Good morning. Welcome to our conference call. I'm Natalia, and today we have presenting the company's 2022 results, Rodrigo Barbosa, our President and CEO, and Kleber Cardoso, our CFO. Please note that this presentation contains forward-looking information which include events that we expect that may occur in the future. Known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are beyond our ability to predict or control, and could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. By the end of the presentation, we will have a Q&A session, and you may send your questions through the Q&A icon below. Now, I'll give the floor to Rodrigo to initiate his presentation. Rodrigo, please.
Thank you, Natalia. Good morning for all that is with us here. We will today go through the results of 2022, also including the guidance for 2023. We will talk about the quarter and also about the full year of 2022. We'll go first on the main highlights of the company and then our CFO, Kleber, will present in more detail all the results. In terms of the year as an executive summary, last quarter, we produced, as we were predicting, a significant increase compared to the Q3, 67.6 thousand gold equivalent ounces. This is mainly cost could increase, which we knew, grades, in Aranzazu, we had a 9% increase in production compared to Q3 in Aranzazu.
EPP, we were reaching higher grades at Ernesto Pit, so we could increase more than 50% in terms of production. On the other hand, we had a challenging time in San Andres, where we had 13% decrease in production due to a few factors. Still some results from the lower productivity that happened on the contractor mine in Q3 that goes through production to Q4. The leaching cycle has extended a little bit because of the pads. We had some operational challenges that decrease a little bit of production. We expect now the Q1 2023 to recover slightly, and then also Q2 and Q3 and Q4 to be in full production in San Andres. Almas Project is very important.
Almas Project we continue to evolve and move forward. We are on time, on budget. We are now 92% completed. We expect to start the ramp up in April this year and then commercial production by July this year. In terms of EBITDA, we reached $37 million in Q4. You know, during the full year is $134 million. Mainly it's lower than 2021, mostly because of gold and copper price that was below the 2021 and also the challenge in Honduras. Net income, in the other hand, We didn't have no recurring events as we had in 2021, so we increased our net income by 53% compared to 2021.
Cash cost in Q4 was 826 gold equivalent ounces, which is a significant decrease of 15% compared to Q3 due to higher grades we found. We knew that we were mining in Aranzazu, higher grades also in Brazil. Although we had a lower production in Honduras, the team also made a lot of efforts to reduce the cash costs to compensate some lower production. Very important, we are now disclosing All-in Sustaining cash costs. That is putting us for the quarter was at $1,000 of gold equivalent ounces.
For the year-end, 1,118, which is, we will share with all of you the average of the industries, we are now on the second quartile in terms of our in sustaining cash costs. In terms of net debt, we continue to improve our position. Although we paid $10 million of investments, $10 million of dividends, we made $30 million of expansion CapEx in Almas. We've acquired the new exploration rights in Japonês, and also in other investments in geology. We reduced by $4 million-$5 million our net debt position. We are now at $77 million. We were slightly over $80 million. Kleber will go in more details about this.
Very importantly also, we continue to move forward with the projects to grow, but also paying dividends. Last year, if you add all the dividends we paid plus the share buyback, it's a 6% return to our shareholder. 2021, we had 13.5% of return. We had excess of cash. This year we paid slightly over our policy of 20% of the EBITDA minus recurring CapEx. As of yesterday, we also announced the acquisition of mineral rights for copper in the Carajás area, which we expect during the next 3-4 years to do exploration in order to then, in five or years, to be ready to build up a plant. Although there are risks involved.
We do not know if this will turn to a mine, but we believe it's a very strong potential. For us, for Aura to move, including moving to a world-class area in terms of jurisdiction for mining. We are releasing our guidance as well. In term for 2023, we are now projecting to be between 254, 292,000 gold equivalent ounces. This is an increase compared to 2022, mostly because we are now entering Almas in production. We should see an improvement in Honduras. We don't expect to have the problems we had during 2022.
In the other hand, we have a decrease in production in EPP once we do not project to maintain high grades of Ernesto, we should go back to the normal grades during the year of 2023. Importantly, in December, we also were recognized as the company of the year in the mineral sector by Brasil Mineral for the growth angle. Market has been recognizing that we've been growing.
