Thank you for standing by. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome to the IAMGOLD 2016 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Operating and Financial Results Conference Call and Webcast. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions]. At this time, I’d like to turn the conference over to Lori Young, Director, Investor Relations for IAMGOLD. Please go ahead, Ms. Young.

Good morning, and welcome to the IAMGOLD conference call. Joining me on the call today are Steve Letwin, President and CEO of IAMGOLD; Gord Stothart, EVP and Chief Operating Officer; Carol Banducci, Executive Vice President and CFO; Craig MacDougall, Senior Vice President, Exploration; and Tim Bradburn, Vice President, Legal and Corporate Secretary. Our remarks on this call will include forward-looking statements. So please refer to the cautionary language regarding forward-looking information in our disclosure documents and be advised that the same cautionary language applies to our remarks during the call. The slides that are referred to, during the presentation, can be viewed on our Web site. I’ll now turn the call over to our President and CEO, Steve Letwin.

Good morning, everybody. I’m going to apologize ahead of you’re going to hear coughing in the background. That’s Stothart and he gave me his cold, so I’ve got a bit of a raspy throat, so apologies ahead of time. While you saw the results and I couldn’t be happier. We had a great year. Operating cash flow rose 721% to 314 million. Along the road we reduced our long-term debt by 146 million and we ended the year with 763 million in cash, all of course in U.S. dollars. Our strong financial results underscore outstanding operating performance. Production rose from one quarter to the next with 813,000 ounces for the year, exceeding guidance. All-in sustaining costs came in at the low end and we beat on cash costs. Many of the initiatives that we’ve been working on over the past few years were aimed at lowering costs and extending the life of our mines. These were the two major challenges that the company’s faced I think over the last five to six years, at least since I’ve been at the helm, have been the higher cost structure as you know and the life of mines being relatively short to where it appears. I’m really pleased to tell you that we’ve really done a lot in 2016, 2015, 2014 along the objectives setting the stage for continuing to cut costs, continuing to lengthen our life of mines and growing production as we look forward by 25% and reducing all-in sustaining costs by 15% by the year 2020. So our work is not complete. I think we want to be mindful of the fact that no matter what we’ve done in the past, that’s the path. And as our famous hockey player Wayne Gretzky said, you’re only as good as your last…

Thanks, Steve. Good morning, everyone. As Steve said, we had an excellent year. Our positive financial results reflect outstanding performance across our operations. We begin 2017 in a strong financial position, the results of ongoing financial discipline and how we manage the business and actions taken to further strengthen our capital structure. In 2016, operating cash flow increased by $276 million compared to 2015. We ended the year with $763 million in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash. Excluding restricted cash, this leaves us with a net cash position of $163 million. And we secured a $250 million credit facility. Slide 7 highlights how we performed year-over-year on multiple financial and operating metrics. The variances are positive and they’re significant. Revenues were up $70 million, adjusted net earnings per share were up $0.45, net operating cash flow was up $276 million and cost of sales was down $111 per ounce. Note that the main reasons for the increase in capital expenditures year-over-year were the higher capitalized stripping at Essakane and the higher underground development at Westwood. The overall message that these numbers convey is that across the board we are driving operating performance higher. Although we expect the price of gold will continue to fluctuate, we will keep directing our efforts on what we can control. We recorded $102 million in gross profit in 2016 which was up $157 million from the year before. This was the result of an 8% increase in revenue coupled with a 9% reduction in cost of sales. The gross profit in the fourth quarter was $19 million, up $64 million from the fourth quarter of 2015. The 8% increase in revenue to $987 million was driven by a higher gold price, as consolidated sales volume was flat year-over-year. While sales volume increased at Westwood…

