Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Q4 2023 Earnings Call. This conference is being recorded, and the replay will be available at the company's website at auraminerals.com/investidores. The presentation will also be available for download. This call is also available in Portuguese. To access, you can press the globe icon on the lower right side of your Zoom screen and then choose to enter the Portuguese Room. After that, select "Mute Original Audio.[Foreign Language] . We would like to inform that all attendees will only be listening to the conference during the presentation, and then we will start the question-and-answer section when further instructions will be provided.
Before proceeding, we would like to clarify that any statements that may be made during this conference call regarding the company's business prospects, operational and financial projections, and goals are the beliefs and assumptions of Aura Executive Board and the current information available to the company. These statements may involve risks and uncertainties as they relate to future events and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors should be aware of events related to the macroeconomic scenario, the industry, and other factors that could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the respective forward-looking statements. Present at this conference we have Rodrigo Barbosa, President and CEO, and Kleber Cardoso, the CFO. Now I'll turn the conference over to Rodrigo Barbosa. You may begin your conference.
Thank you. [Foreign Language] Good morning. We are here to talk about the Q4 results and the year-end 2023, and also share our guidance for the year 2024. First, the year 2023 was not only important for achieving important financial results, but we did that under the highest ESG standards. First and foremost, we achieved during the year 2023 zero lost time incidents in all operations. We now have four operations. We finished building Almas, we started building Borborema, and we could achieve significant results by not having any lost time incidents and making sure that one of the most value that we have, which is safety first for our employees, we are taking care of everybody that works with us, not only our own employees, but the third parties that come to our operations. We have excessive training for them to achieve these goals.
This is a long-term goal that we've been working across the operations for 3, 4, 5 years significantly on a daily basis that could result in these zero lost time Incidents for the year. We aim to maintain this. It's challenging, but we aim to maintain zero lost time. Until today, we are at zero lost time. Also, incidentally, we aim to achieve this in 2024 as well. Again, on the ESG, we also innovated on initiatives to help and to bring to Honduras a new source of income. That area in Honduras that we operate is very similar to one area in São Paulo that's producing high-quality wines.
We brought some experts, and then we could test the soil and the weather that in the mine where we operate in Honduras could also provide a chance for the people that work around that area to produce high-quality wines. We did that. These initiatives is we planted, as we're going to show, those grapes in the area that we already mined. And then instead of planting trees, we are now planting we will plant grapes and see if that could become a new source of income for the communities around us. They already produce coffee, so transitioning to wines could be important for them. In terms of production in Q4 and also results, we achieved the highest production for the quarter at 69,200 gold equivalent ounces in the quarter. This is 7% higher than Q3 last year.
We were projecting to be the last quarter the highest one, and we did that. That generated $88 million for the whole year in terms of free cash flow recurring. Ongoing operations for the year, so we achieved 235,000 gold equivalent ounces. As we're going to see for 2024, we are aiming to continue to grow and achieve higher production as we will share guidance. As we now have Minosa on a running rate in the last quarter. We already implemented initiatives to increase production in Apoena. Aranzazu continued to be stable. Now we have full-year Almas, so we should continue to grow in 2024. Aranzazu in the quarter, very much in line with our expectations, very stable. We will see a minor reduction in production that comes from mine planning, but that's not meaningful in terms of changes.
Continue to achieve very, very strong results in Aranzazu. What we will see for the year 2024 in Aranzazu in terms of cost, we will see some increase in cost for Aranzazu, basically for three different variables. One, it's the exchange rate. So the Mexican peso is appreciating compared to the dollar, so that pushed our cost up. Now there's some inflation. We are fighting against inflation, but some inflation is going to our cost. And then third is mine sequencing also, but that will not be significant. In Minosa, we achieved 17,900-18,000 ounces of production in the quarter, a 2% increase compared to Q3. Remembering that we started the year in Minosa very challenging. If you compare last quarter of 2022 to the last quarter of 2024, this is a 47-50% increase.
