Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our Day 2022. My name is Carlo Margret, and it's a pleasure to be here with you. Joining me today are Aura's executives for a very cool chat. To my right, I have Rodrigo Barbosa, CEO and President, Kleber Cardoso at my other side, and at the end, Glauber Luvizotto, our COO, as well as Paula Gerber, Head of People and ESG. We are speaking directly from our offices in Miami, and how great is it to be here in person to give you all clarity about what we have going on? The weather is really nice today. It's a bit cloudy, but we'll be talking about the plans for the company's strategies, results, new growth projects, financial management.
In between one presentation and another, we'll be speaking to operations directors, leaders from every business unit and also leaders from Brazil and Mexico. They'll be giving you more details about how they've been planning to grow Aura. Lastly, we'll also have a talk by Rabi Nizami, a specialist from ESG in the industry, who'll be talking about trends in ESG and how Aura is moving forward on that direction. It's very important that you participate throughout the event. You'll be able to send your comments and questions using the email that you see on your screen, ri@auraminerals.com. In the end, we'll answer all questions that you sent our way. Now we'll start by watching Aura's institutional video. Let's roll playback.
We are Aura, a company that thinks about mining in a different way. We are a copper and gold mining company focused on the operations of projects in the Americas. We wanna be known for our confidence, reliability, respect, and results orientation with solid values. Our operations are located across Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Honduras, and our corporate offices are located in São Paulo and Miami. We are listed in the stock exchanges of São Paulo and Toronto. Aura experienced deep transformation in the last five years with the purpose of delivering value to our stockholders and society, all within Aura 360's main value, which is to put people first, respect, and care about the environment and communities and innovation and ethical management. Our decisions are made based on the impacts and benefits we can derive for every audience we work with, our collaborators, our community, and the environment, and the company itself.
That's why our core values drive all our decisions, supported by practices and behaviors that help to spread to everyone the way we are and do things. Our focus today, looking at the future, is threefold, to deliver our projects on time and on budget, intensify our investments in prospecting, increasing our reserves and resources, and therefore the lifespan of our mines. It's to change the benchmark in the capital market. This is our 360-degree Aura culture. That way, we can give back to society, to shareholders, the value that we produce in our operations, acknowledging how important each and every one is. That is only possible by the right people at the right places in the appropriate environments. I'm a bit more involved in operations, and we have very close contact with the community.
The surrounding community now see Aura as a company that has a positive impact, and this is what makes us proud to be part of this organization. Aura is the hallmark of a great change in my company. I had the opportunity to come in and really wear the T-shirt. I'm very proud. I also believe that the change in culture, being an agent of that change and carrying Aura's slogan, this 360 view of mining, I think that's great for the company. Contributing to the well-being of our collaborators by promoting and developing the culture of safety so that they can do their work in a safe and productive way is what we're striving for.
We are Aura, people from several different places with different cultures and orientations, everyone with the same purpose, to mine and deliver minerals that are essential to society, that allow the world and humanity to create, to inn ovate, and to prosper. We are Aura.
We can already see that this will be a day of excellent and transformative changes, right? Let's start by talking about the gold market and a little bit about our corporate strategy with Rodrigo Barbosa, our CEO. Rodrigo, over to you.
Thank you. Thank you to everyone watching us. Those of you who are in Brazil and Canada, the United States, who are investors all around the world, with simultaneous interpretation into English. In these first 15 minutes, I would like to talk a little bit about Aura in a general way.
Talk a little bit about the gold market and what we see taking place in the world that could drive gold prices up, and how important we are in a diversified portfolio for companies investing in general. I'll start by talking about that, and then we'll move to EPP, and then we'll hear directly from the people from the mine. Now, one thing I would like to start my presentation speaking about is we are at a very apprehensive time where there's a change in government in Brazil. Most Brazilians know really well and have studied all of these changes in-depth. The transition in government, or in addition to that, there's also something going on all around the world.
There are developments in geopolitics and on the economic side that are unprecedented in the world, at least in the last 60 years since World War II. Now I would like to show you some of what experts are thinking about metrics and where we can go. First of all, the world is seeing some of the highest indebtedness levels in history. There have been results from the pandemic. It's an excess liquidity of over $7 trillion, which placed developed countries, whether in Europe, whether in North America, in a place of the highest indebtedness levels in several decades. Their level in the United States has come to 130, with a level where we do not have the demographic bonus that we had that could help to dissolve that debt. That's no longer true.
High indebtedness. Concurrently, those packages produced an inflationary pressure, which is cyclical but also structural. Cyclical because of the excess liquidity, and structural because we are now seeing the world moving toward deglobalization, moving its operations to places that aren't as safe or reliable, and also a transition in the energy grid in Europe especially, and not only in Brazil, but all over the world, we see extremism and populism surging in waves. Now, what this populism means? Politicians and the most important decision-makers in the world focusing in the short term to the detriment of the long term. That, in an environment of high debt and high inflation, can lead to very grave consequences. Over and above that, we see an escalation in geopolitical tension. We see the tension involving Taiwan.
Yesterday, the House of Representatives elected a majority, a Republican majority, and there's already work being done by some Republicans who would like to acknowledge the independence of Taiwan, which could lead to geopolitical consequences. Also, we see climate change. The world is going through many changes, and that has several consequences. Storms and effects on the environment, all of that will increase the tension between countries that could lead to some sort of disruption. We don't know whether that will be in the near term or long term, but that is definitely the path we're on. Lastly, the Federal Reserve has very few tools that it can resort to fight inflation, because when that's the case, when indebtedness levels are high.
When you have the highest deficit in the world, when you need to fund the military more so than ever, and you have high energy costs, that's very difficult. It's unlikely that the Fed will be able to increase its interest rates by a lot in the near term, and that will affect gold prices definitely. Whether it's Roubini or Ray Dalio have mentioned that the time of peace that the world experienced in the last 50-60 years will no longer repeat itself. Considering the events of the last six or five years, you see the pandemic, you see climate change. Several developments taking the world in a very different direction than what we saw in the last few decades.
Ray Dalio also talks a little bit about the cycles over the world and how much that affects all your investments, whether you're in Brazil or anywhere else in the world. When you see major shocks, that has significant consequences to all of us investors and citizens, more generally, wherever it is that we may be living. Now, why do we talk so much about gold? Gold has been a very important defense against these climate and geopolitical changes. The World Gold Council has developed a number of projects to show that portfolios, including gold or gold-focused companies, tend to lower their risks without lowering their returns. That provides a lot of financial health to your portfolio. Diversifying to real-world assets such as gold provides that. I would like to invite everyone to log into the World Gold Council website.
They do great work for several years identifying how those companies that had gold or gold companies in their portfolio are doing. On the right-hand side of the slide, Ray Dalio owns the greatest hedge fund in the world with an AUM of over $150 billion. This book that he published, The Changing World Order, talks a lot about those global cycles and how much or how strong a defense gold can be against those cycles. We see that in the world history, the Dutch Empire and the U.K. Empire, how much those currencies lost value as a result of those changes in the world. How important it is to have gold in your portfolio at a time when the world is heading toward waters that have never been navigated before.
Now, moving on to the macroeconomic side, and I have a serious challenge here for you. Look around you and study what's going on that will affect investments everyone's making, whether that's in Brazil or anywhere else in the world. Shifting our focus a little bit to Aura, what do we provide our investors? First of all, 25% of our revenue is copper. Of course, there's operational risks involved, but we bring to investors something that's relating to gold and exchange rates. Even in U.S. dollar, gold is also a defense, so it's a double defense for Brazilian investors. At Aura, we have three very clear paths, as you can already see on the video, in terms of where we'll be deriving value to you, our investors. We have major growth projects. We have increased over two-fold since 2017.