Not only we grow close to 100% during the last five years, and we project to grow additional 86% in the next three years, through our project that goes online, now Almas, and then we start construction of Borborema by the end of the semester, and Matupá when they're all online producing, we should be close to 450,000 ounces of gold equivalent by the end of 2025. In terms of corporate, we continue to invest in our Aura 360, a culture that has been practicing for all our employees on the day-to-day. There's a lot of transparency, ethical values. Every decisions that we make, we need to understand the impact over the environment, over the communities, over our employees.
If you are considering all the safety standards, ethical values, so that I would invite you. We already disclosed a new Mandala by the Aura Day last year. I would invite everyone to take a look and see how we make our decisions on that Mandala. Natalia, if you wanna jump to... Then there you go. For those that didn't see on the Aura Day, we upgraded the communication Mandala to facilitate everyone that's working with us to see the values that we preserve. The way we do in Aura, as some of you already have seen, we decentralize a lot of the decisions. We empowered the local managers to make technical decisions and improve operations.
However, they need to make sure that every decisions they do, that we understand the impact of the employees, community, environment, and the company, and considering all the values that's here. In terms of safety, we had two lost time injuries. One in Aranzazu and one in San Andres. Not severe. Was just one day out of work, and then they could return right after. We did not have any injury, lost time injury in EPP. Of course, we always project it. We always work to have zero accidents in every quarter. We continue to improve also our standards and our communication with our employees about the importance of working in a safe environment. In terms of structure, all our geotechnical structures are satisfactory.
Understanding that it's not only us that do the monitoring of our geotechnical structures, but also we have external consultants that review the numbers and visit the operations on a regular basis. This report comes from those third parties that to the committee that we have in the company. Moving a little bit more into the production. As we could see, we had the second highest production on a quarterly basis with a 68,000 ounces of gold equivalent. The last quarter of 2021 was 78, but it's an improvement compared to Q3, Q2, and Q1. This is mainly when you see on the right side of the chart, Aranzazu, we had higher grades, as I mentioned. San Andres, more challenging quarter.
EPP with higher grades of Ernesto, we could jump more than 50% in production, so reaching 68,000 ounces of gold equivalent. In terms of cash costs, we had a quarter with $826 gold equivalent ounces. For the full years, $897 per ounce, which is on the high end of the guidance, mainly because of the lower production in Honduras, while Aranzazu and EPP, we were very much in line with the guidance. As I mentioned, in terms of production, we are now projecting to be at 254,000-292,000 ounces of gold equivalent. Again, mainly because of Almas that comes online now in April and commercial production by July this year.
Cash costs, we project to have a decrease from $897 to be between $806 and $927 per gold equivalent. However, as Kleber was gonna mention, there is a accounting change on some of the costs due to the new mine contractor contract that we have in EPP, where it's considered as a leasing. This is not a cash cost, but it goes as an investment, capitalizing as an investment. That change, although reduces our cash cost per gold equivalent, it doesn't change, it doesn't affect the All-in Sustaining cash costs that considers everything that you spend to produce of 1 ounce. Last year, we were at 1,118.
This year, we should be between slightly over 1,000 to slightly below 1,200. Which is now we'll show with you, which is a second quartile when you compare to the average of the industry. On the last chart on the right, in terms of CapEx, we see a decrease from $109 million in 2022 to be between $80 million-$93 million this year. It's important to highlight that in 2022, we had the most of the CapEx for Almas. We still have some remaining CapEx for 2023. We are not including 2023, the construction of other two projects, which we will add once we approve in the board, which we expect to do by the end of this semester.
In the sustaining cash costs, you see an increase from $30 to be between $34-$40, mainly because Almas that is now joining as a production, that increase the CapEx related to Almas is the one that's pushing the sustaining CapEx to be higher. Here you can see the details. We are not changing. We continue very strong to meet our guidance to be at 400,000 ounces by 2024 annualized and over 450,000 ounces of gold equivalent by the end of 2025. That will come through the execution of Almas, Borborema, Matupá, and also some improvements in the operations that we currently run. Almas, we are looking forward to start the commissioning.
We are now, as I mentioned, 92% complete in the project, 100% on permits, 100% engineer, 100% on procurement. In construction, 85% completed. We expect to start commissioning and the ramp up in April this year, and also commercial production by July. Here we're in sustaining cash costs of Almas. We had an increase compared to the feasibility study, mostly because of the inflation that happened during the last two years. However, they're still below our average. With the projects coming online, either Almas, Borborema, Matupá, we will also be able to improve our cash costs compared to where we are today and moving more favorable in the table that I'm gonna show you on next slides.