So during the whole year of 2023, as we were disclosing to the market, we were gradually improving the operations, fixing the reduction in productivity. And this will every quarter we were able to increase production. Now I believe that we are reaching some running rate and we're already starting the year of 2024 very strong at the running rate that's supposed to be in Minosa. In Apoena, again, we were expecting to increase production due to going to Ernesto Pit, so we increased to 15,000 ounces of gold produced. This is 36% higher than Q4 2023, but also a reduction compared to Q4 on 2022, mostly because we are in the fourth quarter of 2022, we were full quarter on very high grade of Ernesto.
Now we were partially on this high grade of Ernesto with delayed entering the Ernesto pit due to the heavy rains during the third quarter of the year. So some of this high grade was pushed to the first quarter, which we are now mining during 2024. Almas, we reached close to 10,000 ounces of production of gold. That is a first full quarter in production, reminding that the Q3 we had a partial quarter once we declared commercial production during the quarter. Almas, as we shared during the Aura Day, we were very high production during Q3. Once we reached fresh rock, more hard rock, we had a reduction in productivity that also affected the fourth quarter production, which was, although an increase compared to Q3, it was below expectations and below the running rate.
I would highlight that this reduction in productivity during Q4 is already addressed, and we finished December already at above 1 million tons on the mine. So we are very strong in the running rate as we're supposed to be. So starting the year of 2024, very strong according to our plan. In terms of how we're sustaining cash cost, we saw a cash cost at $1,311. It's a 9% decrease compared to Q3 as we were projecting, very much in line with our guidance that we gave to the market. And this reduction comes from the high production in Apoena, high productivity also in Minosa. And then we expect the year for 2024 to be very much in line of the year 2023, perhaps a little bit below or a little bit higher depending on the situations according to the operations during the year.
In terms of adjusted EBITDA, we had $41 million of EBITDA, the strongest EBITDA for the year as we were projecting to have a stronger EBITDA during the fourth quarter. This is a 37% increase compared to Q3. And that is a result of increased production in operations, as I mentioned, and also higher gold prices and lower cash cost. In terms of growth, I would highlight the company continued to cement our path to the production of 450,000 ounces of gold equivalent. And that will, as we shared, it comes from the development of three projects: Almas, Borborema, and then Matupá. Almas, first greenfield project that we built on time, on budget. We finished the construction during 2023. We ramped up in five months.
We built in 16 months, setting a new benchmark in the market compared to the other mines that's been built. On budget, on time, and it is already in full production. Borborema, we updated during the year with a feasibility study. We published the feasibility study. We raised the capital to fund Borborema, and we already started the construction, and we are already at 18% of the whole construction complete and very much in line with our expectations in terms of so far on deadlines and also budget. So we continue to pave our way to continue to grow during the year 2024, 2025, and 2026. Again, in terms of safety, that's something that we are very proud of. It's an achievement that belongs to the whole team that's working on a daily basis to achieve those numbers.
In Almas, we achieved this in June 2023, Apoena in July, Aranzazu in September, and then Minosa in October. We are now 4 operations with 0 lost time incidents over a year because we finished the year and we continue to be at 0 lost time incidents until now. On stability and the structures, as we share with our board, as we share with our employees, and as we share with our investors, we have a strong management of all geotechnical structures that is being analyzed on a monthly basis by external parties, by a consultant. We now have the online monitoring system all across our operations. We are with Geoconsultoria, which is one of the most well-known consulting firms for checking stability of our geotechnical structures.
We are with a satisfactory level all across our geotechnical structures, which means on the tailings dam, on the leach pads, on the pits, and underground also developments. As I also mentioned, we had a significant coverage by the national press in Honduras with these new initiatives to bring high-quality wines, which in the end of the day, what we want is to remove a new source of income for the communities around us so that they do not depend so much on the mines so they can have other initiatives to have other sources of gains. We know that mining and gold mines has one day we will finish mining there. We will replant 100% of the areas. And then instead of leaving them with only trees, we would like to leave them also with a new source of income that they can benefit from these new initiatives.
