skouries, the project construction is expected to be $400 million-$450 million, and our accelerated operational capital spent in 2025 is expected to be between $80 million and $100 million. Investing in our current operating mines is a strategic decision that continues to strengthen our foundation for long-term success and consistent value creation. Our focus on optimizing our existing assets and enhancing their operational efficiency is expected to maximize the productivity over the next decade. I will now turn it back to George for concluding remarks.
To conclude, Skouries remains a compelling project, providing long-term growth with an initial 20-year mine life and production averaging 140,000 ounces of gold and 67 million pounds of copper. We remain confident in Skouries' long-term value for shareholders and to be a significant contributor to the Greek economy and local communities, with hundreds of jobs and significant social investments for the people of Aristotle Municipality. We expect to grow our margins and generate free cash flow in 2025 from our operating assets. Combined with our strong balance sheet, this leaves us well-positioned to continue executing on our growth strategy. Thank you for your time. I will now turn it over to the operator for questions from our analysts.
Thank you. We'll now begin the question-and-answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. You'll hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before dialing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Our first question is from Cosmos Chiu with CIBC. Please go ahead.
Thanks, George and team. Maybe my first question is on the CapEx increase. As you mentioned, the CapEx overall increased by 15.5%. That's pre-production CapEx. Is there any kind of read-through into operating costs, life of mine? If you're seeing inflation now, how should we look at operating costs on a go-forward basis? And on that, how can we use the technical report, or how can we update the cost from the numbers that were put out from the technical report back in 2022 for OpEx?
Hi, Cosmos. Thanks for that question. Yeah, I mean, the way I would guide you is just to take a look at the inflation you've seen in our operating costs year over year across Eldorado's assets and probably across the industry. If you look at inflation in Greece, it's been a bit lower than most jurisdictions, and it's been one of the stronger economies in the EU. So you can just apply, I'd say, industry average inflationary costs to our technical study.
Okay. And then, George, as a follow-up, I guess my question is, is the increase in CapEx 15.5%, or is it more than that, given that now there's additional $154 million that you call accelerated operational capital? My question is, is it the $154 million? Is it CapEx that would have been spent later on anyways that has been pulled forward? Or it doesn't seem that way because in table one, I think you compared it, total CapEx, it went from $920 million to $1.217 billion. So I'm just wondering, what's the actual increase here? Was some of it being pulled forward, or just if you can help me understand the different components of that number?
Sure. So we tried to break it into two components. So the $143 million increase in capital is really what it's taking to get the plant, the mine ready to move into commercial production. So that's where the 15.5% comes from. Now, on the accelerated mining costs, it's really about the open pit. So in the feasibility study and in the original capital estimate, we assume contract mining, and that's what we've been doing. We have a contractor on site that's essentially stripping waste materials to construct infrastructure. And this is a Greek contractor using the Cat 745, 45-ton trucks that we're using to haul waste rock down to the dam, as well as 20-ton trucks that's part of their fleet and their rental fleet. So it's the right fleet to be putting in the infrastructure, so the large ponds and the dam, building the roads.
As we move into operations, that fleet's too small. It's higher cost per ton. We always intended to move to a larger fleet and most likely an owner-operated fleet. We've essentially moved that decision forward. We're purchasing Caterpillar 777 trucks, a track shovel, a couple of front-end loaders, and the support and auxiliary equipment to support that fleet. That'll be ramped up this year. We'll be using that fleet to do some of the waste stripping, to implement the new four-phase pit design that we've come up with. That really sets us up in a really good position to hit the ground running post-commercial production with lower operating costs coming out of a larger, more productive fleet. We call that accelerated mining cost.
What's in that is the fleet itself and the maintenance and operation costs to run that fleet this year as it ramps up, and then labor training and G&A to support all that. So again, we've moved that forward from what was originally anticipated, and this was part of our bottom-up optimization.
Great. And then maybe one last question, George. I noticed that your workforce went from 1,050 at the end of 2024 to 1,150 at the end of January, which is, I have to say, seems to me a fairly good increase. But as you mentioned, it seems like the Greek labor force, the biggest shortages are in skilled trades and technical trades or technical roles. So maybe if you can, number one, comment on, was that a good increase from 1,050 to 1,150 in just one month? Who made up that additional 100 in headcount? What kind of positions? And then could you talk about what you still need in the remaining sort of 150? Is it more the technical roles that are harder to fill? If you can comment on that, that would be great.
