Kinross Gold Q4 2024 Earnings Report

Kinross Gold EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.20
• Consensus EPS: $0.23
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$0.03
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Kinross Gold Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: $1.47 billion
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Kinross Gold Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2024
• Date: 2/12/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, February 13, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 8:00AM ET

Kinross Gold (NYSE:KGC), together with its subsidiaries, engages in the acquisition, exploration, and development of gold properties principally in the United States, Brazil, Chile, Canada, and Mauritania. The company operates the Fort Knox mine and the Manh Choh project in Alaska, as well as the Round Mountain and the Bald Mountain mines in Nevada, the United States; the Paracatu mine in Brazil; the La Coipa and the Lobo-Marte project in Chile; the Tasiast mine in Mauritania; and the Great Bear project in Canada. It is also involved in the extraction and processing of gold-containing ores; reclamation of gold mining properties; and production and sale of silver. Kinross Gold Corporation was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.

Kinross Gold Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Presentation

[Operator]

Thank you for standing by. My name is Prilla, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Kinross Gold Fourth Quarter twenty twenty four Results Conference Call and Webcast. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After these speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session.

[Operator]

Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to David Shaver, Senior Vice President of Kinross Gold. Please go ahead.

[David Shaver, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Kinross Gold]

Thank you and good morning. With us today, we have Paul Rollinson, CEO and from the Kinross Senior Leadership Team, Andrea Freeborough, Claude Schimper, Will Dunford and Jeff Gold. For a complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties which may lead to actual results differing from estimates contained in our forward looking information, please refer to page three of this presentation, our news release dated 02/12/2025, the MD and A for the period ended 12/31/2024 and our most recently filed AIF, all of which are available on our website. I will now turn the call over to Paul.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

Thanks, David. And thank you all for joining us. This morning, I will provide an overview of our fourth quarter and full year results, highlight our operations, projects and provide an outlook for the business going forward, and make a few comments on our achievements in sustainability. I will then hand the call over to Andrea, Claude and Will to provide more detail. With respect to Q4, we delivered a strong quarter producing just over 500,000 ounces.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

With respect to the full year, once again, we achieved our market commitments delivering over 2,100,000 ounces. We also delivered on our full year cost of sales and all in sustaining cost guidance, which demonstrates our strong focus on rigorous cost discipline. As a result, we generated record free cash flow of more than $1,300,000,000 which more than doubled against the prior year. This record cash flow generation also benefited from strong operating margin expansion, which outpaced the relative increase in the gold price. Our operating margins increased by 37% compared to a 23% increase in the realized gold price, maximizing the benefit of the gold price for our company.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

With respect to our operations, our two largest assets, Tasiast and Paricutu were both standouts. Together accounting for approximately 1,200,000 ounces for more than half of our production. Tasiast had an exceptional year, delivering record annual throughput, production and cash flow, and once again was our highest margin operation in the portfolio. Paracatu delivered a full year production exceeding the midpoint of guidance and exceeding 500,000 ounces for the seventh consecutive year. At La Coipa, we delivered our full year production guidance as work continues on long term optimization of the mill.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

At our U. S. Operations, we had another solid year with production and costs on plan. Turning now to updates on our projects. In 2024, we continue to make excellent progress across our pipeline.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

In particular, we reached an important milestone at Great Bear with the release of the PEA in September. With the PEA, we have confirmed the top tier potential of this asset with estimated average annual production of approximately 500,000 ounces at an impressive all in sustaining cost of approximately $800 per ounce. For the Great Bear Advanced Exploration Program, we have received all the necessary permits for our current activities and we expect to receive the two remaining permits when they are required later in the year. The yearly works activities, including tree clearing and earthworks, commence prior to year end and construction of the exploration decline is planned to commence later this year. Regarding permitting for the main project, we continue to work with the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada and we plan to file the impact statement later this year.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

At Round Mountain, underground development at Phase X is progressing well with over 3,300 meters developed to date and 21 kilometers of drilling completed last year. As outlined in our news release, we are continuing to see strong exploration results from Phase X, reaffirming our vision for a high productivity, low cost underground mining operation. At Bald Mountain, we have unlocked additional value from the approximate 4,000,000 ounce resource base with the conversion of nearly 1,000,000 ounces into reserves. This conversion marks an important first step in extending the mine life of Bald, where we now see a strong case to proceed with initial mining at the Redbird Pit. We are proceeding with a disciplined approach expecting that Redbird could ultimately extend production from Bald through 02/1931.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

Will is going to discuss more on this opportunity later. We also continue to advance work on Curlew in Washington State and Lobo Marte in Chile. Before moving to our outlook, I'd like to comment on our year end reserve and resource pricing update. Given the stronger prevailing gold price environment, we have revised our gold price assumptions, which aligns with industry peers. Our reserves are now determined on a $1,600 per ounce gold price and our resources on a $2,000 per ounce gold price.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

Although our price assumptions have moved higher, we are not planning to reduce the cutoff grades to our mills as our focus remains on maintaining strong margins. Moving to our outlook, we are reaffirming our stable multiyear production profile. Production of 2,000,000 ounces for 2025 remains consistent with our previous guidance. As previously guided, based on mine plan sequencing, production from Tasiast will be lower this year. Empirica II remains on track to deliver higher production this year.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

Looking to 2026, our production outlook of 2,000,000 ounces remains consistent with previous guidance. We are introducing a new year of production of 2,000,000 ounces for 2027. Beyond 2027, we expect production to remain around 2,000,000 ounces through the end of the decade. Maintaining production at this level will be based on future production from our pipeline of project opportunities, which include Redbird extensions at Bald, open pit extensions at La Coipa, SpaceX Underground at Round, Curlew in Washington State and Great Bear to round out the decade. We will continue to advance these initiatives and we plan to update you on our progress as we move forward.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

With respect to capital allocation, in 2024, we prioritized debt repayment and we have now fully repaid our $1,000,000,000 term loan. Our quarterly dividend remains in place as our baseline return of capital. In the current go price environment, our business is generating significant cash flow. And if this current go price holds, we are planning to return additional capital to shareholders later this year in the form of a share buyback. Andrea will speak more on this shortly.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

I'd like to comment on some of our achievements and sustainability. In 2024, we once again demonstrated a strong commitment to sustainability by operating responsibly and advancing our strategy across this important area. In May, we will publish our 2024 sustainability report, which will provide a detailed review on our sustainability performance and initiatives throughout the year. Some highlights from this past year include completing more than 15 energy efficiency projects across the portfolio, placing us on track to achieve a 30% reduction in emissions intensity by 02/1930. We provided flood relief aid to communities in Brazil and Mauritania.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

We received a sustainability award from the Canadian Council for the Americas and we were the top scoring gold company and top 10% overall in the Globe and Mail's annual corporate governance survey. Lastly, I'd like to take a moment to thank Catherine McLeod Seltzer for her significant contributions to Kinross and the board over her twenty year directorship with Kinross. Katherine has been an independent board member since 02/2005 and chair of the board since 02/2019. Katherine will be retiring from her role at our AGM in May, and we are pleased to announce Kelly Osborne will take on Catherine's previous role of independent chair. With that, I will now turn the call over to Andrea.

