Greetings and welcome to the Centerra Gold 2020 third quarter results conference call and webcast. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we’ll conduct a question and answer session. At that time, if you have a question, please press the one followed by the four on your telephone. If at any time during the conference you need to reach an operator, please press star, zero. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded Wednesday, November 4, 2020. I would now like to turn the conference over to John Pearson, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you Operator. Welcome everyone to Centerra Gold’s third quarter results conference call. Summary slides are available on Centerra Gold’s website to accompany each of the speakers’ remarks. Today’s call is open to all members of the investment community and media in listen-only mode. Following the formal remarks, the Operator will give the instructions for asking of questions, and then we will open the phone lines to questions. Please note that all figures are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. As we continue to work remotely, joining me on the call today is Scott Perry, President and Chief Executive Officer; Darren Millman, Chief Financial Officer; Dan Desjardins, Chief Operating Officer, and Yousef Rehman, our General Counsel. I would also like to caution everyone that certain statements made today may be forward-looking statements and as such are subject to known and unknown risks which may cause our actual results to differ from those expressed or implied. Also, certain of these measures we will discuss today are non-GAAP measures. Please refer to the description of non-GAAP measures in our news release and MD&A issued this morning. For a more detailed discussion of the material assumptions, risks and uncertainties, please refer to our news release and MD&A, along with the financial statements and notes and our other filings, all of which can be found on SEDAR and the company’s website at centerragold.com. Now I’ll turn the call over to Scott.

Thanks John, and good day everyone. I trust everyone is safe and well. As John mentioned, I’m going to be referencing accompanying summary slides which are available on our website, and I’m just starting off on Slide No. 5. Just with regards to each of these bullet points, the first bullet point here, through the quarter, throughout the year-to-date period, obviously a primary focus has been on our work safe, home safe safety leadership program. One of the key highlights during the quarter, which Dan will mention, is at Oksut, our newest operating mine, we actually achieved a key milestone whereby we’ve now achieved 3 million hours of consecutive lost time incident-free operations. That was a fantastic milestone, so I just want to commend the management operating team there. Likewise in regards to the COVID-19 pandemic, t his was a primary focus as well just in terms of the wellbeing of all of our employees. We’ve put in place a number of preventative measures and protocols, as well as following the various public health measures, and to the best of our knowledge each of our properties continues to be virus free and we haven’t seen any meaningful impact in terms of our production or productivity levels. In terms of the second bullet point here, a key focus for us is our social license. We can see we’ve now achieved a consecutive period of 87 months without interruption. In terms of environmental, there was no environmental incidents during the quarter, but we did have a biodiversity incident at our Kemess property in British Columbia which was associated with the mortality of some migratory birds. The Canadian Wildlife Services investigation concluded that our team took all the appropriate actions, including immediately notifying the authorities and implementing a corrective action policy. Fourth bullet…

Thanks Scott. Good morning everybody. Please move to Slide 10. In Q3, we had good safety and operational performance. Of note, our new operation, Oksut, hit 1.5 years or 3 million man hours LTI-free, and Endako hit a milestone of seven years LTI-free. Centerra continues to prioritize the health, safety and wellbeing of our employees, contractors, communities and other stakeholders during this current outbreak of COVID-19 and to take steps to minimize the effect of the pandemic on our business. We have established strict COVID-19 protocols at our mine sites to help prevent infection and reduce the potential transmission of the virus. In addition, the operating mine sites continue to assess our resilience of our supply chain. We increased our inventories of our key materials and developed and implemented contingency plans to allow for continued operations. On the production front, we had another strong quarter, producing the 241,484 ounces of gold and 23.3 million pounds of copper at an all-in sustaining cost of $528 per ounce sold. Kumtor and Milligan are running steadily, but notable was the 51,412 ounces produced at Oksut in the quarter. At our world class operation, Kumtor, the plant operated uninterrupted for the quarter and continues to produce with ore feed from the stockpile. Q3 production was 140,000 ounces poured at an all-in sustaining cost of $639 an ounce. Mine operations was affected by community spread COVID and there was a significant shortage of operators for our mobile equipment in the quarter. Mine waste tonnage was also lower due to the longer hauls to Central Valley waste dump and of course the driver availability, but the Lysii waste dump permit was approved and received in late July and construction and preparation of the haul roads was completed in the quarter. We started dumping waste rock at…

