Aya Gold & Silver Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
May 15, 2024

There are 11 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to IAA Gold and Silver's First Quarter 2024 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the CEO's presentation, there will be a question and answer Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Ruth Hanna, Manager of Investor Relations and Communications of AYA.

Operator

Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to AYA's Q1 2024 results conference call. My name is Ruth Hanna, and I'm dialing in with the AYA team from Montreal and Marrakesh this morning. On the call today, we have Benoit LaSalle, President and CEO Hugo Landry Tolstuc, CFO Rafael Baudoin, Vice President, Operations and David Lalonde, Head of Exploration. We will finish today's event with a Q and A session with the team.

Speaker 1

Please contact our IR team directly with any follow-up questions that are not addressed during the call. Before we begin, I'd like to remind listeners that today's event will contain forward looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward looking statements. Details of the forward looking statements are contained in our May 15 news release as well as on SEDAR Plus and on www.aiagoldsilver.com. With that, I would like to turn the conference over to Aya's IEA's President and CEO, Benoit Lafal. Benoit, please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Thank you, operator. Thank you, Ruth. Thank you, everyone, for being on the call this morning. As we indicated last time, 2024 is a transition year into a new Aya with a new production profile. So let me take you through some of the highlights of the quarter.

Speaker 2

So I will be on Slide number 3 of the presentation that you have. So as the first milestone of the quarter, which I think is probably one of the most important one, we've continued advancing the Zugunber mine expansion, mine expansion to plan. We are on time and we are on budget for commissioning in Q2 2024, which means in June of 2024. An important element, we had indicated previously that we were aiming for a stockpile of 260,000 tonne of ore to start the commissioning. And I'm pleased to say that at the end of the quarter, we are at 275,000 ton of ore for commissioning of the new mill.

Speaker 2

Another milestone, we've delivered a steady quarter that provides runway delivering objectives and guidance. We are maintaining guidance. In the quarter, we produced 366 1,000 ounces, which is lower than what some of you expected, but is in line with our planning because we knew that we were getting into lower grade material in the benches of the open pit mine. We had to strip the first two benches, which we knew were lower grade and were oxidized. We also were getting into the underground stope extension.

Speaker 2

And in the stope extension, we had seen that there was lower grade material, but we wanted to get that material out before we start backfilling those stopes. So and in addition, there's always some sequencing. The revenue for the quarter stands at $5,100,000 clearly lower than anticipated, but we know that we took 157,000 ounces of silver that we have now in inventory, And this is why we say that there's a temporary increase in silver concentrate and we push those over to Q2, where we were able to get $4 an ounce improvement on the selling price. Hence, there's a net loss for the quarter of $2,500,000 and which also has directly affected our cash costs because of the lower production and the lower sale, it has directly affected our cash costs, which is at 20.31, which is not representative of the cash cost of this company going forward, nor it's a question of denominator in the quarter. As well, we end the quarter with improved liquidity.

Speaker 2

We closed the quarter with $111,000,000 in cash and cash equivalent. We're reporting in U. S. Dollars, so $111,000,000 which is a major improvement from the previous quarters. We drew down an additional $25,000,000 on our EBRD loan for a total of $85,000,000 We won last yesterday a prize on the EBRD loan for Africa as one of the top natural resource loan in our industry.

Speaker 2

We finished the quarter with a strengthened portfolio. We delivered an updated Boumadin Mineral Resource on April 15 this year and which is a very strong baseline for continued development and expansion. Furthermore, we've also increased the land package at Du Madin. Currently, we've increased our land package by 3 46%. Moving on to Slide number 4.

Speaker 2

It's extremely important for us to tell you and to reiterate that we are maintaining guidance for the year. Though the production for Q1 is at 366,000 ounces, we're maintaining guidance between 2.6 and 3.2. We're maintaining our cash cost guidance between 13,000 and 14.5 and the average grade process between 215 percent and 240 percent regardless of the fact that in Q1 we were lower because we knew and I explained why we are lower and it was planned accordingly. The mill recoveries were at 81.8 in this quarter, lower than what we normally see, and this is because of oxidized material coming from the open pit. The oxidized material in with our current two plants doesn't get the same recovery.

