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Centerra Gold Inc. (CGAU)

Q4 2018 Earnings Call· Mon, Feb 25, 2019

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Centerra Gold 2018 Fourth Quarter and Year End Results Conference Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, Monday, February 25, 2019. I would now like to turn the conference over to John Pearson, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

John Pearson

Analyst

Thank you, Edison. I'd like to welcome everyone to Centerra Gold's 2018 fourth quarter and 2018 year end conference call. Today's call is open to all members of the investment community and media and summary slides are also available on Centerra Gold's website. Following the formal remarks, the operator will give the instructions for asking a question and we will then open the phone line to questions. Please note that all figures are in US dollars unless otherwise noted. Joining me on the call today is Scott Perry, President and Chief Executive Officer; Darren Millman, Chief Financial Officer; and joining us by phone remotely is Yousef Rehman, our General Counsel. I'd like to caution everyone that certain statements made on this call today may be forward-looking statements and as such, are subject to known and unknown risks, 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 of the non-GAAP measures in the combined news release and MD&A. And for a more detailed discussion of the material assumptions, risks and uncertainties, please refer to our news release and MD&A which were released on Friday evening along with the unaudited financial statements and notes and to our other filings, which all can be found on SEDAR and the company's website. So at this time, I will now turn the call over to Scott.

Scott Perry

Analyst

Okay. Thank you, John and good morning, ladies and gentlemen and thanks for joining our call. I'm just starting off on slide four of our accompanying presentation deck. As you can see on this slide, we're really looking to recognize some of the exemplary assets of our team at Öksüt. First and foremost, starting off with safety, the team continues to demonstrate great performance. We currently stand at 1.2 million hours of lost time incident pre operations, which is just an outstanding milestone for the project and the team, given that they're in the construction phase. Construction is progressing really well. Later on in this deck, we've got some images just to really demonstrate a lot of the activities taking place on surface, the various infrastructure and installations that - most importantly constructions exactly in line with schedule. We continue to put forward that this project will be delivered on time, on budget, which is fantastic. Obviously, it's going to be a key source of high quality, low cost production for Centerra and just absolutely paramount in terms of our strategy moving forward and continuing to diversify the company. In terms of the 2018 production result, you can see here in the third bullet point we've produced just under 730,000 ounces of gold, 47 million pounds of copper for the year relative to our guidance that exceeded the top end of guidance. So a very strong end to 2018. We saw that really resonate in terms of our low all-in sustaining costs for the year. Just referencing the fourth bullet point here, we actually finished the year at an all-in sustaining cost of $754 per ounce, which was actually $28 per ounce lower than our revised guidance. So again, a very strong finish to the year both, at both operations…

Darren Millman

Analyst

Thanks, Scott. Good morning, everyone. For those following on the slides, I'm now speaking to slide 12. Total revenue from operations during the quarter was 391 million, 247 million in gold sales in the quarter, attributable to the Kumtor operations, a 13% increase in ounces sold compared to the comparative year quarter. This however was offset by lower gold prices realized. 89 million was from copper gold sales from the Mount Milligan operations. The company sold 8% more gold ounces than in the comparative quarter and 13.6 million pounds of copper. However, these increases in gold and copper sales were offset by the decrease in copper market prices experienced in the quarter. Net earnings for the quarter was 49 million. There was no items classified as adjusting items recorded in the quarter, but I would highlight a 41.8 million reclamation expense. This was materially - attributable to the Thompson Creek mine currently on care and maintenance. The underlying expense for the water treatment at the Thompson Creek mine is over 100 for the period, with the initial water treatment capital expenditure of 6 million to be incurred in year 44 at an average operating expenses to range from 0.3 million to 1.4 million over the long term. The earnings was $0.17 per share, which included reclamation charge of $0.14 cents per share. On a consolidated level, Centerra realized gold prices during the quarter of 1157 per ounce and 1190 per ounce in the prior year quarter. Copper during the same period was $1.76 per pound and 223 per pound, both net of the streams. I'm now referring to slide 13. 269,754 ounces of gold was sold during the quarter and 13.6 million pounds of copper. Consolidated all-in sustaining costs of $576 per ounce was achieved in the quarter and Kumtor recording an all-in sustaining cost of $508 per ounce with Mount Milligan recording an all-in sustaining cost of $689 per ounce. Consolidated all in sustaining costs for the year was 754 per ounce with Kumtor recording all-in sustaining of 694 with Mount Milligan recording all-in sustaining of 764. Our operating cash flow before changes in working capital during the quarter was 157 million. Another strong finish for the year from Kumtor with $144 million coming from the operations and 28 million coming from Mount Milligan operations. The molybdenum business unit incurring a 3 million cash outflow in the quarter. This strong free cash flow has enabled us to reduce debt by 105 million in the year and at year end, with a net debt position of 46 million. The company remains in a very strong financial position with 641 million in liquidity and comfortably funding to develop of the Öksüt project. With that, I'll pass it over to the operator to open up Q&A.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Bryce Adams at CIBC.

