Earnings Labs

Centerra Gold Inc. (CGAU)

Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Fri, Feb 26, 2016

$18.00

-4.33%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+0.00%

1 Week

+4.64%

1 Month

-14.10%

vs S&P

-19.70%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Centerra Gold 2015 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Results. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, Thursday, February 25, 2016. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. John Pearson, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

John Pearson

Analyst

Thank you very much. I would like to welcome everyone to Centerra Gold's fourth quarter and 2015 year-end conference call. Today's conference call is open to all members of the investment community and to media. After our formal remarks, the operator will give the instructions for asking a question and we will open the phone lines to the questions. Please note, that all figures are in U.S. dollars, unless otherwise noted. So joining me on the call today is Scott Perry, Chief Executive Officer; Frank Herbert, President; Jeff Parr, Chief Financial Officer; and Gordon Reid, Chief Operating Officer. As well I have Darren Millman with us he is our VP Finance and Treasurer and Darren is being promoted to CFO in April upon Jeff’s retirement at the end of March. Also, I would like to caution everyone that certain statements made on this call maybe forward-looking statements and as such are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied. Also, certain of the measures we will discuss today are non-GAAP measures. And I refer you to our description and definition of non-GAAP measures in the news release and the MD&A. For a more detailed discussion of the material assumptions, risks and uncertainties please refer to our news release that was issued last night, as well as the MD&A and the audited financial statements and notes, and to our other filings, all of which can be found on SEDAR and the Company's website. So at this point in time, I will turn the call over to Scott.

Scott Perry

Analyst

Okay. Thank you, John, and good morning ladies and gentlemen and thank you for joining us today. Like we do in most of our meetings we want to begin with safety in terms of this call. We’re going to walk you through our results today for 2015 we had an excellent year in 2015 both operationally, both financially but as we came into 2016 we’re up to very disappointing start. Those of you who know the Company you may have seen our press release on January 24, where we had tragic event that result in a loss of life of one of our employees at Kumtor. The Company is deeply saddened by these events our condolences with the family and we are doing everything we can to help our employees and the families involved. I wanted to just put forward though that philosophically as a company we recognize that we live or die by our geology if you will by our ore bodies. But our most important asset is our people. The geology, the ore body, the assets are not worth much if you don’t have the people to develop them. With this tragic event we made a firm commitment that we’ll be re-tooling and doubling down on safety myself and behalf of Management and behalf of the Board of Directors Centerra will be rolling out a new safety leadership program and more than anything we’ll be looking to create leaders in safety at every level in the organization. We recognized that we need to do better than this and we [indiscernible] I just repeat it so and most importantly we need to make sure we’re safeguarding our biggest asset which is our people. Moving on to the operational results 2015 was a very strong year in terms of execution…

Gordon Reid

Analyst

Thanks Scott. As Scott mentioned, we have performed our annual guidance for both gold production and unit costs. Kumtor produced 131,000 ounces of gold in the fourth quarter as we expected. For the full-year Kumtor produced 521,000 ounces of gold at an all-in sustaining cost of $731 per ounce sold outperforming our revised guidance on both measures and generated net cash of $158 million. Kumtor implemented several cost and productivity improvements during the year including reducing the workforce by 10%, the effect of which won’t be fully realized until 2016, completing modification to the mill which by year-end improved recovery and throughput and by improving blending techniques to better manage the preg-robbing characteristic of the mill feed. Kumtor also benefited from the decline in global oil prices that resulted in lower cost for diesel fuel and from the depreciation [indiscernible] we saw on another currencies versus the U.S. dollar that favorably impacted the cost of labor and other consumables. During the fourth quarter operating cost at Kumtor decreased by $16 million to $47 million as compared to the fourth quarter of 2014 reflecting lower mining, milling and site support costs. In the quarter total consumable costs were down 32% including a 39% reduction in diesel fuel costs and a 12% reduction in labor costs. For the full-year operating costs were $23 million lower than 2014 with 18% lower mining cost, 9% lower milling cost and 18% of lower site support costs. Unit mining cost for the year $1.24 per tonne mine benefiting from the lower diesel fuel prices, reduced labor cost and favorable currency exchange rates. We expect these cost trends to continue in 2016. At year-end Kumtor added 164,000 net ounces to the proven and probable reserves before accounting for 2015 depletion. In 2016, we estimate that the Kumtor mine will produce between 480,000 and 530,000 ounces of gold with production weighted to the second half of the year as we access the higher grade portion of the SB Zone in the third quarter. Kumtor is expecting all-in sustaining costs for 2016 to be in the range of $817 to $902 per ounce sold. Boroo also outperformed guidance in 2015 by producing over 16,000 ounces of gold at a below guidance all-in sustaining cost per ounce, primarily due to lower diesel costs, lower reagent costs and lower labor costs. We discontinue cyanide of the heap leach pad and we will rinse the pad this year as we transition the heap leach facility to closure. On a consolidated basis Centerra produced 537,000 ounces at all-in sustaining cost per ounce sold of $814 per ounce. I’ll now turn it over to Jeff to talk about the financials.