Sure. So yeah, we had pretty good progress in January, but again, it was disappointing that we didn't get the people we required during the fourth quarter to keep the schedule and the budget intact. So yeah, a good kick in January. I'd say the result from that was efforts that we began in the fourth quarter are now paying off. Looking forward, we have some additional contractors coming to site over the coming months. An example, the critical path on the project remains the dry stack filter facility. We've advanced on the concrete. We're expecting to, well, we have the contractor that's going to set the building and set the mechanical equipment in place on site, cranes erected, and we'll be advancing on that work soon. So that, again, is going to bring additional workers on site.
We have confidence in that contractor's ability to start that up fairly soon. As well, there's some earthwork contract work that's going to be ramping up over the next couple of months on diversion channels. So we've got confidence of getting to 1,300, but I'd swing back to this project will evolve. As we get this concrete work completed, then we move into mechanical. As the mechanical gets completed, then it's electrical and instrumentation. So it'll be a full blitz all year long to ensure we get the right trades at the right moment to continue to keep this on the new schedule.
Great. Thanks, George and team, and thanks for answering all my questions. That's all I have.
Thanks, Cosmos.
The next question is from Michael Siperco with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for taking my question. I guess piggybacking on the last question there, could you maybe provide a little bit more context? When you talk about needing to maintain the workforce at 1,300 during peak construction, does that mean for all of 2025 or more of a specific period? And would that be the same 1,300, or is there consistent turnover as contractors come in and out as construction moves from one phase to another?
Thanks, Michael, for the question. Yeah, essentially, we need to maintain around 1,300 people throughout this year, and then next year, as we move into commissioning and startup in the first quarter, you'll see a ramp down, a pretty steep ramp down in personnel on site, and then regarding the mix, yeah, I mean, it's going to evolve. I mean, right now, we have mechanical, electrical people in the main concentrator because that work was advanced in the first phase of construction, but again, when you look at the thickeners, the filter plant, the primary crusher, that work has been in concrete phase, and we're behind on that work. So as that work gets completed over the coming months, then we'll be bringing in other trades work, so mechanical, pipe fitters, electrical, and instrumentation.
Yeah, this 1,300 number needs to be maintained roughly throughout this year, and the different skills are going to transition as certain work gets completed. Right now, heavy focus on the concrete to get, again, primary crusher, thickeners, conveyors, and the dry stack filter facility ready for mechanical installation.
Maybe just a follow-up on that. Are you thinking about, or how can you mitigate the risk that we end up in late Q3, Q4, and a particular contractor or a particular trade or skill isn't available? Are you able to secure that ahead of time? Are you looking more outside of Greece for stuff that might be particularly sensitive in terms of timing?
So I'd say a couple of things here. One, we're getting good cooperation with our contractors. And when we find an ability to sub some of the work out because a different contractor may have the skills we need at a given moment, we're having good cooperation, and we've been doing some of that. Second, we've done a lot of recruiting in the local communities. This originally was slated towards getting ready to hire our operating team and get that team trained and ready to go. And we've made, I'd say, really good progress in that front. But we've also identified some construction workers and fed those into our contractors. They're themselves looking throughout Greece for people, construction workers. And they and ourselves are also looking outside of Greece. So we're looking anywhere we can find the required skill sets. Our primary desire is local, then within Greece.
If we have a shortfall, we'll be seeking approval to bring people in outside of Greece.
Okay. Thanks. And maybe one more, and I'll pass it on. I think one of the other questions was, what's the read-through into operating costs going forward? But maybe a little bit more specifically at Skouries, you mentioned the ramp down in 2026 once you're in commercial production. Could you quantify that, and could you comment on whether or not the shortages you're seeing now could also stress operations, or is it more construction-specific, installation-specific that you're really seeing the tightness?
