Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to B2Gold Corp.'s Second Quarter and First Half 2019 Financial Results Conference Call. I'd now like to turn the call over to Mr. Clive Johnson, President and CEO. You may proceed, Mr. Johnson.

Thank you, operator. Thanks to all as well to you on the phone for joining us. As you saw and came up last night, our results from the -- financial results, operating and financial results for the second quarter of 2019, and we had some very strong results of record quarterly gold production of 246,000 ounces which is 8% above budget, and we have some good beats in terms of our costs, so it was such as a very strong quarter. I'm going to have to hand it over shortly to Mike Cinnamond, CFO, who will give you some detail on that, and then we will -- as part of that, we'll be updating you based upon what was in the news release some of the things that we're working on. I guess I'll talk just a little bit about the front-end of the strategy. Obviously, it's very nice to see the gold price up substantially and it's nice to see our share price reflecting that and, of course, the quarterly results as well. I think, really for us, this strategy going forward, doesn't change a whole lot in the sense of with gold being higher and gold to stay higher. We try not to get too carried away when gold was up, and we don't get too suicidal when gold is down. So at the end of the day, we'd like to try and keep -- this company was never built on the assumption that gold has to go higher to make money or to see our shareholders' benefit, and that's been a discipline at Bema and B2Gold, and we will continue with that discipline. But I think it's really one of the things we're pleased about the course of how well the strategy is working for many years…

Thanks, Clive. Just before I start running through the goals, just a comment on the presentation that we have in the financials and the MD&A. Because we've announced the proposed sale of Nicaragua operations with Calibre. We've presented in the financial statements that Nicaragua results has discontinued operations. It's shown as one-liner in the P&L, and there is one-liner items in the balance sheet. So the discussions and the results will focus on the continuing operations, which is our remaining three core mines, Fekola, Masbate, Otjikoto and then also on Nicaragua and the operations that we're proposing to sell. So with that, I'll move to the results. Firstly, on the revenue side. From continuing operations, revenues were $267 million and overall, including Nicaragua were $310 million. And the increase there was $25 million was based on an 8% increase in ounces sold, also 2% increase in the realized gold price, and also to complete the sales experience to sales on gold price of $100 this morning will have a long way to continue. On the operating side, I think, as Clive has mentioned, the total production including continued and discontinued operations is 246,000 ounces. That's a quarterly record for B2Gold. I'm very pleased to see it. And it's really driven similar considerations to previous quarters. Our performance by Fekola, which is 10,000 ounces ahead of budget, Masbate which is 4,000 ounces ahead, and Otjikoto which was 1,000 ounces ahead. On the Nicaragua side, overall, they were 2,000 ounces ahead of budget. So to discuss on a little more detail. Fekola at 114,000 ounces in the production in the quarter, 10,000 over budget. And that's really driven, again, by the higher throughput, 34% higher than budget. Mill throughput, 1.8 million tonnes in this single quarter. And because of that, as we…

[indiscernible] $1,400.

$1,400. Yes. Looking at -- just on the financing section, we did repay $25 million on the revolver in the quarter, and we expect as we go through the year, those higher cash flows to repay more debt as we go through the year. On the investing activities section, business as usual at all the sites. Suffice to say, we probably got about $11 million in deferred strip that we expected to incur over the year-to-date, and we're going to expect to incur enough for the balance of the year. As a reminder, there will be various additions to the CapEx to the drop with some of the original budget results were predominantly on prior calls and news releases. But just give to you a reminder, those are made up of mainly related to Fekola. So Fekola expansion was subsequently approved and expect to be $50 million in total for the mill expansion, $25 million this year, $25 million next year. Purposely, in total amount, we think that the larger trucks, larger-sized trucks, total anticipated fleet cost to be $86 million, of which $26 million is expected to be incurred this year, including some pulling other fleet forward and some into 2019. Fekola Solar Plant also approved. We think it's going to be largest off-grid hybrid solar HFO plant in the world. We think that will reduce processing costs by about 7%, and we will take up to 3 chances outside of operations every points in the day. The CapEx for that is $38 million, of which $20 million is budgeted for this year with the balance of '18 and 2020. In addition, we also increased Fekola's exploration budget by $3 million earlier in the year. Just the frac spreads, somewhere growing with some of the targets that we got…

[indiscernible]

As $1,300 or $1,400 goal. So the way we see it right now, we have $375 million on the revolver, $1,400 goal, we certainly think we can pay that off over the balance of this year and in the end of next year. So I think those were the main items that I wanted to talk about on the results.

