Hello, welcome to the Agnico annual shareholders meeting. Mr. Jim Nasso, please go ahead, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Good morning, everyone, welcome to the annual and special meeting of the shareholders of Agnico Eagle Mines. I guess you all know this, my name is Jim Nasso, I don't want to take things for granted, I'm the Chair of the Board of Agnico Eagle. [Foreign language] We will do as usual, the Finnish and Swedish introduction. Pertti, please. Thank you. I would be remiss if I didn't leave our Inuit brethren out, I say, annual general meeting. We'll get on with business. What I'd like to say before we begin is I'd just like to mention the tragedy, what we all saw and witnessed, I was very touched and very sad.
What I really saw in our diversity was a universality of pain, just a disruption in our lives that wasn't necessary. As unnecessary as it was, this is a great city with great people, that unity in diversity really touched me because I felt the same way as all the people I saw that witnessed this event. I just end with this, one man, one guy, one anybody ain't going to change the way we feel. In my mind, that event was sad, it brought us together and made us stronger. That's important. Together. It's a great concept, a powerful concept. We acknowledge it, we speak to it often. We'll begin in accordance with the bylaws of the corporation. I preside as Chair of this meeting.
Mr. Greg Lang, General Counsel, Senior Vice President, Legal and Corporate Secretary of the corporation, will act as Secretary of the meeting. With the consent of the meeting, Shirley Tom, who's standing at the back because she'll be dealing with [ballots]. There she is, Shirley. The corporation's Registrar and Transfer Agent will act as scrutineers. Since this meeting was called for 11:00, it is now that time, I ask the meeting to come to order. After the formal business of the meeting, Sean Boyd, Vice Chair, Chief Executive Officer, and Director of the corporation, will present a corporate update by a question and answer period. I would like to take a moment to introduce the head table and the other Directors and some of the Officers of the corporation who are with us today.
Seated with me at the head table, Sean Boyd, Ammar Al-Joundi, President, David Smith, Senior Vice President, Chief and Financial Officer, Greg Lang. To introduce the Board in the front row are our other Directors. Would you kindly stand when your name is called? Dr. Leanne Baker, Martine Celej, Robert Gemmell, Mel Leiderman, Deborah McCombe, Dr. Sean Riley, Merfyn Roberts, Jamie Sokalsky, Howard Stockford, and Pertti Voutilainen. In reference to the last two, I'd just like to say a few words. This is their last meeting. Both are retiring. On behalf of the Board of Directors, Howard, Pertti, I want to thank you for your peerless performance for these last many years. You both have left an indelible mark, apart from your contribution, you've made good friends. We have wonderful friendships. We'll all miss you very much.
Again, with a profound thanks and great sadness, we wish you the best of health, peace, and contentment. Howard, we thank you. Pertti, thank you very much. I confirm that I've received a sworn affidavit of an officer of Computershare Trust Company, stating that the notice of the meeting, the management information circular, and the form of proxy have been sent to each shareholder, each director, and the auditors of Agnico Eagle. The affidavit as to such mailing has been signed by Computershare, and I direct the secretary of the meeting to keep a copy of the affidavit with the minutes of the meeting. With the consent of the meeting, I will dispense with the reading of the notice. Scrutineer's report on voting. The secretary has advised me that we have received the scrutineer's report, which indicates the number of shares voted by proxy.
I am pleased to report that the number of shares voted against the amendment to the bylaws is less than 5% of all the votes that might be cast at this meeting. I propose to conduct the vote on this resolution in the non-binding advisory vote on approach to executive compensation by a show of hands. With respect to the election of the directors, the appointment of the auditors, and the amendment to the corporation stock option plan, a ballot on each item will be taken. Excuse me. The scrutineers have also advised me that prior to the meeting, proxies were received from holders of a sufficient number of shares to constitute a quorum. I declare the meeting to be regularly called, properly constituted for the transaction of business. I direct that the formal report of the scrutineers be annexed to the minutes of this meeting as scheduled.
The first item, auditor's report and financial statements. The first item of formal business is a presentation of the audited financial statements of Agnico Eagle for the year ended December 31st, 2017, and the auditor's report on these financial statements, both of which have been previously sent to the shareholders of the corporation. If anyone did not receive these financial statements, additional copies are available here. I now place before the meeting such financial statements and an auditor's report. Questions regarding these statements will be entertained at the end of the meeting. Election of directors. The next item of formal business is the election of directors of the corporation. The articles of the corporation provide for a minimum of five and a maximum of 15 directors. The board of directors has determined that the total number of directors to be elected at this meeting is 10.
I now declare the meeting open for nominations. May I have nominations, please?