We have projects of 250,000 that will take us to 450,000 ounces. A lot of growth in the last five years with projects involving a high rate of return and the possibility to lower our costs as well. The second avenue for growth that's very clear for our investors is prospecting. One thing is to grow your production. Another thing is to increase the amount of gold that we have in our reserves and production. We own over 650 hectares, including areas where we already produce and or have yet to produce in, areas that have not been explored as much. We will be showing you some of the opportunities we have.
In geological terms, as well as the amount of gold and copper that we have to mine over the next few years. We will grow our production, grow our reserves, the amount of gold that we can resort to. Third, it's very clear to us that companies that are growing constantly and reaching new levels in terms of size tend to have a higher multiple. Now, what's a multiple? It's what we talk about P over N. What is the fair value of the company's market cap? We're there between 0.4-0.5. Companies 50% over value, some over 0.9, 90%. It's very clear to us how we can reach those 450 ounces.
We also understand there's a lot of value to deliver to all of you once we exceed those 450,000 ounces. That's why we have on our agenda to really look into M&A opportunities as we have last year with the acquisition of Borborema. We will grow both in geological terms and increase our multiple, so long as we maintain great cash generation, and we will continue to grow, paying dividends. Kleber, our CFO, will give more details about this financial equation that we're working with later. We'll grow our production, our operations, grow geologically, increase our multiple with a healthy balance sheet, and more importantly, with a great team and strong organizational health within our Aura 360 culture where people give their best. Moving on to the next slide.
Here we have a few details, and Glauber will be giving you more details about these. These are our growth, our projects and our growth. Since 2020, we've increased Aranzazu's capacity by 30%. We've increased by over 350,000 ounces. We've started the construction at Almas. We have already developed and disclosed many of our studies. We expect to conclude Matupá and Borborema in the next few years, which will allow us to grow by 82% our production by 2025. It's very clear because of this new project that we are working on, Borborema could go over 450 ounces in 2025. Geology, Glauber will be giving you more details about this. This is just an example of how much Aura has invested.
You have the $7 million, $8 million, $10, $12 million for a 260 ounce region. That's not a lot, and that's what's required in the beginning because you're studying the surface. Now it's time to go deeper in our studies, understand how the ore is located in the ground. These are studies that give us results in the near to medium to long term, but could really increase our reserves in the next few years. Bearing in mind that with just this small amount of investment, we could already increase the company's reserves in general in most of our business operations. In the next slide, I talk about our multiple. Now why do we talk a lot about this re-rating?
For this gold and mining industry, which is a global industry, really, I mean, we have investors from all over the world. When you're greater, you have more liquidity, you attract more investors, you're on the radar of more investors, and that tends to put your price in a level that's closer to the ideal. We are still in that process of moving from a junior size, moving on to a medium-sized to become a large size, which is what we plan to do. How do we get there by 2025? Glauber Luvizotto will be talking a lot about that with you, but we wanna go beyond, and we will be talking about moving over 250 ounces and improving our multiple.
In closing, Paula will be talking a little bit more about this, all that we're doing to grow with a strong balance sheet and a very strong workforce, as well as an appropriate organizational culture for a company that wants to outperform the market and continue to grow in a healthy way, which is what we call Aura 360. This is closely connected not only to our environmental and governance responsibility, which is what we know as ESG today. This is something we have worked on since 2017, but it's very closely connected to how people at Aura are making their decisions. This is our North Star, and this is deriving value for the company at large, attracting very great talents across our departments and also on the corporate side for us to continue to grow in an organized and sustainable way.
Paula will be talking a little bit more about how we are evolving in our chart and also detailing the projects we have for 2025.
Thank you very much, Rodrigo. It's great to see how well-structured Aura's plan is for growth. I'd like to ask you a few questions. Aura was successful in major greenfield projects that will be developed over the next four years. I'd like to know first whether the strategy remains the same and whether you prefer projects that are ready to build or if you're studying alternatives. Also, what about other metals and minerals? Do you plan to diversify?
We're focusing on gold and copper. In our portfolio, 25% of our revenues come from copper and 75% from gold. Our growth projects are extremely linked to gold, and we do like that copper-gold balance. Copper will be diluted with the execution of additional gold projects. We would like to further expand copper to maintain that healthy balance. We have three projects to execute in the coming three years. We will be fully able to do this, and we're now beginning to look at companies that are producing at an earlier stage, something where we could develop the geology to enter construction once we conclude Matupá and Borborema. Thank you, Rodrigo. Thank you very much. Now please send your questions to ir@auraminerals.com. We would like to respond to your possible questions.
We're now going to speak live with our unit in Mato Grosso with Frederico, who will share with us the EPP operation. Good morning, Fred. Where are you?
Hello, Carla. A good day to all of you. I heard that the weather in Miami is somewhat chilly, and here in Mato Grosso, as usual, it's extremely warm. Welcome to our control room. This is where we fully manage our operation. It's always a pleasure to speak about what we are doing here.
You may continue, Federico. I do apologize.
Rodrigo mentioned the main points, and I would simply like to explain to you what we are doing this year and what to expect from EPP and Apoena in coming years. This year, we have focused on structuring our technical team as well as the leadership team. 50% of the team is new, a team with a great deal of energy that fully identifies with our Aura 360 culture. We have carried out a great deal of work with the team to ensure that our site can be ever more controlled so that we can have more initiatives to be able to leverage our productivity. In the year 2022, EPP will be delivering in terms of production and with a very good cost at the end of 2022.
We're structuring our foundation to structure everything, and EPP is undergoing a wrap-up in our surveying plan. We continue on with this plan in 2023 because we truly believe in this potential in our regional and other areas. We know that Mato Grosso is still a very new region when we speak about geological studies, geological interpretation, and in the coming years, it will be contributing significantly. We need to undergo that process of enhancing whatever we do, evermore aligned with our 360 structure, a team that strongly identifies to our brand, a team that enjoys being part of the Aura proposal. Basically, it's all about doing their best. I'm extremely satisfied, and I feel responsible for leading this team. We have had significant results during the year that will be commented on further ahead.
Some of you have visited the operation, and this is an incentive to continue working, and we're on the right track to continue the evolution of EPP. Now, this will enable us to have a better operational level, and what you see behind me are several areas that have been expanded. Doubtlessly, EPP in the coming years will expand the life of mine and the different activities that we carry out, generating sustainable operations and a very high cash flow. We're going to use our operation, enhance it, of course, reduce costs, and generate profit that we do expect for this very strong asset that we have as part of our operations.
We will continue here working arduously with that commitment that we have of respecting people and ensuring that our mission will evermore be oriented to results, of course, caring for the environment and the surroundings of our operation. It is a pleasure to participate. Welcome, everybody, and our doors are open in Mato Grosso.
Very good, Fred. Thank you very much. I was enchanted by your joy and your ease of expression. A very good day for you and greetings to the entire team. Very well. We're going to continue on from our office in Miami. Here we have Paula Gerber, the People and ESG Manager, and she's going to speak about the cultural transformation that she has been leading.
Well, thank you, Carla. It is a pleasure to be here with you. Aura has undergone a cultural transformation process since Rodrigo became CEO in 2016.