Okay. Thanks, Mike. Just one clarification or one -- the $85 million for the large expanded fleet for the fourth quarter expansion would be -- we will anticipate with equipment modes. So just a point to be mentioned. Okay. I guess we pass on to Tom now to give us an overview of -- obviously, with major expressions of budgets and the number of locations that makes a chunk of question at the e-mail of Fekola and the area around Fekola. So over to you, Tom.

Thank you, Clive. As Clive said, we've had a pretty major exploration budget for this year for all the projects. Up to this point, we've drilled over 100,000 meters in all our exploration projects. And in Fekola, up to this point, we've drilled 30,000 meters of diamond drilling in 100 holes -- over 100 holes and 22,000 meters of RC drilling in over 200 holes. The focus of that has been in several areas. Initially, it was due to the infill drilling on the PEA pit, and then we do exploration down plunge on Fekola and to the south of Fekola and also up in the Snakes areas to the north and then to a new license we acquired to the north of that. So just we've completed the infill drilling on the PEA pit, but with -- changing gold prices has forced us to look at going further down plunge. As everybody has known or I've talked about several times, our $1,400 resource pit that we came up with is really, although it was $1,400, it was at the edge of our data, so -- which really says we don't know where the $1,400 pit really goes. And so we started doing some infill drilling within that $1,400 pit, and now down plunge that $1,400 pit. And the mineralization still continues. For example, we just hit a hole 14 -- 413. We had almost 4 grams over 59 meters at the bottom of the $1,400 pit, so at the edge of our current resource. And at the edge of the PEA pit, we hit some holes. We had 6 grams over 20 meters, 4.5 grams over 24 meters. And we had almost 4 grams over 56 meters at the edge of the PEA pit. So that suggested the orebody…

Thanks, Tom. Before we move for questions, just maybe a couple of comments. I do want to just -- shut out to our Nicaragua employees. We had a tremendous group down there led by Dale Craig, who was with it from the beginning. And just a tremendous team of people who've done an excellent job over many years. We really put Nicaragua on the map of gold mining in a big way and attracted lots of other people to go in Nicaragua including Calibre some years ago. They have experience in the country from an exploration perspective as well. But I just wanted to thank our employees and part of our -- those of you that know our culture know how much we care about our people. So the Nicaragua deal was a really good fit for us because when you look and evaluate what we got or didn't get for it, don't forget we didn't sell it. All right. We didn't look -- decided to get out of Nicaragua and sell the assets. We did restructure the deal. We want our people, our legacy to continue there by combining it with Calibre. And they've got a very good, strong executive team. But our management team and our employees stay in place. So their legacy continues. And you'll now have, with the closing of the deal, Calibre very focused on growing within Nicaragua and I'm sure other things potentially in Central America, et cetera. So the deal was great and I think a real win-win for us. But we were happy to be 31% shareholders of Calibre. Our decision to combine with Calibre, see them go forward with the assets in the ground, was not based on politics. This is not a decision based on clinical activity. We are --…

[Operator Instructions] Geordie Mark with Haywood Securities.

Great quarter. Just one question in several parts, I guess. On -- I guess the main is Fekola so let's start there. Obviously, doing very well throughput plant at 7.3 million tonne run rate for the quarter. Can you give us an idea, given that you're sort of going above the original nameplate, using that capacity, where available, to put in stockpiles, how you foresee the sort of balance of mined tonnes in H2 versus stockpile? Or how many -- put another way, how many tonnes are coming from the -- from being mined in H2 in the current plan?

Randy should know.

Yes. I mean Randy is probably closer to it. I can answer if you want. But Clive thought Randy should.

Randy? You there, Randy?

Yes, maybe I'll take a shot at it. So Geordie, we see -- I mean certainly it's not just the second half of 2019 we've got to consider. As we build up our stockpiles, we've got to look at what we're doing in 2020 as well. When we put out this PEA with some pretty aggressive numbers, we want to make sure that we don't move too many ounces out of our high-grade and medium-grade stockpiles that we would have in 2020. So I think the short answer is we're managing it to be kind of what the first half looked like.

Okay. Great. And I guess, ultimately, the -- I guess the performance, well above, I guess, a nominal nameplate, could be expected -- or concurrent with the operator's 7.5 million, you'd expect 7.5 million could be 8.5 million to 9 million in the right conditions?