Yeah, it's really in the construction phase. Right now, we have a European contractor doing the development and setting up the underground for the test stoping. And they are training the future Greek workforce. We're in good shape there. On the open pit, we've got a Greek contractor that is doing stripping and a heavy focus on getting the infrastructure installed: low-grade stockpile, the tailings dam, rock dam, roads, and the large ponds that are being constructed to be able to manage peak stormwater events. Again, they've got the workforce they need. We've been doing the recruiting for our open pit operating team that'll be largely a local workforce. And in this area, we have the number of trained employees we need to get it up and running. And we have a training program that will train truck drivers and other support equipment.
So I'm not really worried at all about our ability to get the operating piece ready. On the plant, obviously, with the six-month delay in commercial production, it slowed down the hiring process for the concentrator. But again, we've got all the skill sets we need. We'll train that workforce. And really, no concerns on that. It really is the skilled trades that we need to construct this that's been the pressure point. And we're throwing everything we can at it to ensure we can stick to this new schedule.
Great. Thanks very much. I'll pass it on.
Thanks, Michael.
The next question is from Tanya Jakusconek with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
Great. Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for doing this call. Really appreciate it. I just wanted to circle back, George, if I could, just so I understand that there's $150 million more of accelerated capital. The first question I have on that, was that originally in your technical report that you published? Was that $154 million already embedded in there?
It was in the sense we had mining costs in that technical study that included capitalization, whether it was the contractor at a higher unit rate or whether it was us purchasing the fleet and operating ourselves wasn't fully defined in the feasibility, but the costs were in there either way.
Okay, so they were in there in either OpEx or CapEx. Somewhere, you had embedded this $154 million. And was that over life of mine, or was that in the earlier years? Because I'm just trying to understand from where you're pulling it from.
Yeah, the open pit is roughly a 10-year mine life. The fleet that we're purchasing or the costs that were embedded in the feasibility study was kind of a life-of-mine open pit fleet. What we did have in the feasibility study was the center-articulated 45-ton Cat trucks that were purchased last year, and the contractor's been using the haul waste down into the bottom of the dam. That was contemplated. A trade-off study was going to be completed to determine whether we contract or self-performed, and we've essentially accelerated that to this year. It's clear to us we can mine that open pit cheaper than contractor capacity in country.
Okay. So if I was to think about it, that 154 million could have been over 10 years at 15 million a year. I could think about it as that being all into 154 million now.
Correct.
Okay. That's helpful. Thank you for that. And then I just want to come back to just this workforce. So good job on getting these additional people and getting to 1,300. And then, obviously, as you go into commercial production, you start to see a decline of these people. So I'm just trying to understand. You're also, at the same time, going to be moving from contract mining to your own in-house mining. Can you just remind me where that is going to occur? Is that occurring in 2026 that you leave the contractor and go to self-mining, or when does that happen exactly? And I'm trying to understand that just from a perspective of the training and ultimately how many people you need for your own mining from your own self-employed within that workforce. That's obviously not 1,300.
It'll be another number, but what is it that you need of your own self-employed?
Yeah. So I'll pick that off and maybe have Louw jump in and provide some additional details. We're beginning that transition this year. We've already been recruiting. We've got employees identified that'll be part of our mine operating team. As equipment arrives, we'll be putting them into the field and taking over some of the work. If you can imagine, our track shovel will be lower-cost loading material out of the open pit. That'll be the first piece. As our triple seven trucks arrive, we can haul it cheaper than the contractor. We'll be doing the work kind of up around the pit at a lower cost. The contractor will then be doing the more detailed work down on constructing the dam with the smaller fleet.
It's a transition this year from completely contract mining to a blended self-perform contract mining. Then as the dam gets completed next year, we're in a position where we could do that work post-commercial production ourselves. Then, Louw, maybe you can provide some details just on the size of the workforce for the open pit.
Would it be safe to assume you've got a blended rate? So you're starting now for blended sort of contractor and self-mining this year. And when do you really see yourself going to 100% self-mining in 2026?
So we're all just going to be ramping up as we get our fleet fully embedded during this year. And we'll move as much of the material as we can out of the pit, stockpiling low-grade when the stockpile is ready, hauling waste partway towards the dam where then the contractor can bring it in for the more detailed fill and compaction required. So I mean, that's the transition that will happen this year. Next year, we'll continue to do the open pit waste mining and ore development for commissioning and startup. And the contractor will be doing the final work on the infrastructure, so the ponds and the dam itself. That's in 2026.
