Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Catherine McLeod-Seltzer, and I am the Chair of your board of directors. It is my pleasure to welcome you to the 2022 annual meeting of the shareholders of Kinross Gold Corporation. Due to the continued impact and uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company is holding a virtual meeting of its shareholders once again this year. We thank you for attending the meeting as we strive to provide the same level of disclosure, transparency and participation as that in our in-person meetings. I would like to note that Kinross is committed to hold a virtual meeting with the shareholders as under the Ontario Business Corporations Act and our bylaws. Voting on items of business to be considered at the meeting has been open from 9:45 A.M.
The polls will remain open until the formal business of the meeting is completed, at which time I will declare the polls are closed on all items of business. I will also pause briefly for you to vote as we go through the items of business today. Shareholders who have voted in advance are not required to vote again during the meeting unless they want to change their vote instructions. Shareholders may submit questions for the board or management through the question box on the virtual meeting page. Instructions on how to ask questions and the voting procedure will appear on your screen. The moderator will relay the questions, and they will be addressed after the CEO presentation.
Joining me electronically this morning are the other director nominees, Paul Rollinson, President and CEO of the company, members of the senior leadership team of Kinross, and Luke Crosby, the Corporate Secretary of Kinross. Also joining us is Mr. David Oldham, partner at KPMG, the company's auditors. A recording of this meeting will be available on Kinross's website and on this meeting portal after the meeting. Pursuant to the bylaws, I, as Chair of the corporation, will chair the meeting, and I appoint Luke Crosby, Corporate Secretary of the corporation, as Vice Chair of the meeting. I further appoint Computershare Investor Services Inc. through its representative, Paul Elliman, to act as scrutineers. The notice calling this meeting of shareholders was mailed on April 7th, 2022, to all the shareholders of record on March 16th, 2023.
The secretary will attach the minutes of this meeting with a declaration of Computershare Investor Services Inc confirming the mailing of the notice of meeting. The scrutineers have submitted their preliminary report on attendance, and it shows that holders of more than 525,628,559 common shares, representing approximately 71.39% of the outstanding common shares, are represented at today's meeting. As a result, we have a quorum for the meeting. In order to exercise the formal part of the meeting, I have asked Vanessa Sheffield and Louie Diaz, both shareholders of the corporation, to move and second these motions. Notice having been given in accordance with the bylaws and a quorum being present, I declare that the meeting is duly constituted for the transaction of business.
Minutes of the previous annual meeting of Kinross held on May 12, 2021, may be requested by contacting the corporate secretary of the corporation. Prior to commencing our items of business, I would like to report that the consolidated financial statements for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021, including the balance sheet and accompanying statements together with the auditor's report, are all contained in the annual report previously made available to shareholders. Printed copies of the annual report may be requested by contacting the corporate secretary of the corporation. The first item of business is the election of nine directors to hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed. At this time, I would like to take the opportunity to name the other director nominees who are present on this call.
We have Ian Atkinson, Kerry Dyte, Glenn Ives, Ave Lethbridge, Elizabeth McGregor, Kelly Osborne, Paul Rollinson, and David Scott joining us. I will now request the nomination for the nine nominees named in the Management Information Circular for today's meeting.
I nominate the nine nominees named in the Management Information Circular for election to the Board of Directors of the corporation.
I second the director nominations.
If you have not already done so, you may now vote for the election of 5 directors. As the number of nominees is equal to the number of directors that are required to be elected, I now declare Ian Atkinson, Kerry Dyte, Glenn Ives, Ave Lethbridge, Elizabeth McGregor, Catherine McLeod-Seltzer, Kelly Osborne, Paul Rollinson, and David Scott elected as directors of the corporation to hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until their successors are duly elected or appointed. The next item of business is the appointment of KPMG LLP to serve as auditors of the corporation until the next annual meeting of shareholders, authorizing the directors to fix the auditors' remuneration. May I have a motion to approve and second such appointment?
I so move.
I second the motion.
