Earnings Call: Q4 2020

Mar 11, 2021

Earnings release

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to West Elm Gold Mines 4th Quarter and Year End 2020 Financial Results Conference Call. I will now give it over to Heather Laxton to begin today. Great. Thanks, operator, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. Before we begin, we'd like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that during this call, we will discuss our business outlook and make forward looking statements. These comments are based on our predictions and expectations as of today. Actual events or results could cause outcomes to differ materially due to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those mentioned in the detailed cautionary note contained in yesterday's press release and in the company's management discussion and analysis dated March 10, 2021. Both documents are available on our website and on SEDAR. Please note that all figures discussed on this call are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated. The slides used for this presentation and a recording of this call will be posted on the company's website. And now it's over to Lindsay Dunlop, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thanks, Heather. Here with us this morning, we have Duncan Middlemitz, President and CEO Good morning. Scott Gilbert, Chief Financial Officer. Hello, everybody. Marc Andre Pelletier, Chief Operating Officer. Hello, this is Marc Andre. Mike Michaud, Vice President, Exploration Raj Gill, Vice President, Corporate Development. We will begin today with Duncan's discussion on 2020 achievements versus guidance and 2021 forecast followed by a more detailed operational review from Marc Andre. We will then move to a financial review from Scott followed by an exploration update from Mike. Finally, Duncan will conclude with a summary and outlook. Duncan, please go ahead. Great. Thanks, Lindsay. 2020 was not without its challenges as we navigated our way through safely operating Eagle River and advancing Kiena during the COVID-nineteen pandemic. I'm very proud that we were able to do this without one incident of COVID at any of our offices or sites. Our team's response and implementation of the rigorous health and safety measures is to be commended. The social distancing aspect of the COVID Safety protocol definitely had an impact on efficiencies and costs and the ability to generate drilled meters, which we'll talk about later in the call. With regards to production, we came in at the low end of guidance at 90,278 ounces. We did front end load production because at the time, the circumstances surrounding the pandemic were very uncertain and and we felt it was prudent to push production in the event there was a mandated shutdown in Ontario. In the second half of the year, Eagle River generated about 10,000 ounces less than the first half and that negatively impacted our costs and consequently we did come in higher than guidance on both cash in all in sustaining costs. Additionally, we identified almost $3,000,000 in direct health and safety costs related to COVID-nineteen. Meanwhile, understanding that operational efficiencies certainly took a hit and those rolled up into our costs also. Looking ahead to 2021, we are guiding 92,000 to 105,000 ounces at the Eagle River Complex. As you can see on the slide, we are factoring in slightly higher costs. We are also guiding an additional 15,000 to 25,000 ounces of Kiena production based on a Q2 restart decision, and we'll talk about that later in the call. I'll now hand it over to Marc Andre, who will provide a more detailed review of operations. Thanks, Duncan. Daily production throughput at the Eagle Mine has significantly increased compared to 2019, mainly due to mine efficiencies and ventilation improvements. The main fresh air fan upgrade is now completed and will allow us to increase the production up to 600 tons per day in 2021. 2020 average mine grade of 14 grams per ton were in line with Kevviso grade, but was lower than our guidance of 15 grams ton. Grades were negatively impacted due to geotechnical challenges affecting the great performance in 1 of the key stopes mined in Q4. We have made some modification in our stope design to address that issues. As well, the main availability was low at 76% for the quarter. The main experience unplanned mechanical downtime associated with the Conecarshaw in December. This year, we expect grades to average between 13 grams 15 grams per ton at YIGO. At Michi Per, all mining operations are finished As per plan, there are 50,000 ton grading 2.5 gram per ton stockpile available for milling. The company was able to replace the depletion of mined reserves in 2020 and increased them by 5% or 31,000 ounces despite much less meters drilled due to evolving pandemic. Those reserves are now close to 590,000 ounces. The bulk of the reserves increases mainly came from the Falcon 7 zone with over 86,000 ounces at a grade near 20 grams per ton. Development toward the newly discovered Falcon Zone is underway and will continue all year. Those results represent a great achievement and clearly demonstrate the potential for adding more