Speaker 2

In the new plant, it will get the same recovery of the high 80s or low 90s, but in the current two plant, it doesn't. So this is why this quarter, we have a lower recovery. On the other hand, we have a very good availability KPI. The 2 plants were available at 96%, therefore extremely high KPIs on availability. Moving on to Slide number 5, just a good chart on and tracking the last 5 quarters.

Speaker 2

So you see that the silver production is lower this quarter. But as we indicated, 2024 is a transition year into a very strong 2025 year where the new plant will be in production. Same thing when you look at the bottom left, when you look at grade at 173, this is where this is the reality of what we mined in this quarter, but it does not represent the long term grade of this project. Mill recoveries, I just explained it to you. The reason we lost 5 points is because of the oxidized material, something that will not happen again as we have taken off the 2 benches, the top benches of the open pit and now we're into fresh rock.

Speaker 2

And the ton process, that is very, very good, and that's an extremely good point. The two plants are running extremely well and we were running almost at 900 ton a day. You remember that when we took over 4 years ago, we were running at 200, 300 ton a day, and now we're running above nameplate capacity, even above 15% nameplate capacity. So this is a very strong KPI. Moving to Page 6, Cash flow from operation, clearly, because of the fact that we've delayed revenue and that we produce a little bit less than anticipated.

Speaker 2

We have a negative cash flow. However, the €10,000,000 is overstated as we also reduced the payable by EUR 9,000,000. So the operating cash flow from activity, if you remove the payables, is more like negative €1,000,000 The gross margin is affected because of the low revenue, which is a function of the fact that we pushed over 1 157,000 ounces of silver to Q2. Cost of sale is in line with the revenue that we've recognized and the cash cost as indicated is a function of the denominator and does not represent the cash cost going forward. Moving to Slide number 8, the Gundair expansion.

Speaker 2

We've been showing you monthly videos of the expansion. You can track it. You can see it. The expansion is moving smoothly. Very happy to say again at the end of this quarter that we are on budget and that we will be completing the planned expansion by the end of June before we get into commissioning and that we will be on budget as all the items have been secured, all the equipment is on-site and now it's really a matter of construction.

Speaker 2

The underground development is on track as well. 94% of the lateral development is done and 83% of the vertical development is completed. Though the vertical development is not the one that's needed for the commissioning, it's really more the lateral development. The important items that can always affect your timing, the PowerLine, Merrell Crowe, Silver Room, all of that is on time and on budget. It will all be completed in the next few weeks.

Speaker 2

The haulage and the open pit roads, you've seen those on the videos. They're really looking very good. They're well done and are functional at the moment. And the garage, you will see that hopefully in the next video. We have a beautiful underground garage that is complete and has been completed and is very well built.

Speaker 2

So the all the civil and the concrete work is completed. The cyanidation tanks are there. The electrical substation, you will see warehouse and workshop have been completed. So we are coming to the end of the construction in the next few weeks and getting into commissioning. Another element is we've been through a 4th audit by EBRD on all of our ESG for the loan, the 100,000,000 dollars loan that we have.

Speaker 2

So you see this on Page 9, you see one of the water reservoir, you see the 87% completion of the plant, the electrical substation. And we have, therefore, completed the audit with EBRD. And for a 4th time we are in we're in compliance with all the requirements. Moving to Slide 10 in the presentation, it's about exploration. Aya in 2024 will be drilling 145,000 meters on Boumazin and on Gundair, mainly obviously on Boumediene.

Speaker 2

And at the end of the quarter of a program of 15,000 meters at Gounder main zone, we have 8,700 meters completed. We have 5 drills between 5 6 drills turning at Gundair at all time. And on this Gundair Regional, we've completed 3,000 meters out of 10,000 meters. There, we're working with the team on identifying targets and testing some targets on this Gundyr Regional. Whereas on this Gundair mine, we're drilling the main structure, which we are mining now and some very close structures that are to the east and to the south of the current mine.

