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Eldorado Gold Corporation (EGO)

Q3 2016 Earnings Call· Fri, Oct 28, 2016

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day. My name is Steve, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like welcome everyone to Eldorado Gold Corporation's Third Quarter Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Thank you. Paul Wright, President and CEO please go ahead.

Paul Wright

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open

Thank you, operator. And good morning and welcome to our third quarter 2016 financial and operating results call. I'm here today in Vancouver with Paul Skayman, our Chief Operating Officer; Fabiana Chubbs, Chief Financial Officer, and Krista Muhr, our Vice President of Investor Relations. As always, we have provided detailed financial and operational information in the press release from yesterday evening. Before I begin, I need to remind you that any projections and objectives included in our discussion today are likely to involve risks, which are detailed in our 2015 AIF and the forward-looking statement disclaimer at the end of our news release. We will try to make this another brief call, Paul and Fabi will review the operations and financial results and I want to touch on the overall outlook and where we currently stand in China and Greece specifically. We've updated our full year guidance, which still includes discontinued operations, which uses the actual 2016 closing date for the Jinfeng transaction of September the 6th and assumes the mid-November 2016 closing date for the transactions with the entire resources. Full year gold production is forecasted 495,000 ounces with average cash cost of $575 per ounce and all-in sustaining cost of $915 per ounce. In regards to Kişladağ, we do expect production at Kişladağ to return to Q4, 2015 levels where we presently forecast around 75,000 ounces for this quarter. Month-to-date daily production is running in excess of 750 ounces. Looking at sustaining capital for the year, it is now forecast at $80 million compared to the previous guidance of $95 million. In new development capital, we expect to spend approximately $230 million compared to the guided number of $250 million previously. On September 6th, we completed the transaction with China National Gold concerning the Jinfeng transaction and Fabi…

Paul Skayman

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open

Thanks, Paul. Good morning, everyone. A tough quarter with Kişladağ and Tanjianshan performing - underperforming our expectations. To start in Turkey, Kişladağ produced just less than 50,000 ounces in Q3, longer lead cycles and material were in place on higher sections of the leach pad continued to contribute slower ounce production. We expected solution grades to increase earlier in Q3 and this was slower than anticipated. However, since late September ounce production off the pad has increased noticeably and we're now extracting around 750 to 800 ounces per day. We continue to maintain our guidance of 225,000 ounces for the year. During 2016, pad inventories increased by around 45,000 ounces and we expect to start drawing this down in Q4. We’re also currently installing two more absorption trains to increase our absorption capacity by around 65%. This will help reduce the amount of gold, sitting in solution in the pad and as pump [ph] back on to the pad as part of the intermediate leaching process. We expect commission these extra late trains [ph] in early November and they should provide ounces for sale before the end of the year. Tons of ore mines and ore placed on pad were well above budget at a higher grade them planned. The year-to-date strip ratios 0.83 to 1 and replaced around 800,000 tons of run a mine material on the leach pad in Q3 given the higher gold prices we're seeing compared to what we budget at the beginning of the year. Year-to-date, we placed approximately 2.4 million tons of run a mine at around half a gram. At Efemcukuru, the project again performed well during the quarter reporting better tonnages, but slightly lower grades than expected. This led to a budgeted quarter of ounce production with sales year-to-date slightly ahead of…

Fabiana Chubbs

Analyst · CIBC. Your line is now open

Thank you, Paul and good morning, everyone. I will go through the financial statements highlighting changes in significant accounts. We ended the quarter with cash, cash equivalents and term deposit balance of $412 million, including $43 million reported under assets held for sale compared to $292 million at the end of 2015. The increasing cash balance is mainly the result of $79 million generating by operations before changes in working capital, proceeds of $296 million received from the sale of Jinfeng. Net of $31 million of cash, held by Jinfeng at the time of the sale and $206 million usage of cash for capital programs. Net cash used by discontinued operation was $12 million. During the quarter, we follow our interest in Jinfeng for a proceed of $296 million net of taxes. Just to clarify, the composition of these amount reflects a selling price of $300 million, adjustment for cash and working capital of $25 million and income tax of $29 million. The balance of our Chinese assets are expected to be sold during the fourth quarter and the respective assets and liabilities are presented on the balance sheet as current assets held for sale and current liabilities held for sale. On the income statement, the result of the Chinese operation is shown in a single line, a discontinued operation, including a $3 million loss related to the sale of Jinfeng. Profit attributable to shareholders of the company was $21 million or $0.03 per share for the quarter, compared with a loss of $96 million or $0.13 per share in the third quarter of 2015. Excluding transaction cost and unrealized losses totaling $12 million, we reported adjusted net earnings of $34 million or $0.05 per share for the quarter compared to an adjusted net of $4 million or $0.01 per share in 2015. Gross profit from continuing operations for the quarter of $49 million, increased 63% year-over-year, as the impact of lower sales volumes was offset by higher gold prices and lower unit operating cost. Gross profit from discontinued operations for the quarter was $22 million. Those are my comments on the financial statements, I will turn the call back to Paul.

Paul Wright

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open

Thanks, Fabi, and thanks Paul. Operator, we will open up for questions now, please.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Andrew Quail with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.