profitable ounces at Eagle close to the existing mine infrastructures in a very near future. Now over to Scott for a financial review. Thanks, Mark. Despite the challenges in 2020, we generated $215,000,000 in gold sales at an average price of $2,360 per ounce, $119,000,000 in mine operating profit and free cash flow of $29,000,000 net of $68,400,000 spent on Staying in growth capital projects. Net income and adjusted net income increased by 1.2x and 1.3x over 2019. We ended the year with a cash balance of $63,500,000 which is more than sufficient to restart the Kiena mine later this year and execute on major exploration programs on both assets, which is budgeted at $16,000,000 per site. Now over to Mike for an exploration update. Thanks, Scott. As Marc Andre mentioned, the drilling at Eagle River was less than planned, But we are pleased to have replaced what we mined and even added some. We have a much larger program planned for this year over 120,000 meters of exploration and we're currently ramping up now to achieve this. We are in the midst of completing a litho structural review of the mine area and the surrounding region as well by a well respected consulting firm. The results will help us better understand the controls on gold mineralization and help with our exploration targeting. Our goal is to now find mineralized zones within the mine diorite east of our current mining area. We have done a really good job finding and delineating the Falcon 7 zone And given that this zone is adjacent to mine infrastructure, it is expected this zone will have a significant impact on mine production in coming years. The Moss Lake mineral resource remains unchanged compared to last year and Raj will speak to this later. No doubt the Falcon 7 and the 300 East zones have been the star players of the year. The drilling has continued to return exceptional high grades high grades this year and as importantly continuity upgrades down plunge. This gives us a lot of confidence in achieving good production results going forward. Ongoing extension and definition drilling of the 300 East zone has continued to return high grade gold intersections and this zone has now been extended to the 1400 meter level and remains open down plunge. In addition, limited Drilling has intersected a new zone of mineralization approximately 40 meters to the north and then the hanging walls of the 300 East Zone, returning over 40 grams per tonne gold. This intersection really highlights the potential of finding additional subparallel zones in this area and it remains a priority throughout 2021. Meanwhile, the Falcon zone has been extended to the 1,000 meter level with 1 hole returning 3 14 grams per ton gold over 6 meters. To allow for drilling and is now within 50 meters in the footwall of the Falcon 7 zone, so getting close to 1st mining. Surface drilling is also now ramping up with 2 drills turning and more later in the year. The drills will focus on discovering Zones near the mine area such as the Falcon zones and also testing the 20 kilometers of regional exploration potential. Over the past year at Kiena, the impact of reduced drilling was to focus the underground drilling on converting the large inferred mineral resource at the A Zone to indicated resources that could then be used in the ongoing pre feasibility study. This Commission drilling resulted in an increase of 77% in indicated resources. In addition, initial sill development was completed on the Kiena Deep A Zone on 111 level. The development has confirmed the continuity of this A Zone high grade mineralization along strike. The mill was restarted to process the A Zone Bulk Sample in December, of which a total of 1500 ounces of gold have been sold to date. More gold from the mill circuit cleanup has been recovered and will be refined by the end of Q1, followed by the final reconciliation of the bulk sample once all the information is available. Since the start of the year, the drilling has since been refocused on expansion drilling and exploration, not only at the A and VC zones, by the other perspective targets within the mine area. As part of this exploration focus, initial drilling with 7 underground drills has already successfully expanded the size of the A and VC zones with follow-up drilling expected to contribute to future resource updates. Since the closeout date of the last mineral resource estimate in September of last year, 28,000 meters of drilling have been completed along the perimeter of the A Zone, including one hole that recently returned 326 grams per ton gold over 8 meters core length. There exists excellent potential around the A Zone to discover additional zones in this underexplored area. Also, Drilling of the VC-one zone has continued to return a number of high grade intersections at depth and has now confirmed But the VC-one zone extends 4.75 meters down plunge from 67 level to 107 level. The down plunge extension of this zone will be drilled from new platforms on 107 level that are currently being developed. Any additional mineralization found in this area could be mined using existing and planned developed at the A Zone. This is a very exciting area, so stay tuned. Over to you, Raj. Thanks, Mike. In January, we were pleased to enter into an agreement with Goldshore Resources to monetize Moss Lake. The transaction will further enhance our balance sheet with upfront proceeds of $12,500,000 while maintaining exposure to long term upside in the asset via milestone payments, a meaningful equity stake and a royalty. The asset now has a dedicated team with a strong track record for creating value, allowing West Elm to focus on our core portfolio of high grade underground mines. Back to you, Duncan. Great. Thanks, Raj. 2020 was a year that nobody expected and I want to extend my thanks and appreciation to all our employees and contractors for their attentiveness to safety. 