The motion has been moved and seconded. If you have not already done so, you can now vote your shares in the election of auditors. The last item of business is an advisory resolution representing Kinross's approach to executive compensation. Details of Kinross's approach to the compensation of executives and the text of the proposed advisory resolution were included in Management Information Circular. May I have a motion to approve such a resolution?
I so move.
I second the motion.
The motion has been moved and seconded. If you have not already done so, you may now vote your shares on the advisory resolution with respect to executive compensation. I now declare the voting closed on all items of business. Scrutineers have completed their preliminary count of the votes cast. I have received the results, and I declare that all motions have passed. A report on all matters voted on at this meeting will be filed on SEDAR. This concludes the formal portion of the meeting. Before handing it over to Paul Rollinson for the CEO remarks, I would like to express our profound sympathy to all those affected by the ongoing tragic conflict in Ukraine. We were all hopeful for a peaceful resolution. Kinross recently announced the sale of its Russian assets, which we believe is the appropriate path forward for the company as part of our transition.
I will now turn the mic to the meeting over to Paul, who will provide further details and an overview of the company.
Thank you, Catherine, and thank you everyone for taking the time to join us for our virtual annual general meeting. Before I get started, let me call your attention to our cautionary statement on forward-looking information. As a reminder, shareholders may submit questions through the messaging icon on the screen, and we'll answer them at the end of my remarks. I'd like to begin by introducing the members of our senior leadership team, all of whom are on the call. They are Andrea Freeborough, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Paul Tomory, Executive Vice President and Chief Technical Officer. Claude Schimper, Executive Vice President, Operations. And Geoff Gold, Executive Vice President, Corporate Development, External Relations, and Chief Legal Officer. Today, I will discuss our recent divestments and pro forma guidance. Kinross's recalibrated focus on our business.
Highlights from our operational and financial performance in 2021 and Q1 2022. Our ongoing commitment to ESG and our climate change strategy. I'd also like to start by acknowledging the tragic situation in the Ukraine and its global impact. As Catherine mentioned, our thoughts are with all those who have been affected by this ongoing conflict. We made a $1 million donation to the Canadian Red Cross Crisis Appeal to assist those people most in need in the Ukraine. We also entered into an agreement with the Highland Gold Mining group of companies to sell our Russian assets. We are continuing to advance the closing process, and the transaction remains subject to Russian government approval. The divestiture brings our over 25-year history of operating in Russia to a close.
As we transition our mines and projects, we will continue to focus on ensuring the health and safety of our over 2,000 employees in the country and on maintaining our high standards of environmental stewardship. In late April, we also announced the sale of our Chirano mine in Ghana to Asante Gold, who are experienced operators in the country and have a long-term vision to develop in the region. That transaction is expected to close at the end of this month. Following these announcements, I would like to acknowledge the significant contributions and hard work of our colleagues in Russia and Ghana who went above and beyond to positively impact their colleagues, their communities, and our company. From the entire global Kinross team, I want to thank you all for your commitment and your contributions.
These pending divestments represent a rebalanced portfolio for Kinross, with approximately 70% of our production coming out of the Americas. We have adjusted our guidance to reflect these changes and maintain a production outlook of 2.15 million ounces in 2022 on a pro forma basis. In 2023, annual production is expected to grow to 2.3 million ounces and drive strong free cash flow. Our 2024 production outlook is 2.1 million ounces, and over the remainder of the decade, we expect to maintain substantial production averaging 2 million ounces annually. For our 2022 cost guidance, we have factored in the impacts of the current macroeconomic environment, including inflation in the price of gold and oil.
Our cost of sales outlook is maintained at $830 per ounce of gold sold, with all-in sustaining costs expected to be $1,160 per ounce. CapEx guidance was lowered to $850 million for the year. Based on our current declining production guidance and excluding inflation, CapEx is expected to be approximately $750 million for 2023- 2024, which is lower than the previous $1 billion estimate. Fundamentally, our company remains in a strong operational and financial position. We believe in our excellent value proposition. We now have two tier one assets, Paracatu and Tasiast, accounting for more than half of our production, a growing business in Chile, and a world-class development project in Canada.