Morning all, thanks Dan. For those following on the slide deck, I’m on Slide 15. Centerra recorded $515 million in revenue during the quarter. This consisted of $430 million in gold sales, $53 million in copper sales, and $32 million from the Milligan business unit. During the quarter, the company’s average gold price realized was $1,807 per ounce and $2.43 per pound of copper. In the quarter, we sold 238,000 ounce of gold, 142,000 ounces attributable to Kumtor and 45,000 ounces from Mount Milligan, and 51,000 ounces of gold from the new Oksut mine. We sold 21.7 million pounds of copper, a slight decrease compared to the prior year quarter. Now on Slide 16, net earnings of $205.7 million was recorded in this quarter. This included $169 million contributed from the Kumtor operation, a 41% increase compared to the prior year quarter; $48.2 million contributed from the Mount Milligan operations, an 83% increase compared to the prior year quarter, and importantly $71.2 million contributed from Oksut, our new operations. The earnings per share for the quarter was $0.70. From a consolidated cost perspective, Centerra in the quarter recorded production costs of $386 per ounce and an all-in sustaining cost of $528 per ounce. At an asset level, Kumtor reported all-in sustaining costs of $639 per ounce while Mount Milligan reported an all-in sustaining cost of $165 per ounce for the quarter. I would highlight at Mount Milligan, mining and milling costs decreased by 19% and 10% respectively compared to the prior year quarter. For its first full quarter of commercial production, Oksut reported all-in sustaining cost of $416 per ounce. At all operations, we have recorded a significant betterment in cash provided by operations. Kumtor recorded $208 million in cash from operations, a $194 million increase; Mount Milligan recorded $70…

Thanks Darren. Just to wrap our prepared remarks, just on Slide 19 in terms of the top left section here, some of the key bullet points I want to reiterate. Again, you can see in terms of our gold production guidance, we continue to guide up to 820,000 ounces of gold this year. As I mentioned earlier, I think this is a conservatively balanced level of guidance. We haven’t made any change to our guidance since we first put it out at the beginning of this year, again just being cognizant of the heightened uncertainty from a global perspective with regards to the COVID-19 pandemic, and as we’ve spoken to, we have reduced our all-in sustaining costs, just reflecting the strong year-to-date position. Just in terms of our production levels, I think we’re certainly targeting the upper level of that guidance at each of our operations as well. Second bullet point, you’ve seen a continued run on very strong operating momentum that’s just carried over from quarter to quarter, and it continued in Q3 with our company-wide gold output being in excess of 240,000 ounces of gold, and again that high level gold output in terms of the corresponding all-in sustaining cost result, the quarterly result of $528 per ounce is our lowest o the year-to-date period. Obviously that makes for significant margins, just given the elevated gold price that we’re in, and you can see that in the fourth bullet point - again, a record quarter in terms of our company-wide free cash flow of $281 million. The balance sheet is growing and is strong, again finishing the quarter with $484 million, and that’s a net cash position just given that we don’t have any corporate debt outstanding. Again, just in terms of shareholder-friendly initiative, as I and Darren spoke to, the board did again declare a quarterly dividend of CAD $0.05 per share. Then just lastly, if you look t the chart down at the bottom, I spoke to this in my opening remarks, but look at Centerra’s business and our fundamentals, I think they’re very well positioned, growing, as you can see here, over the year-to-date period at all of our operations. We continue to generate meaningful levels of positive free cash flow, so hopefully key takeaway here, what certainly excites myself is Oksut, the third chart here, our newest mine. I think this is certainly positioned to be an important third source of high quality, low cost production, and that’s going to bode really well just in terms of Centerra’s go-forward fundamentals. With that, I thank everyone for joining us and their attention, and I’d now like to pass the call over to Dana, our operator, and Dana will move us into the Q&A session. Dana, please?

[Operator instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Mark Mihaljevic with RBC. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks. Good morning guys, and excellent quarter of cash flow here. To start off with Kumtor, I guess you mentioned mining rates have been impacted by the longer hauls and workforce availability. Can you just give us a sense of how we should be, A, thinking about that in the medium term, and then two, at what point do you need to--would that start impacting the production outlook? Obviously you’ve had--you’ve got pretty good stockpiles there for now and the 2020 output is pretty locked in, but when you think into ’21, at what point do you really need to start getting direct ore out of the pits to keep the production profile up?

Thanks Mark. Dan, would you like to respond to that?

I certainly can, Scott. Thanks Mark, very good question. Obviously we’ve reset ourselves to make sure that we have the proper ore feed to the mill. We’ve been working on our life of mine update, which is not quite ready to release, so what we’re looking at for next year is production numbers very similar to our previous life of mine update. What we’ve done is obviously we’ve reset. We are now mining at or above the updated forecast, internal forecast, but I don’t think we’re prepared to put out guidance for next year yet, but we are looking at similar to the old 43-101. I think with the longer hauls that we will have, our mining costs would have been a little bit higher than historic, but with lower fuel costs countering that and the favorable exchange rate, we are seeing costs approximately about the same per ton going forward.