Thank you very much, Carol. And like Steve, I will apologize ahead for my voice. I have a little bit of a cold here but we’ll persevere. So last night, we released our 2016 year-end reserves and resources table, so I’ll begin with that. So this slide compares reserves and resources year-over-year. Our gold price assumption at our owned and operated mines remained unchanged. Reserves for all the owned and operated sites were based on $1,200 per ounce and resources were based on $1,500 an ounce for Essakane and Rosebel and on $1,200 an ounce for Westwood. Resource estimates for Côté Gold, Boto, Pitangui, Diakha and Siribaya remained unchanged at $1,500 per ounce. Reserve and resource estimates at Sadiola prepared by our joint venture partner used price assumptions of $1,100 and $1,400 per ounce of gold respectively. Proven and probable attributable gold reserves after depletion increased by 108,000 ounces to 7.8 million ounces at the end of 2016. The increase was primarily due to the increase in reserves at Westwood and Essakane, partially offset by depletion with the production of 813,000 attributable ounces in 2016. Westwood had a strong result from their resource definition work and they realized a net addition after depletion of 448,000 ounces from the conversion of resources to reserves. At Essakane, changes to the mine design and economic parameters added 331,000 attributable ounces to reserves offsetting most of the depletion. Moving to resources. Total attributable measured and indicated resources, inclusive of reserves, were 23.3 million ounces at the end of 2016, which is about 150,000 ounces below the 2015 year-end measured and indicated resources. Finally, attributable inferred ounces for the company came in at 6.1 million. Now turning to our operating results. Consolidated production increased in each consecutive quarter of 2016 bringing full year attributable production…

Thank you, Gord, and good morning, everyone. Please note that the results I refer to today have been previously disclosed in accordance with securities regulations and signed off by the qualified persons within the company reporting them. In 2016, we continued to work towards upgrading our existing resource stage projects at Boto, Pitangui and Siribaya and to advance others closer to an initial resource. We spent approximately 39 million on exploration, excluding project studies. Although this is the lowest level of spending on exploration in a decade and marks four successive years of reductions, we have continued to advance our key projects and to deliver ongoing exploration success. This year, we plan to increase spending by 20% to 47 million reflecting increased spending on ground field exploration, mainly the Saramacca project in Suriname; saddle zones at Rosebel; and prospective targets at Essakane. The major catalyst to watch this year are initial resource estimate for Saramacca in the third quarter and resource upgrades at Boto, Pitangui and Siribaya. At Essakane, we expect to delineate and upgrade resources at Falagountou eastern mine planning sites. In addition, depending on results, we’re targeting initial resource estimates for Monster Lake and Eastern Borosi. Before turning to an update on our greenfield projects, I want to talk a bit about the results we’re seeing at Saramacca in Suriname. Progress in a short period of time has been outstanding and I want to recognize the efforts of our exploration team on the ground. When we began our exploration program back in August of last year, we had two objectives. We wanted to duplicate or twin some of the historic mineralized intersections drilled by previous explorers to confirm the reported mineralization. And once confirmed, we moved to delineate a full strike and width of the interpreted mineralized footprint…

Thanks, Craig. Well, as we’ve said a number of times we’re very excited about the year ahead. We’ve achieved excellent traction in 2016 but just to reinforce that we are not going to stop in our mission to reduce costs and not forget where we were a number of years ago in terms of that cost structure. So we don’t want to get back to that. We’re going to build on the momentum as we work to extend the life of our mines. You’ve heard Craig and Gord both talk about that; just some excellent achievements. And we’re going to continue to further our operating efficiencies. We expect a good volume of news flow this year from IAMGOLD with a number of catalysts and initial resource, as Craig indicated for Saramacca. And by the way, I’m going to head down – we’re going to head down to Saramacca in the first week in September, so I guess September 5. I’m going to take our directors down. I was just down at Saramacca about three weeks ago. And you saw some of the drilling results. I’m really excited about that. And we’re going to see if Carol and Laura and Shae can organize on the backend of that tour with the directors and analysts too, and invite you down there. It’s a site to behold, it really is, about 25 kilometers from the mill. And either I’m hearing things or I actually do hear it, I believe I do hear our mill at Rosebel when I’m standing on the hill at Saramacca, which is a great thing when you think what that resource might ultimately be for our company. We’re going to complete the pre-feasibility study for Côté by the end of the second quarter. I’m going to be focusing a…

A number of companies are reporting today and so at this point in time, there are no questions, which is unusual which is I think a function of our disclosure as well. So if there aren’t any questions following the call, by all means please direct them to Laura and Shae and we’ll be happy to follow up. And as Steve mentioned, we are planning to have a slight visit to both Rosebel and Essakane. And if you do have an interest, again I’d ask you to reach out to Laura and Shae. Thank you.