[Andrea Freeborough, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Kinross Gold]

Thanks, Paul. This morning, I will review our financial highlights from the quarter and full year, provide an overview of our balance sheet and our capital allocation plans and discuss our guidance and outlook. As Paul noted, we delivered production in line with guidance in 2024. Full year attributable production was 2,130,000 ounces with production of 501,000 ounces in the fourth quarter. Q4 sales of 518,000 ounces were slightly above production due to timing.

[Andrea Freeborough, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Kinross Gold]

Cost of sales of $10.96 dollars per ounce and all in sustaining costs of $15.10 dollars per ounce in the fourth quarter were higher compared to the prior quarter as expected mainly due to lower planned production from TASSEUS and Paricutu. Full year cost of sales of $10.21 dollars per ounce and full year all in sustaining costs of $13.88 dollars per ounce were also in line with guidance. Margins were strong at $15.67 dollars per ounce sold in Q4 and $13.72 dollars per ounce for the full year. Our adjusted earnings were $0.2 per share in Q4 and $0.68 per share for the full year. Adjusted operating cash flow was $614,000,000 in Q4 and approximately $2,100,000,000 for the full year.

[Andrea Freeborough, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Kinross Gold]

Attributable CapEx was $279,000,000 in Q4 and one point zero five billion dollars for the full year in line with full year guidance. Attributable free cash flow was a record $434,000,000 in Q4 and was also a record $1,340,000,000 for the full year. Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the year with $612,000,000 in cash and approximately $2,300,000,000 of total liquidity. We repaid an impressive $800,000,000 against our term loan in 2024. And after making a subsequent repayment of $200,000,000 our $1,000,000,000 term loan has now been fully repaid.

[Andrea Freeborough, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Kinross Gold]

We have now fully paid for the acquisition of Great Bear on just the third anniversary with fewer shares outstanding than prior to the transaction. Over the last twenty four months, we've reduced our net debt by approximately $1,400,000,000 and our net debt to EBITDA from 1.7 times to 0.3 times as of year end. Our business is generating strong cash flow in the current gold price environment and with the term loan now fully repaid, we are well positioned to consider additional return of capital for our shareholders. We are in the process of renewing our NCIB and based on recent gold prices, we expect to initiate a share buyback program later this year. As typical for us, we expect Q1 to be a cash outflow quarter.

[Andrea Freeborough, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Kinross Gold]

In addition to the $200,000,000 term loan repayment that we made in February. We also have our annual income tax payments in Brazil and now Mauritania and our semi annual interest payments. As such, we'll provide an update on our return of capital plans with our Q1 results in May. Turning to our guidance and outlook. As Paul noted, we're forecasting production in the range of 2,000,000 ounces for 2025, remaining consistent with previous guidance.

[Andrea Freeborough, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Kinross Gold]

For costs, we're guiding $11.20 dollars per ounce for cost of sales and $1,500 per ounce for ASIC. Cost of sales and ASIC are both up approximately 10% compared with 2024. The expected increase is driven by three factors, which mainly include structural changes to our portfolio this year. First, production guidance of 2,000,000 ounces relative to 2,100,000 ounces last year, resulting in a denominator impact on our fixed costs and on sustaining capital in the case of all in sustaining costs. Second, with a lower planned contribution from Tasiast this year, we will see a smaller benefit from our lowest cost mine.

[Andrea Freeborough, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Kinross Gold]

Last, modest overall cost inflation of 3% to 4%. Our capital expenditure guidance of $1,150,000,000 for 2025 reflects annual inflation and planned higher capital spend as we continue to advance Great Bear. Approximately $615,000,000 of our total CapEx is expected to be non sustaining. Looking ahead to 2026, our production guidance of 2,000,000 ounces remains unchanged from our guidance update last year. Beyond 2026, we have introduced another year of production guidance of 2,000,000 ounces for 2027 in line with 2025 and 2026.

[Andrea Freeborough, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Kinross Gold]

Object to ongoing inflation, attributable CapEx is expected to be consistent in 2026 and 2027 in order to continue to bring projects within our pipeline into production. I'll now turn the call over to Claude to discuss our operations.

[Claude Schimper, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer at Kinross Gold]

Thank you, Andrea. In the fourth quarter, we officially launched our health and safety brand called SafeGround and commenced work on establishing SafeGround leadership development programs that will be tailored and delivered to four specific groups executives, managers, frontline supervisors, and operators. In 2024, our operations delivered on our full year production and cost guidance. And we are encouraged to see our culture of operational excellence continue to drive strong results from our operations. Production of 501,000 ounces in the fourth quarter was planned.

[Claude Schimper, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer at Kinross Gold]

Starting with Tasiast, the mine delivered record throughput production and cash flow. Record full year production of 622,000 ounces at an impressive cost of sales of $681 per ounce drove record free cash flow from our lowest cost operation. In the fourth quarter, TSYS delivered production of 139,000 ounces at a cost of sales of $725 an ounce. Production was lower over the prior quarter due to a planned reduction in grade. Production at Tasiast is expected to be lower in 2025 as mining continues transitioning into lower grades.

[Claude Schimper, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer at Kinross Gold]

Tasiast is expected to deliver 500,000 ounces with the target cost of sales of $860 per ounce and is expected to be our lowest cost operation once again this year. Paraca 2 delivered another strong year with production of 529,000 ounces exceeding the midpoint of guidance. The cost of sales of $10.39 dollars per ounce which was below the midpoint of guidance. As planned, mine sequencing continued to transition into higher grades in the fourth quarter. Production of 124,000 ounces was lower over the prior quarter as stronger grades were offset by lower throughput resulting from the timing of some mill maintenance and mine sequencing.