Yeah. So just in terms of headcount, we will ramp up to about 150 at full capacity in 2026, which will include the operators of the big fleet that was described and also self-performing the maintenance on that big fleet. So we'll build a workforce of about 150 people early in 2026.
150 self-employed people, Eldorado-employed people.
That's correct. Yes.
Can I ask then, George, how did you risk adjust your changeover for 2026 as you put out your 2026 guidance that you wanted to maintain the same production that you had in the original study? Yet you're going, you're starting up in Q1 and going sort of commercial there mid-year, that you still keep the same production level. I understand bigger machinery. I understand all that. I'm just trying to understand how you've risk-adjusted for productivity and just smoothness of getting all of this workforce to work and be productive. I'm trying to understand just how you risk-adjusted it for us.
Yeah. I mean, what I would describe, we don't see significant risk in the transformation to self-perform mining. It's a small fleet of triple seven trucks, a shovel, and support and auxiliary equipment. And we do have experienced people locally in the region that have been identified that'll be part of that operating team. And then we're using, I'd say, global experts to help with the training. We've got all the new technology to test people's skills, then get them into the training modules, and then into the field with an experienced operator and these global expert trainers. And then over a couple of months, you can train somebody from driving a pickup truck to being a proficient haul truck driver in a matter of two months. So we've done this in other mines. I'm really not worried about this at all. We've got the people. We've got good equipment.
We'll have the support of Caterpillar. There's not a lot of risk in this, and in fact, I'd say it de-risks us for the long term in that we've got our own fleet. We're in control of our costs, and we're set up for post-commercial production in a stronger way. Now, maybe just optimization of the production. As Simon said, we've moved from a two-phase pit design to a four-phase. Really, that gives us more flexibility on getting into fresh rock, better-grade ore, more flexibility on blending out of four phases, so I think all that, we're in a better position on the open pit from this decision, and again, it's just a matter of accelerating that conversion from contractor to self-perform a bit earlier than we may have done otherwise.
So if we were to put any risk, George, you would put it in 2025 in terms of this 1,300, maintaining the 1,300 workforce with the appropriate skill set as we get through construction. Would that be fair?
That's exactly right. That is our huge focus.
Thank you so much for taking my questions. I really appreciate it.
Thanks, Tanya.
The next question is from Mike Parkin with National Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. That's beating a dead horse in the labor. But can you just remind us where your baseline assumptions are in terms of your staffing of Skouries with respect to shifts? Is this all budgeted around eight-hour shift work crews or 12 hours?
Eight-hour. I mean, during the construction, our contractor's working a two-shift on the stripping. But as we move into self-perform mining, we'll be working eight-hour shifts, three a day.
Okay. And can you remind me again in terms of staffing at Olympias, is there still plans to transition some of that workforce over to Skouries, or is the staffing situation at Olympias steady state and staffing of Skouries will be completely new hire?
So for the concentrator, we do have and have already identified people that'll be part of the commissioning of the Skouries plant. We've got a commissioning team of kind of international experts and supplementing that with locals, some of which are coming out of the Olympias concentrator. The Skouries concentrator is pretty simple. It's a copper-gold con, one concentrate. Olympias is fairly complex. We produce three different concentrates in that concentrator. So we've got some good expertise in the hourly ranks and the salaried ranks. We've already moved people onto the Skouries team, and I think that sets up the concentrator in a good way. And then, as I said, beyond that, we're going to have to hire, obviously, additional operators. We've done the recruiting. We've got the resumes, the training facilities up and running, the training materials are ready.
So it's going to be a bit delayed just due to the six-month delay in the project, but we're in a good position to get that workforce in place and to bring that concentrator up smoothly and on schedule.
Okay. And can you remind me on the feasibility study, does that assume 12-hour shift work crews or eight hours?
I'm not sure. To be honest, I'd have to look. We'll get back to you on that.
Okay, and then just on your comments around the availability of skilled trades being tight, you're comfortable with going with self-employed maintenance crews for your heavy mobile equipment versus a contract maintenance program, initially, at least?