As you can see, we are now disclosing All-in Sustaining cash costs. We are now at the second quartile, with close to $1,100 of All-in Sustaining cash costs. The industry is moving up because of inflation. We had impact of inflation, but we are offsetting partially this inflation, which is helping us to move to the second quartile. We were close to the third quartile, three, four years ago, and now we're going to the second quartile. We expect to further improve this during the next three years with the project that coming online with a more favorable condition to operate in a lower cash cost. Kleber, now I'll turn the floor to you, and I'll go back, come back with the answers in Q&A.
Thanks, Rodrigo. Good morning, everyone. We start with a summary of the main financial KPIs for the company for the last few quarters. As we can see, Q4 2022 is showing a recovery of the main financial numbers of the company, with net revenues exceeding $100 million in Q4 2022, achieving $106 million in the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA increasing back to $37 million at Q4 2022, coming from 17 in the previous quarter. Important to highlight that metal prices in the last quarter of last year were below where they are today. The average price per ounce of gold sold was $1,730, and gold prices are currently trading above $1,800. Copper price, the average price was $3.68 in Q4. Now it's above $4.
If metal prices remain where they are or above, we should see an upside coming in the next quarters as well. In terms of net income, positive net income of $12 million this quarter compared to close to zero on the previous quarter. Finally, in terms of net debt, we see a reduction in the net debt in the fourth quarter compared to the previous quarter, coming from $81 million to $77 million, despite the payment of $10 million in dividends and despite an investment of over $30 million in investments in what we call expansion. That is mainly Almas, but also acquisition of mineral rights in Apoena. Was the quarter where we invested the most in the exploration activities.
The next page, we can see a bridge explaining the differences between the adjusted EBITDA and the net income for the fourth quarter of the year. As you saw on the previous page, adjusted EBITDA was $37 million. The main item impacting the net income in the quarter was amortization and depreciation that came at $18 million in the quarter. This number is higher than the average we're reporting the previous quarters, which were close to $9 million or $10 million. This $18 million is more or less $8 million above the previous quarters. That's because of two reasons. One is a higher production in EPP. EPP produce more ounces, more costs hit our P&L, and accounting-wise, more depreciation.
The second impact is the depreciation of capital leases also in EPP. EPP in 2002, in the middle of 2002, signed a new mine contractor agreement. This mine contractor agreement is different from the previous one. It has two components. One of them, EPP is charged according to the services provider, the tons moved. In a second portion of the agreement, EPP is invoiced by the equipment it's leased from mining operations. According to IFRS rules, the portion EPP's invoice related to the lease of equipment should be capitalized, and therefore, hit our costs through the depreciation. That explains another $4.5 million in Q4 of 2022.
Going forward, we expect in 2023 to see the depreciation being higher because in 2023, we expect to capitalize about $14 million of this lease payments in EPP. Also explain why accounting-wise, the cash cost in 2023 reduces compared to 2022, as Rodrigo was mentioning in our guidance page. Financial or the other items, financial results, other results, income tax expenses came in pretty much according to our expectation and in line with the numbers and bringing our net income to the end of the quarter to $12 million. Next page. This page will bring a detailed analysis for the changes in the cash position throughout the fourth quarter.
On this left side of the page, the far left side, we have the cash position at the beginning of the quarter at $121 million. In this left side of the page is what we call the Adjusted Free Cash Flow to Firm. That is the cash generated by the three mining operations without including any investments in expansion, and also in exploration to find new deposits, such as Serrinhas or to increase the life of the mines. We saw it was a strong quarter. The Adjusted Free Cash Flow to Firm was $47 million in Q4. Besides the EBITDA of $37 million, we see a significant amount of cash, $22 million were generated by reduction in working capital.
That comes both from reduction of stockpiles in EPP, which was part of our strategy to reduce stockpiles and also improve the trade terms in all business units. In the middle of the charts, the $30 million referring to related to investment for growth, mainly Almas, but also we see exploration expenses was relevant this quarter. To the right side, the big item was the dividend pay of $10 million, bringing the cash to $128 million at the end of the quarter, an increase compared to the cash at the beginning of the quarter. Finally on the next page is the same analysis, but for the whole year of 2022.