[Claude Schimper, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer at Kinross Gold]

Production at Barricka 2 is expected to be higher and costs lower this year as mining continues within the higher grade portion of the phase. Barricka 2 is expected to produce 585,000 ounces at a cost of sales of $10.25 dollars per ounce in 2025. At La Coipa, Fourth Quarter production of approximately 59,000 ounces improved over the prior quarter on stronger mill throughput, which offset lower grades. Full year production of 246,000 ounces was in line with guidance. The site team continues to manage throughput while long term mill optimization initiatives are being implemented.

[Claude Schimper, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer at Kinross Gold]

Adalopropa is anticipated to produce 230,000 ounces at a cost of sales of $10.60 dollars per ounce in 2025. Moving to our U. S. Operations, production was stronger in the second half of the year as expected following the start of production from Manchow early in the third quarter. Collectively, The U.

[Claude Schimper, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer at Kinross Gold]

S. Sites delivered full year production of 731,000 ounces at a cost of sales $13.13 dollars per ounce, which was in line with guidance. Production of 179,000 ounces in the final quarter was on plan. In Alaska, fourth quarter production of 92,000 ounces was lower compared to the prior quarter and cost of sales of $13.20 dollars pounds was higher due to the timing of the processing of the Manchow haul. At Bald Mountain, we produced 45,000 ounces at a cost of sales of $11.44 dollars per ounce Production was in line over the prior quarter, while costs were slightly lower due to the timing of sales.

[Claude Schimper, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer at Kinross Gold]

At Ground Mountain, production of 43,000 ounces was in line compared to the prior quarter. Cost of sales of $17.64 dollars per ounce was higher due to the accounting of higher cost ounces from the leach pads. Mining at the Phase S Open Pit remains on schedule with initial production expected to begin in the second half of the year. With that, I'll now pass the call over to William to discuss our projects.

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

Thanks, Claude. We've just released our annual reserve and resource. So I'd like to start out by providing that update and then I'll discuss the growth projects that sit in our resource and underpin our potential future production profile. We are currently in a phase where we are focused on drilling and developing our earlier stage higher grade growth projects like Great Bear, PhaseX, Lobo Marte and Curle Loop. As a result, the majority of our additions this year came in the inferred category where we saw a 1,700,000 ounce increase.

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

We did also see some additions in the M and I category, which were largely offset by conversion of 1,000,000 ounces out of M and I into reserve at Bull Mountain. We have updated our reserve and resource gold price assumptions from 1,400 to 1,600 and from 1,700 to 2,000 respectively. The intention of this was to be more reflective of the current gold price environment. With the increase in our gold price, we are taking a balanced approach and our objective was not to drop cutoff grades to grow resources. Instead, we are focused on margin and quality of our resource additions to extend our mine lives and bring on higher grade growth projects as you can see by the overall increase in resource grade.

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

To that end, you can see on this slide an overview of the significant resource optionality for both mine life extensions at our existing mines and new production from growth projects with 26,000,000 ounces in M and I and another 13,000,000 ounces in inferred. These resources form the pipeline of potential opportunities that we are progressing to support our production profile through the end of the decade and into the 2030s. This slide gives an indication of the level of study of these opportunities. We have our base case, which includes reserves and already approved projects and provides the production in our guidance window through 2027. Second, we have several growth projects at an advanced stage of study that offer potential to add production both through the end of the decade and beyond into the 30s.

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

And third, we have several opportunities within our project pipeline that are at an earlier stage of study and offer potential to contribute to our 2030s production profile. We remain excited about our internal prospects, which are further augmented by today's strong gold price and we will continue to maintain a disciplined approach, progressing these projects into our production profile with a focus on margin and return. Old Mountain offers a recent example of bringing these pipeline opportunities into our production profile. In mid twenty twenty four, we received our permits for the juniper package and on the back of this, we have converted approximately 1,000,000 ounces of resource to reserve in the Redbird Pit. We have split Redbird into two phases.

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

We have approved and already started mining phase one, which contains 270,000 ounces and will take production into 2028. Phase two containing approximately 690,000 ounces of M and I could begin in 2026 and extend production from Bald Mountain through 02/1931. This phase approach lowers the initial CapEx and risk and pulls forward earlier production from Phase one into 2027 while we continue to optimize our design execution plan for Phase two. The initial CapEx of $120,000,000 for phase one is primarily pre stripping costs as phase one leverages the existing leach pad capacity, thereby minimizing our initial capital risk. Project has an all in sustaining cost of $1,500 per ounce and a strong return at today's gold price.

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

We also continue to focus on additional optionality at Bald Mountain outside of Redbird including looking at small satellite pit opportunities that could be combined with Redbird 2. At Tasiast, we have completed a new mine plan on the back of the 2024 reserve update. Tasiast production over the next three years is expected to be lower driven by mine plan sequencing and lower milled grades as we focus on stripping in West Branch 5. It has been a focus for the Tasiast team to increase production in the '25 through '27 window through operational improvements, design optimizations and unlocking satellite opportunities. This work has added approximately 100,000 ounces over this three year period as compared to the mine plan update we provided in 2023.

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

Optimization at Tasiast is ongoing with additional satellite opportunities being evaluated. Studies to explore underground potential are also progressing with recent drilling at West Branch intersecting wide mineralization 700 meters down plunge of the existing resource. Moving from our operations to our growth projects, the Kirlou team has been successful in adding high quality resources over the last couple of years, further enhancing the potential of the project. As part of our year end resource update, we are pleased to report a high grade resource addition at Curlew. This is the addition of 125,000 ounces at nine grams per tonne in the stealth zone, which continues to be open both long strike and depth.

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

Not only are we seeing strong grades in the zone, but it's also coming in at a very minable width averaging just over five meters. This focus on high grade extension itself will continue in 2025 with an expanded drill program target further extensions at depth. Now shifting focus to phase X where development and drilling continues to progress well, we have now expanded drilling into the upper zone of the exploration target and you can see the results continue to support our thesis of a bulk underground operation in the range of three to four grams per tonne, providing potential for higher margin supplemental production at Round Mountain. In 2025, we will be completing our initial infill drilling program at Phase X and we anticipate the release of an initial underground resource with our twenty five year end resource update. At Gray Bear, early works construction for advanced exploration commenced in November.