Mr. Chairman, I nominate as directors of Agnico Eagle Mines Limited, Dr. Leanne Baker, Sean Boyd, Martine Celej , Robert Gemmell, Mel Leiderman, Deborah McCombe, James Nasso, Dr. Sean Riley, Merfyn Roberts , and Jamie Sokalsky. All as named in the management information circular. I move that they be elected as directors of the corporation to hold office until the next annual shareholders' meeting following this meeting, or until their respective successors are elected or appointed.
Thank you, Don. May I have a seconder of the motion? Thank you, Louise. Thank you. Under the advance-notice bylaws of any additional directors for nomination, today's meeting were required to have been received by no later than the close of business on March 28th, 2018. As no such nominations were received by the corporation prior to that date, there are no further nominations eligible to stand for election today. Accordingly, I now declare the nominations closed. You've heard the motion, which has been seconded. Is there any discussion? If there's no discussion, I will ask the meeting to vote on the motion by ballot. All registered shareholders and proxy holders will have been provided with a blue ballot for the election of directors. You should record your vote in respect of the election of directors by marking an X in the box entitled For or Withhold.
As the case may be in respect of each of the proposed nominees on the blue ballot and by signing and printing your name in the spaces indicated on the ballot, the scrutineers will collect your ballot later at the meeting. Auditors. The next item of formal business is the appointment of auditors of Agnico Eagle for the current year. It is proposed that Ernst & Young Chartered Accountants be appointed as the auditors of the corporation to hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders of the corporation or until their successors are appointed, that auditors' remuneration be fixed by the board of directors of the corporation. May I have a motion, please? Thank you, Leanne. May I have a seconder of the motion? Thanks, Mel. You have heard the motion, which has been seconded. Is there any discussion?
If there's no discussion, I will ask the meeting to vote on the motion by ballot. All registered shareholders and proxy holders have been provided with a yellow ballot for the appointment of the auditors. You should record your vote in respect of the appointment of auditors by marking an X in the box entitled For or Withhold, as the case may be, on the yellow ballot, and by signing and printing your name in the spaces indicated on the ballot. The scrutineers will collect your ballots later in the meeting. Stock option plan. The next item of formal business to consider at this meeting is approval of an amendment to the corporation stock option plan, or more fully described on page 21 in Appendix B of the management information circular. May I have an appropriate motion, please? Thank you, Deborah. May I have a seconder to the motion?
Thank you, Dr. Riley. You've heard the motion, which has been seconded. Is there any discussion? If there is no discussion, I will ask the meeting to vote on the motion by ballot. All registered shareholders and proxy holders have been provided with a pink ballot for the amendment to the corporation stock option plan. You should record your vote in respect of the amendment of the corporation stock option plan by marking an X in the box entitled for the motion or against the motion, as the case may be. In the pink ballot, and by signing and printing your name in the spaces indicated on the ballot, once you've completed your ballot, would you kindly hold all of them in the air for the scrutineers to collect. While the ballots are being collected and tabulated, we will continue with the formal part of the meeting.
We will announce the results of the ballots in a few minutes. Amendment to the bylaws is the next item of formal business to consider is the amendment to the corporation's bylaws, as more fully described on page 22 in Appendix D of the management information circular. May I have an appropriate motion, please?
Forming the amendments to the corporation's bylaws, as set out in Appendix D to the management information circular dated March 12, 2018, be approved.
Thanks, Martine. May I have a second to the motion? Thank you, Merfyn. You've heard the motion, which has been seconded. Is there any discussion? If there are no further discussion, I will now ask the meeting to vote on the motion by a show of hands. All in favor, please signify by raising your hands. Contrary, if any? I declare the motion carried. Advisory resolution of approach to executive compensation. Excuse me. The next item of formal business to consider at this meeting is a non-binding advisory resolution on the corporation's approach to executive compensation, or more fully described on page 22 in Appendix F of the management information circular. May I have an appropriate motion, please?
Chairman, I move that the resolution approving, on an advisory basis, the corporation's approach to executive compensation, set out in Appendix F to the management information circular dated March 12, 2018, be approved.
Thank you, Rob. May I have a second to the motion? Thanks, Merfyn. You've heard the motion, which has been seconded. Is there any discussion? If there is no further discussion, I will now ask the meeting to vote on the motion by a show of hands. All in favor, please signify by raising your hands. Contrary? I declare the motion carried. We will adjourn the formal business of the meeting while the scrutineers tabulate the results of the ballots taken. During this time, we're pleased to present in a minute or two the Paul Penna Award. Before we do that, I would just like to share an experience which is related to our founder, Paul Penna, rest his soul, who really inculcated with a culture that prevails today.