We see the Free Cash Flow to Firm was $82 million. The investment for growth in 2022 was one year where we invested significantly for the growth of the company, consuming $140 million in cash, mainly due to the acquisition of Big River, $54 million, and other investments to develop Almas and exploration, which was partially financed by proceeds from new credit lines of $73 million. We had a $30 million payment in dividend stock repurchase last year. That explains the change in the cash for the year. With this, we end the presentation and open to questions. Thank you
Thank you, Kleber and Rodrigo. Now we are going to start our Q&A session. Feel free to send your questions through the Q&A icon below. Now we have the first question from Edgar of Itaú. Edgar, please.
Hi, guys. Hi, everyone. Good morning. Congratulations for the results. My first question is regarding your growth projects. In the last conference call, you mentioned that the construction of Borborema could start maybe in the first half of 2023. Do you still expect to start the construction of the projects until June this year? Do you have some color of the potential CapEx for the projects? Regarding Matupá, which timeline can we think for the projects as well? If you could give us a little bit more color on Borborema and Matupá, it would be great. My second question, guys, regarding this exploration permit in Carajás. Can you please give me a little bit more color on the rationale behind the acquisition of the copper exploration permits in Carajás?
Yes.
Which are the milestones for the projects? Which are the upsides you could highlight from this acquisition? It would be great. Thank you.
Thank you, Edgar. First, you asked about Borborema and Matupá. Borborema, we continue to expect to start construction by the end of the semester. We do not have yet. We have internally, but we cannot yet disclose the CapEx. We are now narrowing down. We got the studies made from Big River during the last two years, and we are now updating this under the 43-101, and also seeing where we could improve our returns by optimization of CapEx or mining sequences. This is already ongoing discussions internally, testing models, and we expect to be able to disclose this by the end of the semester.
Then you asked about Matupá. Now Matupá, we continue to evolving again in exploration. We have already engineering also done. We should, as we would like to sequence the projects in order not to overload our internal team. We expect to start construction of Matupá, yet we didn't make a decision, but would be early next year. With these two projects coming online, we starting Borborema construction by the end of this semester. It should go online by the end of 2024. Matupá goes online by the end of 2025. That's why we have the projections to be at 400,000 ounces by 2024, analyzed by the end of the year, and 450,000 ounces by the end of 2025, analyzed.
You asked about the Serra da Estrela that we announced yesterday. This is very much in line with our strategy. If I recall our investors, we are growing 86% during the next 3 years through the execution of three greenfield projects. All of them are in gold. Today we are 70% gold, 30% copper. With the projects of gold, we will be lower in copper. We'll be 15 or 20%. We would like to maintain 30%-40% on copper. And not include new greenfield projects to be built in the next 2 years. This is very much moving to be able to start a new investment in a new project by the end of 2025 or 2026.
We will have the next three or four years exploration efforts in order to find and announce resources and reserves in that project and then do all the engineering and to start construction. This is a mineral rights, exploration rights that come with a very interesting results with nine holes that was made by Anglo in the past. The nine drills or the nine holes that they did in the past, all of them has confirmed mineralization. Yet it's too soon to think about the grades and size. We expected this could be potentially a very interesting and large project for us to develop in the future. Yet we need to now focus on exploration and see what is the real potential of this project.
Okay, thank you. Thank you very much, Rodrigo.
Thank you. Now we have the second question from Guilherme of XP. Guilherme, please.
Hi, Rodrigo. Hi, Kleber, Natalia. Good morning, everyone. Guilherme Nippes from XP. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two questions here on our side. My first question is about your expectations of the ore grade in the first quarter for EPP and throughout 2023, given that the fourth quarter was a very strong quarter. My second question is about the production target for 2024. We noticed that there is an improvement from Almas as it's going to produce a full year. I would like to understand about the management targets that you show in the chart provided in the presentation. I would like to understand which mine should improve the production in order to meet this guidance. Thank you.
Thank you, Guilherme. We don't disclose on the quarterly basis the guidance, but you should not expect to have such higher grades that we had in Q4 in EPP. Still have some remaining high grades that was mined already in January. You should now expect EPP going back to the regular and average grades that they were mining before the Ernesto pit. For 2024, as we were mentioning, we will have a full production of Almas. We'll have some production also coming from Borborema, and particularly by the end of the year, the last quarter. When you analyze that with some improvements that we are projecting to have out in EPP and also in Honduras, that we will reach the guidance of 400,000 also.
At Aranzazu, we are at the very maximum capacity at this moment. Grades should continue to be at the same level, with a slight improvements. We are working in recoveries, but that's more marginal in terms of. I'm seeing improvements in EPP, some improvements in Honduras, but mostly Almas and then Borborema.