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

As can be seen on the slide, tree clearing is now complete and earthworks for excavation for the exploration infrastructure has commenced. We are excited to have broken ground and are focused on progressing civil works and permitting over the coming quarters to allow us to start the exploration decline later this year.

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

Moving to

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

the broader exploration update, our team had another strong campaign in 2024 with approximately three twenty kilometers of drilling completed across Minex, brownfields and greenfields. As detailed in our press release, this program produced notable results across several locations. We provided an update on Great Barrier back in September highlighting the successful addition of over 500,000 ounces of high grade inferred resource at depth and the strong results of our PEA. We also highlighted the drilling at depth below the PEA inventory and resource that demonstrates the significant upside potential for further resource additions. Following the success of this 2024 drilling and the results of the PEA, we've shifted our focus at Great Barrier to regional exploration work on the 120 square kilometer land package.

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

We've already provided updates on Curlew and Phase X. So I will move on to our other US assets. At Fort Knox, the program focused on two main areas, growth around the Fort Knox pit and around the gill saddle. We saw some good intercepts across both areas indicating potential for additional mill feed and this work will be followed up on in 2025. At Bald Mountain with near term mine extensions established through the approval of Redbird one, the 2025 exploration campaign will focus on conversion of the inferred resource in Redbird two and on generative projects.

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

At Tasiast, we added 110,000 ounces to reserves in 2024 through the addition of the Fenix satellite pet. Exploration in 2025 will focus on further expanding mineralization at the underground target and drilling out additional satellite pet opportunities on the wider land package. Moving to Chile, our brownfields program further delineated poor fruit mineralization. And in 2025, we will follow-up on these results and also progress exploration of known trends on the La Coipa license. In Brazil, our brownfields program focused on testing targets along the Northwest Corridor for Parex 2 with results showing similar style and grade of mineralization to the Parex 2 deposit.

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

Moving to our greenfields program, approximately 45 kilometers of drilling was completed on targets located in Canada, The U. S. And Finland. In Manitoba, our drilling at Laguna continue to define high grade shear hosted vein systems. And in 2025, we will focus on increasing the critical mass of mineralization to support further work.

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

In Nevada, drilling was completed across several prospective properties with the potential for Karlin and low sulfidation gold mineralization. This drilling included an initial diamond drill hole at the PWC JV project in September, which successfully intersected lower plate carbonates associated with the Cortez District at depth. In Finland, we progressed both base of till drilling for target delineation and follow-up diamond drilling, which showed some high grade intercepts at Long East. In Finland, we will follow-up on these successes in 2025 and continue our exploration of this underexplored greenstone belt. Overall, we are encouraged with our success identifying and progressing earlier stage opportunities such as Fazax, Curlew and Great Bear.

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

I will now turn it back to Paul for closing remarks.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

Thanks, Will. After delivering on our commitments in 2024, we are well positioned for

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

a successful 2025.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

Our business is in great shape both operationally and financially with a number of key milestones for the year ahead, including repayment of our term loan, pre stripping at Redbird, advancing permitting across Great Bear, Curlew, La Coipa and Logomarte, advancing exploration decline infrastructure at Great Bear, restating our share buyback plan, initial production from Phase S, satellite mining at FANAC and an anticipated year end resource at Phase X. In summary, we are excited about our future. We have a strong production profile. We are generating significant free cash flow. We have an excellent balance sheet.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

We have an attractive dividend and plan on returning additional capital. We have an exciting pipeline of both exploration and development opportunities. We are very proud of our commitment to responsible mining that continues to make us a leader in sustainability. With that operator, I'd like to open up the line for questions.

[Operator]

Your first question comes from the line of Mike Parkin with National Bank. Please go ahead.

[Mike Parkin, Analyst at National Bank]

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Great presentation, really like Slide twenty and twenty one there in terms of all the upside you've got that you're working on. So looking forward to updates there. Just a question on Kinross' task, its operation in the fourth quarter.

[Mike Parkin, Analyst at National Bank]

How many days was that shutdown?

[Claude Schimper, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer at Kinross Gold]

Hi, good morning, Mike. It's Claude. Yeah, we did a shutdown for about four to five days. We did some relining stuff and changing some belts and things. So

[Claude Schimper, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer at Kinross Gold]

we're right online. And from a

[Claude Schimper, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer at Kinross Gold]

production point of view, because we entered into the lower grade section, which was in anticipation of this year going forward, we still maintained our throughput average for the quarter.

[Mike Parkin, Analyst at National Bank]

Yes, that's what I was

[Mike Parkin, Analyst at National Bank]

kind of getting at. It's like when I adjust for that eighty seven operating days, you're over 25,000 tonnes per day. So that's like the second consecutive quarter. You're not quite 10% above nameplate, but consistently kind of hitting above the target. What's kind of driving that is that just you've got some spare capacity in the front of the circuit that you're utilizing?

[Mike Parkin, Analyst at National Bank]

And do you see that kind of continuing going forward? And what was the baseline assumption in terms of throughput for guidance?

[Claude Schimper, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer at Kinross Gold]

Yeah, Mike, all of that is as planned. In order to do an average of 24,000 a day, you need to do some days at 26,000, 20 seven thousand. So we're well within the nameplate. It's really just about our ability to use our CI initiatives and all of these things to have more and longer extended runs of at a higher rate. So we had a tremendous quarter in terms of throughput.

[Claude Schimper, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer at Kinross Gold]

And as I said, we went to lower grade, the back was slightly down. But we're well set up and we've started the year very strongly as well now, given that we've taken the opportunity to maintain when we could.

[Mike Parkin, Analyst at National Bank]

Okay. And in terms of the limiting factor there, are you more mill constrained or pick constrained in terms of getting or either out of the pit or through the mill?

[Claude Schimper, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer at Kinross Gold]

I think the ultimate constraint is the plant because we've got some stockpiles and as we manage through from Phase four at the bottom of the pit now going into Phase five stripping, we will balance production through stockpiles and mine performance. Ultimately, we've designed this plant to run an average of 24,000. There will be times that we average slightly above that and other times slightly below. But we're, Natalia's just come along strong after some tough, tough years and we've we're pushing the boundaries and the limits and we constantly learn more about the plant and how certain things behave. And it will be a balance of making sure we maintain our recovery levels.