Well, I mean, that's also going to be a transition. So there is a Caterpillar local dealer. We've got Caterpillar's international and European support. So it's going to be a combination of all that as we start up. But our intention is to largely train the workforce that'll do the PMs and kind of normal maintenance on site. And then when we get into heavier rebuilds or more technical issues, we'll still rely on Caterpillar's capability.
Okay. That's it for me, guys. Thanks so much.
Thanks, Mike.
The next question is from Carey MacRury with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Maybe we could just switch to talking about the schedule a bit if you can give us some more granularity. I recall that the critical path items were the filter plants and the tailings facility. Is that still the case, or have those critical path items moved?
Still, the dry stack filter facility is the critical path item, but as a result of the concrete's slower progress, some of the other facilities have moved closer to critical path. The primary crusher is one of them that's not on critical path, but we've got a heavy focus to make sure it doesn't get on critical path. Concrete's a piece of that. The dam itself, with the six-month delay, our schedule has us completing the bulk of the earthworks before winter next year. That's our objective. We've got some wiggle room if there was any slippage to get that completed, say, in the fourth quarter. Yeah, I mean, the focus is to get this concrete work done so we can get into the buildings and mechanical equipment setting. That's our focus.
Okay. And what about work in the plant itself and then maybe just how underground development's going? Are those unaffected so far?
Yeah. In the plant itself, I mean, the concentrate filters is nearly completed, close to being ready for pre-commissioning. I think we said in the past, we've relined all of the flotation cells. That was something identified between the first phase and second phase. We're setting blowers and the flotation equipment itself. So there's crews in there doing it. And we've begun to put in the electrical piping soon to begin in the concentrator. So the concentrator's advancing in the main building itself. We're not waiting on concrete, but there are auxiliary facilities outside of that concentrator like the substation for the concentrator, the control room, reagent storage. Concrete work's happening there. It's beginning to transition into electrical and mechanical, but not on critical path. It's really the dry stack tailings facility and behind that, the primary crusher, and then some of these auxiliary support facilities for the concentrator.
From a regulatory standpoint, do you have any restrictions on bringing in workers elsewhere in the EU, or is it you're pretty open to do what you need to do?
Within the EU, it's a pretty simple process, and it's a matter of finding them, not an issue of getting them approved to work in the country. Going outside of the EU is a little bit more complex, so if we have to resort to that to maintain our roughly 1,300 people, there is a process you have to go through, and it's a bit more complex. It takes up to a couple of months, so we're looking at that as a backstop.
Okay. Maybe just one last one for me. I'm just switching to Kisladag. Where are you with the recoveries there? And I guess you mentioned that there's an engineering study underway. So just incrementally, what are you looking to do at Kisladag?
Thanks, Carey. It's Simon. The plan for Kisladag in that study is sort of twofold. We've talked about a geometallurgical study where we're profiling phase five and six and seven material so that we have a good line of sight on variability into the future. That coupled with, based on our work through the course of 2024, there's pretty strong evidence that Whole ore agglomeration and a couple of modifications around the HPGR to screen all of the coarse products so we have 100% of the product coming out of the HPGR screen so that we get it all to the right particle size of the two big levers that the study is looking to drill into and resolve.
Okay. That's great. Thanks, George and Simon. Yeah. Go ahead.
Okay. I was just going to supplement Simon's comments there. So those are opportunities. As we had stated, the leach cycle at Kisladag has been extended. We're putting a bit more capital and bringing a liner forward to maintain our ability to get the recoveries. But we're hopeful that this study will be positive, that we can shorten that leach cycle, and that maybe there's some debottlenecking that could come out of the study. So stay tuned. That should be completed next summer or this summer, sorry.
Great. Thanks, guys.
The next question is from Mike Parkin with National Bank. Please go ahead.
Sorry, one follow-up on Kisladag. You've been doing some kind of extra work there, ripping of the pad or ripping of the ore on the pad, site-specific kind of injection aeration. Is that going to continue through this permanently, or is that short-term in nature? What is the guidance assuming with respect to that?
