Earnings Labs

Aris Mining Corporation (ARIS)

Q4 2018 Earnings Call· Thu, Mar 28, 2019

$17.89

-4.64%

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Transcript

Michael Davies

Management

Thank you, Richard. Good morning and thank you for joining us today for our 2018 fourth quarter and full year results webcast. With me on the webcast this morning is our CEO, Lombardo Paredes. I'll first go through our prepared remarks regarding our performance in 2018, and then Lombardo will be available as we open things up for the Q&A session. Before we proceed with the presentation, I would first like to draw your attention to our legal disclaimer regarding forward-looking statements that will be made by us during the webcast this morning. I've been characterizing 2018 as the watershed year for Gran Colombia. Everything we've been working on since early 2016 to turnaround the company came together. We established the number of new highs this year including gold production, EBITDA, operating cash flow and free cash flow. We completed the notes financing a year ago, completed the initiatives to strengthen our balance sheet and simplify our capital structure. And that brought us to a total issued and outstanding share count of 48.3 million and market cap of $185 million at yesterday's close. Adding in warrants and stock options, our fully diluted share count to 63 million shares. We've seen significant improvement in our share price over the last year and our stock is outperformed the TSX's global gold index. In 2019, analysts at GMP and Fundamental Research initiated coverage with target prices of $6 and $5.62 respectively. We expect to have additional coverage comments this year. Three years ago when we started the turnaround, we had about $3 million of cash and $179 million of debt. At the end of 2018, our cash position has risen to almost $36 million and our debt is now down to $83 million, less than half of where we started. Our working capital…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And our first question online comes from Harris Perlman. Please go ahead.

UnidentifiedAnalyst

Analyst

Thank you. Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. So historically the company I believe has included the exploration costs and its AISC numbers. Just curious going forward now that you're going to be spending more on brownfield and other exploratory drilling at Segovia. Are you going to be breaking that out as a separate line item as a non-sustaining CapEx? Thanks.

MichaelDavies

Analyst

Thanks Harris. Actually that's a very good question is something that we are in the midst of analyzing. The company has taken a very conservative approach to its all-in sustaining cost reporting since 2016 given that the industry and we feel it's a very important metric that investors are looking at for being able to fund our ongoing capital projects. I'd like to say at the moment, I think that as we analyze the definitions under the latest update from the World Gold Council on all-in sustaining cost reporting, it's more likely than not that we will probably include all the exploration in the ASIC numbers even though some portion of that will be covered by the bought deal financing. But we haven't concluded yet on the best approach to handle that situation to meet our investor needs .But we will obviously have an answer by the time our Q comes out in the middle of May.

UnidentifiedAnalyst

Analyst

But currently your $950 guidance --cap to the guidance assumes that the entire exploration drilling is going to be included?

MichaelDavies

Analyst

Certainly the entire exploration drilling that we'd planned for this year. It doesn't include the impact of the additional one. We do expect this --we were at $907 last year, we do expect that we'll have some additional spending. Obviously, this year coming from the bought deal placement. So we're analyzing it, and I think it will be as I said trying to find the right balance between reporting ASIC and giving people a good clear estimate of our projects.

Operator

Operator

We have a question online from [Michael Turk]. Please go ahead.

UnidentifiedAnalyst

Analyst

Hello. This is Michael from Dubai. I have three questions. First question for me is about the report today. The annual report that has arrived --reached at the loss which is something against the government from Colombia for Marmato property. Is this correct? And can you give me more information on this.

MichaelDavies

Analyst

Sure. Lombardo did you want to talk about the free trade arbitration matter?

