Greetings, welcome to the Fortuna Silver Mines' Q1 2023 Financial and Operational Results Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode, and a question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Carlos Baca, Director of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.
Thank you, Ali. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to welcome you to the Fortuna Silver Mines Q1 2023 Financial and Operational Results Conference Call. Hosting the call today on behalf of Fortuna will be Jorge Alberto Ganoza, President and Chief Executive Officer, Luis Dario Ganoza, Chief Financial Officer, Cesar Velasco, Chief Operating Officer, Latin America, David Whittle, Chief Operating Officer, West Africa, and Paul Weedon, Senior Vice President, Exploration. Today's earnings call presentation will be available on our website, fortunasilvermines.com. As a reminder, statements made during this call are subject to the readers' advisories included in yesterday's news release and in the earnings call presentation. Financial figures contained in the presentation and discussed in today's call are presented in US dollars unless otherwise stated.
Before I turn over the call to Jorge, I would like to indicate that this earnings call contains forward-looking information that is based on the company's current expectations, estimates, and beliefs. This forward-looking information is subject to a number of risks, uncertainties, and other factors. Actual results could differ materially from a conclusion, forecast, or projection in the forward-looking information. Certain material factors or assumptions were applied in drawing a conclusion or making a forecast or projection as reflected in the forward-looking information. Additional information about the material factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the conclusion, forecast, or projection in the forward-looking information and the material factors or assumptions that were applied in drawing a conclusion or making a forecast or projection as reflected in the forward-looking information is contained in the company's annual information form and MD&A, which are publicly available on SEDAR.
The company assumes no obligation to update such forward-looking information in the future, except as required by law. I would now like to turn the call over to Jorge Alberto Ganoza, President, Chief Executive Officer, and Co-founder of Fortuna.
Thank you, Carlos. Good morning to all. Our business performed well during the Q1. We recorded net income of $0.04 per share, achieved production of 94,110 gold equivalent ounces, on track to meet annual guidance. Our costs were all in line with our guidance projections for the period. The sustained worldwide inflation and corresponding cost creep that we all experienced over the past couple of years has been compressing business margins across the precious metals mining industry. This despite initiatives to optimize our operations and streamline the business. Gold and silver prices did not provide any significant relief on margins as of Q1 2023. Going into the Q2, metal prices and margins for the business are looking much stronger.
Our average realized gold price for Q1 was $1,893, which is essentially flat against what we realized in the comparable quarter for 2022, and only 7% higher against the realized price two years ago in Q1, 2021. For silver, the story is even a bit more difficult. For 2023, we realized for this Q1, we realized $22.52, which is 14% lower against the $26.20 we realized in Q1, 2021. Over the last years, over the last year, quarter against comparable quarter or consolidated cash cost per ounce went from $772 per ounce to $923 per ounce, up 20%.
Despite all this, our EBITDA came in at a healthy $65 million, and the business generated net cash from operating activities of $41.8 million. After meeting all our sustaining capital demands, funding corporate expenses, and paying $12.9 million in taxes, the business generated free cash flow of $8.7 million. Luis will expand on our management discussion of financial results later in this presentation. Subsequent to the end of the quarter, we have had a few relevant events of importance that I wanna mention. During April at the San Jose Mine in Mexico, we had to contend with a 15-day stoppage derived from a union claim demanding increase in profit sharing beyond what's stipulated by law. This dispute has been resolved, and operations resumed.
In early May as well, the Mexican government approved the new mining reform, which we view as negative for investment in the country, unfortunately. For starters, mineral exploration in open ground becomes an activity reserved for the government. Existing mineral concessions and mine operations will be subject to many questionable articles in the law, which provide for higher costs and uncertainties to investment. We expect there will be many constitutional appeals filed with the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation against the new law coming from mining companies and other interest groups. Another item to be aware of is our first gold pour at the newly built Séguéla mine, which is imminent, and we expect the pour in this second half of May.
On May eighth, we announced we reached an agreement with Chesser Resources to acquire 100% of the company for an all-share consideration, representing approximately 5.1% of the pro forma Fortuna. We expect this transaction to close in late August. Chesser is of great strategic fit to Fortuna. Geographically, the Chesser properties are located in Senegal, a near neighboring country to our existing operations in Côte d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso. A mining-friendly jurisdiction, Senegal. A place where we can leverage our West African management infrastructure and expertise. The Diamba Sud project is a high-value advanced exploration opportunity with multiple targets still to be drill tested. Located in the heart of the Senegal Mali Shear Zone, within a few kilometers of tier one mines in the portfolio of gold majors.