Bryce Adams

Analyst

So you've spoken about rescheduling the mine sequencing at Kumtor, the grade profile was very strong in Q4. I was just wondering if there's any chance of that high grade zone and as high grade rolling into the early part of 2019.

Scott Perry

Analyst

Yeah. Hi, Bryce. It's Scott. I think we have - looking at our guidance, from memory, we were guiding about 28% of the gold production in 2019 will be in Q4. And then if you think about Q1, Q2, Q3, the remaining portion of the gold production will be evenly distributed over those quarters. So, yes, we are seeing some of the higher grade material that we've established access to, you will see some of that coming into Q1. So, I think it's going to be a robust quarter. Our guidance is for gold production of up to 565,000 ounces. If you kind of take the midpoint of our production guidance, and then take 21% of that, that's kind of where we're targeting in Q1.

Bryce Adams

Analyst

Okay. But if the first three quarters were not to be uniform, probably there is potential for Q1 to be the kicker?

Scott Perry

Analyst

No. I think the way we're managing it is it'll be evenly distributed. So, I would guide you to 21% of the annual gold rush target being in Q1.

Bryce Adams

Analyst

Okay. And then the second question would be on recoveries, gold recoveries at Kumtor and gold recoveries at Mount Milligan, both pretty strong result there. Just wondering if you could talk to that a little bit more?

Scott Perry

Analyst

Yeah. So at both operations, it's really attributable to the high grade, but especially so at Kumtor. If you've had a chance to look at our MD&A, you would have seen the grade was very high, very strong in Q4 and typically a lot of milling operations in terms of the recovery leach curve, it's generally a fixed tail grade. So when that fee grade is higher, you tend to see the higher recovery. So that's predominantly what's driving that growth at Kumtor. At Mount Milligan, as you point out, we had high recoveries as well, on the gold, we're averaging around 67% and a lot of what that's attributable to is the lower throughput. So yeah, we're running the mill at a slower speed, but as a result, you're getting a lot more retention time in terms of the back end of the circuit and that facilitates stronger recoveries. So that would be the key theme there in Q4.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from the line of Mike Parkin with National Bank.

Mike Parkin

Analyst · National Bank.

Just a couple of ones related to the water treatment comments in the press release, for the Thompson Creek and the Endako, obviously we've got a figure for Thompson Creek, can you just give us a bit more color on how that is to kind of flow over the next 10 years in terms of expenditures, is there more heavy waiting or is it kind of a consistent spend on a go forward basis and you mentioned that you're reviewing your long Term water treatment at Endako, can you give us a bit more color on that as well?

Darren Millman

Analyst · National Bank.

So thanks, Mike. It's Darren here. So basically the Thompson Creek mine expecting expenditures to be at similar levels as we've incurred 2018 into 2019 and that to continue in the short to medium term. As I referred to in the MD&A and the financial statements, we're not really expecting significant expenditure to be increasing for reclamation cost at the Thompson Creek mine until year 44 in which we incur approximately 6 million for the water treatment. And then the operating expenditure will then take an increase, ranging between 300,000 up to 1.4 million, so, that's very much down the track. Endako, we view actually all our reclamation expenditures on an annual basis. At the moment, we're in discussions and with the relevant local authorities, and it's more from a bonding perspective is our focus. So what we're required to establish the financial assurance purposes, we don't expect the same potential increase or there could be potentially a decrease in Endako, given we are sort of remediating that on a regular basis, so that we raised obviously in the BC government perspective, has been a push for additional water requirements. So it's a difficult one to answer on that piece, but we're not expecting anything material to the same level we recently experienced at Thompson Creek.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And there would appear to be no further questions on the telephone lines.

Scott Perry

Analyst

With that, we'll end the call then. I want to thank everyone for joining us this morning on our call and we'll end it now. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

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