LombardoArenas

Analyst

Yes. Thank you. Okay, well we are in the procedure of the -- we are in the stage where we are designating the arbitrators. We already designated our arbitrator. Government of Colombia also designated an arbitrator and then they are in the process of select the president of a tribunal. We already have a list. We are --we have to establish a rank and then the two arbitrators will select the president of tribunal. That will be --that is going to be a long process probably will take till 2021. We are confident that we have all the elements in our favor. We prepare a deep technical story about the damages and prejudices that we have in Segovia and Marmato. And well we have to wait until the tribunal will like to hear the argument of each of their participant in the arbitration deal. Do you need more about that or no?

UnidentifiedAnalyst

Analyst

No. That's okay so far. Thank you. That's the first question. The second question is about average grade which we are producing now. We had at the moment about 21.4 grams which we are producing. So it was a very good production result in February, but from the resource estimate we should have about 11.8 grams in the average. So within the moment mining the high-grade means this that in future we will have very low grades in terms of the average of 11.8 grams or is this the reason why we are now make the financing for further exploration that we can hold this grades also in the next year so high?

MichaelDavies

Analyst

I think so the answer to that is on the first part of the question the grades did come through much higher in the first --certainly in February of Providencia and as we said in the release somewhat unexpectedly we hit an area where the grades were higher than we had in our resource model. So it was a very fortunate situation for us. It's not a question of us high grading but in the sequence of the mine in the areas where we're in. We are in the higher grades that obviously do say that as of the later stages of the mind there will be some lower grades as you say to come out to 11.8. But the second part of your question is spot on that the reason that we are taking on this bought deal private placement to accelerate our exploration is that our drilling results in 2018 again it identified some new structures and extensions at Providencia that we want to get to faster. So that we can have more runway for our doing our mine planning at them on mine looking a little further out. And following up on what we've seen to determine just how much more of this high-grade area actually does exist for us.

UnidentifiedAnalyst

Analyst

Okay, thank you. And last question for me is about the Pampa Verde project. Some years ago there was plan with 2,500 tons per day in Pampa Verde then it was cancelled. What I understand of course so it was meant to turnaround if we with the exploration find now some new target and very high-grade gold for example or we can increase the resource steadily. Is there any chance to bring this back on track, and if yes, what will be the cost for this? Because we have already some equipment is my understanding what we have bought some years ago.

MichaelDavies

Analyst

Lombardo do you want to speak to that?

LombardoArenas

Analyst

Yes. Mike could rephrase the question?

MichaelDavies

Analyst

I think what he is asking is we made investments in Pampa Verde. We've got the mill, equipment that sitting there. How --what do we see I guess this is the --are we going to use that equipment that's there or as you know we're looking at the occasional use of it elsewhere.

LombardoArenas

Analyst

Okay. Nowadays we are with safety mine plan, in this year for example we had expanding our processing facility in Segovia to fitting on the Pampa Verde. For 2021, we are expected to have-- my --our existing processing plan up to 2,000 tons per day that is because we need to process more mineral. We increase the production of minerals probably that the grade will go a little bit down that kind of things. The processing capacity of Pampa Verde is quite high. It's at 2, 600 tons per day and that plan can be expanded to 3,500 tons per day. In our plans now which are --which are plans only no more reality, probably Pampa Verde, we have another destination. For example, in Marmato project is going to be probably our flag project in the near future. In Marmato, the production probably is going to be around 5,000 tons per day and then the Pampa Verde will fit nicely into that project because we will combine Pampa Verde production with existing production in Marmato and we can have a very reasonable cost of production of 5,000 tons per day. Probably Pampa Verde is not the solution for Segovia because Segovia is going to grow up to probably be 8,000 tons per day at maximum with the new operation resort, it's going to be high-grade mine and probably with 3,000 tons per day you can do everything. So probably you have to add probably in the future 2024, probably you have to add some small facility and more production facilities like a 1,000 tons per day something like that. But the most probably-- the most likely explanation of Pampa Verde is our flag project in Marmato which is going to be a big project. End of Q&A

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]

Michael Davies

Management

Alright. Well, Richard, if there is no other questions coming in, I think then we would like to thank everybody for joining us.