Good morning, everyone. Thanks for attending Aura's Earnings Call for the second quarter. My name is Gabriel. I'm investor relations officer. We have on the line with us Rodrigo Barbosa, CEO, and Kleber Cardoso, CFO who will be both presenting today. After the presentation, we'll have a Q&A session. At any time, you can include your question at Zoom's Q&A tool here. This presentation is already available on our investor relations website, and we are also hosting a translated and simultaneous Portuguese call, which will include the link on the sharing here. This presentation will be recorded and will be available on our website by the end of the day. Okay. Thank you all. Rodrigo, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Gabriel, and thank you all for attending this call. Today we'll go through the results and production and also the updated guidance we are giving to the market until the end of the year. We also go through the update on Almas project in Matupá. I welcome all of you to the results. As Gabriel mentioned, we'll be taking questions by the end of this call. Gabriel, if you want to share the presentation. We can jump already to the summary.
All in all, our quarter, as those that are getting more familiar with gold and copper mining, when we plan the budget, we know that some months we'll be reaching higher grades, and we know that in other months we'll be reaching lower grades, a nd lower production. It's normal for you to have on mining gold and copper variation from quarter- to- quarter. Some quarters will be better and some quarters will be worse. We should not have surprises, right? Since the beginning of the year, we knew that this quarter would be the weakest one. According to our mine sequencing, we knew that we were using lower grades in Apoena.
We also knew that we would be reaching lower grades in Minosa. Nevertheless, we could perform above expectations in Honduras, specifically in Mexico. Mexico is performing constantly above 100,000 tons per month as far as production at the plant, and the mine has been also very stable, so we were able to reach interesting production in Aranzazú. In Apoena, we knew that would be this, a weak quarter. We were slightly above our expectation in Apoena. However, in Minosa, we knew that would be weaker and we were worse than expected due to lower recoveries, which we understand that during the second semester we will be reaching a richer ore so that we should recover some of the production.
All in all, we produced 55,600 ounces. It's 7% below Q2 last year. As we put our projections for the second semester, we will see that we'll maintain the guidance. However, now at the lower range. Initially the year, we were between 260,000 and 290,000 ounces. Now we are narrowing to 260,000 and 275,000 ounces as a guidance due to this lower recovery that happened more, you know, in Honduras. By the end of the quarter, we paid the $10 million in dividends. We also have repurchased shares close to, well, slightly over $5 million.
Now total yield for a shareholder is 6.5% on the last 12 months and 3.4% on a semi-annual basis just for this $10 million plus $5 million to our shareholders. We continue to generate value to our shareholders through cash flows and dividend and also share repurchase. Our adjusted EBITDA was $30 million, $81 million in the first semester. As we can see, we should recover some production during Q3 and then in Q4. We have finished the quarter with a strong position in cash, $218 million, a net cash of $10 million despite the dividends, stock buybacks and construction that we are now intensifying in Almas.
Inflation, important to note is that this higher cost that we had during Q2 is mostly because of lower production. That lower production came by lower grades, so you maintain the same cost and you produce less gold. That increased the cost per ounce produced and a little bit by inflation. Management's taking a lot of actions towards offset inflation. We should see as we increase production during Q3 and Q4 and also all those management decisions and, you know, initiatives are generating value during Q3, Q4. We should see costs going down in Q3 and Q4. Very important, A lmas, it's on track, on budget, despite the rainy season in January in Tocantins that we know that had a significant rain.
We did not delay the project. We could continue at the speed we were projecting. Despite all the challenging inflation as well, management has been able to treat the project and take initiatives in order to reduce. We are maintaining our projection to have a startup of the project by April next year and a t the same budget that we disclosed to the market by the beginning of the year, which is close to $74 million as a construct. As of July, we are close to 54% of project completed. Over 90% of the budget already negotiated so we do not see that during the second semester that the inflation is going to have a new push on our costs.
In terms of Matupá, we continue to drill. We had a confirmation of over 200 m extension of mineralized zones, that confirming that the drills that we did, that we had a result of 80 m at 2.89 gm per ton and an additional 59 m at 3.14 gm per ton. We are drilling that area. In one of the drills, we could confirm extension of 200 m, not at that grade, it's a lower grade, but confirms the mineralization, so we continue to intensify drilling in order to verify and be able to have at least some inferred by the end of this year or early next year.