Thank you, guys.
Thank you. We have the next question from Rabi. Rabi is connecting. If you can wait a little bit, please.
Hi, Rodrigo. Good morning, everybody. This is Rabi Nizami from National Bank. Just, I see that you reported AISC for the first time, and that's very much appreciated. Could you just clarify for us what is going into that figure? It appears to be a mine level, number. Could you clarify that, please? Secondly, you have your AIF coming out later this quarter. Could you guide us a bit on where we might see more or less, changes in the reserves and resources, by asset? Thank you.
Okay. Kleber, if you wanna take the first one, I take the second one.
The All-in, we start from the cash costs, which was a KPI that we use reports and we added three additional lines, which was the sustaining CapEx, it's including the equation, the lease payments, especially now that EPP is going to become relevant, that's included as well in our sustaining cash costs and all the G&A that are incurred by the business units at the sites. In the MD&A we have, like we also are providing a reconciliation that between the financials and in this KPI that brings 3 additional lines.
Rabi, thank you for the question. For those that doesn't know Rabi, he's an analyst from National Bank. They just released a new equity research report on us that was a couple of weeks ago. I would invite any other investors that if they haven't seen yet, please take a look because it's a new report, refreshing also all the updates that we are doing in order. Your question about AIF, as we're now increasing investment in exploration since 2021, we should start seeing some of the first results in resources and reserves, particularly in the mines that we increased our exploration efforts. Which is EPP in Aranzazu, all those.
We are only this year, we will increase a little bit more the exploration efforts, so the results of this comes in the next one or two years. That's where you should see some changes. We should be releasing by the end of March, AIF. I would invite everyone also to keep their eye on it, because it will be important, report showing that we can increase resources and reserves.
Thank you. Does anyone else want to ask a question? Feel free to send through the chat below, please. We don't have any more question. Thank you, Rodrigo and Kleber. I'm going to give the floor to Rodrigo for his final considerations.
Thank you all for participating on this. I'm very glad to be here, informing you of the results. Not only the results, but also the strategy and the project that we're moving forward. If I remind all our investors, we have a very clear three areas to deliver value to our shareholders. Number one is execution of our greenfield projects to grow over 86% during the next three years, putting the projects online and on budget. I'm glad to see Almas moving forward according to our expectation. This is very important, we hope to do the same with Borborema and also Matupá. The second one that we have very clear to deliver value to our shareholders is increasing resource and reserves. Always a company that has been underinvested in terms of exploration.
We have over 650,000 hectares on mining rights to explore. Our randomized data we are operating are the ones that we're gonna build. Only in the last two years, we increased our exploration efforts in order to increase resources. As of now, we should see life of mine increasing during the next 2- 3 years. The third one is through, we know very much that the multiples of the sector where the companies that produce 300,000-400,000 ounces are close to 0.4-0.5x NAV. Companies that produce 600,000, 700,000, over 500,000 ounces, they tend to have a multiple of 0.7-0.8, at 80% of NAV.
Significant improvement only in multiples if we go beyond the 450,000 ounces. We know very much how to get 450,000 ounces, but we wanna go beyond. That's why we have just acquired this mineral exploration rights, in the Pará state, in a very world-class jurisdiction to explore and be able, to grow further than, the 450. We are not limited only to that. We continue to see and, look for opportunities, or M&As in order to push our production beyond the 450 in the next three or four years. I thank you all. We continue to move. We did all of this also paying dividends. We paid 13.5% of dividend yield, over $85 million in 2021.
It's close to $30 million between share buybacks and dividends last year, 6% dividend yield. We can expect to continue to maintain our policy of 20% of EBITDA minus recurring CapEx. We are delivering, despite some challenges we had in operations, we know those, we have continued to deliver results and the project to our shareholders since we announced this new growth pipeline during the IPO. Thank you all. Final thing that I would just invite you is a few things are coming up, right? That state you should be aware. Number one is decommissioning and the start-up of Almas. We have also by the end of March, the new AIF with new resource and reserves of the company.
We have the construction of initial construction of Borborema and the feasibility study by the end of the semester. Feasibility study slightly after the start of construction. Also, Matupá narrowing down to start construction by early next year. There's a lot of things of going on for all of this this year, very important with the project coming online, which is delivering the growth that we promised to the market. Thank you all, and I'll see you soon.