We refer to it as the culture of the heart, cultura del corazón, and it has served us very, very well. We had an experience in Mexico recently. We visited our new acquisition at Gertrudis near the city of Magdalena. On the way home, we stopped at Pinos Altos, and we visited this beautiful community center. Pinos Altos was just a stop on the highway. I understand there was one phone there. It isn't even a village. That's where a camp is, and that's where employees rest. We put in a soccer pitch for employees, our workers, a gym. What we did since is we built a beautiful community center, which really serves and houses it. It serves 106 children in that vicinity. They're not only our employees, they're for the whole community.
This community, this facility has a soccer pitch, a basketball court, and a baseball diamond. I should make reference on the baseball diamond, when all the kids were out of school that day, we were lucky they were all there. They were having a great time. I looked over at the baseball diamond and I saw yours truly, our CEO, at bat. Folks, he hit a double. You read that the kids were cheering. He was on second base. That was a great day for us. In this facility, there's a library, there's classrooms, nurseries, kitchens. It's absolutely outstanding. The governor of Chihuahua visited us in Pinos Altos.
He saw this community center, and he said, "Agnico Eagle has set an example how mining should be done in the mining industry in Mexico." Furthermore, when PDAC was on the convention, he came up and visited us in our offices that across from us to personally thank us for what we've done. Since then, we've just been awarded, I found out this morning, out of 600 companies, we're number 19. We've received that recognition as one of the best companies in Mexico and the only mining company amongst the 600 to win. In five years, they have a designation as the best place to work in Mexico. All our workers wear a patch and it says, "Best place to work." We've won that five years running. This is what we do across the board, not only in Mexico, wherever we travel.
I like to think of it as the Canadian way. We do have a Canadian way, and it's a very special way. We're well-received, and we're really proud of that. We represent not only Agnico Eagle, but we represent our country very well in these multinational places. This is the Thank you. Because I wanted to say earlier, too, we're setting a template for the world here with the diversity we have. We're creating a culture and a population that's very special. The world is learning from us, and a lot of them are trying to emulate us. That's the example we're setting. Now, the Paul Penna Award. This is the 11th year of the Paul Penna Award for the community service.
Mr. Penna was the founder, a man with great vision of Agnico Eagle and was widely noted for his philanthropy and concern for the well-being of his employees and the betterment of the communities in which we operate. To provide some background on Mr. Penna and to introduce the 2018 winner, I would like to call up Louise Grondin, our Senior Vice President of Environment, Sustainable Development, and People, but I affectionately know her as Mother Earth. Louise, where are you? Please.
Thank you, Jim. In Nunavut, they call me an elder, but anyway. The Paul Penna Award is awarded to an Agnico Eagle employee who best exemplifies the philosophies of our founder. Through community involvement, dedication, and hard work, Paul Penna left an enormous impact on the communities he was part of and helped change the lives of many people, one person at a time. This award has been established to ensure that his values continue to play a major role in the identity of Agnico Eagle as a company, as well as allow the legacy of Mr. Penna to live on through the positive initiatives laid forward by our employees. Now for this year, I'm pleased to announce that the winner is Eric Côté from our Meadowbank Mine. Congratulations, Eric. Let me tell you what a special person Eric is.
Eric is a production engineer at Meadowbank. He has been with Agnico Eagle since June 2012. Every year since he joined us, Eric has participated in an organization called Global Ventures and used his time off and vacation time to go on short missionary trips to assist people in developing areas around the world. In the last six years, Eric has gone on 13 such trips, including Peru, Panama, Ethiopia, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Thailand, and Cambodia. When in these countries, one of Eric's tasks is to distribute and teach people how to use water filters in communities lacking clean water. Just one of these filters can provide up to 300 liters of clean water per day and has a lifespan of 10 years. The Clean Water Project of Global Ventures is designed to help as many people as possible by strategically locating water filters in the communities that they visit.
In addition to providing the means for clean water, Eric and other members of the Global Ventures team participate in a cultural exchange program with the local people. In 2015, Eric led a campaign to raise funds to buy water filters to help people in Nepal have access to clean water. Some of Eric's Meadowbank coworkers donated CAD 1,500 to buy 30 water filters. In 2017, another CAD 750 was raised to buy 15 water filters for the people of Bangladesh. We would like to recognize Eric's generous spirit and thank him for his efforts to improve the quality of life of others in this world. For these reasons and more, we're proud that Eric is the winner of the 11th annual Paul Penna Award. Thank you.
We will now convene the formal part of the meeting to proceed with the remaining business. The scrutineers have tabulated the results of the ballots conducted earlier. The scrutineers report that each of the proposed nominees for director has received a majority of the votes cast for. Accordingly, I declare that motion carried. With respect to the appointment of auditors, the scrutineers report that they received the majority of the votes cast for accordingly. I declare that motion carried. With respect to the amendment to the corporation stock option plan, the scrutineers report that the motion received the majority of the votes cast for accordingly. I declare that motion carried. If any shareholder is interested in the exact number of votes cast in favor for, or withheld, or against with respect to each of these motions, he or she may obtain the particulars after the meeting by contacting the secretaries.