Pardon me, this is the operator. There are questions.

Okay.

Let me give the instructions. We will now begin the question and answer session. [Operator Instructions]. The first question is from David Haughton with CIBC World Markets. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Steve and team. Thank you for the update. Just looking at the Westwood profile on Page 20 of your release, quite the step-change happening from 2018 through 2019. Perhaps, Gord, you can just talk us through what your expectations are for the mining rate at Westwood, and perhaps a little bit about what’s happening for that significant step-change?

David, you’re exactly right. This is what we talked to over a year ago that we wanted to do and it was sort of driving us to pick up our development rates. So last year, we milled I believe in the neighborhood of around 330,000 tons. For this year and next year, we are expecting to mill in the neighborhood of around 600,000 tons give or take. And by 2019, we’ll be able to step that up to 900,000 tons annually. And really what’s driving that is just the development work. So as we open up new zones and bring on new major blocks, it really allows us to drive step changes in the throughput. The site is working on the new LOM based on the expanded reserve announcement we just made and we will expect to update that LOM sometime this year, and maybe smooth it out a little bit. But we still expect a fairly aggressive ramp up and we do want to be into our nameplate range of 180,000 to 200,000 ounces a year by 2019.

And as we’re standing at the moment, Gord, are you seeing mining rates in the order of above 1,200 tons a day getting closer to your run rate for the year of 1,600 tons a day?

Definitely. We’re already there. The first two months are going very well.

Okay. And I presume that looking at the cost that you’ve got – both the cash cost and the all-in sustaining costs that with that step change, you’re going to just get more tons over the same fixed cost and it’s the fixed cost that’s really driving those cost down, as we’re seeing it on a per ounce basis?

That’s exactly right, David.

Okay. So that’s looking pretty healthy. And just also looking at the Rosebel profile, it looks slightly different to what we had before. My interpretation of it is that you gain to encounter better grade in 2018 and dropdown in '19 and then back up in '20. Is that a correct interpretation of the chart?

So the profiles you’re looking at are the same ones we’ve had for the past year. We are looking to update them. They’re just not complete yet. And Rosebel is a really particular case; one, because on the existing ore bodies we’re in the midst of a fairly significant review of all of the block models. They didn’t make it into the year-end reserves and in fact when you look at our year-end reserves for Rosebel, all we did was apply a depletion equation from the year end of 2015 because the new models weren’t ready yet. So we’ve put a bit of a fire under the team down in Rosebel and they’re working to get those new models in place for incorporation into our mine planning exercise in the first half of the year. So what you’re looking at doesn’t include any assumptions around any additional material from the saddle zones, from any of the pickup from the new modeling that we’re hoping to see or from anything from Saramacca. So that grade profile, you’re interpreting it correctly, but I can pretty clearly say that one is going to be superseded by something that I feel is going to be quite superior to what you’re looking at, as we go through sort of this year and next and really understand what we have at Saramacca, in the saddle zones and really start to apply the new thinking around the existing block models.

All right. I look forward to seeing that. Just jumping back to Westwood, if I may, looking at your reserve and resource statement. Reserve Westwood 8.8 grams; resource is around about the 11 through 13 kind of gram level. I presume that the resource number does not include dilution?

Correct.

Okay. And what kind of dilution factor should we be thinking about to the grades that we’re seeing in the resource?

So for this year, we’re still applying the same dilution factors that we applied previously, which is around 65% on all zones. Our dilution experienced in 2016 was better than that and in fact part of the reason we processed less tons because we had less dilution than expected. However, we’re still working on a lot of primary zones, initial stopes and new catals [ph] and so forth. So we want to stay on the conservative side with our dilution estimate until we get some more empirical data in front of us. The one change and part of what’s contributing to the pickup in grade is in prior years, we had included dilution at zero grade. After some pretty extensive analysis we’re now applying a grade, and it depends on what area you’re in, between 0.5 and 0.7 to dilution material, which is contributing as well to the change you see year-over-year in our reserve grade estimates. Although obviously with a bigger reserve, it’s incorporating some new areas as well.

All right. Thank you, Gord. I appreciate it. It’s a bit of an effort when you’re struggling with the flu.