Do you guys want to talk about softer rock and all the rocks are going to get harder? Let's talk about that. John?

Yes. Well, the higher throughput now is the result of the saprolite that's in the mill feed as well as softer rock that's from the low grade that we're processing through the mill. So with all fresh rock coming in the future, higher grade, those higher -- we wouldn't have as high a throughput now as we had the higher-grade fresh rock, so -- and that's what the expansion is designed to process, it's higher-grade, harder rocks.

Yes. And maybe just to add on that, Geordie, one of the things that we're looking at right now, don't forget with this expansion, we've got a tie-in. And tie-in obviously means shutdown time. So when you're talking about 7.5 million or 8 million or 9 million over the course of 2020, you got to factor in certainly we're going to have quarters where we're not going to be able to run that because we'll be shut down for a tie-in.

Yes. Okay. Great. And maybe just some housekeeping on Libertad. I see you obviously have your internal mining activities started there and expecting ore, I guess, from September onwards. Can you give us an idea of kind of grade distribution Q3, Q4 and perhaps expectations on CapEx there in the current play?

Yes. I can respond to that, Geordie. CapEx, really the major items in CapEx have been taken care of in the front end of the year, that includes the land acquisition and dam construction. So we're expecting CapEx to tail off for the back half of the year. And in terms of grade projections coming out of [Halloween], we're expecting it to run just under 4 grams per tonne and contribution to the mill feed to be in the 10% to 15% range, [so touches] above its grade upgrade, and our advanced production will really depend on how effective we are in operating the pit. That's our starting point, number one.

Fabulous. And maybe one last one, if I can, for Tom or anyone else, I guess. In terms of drilling at Fekola, you've done very well, in terms of the [hydrogenate depth]. Obviously, that's done well. It looks like you've doubled your budget there to have another $3 million. I guess that bodes well in terms of some success on grade. And you're quoting Fekola's ore mineralization there, but from memory, the other target, Cardinal, is something different again?

Yes, Cardinal is something different again. We don't have a lot of drilling on there right now. We're just, as we said at the beginning, tied up everywhere else. But Cardinal seems to be quite a bit tighter than Fekola. So I don't expect a Fekola target at Cardinal. I'd expect that, that may be something small, at one point in the future, that will carve out.

Where is it? How far is it?

Cardinal is only less than 500 meters from the pit.

Lawson Winder with Merrill Lynch.

I actually just wanted to look at Masbate. I mean that's an asset that certainly seems hard to sort of pin down, which I mean is actually good because it's always surprising to the upside. But maybe just a couple of questions on what the second half looks like. And so in your original budget, you -- or your guidance, you said 69.7% would be the average recovery for the year at Masbate. And so based on that, that would imply that the budget for H2 would be something over 80%, is that correct? And if so, what's kind of driving that expectation?

Yes. The original budget concept had a significant Montana component, which is high recovery. The blend will depend on the arrival of that component. And our recoveries projected through the back half of the year will run between 69%, 70% in Q3 up to 80%, climb to 80% in the fourth quarter, so slightly below our original projections.

Okay. That's great. And then you also spoke about the Montana pit expansion. Are you able to give us an idea of how many ounces we're talking about there and at what grade? And then are you looking to publish an updated technical report on that?

Go ahead.

I'll be back in a minute. I've got a quick chart to check here.

Okay. No problem. I got some other questions on Masbate as well. Just on the oxide, I mean it's always surprising to the upside in terms of the percent of oxide. So I mean I guess first off, your budget for the first half was 1% in terms of oxide. What is the budget for the second half in terms of the oxide percentage? And then maybe if you could just speak to your understanding as to what's kind of driving that huge variation in the percent of oxide versus the budget and particularly if the previously mined out areas have anything to do with that.

As far as -- it has a lot to do with our current mining places. I'm anticipating through Q3, we'll run about 20% oxide in our most recent forecast, and that declines to about 2% in the final quarter of the year. Really, the blending -- the original blending strategy through Q3, Q4, while we developed budget, included a nice blend of low-grade ore coming from stockpiles and high recovery of material coming from Main Vein and Montana. So that blend in our forecast is changing slightly, and that's why you see the difference heading towards more oxide and less pressure in our mine component.

From the history of that, the whole oxide history, [Tom Bryan is somebody -- do] you want to talk about what you -- why do you think we're seeing so much more oxide historically than we thought we would?