Nevertheless, we are moving forward with the feasibility study for Matupá on the X1 target and this should be released by end of August. Big River, the process is moving forward. There was some delay due to an independent report hired by Big River that makes part of the transaction that was delayed a couple of weeks. Now, we project the closing by the vote is early September, closing by mid-September. On ESG, we continue to advance on our agenda. We released our sustainability report in June, v ery happy also to share the information that we hired a new general manager for Almas, a v ery talented woman that is now leading the construction, and then will lead the startup and stabilization of the plant. Next slide.
In terms of safety, we registered during the quarter only one lost time incident and that was a small accident. Someone walking out of the bus stumbled, and then hurt a little bit the feet, but nothing serious. In the other operations, we had no lost time incidents. We continue to improve our safety committee on the ground. We are now standardizing all the safety procedures in all the operations, which we call now Aura Management System for Safety, SIGA. In Portuguese, Sistema Integrado de Gestão Aura. In terms of stability of the structures, on the monthly basis, we review all the stability of the structures through a third party.
On quarter or semiannual, we have our on-site consultants to check, independent consultants to check all of our structures in terms of tailings, dam, underground, pads, and pits. We had all those. We went through a very detailed review in all these structures, and the report was very satisfactory. Of course, there's always room to improve, but we are reaching a very satisfactory levels in all our structures as last quarter. In terms of our production and narrowing down now to the operations, we maintaining the running rate of 257,000 ounces-260,000 ounces of production on a yearly basis. Understanding that now on Q3 and Q4, we should increase of production on the quarterly basis.
In terms of per unit in production, we see that Aranzazú will perform higher than Q2 2021-20 26. This is the impact of the consolidated ramp-up of the 30% on capacity. San Andrés , we had lower recovery. As I was mentioning, we reached a mixed ore on more sulfides that decreased the recoveries during this quarter. That was a little bit more challenging than we thought but we are going back to oxides during Q3 and Q4. In EPP, we knew that according to our mine sequence, we would be using lower grades, mostly on stockpile, while we continue to develop the Ernesto and also the Elephant Zone, which we will reach higher grades for EPP during Q3, mostly in Q4.
As a consequence of a lower production mostly, we had also an increase in cash costs going to $998 per ounce. Understand that in Honduras, this lower recovery means that we are having the same cost of moving the mine to the plant and the same cost of the plant, and then the lower recovery due to the metallurgical characteristics of the gold that was piled. That increased the cost. Also in Brazil, we reached lower grades and that also on the per ounce produced, that also increased. As we move forward in Q3 and Q4, we understand that higher production will also lower our cash cost.
Most of the increase on the cash cost here, I would highlight that's due to lower production. There is some inflation but most is because of the lower production. Once we move it to higher production, and also all the initiatives that the management are taking to offset inflation, we should now go back to lower cash costs reaching as a guidance $880 and $1,053. Next slide. If on one hand we are narrowing down the production guidance to the lower level that as a consequence, we are narrowing down the cash cost to the upper level so p roduction 200. We was 260-290. Now we are projecting 260 and 275.
As a cash cost, we were $771-$845. Now we are narrowing to the upper level, $803 to $853, as we should decrease our cash costs during the second semester. In terms of guidance for CapEx, we are not changing. We are investing according to our plans. The geology program is doing satisfactorily and also Almas, we are investing according to the plan. We are not changing our CapEx guidance at this time. Very important to highlight is that Almas is progressing very much in line according to the budget and according to our schedule. We already have more than 700 employees.
We progressed until July, 54.2%, that's evolving on an everyday basis. Permits 100% completed, e ngineering 98% completed, p rocurement 72% completed, and c onstruction 25% complete according to the schedule. Now all the important bases to build the mill and to build the tanks, the CIL are already in place, so we're now just mounting the plant on the top of the structures. That was an important step towards having this project be on time and on budget. Currently 91% of the CapEx, total CapEx is already signed, 97% of the service is already committed. We should not expect higher CapEx for this project when it starts by April next year.