Of course, this is a 3-4-year test that we need to understand if it's going to work, but we are very positive that this can help significantly not only then the area, but it can grow the whole country, Honduras, and other countries around Honduras. The picture that we saw in the corner, right, this area that has already been mined in the past. So we are now using this area for planting grapes and test if they can be a source of high-quality wines. In terms of production, going into details here, but on the left chart, I would highlight on the bars is the production by quarter. In the line, it is the last 12 months of production. So in the quarter, we had the highest quarter in the year, even highest than the Q4 of 2022 once we have now Almas in production.
But very importantly is that from Q2 to Q3, we inverted the curve that we were having reduction in production of the last 12 months due to the challenge that we had in Honduras in the beginning of the year, then the rain that we had in Apoena. But now we could start to increase production again with 65 gold equivalent ounces of production in Q3 and 69 in Q4. So reaching the bottom of 2023, 228 gold equivalent ounces produced on the last 12 months on the Q2 2023, increased to 234, 236. And it's very intuitive to expect this to continue to grow along the year of 2024 once we're entering the 2024 with a strong production all across our operations. Plus now we have Almas that is contributing to a production increase during the year.
I would invite you also to look if you want to see two years ahead; then in 2025, we will see Borborema also production kicking in along the year. So we should continue to grow during the year of 2025 as well. Next one, I already explained. Yeah. So in terms of Cash Cost, Q2, we had an increase compared to Q1. Then in Q3, another increase mostly because we passed, as we explained, a low grade and stockpile in Apoena. They had, although we made cash doing that, the Cash Cost increased. And now we started having a higher grade in Apoena again. We don't expect to have that low grade that we had in Q3. We don't have this in the stockpile anymore.
So in Q4, this mostly Apoena that we could decrease our cost and somehow in Minosa to $1,311, which is as we expected to the market. In terms of guidance, so we saw the year of 2023 production of 236 gold equivalent ounces. Now we projected the market to be 244-292. We entering the year with Minosa at the running rate. Apoena, also we will do some improvements in the plant. We will reach a hard rock ore that has impact over productivity in the plant. And to compensate that, we are expanding a little bit the plant in order to achieve higher production that we had in the year of 2023. Aranzazu continued to be very stable.
Almas is kicking in the year, so we should have full production in the year for Almas that already started the year very much in line with our expectation at the running rate that is expected that we finish the year of 2023. In terms of cash costs, very much in line with the year 2023. There is a difference between the mines. As I mentioned, there will be a decrease in Minosa. There is a decrease in Almas. There is an increase in Aranzazu due to the exchange rate and some inflation. All these sustaining cash costs also very much in line with the year of 2023. Then when we project the CapEx for the year of 2024, we see sustaining very much in line with 2023, but now we need to add Almas that also needs to do its sustaining CapEx and operations.
Exploration slightly below the year of 2023. Then when you see the new projects and expansion that we are now including Borborema that is under construction, that's why you see this increase from $56 to $144-$169 million. Most of the CapEx of Borborema goes through the year of 2024 and some remaining for the year of 2025. In terms of development of the project, again, we not only finished Almas on time, on budget, but we did that setting a new benchmark in the sector. We are now slightly over between 17%-18% of completed in Borborema, and we expect to start the ramp-up in Q1 2025. Most of the landwork has already been done, and we are already initiating civil works. We have more than 350 people at the project.
And most as we have as we did also with Almas, we focus hiring people locally. So we have about 70% of the employees working at the site coming from the city that's nearby, Currais Novos, which is the closest city to operations. Also, very importantly is that as we were progressing in the project, although it's built 18%, 17%, we already have negotiated or have very strong already information about the total CapEx, over 61% of the total CapEx, we are already under contract. So we are very much in line with what we were projecting. So yet there's no deviation, and we continue to be on time, on budget in this project. And then hopefully we'll be able to start the ramp-up by early 2025.
