Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the IAMGOLD 2021 Fourth Quarter and Full Year 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 would now like to turn the conference over to Graeme Jennings, VP, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications for IAMGOLD. Please go ahead, Mr. Jennings.

Thank you, operator, and welcome everyone to our conference call today. Joining me on the call are Daniella Dimitrov, President and Chief Financial Officer and Interim CEO; Craig MacDougall, Executive Vice President, Growth; Bruno Lemelin, Senior Vice President of Operations and Projects; Tim Bradburn, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. Our remarks on this call will include forward-looking statements. Please refer to the cautionary statement included in the presentation under the heading cautionary statement regarding forward-looking information and be advised that the same cautionary language applies to our remarks during the call. Non-GAAP measures will also be referenced on the call, and we direct you to review the cautionary statement included in the presentation and the reconciliations of the measures included in our most recent MD&A, each under the heading non-GAAP financial measures. With respect to the technical information to be discussed, please refer to the information in the presentation under the heading qualified person and technical information. The slides referenced on this call can be viewed on our website. I will now turn the call over to our President and Interim CEO, Daniella Dimitrov.

Thank you, Graeme, and good morning everyone. 12 months has been a transformative period for the Company as we reposition for the next chapter with new leadership, the advancement of Canada's next Tier 1 generational Gold Project, Cote Gold and the assessment of opportunities to uncover value at existing operations. The theme of renewed leadership began at the beginning of 2021, when the board adopted new diversity and renewal guidelines with a view to ensuring an optimal mix and diversity of skills, experience and expertise at the board level. We had four new directors join us in 2021, followed in 2022 by the retirement of Gordon Stothart, as our CEO and Director on charter as our Chair; Richard Hall and Ron Gagel as members of the board. In addition Tim Snider, one of our long standing directors is not standing for reelection at our next AGM in May. We would like to thank individuals for their dedication and commitment to the Company and wish them well. In separate these departure, we announced the appointment as Maryse Belanger, as a Director and the Chair of our Board as well as the appointment of two new directors, David Smith and Ian Ashby. We are pleased to welcome Maryse, David and Ian to IAMGOLD. Their combined knowledge, perspectives and experiences will be invaluable to the Company and comes at a very important phase in our evolution. Leadership changes also came outside of the board with the year-end appointment of Jerzy Orzechowski as Executive Project Director for Cote Gold. Jerzy assumes management of the project at the beginning of this year, and he brings a wealth of experience in delivering large projects, adding significant horsepower to our project teams. Ensuring the delivery of Cote Gold is a keystone for bridging the value gap between…

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Carey MacRury with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

Just give me a bit of color on what you're looking at in terms of potentially adding more liquidity to the balance sheet. I'm just noting that, RCF seem to be against asset sales. Are those still something you're considering?

Thanks for the question. As we know that capital allocation for the Company continues to be a key priority of ensuring that we allocate capital to generate the highest return on invested capital. As we noted in our MD&A and press release, assuming no significant changes in Cote Gold costs and the continuation of prevailing commodity prices and our operations performing, we believe we should have adequate liquidity. We've also noted that we continuously assess our liquidity, our operational performance, the continuation of the development of the Cote project and capital markets and how we may take measures to increase our liquidity. At this time, we don't know the outcome of this evaluation, and we will provide more information by the end of the second quarter.

Next question is from Fahad Tariq with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Just a follow-up on the liquidity. Can you touch on the gold price assumption that's baked into the adequate liquidity comment you made?

Our budget price spec for 2022 is 1,700.

And could you share what it is for next year? Or is it the same 1,700?

Yes, 1,700.

And then my second question just on the Cote costs, I appreciate that you can't comment too much on it. But could you just tell us like high level like, given the detailed engineering is 92%, complete, procurement is 87% complete, 79% of contracts have been awarded. Where's the surprise factor coming from in terms of at least the uncertainty around the overall costs, remaining costs?

So a portion of the remaining costs that we have left to spend are in a sense fixed. So to give you an example, the autonomous vehicle fleet or the autonomous drills, we entered into those commitments in 2021 and those costs are relatively fixed, we haven't expanded those costs as we will start to do that in 2022. And so, there's no risk around a component of the remaining cost left to be spent. A big component of the remaining costs relates to actual construction, and the impact of different productivity rates then what was be assumed in the plan would have an impact on the remaining costs to be incurred. As a number of the contracts such as earthworks, for example, are time and materials contracts rather than fixed price contracts.

Next question is from Jackie Przybylowski with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

I'm going to start with a really quick one, if you don't mind. You mentioned, I think in the MD&A that the cladding of the building is no longer critical path. I think you mentioned that earlier. What is the critical path, maybe can you just talk a little bit about where you see the bottleneck at this point?