The preliminary economic assessment carried by Chesser on Diamba Sud outline a conventional open pit and CIL process that even with a sub-million ounce gold resource as it stands today, can deliver robust internal rates of return above our minimum investment threshold. Paul Weedon, our Senior Vice President of Exploration, is with us. Paul, can you please share our views on the exploration opportunities that Chesser presents to us?
Certainly. Thank you, Jorge. As Jorge said, Chesser represents the next step for our West African growth, and it follows the Séguéla development. This is a project we've also been tracking for a few years now and watching it grow over time. Just a quick summary. As Jorge said, it's located in Senegal. It's actually located in the southeast corner of Senegal, about 680 km from Dakar. Easy to access. It's a well-serviced, major regional road that runs down through that way. It's a highway. Low security risk. It's a mining-friendly jurisdiction. We've got several tier one scale mines within 50 km of the project. Chesser's highlighted a just a scoping stage, highlighted a technically simple open pit mining concept across several pits with a conventional 2 million ton per annum operation.
We would see that as something we'd continue to pursue. We would also anticipate this being a project that we would follow very closely behind the Séguéla development path. Given that when we acquired that 4 years ago, we had an inferred resource of 20,000 ounces, today we're about to vent 4 gold. I'd anticipate we'd see a similar growth for Diamba Sud. Just moving across to the geology side of it, like why do we really like it? It's located in a really highly prospective Guinea of the Kédougou inlier, which is a world-class mining district host to several large tier one operations. The Diamba Sud project itself is located on a series of splay across the main Senegal Mali Shear Zone, which is host to the majority of those large deposits.
I really like the structurally complex nature of the deposit that's there. It highlights regional prospectivity. Also you see there's a lot of similarities to the nearby Fekola and Gounkoto and Yalea operations of B2Gold and Barrick. They're all within, well, the closest to those is 12 kilometers away. So far the Chesser folks have identified four shallow gold deposits with a very well-developed oxide supergene signature to them. And we'd certainly see that evolving further with further exploration work that we'll be looking to carry out, later on this year, we'll resume that work. At the moment though it's a very attractive exploration play for us. They've got the resources.
They've currently got 625,000 ounces of indications at 1.9 grams and a further 235,000 ounces of inferred at 1.5 grams. We see those growing over time as well as the work we've got to do at the, as Chesser's announced. The recent work at Kassako, there's been certainly some decent rise intervals reported there. At Gamba Gamba Nord and at the Western Splay. These are all drill-ready targets with some preliminary work done to date. In addition to those, there's several new additional targets that we've identified using their datasets, and that's really one of the highlights for us. There's a portfolio here of new targets available for us to walk up and test. There's also the potential there for a wider regional consolidation.
We see a lot of encouragement there. Barrick immediately adjacent to us is Kenieba West. We share a lease boundary with them. They've got a project there which is looking quite interesting. To the immediate west, we also have Afric Gold's Karakaya project, which is also again highlighting the potential that we see through that area. You know, in short, what we see here is an advanced exploration play that we could see moving through the phases to feasibility in a fairly short order of time on which we've got a high potential for growth. Very simple geology in the sense that we know what's there. It's got a nice degree of structural complexity, which adds a bit more excitement to the process.
It's a project which we think we can carry through fairly quickly and looking forward to getting onto the ground later on this year. Thank you, Jorge.
Thank you, Paul. We'll move now to get an update from our operations from our chief operating officer. David, do you wanna get going?
Thanks, Jorge. Operations in West Africa continued the solid performance during Q1 2023, with Yaramoko delivering gold production of 26,437 ounces. This was ahead of the mine plan, the additional production contributing to Yaramoko's all-in sustaining costs and cash costs of $1,509 per ounce and $819 per ounce respectively. Both ahead of the lower end of annual guidance. Séguéla's construction remains on time and on budget, with the first gold ore projected for this month. Safety performance at Yaramoko was strong, with no injuries reported. Unfortunately, at Séguéla, an exploration contractor received a finger injury which was later classified as an LTI.