In parallel, I would highlight very importantly to the investors is that this project starts with reserves around 815,000 ounces of reserves, but we have over 2,000,000 ounces of resources. You cannot say that you have for reserves, the areas need to be fully licensed. As one road crosses close to the pit, we are limited on the feasibility study to have only 850,000 gold equivalent ounces of reserves. But as we move one road, that reserves can be more than doubled, can reach close to 1,000,000, 2,000,000 ounces after we get the license for moving this road. All the process of moving this road, which is already regulated by law, is in place. It takes time, but we already initiated all the conversations with the DNIT, the National Department for Roads, in order to change.
It's not a significant change, but we will require some time to reach that. That's the overview. I will come back with the questions and answers, and now I'll pass the floor to Kleber that will share and highlight more of the financial results.
Thank you, Rodrigo. Good morning, everyone. We're going to start with sharing a page with the main financial KPIs the company is reporting with the market. In terms of starting with net revenues, we reported $124 million in revenues on Q4. As Rodrigo explained, it's following the same trend as we saw for production. So it's the third increase in a row, increasing faster than production because of more favorable gold prices during Q4. In the year, our revenues are exceeding $415 million, increasing 6% compared to 2022. When we go to adjusted EBITDA, it's a similar trend. The strongest EBITDA in the year at $41 million at Q4. We also see this trend of the adjusted EBITDA improving over the last two quarters. As a combination, as Rodrigo presented, of both stronger production, more favorable gold prices, but also reduction in the cash cost in the last quarter.
Then in Q4, we're reporting more or less the same. Maybe we reported the same quarter last year, $41 million. Also for the year, we're closing stable compared to 2022 at $134 million for the year. When it comes to net income, we're reporting this quarter a loss of $6 million, which derives mainly from a non-recurring and non-cash item related to the mark-to-market adjustments of Borborema Almas project gold collars of $28 million. I'm going to go at the end of my presentation on more details of this number, but again, the non-cash and not expected to be in the future a cash loss. Excluding that impact, our net income for the quarter would have been $22 million positive. Also would have been the strongest in the year. Finally, in terms of cash and net debt, we close the year strong.
An important reduction in the net debt position coming from $112 million by the end of Q3 to $85 million at the end of the year. Despite the fact that we paid $80 million in dividends in December. We finish the year also with a strong cash position of $237 million. Now understand the main items impacting between adjusted EBITDA and net income for the quarter. As we saw on the previous page, adjusted EBITDA of $41 million, of which Aranzazu once again is our strongest business unit, reporting EBITDA of $80 million during Q4. I would highlight also the improvements in Minosa and Apoena. Minosa, we are seeing for the fourth quarter in a row increase in production, but also especially in the last quarter, significant reduction in cash costs and therefore improvement in EBITDA, exceeding $10 million in the quarter.
Apoena also with important improvements of EBITDA compared to the last quarter, now at $9.4 million. Almas, despite the challenges, reported $5 million EBITDA, positive EBITDA in the quarter. Amortization depletion, once again, it's been consistent over the quarters at $11 million. We recorded finance expenses of $37 million, of which, as I said, $20 million is non-cash related to the gold collars Borborema and Almas, which I'm going to go over more in detail later. On this quarter, we are reporting income tax gain of $4 million. This is mainly due to the recognition on this quarter of a deferred tax assets of $7 million at Almas. This is because Almas, before it reached commercial production, it incurred losses for a couple of years as it had no revenues. Those losses in Brazil, they generated income tax assets.