Looking ahead, we have recalibrated our focus, driven not only by the pending divestments, but also by the external inflationary environment. While our strategy has not fundamentally changed, we have adjusted certain priorities. Our approach to running our business will continue to be underpinned by maintaining balance sheet strength, focusing on operational project and exploration excellence, and prioritizing ESG, which I will touch on at the end of my remarks. Let's start with our balance sheet, which remains strong. Our debt is rated investment grade by all three major rating agencies, and we continue to have very strong liquidity of approximately $1.7 billion with attractive debt metrics. However, we are closely monitoring the gold price in the current inflationary environment. As such, we are highly focused on our capital allocation strategy.
Our current thinking is to maintain our return of capital through dividends and share buybacks to incremental cash used to pay down debt. We are reinvesting in our portfolio and also rightsizing our CapEx planning to ensure an appropriate alignment to our pro forma portfolio. Moving on to our operational priorities, we will continue to focus on safely meeting our production targets while continuously focusing on cost to mitigate inflationary impacts. This includes taking a region by region review of inflation and running our mines to maximize margins. We will also focus on developing our exciting pipeline of projects and advancing exploration to drive organic growth. Our development portfolio continues to underpin our future growth strategy, including Tasiast 24k, which is progressing well with the mine now regularly reaching throughput of 21,000 tons per day.
The La Coipa restart project in Chile, which was delivered on schedule and under budget and is ramping up on plan. In Alaska, Manh Choh is advancing well, and recent assay results at the Great Bear project in Red Lake, Ontario, are reaffirming our thesis of a world-class deposit. With the integration of Great Bear now complete, we are excited about realizing our vision of a large, long-life mining complex. In 2022, we plan to complete approximately 200,000 meters of drilling, focusing on the LP Fault Zone, the most significant discovery to date at the project. We plan to declare an initial inferred mineral resource as part of our 2022 year-end results and get started on a pre-feasibility study in 2023. Great Bear is a very exciting prospect. It is high grade, has strength and at depth, and located in a great jurisdiction.
We are looking forward to unlocking its vast potential and significant value. Our exploration strategy is also an important component of our future growth. We have increased our budget to $140 million to support our global programs and are prioritizing brownfield opportunities in our portfolio. I'm excited about the high quality targets within our existing footprint that are near established infrastructure. For example, at Round Mountain, we are focused on Gold Hill, which could serve as a satellite mine, along with the promising underground Phase X program. At Curlew, located near our existing mill at Kettle River, we are seeing promising results since we started a comprehensive underground hole program last year, and we are encouraged about making a significant new vein discovery. While we have seen changes to our portfolio in recent months, we are anchored by a solid operational track record.
Our future vision rests on the solid foundation of two tier one assets and our promising development pipeline. It is also bolstered by an experienced management team at our operations that has successfully proven it can adapt and pivot in the face of changing circumstances. This was certainly the case in 2021 and the first quarter of 2022, as Kinross dealt with a number of challenges, including the continued impacts of COVID-19, inflation, a mill fire at Tasiast, and the global impacts of the conflict in the Ukraine. To sum up our performance in the last year, despite these challenges, Kinross delivered production of 2.1 million ounces with robust margins of $965 per ounce. We also returned more than $260 million in capital to shareholders through dividends and our share buyback program.
Turning now to our first quarter results, which we announced yesterday. Excluding our Russian operations, we produced approximately 410,000 ounces. Notably, Tasiast delivered record production and La Coipa toward first gold and is on target to ramp up to full capacity at mid-year. Our cash and liquidity position remained strong at the end of the quarter, with approximately $450 million of cash and $1.7 billion of liquidity. We also just released our 2021 sustainability report. As has always been the case, our strategy and operational performance will be guided by our values and a commitment to mining responsibly. ESG is at the core of who we are as a company, and it is a central tenet of our culture.