That’s natural.

The next question is from Steve Parsons with National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.

Good morning. A couple of questions on Rosebel please. With the transition to hard rock this year at 70% from 26% in Q4, how do you see that transition playing out? Is that sort of backend of the year transitional or is it gradual throughout the year?

It’s not really backend loaded. We already picked up so far year-to-date. We’re not quite at that full rate yet. But yes, it’s coming on right at the start. We’re using – the new secondary crushing circuit is running quite well. We’re actually during February here doing some calibration surveys within the grinding circuit. We made so many changes to the circuit over the past while we need to recalibrate our grinding simulation models. So that requires us to do some survey work around the plant and we’re doing that right now. But we are looking at much higher hard rock through all quarters.

Right. Have you had any days or months where you could run it 70% before?

Yes, we’ve run it 100% before. In fact that’s one of the things we’re doing for the grinding surveys is running it 100% hard rock. And again, it’s sort of depends how much of the harder transition is included in the [Technical Difficulty].

Got it, okay. And then also on Rosebel on the reserve and maybe the resource, how we might see some of the soft rock saddle zones start to show up in the resource at year end? Was that the case? Did you see them show up and did any of these saddle zones show up in the mine plan for 2017?

The answer is no and no. I was twisting arms pretty hard to get some of those in, but for a number of reasons they didn’t get there. We’ve asked them to work very hard on a priority basis and cycle through those saddles, so that we can start to get some results out and we can get a better understanding of what the implications are both for the reserve and for the mine planning. But the base answer is there’s no saddles included in the year-end reserve and there’s no saddles included in our projections for production going forward yet.

Steve, this is Letwin here. I had the same expectation as you and we lost some of our top guys there for family reasons he had to leave and it delayed us. So your expectation is appropriate. And I was disappointed for 2016 and will be even better for 2017 because Gord has been cracking the whip a bit to get that into 2017. So our expectation is that not only will we announce Saramacca but we will get the saddle zones into the reserve estimates, that were in resource estimates that we’re going to put forward. So it was an appropriate expectation. We just unfortunately had a guy leave us for family reasons which caused the delay.

Okay. Thanks for the update on that. Maybe over to Saramacca and perhaps this is a question for Craig. Prior to drilling I think you guys had pegged the resource potential between 0.5 million and 1.4 million ounces for Saramacca. Based on the drilling you’ve done to-date, the twining and the diamond drilled holes, how do you feel about that range? So are you sticking to it or do you think there’s maybe upside bias to that range?

Look, I think we’ve been very encouraged with the results. They have exceeded our expectations. As you can appreciate, the ranges were developed from the historical data base which is somewhat limited and we have a lot more information now. So I would expect we’re going to start heading towards the upside part of that range. The reason issue will be the proportion of oxide versus hard rock. So that’s something that we don’t have a feel for just yet. But I would think we’re heading to the upper side of that range.

Perfect. Thanks for the update.

Our next question is from Steven Butler with GMP Securities. Please go ahead.

Sorry, I didn’t get that Steve but I’ll --

No, I said just keep asking him, Steve. I keep asking him that every morning.

Okay. Sorry, Steve Butler. Craig on Saramacca just to start there, how much more drilling did you do in '16 campaign than historical results, because the assays at least for the diamond drilled results where you drilled them came through like gangbusters. So you’re pointing towards maybe the high-end of the range, I know you expect that. But how much more drilling has been done there and why did you think you got better than you were expecting? In other words, why the current positive reconciliation on grade drilling?

Okay. With historical data base we were playing with was roughly comprised of about 50 historical drill holes, fairly widely spaced, not necessary systematic through the deposit and obviously we weren’t there at the time of the exploration program. So can’t really judge really what the merits were. So we acquired the property with 50 drill holes. We completed 67 diamond holes and 37 RC holes. 17 of the holes that we drilled of our diamond holes were designed to twin previous holes where we knew from the data base they had intersected mineralization. And the reason we did that was that we wanted to be able to confirm the veracity of the historical data base. So if we could implicate those intersections in terms of thickness and grade and everything looked pretty straight forward, then that would allow us to incorporate the entire 50 holes for use in our work going forward. And that was very successful. So once we had confirmed that mineralization with our first 17 holes, it then allowed us to optimize our drilling pattern around that historical data base and really start to step out and selectively target some of these zones that were in the previous drilling. So when you’re able to do that, hopefully if you have a good mineralized system, you’re going to start to see some good hits with lots of pick up in grade and that’s exactly what we were able to do. And we’ve expanded the footprint with a lot more data points now through the mineralized systems.