I'll give it a shot. We've been studying this a lot. I mean a couple of things. First of all, that sulfide material or the stockpiles, most of the stockpiles are getting oxide if it's sitting out there between 10 years and 30 years with saltwater rain coming on them. So they've had some oxidation themselves. So there's a bit of a surprise, a positive surprise in the stockpiles. Second, and I'm guessing a little bit, but we have looked at this a lot. The interpretation of sulfide within the rocks is largely based on RC drilling with some diamond drilling. And what happens with RC drilling, the mineralization itself, which occurs in veins and fractures, is getting oxidized. But they're quite narrow and are hard to see when you drill RC drilling across the alteration halos around these veins and a lot of sulfides in them. And they don't get oxidized. So I think there is a little bit of misclassification going on. I don't know how much. And we really can't, unless we redrill the whole thing with diamond drilling, we really can't change our interpretation on our models. So I think we can expect some positive changes, but I wouldn't put too much on that. I think the bigger change is a lot of the stockpiles were classified as sulfide, and I think they're being oxidized.

Probably in the previous [audit], they didn't spend as much time differentiating, is that right, between the different ore types?

No. No, we certainly studied it a lot more than they had for sure.

So that's partly why there's more -- with further analysis, there is more oxide than they have thought.

Yes.

Okay, that's great. That's very helpful explanation. And then just on the backfilled prior workings in the Main Vein. I mean obviously you had expected to encounter those, but have they ever been drilled out? And like to what extent can you expect that to continue, where you're actually getting grades worth processing out of those old workings?

Again, the same thing applies to -- we talked about with the oxidation state. You go drill a good chunk of the orebody with RC, as what has done here in Main Vein, it's very difficult to pick out all the workings. So there's going to be some conservatism applied to the modeling of the workings. Certainly, when you're drilling RC and you go through a pit opening that's been backfilled with rock and maybe a bit of paste, you don't really pick it out in an RC hole. So I think what's happened is we've had -- we've been conservative in our modeling on some of these workings. It's turning out to our benefit. I'd say it's starting to do that and not the opposite happen.

Operational conservative forecasting and recovery issue drilling through backfill, [hard to recover nothing].

I can take the Montana question as well. Montana has got about 225,000 ounces at about two grams.

Over what period of time will that be might?

Over two years, approximately.

Yes, we see it holding in at about 12% of our mill feed, and the grade in the coming 6 to 8 months will range from 1.4 to just over 2 grams per tonne active recovery, 80%.

I would advise you to reach out to the guys for any more detailed technical questions. There may be other people in the queue that want to ask questions as well. So thanks for your good questions and your interest.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Chris Thompson with PI Financial.

Congratulations on a great quarter again. Three quick questions. Just a point of clarification on, I guess, the discussions from the previous caller on Masbate. So what I'm hearing here is that you're planning on pushing more oxide through the plant towards the back end of this year to increase the recoveries. Is that right?

No, we will be sending more low-grade through the plant, not oxide, in the back end of the year, final quarter.

Okay. And then I think you were mentioning close to 80% in the fourth quarter. Is that right?

No, closer to 2% in the fourth quarter, approximately 20% oxide in the third quarter.

So a good recovery is 80%?

Say again?

I'm just looking at the recoveries, what we should be modeling, I guess, in the fourth quarter.

Yes. Recovery, third quarter, sits around 70%. 80% in the final quarter of the year.

And just moving on to Otjikoto quickly. Obviously, you've been guiding for a stronger second half. I guess grade-driven, I would imagine, Phase 2 Wolfshag. Can you give us a sense of the sort of the head grade profiles we should be putting in our model for this?

Yes. I'll look it up. Hold on. Yes. Maybe, Chris, call me outside of this call, and I'll let you know.

Fine. Sorry. Sorry for asking the details here. Final question, guys. Obviously, Fekola, fantastic performance from the asset here. I think you mentioned earlier on that you're going to be managing the second half tonnes, milled tonnes, very much like what we saw in the first half of this year. Would the same be for the head grade as well?

Yes. I think you could assume that. Once again, we are managing the head grade as well. And so what we're really trying to is target an ounce profile as opposed to a grade and tonne throughput.

Carey MacRury with Canaccord Genuity.

Just had a question on Anaconda. It looks like you've pushed out the scoping study as you're continuing to drill there. Just wondering from what you're seeing there, are you still contemplating a stand-alone operation? Or is it still potentially could be mixed in with the Fekola mill? And then finally, do you anticipate -- I was wondering about the time line in terms of coming up with releasing details around the plan around Anaconda.