This represents a change in our management model that is based on a decentralization independence, where while the business units work with autonomy, the decisions are based on our mandala, on our circle, and confidence and trust among people. Our first mandala, which is the symbol of our culture, was built in 2018, already with a focus on ESG. As our culture is under constant evolution, so is Aura 360. This year, we launched the project 360 in Action with outside partnership, and the focus is organizational culture. In a structured way, we would like to consolidate Aura 360. The first stage of the project was to focus on the company's vision of the future. The leadership looked forward and attempted to assess if the values that we had still made sense.
Once we set forth this new mandala, we spoke to the business units to understand what was operating well in the organization and if we had room for changes and evolution. 82% of our collaborators responded to this. A few weeks ago, our executive team, top management, came together to draw up some leadership plans to be able to close some of the gaps that we found. Our operational directors are presently communicating these results to their units at all of the levels of the organization, and we're going to try to assimilate this new mandala. In January of 2023, we will begin with the execution, the rollout of the action plans. They go all the way from improvement in our internal communication, training, and a focus on career advancement. Here you will see our new mandala.
The reading is much easier and the different axes are all interconnected. Once again, all of the axes are connected, and it's very easy to detect what this mandala is made up of. It can turn around, and we have brought our collaborators in. Of course, this points to the fact that people are always in the first place. The way of looking at the mandala begins with our stakeholders, the main audiences that have the impact of our business, collaborators, communities, environment, and the company itself. The second ring refers to our values, people in the first place, respect and ethical management, as well as innovation. Finally, we have the practices. What will guarantee that these practices come to life? All of this summarizes what we have called Aura 360. It's the way that we do things and the way we are.
Here you can see a significant stride, which is the further materialization of our culture, a definition of clear and universal behaviors that are practiced by everybody in the organization as part of the three rings or axes. People in the first place, for example. What sustains that value is health, security, physical and psychological. Because of that, we have that behavior. Take care of yourself, take care of others, and allow others to care for you. Care for your mental health, your physical health, and contribute to a healthy environment. For each of these rings, we have very clear behaviors that we expect from everybody in the organization. In this slide, I would simply like to remind you of our EESG strategy. We do have an additional E referring to collaborators or employees.
We have a separate agenda from the social one for our employees, and we're based on nine topics that you will observe during the coming slides. We continue to move forward in our diversity agenda at Aura. Since last year, we became signatories of Women in Mining in all of the countries where we have a footprint. It's our public commitment of being a more diverse and inclusive company. In 2021, we had a short-term goal of having a greater share of women in our screening processes for administrative positions. That was 40%. Since last year, we have increased our percentage of women at Aura by 3%. Presently, we have 17% women employees as part of our team, in line with the industry average in Brazil. That was 17% and somewhat above the average global, which is 15%.
Here we have some important numbers in terms of women. In Apoena, 50% of women are in administrative positions. In the corporate team, 37%. In top management, there are 38%. An Operations Director at the Almas unit and a Corporate Issues Director and legal issues at the Honduras unit. These are but some examples on the slide of actions that we carried out this year with women. Conversation rounds, awareness on the prevention of breast cancer. In Mexico, there was incredible recognition as they are above the national average in terms of women's participation in mining. We intend to continue moving further in this agenda. Now to speak about the environment, I would like to underscore three topics. The first, decarbonizing. At the beginning of this year, we disseminated a goal of reducing our absolute emissions in the operational units by 5%.
The baseline was the year 2020, when we carried out our first greenhouse gas inventory. Our activities today focus on operational efficiency. In Aranzazu, we have compliance of a maintenance program that is greater than 80% to decrease emission losses in equipment. In Apoena, we're improving our fleet, ensuring these trucks move based on diesel. In Minosa, we are increasing efficiency to reduce emissions. We are presently concluding our greenhouse gas inventory for 2021 with the help of a platform implemented in Aura. This inventory will be concluded until the end of the year. When it comes to water, our hydric footprint points to the fact that in all of the regions where we operate, the hydrographic basins are in a situation of balance. We reuse water 30% in Minosa, 50% in Aranzazu in Mexico, and 70% in Apoena.
In Aranzazu, we need new water because this is a region of drought, where we have natural loss of water. Aura, until September of this year, produced 20,000 seedlings, an increase of 10% vis-à-vis 2021. These seedlings are used for our areas of recovery, and they're also donated to the community. 80% of these seedlings have been replanted during the year 2022. Now, to speak about the social strategy. Our social responsibility depends on creating a very close relationship with all of the audiences that undergo the impact of our activities. We do acknowledge that our activities have an impact. We have a two-way communication to be able to build this partnership and to leave a positive legacy in our areas of operation.
Our social strategy is based on education, on the training of labor for our operations and entrepreneurial education, developing local suppliers, for example, with a view towards the economic trends of our community. Now, this is something that we do in all of the communities. In Minosa, we have a clinic where we hire health professionals, offer medication to the community. In Apoena, we have worked with sustainable agribusiness, implementing vertical gardens, supporting family agriculture. This is but some of the initiatives that we have at Aura. Now to go on to the next slide. Aura is a member of the World Gold Council, the most important association internationally. Now, this association brings together a group of more than 30 companies that have made the commitment of making gold mining ever more sustainable, and Aura shares these beliefs.
In 2021 , we committed to adhere to the principles of the Gold Council, and we're now undergoing certification. This means self-assessing our gaps, the implementation of improvements, and finally, the certification forcing that we can reach in 2024 . These are the highlights of our people and ESG agenda for Aura. Thank you very much.
There are huge challenges in mining on the equity, inclusion, and diversity agendas. How does Aura plan to develop this agenda? What are Aura's short and medium and long-term goals in that sense? Thank you, Carla. Well, we know that diversity is a long-term plan here at Aura. Our strategy is to focus on gender diversity from which we can expand to other fronts, ethnicity, race, LGBTQ. Right now, we're focused on gender. When we talk about short-term targets, we talk about setting strategies and practices within the organization, and the diversity topic is cross-sectional. It involves recruitment, it involves the evaluation of our employees, promotions, equitable pay.
In addition to that, a very important topic that we are deeply focusing on and discussing about in our units is to have the adequate infrastructure for the female employee in our facilities with dressing rooms, uniforms, rooms for lactating women, maternity, adequate maternity leave, and so on and so forth. We are developing focus on this discussion. I think in the long term, our agenda is to consolidate those practices so that diversity is a topic that's addressed naturally, and so much so that we won't even need targets, right? Yeah, to consolidate these small steps that we're already taking. Right. Okay. Thank you for your answers. We will now take another turn around our operations, talking to Honduras in the San Andrés mine with Wilton, our Director of Operations. Wilton, are you with us? Good morning or good afternoon. How are you?
Hello. Good morning, Carlo. Good morning to everyone joining us. I am here in our integrated control room. This is where we have the entire control of our operations for our mines, our plants, maintenance, the works. I'm in Minosa here in Honduras, and it's a great pleasure to speak to all of you. I'd like to talk a little bit about how in the future we will be doing here in Minosa. We are coming to the end of the year and looking at the next few years in a very excited way, and we feel very prepared. This is because of all the preparation that we experienced over the course of 2022.
This was a year when we faced a few challenges, operational challenges, but we have all of them very much under control right now, and this put us in a better place to face 2023. Essentially, what we faced were three operational challenges that I would like to speak a little bit about. First of them was we found sulphide ore. Well, what does that mean? During the process of extracting gold, we use an ore that's called oxide ore, which is a very porous metal, and via our process, we can extract gold from it. We also have an ore that's called sulphide ore, which is within a less porous stone, which, because this is a different process from what we're used to doing here in Minosa, poses a few challenges.