Thanks, Rodrigo. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for attending our earnings call this morning. On this page, as we always bring, we have a summary of the main financial KPIs for the reporting quarter for the very few previous quarters, and accumulated last 12 months at the end of each reporting periods. Overall, what we see in terms of performance for revenues and EBITDA. Fo r the second quarter is a weaker revenues and weaker EBITDAs compared to the previous quarters, mostly due to the factors that Rodrigo was explaining, a weaker production mainly due to mine sequencing this quarter compared to the previous quarters and as a consequence, a higher cash cost as well.
On the other side, when we look at the last 12 months numbers, we saw more stable numbers when compared to the previous quarters, also due to mine sequencing. We expect to see bigger numbers as we progress in the third and the fourth quarter of the year. Overall, in the second quarter, revenues of $93 million, bringing the accumulated 12 month revenue to $417 million on the second quarter of 2022. EBITDA in the second quarter of $30 million, bringing in the last 12 months close to $180 million.
We see in the last year, the company has been within the range of $180 million and low $190 million in the last 12 months, EBITDA, the rolling. In terms of net income, positive net income of $15 million this quarter. A quarter at which we had a material both positive and negative, non-recurring and non-cash items hitting our P&L. On the positive side, we have the income from discontinued operations of $11 million. This is related to the divestment from Gold Road. Gold Road was sold for $1 to PPG, the creditor of the Gold Road debt. At the end of June, there was more liabilities than assets associated with Gold Road consolidating our books.
The differences between the liability and the assets, which was this $11 million was recognized as a gain in our P&L at the end of the second quarter. On the other hand, we had a FX loss of $8 million. This is mainly related to the strong depreciation of the Brazilian Real throughout the second quarter. I'm going to explain more details later in the next page.
Then finally, in terms of cash and net debt, the company completed the second quarter with a strong cash position of $280 million, a significant improvement compared to the previous quarters as a result of both cash flow from operations, but also some credit alignments which the company accesses in order to pay for the acquisition of Big River, which is expected to happen now in September. Finally, in terms of net debt, Aura closed another quarter with a positive cash position, a net cash position of $10 million d espite paying dividends, stock buybacks, and investing in Almas development during the second quarter of the year.
Then on the next page, on this page, we bring a reconciliation between the adjusted EBITDA and the net income for the second quarter. As we saw on the previous page, adjusted EBITDA was $30 million, and we highlight the performance at Aranzazú. Rodrigo was showing before Aranzazú has been very consistent from a operational perspective in terms of production. We see the same when we see in the financial results, EBITDA from Aranzazú adding $20 million to our quarterly EBITDA. Amortization and depletion expenses and financial expenses of $9 million and then $2 million respectively have been consistent with both our expectations and also with what the company has been reporting in the last few quarters.
Effects of $8 million dollars which I mentioned on the previous page. This is mainly related to the depreciation of the Brazilian real. The real started the quarter at BRL 4.73 and ended the quarter at BRL 5.24 per dollar. When this happens, we have all the assets from the Brazilian business units and mainly the cash held by Aura Almas. Aura Almas holds most of its cash in Brazilian Reais because most of the remaining CapEx. Can you go back, Gabriel? Just sorry. Most of the CapEx is denominated in Brazilian Reais. So when we convert all that cash from reais to dollars, we see an FX loss. In the previous quarters, we saw exactly the opposite.
In the first quarter, there was an appreciation of the Brazilian Real and in that quarter there was a $12 million FX gain. Income tax expenses of $8 million, most of that coming from Aranzazú, which recorded strong results pre-tax income. Finally, the profits that we saw before from the discontinued operations from Gold Road. Although the closing of the Gold Road sale was happening just in July, there was an agreement signed between Aura and the buyer of the asset by the end of June. By the end of June, Aura already deconsolidated Gold Road from its books and recognized this gain, bringing the net income to $15 million by the end of Q2. Now next page.
On this page we bring a detailed analysis of the change in the cash and cash equivalents of the company throughout the second quarter. On the far left side of the page, we see the starting cash position by the end of March 2022 of $194 million. Moving to this left side of the page, we have what we call adjusted free cash flow to firm, which is the recurring free cash flow to firm generated by the three business units in operations. Despite it being a more challenging quarter, the operations generated $10 million in cash during the second quarter. This quarter we isolate one-time events, which was Honduras' 2021 income tax adjustment.