Yes, for the cladding of the processing building was on the critical path as a result of the necessity to actually do work inside the building, including concrete work to actually get to what is really on this critical path, which is the mechanical erection of the necessary equipment inside the building. So, we were at about 32% completion on the cladding at year-end and that progressed into January and February at about over 50% of the building cladded. However, as a result, particularly of our contractor that is responsible for putting off the steel cladding on the building, really being negatively impacted by COVID. In January and actually continuing into February, we've pivoted and have made arrangements to be able to actually work inside the building and progress what is really on the critical path, which is that the ability to progress with ultimately the mechanical erection installation inside the building the building. And so as a result of focusing on that, and on those logistics, the cladding is going to be completed at a time and with resources and more importantly to not impact the logistics of what was actually happening in the building. We expect that we will complete the cladding into the second quarter, and at the moment, we're really focused on what's happening inside the building.

And my second question, I'm sorry, is a little bit of a compound question, I think, but can you comment on the timing, I realized it's risk analysis that Cote is necessary to do to make sure that you have appropriate budget, but the timing just seems a little bit funny to me, given you're currently undergoing a CEO search and you've got a pretty big push for board renewal going on. Can you talk about how the risk analysis would coincide with a new CEO coming on board and if you would envision any kind of further changes or if the new CEO might have some ability to influence this before it's completed?

The risk analysis started at the beginning of January and is, when I was driven by a number of key factors. One was just the overall impact happening on site and with the workforce and that impact. And the second factor is really the starts, a new executive project director with a Jersey on Board. That risk analysis of cost and schedule that we talked about also includes opportunities for mitigation and optimization. And we're really looking at the next 36 months in the life of the project through completion of construction and into the ramp up to look for offsetting mitigation opportunities in the evaluation and doing this assessment. Our new directors have been and are in the process of being oriented. We spent some time last week and into this week doing that and that will continue. I don't expect the timing of the completion of this assessment to really be delayed on that in the sense that that the project is moving and it's got to move forward. And we've got to manage the schedule and the costs on that front.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from Josh Wolfson with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Just couple questions on the on the financing outlook. So first off in terms of the debt and the expectation to be able to drawdown in the first half of this year, is it safe to say that the assumption is based on no requirement to draw down is based on the Company being fully funded to completion based on the most up to date capital estimates?

So, we've been having discussions with our financial institutions in our lending syndicates for some time, we've been indicating, I think from certainly that third or fourth quarter of last year that we expect the drawdown under that facility in the first half of 2022. We have also indicated previously that we intend to maintain a minimum cash balance of at least 200 million and at times that minimum cash balance might be higher. We do have certain cash management requirements, particularly in relation to our prepay, so for example, we deliver the physical ounces under the 2019 prepay at the beginning of the month, and then we receive payment under the 2020 to prepay closer to the end of the month, and then with respect to the hedges that we put in place for our risk management strategy. Some of our hedges, we've got to grow settle rather than settle and therefore that impacts our cash balance on that. Our credit facilities a secured credit facility, I'm going to say it is fairly covenant friendly. We've got two financial covenants, net debt to EBITDA 3.5 times, and an interest coverage ratio, which is the one that we're not concerned about. In the calculation of the net debt to EBITDA financial covenants that prepays do not count as debt although I certainly treat them as debt, since we've got to pay them back. However, for the purposes of that net debt to EBITDA calculation, they do not count, and so that obviously helps us manage the covenant going forward. Not sure, if I've answered your question.

Partially. So I guess, I'm more directly asked in the event that the capital estimates changes and there is a funding shortfall. Are you still able to draw down on the credit line?

Yes, the credit facility is not like project driven or construction driven. And the draw downs are not, we do not expect the draw downs to be impacted by our capital or liquidity shortage on that front. And we do have headroom in our financial covenants to, let's say, assume additional debt, if we do need additional capital and we determined to obtain that additional capital in the form of debt.

And then the last question, when you're looking at the available options, in the event that liquidity is required beyond asset dispositions of which there's a number of opportunities that might be out there. Is the Company considering or would it consider more hedging or gold forwards in place? Or is that at the upper end of the upper limit at this point?

We do have some restrictions in a credit facility with respect to the volume of ounces that we can sell forward under a prepay arrangement. We are not at that headroom yet with 150,000 ounces that we have under the two prepay arrangements that we're juggling, and we do have the capacity under our various instruments to do additional hedging of gold.

This concludes the question-and-answer session. I'll now hand the call back over to Graeme Jennings for closing remarks.

Thank you very much, operator, and thanks everyone for joining us this morning and for your continued engagements with IAMGOLD. We look forward to having you join us again for our first quarter results conference call in May. Goodbye.

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