Now, in 2022, we came to a transition area, which is between the sulphide ore and the oxide ore. Now, within this region, we saw a decrease in recovery. That forced us to change our mining project, our operational strategy, which we quickly did, seeking to go into a new mine called Esperanza Alta. Now we need to move forward with the development of this mine. Now, this brought a very positive result, which is this combination of this new ore, which is a 100% oxide ore, and that allowed us to solve our recovery issue. These operations that we have here in Minosa allowed us to make quick decisions to solve the problem. This mine in Esperanza Alta, we expected to bring it in in 2023, so we had to go in earlier.
We had a rainfall level 70% over the expected for the period, especially in Q3, and that involved a few infrastructure issues in the country. Now they have been addressed, but that prevented some inputs from coming in. By seeking alternative routes, we were able to maintain our operations, and we're able to weather these adversities. That had an impact on our operations, especially within the mine, where we saw the combination of this new mine in Esperanza Alta with an excess rainfall, which led to a higher quality of our ore than what our plant is designed to address. That came with its challenges. We also overcame those, but that also had an impact on our operations.
Now, lastly, we needed to change a mine operator that we expected to change later in the future, but because some inefficiencies that we were seeing and the lack of alternatives, that ultimately had an impact on our costs. It was extremely important for us to make the decision to change that contractor. We looked for one that is in line with our values and our work methodology. It's a very open-minded person. We had a period of ramp-up where our production dipped a little bit, but we have stabilized that 100%. All of these challenges had one-off impacts to our productivity, but made us all the more stronger to face 2023 and the following years as well.
We will come into 2023 with the mine fully open with an ore 100% oxidated, so with no negative surprise relating to recovery, with a very much suitable contractor. That, as Rodrigo said, all the impact that we had from inflation because of the pandemic, all of those changes allowed us to have a very adequate, very competitive price. We're going into 2023 and the following years very excited about everything that's coming up in Minosa. We are still steady and very excited. Our team is highly motivated, and we look forward to the next few years of high production with great respect to people, first and foremost. That's everything that we had to say about Minosa. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Wilton. Have a very good work day, you and all your team.
Now let us talk a little bit with him, our COO, Glauber Luvizotto, who will talk a little bit about our operations, new projects, and also the future of the company, which is in geology. Glauber, over to you.
Thank you, Carlo. Good morning to you and to everyone. I'd like to start my presentation by talking a little bit of the highlights of our operations last year. Fred mentioned a number of things, as did Wilton, and Henrique will also be able to discuss later. I'd like to detail the building blocks of growth, what we're doing in growth, and what we have to say about our exploration and geology work.
We are really focusing on consolidating our techniques, introducing and spreading the best practices across the company in a much more mature and stable way, which is something that adds predictability and consistency in how we deliver our results. We understand that that's part of our evolution process, where this grassroots work, this consolidation, will open very great ways for us to grow in a sustainable way. If we look at this chart on the left-hand side, which is our production and quarterly waste, there's not significant development in our consolidated production compared to previous years. The way we reach this level is where we see the most significant steps. We have done so in an increasingly consistent way, and our indicators show that, not specifically our production indicators, but other indicators.
For example, in Aranzazu, we have constantly seen great results with record-breaking production and, uh, tons produced in the plant with over 300 tons over the quarter, which exceeds the plant's, uh, nominal capacity, which is a hundred, uh, thousand mines after expansion. Record production in the mine, record development of, uh, tun- underground tunnels to access the ore. These indicators are key for us to reach the ultimate result, which is our production and ounces. And this is something that we have been able to achieve in a consequent and mature way. And as a consequence, we see a lot of stability, which is what's been going on in Aranzazu in the last five years. Continues-- Continuous, uh, results in a consistent way.
In Apoena, as was said earlier, we started this in a more intense way late last year, working not only on the management model but also the operational model on the business side. We talked about looking at low-content moles of this ore that had already been produced by the mine, process that in our plan to maximize our cash flow. We also went over that, revising our model, changing a contractor, bringing in one that had more technological performance. All of that has helped us to deliver these results and to pave the way for us to grow further and further, as we have been discussing here. Obviously, not everything goes according to plan. Wilton managed to say a little bit about what happened in Minosa this year.
We had some recovery issues, and once we redirected our plans to be able to recover and make up for those losses that we faced in recovery, I mean, we had an unprecedented rainfall level in the area, 70% over the historical average. The historical average is already very high for open outdoors operations, and that brought its consequences to production. This is something that we're addressing. Even so, what we expect is a very strong, a very robust operation in Apoena due to the high content of the ore produced in the mine that's coming in this quarter, but also in the consistent delivery with Aranzazu and this plan to recover Minosa. Now a little bit about our projects and growth. Our flagship this year is Almas, which is where we're focusing fully on.
This was the first project that we started from the ground up, so all the attention was turned to that project because not only will this be the first project we will deliver, but this is the embryo of all of our other projects. All the best practices in terms of implementation. The very construction team that's doing an amazing work will be the same that we will use to other construction projects, building on all of their knowledge within Aura. The results have already been surprising. In spite of all the adversity, I mean, we had inflation, the end of COVID with impacts on how we manage every employee, and also the impacts that we see from everything that's going on in the world that Rodrigo really talked a lot about. People still have been creative in seeking alternatives to make up for those losses.
Today, we have virtually 80% of the project that's completed. We are now in the final stages to be able to deliver and begin production in the beginning of last year. Bearing in mind that Almas has a life of mine that's very robust, and we will deliver about 50,000 ounces a year. Our latest acquisition, which is the Borborema project, among all the opportunities we looked into, this was the one that looked the most like Aura. It was a perfect fit, the perfect combination of the jurisdiction that we know very well, which is in Brazil. The synergy with our operations in Brazil, there's a very robust and detailed geological study in that area.
Today, according to the JORC Code that regulates the analyses and the values for reserves and resources, we have 1.8 million ounces that has already been identified with great precision, which if we can materialize that in production, we can have over 100,000 ounces for several years. The project is done, ready to build, and what we're doing now is reviewing the study that was conducted by Big River, the company we bought the project from, trying to optimize production profile, the operational model, and also the initial CapEx. We plan to conclude that study or at least have the first draft at the end of this year, and we want to leave everything ready to begin construction early next year. Now, another project that we also communicated within our growth project, that's Matupá in the north of the state of Mato Grosso.
This is an area with an incredible geological potential that's underexplored. We have gold producers in the area, but these are small operations, and we understand that one of our competitive edges is the intensity of our operations in the area, which is why we are in a hurry. We want to implement the project as early as possible in the region. As a gateway, we have the X1 deposit. This is a relatively small deposit. We're talking about a seven-year life of mine to introduce the project. This will bring a 50,000 ounce a year profile, which will help us to reach those 450,000 ounces a year by 2025.
This is a project with a very positive financial operation, and that, combined with the entire potential on the surrounding area, we have great prospects of having a very strong production hub for Aura in that area. Now, shifting a little bit to our geology building block. One thing I think is important to mention is how does this development or this maturity of our exploration targets? Unlike other commodities like iron, which I think most of you are more used to monitoring or keeping track of, in gold, that occurs in a much more dispersed way in nature. Deposits are naturally more complex, whether because of the ratio or the way that it is found in nature. Coming to the level of detail that we can bring to the plant only what's interesting to us, that takes a lot of work.