Is there any further business? I will now ask someone to move and someone to second the motion that this meeting now terminate. Thank you, Deborah. May I have a seconder of the motion? Thanks, Dr. Riley. All those in favor of the motion, signify by raising your hand. Assuming that the resolution is carried, I declare the portion of this meeting formally terminated. We will now proceed with the presentation by management of the corporation. Before I turn the meeting over to Sean Boyd, I would like to caution you that the management's presentations may include certain forward-looking statements. These statements are based on management's current expectations but are naturally subject to uncertainty and changes in circumstances. These factors may cause the corporation's actual results to be materially different from the expectations expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.
The corporation is not under any obligation to update the forward-looking statements in today's presentations. Detailed information about the risks and uncertainties is included in our most recent securities filings with the Ontario Securities Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Before I call Sean up, I just want to mention that in this past year, Sean received these awards. He was recognized by the Harvard Business Review in 2017 article, which identified the 100 best performing CEOs in the world. That's not the first time he's done that. Congratulations on that. There's more. He received the IR Magazine award for 2017 as the best CEO in the large market capitalization category and was also named the 2017 Mining Person of the Year by The Northern Miner. It's always an honor and a pleasure. Please come forward, young man. Still young.
Thank you, Jim, for those kind words. I was hoping you were going to stop right after that sort of very extensive cautionary statement, because then I was just going to get up here and say, "Because you've all been so forewarned, just go out and buy the stock." I'm all covered legally. Our lawyers are here. What I'd like to do, first welcome everyone. It's great to see a lot of old friends and longtime supporters of the company, and literally, we have generations of people that have been shareholders throughout their families still holding the stock that come here each and every year. We appreciate that support.
What I'd like to do is I'd like to talk a little bit about how Agnico's positioned in a tough and challenging industry, also lay out an opportunity here and build an investment case for how things seem to be perfectly lining up for the gold price, for the gold equities, and also for Agnico. What you see on the picture is Meliadine. One of the key drivers for our company as we move forward is our platform in Nunavut, our extensive platform. While we're optimizing many of our other mines, we're focused in expanding our output in Nunavut with taking advantage of our expertise, our large land package, and leveraging off of existing infrastructure. We'll take you through that as well as we go through. Gold's actually done fairly well, up 13% last year. Sort of surprises people.
It's quietly put in a impressive performance, which is more important when you think about it's done that in the face of records in terms of global stock markets. Generally, the gold space and gold bullion is competing against alternative investment sources, and gold's done fairly well. Why is that? There's been consistent demand. The steady demand sources, the big demand sources, China, India, central banks have been there, investors have quietly been accumulating gold. It's no surprise that in the wake of the financial crisis in 2008, that investors were building their positions in physical gold and buying the gold ETF and getting direct exposure to gold. If you look over the last few years, they've actually been doing the same thing. Why?
Why are investors feeling the need, in the face of record-high stock markets, that they should put some insurance or alternative investments in their portfolios? I think what we're seeing is a desire to hold gold, not just among investors, but also among central banks, and we'll talk a little bit about that. This is from our friend, Martin Murenbeeld. He's a renowned economist, does a lot of work in the gold space, and he's extremely bullish on gold. He did a presentation at a dinner we hosted last week in Zurich, and in his view, gold started a bull market in 2015. But what we've seen over the last few years is gold's inability to sort of break through some resistance, sort of in the high $1,300s, and it's tried several times and always fallen back.
Ultimately, it will go through that, but I think what's important, as gold's tried to break through and pull back, there's always been strong buying there, and I think you saw that in the previous slide where investors are taking advantage of some relative weakness in the price to add to positions. I think there's a nice floor being built in the gold price. But if you look at the key driver is gold's negatively correlated to the U.S. dollar. The U.S. dollar has a lot of influence here. If you actually look at some long-term charts of the U.S. dollar, it's been in a bear market since the mid-1980s. Basically, the trend's been down. You'll have periods in that downtrend where it'll go up, and if you look back to 2015, it did peak in that overall long-term downtrend.
Isn't it interesting how the last peak in the U.S. dollar in that downtrend coincides with a turn in the gold price? We would look at what's happening in the world, particularly from a U.S. context, and given a lot of the things you hear about U.S. trade and the issues that the White House sees with job losses and companies potentially taking advantage of the U.S., the one way that the U.S. can improve their position on trade is have a weaker dollar. Our view, and we share the view of Martin, is that this long-term downtrend in the U.S. dollar will continue, which will be very positive for the gold price. One of the other interesting things that you've seen, as we referred to it, is central banks. Those are the guys that control the money supply.