Jeffrey Parr

Analyst

Thanks Gordon. Good morning everyone. On a consolidated basis, our fourth quarter revenue of $148 million reflects 55% fewer ounces sold compared to the same quarter of last year if the production wasn’t abated as much to the end of the year in 2015 as it was in 2014. Our average realized gold price was $1,098 which was 8% lower than the 11-99 achieved in the fourth quarter of 2014. During the quarter we posted a net loss of $3 million or $0.01 after reflecting the $27 million or $0.11 per share inventory impairment charge at Kumtor that Scott mentioned. And I might just spend a minute to talk about this. As a result of the design and cut-back 17 it hit lower grade ore earlier than previous cut-backs. The accounting impact to this that we have to stop capitalizing cost as stripping and put the cost instead to inventory. So the end of the reporting period you have lower grade ounces in the inventory carrying a lot of costs. This is what causes the impairment. The important thing to note here is that the costs have not gone up, in fact as Gord noted they have down. It’s just the reallocation of cost from the capitalized stripping to inventory. And if you could look at cut-back 17 in its entirety is obviously very profitable. We expect to hit the higher grade ore at the bottom of the pit later in the third quarter. For the full-year we recorded net earnings of $42 million or $0.18 a share, this reflects the $27 million inventory impairment along with the non-cash impairment charge of $19 million for goodwill at Kumtor that we recorded in the third quarter. In 2016, our outlook for capital expenditures is expected to be $269 million, which includes $85 million of sustaining capital and $184 million of growth capital, which is mostly related to the construction of Öksüt. Most importantly the Company continues to generate good cash flow with cash provided from operations of about $47 million or $0.20 a share in the quarter and as Scott mentioned $334 million or $1.41 for the year. In 2015, Centerra generated cash of $158 million from the Kumtor operations and we used just over $100 million for project development including the acquisition of the Greenstone Partnership exploration and other business development activities. Centerra continues to focus on optimizing operations and reducing costs. Our cash flow remains positive and the balance sheet is very healthy was about $542 million at the end of the year. And as Scott mentioned, we renewed our revolving credit facility with EBRD for $150 million for five years. So with that, I will turn it back to Scott to wrap up.

Scott Perry

Analyst

Okay. Thanks Jeff. Just a few comments in summary and really more from a 2016 outlook perspective. Gord mentioned in his commentary this calendar year we expect to produce 480,000 to 530,000 ounces of gold production. We except this to come in at a companywide all-in sustaining cost range of $877 to $968 per ounce. As we demonstrated in 2015 we think this level of production profile and associated cost structure will continue to result in profitable production and robust cash flow margins. Therein we should be in excellent shape to continue internally, funding our business plan and our business model. The strong financial position is important as we have three late stage development projects that we are moving forward and looking to add considerable value on it. Just quickly by a way of update on the project pipeline I will start with the Öksüt Project. Öksüt is a leading development project in Turkey. I think they are progressing very well. We secure the environmental impact assessment approval last November and we have now applied for our land used permits. Currently working on the detailed engineering and procurement of contractors and equipment is well underway, so once we get the necessary permits in place, our team can pretty much immediately get started on the ground in terms of entering into the construction phase. In Mongolia, Parliament just recently passed the resolution setting the state ownership interest in Gatsuurt. We have agreed with Government of Mongolia the state ownership will be replaced with a special royalty of 3%. This now allows Centerra to focus on finalizing the deposit development and investment agreements on the Gatsuurt Project. We are looking forward to advancing Gatsuurt and we are going to update the existing technical and economic studies on the project and undertake a program of exploration drilling and additional technical and hydrogeological drilling in support of the eventual project development here in Gatsuurt. Just lastly at the Greenstone project, we remain on track to complete the feasibility study in the middle of this year. Obviously it is a very important project to Centerra as well as our partner. This is probably one of the largest undeveloped open-pit gold deposits here in Canada, obviously with the prevailing Canadian dollar sort of denominated gold price environment, it’s demonstrating a lot of optionality in terms of this project moving forward and the potential value to the status here and that’s something that we look forward to showcasing with the pending feasibility. Just lastly, as we announced yesterday Centerra has maintained its dividend and CAD$0.04 per share for the quarter which are the current prevailing share price represents a peer-leading annualized dividend yield of approximately 2.2%. With that, really concludes our prepared remarks. So what we’ll do here is open the call for questions. And I guess with that operator if I can pass it over to you.

Q -

Analyst

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And there appear to be no questions at this time sir.

Scott Perry

Analyst

Okay. Thank you, operator. If there should be any questions after the call, please feel free to reach out to John Pearson, our VP of Investor Relations or any other members of the management team. And with that, we’ll conclude the call and thank you everyone for your participation.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude the conference call for today. We thank you for you participation, and ask that you please disconnect your lines.