This exploration pipeline, as we call it, to remove the ore from its initial stage until we have a detailed operational plan could take years. That requires not only time, but also an incredible amount of funds. We are growing our investments in exploration continuously since 2017. A lot of this investment, actually, most of this investment is made in these early stages where the figures are not yet materializing in our resources and reserves charts. Much of this investment is not showing its results in the official figures, but that's natural. That is part of the development and detailing process in these projects. There's a lot to come that will be the result of the seeds we've planted in the last three or four years. Even so, results haven't been poor.
If you think that in 2017 we had 130, 135 ounces, and we plan 260-270 a year, we have virtually doubled, increased 100% our production. Even so, we were able to increase our resources by 60%. We are working at the foundation because you set the foundation, that's something that no one will see, but without it, the house won't be able to stand. This is why we are looking at those early stage targets, but never forgoing the reposition of everything that we have produced and still increasing production, which shows how robust is our capacity to replenish the reserves of the areas we're mining. Now, a few examples and just going over briefly a few of our geological results.
For example, in Aranzazu is where our production flow is most stabilized, so we have a good replenishment rate. The main body, which is footwall, which accounts for about 60%-70% of our operation, we have been able to prove this in depth because this main framework that provides the production in Aranzazu is prevailing. We are still not close to the surroundings that have shown great results in copper in terms of copper content and also in width, which is a very important aspect that determines productivity, as well as other targets such as La Apuesta, which are in the 15 meter radius around our mine. We always hear the question about, well, there's a four-year life of mine, but since 2016 we are saying it has a four-year life of mine and still producing over the course of these four years.
This is our youngest reserve. Naturally this will take longer to mature. Here we have the results. This image on the right-hand side, if you see, it shows the Nosde pit and Lavrinha pit. What you see on the top is the one that we're working on currently. In red you have the forecast ore showing that they're all connected. The plan is to have that as a single pit with a much higher forecast than what we had initially. They are now being mined separately. In addition to that, we have the Japonês mine that produced about 90,000 ounces in three year. This is a mine that's currently not in operation because we have reached our limit for the mineral concession.
We have renewed that government concession recently, and what we understand is that there's at least another Japonês mine in the area that we have been granted. I'm talking about an area where we could produce about 90,000 more ounces in the next three years. Almas, although this is the longest life of mine operations, this is one type of deposit with a very geological area that's very conducive to production. One of the largest gold deposits are sitting over this type of deposits, which is what we call greenstone belt. In Brazil, we see examples of that. For example, in the state of Minas Gerais, where 65 million ounces were produced. In Goiás we also see a similar environment where 11 million ounces have been produced, but with a lot longer exploration time and a lot more information.
At Almas, which is another new deposit, we understand there's huge potential to be unlocked via research and deep surveying. Even though the life of mine is extensive, we are still focusing very much on exploration. Matupá, as I mentioned, I think there's a lot of potential on the surrounding areas, not only in our concession areas, but also in other surrounding areas. The main focus has been to extend the life of mine in our Serrinhas operation, and we have communicated a number of good results for that area. We have 60, 80 meter areas with great open pit production prospects. A lot of potential for great production with low cost because of the low or good ratio of ore to dirt.
This is a little bit of what we have in our operations, moving through the growth projects and giving you a glimpse of what we're doing.
Thank you so much for your presentation. We can see how Aura is focused on growth and working hard for it. Now, I'd like to ask you, with the acquisition of the Borborema project that you mentioned, does that change the sequence of the implementation of those projects? Which one is expected to come first, Borborema or Matupá?
Well, that's very interesting, and I know that a lot of people have that question. Unlike Matupá, where we are very much advanced in our environmental licensing, we have had the public hearing, but it's not 100% licensed. Borborema, on the other hand, is fully licensed.
What we're doing now is reviewing all the studies that were conducted and reviewing potential optimization of the project. If there's no problem, and we expect not there not to be, Matupá is expected to come first. Possibly starting construction at the beginning of next year and next, also start building in Matupá. This shifts the order a little bit because we expected to have Matupá right after Almas, but because of how much we have progressed with the study in Borborema, it makes sense to bring that forward. That's not been confirmed. Pending a few of these discussions and internal discussions, that's what we will have.
Great. Reminding that Glauber and all other executives will be joining us at the end of the presentation to answer any question you may have.
Please, if you haven't yet, please email our ir@auraminerals.com so that we can chat with them later at the end. Thank you so much once again. Let's look at our units once again. Now we will be hearing from Aranzazu.
We will speak to the Director of Operations, Henrique. What a pleasure to speak to you. How are things there? Thank you, Henrique. We do apologize. Everything live made it somewhat difficult to hear what Henrique was saying. Thank you very much, Henrique. What a beautiful sky. Are you ready, Kleber? Very well. We're back to our office in Miami with our CFO, Kleber Cardoso, who will speak about the financial management for the growth of Aura. Well, thank you, and a good day to all of you. It is a pleasure to be here at another Aura Day. I would like to focus on two topics that refer to questions that we receive frequently from our investors. The first is our capital structure. Rodrigo and Glauber refer to the growth in the future. We have several projects that are under construction.
Now, how Aura will be able to grow its production by more than 80 maintaining the payout of dividends and of course, maintaining a healthy balance? This is the first question. The second question, of course, refers to inflation, the co-- impact on our cash costs and mining nowadays. Here you see somewhat of what Rodrigo and others presented, but here we are focused more on investments. When we look at the last three years, we see that Aura has already undergone expressive growth. Our production grew more than a hundred percent through investments from the company cash. When we began the operations, then we had the acquisition of Gold Road mine. Then we increased the capacity of Aranzazu by thirty percent, which of course demanded CapEx. We began the construction of the Almas project last year, intensifying it in 2022 .
We carried out the acquisition of Big River, and as Rodrigo showed you, we have accelerated investments in exploration and geology to extend the life of mine. In the future, what we expect is a very similar trajectory to conclude the construction of Almas, which will enter operation in 2023. As Glauber showed you, we have two projects under construction that will be ramped up and enter production in 2024, Borborema and Matupá. Our investments in geology will bear fruit in the coming years to continue on with that positive trend in life of mines. Now, the question of how we will be able to grow over and above 80% in a short period of time, three-four years, continue paying out dividends and maintaining a healthy balance, it's rather simple to respond to that question.
I showed you that going forward, we are going to base ourselves on our foundation of what we have done so far. Here, more figures and greater detail of how we have used the company cash in the last two years. We have carried out relevant investments. We have invested in expansion projects, including an increase of 30% in Aranzazu mine, and $50 million in the acquisition of Big River, besides the investments throughout the year 2022. We have returned to shareholders through dividends as well as through share buyback, more than $105 million in the 24 months. That is to say, a robust amount of capital being returned to investors and company creditors. Now, all of the cash is focused on robust investment projects and payout to shareholders.
A relevant part of the cash, of course, emanates from our operations. The free cash flow generated from operations, of course, eliminating investments in working capital was made, and the income tax that we have paid in all of the jurisdictions where we operate. Despite all of those investments, we have $140 million in debts that we contracted under very favorable conditions, enabling us to make all of the investments mentioned and pay back to shareholders. Now, which is the financial health of Aura in those same 24 months? When we look at the company cash to the right, you see there has been an increase. We began with $86 million, went to $122 million at the end of 3Q. In September, we paid $54 million for the Big River acquisition.
In coming quarters, we don't expect to have an intense cash burn as we had in the third quarter this year, and the trend is for an increase in liquidity. Well, when we look at leverage, net debt over EBITDA of the company generated in the last 12 months, well, we see that in the third quarter, our leverage was 0.5x. For many years, Aura had a negative leverage, more than debt. An important investment program in the third quarter where we intensified our investments in Almas and Big River. Once again, you see that our leverage is 0.5x with a trend to a drop in the coming years. Another doubt of our investors is very well. Aura has a very sound capital structure, low indebtedness level.