Great. And those twins, what – also were they [ph] largely reconciled closely?

Yes. In just rough numbers I would have to say that 90% of the holes that we drilled duplicated very well the intersections that we were anticipating. In some cases, we did dig some additional intersections that the previously drilling didn’t pick up. And in other cases, we didn’t duplicate. But by and large, well over 90% did come through and zones were where we thought they were. And then as we stepped away from those with our own drilling, we started to expand that zone and get some very surprising results in terms of some of the grade of intersections. And we have extended the mineralization at depth. We’ve gone below the oxide profile just to make sure we know what those fractures look like and we’ve been very happy with that as well.

Okay. And Gord, are you going to crack the whip – continue to crack the whip enough to get saddle zone into a Q3 resource or reserve statement, or is that wait until probably year end most likely?

It’s our goal to try and – obviously depending on the timing that we see from the Saramacca and when we can come out with those results, it would be nice to be able to wrap in an update for Rosebel itself. First priority is to get the new models on the existing zones wrapped up and get those into our LOM plans. What we’ve asked for them to do on the saddle zones is pick some higher priority ones and take those through the resource as quickly as possible. So I guess the answer is I expect we’ll get some of them in by midyear. I don’t expect we’ll get all of them in by midyear. I would certainly like to see all of them in by the end of the year, but that’s the objective.

Yes. And Craig or Gord, if Gord has still a voice, Falagountou. Was Falagountou the driving force for the reserve increase at Essakane or was it some other factor?

It contributed somewhat but really the driving force there was some redesign within the Essakane main zone pit and some new intercepts at Essakane main zone.

Okay. And you have about 1 million ounces. Is that right of soft ore now at Essakane?

Between Fala west and Fala east, we’re not quite there but we’d like to be able to get there. We’ll see where we can get to.

At Fala, okay. Sorry, one last thing just on the time it’s taken on Sadiola, Steve, and maybe key areas where you have a bone of contention or maybe not quite this effort but with the Malian authorities, what are your key items you’re trying to hammer on in terms of negotiating in fiscal terms?

Well, basically we have a Minister of Finance who was Minister of Mines and had agreed to all the terms who is now not agreeing to all the terms. So we have a very attractive economic model for both the government and for us and Anglo particularly attracted for the government when you look at the current situation. I’m very confident we can get them over the goal line. The Minister of Finance is a very bright guy. He’s a very good businessman. I think with his change in roles, he’s trying to do the best he can for the people of Mali given the situation they’re in. I know they get a lot of pressure from the INF to try and extract more from the mining which to me is a bit of an enigma, because the mining business really gives them so much more than they would normally get from a GDP standpoint. So I think it’s just a time issue and we will get there. But I’d rather not get into the nitty-gritty detail on what we agree on and what we don’t agree on. The bottom line here is this is a hell of an attractive project for everybody and nobody wins at all if we have to close that mine. It would be absolutely ridiculous if we did that. He knows that, we know that and it’s just getting him over the goal line. And I’m confident that with some tweaking and compromising we can do that. But we’re not going to agree to anything that jeopardizes what we believe to be appropriate returns for our shareholders. So you’ve been in this business as long – probably longer than I have. I was in the resource side and oil and gas side; worked in Colombia, Ecuador. I worked in all over the world and even in Ontario. It’s hard to work with some of these governments in what I would an efficient manner. And it just takes time. The good news is, Anglo and us are of one mind, we’re walking together on this for the first time and we’re going to work really hard with the government over the next month or two to bring them our side.

Okay. Thanks for that, Steve. Thank you.

This includes the time allocated for questions on today’s call. I would now hand the call back over to Ms. Young for closing remarks.

Okay. Thank you very much for calling in today. And if you have any further questions, please contact Shae or myself and we’d be happy to help you. Thank you.

This concludes today’s conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.