2021 will be a transformational year for us as we plan to bring Kiena into production, significantly reducing the risk associated with being a single asset producer. We were very happy with the successful restart of the mill at Kiena to process the A Zone Bulk Sample, which is so far exceeding our expectations. The pre feasibility study is progressing well and is on track to be released in the Q2. We would expect to begin production in the second half of the year. At the same time, we are carrying out a $16,000,000 exploration program with 65,000 meters focused alone on the A zone and numerous step out targets within the mine and more regionally. At Eagle, We are forecasting 92,000 to 105,000 ounces, up slightly from our results in 2020. We are equally excited about the $60,000,000 creation program in and around Eagle with many targets being generated through our structural analysis. With a solid cash position to start the year plus the additional proceeds from the Moss Lake sale, we are well positioned to execute on all our plans this year and look forward to keeping you updated as they unfold. I will now open it up for the question and answer session and back to the operator. Thank you. First question comes from George Topping with Industrial Alliance. Great. Thanks, operator. Hello, Duncan. Hello, everybody. The Just interested in the bulk sample that's due in the next week or 2 or so I would expect. Can you give us more information on that on what top cut was used in that area? How representative will it be of the rest of the deposit. And we've seen with other high grade deposit very positive reconciliation changes like Cisco Mining, for example, with lower cuts. But what would How representative and how much can we infer from that if it comes back positive as you mentioned in your press release? George, it's Mike here. I mean, I think the bulk sample was really positive and that showed the geometry of the mineralized zones and the visible gold that we saw in core was certainly Easy to see in the underground development. So we're happy about that and you can see already that we've recovered 1500 ounces of gold and the rest is now being processed off-site in a smaller facility. But the capping that we used in the block model You know for the A Zone was sort of a 3 stage capping process and When we compare that block model to what we found from the underground drilling, we kept that at around 90 grams per ton, But we'll probably be doing a 3 d block model just based on the chip data and the mock data and we'll compare that against the original drill hole data. But I would say overall from what we saw in the underground, the sampling there, we have a good chance to recover More gold than we originally predicted. It is on the edge of the deposit. So I mean, even if it's going to be positive, I don't think we're I rush out and change the block model right away, because it is only about just a little over 5,000 tons. I mean my experience Maybe 10000 or 20000 tons would be maybe a little bit more representative, but I think we're happy with the geometry confirmed by the drilling was confirmed by the bulk sample and I think probably we'll do a little better than what we thought for the uncapped bulk model. So that would be really positive, but I think we'd like to get going with the mining there and get some more results back and see if that makes an adjustment in our model going forward, but Very happy with what we've seen so far. Okay, good. The production for this year. You've had to cut back and lose underground because of COVID. Is the development You're up to speed and up far enough advanced to get to that 6.20 ton per day rate Early in the year. Yes. Good morning, George. This is Mark. Hi, Mark. Despite the COVID and social distancing protocol, I mean, we've done quite well on the development last year. And basically we're basically on budget or on track. So we are in very good position with just about half of the production this year is already developed. So basically, we are developing the second half production and we're already starting to look at 2022 with the development of the new Falcon zone. So we're in good shape. Good. Okay. Thanks, Mark. I'll pass it on. Operator, thank you. Thank you. Our next question is from Don DeMarco with National Bank. Hi. Thank you, operator. Thanks, Duncan. Maybe this is a bit of an extension to George's question, but with respect to exploration drilling, you've got a pretty