The debt profile of the company has been increasing in a world where we see an increase in interest rates, especially in the U.S. economy. Now, it began from an interest rate very close to zero, and this has reached 2.5% based on SOFR in the last 30 days. Which is the impact on our financial expenses? When we look to the right, you can see that Aura is going in the direction opposite to the market. The nominal cost of debt, this is not the spread. It is the average cost of debt at the end of September 2020, 2021, and 2022. Aura has reduced the cost of debt from 10% a year to 6% a year through restructuring new credit lines and the issuance of debentures in the Brazilian market.
This increase in interest rates has not have a repercussion in the company. 85% of our gross rate is based on pre-fixed rates. Even though the interest rate continues to increase in following quarters, we do not expect a significant impact on the cost of debt. I would also like to speak about inflation and the impact on the cash cost of the company. Here we have the consolidated cash cost of the company in 2019, 2020, 2021, and the expectation for the present year. Between 2019 and 2021, there was a reduction in the cash cost. In 2022, we do expect a slight increase, but we're thinking of a three-year period compared to 2022, and the increase will not reach 5%.
This is a very controlled, modest increase if we see that the inflation in the U.S. market will be over 16% for the period. When we look at other companies in our sector as well as in other sectors, the cost increase is of two digits or above 20% in some cases. It has been an achievement to maintain the cost at the present-day levels. Now, which is the secret underlying this? How have we been able to hold back our cash cost? Through several initiatives, and the increase in scale in Aranzazu, a renegotiation of mine contracts at the three business units. The contract is in Brazil, Mexico, and in Honduras. We have revised these contracts, and in two out of the three sites, we have changed suppliers, opting for suppliers with more competitive conditions to increase our efficiency.
Each operation has its peculiarity and specific raw material that it requires. In some cases, we operate with suppliers whenever necessary. We have worked with contracting to have more intelligence with the most important suppliers, implementing strategic sourcing, in some cases, with gains both for suppliers and Aura. Presently, we're jointly renegotiating among all of our business units. As Almas is about to come into operation, these opportunities increase. Of course, this will aid and abet us, helping us to get more competitive resources in the future. What do we expect from Aura in future years when the projects come into operation? Here you see the expected cash costs for Almas, Matupá. In Borborema, we have already published these results. Now the cost expectation is quite low. These are operations with a very low cost profile.
Aura will continue to grow and deliver that growth of over 80%, and we have very competitive expectations when it comes to cost. I would like to share with you a study that Aura has acquired, the curve of cash cost in gold mining. A study among 200 companies in the market carried out by Metals Focus. We don't have the update for the year 2022, but the message continues to be very important. Aura was a player in the third quartile in terms of cash costs in 2019. A sound company in the second quartile, validating our hypothesis that we have been able to hold back on costs despite inflation, and we have remained competitive. With the coming into operation of Almas and Matupá, we will move and shift towards the left of this chart. Thank you very much, Kleber.
Well, how is Aura going to finance the projects of Matupá and Almas? This has not been fully defined so far. Probably through a combination of debt, our own capital. In some projects, we're looking at 50% debt at a minimum, and we're going to assess the market conditions for the Almas project. Once again, we were going to obtain 50% debt, but we did obtain more interesting financing. It will be a mixture, cash generation that has been robust at the company and a bit of debt. Wonderful. Thank you very much. To speak about the Almas project, let's visit it and speak to Andrea, who is the Director of this incredible project being built in the state of Tocantins. Good morning and welcome. Good morning, Carla. It's a pleasure to address you and to present a bit of the Almas project.
I'm in Tocantins, and as you can see, the industrial processing plant is in the background as the main scenery for this morning. As you can observe the evolution of the construction, almost 80% of the project has been concluded. In the background, the ore piling silo, the milling already installed, the thickener, the water tanks, the reactor tanks, and the additional tanks. A great deal has been done so far. I would like to speak to you about the challenges that we have been facing. Speaking about this, if we move backwards almost a year ago in December of 2021, we obtained the license to begin construction at Almas, and we received the license in the rainfall period. Although the day is beautiful today, it's not normal for this season.
We began construction under rainfall, but the very devoted team began the enhancement processes, risks and analysis of each process. Of course they were successful. I would like to underscore some of these initiatives. We begin with the landfilling, which is mandatory to carry out this process. We had to change the management of the landfilling, the execution, the type of fleet and how we would hire the fleet. We also had to alter the process per se. It was no longer a conventional process. We had to divide this into stages and it was highly successful, as you can see. Another example of overcoming and the commitment of the team that I would like to share with you is based on decentralization, that Aura of delivering to the teams and those who know how to do things, the challenges, and they will find alternatives.
We saw this in civil construction. At the beginning of the process, we were delayed in terms of civil construction. The team became mobilized. They consulted the best practices in the market, bringing in a completely new model to be able to realign with our schedule. As you can see, we have the construction of the tanks and the structures that were built through a pre-assembly, carrying out all of this activity in a completely different yard, and then bringing in those rings so they could be assembled on the civil construction as if this were a Lego game. We were able to return to our schedule and of course were on time. Now, this entire process will guarantee that the cash and the disbursement of the project would comply with its deadlines.
We consulted processes to optimize our cash use, the pre-operation of the mine, the movements in the mine. We reviewed the geological models and this enabled us to reduce all the movements, guaranteeing cash to mitigate all of the impacts that we faced and inflation as well. Now what is happening at present? 80% of the project has been concluded and we're getting ready to take on the operation. We have been bringing in very experienced teams. 100% of the leaders are presently in the site. They have vast knowledge in gold, in the startup of similar projects. Of course, they also have that concept of preparing the teams that we will be hiring locally. A great deal of qualification and preparation before we fully take on this operation.
I would like to call upon the operation and construction project that are here with me in the live. They have contributed a great deal. This is but the beginning of our journey. Thank you very much, team. Excellent work. Thank you, Carla. [Foreign language] Rabi, welcome.
Thank you.
The stage is yours.
I'm going to be talking in English. I hope maybe next time in Portuguese, but my accent might not be actually worthy to be in English. I think the opportunity that we had here is really to be able to introduce the ESG best practices and trends in the mining sector. This is very much the result of a year of collaboration that we had with Aura Minerals. Aura has invested in our presence, doing some external advising on each one of their sites and providing a comprehensive ESG risk assessment. I'm actually including here a few photos.
One of them is on the Almas site, showing that this commitment to bring external experts, you know, delivers on the desires of Aura Minerals to be able to follow those ESG best practices and increase their performance in the next few months and years. Already with their, you know, participation into a series of global ESG certification scheme. Maybe to start this presentation on those different, you know, ESG best practices, I think the best element would be to focus on the environmental elements, which is on the next slide.
Here, we're gonna be able to outline the importance of commitment to a series of different key environment elements, such as the decrease of carbon emissions, the protection of biodiversity and forest resources, the protection and verification of the quality of tailings, and also a waste management on different operations. Finally, elements of protection of water resources and air resources. I think what's important here to actually highlight is the dedication of Aura Minerals to a series of key elements and trends on those ESG fronts. For example, in terms of carbon emissions, the importance of being able to report Scope 1-Scope 3 performance, which has started already here in this company. Also making sure that there's a commitment to net zero performance throughout the different properties.