In early April, a failure of the Armtec tunneling structure at the Yaramoko portal occurred, which resulted in the loss of the access to the underground mine for a period of 27 days whilst rehabilitation operations took place. Normal underground operations resumed on 1st of May, with the processing plant treating existing stockpiles throughout the rehabilitation period. Yaramoko underground grade control and brown free gold exploration programs continued with encouraging results, extending our planned mining boundaries on the western side of the ore body and increasing stope tonnage within the existing reserve boundaries. Construction progress at Séguéla continues on time and on budget, with the project being 99% complete as at the end of April. April saw a ramp-up of mining.
Processing activity as ore was delivered to the ROM pad from the Antenna Pit, which is the first deposit being mined. Delivered to the crushing and milling circuits and grade control drilling of the initial benches at Antenna with more than 12,000 meters drilled. Load clearing and construction for the Ancien Pit, the second deposit being mined, is currently taking place, with grade control drilling expected to start in late May 2023. All mining major equipment is now being mobilized to site, and Mota-Engil, the mining contractor, is now in the final stages of the construction of key infrastructure. In parallel with excellent progress on the ground, operational readiness scopes are advancing well. The mining, technical, processing, and maintenance teams have all been recruited, with Mota-Engil scheduled to recruit the remaining members of the mining team over the coming months. Back to you, Jorge.
Thank you, David. Cesar, can you give us your update on Latam operations, please?
Sure, Jorge. Thank you very much. As you mentioned before, you know, last week, our San Jose mine in Mexico resumed operations after a 15-day illegal blockade. We are now working on the production recovery plan and don't anticipate any impact on annual guidance at this stage. We're also assessing potential impacts on the additional costs related to the agreements reached with the union, as well as production targets and safety performance for the year. During the Q1, San Jose produced 1.3 million ounces of silver and 8,231 ounces of gold. These results are slightly below Q1 2022 due to lower grades than planned as a result of higher dilution in one of the sub-level stopping areas and a small delay in the mining sequence at level 800.
We anticipate mining better grade stopes in the upcoming months, though. Cash cost per ounce at San Jose has come under pressure from a stronger MXN, coupled with higher inflation and lower head grades. All-in sustaining cost for the quarter is in line with annual guidance, as lower production and higher cost of sales were offset by timing in CapEx execution. Moving down to Argentina, gold production at the Lindero mine was 25,258 ounces, aligned with the mining sequence for the quarter. Head grades are expected to improve in the upcoming mining zones as per mine plan. Mine production for the quarter was 1.6 million tons of mineralized material with a stripping ratio of 1.07 to 1, which is aligned with the operations planned for the year of 1.17 to 1.
Lindero's AISC is in line with guidance for the year. Cash cost per ounce was impacted by higher labor and one-time services costs, as well as the effect of lower grades, but partially offset by lower CapEx execution and savings in key consumables. AISC is expected to come in at the high end of guidance for the year. In Peru, despite the social unrest and numerous road blockades throughout the country in January and February, operations at the Caylloma Mine have not been significantly affected. The operation delivered strong production for the Q1, with 8%, 19%, and 10% higher production for silver, lead, and zinc respectively. The operation benefited from better head grades at levels 16 and 17, the deepest levels of the mine, and higher tons processed during the period.
Caylloma's all-in-sustaining cost for the quarter benefited from higher production, lower cash costs, and lower CapEx execution, and is on target to achieve the lower cost range of annual guidance. That covers the three Latin American operations. Jorge, back to you.
Thank you. Luis, you wanna give your report on financial results, please?
Yes. good morning. Sales were $175.6 million in the quarter, a decrease of $6.7 million or 4% compared to Q1 2021. The slight decrease was driven by 10% lower silver prices and 14% lower zinc prices. The volume effect on our sales year-over-year was neutral, as slightly lower gold and silver sales were offset by higher zinc production at our Caylloma mine. Year-over-year, our key financial metrics reflect the impact from inflation rates experienced throughout 2022, as well as lower operating margins at Yaramoko and Lindero related to scheduled decreases in head grade. These impacts resulted in cash cost per gold equivalent ounce sold of $916 for Q1 2023, which was $144 above the prior year.