Which could not be recognized in our balance sheet before Almas declared commercial production and was profitable. So we see that as also positive news, recognizing this $7 million, which are going to become cash savings in the future. Then other items, $3 million expenses, bringing the net loss in the quarter at $6 million. But again, the pro forma excluding those mark-to-market items would be positive at 2022. Then on this page, we bring a detailed analysis showing the changes in the cash and equivalent positions of the company throughout the fourth quarter of the year. Here on the far left side of the page. We see we started the quarter with $179 million in cash. Then more to this left side of the page is what we call adjusted free cash flow to firm, which is the free cash flow to firm generated by the four mines in production.
Excluding the investments we do to expand our operations and exploration. So we see it was a strong quarter. The mines in production generated $38 million. We already highlighted the stronger EBITDA, also positive working capital generation in the quarter. Then here in the middle of the chart, what we call investment for growth, how much we invested, for example, in acquiring the shares of Altamira, pending exploration and expansion CapEx. The total for the quarter was $9 million, which is going to be much higher for the next quarters as the construction of Borborema advances this year. And to the right side, the financial items, which I would realize the $21 million we received at Borborema related to the royalties and the payment of dividends we made in December of $18 million, bringing the cash to $237 at the end of the quarter.
And looking at the same analysis that I showed for the quarter, this was for the entire year. This page shows for the entire year of 2023. We see that the adjusted free cash flow to firm, the mines in operation generate $88 million. Which was more than enough to pay for the investment for growth of the company. We invested $74 million to grow the company. Of which $25 million in exploration, which are going to increase our mineral reserves and mineral resources and increase the life of mine of the company. And the final phase of Almas's construction, Almas's ramp-up. And then to the right side, again, the items, the free cash flow from financing activities. Highlighting mainly the proceeds from that we raised to build Borborema mainly this year. And the $28 million cash outflow dividends, which we paid in June and December.
To conclude, this is the analysis as referring to the more detailed explanation about the $28 million non-cash finance expenses, which we recorded in the quarter. To understand it, starting the explanation with the top side of the page, what happened in the business. In September, the company had about 175,000 ounces in gold collars in its books. Mostly related to the Almas gold collar risk management program, which we went through a few years ago. In the first phase of the Borborema hedging program. In December, that 175,000 ounces increased to 298,000 ounces. So it was an increase of 70%. Because we completed the Borborema gold hedging program coming from about 80,000 ounces of gold collars to 215,000 ounces. At the same time, during the fourth quarter, we saw a sharp increase in gold prices, which is very good for our business.
Gold prices appreciated more than $200 between the end of the two quarters. So the combination of having more gold collars in our books and higher gold prices at closing had a different impact in our balance sheets and P&Ls. In our P&L. In the balance sheets, we see the impacts of a $14.5 million cash gain, a revenue, which was the premium paid by the banks to participate in the Borborema hedging program. We collect already out of those $14.5 million, we collect already $4 million in 2023 and are going to collect another $10.4 million by June 2024. And on the other hand, following IFRS standards, at the end of each quarter, we needed to do a mark-to-market adjustment in our balance sheets of all outstanding positions.
And because of the increase in gold prices, the mark-to-market position of those open derivatives generated a liability of $43 million at the end of the year. Which we consider and we expect to be a non-cash liability because of two reasons. First, all the open positions we have in our books, the strike prices of these gold collars, the call strike prices are way above spot prices. So spot is around 2,000-2,030 now. And the ceiling prices for these derivatives are above 2,400. And the second, we expect to hold all these positions until maturity, which means if market conditions will stay where they are, this liability will disappear over time without cash impact to Aura. And with this, we end our presentation and open to questions. Thank you.
Very well. So just a few summary. As you could see, a very important year for Aura.
First, we generated $88 million on recurring free cash flow to firm. That was more than enough to fund the growth. But we also can leverage to fund the growth and also pay the dividends. And we did all of that under the highest ESG with the zero lost time incidents, doing the right thing on the ESG standards. And as important as the results is, we set the standards on the fourth quarter. We increased production in Minosa, in Apoena, in Almas. And we set the standards to start the year of 2024 very strong, very much in line with our expectations. And now having Almas and through production. And then building Borborema to start the ramp-up in early 2025. So it was a very important year, which we achieved important results and setting the path to the 450 gold equivalent ounces annualized by the end of 2025.