heavy program set up for 2021. Can you tell me how many rigs do you have at each site? And I know you faced some challenges that limited drilling in 2020. Are those fully mitigated on the exploration front too? Hey, John, it's Mike here. Look, at Kiena, we certainly we have 7 drills running underground now. We're really comfortable with achieving those meters. Really what hurt us last year when was the government shutdown everything for 2 months straight and that really hurt the meters, couldn't catch back up on that. But With the 7 drills and the current production productivity that we see, no problem with that. And I think that So this is an exciting year there as we start doing exploration drilling and if we get into something new, you might even see us adding a few more drills underground there. So I think that would be really great. On surface, we're drilling right now with 3 drills and we do have one drill on the ice, which is great. We're Drilling some completely untested areas before and so we're kind of excited to see some of that. But surface drilling is easy always to catch up on, Hit your targets because the you can always add another drill. We certainly have seen a little bit of A little harder to find drills, but we have big programs, so it's easier for us to get the drilling contractors to want to hook up with us. At Eagle, again, on surface drilling there, no problem. It's going well. We've ramped back up to 2 drills now. We have a fly drill sitting there on Surface and when the wet days start to get longer, we'll put that back into action. The only area that we have to push a little harder at this year is Eagle underground typically we run 5 drills. We have 4 there now. We have a 5th drill that is going to be starting up shortly and we'll probably end the Later, part of the problem there is Duncan mentioned that with the social distancing required at the camp, we've had a shortage of rooms. We fixed that. We have another trailer coming in, another 48 men coming in and that's going to help provide more rooms and then we'll be able to add a 6 drill. So, Having just gone through the board cycle here, they're very anxious with getting those meters going and And we are really pushing hard to make sure we hit our budgeted meters for the year. Okay. Good to hear. Yes, because I see even with the program last year, you still manage some reserve accretion. But into that point, Mark mentioned that there was 86,000 ounces at Falcon 7. This priority target at Eagle. How much of that was reserves and what was the grade? For the Falcon? Yes. 86,000 Yes, that's the reserves. So that's Yes. That's the reserves down. Yes. 86,000 ounces at 20 grams. Yes. And more resources. Yes. And more resources. Okay. Because it was lumped in that. Yes. Go ahead. Yes. So we're actually really close to getting the footwall drift established at the Falcon. So really Sort of twofold. We definitely want to go in and have some selling along the ore, but we definitely want to go a little bit further to the west And see if we can continue to convert some of the existing resources there and upgrade them to reserves, but Very excited about Falcon. Falcon is very high grade shoot and we're looking forward to getting over there. Okay. So just to confirm, like the number 7 zone, you have 160,000 ounces grading 12.6. So you're saying there's Of that, there's 86,000 ounces of Falcon at 20 grams per ton? No, it's separate, Don. So separate from number 7? Yes, yes. Falcon is yes, they link at around 1,000 meters, but yes, Falcon is its own entity in the reserves. Okay. Good stuff. And just final question then. The 2021 grade was is 14 you're guiding 14 grams per ton. In 2020, it was a little bit variable from quarter to quarter. Do you think that it's going to be a little more consistent or we'll see a little bit more variability like we did last year? No. You know what, I mean, Eagle is a very lumpy mine as we call it. I mean, when you're in the high grade buoy, you Certainly feel it. And like our reserves, as an example, we've got 13.4 grams in the reserves right now. And I mean, Some of those reserves obviously are 20 grams, some of them are at 10 or even less, right? So it all comes around to mine sequencing and because it's not a big mine, You're not able to take a couple of buckets over here and not to blend it or whatever. It's so basically, we saw that Especially back in 2019 with our mining of the top 70 meters of the 303, I mean the grades were Spectacular and everything. So it was good. But like I said, this is a very difficult to smooth out in terms of Great performance at that mine. Okay. Thanks for that. That's all for me. Thank you. Our next question comes from Ryan Walker with Exelon Partners. Hi, guys. Good morning. Thanks for the call. Just first off, just want to congratulate you guys on your COVID performance. It's very commendable and it's Just great. Just turning to unit costs. So creeping back up again, Do you expect that to be sticky? Is that mostly COVID related, the increase? Yes. What we see, I mean, we identified 3,000,000 Direct costs. So those are easy to capture. The costs that I think are creeping in there is the