As I just mentioned, this increase is a combined effect of higher input costs across our operations, more processed tonnage to produce a lower number of ounces at Yaramoko and Lindero, and the negative effect of relative prices in the calculation of gold-equivalent production of approximately $29 per ounce. Adjusted net income for the quarter was $13.2 down 20 million year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA was $65.3 down 15 million year-over-year. We have disclosed for the quarter consolidated all-in sustaining costs, including corporate expenses of $1,514 per gold equivalent ounce sold, which represents an increase of $230 per ounce year-over-year.
The increase is explained by higher cost per ounce sold described before, higher sustaining CapEx of $109, of which two-thirds is timing of payments in the prior year, with an offset from lower corporate G&A of $24 per gold equivalent ounce sold. For Q2 of 2023, we expect to see somewhat higher consolidated all-in sustaining costs due to a pickup in sustaining CapEx and a stoppage at San Jose. For Q3 and Q4 of this year, we expect to see a trend towards lower levels as Séguéla starts weighing positively on our all-in sustaining cost performance. Moving on to cash flows.
Net cash from operating activities in the quarter was $41.8 million compared to $33.2 million in Q1 of 2022, as changes in working capital and lower income taxes paid compensated for the lower EBITDA of $15 million year-over-year. Free cash flow from operations was $8.5 million compared to $9.6 million in the prior year. As Jorge emphasized, our reported free cash flow figure is after sustaining CapEx, brownfields exploration, and corporate expenses. It does exclude Séguéla construction and greenfields exploration.
Our additions to mineral properties and properties, plant, and equipment as per the cash flow statement was $61.5 million, which consisted mainly of $30 million of sustaining CapEx and brownfields exploration, $17.3 million Séguéla construction expenditures, $4.5 million of other pre-production activities at Séguéla, $3.7 million of greenfields exploration, and capitalized interest of $2.8 million. Onto the balance sheet. We closed the quarter with a liquidity position of $129.7 million, which includes $45 million undrawn under our existing credit facility as of the end of March. The remaining cash to be spent on the Séguéla construction as of the end of the quarter was approximately $23 million.
Finally, our total net debt, including the outstanding convertible debenture, is $166 million, resulting in a leverage ratio of total net debt to adjusted EBITDA of 0.7. Back to you, Jorge
Thank you. That concludes the management discussions. Carlos for the Q&A.
Thank you, Jorge. We would now like to open the call to any questions that you may have.
Thank you. At this time, we'll be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment please while we pull for questions. Thank you. We have a question from Tony Crist with Odyssey Investments. You may proceed.
Thank you. My name is Crist. Jorge, could you give any more specific indication of what you expect from the gold mine starting production this month? What you expect in the future? The other comment I have is, I imagine you gentlemen are looking forward to a very exciting future.
Thank you for the question, Crist. We already provided for 2023 our guidance estimates for Séguéla. We have guided for gold production between 60,000 and 75,000 ounces. For all-in sustaining cost, we have provided a range that goes from $880 to 1,080 per ounce. That is our more immediate estimation, based on our best assessment of where we are with the project and how the project has been evolving, which is really on time, on budget. I can only commend the good work that the entire West African team has achieved and delivered throughout the construction commissioning and now ramping up, right? We expect first gold pour in the coming days. It's imminent.
Before the end of this month, we should be having our first gold. Looking forward, as looking at the bigger picture, Séguéla is a flagship asset for the company. It has many key features. One is meaningful production. Second is low cost. It will be our lowest cost mine operation. Third, it has today a long life of reserves. Today, as we see the mine based on reserves and the conversion work we're doing on Sunbird Resources, we can easily see beyond a decade of mining based on reserves. Beyond that is tremendous exploration potential. We hold a commanding land position in the Séguéla camp. I call it a camp.
We have 30 kilometers from north to south along what's a most prospective and productive mineralized gold belt. Sometimes I am asked, "What follows after Séguéla?" My immediate response to that is more Séguéla. We have the expectation that Séguéla can be a much larger mine than what we are bringing into production today, which is already quite meaningful. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Thank you. We have another question from Adrian Day with Adrian Day Asset Management. You may proceed.
Yeah. Good afternoon. Two questions if I may. First one, do you have a sort of budget for exploration at the Diamba Sud project for the next year? The second question would be, you know, I just wondered if you had any high-level views that you can give on the geographic spread of the company. Do you look, you know, at? Are you looking at region? Are you wanting to emphasize particular regions, or are you looking purely at each mine, each opportunity as it comes along?