Andrew Quail

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open

Morning, Paul and team. Thanks for the update. Fabi, thank you for clarifying that adjusted earnings number. I have a question on just on the CapEx split for the Kişladağ expansion, just more so from question on, how much obviously will be in 2017 versus 2018?

Paul Wright

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open

Yeah, I guess it will - be reasonably evenly split a little bit less in 2017 a little bit more in 2018 so a sort of 40-60. And we’re doing a little bit of work in this year, but it’s fairly modest and not going to be a significant amount of cash so to spend this year I guess.

Paul Skayman

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open

I think September was $60 million to $70 million.

Paul Wright

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open

That’s right.

Andrew Quail

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open

So, that’s sort of a 30, 40 so 30 next year...

Paul Wright

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open

Yes.

Andrew Quail

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open

And then Paul, obviously, you guys hopefully mid-November is going to be pre-cashed up or do you want to just touch base on potentially reinstated [ph] next year. And just any comments around that, I know it’s a board decision but just if you - a lot of other guys just wanted to get a comment.

Paul Wright

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open

Yeah, no, I think we previously stated with the gold price backup about 12:50. This is back on the table again and we will be looking to make that decision with the board, when we conclude our year-end financials.

Andrew Quail

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open

Okay, that’s all for me. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And the next question comes from Steve Butler with GMP Securities. Your line is now open.

Steve Butler

Analyst · GMP Securities. Your line is now open

Good morning Paul. Guys, you talked about the absorption rate on to the carbon at Kişladağ, Paul. And has this ever been experienced before where you've had this issue, or is it just because you’ve been stalking some decent grades here at Kişladağ in the first half, because it’s obviously been a long-lived asset and why the extra carbon coms required now?

Paul Skayman

Analyst · GMP Securities. Your line is now open

It’s not an issue with absorption per se, it’s really material. The reason for the lower production in Q3 is solutions is taking a long time to sort of come through and out of the pad, so that’s the first comment. I guess we’ve now got higher pads than we've had previously, so the lag is more significant. The extra carbon columns, effectively we’ve got so much solutions sort of running around the circa that some of the material is going back on to the pad with some golds in it and we’re looking to put that material to our carbon column that we’re extracting that gold, so effectively putting all barren solution back onto the leach pad.

Paul Wright

Analyst · GMP Securities. Your line is now open

I mean Steve, just a couple of additional comments I mean I think it is a sponge, just making it larger and larger and larger in the quantity of solution that we have now inside of the pad that’s bearing gold has grown sort of year-by-year to the point that we’re actually we’re holding up our return on money by not having the ability to run this material, this lower grade material through the carbon columns.

Steve Butler

Analyst · GMP Securities. Your line is now open

Okay. That makes sense.

Paul Wright

Analyst · GMP Securities. Your line is now open

That was a lot smaller. We were able to get the higher-grade solution and we didn’t have such a big circulating load as we have right now.

Steve Butler

Analyst · GMP Securities. Your line is now open

Okay. And on the exploration site guys in Brazil maybe it’s all fairly early stage projects with 10 metals, but can you comment how early stage this first target is for drilling and obviously, it’s a big license, but how is it looking on target selection here?

Paul Wright

Analyst · GMP Securities. Your line is now open

No, these are, I mean part of the traction to doing the deal on we did is that we had already targeted so we are on targets we are drilling, we would expect to have an initial result before year end.

Steve Butler

Analyst · GMP Securities. Your line is now open

And what is the Vulture target representing itself as?

Paul Wright

Analyst · GMP Securities. Your line is now open

It’s sort of these are brasher zones that we’re initially drilling.

Steve Butler

Analyst · GMP Securities. Your line is now open

Okay. Thanks, guys.

Paul Wright

Analyst · GMP Securities. Your line is now open

All right. Thanks, Steve.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Cosmos Chiu with CIBC. Your line is now open.

Cosmos Chiu

Analyst · CIBC. Your line is now open

Hi. Thanks, Paul and team for hosting the call. Maybe a quick question for Fabi, just looking at the financial statements here, the cash flow operating, there was big adjustment in the non-cash working capital changes or the working capital changes for purposes of your cash flow operating, for me it seems like there was a big adjustment for the payables, but I can’t seem to figure how to link it to your balance sheet, because I think on your balance sheet, it didn’t really seem like your payables went up by that much. My concern is that, is it going to get reversed in the future quarter maybe Fabi, if you can just walk me through that?

Fabiana Chubbs

Analyst · CIBC. Your line is now open

I may have to, one other thing you will have to bear in mind here is that you do have the working capital, you have to consider the change of discontinued operations because in - more detail I could send you an email on it and because it will be quite accounting heavy.

Cosmos Chiu

Analyst · CIBC. Your line is now open

Okay got it and then just in Indiana, as I said Fabi, my concern is that it’s going to turn out to be a negative adjustment in the future quarter with the negative impact to your cash flow operating is that going to happen?

Fabiana Chubbs

Analyst · CIBC. Your line is now open

Probably no, because it’s discontinued operation, but I would send you the information on an email.

Cosmos Chiu

Analyst · CIBC. Your line is now open

Okay, great. That’s all I have. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] There are no further questions at this time. I now turn the call back over to the presenters.

Paul Wright

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open

Thanks, operator and thank you everybody for attending this call and wish you all a good weekend. Thank you.