Why is it that we have several countries, their central banks, continuing to add to their gold position? Last month, the Russians added 300,000 ounces. They now have 2,000 tons. Their position is now bigger than the publicly stated position of China. Why are they doing that? Well, they do not want to rely on the U.S. dollar. They want to diversify away from the U.S. dollar in the reserve base. Why has Turkey had all their gold moved out of the U.S., consistent with what the Germans have done and the people of Netherlands have done? Not only do people want to own more gold, they want it close to them. I think that speaks to the uncertainty in the financial markets, the volatility around the world. Gold stood the test of time, and we're starting to see a renewed interest in gold.
That's not reflected in the gold equities. We haven't seen that translated, that interest in gold, we haven't seen it translated into the gold mining stocks. In fact, since 2008, we've seen a downtrend. That's largely due to the fact that the industry struggled to deliver margin expansion as the gold price went up. The industry's dramatically improved its positioning, and we would argue that the industry is in much better shape. Here's another view of it, where you see that period through 2011, 2012, and 2013, where we had issues with the gold price. We also had issues with companies delivering on targets. As we've moved out to the present time, we're seeing a lot of companies doing a much better job of focusing on returns and focusing on cash flow generation, and yet still, the shares are trading at a discount.
This is courtesy of Scotiabank. They're suggesting, based on this chart, that gold stock valuations are at the lowest level since 2013. There is a definite case to be made that this is a perfect buying opportunity for gold stocks. A good buying opportunity for gold. As a result, we think there'll be more investment demand in gold, which is really the ultimate driver. Ultimately, if we break through that resistance level, which I believe we will, then our sense is, given the extensive number of meetings that we do every year talking to investors around the world, that that'll be reflected in buying of gold shares. What are they looking for? We find in our meetings that a lot of these investors come to the meeting with the view that they don't have to buy a gold stock.
They want to have a meeting to understand what's happening in the industry, what's happening with the gold price, what's happening with Agnico. They look at an industry which hasn't delivered, for the most part, over the last several years. They look at an industry that's seeing reserves decline. They're looking at an industry that's seeing costs likely bottom and probably trending up. They're looking at an industry that can't grow anymore. What they're sort of looking for is they're focused largely on risk. They're also focused on return. We find often when we're dealing with the generalist investor, who doesn't have a specific and in-depth knowledge of gold mining, they spend the first part of their meeting concentrated on risk, how much risk is in the business.
Because these guys don't want to be the guy within their fund management firm that makes a mistake, that gets the timing wrong on a gold investment or picks the wrong company. They spend a lot of time talking to Agnico about risk, about strategy. They're focused on Particularly in our case, as we grow, how much cash flow are we going to generate? How much free cash flow are we going to generate? What are we going to do with that? We find ourselves at the present time where we sense a turn in the gold price, which we feel will drive a return to investors looking at gold equities. We find ourselves in a position where we've got the best business because we've invested over the last few years. We've got the best people. We've got the best projects.
We've got the ability to grow ounces. We've got the ability to deliver margin expansion and keep the cost down. We have the ability to add ounces through exploration because we've been growing our reserves for the last several years. We find ourselves uniquely positioned that when new money comes into the space, we're the business that people are going to want to own and should own. We look at some of the things that we see as a result of making investments steadily over the last few years, particularly the period from 2012 to 2015. That was a pretty tough period for the gold industry. As we've indicated many times in the past, a lot of the industry was doing exactly what you shouldn't be doing when the gold price is falling $400.
What you should be doing is doing what we did, where we were buying assets, adding drills, adding people, expanding skill sets, investing in the future. As a result of that, we've got operations that are hitting targets, that are meeting expectations or exceeding expectations. As we said, we've got not only our gold reserves are growing, but our gold grades are improving. That's the sign of a high quality gold mining business is when you've got grade working in your favor, you've got the ability to generate increasing cash flows and have a high quality business. That's important. As we said, there's not much growth, but if you take our estimated production this year, we've guided 1.53 million ounces, and take that out into 2020, we can see a 30% growth in that production base which we don't see.
I think the best part about that is our ability to drive cash flow, and we'll show you what we believe we have to spend in the business to still invest in the future, but also how much cash the businesses are generating. I think when we boil it down, as we said, our competitive advantage is the skill set, is the people. We've done this many times before. We have the ability to see through risk, the ability to see through that risk and see opportunity. We understand when we see that opportunity, how to turn it into a meaningful part of our business. That's the basis of the strategy. That's why it works so well. Here's the 30% growth we talked about. This year we're down from last year in terms of production.