Speaker 2

At Boumedin, where we're drilling, we have a program of 120,000 meters. At the end of the quarter, we were 11,332 meters done. And at that 120,000 meters, you recall, is divided into 60,000 meters to expand a 4.2 kilometer strike that was part of the resource update that we published on April 15. That is ongoing. And there's 60,000 meters on new targets that is also ongoing.

Speaker 2

Furthermore, the mobile MT geophysics is probably 80% completed at Boumedin and it's just been completed at Tirzet. Moving to Page 11. Just in the quarter, we had some, again, very strong drill results at the main zone at Zscounder. We are 50% completed, as I just said. And some of the results, especially the ones getting closer to the granite, at the bottom of the structure, we are hitting some very, very nice zone of 1,000 gram per tonne over 13 meters and 3.22 gram per tonne over 70 meters.

Speaker 2

So again, this is ongoing. There'll be more results. The drilling is going well. We have 4 underground drills that are turning 20 fourseven and we intend to have all of this drilled in the coming months. On Page 12 is a review of the Boumedin permit.

Speaker 2

That's the first permit. That's the original permit that you see on Page 12. That's the one that we acquired in 2012, way before our time. And that's the one we did the geophysics 18 months ago and understood that there was a mineralized zone, which we've drilled. And that's on that mineralized zone that we've put out a resource something.

Speaker 2

So as we indicated, it's 120,000 meter drill program. As of now, year to date, we're 27,000 meter done. At the end of the quarter, we were 15,000 meter done. And just recently this week, we put out some results. So it's post the end of the quarter, but it's within this week where we've announced that we extended the mineralized zone from 4.2 kilometer up to 5 kilometer.

Speaker 2

You recall that this is a geophysics anomaly that we see at surface on 6 kilometer. We're also seeing it on surface, but not with the geophysics to go all the way to the north of the border and going south as well. So this is our Bouhmadin project, and it's continuing. We're drilling on it, and we've added many, many new permits to increase the footprint of this district that we're currently developing. The met tests were announced last year, nothing new except that we're continuing the test and we're continuing the work for to identify what method will be used in the processing, but that's going to come much later in the year.

Speaker 2

On Page 13, you have just some recent highlights of the drill and valves. Again, seeing some very good grade at Boumazin, a very good gold grade, 6 gram per ton, 116 gram per ton silver, zinc, lead and copper. This project is polymetallic and the results that we showed you at the beginning of the week are extremely strong results. Moving to Page 1415, just a quick update of the resource that were put out that we put out on April 15. We had indicated an inferred resource.

Speaker 2

The summary is on Page 15. What we were showing is in silver equivalent, it's 352,000,000 ounces in silver equivalent. In gold equivalent, it's 4,100,000 ounces of gold equivalent. But at the end of the day, if you look at the metal per se, it's 72,000,000 ounces of silver and it's 2,000,000 ounces of gold in the actual metal, all of that at very good grades. So it's a strong project where we will be reporting more results as we keep drilling, but that the on April 15, we put out the first resource from our team, which is the beginning of many more updates to come in the months years to come.

Speaker 2

Closing on the ESG and on Page 16, as you all know, we're extremely involved locally. The ESG values are really in within our values at Aya, and hence the reason where we were able to obtain that $100,000,000 funding with EBRD. So we have on health and safety, we had 4 small incidents this quarter. We had none last quarter, 4 small incidents this quarter with subcontractors that where we had a few lost days. On the training, though, we've increased the number of hours by 150% to almost 3 1,000 hours of health and safety training in the quarter.

Speaker 2

If you are part of our LinkedIn group, you will see pictures of the health and safety and all the programs that we have in place because we do post regularly what is being done on-site. On the EBRD CTF milestones, we're 90% completed for the 2nd milestone. You recall that this gives us a rate reduction and interest rate reduction on our CTF funding. So it's we're almost there. We should be there in the next quarter.