We are going to start the question and answer section for investors and analysts. If you wish to ask a question, please press the raise hand button. If your question has already been answered, you can leave the queue by clicking on put hand down. Our first question comes from Ricardo Monegaglia with Safra. You can activate your microphone.
Hello, good morning. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Okay. I have a couple of questions on EPP. Do you expect more volumes coming from Ernesto in Q1 relative to the Q4? And maybe what is the timeline for the plants' capacity expansion that you mentioned in the press release? Maybe some budget for this expansion would be nice. Second question on Borborema.
I understood the project's on time and on budget, but just to get a sense of what are the key milestones in the project execution that could define if the project remains on time and budget? And lastly, a quick question. Are there any legislations under discussion in Brazil that could affect some sort of your exploration works? That's it. Thank you, guys.
Thank you, Ricardo. So first, in Apoena, there is a remaining ore in Ernesto that we are now mining in Q1. Not necessarily be more than we mined in Q4 last year. Now, and then we'll be switching more to Pau-a-Pique. Pau-a-Pique has a harder rock that decreased somehow productivity at the plant, but we are doing investment to upgrade the plant and increase capacity so that we can achieve even higher production compared to 2023 during the year of 2024.
Borborema, not sure if I understood the question. Can you please repeat?
Yeah, sure. So what are the key milestones in the project execution or construction that you see in 2024? What will define if the project remains on time and on budget? What are the key deliveries for 2024?
Yeah, it's daily deliveries, but I think the first one is finishing landwork. And this has been accomplished, so now entering the civil works. And then during the second semester, we will also start building and assembling the plant. One important milestone is the delivery of the mill, which is expected for the fourth quarter of 2024, which will allow us then to start commissioning and ramp up during 2025.
So all civil works and starting assembling civil works during this semester, starting assembling during the second semester, and then finishing assembled with the mill to be delivered on the fourth quarter of the year. Our team has already visited the supplier in China. Very impressed how diligent they are on schedule, on program. They are ready. And the mill is being built also on time, on budget. We don't expect yet any delays. And then you asked about the regulation in terms of to affect our exploration. I'm not aware of any regulation that would affect our exploration program for near mine. Most of the areas that we are mining or doing exploration in this area that has a it's a farm, not close in regional area, not close to highly protected areas in terms of forest.
So we do not expect the regulation to interfere in our exploration program in Brazil.
Thank you.
Next question from Roman Rossi with Canaccord Genuity. You can activate your microphone.
Good morning, guys. Yeah, I have a couple of questions. Regarding Borborema Rodrigo, you mentioned that once you move the road, you will double the amount of resources. Do you have any sense on what this could represent in terms of MPV?
Yeah, we are upgrading the feasibility study. We will publish as we do that. Yet we cannot do all the disclosures, but you have I would invite you to understand and to make a simulation in two ways, right? First is if we extend the reserve and we can do that before moving the roads. We can increase our reserves just by having the permit to do that.
But of course, you can just put in production as we moved. But we don't want these new reserves to be added at the end of the life of mine. So that's why what we are doing, we are building a plant flexible enough for us to increase our capacity once we have this permit to move the road so that we can advance those kind of reserves into the production on the year 4, 5, or 6 of Borborema. Again, 3 years, 3, 4 years to move the road, and then you can start thinking about increasing production in the project, going from 2 million tons production up to 3.4 million tons of production by the year after 4 years.
Okay, perfect. The second one is regarding the hedging. It's probably for Kleber. You have 10,000 ounces hedged at EPP with $2,100 ceiling prices.
This is expiring between March 2023 and December 2025. So I just wanted to get a sense on how these derivatives are expiring because, for example, for 2025, my gold target price is above that ceiling, right? So I just wanted to understand what could be the potential impact if gold prices go above $2,100.