We saw in the first quarter, which was put out last night, our production was down, our costs were up, but that's what was expected because we're in a transition year. I think many of you will remember a few years ago when we looked out to at this time, we were likely facing a more significant drop in production, and we were likely facing a production gap between the end of our Meadowbank deposits and the startup of Amaruq. The team has done an exceptional job eliminating the production gap and maintaining a strong production base and cost base in 2018 to generate the cash flow that we're essentially investing in building out the Nunavut platform. Also, what's important as the ounces grow, our unit costs come down. That helps us drive cash flow.
As we look out beyond 2020, there's a number of projects that we own, that we're working on, we're studying, we're analyzing. Those projects don't require the type of capital that a Meliadine required. That's why we're confident as we look out into the future that we can grow our production above 2 million ounces and do it in a way where we're not required to invest CAD 1 billion a year like we've done in 2017 and like we're doing in 2018. I think that's important. On a relative basis, we're doing really well, and it's no surprise given the fact that we're growing 30%, that we have the best relative production profile among the seniors. That's another reason when you think about investors deciding when they come in, who will they buy?
In our view, they're going to buy the highest quality business that has the ability to and experience to deliver on expectations, not only drive production, but drive cash flow. What's driving that? We've talked about Meliadine, which was the picture at the start of the presentation. That's an asset we bought in 2010, but that's an asset we've been patient with. The market's expectation was where they saw the mine plan of Meadowbank and they said, "You know what? That declining production profile in 2018 is going to likely cause Agnico to rush something like Meadowbank." We did the opposite. We actually slowed it down in 2016, got better prepared to execute.
That put us in a position where we got a head start on it in the second half of 2016 when the board gave us the go ahead and the green light to start heavy construction, the team was well prepared. The project was largely engineered. A lot of the key components could be ordered a year in advance from the original plan. With all that hard work and good thinking, it's resulted in us earlier this year actually moving forward the start date of that asset, moving it forward a full quarter to the second quarter of 2019. As you can see from the pictures, the teams just kept working. In fact, it was a relatively harsh winter, very cold.
Because we were able to get and our team was able to get the critical buildings fully enclosed before winter set in, we just basically have been working around the clock. Good performance, tracking budget, tracking schedule, we'll likely be able to start putting ore through the plant in January of 2019. When investors are looking for gold opportunities and gold mining opportunities, as we said, they spend a lot of time trying to get a feel for risk and ability to hit targets. I think the fact that we've been in Nunavut for 10 years, we have a competitive advantage in terms of the skill set. We have a competitive advantage in terms of the logistical support and planning base in the Val d'Or region, where we have four operating mines and have operated in that region for decades.
That gives us the comfort that we can deliver this on time and on budget, it's a key driver of production. Amaruq, that value creation was just simply a result of good thinking, hard work, not getting complacent. I think that's one of the things that our guys have demonstrated is a sense of urgency. They could see the mine plan at Meadowbank. They could see that by 2018, we were likely going to see a significant drop in production. Back in 2008, as they lucked out, they said, "Well, we probably got another 10 years, but got to find something that comes beyond that." They identified this property, took four or five years to acquire it, got to work right away, quickly realized with a four-hole drill program that there was gold there.
You've got a situation where from initial drilling, August of 2013, to production, which will be third quarter of 2019, six years. That's pretty impressive. That's based on, as we said, that ability to see risk, understand risk, manage risk, see through that and identify the opportunity and then get to work. Apply the right resources, people resources, also apply the right capital. That's allowed us to preserve the Meadowbank operation, which is critical to the people of Nunavut, the community of Baker Lake. A lot of good work up there, Nunavut we just find is an unbelievable place to do business. The communities are friendly. They're pro-mining. Why wouldn't they be? They own 18% of the land mass. They have direct ownership, control most of the major greenstone belts, that's by design.
Essentially, they want companies like Agnico Eagle with the experience and track record of over six decades operating in Canada, partnering with them to build these assets. We want to do more. This platform, we see it being a big part of our business for multi decades. This project here, waiting for a permit, we would expect to get that before the middle of the year, that is the last permit. We have the project certificate. We started ramp construction. The road's finished. We're going to widen the road for production. Things have gone extremely well there. This is the key slide in the whole presentation. What you have in yellow is investment capital. What you have in gray is sustaining capital.
You can see that during a period where a lot of the mining industry was cutting sustaining capital, which was basically cutting investments required to maintain and sustain your business, we weren't. Pretty steady. You need to invest in your business. You can't under-invest because you're going to pay for that as you move forward. We kept that fairly steady. We see that being fairly steady as we go forward. What happens in 2019 and beyond, those yellow bars from 2017 and 2018 become a lot smaller. We don't need to spend at the rate of CAD 1 billion-CAD 1.1 billion a year going forward. We can still invest significant sums in our business and keep that production profile going without spending CAD 1 billion.