Speaker 2

On community development, we have launched classrooms for children and for some of the villages on literacy classes, on math classes, and we have very good participation from the local communities. We also organize health clinics. So we had audiology clinics, mobile clinics in 2 of the villages around the mine. And we also have agriculture, which you know is a key value to Aya, and we do help the local population with agriculture. In the region where we are, it is saffron that is being cultivated, and we are helping the local families and small farms with new technology, and we're really helping them in getting better yield from their small farms.

Speaker 2

To conclude, and the takeaway is that we Boumagin is really moving on all cylinders with 120 1,000 meters of drilling, 7 drills are turning 20 fourseven. Results are coming in and this is a key asset to Aya and we are on track with the program and we are waiting for the geophysics because you see the picture on Page 17, the helicopter with doing the geophysics and we are on track to get the geophysics in June and the inversion of the geophysics in June in order to identify additional targets on the physics in June in order to identify additional targets on all of the new permits that we have obtained and on our original permit as well. The second takeaway is 25,000 meters of drilling at Goundere and Goundere Regional that is on track. There is a team on this as well, and we're looking at many new targets. On the construction, the 2024 milestone for the plant expansion, as we indicated, commissioning will start.

Speaker 2

We will communicate when we start and what section of the plant being commissioned. And that you can expect that in the coming few weeks. We expect commercial production in Q4 of 2024. We're maintaining, again, guidance. We're maintaining cost and production guidance.

Speaker 2

So that is a fact, and we're saying it again. And we're also maintaining our ESG milestones and values. It's part of our values. It's part of our team. And that's something that we have completely integrated from top to bottom of the organization.

Speaker 2

And on Page 18, I'd like to show you our power line. We're very proud of our power line. It is 340 pylon. It is a beautiful power line, high voltage that is coming from the bottom of the valley all the way up to 2,200 meters where the plant is. We have started commissioning it slowly or with the government, and it's we're almost done.

Speaker 2

We're almost done. It's high voltage. You remember, it's green energy. It's a PPA. It's a 20 year PPA signed with the local company.

Speaker 2

It's green energy. It's high voltage and it's less expensive than the current energy that we're receiving, which is the regular grid. So this is almost done. It's an important project for the mine, and it will be ready and commissioned for the beginning of commissioning of the other parts of the plant. So operator, that completes the official presentation of Q1.

Speaker 2

We are ready for questions.

Operator

Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Eleonore Magazinesky from SCP Resource Finance.

Speaker 3

Can everyone hear me okay?

Speaker 2

Elena, can you speak out a little bit?

Operator

Yes. Yes.

Speaker 3

It's classic headphone case. Can you hear me better now?

Speaker 2

Much better, yes.

Speaker 3

Okay, wonderful. Okay, well, thanks very much Benoit and team for the presentation this morning and great work to everyone for the efforts over the last quarter. I just wanted to ask a question about upcoming, I guess, throughput while commissioning. We kind of anticipate the grades to be a bit on the lower side because that's typical in the commissioning stages. But just curious what the plant capacity is kind of budgeted or expected over the next, I guess, Q2 and Q3 while commissioning takes place?

Speaker 2

So, Eliana, first of all, we're going to be running this with the stockpile. So clearly, as you know, now we have at the end of the quarter, we have 275,000 ton on the stockpile, which runs around 170 grams per ton, which we've been accumulating. We and that's what we're going to be using. And on the commissioning front, well, look, we'll start at the end of June. We'll and very slowly.

Speaker 2

We hope that we're going to have we have completed that at the end of September, beginning of October, where technically the new plant is 2,000 tons. But I don't believe we're going to be running at 2,000 tons to start. That would be a dream. But it would be very, very difficult. It's still very difficult to say.

Speaker 2

The beauty is the 2 older plants are running at almost 900 ton a day. That's going to continue. And after that, it's going to be a normal ramp up. Rafael, is there any number

Speaker 4

you have in mind to Well, the plant is designed for 2,000 tonne a day, and we've taken nominal contingency on it as we should. So as we maintain guidance, we started commissioning in June, and we'll have a ramp up of, we hope that it's fast and to have commercial production in Q4. So we'll have a ramp up during Q3 and hopefully achieve full capacity through Q3 and have stable operation in Q4.