In the case of biodiversity and forest, the main trends of ESG in the mining sectors are focusing on the elements of the integration of land use planning at different sites, the importance of analyzing the assessment of the impact on biodiversity and also impact on forest resources, which is very much at the center of the commitment of Aura Minerals in their different properties, whether in Brazil, but also Honduras and Mexico, and especially elements of net trends. Still on the environment, when I was mentioning the importance of tailings and protection of tailings, which is very important in Brazil.
We've been able to assess and verify the commitment of Aura Minerals to the series of ESG main certification schemes, such as the Responsible Gold Mining Principles, that includes an elements of analysis of tailings qualities. In case of water and air performances, whether it is in very dry areas, such as Aranzazu in Mexico with limited water resources, or it is in more, let's say, water plenty areas in Honduras or in Brazil. Definitely, there's been a work done on trying to emphasize on the transparency and disclosure of water use management. Also on the importance of assessing this impact on the water resources.
Finally, having this approach on catchment-based basins analysis, which actually analyzes the competing demands on water resources from all the different stakeholders, ensuring that the development of Aura Minerals', you know, properties actually include into an overall, you know, territorial gains. Maybe on the second slide, I'll be a little faster on other elements, such as, for example, the social importance of, you know, the ESG criterias. Here there's two main areas. First one is employees and diversities. You've seen already in those different, you know, presentation, the presence of a diverse, you know, employee base, whether it's gender-based or racial-based or, you know, looking at specifically on equality on gender, ethnicity and others.
Also other key elements include, you know, wage equality principle, the importance of work-life balance, the comprehensive health and safety policies, and finally, also a series of different whistleblower and reporting processes that we've been able to assess on the different sites of Aura Minerals. When it comes to community and supply chains, there's a lot of work that has been already carried out in terms of integrating the mining properties in terms of, you know, integrating an economic development plan in different sites. Whether it's in Almas, in Honduras, in Aranzazu, the integration of those properties with working together with communities, either, you know, through suppliers programs or support to local entrepreneurship in particular, you know, female entrepreneurship in different areas. Developing training programs, local hiring plans.
All these are actually based and built through a series of establishment of foundations that allows to trickle down, you know, the commitment of Aura Minerals through a series of social and economic development programs, whether it's health, it's education, but also, as I was mentioning, the importance of, you know, support to entrepreneurship and training programs. Finally, on the elements of governance, which is the last, you know, pillar of ESG, we're looking here at three different main pillars. The first one is looking at, you know, working with institutions, whether the local or regional institutions, ensuring that there's, you know, clear, let's say protocols in terms of anti-bribery, anti-corruption policies.
Also working with institutions in terms of articulating the involvement of Aura Minerals in terms of, you know, a responsibility plan of diversified economic development, whether in Brazil, in Honduras or in Mexico. The role element here is to focus on value creating initiatives that would actually integrate both local and national stakeholders, diversifying the local economies and ensuring the establishment of a long-term societal sustainability in those three jurisdictions where Aura Minerals is present. That goes through with also part play in terms of series of international initiatives, making sure that there's an integrated holistic approach to local development around the mining operations in those three countries. In terms of communication here, we're focusing much more on these elements of sustainable communication with clear ESG metrics and variables that can be integrated.
A series of reporting initiatives, and we'll go through this a little bit later in this presentation. Also analysis of the use of bi-directional communication platforms is a key trend in terms of ESG in the mining sectors, increasing the transparency and sustainability of community relations in all different jurisdictions. Also looking at, you know, developing communication with the series of public hearings where, you know, there is the communication socialization of those ESG risk assessment, and also the strengthening of a social license to operate on all sides. Finally, which is very important in the elements of government, the element of accountability and transparency, the dedication to this level of ESG data collection and sustainability reporting, as I was mentioning, throughout the different sites.
The participation to a series of ESG certification and standard schemes such as the Responsible Gold Mining Principles, the Conflict-Free Gold Standard, we'll develop them. Also some work that we're seeing developing are the trends in the mining industry in terms of board level accountability, compensational schemes in terms of ESG performance on which the company is looking strongly at currently. Maybe on the next slide to just try to explain a little more how this is integrating inside the entire ESG corporate processes and certification. There's two ways to look at this there. First of all, the integration inside of the company is on a series of different variables which are, you know, simplified in this mandala that, you know, already Paula presented.
That we were able to assess on all sides the integration of the placement of the employees and collaborators of the company at the center of the company's strategy. Also the management of ethics, innovation in terms of governance. Finally, the integration of communities and environment in terms of making sure that there's a respect toward the resources and integration in terms of long-term sustainability throughout the mine cycle. In terms of external schemes, and we can see it now in the next slide, the elements of participating to a series of, you know, certifications, as I was mentioning, the Responsible Gold Mining Principles, also the Conflict-Free Gold Standard.
That's actually a commitment Aura Minerals did since, you know, March 2021, of integrating the World Gold Council, and therefore having to integrate those schemes such as, like, RGMPs, CFGS, of double-checking with this external assurance, the fact that the sustainability of the process are very much integrating in throughout the operation of the different mining sites. Another commitment was, for example, with the dedicated participation with a series of initiatives with International Women in Mining. Definitely Aura Minerals has signed agreements in Brazil and Mexico and recently in Central America in terms of participating to more and more initiative, fostering diversity in terms of their workforce, but also analyzing the impact that it has on communities throughout those partnerships.
Maybe just to finish on this presentation, a stronger focus specifically on the RGMPs and the CFGS. Those are two essential ESG standards that have been developed by the World Gold Council. Aura Minerals, being a member of the World Gold Council, has therefore embarked in terms of these three-year plans of certifying that the mining is done responsibly on those different sites. Those actually includes a series of external assurance, a third party validation of those process and performance. Since, you know, March 2021, Aura is now embarking in terms of those reporting that are being assessed. The first year will be finished at the end of December, and looking at having a clear certification process by March 2024.
In terms of Conflict-Free Gold Standard, this is also another one which focuses on the fact that gold production is actually in line with, you know, preventing and mitigating potential conflicts, making sure that gold is actually well handled by the company at the company level, at the commodity level. Finally, as I was mentioning, the importance of having third-party assessment throughout the mining operation, and we were able to do so in all operations in Aura Minerals. Thank you very much. Yes.
Well, thank you very much for the presentation, Rabi. We now come to the end, the question and answer session. Should you wish to speak to us, please send an email to ri@auraminerals.com. We have received some questions, and they have already been addressed to some of our speakers. The first question for Rodrigo, which is the balance between acquisition and the payment of dividends? How is the market for acquisitions overall? Very well, Carla. Before we respond, we would like to share with you that we wanted to bring everybody live in a very transparent way, so you would get to see our day-to-day in the mine. This of course, entails some risks, and it's part of having a program like this one.
Congratulations to the Aranzazu team because we also had a slight problem, but of course, we did this with discipline without putting anybody in risk, and this is how we normally operate. Back to the question, therefore, how can we grow and still pay dividends? We have worked very diligently through the last few years, setting up a portfolio that would bring together good mines with good cash generation and efficient costs, and projects under development that would have short payback periods of less than two years, leveraging this 50%. In one year, we would have a return on our equity. These projects have a huge capacity of recycling capital. All of this while we produce capital without overly leveraging the company. This is how we are able to keep this balance.