Our estimate, and we haven't finalized all the studies, is we're somewhere in the CAD 650 million range in total, including the CAD 300 million in sustaining. That's interesting because what that essentially means is our capital required to invest in the future and invest in the business drops over CAD 400 million. At the same time, when the cash generated from the mines will rise CAD 400 million. That's CAD 800 million that stays in the business, and the question we get is, "Well, what are you going to do with it?" I think what's also important is it's not just the gross amount of cash flow that's generated in net free cash flow, it's the fact that we're already generating some of the best cash flow per share in the industry. This quarter, we produced 390,000 ounces. We had cash costs in the $650 range.
We had operating cash flow of CAD 208 million, which was about CAD 0.89 a share. Our expectation as we grow the business to 500,000 ounces a quarter or even 550,000 ounces per quarter, a lot higher than 390,000 ounces, which we are currently doing with roughly the same number of shares outstanding, you can see the impact that we can have on not only production per share, but also we'll put a slide up on that in a minute, but also cash flow per share, and that's going to be a big focus for us. One of the things we've done consistently, which is just a sign of a good business, is we paid a dividend. That's kind of how we see our job. Our job isn't just to run a good gold mining company.
It's just to run a good business that happens to be a gold mining company. A sign of a good business is the ability to pay dividends. It's much tougher to pay dividends when you're in the gold mining business because it's still a tough business and you've got the volatility of the gold price, but we've paid one for 35 years. You don't pay one for 35 years if it isn't important. People always ask us, what's our dividend policy? We don't really have one other than to pay a dividend. If we look at the numbers now, our current dividend's CAD 100 million. By the time we get Amaruq built, it comes in a quarter after Meliadine, we'll have paid out in total CAD 1 billion to our shareholders over that period of time. Think about the CAD 100 million that we're currently paying.
How much could we pay, given the fact that we've got cash coming out of the mines going up CAD 400 million a year, and cash required to be invested in the business going down from current levels by CAD 400 million? We could certainly be in a position to move that dividend up. That decision's always based on other alternatives to put that money to use, and that will be focused on certainly the pipeline of assets. Based on what we have and what we see in terms of required investment and what we know we should invest back into the business, there's certainly a lot of room to do all of those things, to not only increase the dividend, but also to invest strongly in the future of our business and invest in our people's good ideas. This is a reference to production per share.
The chart we put up near the start, one of the charts, was basically looking at investors buying the gold ETF. That's relatively new in the big picture, 15 years or so old, where people could actually get exposure to gold directly without having to buy and hold and store the physical gold. That's a good way to do it. Basically, what you get is your exposure is based on how many ounces of gold you're buying. A good gold mining business actually over time gives you the leverage to more gold exposure. On a per share basis, we've been able to do that. Going back to 2005, we had one mine. Now we have eight or nine mines, depending on how you describe the assets in Mexico. We haven't just added bad assets to our business.
We've actually taken a world-class asset at LaRonde, which is not an easy asset, we've used the skills to identify and bring things in and drill them and grow them and build them. While we've done that, we've actually increased our shareholders' exposure to gold, which is basically, I think, why they're investing in high-quality gold equities is to get that leverage. We've been able to do that very successfully. If you look at this chart, you would expect to see this chart, which is the share price. This is over the last 20 years, and 20 years ago, some of you remember because you were in this room or at the annual meeting, remember it was kind of a small business.
It was one mine, LaRonde, good mine, we had a lot of good people, we had a lot of energy, we were a lot younger. What we set out to do is build a company that people wanted to work for, also build a company that communities wanted us around where we could make a contribution. Our job is always to work for the shareholders, do it in a way where we're not cutting corners or taking advantage of communities or people. We set out to broaden the business, lower the risk, diversify the production base, also create value the hard way.
Not just buy a lot of production, buy a project early take the risk based on our assessment of the geological upside and the risks, work hard and build it into a meaningful part of our business. This is the measure that the Harvard Business Review uses, is they use our relative share price performance, not just relative to the XAU, which is the gold index. It's relative to the S&P Global 1200, which is the 1,200 biggest public companies in the world, they represent 70% of the world's market cap. Not only have we done better than the industry, we've actually presented investors with an opportunity to invest in a business that's as good as some of the best businesses in the world, we give them the exposure to gold, which a lot of guys are looking for.