Speaker 3

Okay, awesome. And just one last follow-up, I guess. So in Q4, I mean, assuming kind of everything kind of goes as planned over the next little bit of commissioning and you have steady state at 2,000 tonnes per day for the new plant. What sort of grades are, I guess, are expected or anticipated for your the end of year? Because it does seem like you will be kind of end loaded, which makes sense given the timing for the commissioning and things like that.

Speaker 3

But just curious if you could speak on that at all and how that's expected to change over the next couple of quarters?

Speaker 4

So for the grade, it's as per guidance. So grade will continue to go up through the year. And we have the stockpile, but we won't only feed the new mails from the stockpile. We'll feed the new mails from the stockpile and also the ongoing 2 mines that we have. So we have 3 different stores that we can feed the new mills and adjust accordingly.

Speaker 4

But as per guidance, grade will continue to go up through the year and we'll adjust with the open pit, with the underground, with stockpiles to benefit as much as we can from the performance of the new plant.

Speaker 3

Okay, awesome. Thank you so much. That's my only question for today. Really appreciate it and look forward to chatting soon.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of John Sklodnick from Desjardins.

Speaker 5

Yes. Thanks guys. I can take my question and good to hear the expansion is on track and budget. I guess just following up on Eleonore's questions there and I guess trying to get a little more specific on the quarterly cadence of production. Is it fair to think that in Q4 we could be getting roughly like 40% of the annual production in that quarter alone?

Speaker 2

That's 40% of the $3,000,000 just for simplicity would be $1,200,000 it's hard it's difficult to say. It depends on it will depend on the ramp up, John. It's but we know that the grade is getting better, that we know, because the open pit has got better grades and so does the underground.

Speaker 4

Like Don last month,

Speaker 6

I think we give annual guidance.

Speaker 7

We're in

Speaker 6

a ramp up. Our objective is to hit annual guidance. For sure, I think we gave you guys a pretty good idea of when we think commissioning is going to be, when we think ramp up is going

Speaker 8

to be. So I think

Speaker 6

we'll stick to that and look, we expect to be guiding from here to the end of the year.

Speaker 5

Fair enough. Yes, it was a sneaky way to ask for quarterly guidance. And I guess the other one, just out of curiosity, in terms of that the concentrate that was held in inventory, that was just a shipping timing issue, I'm assuming?

Speaker 2

That's right. That's what we waited for the concentrate. We were looking at the $21 price. We did not like that, and we had $157,000 we could have shipped before the end of the quarter or after the end of the quarter and we waited. And we didn't do that in the past, but this if you look at Q1, the average selling price was lower and we kind of made the right decision because we got $4 extra.

Speaker 5

Interesting. Okay. Yes. That's kind of a bit of a new approach. I know it's been yes, I guess in terms of getting even a leverage.

Speaker 5

Would you ever think about adding keeping a little bit on the balance sheet of silver?

Speaker 2

Well, we normally do. If you look at every time you look at the quarter end, there's always because of the delivery time, because of the ingots, there's always some at the end. We haven't used this as a it's not we're not in the business of holding on like others do. And but look, we have the liquidity to be patient, and we do have the liquidity. So we were patient in Q1.

Speaker 5

Perfect. Yes. No, I appreciate that. And yes, great to see you guys are in a good financial position to finish this ramp up and then it's on track and on budget. So yes, congrats and looking forward to more.

Speaker 5

Thanks, guys.

Speaker 2

Thanks, John.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Steven Sook from Stifel.

Speaker 9

Hi, guys. Thanks for the presentation.

Speaker 2

Great to see the ramp up

Speaker 9

or sorry, the end of construction still going apace here. Just a quick one for me. The oxide material going through the mill obviously impacted recoveries this quarter. Should we expect a degree of that through Q2 and maybe Q3 as well? Or is that pretty much all flushed through?