It was truly wonderful to speak to the people at a distance, and it's good to be here together. When we speak about investments, we do have to have this type of transparency. Congratulations to all of you. Let's go on to the second question. Would anybody like to add something? Very well. The second question to Rodrigo. Does Aura have guidance for 2023? Now, this is a question we have received in the last few weeks. We're in the final discussions of our budgeting for 2023, and this will have to be submitted to the Board and approved before we can issue guidance, of course. The meeting with the Board has been set up in December, and ensuing this, we will disclose our guidance for 2023. Wonderful. Would anybody like to add something? We're here waiting for additional questions.
A few instances while we pull for questions. Kleber, this question is for you. The reduction in company cash in the third quarter, is this a reason of concern? No. No, Carla, it was expected. We had the Big River acquisition at $54 million, a one-time thing, and the acceleration of the Almas project. In truth, we got prepared for this. We ended the second quarter with more than $250 million in cash, and these are one-time investments. Very good. Any additions to the answer? Glauber, is Aura ready to implement the three projects until 2025? Will you have sufficient people for this? Very good question. As I mentioned when I was referring to Almas has been our flagship, our killer case.
What we're designing for future projects is that as we slow down a bit in Almas, we will put these in another project like Borborema and link that to Matupá. Basically, taking advantage of the same group of people, and with that governance that has been put in place and operations, these new units will already have the Aura culture, the Aura system. Of course, we will depend on having new people, but we do have a preparation plan. We also make the most of the local teams. This is something we have used in previous years, people to take on new positions in the new units. We do have a very well-defined management system, and then we will follow through the cadence of this to make the most of each implementation. Yes, we are ready for this. Very good. Let's go there. Yes, we're underway.
Now, what I would like to share is the quality, the level of quality of the people we have in the company. It's incredible, the senior management, corporate managers, those that operate the mines. I think this quality permeates the entire organization. Wherever this team is, it will lead us to those 450,000 ounces or beyond that, without a doubt. Would anybody like to add something? Paula, a question for you.
The mining commitment with social and environmental responsibility is extremely important for the company's sustainability, which is the long-term plan. Now, Aura is already speaking about ESG, perhaps not in that specific framework that the market discusses at present, but we have been putting ESG in practice since Rodrigo took office in 2016.
When we created our first mandala, perhaps intuitively, we included ESG principles in our management, and we have been building the ESG agenda in the last five or six years. We published our sustainability report in 2021, referring to 2020, offering greater transparency to all of our stakeholders, showing our strides. We're working on the second report, and we're gonna continue on along these lines. In the last two years, we have added greater robustness to Aura. When we look at the ESG pillars, and when we think of ESG as EESG, highlighting our employees because we care for employees first before caring for the other aspects. We do have very sound plans in place besides metrics in these pillars. The trend going forward is to have greater robustness in the area and better governance. Yes, this is part of our plans for coming years.
Thank you for the explanation. To underscore the issue of ESG is important. Everything goes through people. A company can't take care of the environment or the social part if they don't take proper care of the people that work with them. It is through that relationship with our employees that we hope to reach that respect, transparency in all of our decisions in the social and environmental part. We truly believe in this, and that is why people are in the first place. Thank you very much. Kleber, which is the ideal leverage for the company? Do you foresee the need of new debts, new funding for new acquisitions or projects? Now, the ideal leverage for the company is not to over leverage the company at any time. The goal is to stand at 1x net debt over EBITDA.
If we go beyond that, it will be in very timely periods due to an acquisition. On the other hand, we try not to work with surplus cash. Last year, the company had surplus cash. We paid out dividends in an extraordinary way because this is the best remunerated cash in the pockets of our shareholders. Recurrently, we work between zero and one times net debt over EBITDA. This is healthy. Now, regarding new projects, we don't need additional funding for this. In July of 2021, we raised $70 million funding 100% of the project. As the CapEx was $135 million, this is what we expect to spend. We won't need additional CapEx for Almas. For new projects, as mentioned previously, we will have to work with additional financing, working with debt and our own capital. Wonderful.
Anything you would like to add? Glauber, for you. With the recent events, mining is under scrutiny because of the dams and tailings. How do you manage your tailings? Yes, we do have dams. Our operation in Mexico has dams as well as the operation in Mato Grosso. Almas, that is being concluded, is building the dam at present. In Honduras, this is the only operation where we don't have dams. The other two projects will be dry mining. Now, not because you have a dam will you have a risk. This is because of the construction method. Our method is deemed to be more secure. Of course, there is that part of governance, instrumentation, investments in technology that offer us real-time information on the situation of the dam. This enables us to make decisions whenever there is a change.
Now, linked to this, our internal in-house technical team is highly trained based on the best practices, and we have the support of outside consultancy. We do have a governance committee where we are all involved in discussions once a month. And of course, this enables us tranquility. We have information and clarity in terms of what happens, and we're doing very well in terms of our management level of this. Thank you for that explanation. Rodrigo, this question is for you. This is the second year that Aura is awarded as having the best performance in the Toronto stock market. How did you achieve this? Through a combination of factors, uh, the right strategy set up since 2017 . We have a well-prepared team and a very good portfolio.
While the market was disputing complex, very large projects, we focused on a simple project with low costs and on our team that was called 360. We gave more responsibility to the team to resolve day-to-day problems. Through this combination, we had significant growth in the last few years, but we also have great resiliency in the team, and we're growing. Going through a pandemic, we had to bring some operations to a standstill, a critical moment in terms of inflation, the increase in cost. The CEO of Barrick said that their cost per ounce increased 210%, I believe. It's a combination of having good assets and an extremely well-trained team, and this is recognition of the work we have been doing since 2017. What can we expect from Aura after 2025?
That we will continue growing with responsibility. We know how to get to those 450,000 ounces. We know that multiples will change as we continue to grow. We want to continue to grow, but sheltered under significant pillars, responsibility, ESG, investing in our collaborators, and being very careful with the financial environment. We will enter good projects with good resources and with quick paybacks. We'll continue to grow then. We do have some more questions here. Another question here. Kleber. Is the company thinking of share buyback? Yes, we do assess this. We approve the buyback in a 12-month period that is ending in December. Of course, it is an opportunity when the shares are below the fair value, and it's a way of returning money to the shareholder. There is no decision.
It will have to be approved at the board of management to continue on with our projects, but we would consider it. Well, thank you very much therefore. Unfortunately, we do have to end this broadcast. We still have questions arriving, but because of our time constraints, we will have to close. I will give the floor to Rodrigo, the CEO, for his closing remarks. I would like to thank all of you who have attended here. Thank the team that mobilized to come up with this presentation to show you very transparently what we're doing. We would like to reinforce our commitment to deliver that project that we have discussed with investors. We have a good track record. We have grown since 2017. We carried out the IPO in Brazil in 2020. We began to publish important reports for Almas.
We spoke about the Matupá project. We have also referred to the fact that we're looking for M&As to continue to grow. Here you can see the acquisition of Borborema in our portfolio. We're complying with everything we promised, and we're going to deliver that project of more than 450,000 ounces in 2025. In that context of sound financial health by paying out dividends with a top-quality team, with responsibility, autonomy to make decisions, with a full understanding that any decision we make will generate an impact on people, on communities, and we do want to grow in a very healthy way. Perhaps by leading a new movement in mining so that Aura can become one of the most admired companies. Certainly, it will become that with this team and with our operation units.
Thank you very much, Rodrigo, Glauber, Kleber, Paulina, and everybody else. Thank you for those who participated. Thank you for the employees. Have an excellent day. I would like to remind you that this live will be available on our YouTube channel for those who would like to watch it, and until we meet again. I am Carla Margaretti. It has been a pleasure to be with you. Until we meet again. Thank you.