Thank you, Adrian. With respect to Diamba Sud budget, the transaction, the Chesser acquisition is expected to close in October, Sorry, in late August. We are currently working on our plans to for the work that will start once the transaction is consummated in August, right? That will of course encompass an exploration budget. We do not have a budget at this time, but I can advance to you that exploration will be a focus for the Diamba Sud work that's coming ahead. We also will likely be doing some engineering work. The Diamba Sud has a published preliminary economic assessment, and Cesar management was working already on a feasibility study. We although completion of the feasibility study, I wouldn't call it a priority for us right now.
Certainly, we will look at aspects of the feasibility study, looking to see opportunities for optimization and, you know, bringing our own expertise and thoughts to, to the design and conceptualization of what could be a future mine there, right? Exploration will be a priority, and we are working on those budgets and plans as we speak. We have some time because the transaction is set to close in August as I explained. With respect to the more strategic question, your second question on geographic spread for the company. That is a key aspect of Fortuna. Fortuna is a company that today has a wide geographic spread, right? We operate in five different countries, in two continents.
This is a key strategic aspect of our business and the subject of strategic discussion or has been the subject of strategic discussion. What you will see is Fortuna anchored in the two regions where we are already established. That's West Africa and the LATAM Cordillera Belt. Within these two most productive mining regions, you will see us focused, one, in the countries where we already operate, in the five countries where we operate. The five countries where we are established are mining jurisdictions. You know, Mexico, Peru, the province of Salta, which is proud of its mining heritage. Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, and now expanding into Senegal. You will see us first focus in the countries where we are already established.
As a second priority is near neighbors. What we wanna do is be able to leverage the existing infrastructure we have in our management hubs in the city of Abidjan in Côte d'Ivoire and in the city of Lima in Peru. That's where our management hubs sit for the two regions and where we have expertise that we can leverage within the region. You should not look to see Fortuna stepping out of these regions. For example, sometimes I'm asked about Africa. Africa is quite a large place and diverse. We're not looking for opportunities across Africa. We're looking for opportunities in West Africa, you know. In near neighbors, in the countries where we're already established. The same with LATAM. We're not looking at opportunities in North America or Australia or the Philippines or places like that.
No, our core areas of focus are where we are already established. We feel very comfortable there, growing our business, and we believe we can manage the geographic dispersion we have in place today.
Okay, thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is coming from Justin Stevens with PI Financial. You may proceed.
Hey, guys. Just a few questions from my side here, more sort of on the exploration and sort of upside end of things. I know there was some talk earlier this year about looking at Arizaro. Can you just maybe give us an idea on what the timeline might be for the evaluation there? The potential to potentially bring that into the mine life and what would be needed from a permit side of things?
Yes. I can advance things from the permit side of things. Arizaro is within our mining concession, and any ore that we mine there will be fed to existing infrastructure. We don't see there any significant issues with permitting. For the exploration side of things, I'll let Paul talk to Arizaro. Paul?
Thanks, Jorge. Last year, we wrapped up another phase of work around Arizaro, and we're successful in expanding the footprint of the mineralization that's there. We ran some optimization of the results, certainly very encouraging. The grades that we've got are comparable to what Lindero is. Given Lindero's long life of mine, there's not a real need at the moment to continue to advance that 'cause it doesn't displace, you know, anything that's better value. We've added Arizaro in at the end of the Lindero mine life. There's still some work to be done on the optimization of it, we've certainly got a reasonable sized resource there at the moment. We will continue to look at the structural repeats of it. It's a polyphase intrusive that's there.
We do see some evidence of a reasonably strong, reasonably coherent structural overprint that I don't think was recognized previously. Yeah, we're not really doing a lot of work at Arizaro for the next year or so.
Got it. That makes sense. Moving over to the Séguéla end of things, though. Obviously some pretty nice result coming out of Sunbird the last little while as you've been drilling up there, and good to see sort of that resource bump. Are you planning to put out another updated resource on that, or is it you're just sort of expecting that to fall into the usual annual cadence and sort of line up with the annual reserve and resource updates?
Paul?