Speaker 4

So we try to keep as much of the oxidized ore for the new plants because we expect performance to be excellent. We do process a little bit and we've adjusted since the plants because we do have the luxury of having 2 mills in operation and we expect recoveries to be up in Q2 and even more as we go along in the rest of the year and as

Speaker 2

we expose fresh ore from

Speaker 4

the plant from the open pit.

Speaker 9

Perfect. Yes, okay. Makes sense. And then just one other one for me here on the cost side now with the open pit, really kind of getting into the heart of mining, are costs coming in kind of as expected? Are you seeing any sort of early indications of variation from the tech report on the cost side there?

Speaker 6

Yes. On the cost side, and we make reference to it, like the contractor is going very, very well on both on cost and on performance. So it's as we expect.

Speaker 9

That's great to hear. That's it for me. I appreciate the answers and I'll leave the line open for someone else.

Speaker 4

Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Don DeMarco from National Bank Financial.

Speaker 8

Thank you, operator, and good morning, Benoit and team. Congratulations on reiterating guidance and development on time, on budget. So, but I'm going to shift over to Boumedine for my questions. First, can you just refresh on the timing of the regional geophysics? And if you're drilling any of these regional targets outside, so the main zone or to these zones, when first assays might be available on those other targets?

Speaker 2

Well, Don, on the geophysics, and David is on the line, so he'll be able to add. But the geophysics was about 80% completed when we took the helicopter over to Telsit because in Telsit, we know it's a flat structure with and we wanted to see what would be the readout of the geophysics on this flat structure, which was a mine historically by the previous owners. So we did that and we were waiting for the helicopter to come back to Boumadrine and it's soon as it's back, we will complete whatever is missing to the east and to the west and for the geophysics program. But that once we have that, then we're going to get the inversion of the geophysics data, which will show at depth the structure and what we could be looking for or we'll identify some targets. And only then will we look at drilling those targets.

Speaker 2

So we will review the priority targets either on our ground or on the additional ground that we have obtained. And then with David and his team are going to decide what are the priority targets. Obviously, the deeper target to the Southeast is Southwest, sorry, is extremely important. But until we have the data, we don't know if it's how deep it is and what how big the target is.

Speaker 8

Okay. Okay. Well, we'll stay tuned for that then. Thank you for that. Also, in addition with Bloomidin, I recognize that the processing method is not finalized.

Speaker 8

You're looking at a number of different options ruling out some. But based on the testing that's been done to date, what's the range of recoveries that you might expect for the different metals?

Speaker 2

Well, we have it on the presentation. If you go back to the presentation that we've given you, let me just go to it. On Page 12, at the bottom, through the initial metallurgical test work, the initial recoveries for silver, gold, lead and zinc are shown there. So obviously, this is just the beginning. It's we did quite a bit of work, but it's just the beginning of what we're going to be doing this year and for the beginning of next year in identifying what's the best method.

Speaker 2

But we wanted to debug the system and to show that regardless of the fact that the second transformation is where the gold and silver gets liberated, the technology exists, it is available and it's just a matter of completing the PEA. But for us to complete the PEA, we need to know quantity and the size of this deposit and that we don't know yet and that's it's all about geology. So David has got a very large budget as you know to drill this. And if we need to drill even more, we will to understand the size. And with that, then we'll be able to define what method we want to use.

Speaker 8

Okay. And are you seeing that you would potentially apply the same method over all areas? Or are you seeing sort of differences in mineralogy that might warrant different methods for some areas for some zones?

Speaker 4

Well, any deposit would have different lithologies and different sections, which would react differently to process. So part of the PEA and the next studies will be to include geometallurgy to try to capture that, which we have done a bit so far. I mean, this test work was done on composites from all current section of the deposit.

Speaker 8

Okay. Okay. Well, thanks a lot. That's all for me. And Benoit, good luck with the start up commissioning this quarter.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Don.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Puneet Singh from 8 Capital.

Speaker 7

Thanks. Good morning, guys. I just want to stick with Bumadin. I wanted to talk about the Tizzies on the geology there looks different and you had that big 8,000 grams per ton. Just wanted to get Davey's view on why that looks different and what are you initially seeing there?