Yeah. It's between now and the maturity, they are about straight line, Roman, expiration. So they are not concentrated in 2024 or 2025. It's on a quarterly basis. There is like they are spread.
Okay. Perfect. Perfect. And finally, regarding dividends, based on your current policy, it seems like you wouldn't be paying any dividends during 2024. So what are you seeing for the year?
No, we don't have this policy that would limit us to pay dividends in 2024. Our policy is 20% of debt minus recurring CapEx.
And we should keep with this policy, except if we find a new M&A opportunity that would require more than cash that we are projecting. So we continue to project dividend payments, yes, for 2024. According to our policy, which is 20% of the EBITDA minus recurring CapEx.
Okay, awesome. Thank you, guys.
Next question from Diego Castillo.
Good morning. Thanks for the presentation of fourth quarter 2023. When are you expecting to start Matupá and how are you expecting to deliver the guidance of 450 production in 2025? Was this guidance postponed?
No, it is not postponed. Matupá is in the final process of licensing. We expect to have the license to start the construction by the end of the semester, by June, July this year, so that we can start construction right after. And then we will enter in production by the end of 2025.
So we continue to after Matupá in production and Borborema in full, annualized by the end of 2025, reaching the 450,000 gold equivalent ounces of production. And again, as you could see, we did not put the construction CapEx for Matupá in our guidance because this still requires licensing, then needs to be approved by the board to start construction. So then we will revise the guidance for CapEx. But we are now moving the process to reach those milestones.
I would like to remind you that to ask a question, you need to click on raise hand. Once again, to ask your question, you need to click on raise hand. Our next question comes from Eteocles Siqueira. You can activate your microphone.
I think if he's making the question, he's on mute.
I'm afraid he gave up. Eteocles, you can activate your microphone. Okay.
Please wait while we pull for questions. Next question from Guilherme Nippes with A40 Club Investimentos . You can activate your microphone.
Hi. So this is Guilherme Nippes from XP. So I have one question here. What do you guys expect for Almas operations given the contractor issues that you faced during the last quarter? So just to make sure I understood, we could expect operations to be normalized in the first quarter of 2024, so starting the year with normalized operation to be on track to deliver the production guidance ramp-up for 2024?
Thank you for the question, Guilherme. Yes. We finished the year with the movement at the mine at the speed that it should be. So we already entered January in Q1 of 2024 at the expected speed of production in Almas.
We are very much comfortable to be reaching the full year of the production of the year 2024 according to our guidance.
Thank you.
The question and answer section is over. We would like to hand the floor back to Mr. Rodrigo Barbosa for the company's final remarks.
Thank you all. As I mentioned, very important year. Important milestones, zero lost time accidents, $88 million of recurring cash flow, $28 million of dividend paid at 6% of dividend yield in the year, third year in a row that we reached the highest dividend, one of the highest dividend yields in the sector in the world. We finished construction of Almas on time, on budget. We ramped up on time, on budget, setting new benchmarks in the world for building greenfield projects. We started construction of Borborema, fully funded already during the Q3.
We did all that with the real zero lost time accident. Very proud of what the team is achieving. Yes, we had some challenges in production. I would invite you to see that we finished the fourth quarter without those challenges. We fixed the operations in Minosa. Almas already at a full running rate. Apoena also with a very strong plan to increase production during the year of 2024. Others as well, very stable for the year of 2024. Then we continue to build Borborema. In 2025, we will add production of Borborema along the year. We will continue to show growth on every quarter from here until we complete the Matupá project. I thank you all for the quarter and then invite you also to follow up with our update and resources and reserves that will be on the AIF.
And then we will be updating the market also with the milestones as Borborema being built. So thank you again. And feel free, if you have any additional questions, you can send a message to our investor relations and we will be glad to answer our questions. Thank you.
Aura's conference is now closed. We thank you for your participation and wish you a nice day.