Tom -- [Dennis and Tom talked to it]. I mean he just mentioned that it's open to the north, and we're getting good results there. So getting bigger, of course, makes us to have a little more interest. And Dennis, do you want to talk to that a little bit?

Yes, it gets bigger. And from the things we're seeing in saprolite now, it's a bit higher grade, which is the [real deal] on this thing for making a stand-alone saprolite plant. And we're just kind of waiting and seeing a bit right now. Tom's guys are just really getting into the -- drilling this thing up further to the north. We'd like to give a little more definition on what we really think we've got there for 2 things, saprolite, the saprolite itself, both tonnes and grade. I mean how big can this thing get and what is the grade really. And as soon as we have a better understanding of that, we'll drop it into our models, and we'll take another look at how that plant looks and is there a hard rock component of this thing up north that we need to consider also, so will we build a different style of plants. So all the success -- with the success the exploration guys are having comes a whole new list of questions for us.

[Would you be able] talk about, you mentioned about when you're going to be drilling the well for saprolite?

Yes. So I think Dennis' point is a really good point, in terms of timing of knowing things. I mean the saprolite is getting bigger, so we're expanding the saprolite, and we have started -- we actually had our first hole number 1 going into Mamba sulfide target at the north end of it. So we're still early stages on the sulfide targets. But initially, we had several targets, in sulfides, we had one in Adder, in Anaconda. We had 2 in Mamba. And now we're drilling one of our best sulfide targets in Mamba below the saprolite. So to talk about timing on when we would know what we have there, your guess is as good as mine. If hole number 1 turns out a monster intersection, then we'll hit it really, really aggressively. If it's hole number 50, well, we'll be working at it for a while. So it won't be hole 50, but that would be my bet. But still early-stage exploration. So your guess is as good as mine as when we'll have the feasibility on it. But I think in summary of it, I think what Dennis says and John said yesterday is let's find out what we have there in the sulfide before we decide what plant we want to build there.

So it could be potentially a stand-alone if the saprolite continues to get bigger and then the grade looks like there are some areas got a grade, but then again maybe the saprolite gets mined in a bigger mill if it's on top of another large deposit and the sulfides,

Can I answer the other part of that question, Clive?

Yes.

So the other part of the question, second half of the year, Q3 grade through the mill 1.73 grams, Q4 is 2 grams per tonne.

So just a follow-up on Anaconda. Based on the drilling today, do you think you'll be in a position to at least expand the resource at the end of the year?

I don't think so. And just because we haven't done the edges yet. So it's August already. Unless we find the edges, I don't know that we'll have a new resource by the end of the year.

But we might potentially do an updated resource at some point in the next year or so. But [end of year is still open], is that right?

Yes, we might. Maybe sometime next year, we'll be able to come up with a new resource.

There are no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Clive Johnson for final remarks.

Thank you all for staying on the call and for your interest. I'll just say if you have further follow-up questions, reach out to me and we'll get you to and talk to the right person here. I think we're obviously very pleased with the results that we've seen for the quarter again. And I think based on our successful growth strategy over 10 years, remember, we have no gold production 10 years ago. But based on the successful growth strategy, perhaps [indiscernible] I really do believe we're almost, if not uniquely positioned to continue to generate strong cash from operations but also to continue as a real growth engine by focusing on what we have in the pipeline. We're going to generate lots of cash flow. We were looking for the right cash flow point of view, our [indiscernible] gold and debt repayment, obviously, with gold being higher, that looks even better. Our long-term goal, but maybe not too long term anymore, is to continue to be a responsible producer but also obviously continue to grow. And a lot of that from existing assets and through the drill bit, but also ultimately, we'd like to be a company that takes a portion of our cash we generate and use it to grow the company's production further. But also we'll look at our dividend strategy in the future. So I can't tell you what gold price we'll pursue with the dividend and when yet, but we're going to be looking at that, and that's part of our goal as a company. We think we're a very attractive company for lots of investors. Minerals and gold investors look at a company that's low-cost, profitable, [indiscernible] can grow from existing assets and then drill bit based on our extraordinary track record of what we've accomplished so far but also become a dividend-paying company as well. Once again, thank you all for your interest, and we'll look forward to talking to you soon. Have a good day. End of Q&A:

This concludes B2Gold Corp.'s Second Quarter and First Half 2019 Financial Results Conference Call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.