Yeah. Thanks, Jorge. Yeah, look, we're just gonna have the Sunbird's drilling just wrapped up now. That's moved across to the ops guys to start the optimization and introduction into the life of mine, later on this year. It'll come out as part and parcel of the regular update next year.
Got it. That makes sense. Just on that, I mean, obviously, you know, it's looking like it's got a decent amount of size there. What sort of, you know, or two different ways, either one sort of potential flexibility do you have in deep hole that can plant? What do you sort of see as the main Séguéla, you know, process bottleneck, if you were to try to look at increasing the throughput?
David, do you wanna address this question on the bottlenecking of Séguéla's plant and what our plans are with respect to assessing the expansion of the mill?
Yeah. Yeah. Can answer that one, Jorge. Within the initially anticipated setup of the plant, and the to feed, DFS, it was expected that we would be able to increase the throughput of the plant, around year three to about 1.5, 1.6 million tons a year. That was ultimately based around changes with grind size, and some of other modifications through the plant. The design of the plant also has an option for the installation of a ball mill and a pebble crusher, later on in life as well to further expand the throughput. At the moment obviously, the focus will be to see where the real boundaries exist in the existing plant.
At the moment, we're just establishing operation of the plant, and we're feeding oxide ore. It's a little bit early to be able to go through that process. By a little bit later on this year, we should be starting to feed fresh ore, and we should be able to start looking at where some of the bottlenecks lie and be able to work on removing those bottlenecks. I think Séguéla over the following years is gonna be a very dynamic environment. With the Sunbird deposit coming into the mine plan and some other good exploration opportunities, I think the mine plan is gonna be very dynamic over the next few years.
There's gonna be probably a lot of engineering work to really determine where the production from Séguéla sits and whether the constricting factor will really be plant throughput or the mine. I think both will be pushing each other along for a good couple of years later.
Great. That's what we wanna hear. That's it for me, though. Thanks.
Thank you. Our next question is coming from Jasper White with Valpes. Sir, you may proceed.
Thank you, operator. Most of my questions have already been answered. I have one question on your recent acquisition of Chesser Resources. You will be focusing on the, on exploration and finding more ounces, and more satellite pits at Diamba Sud. Do you have any sort of target in amount of ounces that you would be able to settle for before moving into development and devising a feasibility study on Diamba Sud? Thank you.
Thank you. That's a good question, Jasper. We have a threshold and a view that the Diamba Sud, with the work that, you know, Paul has outlined, has a fair chance to go beyond 1 million ounces. That's with the work in the immediate area of deposits that have been discovered and drilled and also with some of the other initiatives outlined by Paul. Our view is that it can certainly get beyond 1 million ounces. Now, how big? Well, the drill bit will tell us, right? Beyond 1 million ounces is a, we believe a reasonable expectation based on the information and our understanding to date. You know, we have certain criteria.
We wanna see, you know, a life of reserves that support a mine for over a decade. We would like to see in our mine portfolio, all of the assets at 10 years plus in reserves. We would like to see production that for a company of our size, annual production from each asset, you know, nor in the range of 150,000, 120,000 ounces annually, right? With respect to physical metrics, that is what we would like to see in every asset. Then of course, we have our financial thresholds with respect to our expectations on internal rates of return and things like that.
More on the physical side of metrics, 10 years of reserves minimum and meaningful production at competitive costs, of course, right? With the grades that we have at Diamba Sud, you know, over 1.5 grams, you know, we believe we can achieve low cost grounds and it's conventional mining, conventional processing. We just need to focus on the exploration and get it beyond that mount, which is the 1 million ounces, right? Today, it's a sub-1-million-ounce deposit. With all the... And as we have said in the past, it looks very much like Séguéla looked to the exploration team back in the day when the Séguéla acquisition was made.
When the Séguéla acquisition was made back in 2019, Séguéla was a 400,000-ounce deposit. Today, it's touching 2 million ounces and continues to show potential to grow. We see a similar opportunity in general terms.
Thank you, Jorge. That was a great answer and, yeah, you provided some great color on that. Sounds reasonable. That was it for me, operator.
Thank you so much. At this time, we have no further questions on the telephone lines, so I will hand the call back over to management.
Thank you, Ali. If there are no further questions, I would like to thank everyone for listening to today's earnings call. Have a great day.
Thank you. This does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. We thank you for your participation.