Honduras and in the Brazilian operations, we pay taxes, income taxes on quarterly basis in advance. Then after the end of the year, the following year, we either receive a credit if we paid more taxes than due or make an additional payment. In the case of San Andrés was one of the best years in the history of San Andrés, a very strong pre-tax income we recorded in 2021. There was this $13 million additional adjustment income tax payments related to 2021, which was made in April. Then in the middle of the chart, we highlighted the investment for growth, which is basically the cash the company invests in the greenfield projects. The main investment was $10 million in the second quarter to develop the Almas project.
We had also some investments in Matupá and also significant investments in exploratory activities, and m ore to the right side of the page, all the financial items we highlight here, the proceeds from that of $75 million in the second quarter. Most of it, again, which we expect to use it to pay for the Big River acquisition. The other items, such as the dividends, the stock repurchase, which consumed $15 million in the quarter. FX impact, which we saw before, bringing the cash position to $218 million by the end of the second quarter. Finally on the next page. On this page, I'm not going to go over all the numbers but it's basically the same analysis as we saw before.
Here we bring the change in the cash position for the whole semester instead of only the second quarter. We see when we add the Q1 results, a much stronger recurring Free Cash Flow to Firm from the mining operations generated $40 million in cash in the first six months of the year. With this, we complete our presentation and open to questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Kleber. As investors can see, despite, we knew that this would be a weak production and weak results, but we continue with the project that we promised the market. We are growing. We are building Almas. We are developing Matupá. They should be releasing the new feasibility study soon. We are in the process of closing an M&A with Big River by the end of September. We are paying dividends, and we are maintaining low leverage. That was what we promised the market, so we continue to grow. We continue to distribute cash to our shareholders. We continue to invest in new projects and to increase the production of the company.
I'll go now with some of the questions that I have here, and then if you have more questions, just throw in on the chat. André Vidal asked, in a commentary you mentioned Aranzazú, EPP in San Andrés , that there was several initiatives implemented reducing inflation pressures. Can you give more details on that? Is there more space for increase in productivity? Yes, there's still space to increase productivity. There are several initiatives that are taken, revising a product that we are buying, re-bidding contracts that we have. Most importantly, I would highlight that we re-bid the contractor for Honduras that just started last month. There's a new contractor with a lower cost compared to the other one.
We are also doing tweaks on the contract that we can share more of the risks and upsides and create incentive for them also to be more productive. Implementing also use of more technology so that we can get efficient. We also changed the contractor of the EPP by March, April this year, so he's also now already working and implementing new initiatives to increase productivity and also on the re-bid process we could decrease our cost with the contractor. In Aranzazú, all those initiatives was taken last year, so we could renew.
We actually re-bid the contractor, but we ended up renewing with the old contractor under more interesting terms, so that a lot of new re-bidding negotiated with suppliers and also services in order to offset inflation, and also increase productivity on our plans. Some of the impacts, for example, in San Andrés , Honduras, that we changed the contractor very recently so we will see the results only during the second semester of this change. In EPP, we changed it, I would say, April, May, when the ramp up of the new one, so we will be intensifying the gains of this new contract by Q3 and Q4. Then he also asked, should we see more share repurchases coming forth?
How does the company balance the shareholders' return among dividends and share buybacks? Well, we do have a share buyback plan approved, and we will continue to analyze, and repurchase shares as we see value on this moving forward. That's part of our plan during the second semester also to continue with the share buyback. In terms of balance, this is a decision that we'll take, w ith dividends, it is semi-annual now. We are paying dividends every six months. And then the share repurchase go on the monthly basis. Aura Almas project is being developed on time and on budget, which is quite remarkable considering the inflationary costs and supply chain constraints around the world.
What is the latest expectation in terms of cash costs and cost of goods sold when the mine starts to operate and after full ramp up? We will disclose this information after we review. Now we should be updating all this analysis until the end of the year. There's some inflation pressure. There's some devaluation of the real. There's some initiatives to reduce. We don't have yet this information to be disclosed to the market and we will do so as soon as we finish all the updates. F or the construction, as I mentioned to you, we should not expect any significant impact on inflation on the CapEx. Then I have here, Good morning, t hanks for, from Diego Castillo, t hanks for the presentation.