[Claude Schimper, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer at Kinross Gold]

We don't push the tons too hard to then start losing on recovery.

[Mike Parkin, Analyst at National Bank]

Okay. And then switching over to the exploration side of things and the reserve and resources, the underground at Round Mountain, you keep hitting these really high grade structures. How is that being kind of captured in the reported reserves and resources with respect to where is your capping grades set at? And

[Mike Parkin, Analyst at National Bank]

just kind of

[Mike Parkin, Analyst at National Bank]

that kind of understand

[Mike Parkin, Analyst at National Bank]

what you're reporting versus like what you're kind of realizing with the drill bit.

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

Yes. We don't have an underground reserve or resource at Phase Act at Round Mountain yet. The resources on the books and reserves are all open pit. We're hoping after this infill drilling that we're doing now, that's the reason we're doing it is to get an initial underground resource out at the end of the year this year with our annual update.

[Mike Parkin, Analyst at National Bank]

And then I think the answer

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

is there's another question in the high grades. Okay.

[Mike Parkin, Analyst at National Bank]

Yes, because you can I think I remember you guys guided the market to kind of three to four grams historically in terms of where the underground could kind of shape up is that the feeling that's maybe a bit conservative given the consistent really good drill results you're putting out in the market from that?

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

We don't want

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

to get ahead of ourselves and that is why we're doing the infill drilling. And you can see on slide 25 and what we released that we've got a pretty extensive table on the right hand side that shows all of the drilling in that upper right portion of the exploration target. And you can see there both, you know, the wider in the intervals and the narrower intervals with the higher grade highlights. We want to get the bigger resource and we want to get the bulkier deposit. So you can see a more represent representative idea of the grade in those wider intervals.

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

And we do still see it being in that three to four gram per tonne range. So that's ultimately how we're going to maximize the economics on this is by going to bulk mining with these pretty exceptional wide zones.

[Mike Parkin, Analyst at National Bank]

Okay. Well, looking forward to the update. Congrats, guys.

[Operator]

And your next question comes from the line of Anita Soni with CIBC. Please go ahead.

[Anita Soni, Managing Director at CIBC Capital Markets]

Hi, good morning, Paul and team and congratulations to the whole team on a very successful year on many fronts. And I agree with Mike on that slide twenty and twenty one. It's good to see those slides again, especially from companies with a track record of actually executing on what they say they will do. A question on the Redbird addition. On the Phase two, could you give us an idea what additional incremental capital would be needed to get that, additional 700,000 ounces in?

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

Yes. Look, we're still working on Phase two. That's why we've approved Phase one. The main benefit of well, one of the many benefits of phasing this is that the phase one cash flow that comes from those early ounces is intended to pay the majority of the CapEx for phase two to keep that site relatively cash flow neutral as it strips phase two. So we don't have an exact sense of the CapEx yet and we need to complete our work.

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

But that's the idea is to try and keep our current gold prices above zero as we strip Phase two.

[Anita Soni, Managing Director at CIBC Capital Markets]

Okay. And then just a question for finance team and Paul. Just wondering when it comes to the share buybacks that you were talking about in the second half of the year, is it just basically then kind of getting through the cash outflows that you're expecting in Q1 and then if gold prices stay where they are, you can start executing on that in Q2? Or is it more back half of the year?

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

No, I think that's exactly as you described it, Anita. Again, from my perspective, we have been consistent with our capital allocation philosophy. As we say all the time, it's needs of the business, needs of the balance sheet, return of capital to shareholders. We did, of course, repay the debt. That was our priority in 2024.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

But as Andrea said, all the cash we built up here, while we've been paying down debt, we're about to pay a bunch of that out as we do seasonally in Q1. So we want to get through that kind of get our cash back up. Hopefully, we're still in the same kind of gold price environment. And we think that is the right time to be thinking about turning back on the buyback.

[Anita Soni, Managing Director at CIBC Capital Markets]

Okay. Another question just on a big picture, I guess, Great Barron. And I'm just wondering if you've seen any on the permitting front. Have you seen any change in,

[Anita Soni, Managing Director at CIBC Capital Markets]

I guess,

[Anita Soni, Managing Director at CIBC Capital Markets]

the government standpoint in terms of how motivated they are to get these permits to

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

you? Yeah. Look, I mean, I think it's a safe assumption that when there's an election, things kind of slow down, in in terms of the bureaucrats. But I'll get Jeff to kind of expand on it. He's on the front line of of that one.

[Geoff Gold, President at Kinross Gold]

Thanks, Paul. Yeah. No. I, I I Paul Paul is right as a practical matter.

[Geoff Gold, President at Kinross Gold]

There is a little bit of a slowdown, but, we we've spent a lot of time, both provincially and, federally, connecting with the regulators and and building relationships there. And as a result, those permits will continue to advance. And we're still expecting to get the remaining permits that we require without

[Geoff Gold, President at Kinross Gold]

delay.

[Anita Soni, Managing Director at CIBC Capital Markets]

Okay. And then, lastly, I just wanted to ask on Fort Knox, Manchow. There's a bit of variability in the tonnage that's coming through. I understand some of it has to do with the weight restrictions and winter and I believe ice and things weighing. Well, I could be wrong about that.

[Anita Soni, Managing Director at CIBC Capital Markets]

But, I just wanted to get an idea of what the standard kind of tonnage that you would expect out of Manchow would be. And those are pretty good grades at

[Anita Soni, Managing Director at CIBC Capital Markets]

this past quarter as well. So I

[Anita Soni, Managing Director at CIBC Capital Markets]

just want to comment on that.

[Claude Schimper, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer at Kinross Gold]

Yeah, Anita, you're correct. As we go through seasonal things in the North, we end up with different load restrictions. We also have, one load restriction that came after the feasibility study that we've had to adjust for. And given them, we balance number of trips, on a daily basis. But we expect to do an average of 200,000 to 220,000 batches when we do Mantra.

[Claude Schimper, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer at Kinross Gold]

Because as you can appreciate, we switch from very low grade Fort Knox to high grade Mantra and then back to Fort Knox. So, our average is about 220,000 per batch. And we expect to maintain sort of one quarter it's updated.