In 2021, I'm pleased to say Kinross continued to rank well among our peers in major ESG rankings and ratings. Our ESG strategy is embedded around doing no harm, acting ethically and responsibly, making a positive contribution, and continuously improving. Some highlights from our 2021 sustainability report include generating $3.5 billion in economic benefits to host countries through taxes, wages, procurement, and community support. Reaching approximately 1 million beneficiaries through community programs. Meeting a board gender diversity target of 33% women directors. Having 99% of employees, including 92% of managers from host countries. There is nothing more important than safety. While our overall safety performance remained in line with the three-year averages in 2021, we fell short of the high standards we set for ourselves.
We experienced a tragic fatality at our Toronto mine due to a fall of ground incident, and we had a very serious mill fire at our Tasiast mine. These incidents prompted safety stand downs and a thorough review of our safety systems as we strive to continuously improve to mitigate safety risks. As a company, we also recognize issues that are of global importance such as climate change. We delivered our climate change strategy earlier this year, which outlines tangible goals for our company. We committed to reducing the intensity of our Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030. We also committed to being a net zero greenhouse gas emissions company by 2050.
Over the past decade, we have made significant progress in improving energy efficiency and in energy efficiencies, which has saved approximately 30,000 tons in greenhouse gas emissions annually. Today, we are developing a 34 MW solar power plant at Tasiast in Mauritania, which will save 530,000 tons in greenhouse gas emissions over the life of the mine. We also we also signed a power purchase agreement for 100% renewable power at La Coipa. Kinross will maintain its focus on climate change as a key consideration in its overall business strategy moving forward. Safeguarding the environment is a priority for Kinross. In 2021, we recycled 80% of the water used at our sites, maintaining a high rate consistent with our five-year average. Over the year, we also extended our partnership with Trout Unlimited to safeguard biodiversity through the Alaska Abandoned Mine Restoration Initiative.
I'd like to conclude today with a short video that provides details about this initiative and its first project, the continued restoration of the historic mining district in which Kinross actually has not operated.
Today we're celebrating a unique partnership between Kinross and Trout Unlimited for restoration of beautiful Resurrection Creek right behind us.
Hope has a pretty rich history. You were one of the original mining towns in this state back to the late 1800s. Yet you also have a rich history that is associated with the fishery, the bounty that comes through the stream. I think it's no accident that this is the first initiative that we have seen here, this collaborative effort.
You know, one of the cool things about being a fisheries biologist is when you can see almost the immediate effects of the project. They've been realized here. Salmon were returning right after some of that work happened.
None of this would have been possible without the collaboration of a number of people stemming from government, not-for-profit, and the mining sectors.
We're also here today to reiterate our commitment to responsible resource development for the benefit of the Alaskan economy. We are prioritizing the environment to ensure that the waterways, lands, and fish that are so important to our communities and future generations are protected.
Well, I can say in my 27 years of working in conservation, Kinross is by far the best corporate partner that I've had the opportunity of working with.
We are proud. We're very proud to be part of Alaska's history, and we're excited to be part of its future. We look forward to continuing to make meaningful contributions in Alaska and to be supporting initiatives such as this one that will make a real difference. Thank you.
In conclusion, I'd like to thank everyone who joined us today for this presentation and for your continued support. Despite recent changes in our business, we are well positioned as we move into this new phase of the company's future. To sum up, we have a substantial annual production base averaging 2 million ounces over the remainder of the decade. A rebalanced portfolio with 70% of production expected to come from the Americas. Exciting development projects and exploration opportunities, including Great Bear. A sizable reserve and resource base. A strong balance sheet with expected strong free cash flow. A commitment to responsible mining that has made us a leader in ESG performance in the industry. With that, we'd now like to open up for some questions from our shareholders, if we could.
We have not received any questions at this time.
It looks like we didn't get any on the.
No, there's been no questions.
Okay. Well, look, thanks again everyone for joining us today, and, again, we appreciate your support. Please keep safe and, we look forward to updating you again in the future. Thank you.