Is there any expected impact related to Gold Road for the second semester, for example, as an impairment? Kleber, if you want to take this.
Yes. No, we don't expect any additional impacts from Gold Road. The $11 million gain, which we saw, offsets partially the impairments, which was recorded at the end of the year.
Okay. Then I have a question here. An y preliminary expectation for production 2023? No. We are now on the budget discussion, and we will give the guidance to the market as we have finalized the discussion for the budget for 2023. Then I will follow up on this question. There's Edgar from Itaú also. Given the decline in production guidance for 2022, can we expect in terms of production for next year, what can we expect for this next year? And are you confident that you can reach 400,000 ounces by year-end 2024?" Yes. We continue, d espite this weaker, we knew that this would be a weaker production.
We were a little bit worse than we expected on the other hand. We are still maintaining the same guidance, narrowing down to the lower level with the development of Almas, the development of Matupá, we should be. We are very confident we reach 400,000 ounces by 2024 on an annualized basis. Andre Vidal also asks, any relevant update for Big River acquisition? Does the company see more potential M&As going forward, and if so, any jurisdiction preferred? Yes, as I mentioned to you, the final voting and closing of Big River acquisition should be by mid-September. Yes, we are considering other acquisitions, part of our plan as I was disclosing during the year.
We understand very much the value of reaching above 500,000 ounces and 600,000 ounces of production. We know very much how to get to 400,000 without Big River. With Big River successfully, if you conclude that we should be close to 450,000 ounces-500,000 ounces on that range. Companies trade at different multiples if they reach above 500,000 ounces-600,000 ounces. On the range we are now, the multiples are close to 0.4x-0.45x NAV. If we go to 600,000-700,000 we'll be close to 0.7x-0.8x NAV. That's the average.
There's a significant gain in value, if we also continue to grow with the generated value projects, and reach over 500,000 ounces-600,000 ounces of production. Diego asks us, when the company expect to conclude the repurchase program. The Big River purchase will impact the repurchase plan. No, Big River, when we approved the plan to repurchase shares, we were already including all the necessary cash for the acquisition of Big River, so that should not affect. We are constantly reviewing. We have this repurchase plan approved and we'll continue to use this repurchase tool as we feel it's convenient. We'll inform the market if anything changes and we don't on this repurchase program.
Daniel Sasson asks, good morning. After Almas, any update from which project we will prioritize if it's going to be Matupá or Borborema, the project that belongs to Big River? No, we don't have yet that decision. We first need to have the closing of the transaction to really move into going to all details for the Borborema and Big River. That will be a very convenient time because we'll be also, I will be receiving important information on geological site from Matupá. I would say that during the second semester, mostly on the Q4, we will be comparing and the both projects and see what could be put first and what could be put second.
We would not wait to finish one to start the other, but we would not start the construction of both at the same time. We will probably give a delay of four months to six months between each of these projects. Well, we don't know yet which one is going to be first. As of today, we are projecting Matupá to start construction next year, but th at can change according to these discussions that we'll have on Q4. Then perspective dividend buyback going forward, I already answered this. What are you expecting gold market for next month? We see that the variables that push the gold to higher for appreciation is there.
That will depend a lot on the Fed, if they're really going to intensify and increase in interest rates or not. If they change the strategy to a more stable interest rates or stop increasing by the end of the year, that could also give a additional push on gold prices. It depends what the Fed is going to decide in the next couple of months. I have last question, F abian. Do you expect a recovery in margins for the next two quarters? Yes. As we increase our production, we should have a higher production, lower cost, so we should be increasing our margin on Q3 and mostly also in Q4. Any other questions? I don't see any other question here on the chat.
Well, thank you all for participating on this call. Again, we are very proud that we are moving forward on the project that we shared with the market during the IPO. We are building Almas, we are developing Matupá, we are in the process of M&A acquisition of Big River. We are growing, reaching we believe 400,000 ounces by 2024 on a highly accretive project. We are paying dividends, we are maintaining low leverage, so we are moving forward with what we shared with the market during the IPO, and we expect to continue to do so in the upcoming quarters and years. Thank you all. If you have any other additional questions, you can send to our website or investor relations are here also to help you.
Please, feel free to contact us directly. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you all.