[Anita Soni, Managing Director at CIBC Capital Markets]

Sorry. So 220,000 k tons per quarter or and and you batch out the shipment? Okay. All right. Okay.

[Anita Soni, Managing Director at CIBC Capital Markets]

Thank you very much. That's all. That's it for my question.

[Operator]

And your next question comes from the line of Josh Wolfson with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

[Josh Wolfson, Director, Head of Global Mining Research at RBC Capital Markets]

Yes, thanks very much. On the capital returns program, I understand the motivation to act maybe a bit conservatively repay the debt, wait for some higher cash flow periods. Just wondering how the team is going to be evaluating the buyback in the context of how the share price has performed. It's been a phenomenal year to date, phenomenal year over year. Is that going to influence the quantum of the buyback?

[Josh Wolfson, Director, Head of Global Mining Research at RBC Capital Markets]

Or is it going to be a more mechanical or formulaic process? Thanks.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

Yes, I'll take that. And Andrea, feel free to jump in. Good question. Look, I think it's all about the right balance. I mean, number one, we still see our shares as undervalued.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

We also we'll think about that in the context of spot. So you can look at our valuation share price in the sense of consensus. With a consensus gold price, you can also look at it in the context of spot. And in both cases, we believe we're undervalued. Having said that, it's not lost on me or us that here we are, record gold prices, really good share prices.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

Is this the time to be buying back your shares? We still think it is. But I think it requires balance and focus. And that's how we're coming at it. We'll be thinking about it in those terms.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

It won't be just necessarily an automatic formula.

[Josh Wolfson, Director, Head of Global Mining Research at RBC Capital Markets]

Good. Thanks. And then one other question on the tax guidance that was issued. Should we be assuming going forward, I guess, full tax rates at both Cazios and La Coit, but the number seems to have gone up year over year. And I just want to make sure that it's maybe a combination of maybe capital being repaid as well as gold prices having increased.

[Josh Wolfson, Director, Head of Global Mining Research at RBC Capital Markets]

Thanks.

[Andrea Freeborough, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Kinross Gold]

Yes, it is both, Josh. So starting with Mauritania, Twenty Twenty Four was the first year that we became income taxable in Mauritania. So if we look at the tax cash tax guidance, about $200,000,000 of it is payments that we'll actually make in Q1 that are related to 2024. So, yes, that is both Mauritania, coming in as well as higher gold price impacting Brazil and Chile, where we're also paying more significant taxes. And then the rest of that guidance is just tax installments that we expect to pay throughout 2025.

[Josh Wolfson, Director, Head of Global Mining Research at RBC Capital Markets]

Got it. Thanks. And sorry, just to clarify, Martatius, should we be assuming the full corporate tax rate or 25% or is there, is this still a low tax year versus steady state?

[Andrea Freeborough, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Kinross Gold]

No, it's a full normal

[Andrea Freeborough, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Kinross Gold]

tax year.

[Mike Parkin, Analyst at National Bank]

Got it. Great. Thank you.

[Operator]

And your next question comes from Sorry, go ahead.

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

You can advance to the next question.

[Operator]

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Carey Macquarie with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

[Carey MacRury, Equity Research Analyst at Canaccord Genuity Group]

Hi, good morning, everyone. Just maybe back on capital allocation, I know there's more details to come there. But just in terms of the cash balance, like are you guys thinking about building up a cash balance ahead of Great Bear? Is there a minimum cash balance that you want to maintain? And then I guess the second question is the term loan is gone, there's no debt due till 2027.

[Carey MacRury, Equity Research Analyst at Canaccord Genuity Group]

Just broadly speaking in terms of debt, are you comfortable maintaining that debt, I. E. Kind of keeping that leverage going forward? Or would you even consider repaying debt down in the future?

[Andrea Freeborough, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Kinross Gold]

Sure. Thanks, Carrie. I'll start with the debt part. You're sort of hitting it right on. We look forward to the 2027 notes of the next maturity.

[Andrea Freeborough, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Kinross Gold]

And we do plan we would like to repay those notes. So that's kind of back of our mind as we think about the cash balance. And so if we think about what we'll allocate to share buybacks, we're balancing, as we always do, needs of the business. So that's the CapEx going forward for this year. And then with an eye to the balance sheet again with in the back of our mind that we want to make sure we can repay those twenty twenty seven notes, and that balancing that with additional return of capital.

[Andrea Freeborough, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Kinross Gold]

So that's sort of how we're thinking about it. Our cash balance was a bit higher at the end of the year. But as Paul noted, some of that, a lot of that gets paid out in Q1 with the $200,000,000 we paid to finish repayments on the term loan as well as the tax payments and we've got some interest payments in Q1. So we'd like to get back to where we started the year and then we'll look to allocating some of the excess cash out in the form of buybacks.

[Carey MacRury, Equity Research Analyst at Canaccord Genuity Group]

Okay, great. And then maybe just a mechanical question, but just in terms of the quarterly sequence of production, you did 500,000 ounces in the quarter, 2,000,000 ounces as the guidance. Should we be expecting relatively consistent production through the year? Or is there sort of seasonality that we should consider?

[Andrea Freeborough, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Kinross Gold]

It's relatively, even consistent as we look out to this year.

[Carey MacRury, Equity Research Analyst at Canaccord Genuity Group]

Okay. And then maybe just one last one on La Coipa. You mentioned permitting and some laybacks. Just wondering if you could give us a bit of color on what that potentially leads to?

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

Yes. We've got our current legacy on the reserves takes us through 2027 in terms of the mine sign. And then the permitting that was discussed there in the press release is really just for further extensions of the open pits there. We've got additional oxide pits very similar to what we've been doing. Some kind of steady as she goes, but there is some permitting required as a part of that to bring that in through the end of the decade.

[Carey MacRury, Equity Research Analyst at Canaccord Genuity Group]

So potential that take it up to like 2,030 or so?

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

Yes. Those it all depends on, I guess, gold price, but those should be able to take us at least through 02/1930. We do have a meaningful inventory potential there. You can see it on our resource statement. So we potentially could go beyond that.

[Carey MacRury, Equity Research Analyst at Canaccord Genuity Group]

Okay. Great. And maybe one last quick one. You mentioned the Tasiast new mine plan. Should we be expecting a forty three-one hundred and one report or no?

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

Yes. We'll most likely update that report with our AIF this year.