Speaker 2

That is not like Puneet, so we're going to use his skill.

Speaker 10

Okay. Hello, Puneet. I'll try to answer the question as good as possible. First of all, TZ is very similar to Boumaden. The only geological difference is that we have a little bit more of mafic dykes in the surrounding.

Speaker 10

But otherwise, Tizi is the same massive sulfides as we have throughout the deposit. The intersection with the 7,800 gram as mentioned in the press release is related to a different geology, different events that crosscuts the deposit. So this is an intersection of the East West structure that we know we have through the whole property. But the new the further drilling will target those expressively, so we'll know a bit more. But so far, we see low sulfidation epithermal geology.

Speaker 10

So a quartz carbonate vein breccia type with some bandings and epithermal texture with lots of silver rich galena and most likely silver rich sulfur salts in that. So this intersection does not represent TZ, it mostly represent East West Lake structures that cross cut. So it's a new type of intersection that we haven't got much so far on the property because we were never drilling those specifically. So those structures are basically parallel to the main drilling section that we are doing in order to test CZ and before that Bumadin main trend. But as we progress during the year, we will have some specific drilling targeting those structures.

Speaker 7

Okay, got it. So it's kind of too early to say kind of how this fits in with the other targets, right? You guys use geophysics and then you'll kind of decide what you want to chase?

Speaker 10

Yes, exactly. For the geophysics, the geophysics will probably show more the Boumoudin type structures, the tizzy type structure because of the abundance of pyrite and other sulfides, so highly conductors. But we are tracking closely the North 30 and the North 70 and the East West structure, both with the mapping and the field work and also the drilling. But that will progress and evolve as the year goes on. And we will always reallocate the priority where we have the belief it can return more ounces in the resource or the value.

Speaker 7

Okay, got it. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. At this time, I would now like to turn the conference back over to Benoit LaSalle, President and CEO for closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Thank you, operator. In closing, let me just walk you through some of the key milestone of the quarter. And as we indicated, it is a transition quarter. It is a transition year as we're gearing up for a new production profile next year. But the highlight of the quarter is the construction of the new plant is on time and it's on budget and the commissioning will be starting in a couple of weeks.

Speaker 2

One of the highlight of the quarter is there's 157,000 ounces that was produced in Q1, but sold in Q2 and will come into the revenue of Q2. And that was done creating a profit or an additional revenue of $4 an ounce. So in hindsight, we can see that it was the right decision. The open pit is now ready to expose higher grade ore, which is what we were looking for and that is now that is done. The stockpile is an important element because it is security for commissioning.

Speaker 2

And at the end of the quarter, we were at 275,000 ton. As of now, we are at 290, which is, as I indicated, the original planning was to be at 260. So we're ahead on mining, and we have almost 3 months of stockpile once we're up and running through and throughout the commissioning. And to finish, the Boumoudin program is continuing. There's 7 drills turning.

Speaker 2

We are drilling this, the 60,000 meters on the current geophysics anomaly, which we know is 6 kilometer long. We now have drilled it on 5 kilometer. We've reported resource on 4.2 kilometer. And this will continue and as we will receive the geophysics interpretation and the inversion of the data, we will identify new targets and we will drill on some of the new targets. And to close, I would like to say that we are fully funded.

Speaker 2

You saw that at quarter end, our cash position is USD 111,000,000. Zugunther, as you know, is cash flow positive on a yearly basis. It pays for all of its exploration. And we will be spending this year in exploration approximately $35,000,000 between Boumadin and Gundair. And we do not expect to need money.

Speaker 2

We will always maintain a cash position that will exceed $50,000,000 So we are in a very good position to see through all of our exploration programs. Of course, the construction is just about done and that is fully funded. So we have a company where we have a lot of geological upside and where the construction risk and the financing risk is behind us. So thank you for your time. Thank you for being there today.

Speaker 2

And we will obviously talk to you during the course of the quarter and if not, at the next conference call. Thank you and thank you, operator.

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

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Earnings Conference Call
Aya Gold & Silver Q1 2024
00:00 / 00:00
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