Thanks, Mike. Simon again. Those two techniques that you referred to were developed through 2024 as a way to look at accelerating inventory drawdown. And so we will continue to use those while we're still focused on delivering that inventory drawdown into production. Long-term, as we sort of just alluded to, whole ore agglomeration and other aspects should eliminate the need for that. But in between now and when we have that in place, we use this as a technique probably in the short term for when we have poor permeability in the pad so that we can address it immediately and not get behind. Beyond that, we have instigated a sub-cell technique where we put collection pipes every 10 meters. And that's actually accelerating the delivery of the loaded solution to the adsorption circuit. And we saw some really good and strong results through Q4 with that in place.
We're pretty confident with our plan and guidance going forward this year.
I, excuse me, ask a follow-up to that. Is that program expected to kind of be long-lasting or a temporary boost to recoveries? As you kind of mentioned, drawing down in-pad to inventory. How should we kind of think about that? Should the profile production this year be more front-half weighted, benefiting from that program, which might be diminishing as the year goes on?
The inventory drawdown will take. It's a multi-year program to get the inventory drawdown to, I think, what we would like it to be at low levels. The ripping procedure is available to us as a tool when needed, as are some of the other techniques. I wouldn't say that they're planned for the long term.
Okay. Thank you.
It might be useful just to look at the context of the leach cycle, so it was a 220-day leach cycle. With this inventory being caught up, we now think it's more like 300, and that's why we need more liner space. That's why we think the recoveries really are going to be okay ultimately, but it's slower to get that gold out. These techniques are helping try to pull it quicker than 300 days, and it's fairly effective, but to Simon's point, we'll deploy this as long as needed till we get that inventory down to what we call normal, and we're hopeful the studies will help us justify a couple more agglomeration drums that will make life a lot easier for the operating team to have a well-agglomerated or good permeability and a shorter leach cycle.
Okay. Thanks very much, guys.
Once again, if you have a question, please press star, then one. Our next question is from Lawson Winder with Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Operator. And hi, George and team. Thank you for doing this call today. It's very helpful. I wanted to actually ask about Lamaque. So if I just look at the total cash cost there, it's about an 11%-12% increase. It would be a little helpful just when we think about modeling. You could break down the components of that between the grade, and then you highlighted the higher mining costs as a result of being deeper in the Triangle Zone and labor. And then just on labor, what type of labor is in particular driving that? Or is it just general labor inflation? And what rate are you assuming in that guidance for 2025? Thank you.
On the labor front, I think, as you're probably aware, the Val-d'Or region, there's a lot of activity happening there with new mines growth. There's just pressure on labor rates impacting us. In addition, as well as you stated, the mine's getting deeper, so we're hauling it further. We're also transitioning for the future. Extra development to set up Ormaque, but that moved into reserves this year. About a third of the cost increase is driven by labor, driven by just the market in the region.
Okay. Great. And then just on Lamaque and Ormaque and the exploration plans for 2025, what can we expect in terms of updates through 2025 on regional exploration, if any at all?
I guess first, I'd just speak to our heavy focus right now is Lower Triangle and lower Ormaque. We had a really good year-end bringing our Ormaque into reserves. We're focused on Lower Triangle now and lower Ormaque. So a considerable part of our budget's focused on further conversion. And that update would happen late in the year. On the regional front, our focus has been fairly heavily this year between the historic Lamaque Mine and Ormaque. So the veins that were mined in historic Lamaque Mine trend outside of that historical mining towards Ormaque. And so we've been doing some focused drilling in that region. And depending on results, we'll update the market on that area. Broader regional, it's been really more target-focused and not a lot of drilling's happening on that as we're focused really on the near term.
Okay. Thanks very much. If I could ask one other question, I mean, there's been a number of headlines about seismic activity in Santorini. Obviously, you guys are very, very far from Santorini and those islands, but are you detecting any seismic activity as a result of that? The only reason I'm asking is because it seems like there's been many isolated events that seem to be continuing. Just wanted to check that box that there aren't any issues to Skouries from that.
Yeah. No issues at Skouries or Olympias. And I just say that whole region of Europe is a seismically active area. And so these are fairly common events, but no impact at either of our operations.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
That's all the time we have for questions today. This concludes the question-and-answer session and today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.