[Carey MacRury, Equity Research Analyst at Canaccord Genuity Group]

All right. Great. That's it for me. Thanks, everyone.

[Operator]

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Lawson Winder with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

[Lawson Winder, Analyst at Bank of America]

Thank you, operator. Good morning, guys. Nice update. Wanted to ask about your commentary on exploration at La Coipa and just get a sense in terms of your optimism around the ability to add to resources there. Is that something we can expect to potentially see as soon as 2025?

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

Yeah. It's I mean, our focus there really is we already have the resources on the books to carry us through 02/1930. So we're not massively focused on expanding a lot beyond that at Lacoye. But there is a lot of good targets. It's pretty prolific ground out there.

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

We've got a variety of historic pits in the area. So we had mentioned we will be doing some testing around some of those pits looking for lower strip, higher margin kind of pushbacks in those pits. So there's a lot of exploration potential. But as you saw this year, our real focus right now is drilling off these new growth projects that are coming in at a higher grade to support pulling those ultimately into our production profile and reserves. We will do some exploration of La Coipa as well.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

And I'll just jump in on that. I mean, part of the part of the consideration in that part of Chile where we're operating Region 3 at Acama is water. And we have existing permitted pumping water wells that support La Coipa. But we want to think about La Coipa's future and also Lobo Marte, which we're advancing. So we're trying to find the right balance between, continuing to grow resources, looking to bring Lobo online towards the end of the decade, and working within our existing water permits.

[Lawson Winder, Analyst at Bank of America]

That's perfect. You addressed my follow-up question. And then I would like to also just ask again about capital return and your thoughts on the dividend level, which is, I mean, I think, abundantly sustainable at the current level and potentially sustainable at a higher level. Is that something you're also considering? Thank you.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

Yes. Look, I think just we just want to be careful. We want to be balanced. There was a question earlier, does it make sense at the share price? We think it does given our relative value.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

And so as I said, needs of the business are well maintained. We keep a well capitalized business, which we believe reduces operating risk. We focused on paying down the term loan. We've just completed that cash out quarter. We want to kind of strengthen the balance sheet again.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

So needs of the business, needs of the balance sheet. And then we should be in great shape to see where we are in the current, in that environment as we look out to the second quarter as to what the appropriate what feels like the appropriate kind of proportion of free cash flow to allocate to the buyback.

[Lawson Winder, Analyst at Bank of America]

So if I'm hearing your answer, the preference is buyback over dividend. Is that fair?

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

That's correct.

[Lawson Winder, Analyst at Bank of America]

Great. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

And your next question comes from the line of Tanya Jakusconek with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

[Tanya Jakusconek, Director specializing in Gold & Precious Minerals at Scotiabank]

Yes. Good morning. I appreciate you for taking my questions and congrats on making your guidance for 2024. Just wanted to go back to maybe Claude. Can you on the sequencing of your mine plans through 2025, can you just remind me what major shutdowns, if any, are at any of your operations?

[Tanya Jakusconek, Director specializing in Gold & Precious Minerals at Scotiabank]

I'm trying to offset like the seasonality that you see at Fort Knox. So I'm just trying and the wet season in Brazil. So I'm just trying to see when that your downtimes are at any of your other operations.

[Claude Schimper, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer at Kinross Gold]

Yes, Daniel, you know, for the last couple of years we've been working towards flattening that those jagged shock to stop performances through scheduling maintenance activities in a way that they're more a part of the process. We don't have major upgrades and shutdowns at any of the sites now. And so it's typical more maintenance. So some of them will have four day shutdowns to reliners. It has it had a barricade to it's a couple more days depending on which, where it's a segment of the ball mills.

[Claude Schimper, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer at Kinross Gold]

So we were managing that. And to Andrea's point early on, this is the year that we've actually got the the, the tightest range between every single quarter. So we're gonna manage that and and manage the performance of each of those sites accordingly.

[Tanya Jakusconek, Director specializing in Gold & Precious Minerals at Scotiabank]

Okay. That's, that's good to hear. And maybe Andrea, just you didn't answer the question on what minimum cash do you think you need to hold on the balance sheet to run this 2,000,000 ounce business?

[Andrea Freeborough, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Kinross Gold]

It's

[Andrea Freeborough, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Kinross Gold]

I mean, typically we've had if we look back over the last number of years, our average cash balance has been about 500,000,000 you know, that's where we typically like to be. And some of that is just, you know, efficiently moving cash around the world. As a minimum. As a minimum.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

Right. But again, we are thinking about the future. We are thinking about those notes. And, again, Tanya, we're going to look for the right balance, if you will, on free cash flow as to return and continuing to strengthen the balance sheet.

[Tanya Jakusconek, Director specializing in Gold & Precious Minerals at Scotiabank]

No, yes, I appreciate that. Just wondered what that what you would feel comfortable on holding just for a 2,000,000 ounce business. If I could just continue maybe to, actually, Paul, for you, I'm just looking and listening to and thank you for that slide on Page 20, about your 2,000,000 ounce production profile till the end of the decade. I think that would assume you have La Quaipa and those additional, you know, pits, laybacks or whatever that gets you to the end of 02/1930, the end of the decade. When do you have Curlew in?

[Tanya Jakusconek, Director specializing in Gold & Precious Minerals at Scotiabank]

Like, is that a '28? Could we fit in? And I remember once conference calls would be about 100,000 ounces. Is that still feasible?

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

Yeah. No. I think you're right in the zone there, Tanya. When people have asked us in the past about how we will maintain the 2,000,000 ounces towards the end of the decade, I basically say, you know, there's four things, two of which we just keep doing what we're doing. That's we keep mining at Maquepa.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

We keep mining at at Bald Mountain. So that's the two that we keep doing. And there'll be two other things that are new that are new that we haven't been doing. And that is Curlew and Phase X. And as you've seen with the results on the drilling, they're moving along very nicely.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

We're really happy with how they're going. Will, why don't you talk a little bit about timing and how those how those come in?

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

Yeah. I think, you can see we've been expanding the resource at Curlew in a very positive way, which was the goal a couple of years ago. And we've gone to that point where we're more comfortable on the economics and the margins and returns. There is one main remaining permitting action that we've spoken about before, which is really just getting the permit to increase the height of the tailing storage facility when we convert to dry stack tailings. The rest of our permits are in place.