cost inefficiency and we didn't identify them, but I mean if you listen to McKinsey, I think that they had said that they can attribute to about 15% cost creep because of COVID. And so as an example, Ryan, I mean, even at Kiena, which is not in production, but we're Drilling and developing in that, the cage used to have a capacity of 12. It's now got a capacity of 4. So I mean just everything is taking longer to kind of establish and to get I'd have to say though that The protocols are really working and knock on wood because we have been extremely lucky in terms of not having any kind of And we look forward to the vaccination. Actually, our mine rescue team is going to get vaccinated as their first responders at Eagle. So We're starting to see that now and hopefully we can get back to more normal in the second half of the year and kind Really focused on getting our efficiencies back in the whole bit. Right. Okay, great. And then a lot of questions have been But the news flow going forward, you got very aggressive drill programs at each operation. When can we expect to start to see assays come out of that? I would say shortly. Certainly, I should say with so many drills running and Kiena is producing a lot of core and we're in some great areas there. So that's going to produce some good So, shortly and throughout the year, I mean, it's really good target rich environment, I would say. And at Eagle, typically, we go about every couple of months and We put out some news. So, yes, it's going to be a pretty exciting year on the exploration side. Yes. My guess will be you'll probably see An expiration news release every 4 to 6 weeks apart. Okay, great. Thanks guys. Thanks, Raj. Thank you. Our next question is from Phil Kear with PI Financial. Thanks, operator. Good morning, everyone. Just a couple of questions. Curious if you could elaborate a little further on some of the specifics of the COVID costs and Kind of just site related, you touched on the cage at Kiana only holding 4 for time, but could you go into further detail over at Eagle? Sure. Hi, Scott here. And so we identified the direct costs as Duncan indicated. We looked at some of the costs such as incremental over time, as we were keeping people in longer at the site. We also implemented some social distancing protocols with regards to safety, doing escorts down to in certain areas. And those are the main costs. As Duncan said, there was a lot of inefficiencies Related to the operational cost that we just weren't able to capture, but that's sort of the main ones that we were looking at. Yes, like PPE fill and things like that, additional security. I mean, we have the ability to do rapid test. Of course, we have basically our own health unit now kind of at the gate at Eagle. So, yes, that all costs money. So That's where we capture that. And like we said, we did not capture the cost of operational inefficiencies. Okay. Fair enough. And then just second question here, Q4, if you could just refresh our memories here, but the grade and production profile was the weakest on the was the weakest on the year and looking towards guidance and the grade profile for 2021, it Doesn't really seem like we're anticipating some of that 20 grain, 20 grams per ton material. Could you just And on maybe the mine plan and any potential, whether it's this year or in 2022 to start to tap into that higher grade material again? So basically, what we see this year in our budget is basically we're going to be mining within our guidance through the year. In Q3, I think the grade is expected to go a bit higher because we are going to have a stope in the three So we expect a bit higher grade there, but overall within our guidance. As I mentioned before, we are Developing towards the recovery in the 2022 budget as we are going to begin the production there. So I think I think what we're targeting for 2022 is continuing to increase the throughput from Eagle And probably higher grade cycle with bringing the new Falcon Zone into production. Okay. And then maybe just quickly last question on Kiana. You noted here production of 15,000 to 25,000 ounces in the second half of the year. But with respect to cost, is there going to be some more fine tuning or expectations Kind of declaring those costs numbers maybe later this year or perhaps within the feasibility study? Yes, they're going to be captured in the PFS. So you'll see that. Of course, life of mine production will be available through there. So you'll see how we're ramping up. Yes. So we're like, I'd say, tabled for completion Q2, sort of mid Q2, I think, and Get a production restart decision shortly after. And I think they're really we've always said that Kiena is not going to take long. I mean, we've been doing Development in support of exploration here for a while, but it's also going to be in support of production very quickly. So it's going to be a relatively shorter timeframe to start generating some ounces. Understood. Thank you very much. Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our Q and A session and program for today. Thank you for your participation. Have a great day. 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