That's just our focus. Somebody was asking in Europe last week, "Well, what's your scorecard?" This is our scorecard. This is what we pay attention to. We're focused and mindful, if you look at the mission statement, that we don't do that yellow line if we're not looking after our people or looking after the communities. They all work hand in hand, and you can say, how do we view the last 20 years? Our success is we've been able to do all those three things and do them pretty well. The concept that we've put ourselves in a position to deliver is this idea of being able to self-fund what we have. As we look out at the opportunity set, as we said, it probably requires us to spend about CAD 650 million a year and still steadily grow the business over time.
There's no hurry to get bigger. As we've seen in this industry, those that have got really big end up trying to get a lot smaller. We're in that fortunate position that we can still grow because we can manage the business. I think one of the key things is that even though we're going to produce more gold and 30% more gold than we're going to produce this year and more as we go beyond 2020, it shouldn't be a tougher business to manage because it should be the same number of mines. It should be in the same four operating regions we currently operate in. Not that we're not looking outside, but again, we take our time, and we have to be comfortable before we're going to invest our shareholders' money into a new region. The focus is now on execution, deliver the Nunavut platform.
While we're doing that, generate good cash flow through quarterly production and cost management. Also to move the analysis forward on several key projects, which includes drilling them. We're also focused on increasing the reserve base, not only replacing the ounces we mine, but actually adding to it. As we do that, put ourselves in a position to generate the best returns in the space. As measured by stock performance, and as measured by dividends, and as measured by cash flow per share. That's the focus. I'll turn it over to Jim. I know we have some time for questions, but again, thanks for everyone's support. We really appreciate it, and thanks for coming out to our annual meeting.
Take that. Always a comprehensive and fulsome review and an overview of what we do. It's not an accident that we're successful with that kind of leadership and the people that support them, once again, we have great people and great management. Two things before we go to lunch. We spoke of Mexico, really an acknowledgment, our Vice President of Mexico, Luis Felipe Medina, he's right here. Luis, please stand up for all the good work you've done for us there with that community center and so on, wherever he is. Luis. I don't like to ask. Thanks, Luis. It's tough to single out one person, but really things have gone so well, [Foreign language] muchas gracias, señor. The other thing I'd like to mention is that Sean made reference to Nunavut with a large operating platform, how important Amaruq is.
Our exploration team, under Alain Blackburn, our Senior Vice President of Exploration. Alain, are you here somewhere? Where are you? There he is. The lifeblood of our business is exploration of the things we find. They were acknowledged as the National Commendation Award or our team got the Award of Merit for 2018 from the Nunavut Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists. They acknowledged that, and it was a tremendous discovery, and that leads to the good numbers you hear from Sean today. It will remain a large platform. Really when you look at it, we've really done some pioneering in the Arctic. Nothing has ever been done in our country, in Nunavut, on the scale we've done it, and it's going to get even bigger. They acknowledge that, we do, and we're grateful for it. We're grateful and thankful for all the blessings.
With that, the meeting is almost over. I throw the floor open to questions from shareholders and proxy holders. Please, if there's a question, clearly state your name, identify yourself as a shareholder or proxy holder. Are there any questions? If there aren't any, conclusions. If there are no further questions, I would like to thank Do we have one? Okay.
I want to ask a question about your safety record. I can't remember the exact term, and when I tried to get an annual report outside, the lady had already packed everything away. The point is, every year you tell us what the safety record is. This year it's 0.89. Well, for me, 0.89 is just a number. It's absolutely meaningless. I want to know how you get at the number, what facts you used, and how you manipulate them.
First of all, welcome back.
Thank you.
It's good to hear the question. Let's give you the background. We should say that if you look at last year, a record from production point of view, we had the most hours worked, in our history, the largest number of employees in our history, and we had the fewest lost time accidents since we've been keeping records. I'll let Louise provide a bit more color on that.
That is a very good question because a number doesn't mean anything if you don't know what's behind it. What the number is the number of lost time accidents, meaning that somebody that gets hurt has to leave work and stay home, or because they're not able to do their normal work. The number of light duty, meaning that you get hurt and you're not able to do your normal work. We add all these incident numbers. We divide that. The number is divided by the number of hours that we work. Say right now it's the number of hours that our employees and our contractors, and now we're almost 10,000 people working for. Then this number is multiplied by 200,000. Every 200,000 hours worked, we have 0.89 of these incidents. We'd like them to be zero, and we're working really hard.
Today we have a table there that our safety people had a meeting this week, and they came here. These guys work really hard to bring that number to zero because we want zero harm. As a responsible miner, we don't want anybody to go home with a problem. Even mental health, we're working on mental health. We are working really hard.
I did wonder if it was something per million hours worked.
200,000. Yeah. 200,000.
Thank you.
Are there any further questions? If there are no further questions, I would like to thank everyone for coming, making this a successful meeting. Enjoy your lunch. See you next year. Thank you.