[William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services at Kinross Gold]

So that is a bit of a milestone permit in terms of controlling the timeline. After that, we've already you know, we're already at the ore body underground. We're already in a pretty good position to get into development fairly quickly. So we do you know we haven't released specific guidance yet but 2028 is a reasonable assumption on on how we go through that permitting and construction path.

[Tanya Jakusconek, Director specializing in Gold & Precious Minerals at Scotiabank]

Okay. And then how do you think about then external opportunities versus your internal opportunities? You've got a lot for a mine life extension and then obviously we've got Lobo Marte, Maricunga, you know, Great Bear, more coming in towards the end of the decade and into the 2030s. How do you look at your evaluate external opportunities? Would you say you're more focused on production versus development?

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

Thanks, Jacob. Look, I think the key here is we don't feel under pressure to go out and do anything necessarily to gain production immediately. We're very happy with our internal pipeline portfolio. You know, that that allows us to be patient and and really look for value, whether it's in an earlier stage or in a production. When I get the M and A question, which I get a lot, I mean, I think the history speaks a lot for what we have demonstrated in terms of discipline.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

I mean, really, if you go back and you look at what acquisitions have we done, in the last ten years, there's there's maybe three or four. You know, we did the round mountain vault back in 2015, bolt on, synergistic. We purchased some power plants in Brazil in 2018, you know, Manchow and Peak Gold in 2020. So we're very careful. We do look at external opportunities, but we have to see the value proposition.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

And if we do, we'll move forward. But, it's challenging sometimes to find those value opportunities. Great Bear, obviously, was the last time we did an external that was we, we purchased that in '22 and, we're extremely pleased. We would love to find more of those if they exist, but we're not we're not feeling under pressure to go out and do something just for the sake of maybe getting higher production.

[Tanya Jakusconek, Director specializing in Gold & Precious Minerals at Scotiabank]

I appreciate that. I just wondered if you thought, there's opportunities for you to add additional inventory like beyond 02/1930 whether that made sense for you.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

No, it's a good question. Yeah. I'm looking. I think, you know, when I when I sometimes get the question, you know, I'm not, say, worried about towards the end of the decade. When I'm thinking about the future of the company, we are we're thinking about mid-30s and beyond.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

And so that's kind of the timeline we're thinking about. So, yes, there's good opportunities to add what we think is quality to the inventory, we'll look at it. But it's quality. And again, I would say, you know, one of the advantages we've had over the last few years in terms of our cost structure is a lot of the newer stuff that we have brought on and and some of it and some of this is internal, whether it was the restart of La Coipa or the ramping up of the mill of Cassius. We've been bringing on quality, meaning better grades And those better grades have driven our margins, which has been a natural offset, some of the cost pressures, that maybe some, some others have faced.

[Tanya Jakusconek, Director specializing in Gold & Precious Minerals at Scotiabank]

Okay. If I could just squeeze one last question in for Jeff. Jeff, can you just give me an update on the two remaining permits that we require on the AES program and negotiations with First Nations, to First Nations, how that's going and what's the timeline of getting all of that?

[Geoff Gold, President at Kinross Gold]

Sure, Tanya. So, yeah. So let me, we'll we'll start with your ax question, if that's okay. You know, the two remaining permits that you're referring to, one is what we refer to as an industrial sewage treatment and construction permit, which we call it an ECA, which stands for environmental compliance approval. And, we don't obviously need that today, but we're we're we're targeting to get that sort of later in the in the spring.

[Geoff Gold, President at Kinross Gold]

And the second outstanding permit is is our operations permit to take water, which again, we don't require today, but we're we're targeting, the back half of 2025 later in 2025 for that particular permit. We have to be clear, we have everything we need for our current EX activities and have received four of those permits to date. On,

[Claude Schimper, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer at Kinross Gold]

on the,

[Geoff Gold, President at Kinross Gold]

First Nations question that you asked about, relations there are are very strong. I won't go into a lot of detail on that one, but we are in

[Andrea Freeborough, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Kinross Gold]

the midst

[Geoff Gold, President at Kinross Gold]

of negotiations with them on our on our project agreement or what's more commonly called an IVA. We've exchanged drafts. We've had economic discussions. That's going well. And we are, you know, we're sort of targeting the back half of twenty twenty five to get something done there.

[Geoff Gold, President at Kinross Gold]

And, last but not least, obviously, on the on the main project, we're in the midst of our federal permitting process there, which involves the filing of what we call an impact statement. And again, we're we're we're targeting, the backup of 2025 to get to get that done. Does that answer your questions, Tanya?

[Tanya Jakusconek, Director specializing in Gold & Precious Minerals at Scotiabank]

Just on the negotiation with First Nations, would it be safe to assume that all the negotiations are just sort of the the normal and classic, you know, items that are being done in in in other, you know, mining areas in the Red Lake District, let's say, that are normal to what's been already approved and done?

[Geoff Gold, President at Kinross Gold]

Yes. Yes. Yeah. We're yeah. We're there isn't yes.

[Geoff Gold, President at Kinross Gold]

We're not we're not sort of trailblazing here. We're, you know, you would expect to see the customary provisions that you would typically see in an IVA and we're discussing those in our negotiations.

[Tanya Jakusconek, Director specializing in Gold & Precious Minerals at Scotiabank]

Okay. Great. Thank you and good luck.

[Andrea Freeborough, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Kinross Gold]

Thanks, Daniel.

[Operator]

Thank you. And there are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn it back to Paul Rollinson for closing remarks.

[Paul Rollinson, CEO at Kinross Gold]

Great. Well, thanks operator. Thanks, everyone, for dialing in this morning. We look forward to catching up with you all in person in the coming weeks and months. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you, presenters. And ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• David Shaver, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development
• Paul Rollinson, CEO
• Andrea Freeborough, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
• Claude Schimper, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer
• William Dunford, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services
• Geoff Gold, President

Analysts

• Mike Parkin, Analyst at National Bank
• Anita Soni, Managing Director at CIBC Capital Markets
• Josh Wolfson, Director, Head of Global Mining Research at RBC Capital Markets
• Carey MacRury, Equity Research Analyst at Canaccord Genuity Group
• Lawson Winder, Analyst at Bank of America
• Tanya Jakusconek, Director specializing in Gold & Precious Minerals at Scotiabank