And Mark, just from my perspective, I just want to add, as you probably know and I think was implied in your question, all of this year’s gold production is already sitting on surface in stockpile, as well as the first nine months of next year is pretty much all stockpile inventory, so as Dan already mentioned, when we look at next year’s gold production profile, and we’re now in budget cycle as we speak, we’re seeing a level of gold production that’s very similar to what was in the 2021 year in the old 43-101, which from memory was around 517,000 ounces, so it’s not going to be too dissimilar to what we were previously forecasting to the 2021 year.

Perfect, that’s helpful there. Continuing with Kumtor, obviously a lot of changes in the country over the past, I guess, [indiscernible] months. Can you give us an update on how you’re thinking about investments in the country during the uncertain transition period that were in right now, and also just a quick one, can you give us the cash balance in country in Kyrgyzstan?

Yes, so in terms of the situation in Kyrgyzstan right now, I think in all honesty, Mark, we’re just doing what we do best, which is just putting our heads down and just focusing on optimizing the operations at the mine, focusing on maximizing production. You’ve probably heard me speak to this before - we just want to make sure that we’re always being a good steward of the asset. We don’t pay income tax in the country, we pay a gross revenue tax, so if we’re maximizing our production levels, that means we’re maximizing our tax contribution to the government, and I think more than ever that’s a sensitivity within the country because, not too dissimilar to other jurisdictions around the world, they have taken an economic hit in terms of their economy contracting, so we’re just putting our heads down and just staying below the radar screen and not looking to be a part of the political narrative. If anything, I think in terms of the country’s leadership, one big sensitivity is obviously the continued operations at Kumtor, just given that we are the largest tax contributor in country. With regards to investments in country, I mentioned earlier on the previous question we’re in our budget cycle right now. We’ve had a lot of success with our exploration program - we’ve reported on that previously. In terms of our go-forward exploration budget, we’re always success driven and so we were actually discussing with the board yesterday, we’re contemplating a similar sized exploration program next year in country, and I think that’s likely to be approved when we go through our budget cycle in December. I’m giving you a long answer, Mark, but in terms of the business environment, we’re very comfortable investing in the assets and obviously continuing to enjoy the economic benefits.

Mark, it’s Darren here. Just on the final point you had on the cash balance in country, so the set-up we have is that all cash receipts from gold sales are deposited into a New York bank account, so it actually doesn’t flow into country, and we just simply disburse our local requirement needs locally, so that range is $15 million to $20 million at any one time, so minimal cash is in the subsidiary.

Okay, perfect. Yes, that’s helpful clarification. Then finally from me, obviously huge free cash flow in the quarter. You did sound a little more cautious in the dividend press release, just given obviously COVID uncertainties and dialing in your life of mine updates and budgeting, so should we expect an update on--you know, additional capital allocation update or potential more capital returns with full year results, or do you think it will take you a little longer just to get that confidence and clarity before you’d make another decision?

I think first and foremost, I’d have to say it’s a board decision when it comes to our level of dividend distribution. We had a lot of discussion around that yesterday at our board meeting, and I think we’ll be discussing it again at our next board meeting, which is in December, which is again to approve our budget for next year. I think it’s just going to be a standing agenda item at each of our upcoming board meetings here in the short term, and that’s probably as much as I can say, Mark. I just don’t want to get ahead of the board. But as you saw in our press release, there has been heightened uncertainty this year in regards to the pandemic, and then more recently in regards to the political changeover and leadership in country in Kyrgyzstan, but I think as soon as we have good visibility and a good line of sight on these items, then I think that will be an ongoing discussion with the board.

Okay, perfect. That’s it for me. I’ll jump back in the queue. Thanks guys.

Our next question comes from the line of Mike Parkin with National Bank. Please go ahead.

Thanks guys. Congrats on the really strong quarter. A few questions here. One, you mentioned the life of mine update on Kumtor just tracking a little bit behind what you were originally planning. Should we still expect that to come out in the fourth quarter, or will that maybe roll into 2021?

Yes Mike, it’s Scott. It’s hard for me to gauge that. There is some follow-up technical work that Dan and his engineering team are working on, and in terms of timeline, I would say at the latest I would expect that we’d be in a position to hopefully publish it before the end of February, the reason being that’s when we typically always report our year-end reserves and resources of all of our operations, so I think in terms of our--you know, at the latest that would be our targeted publishing date.

Okay. It doesn’t seem like it’s the case, but has there been any discussion with the interim Kyrgyz PM since him taking power?

No, as of today, there has not been any direct discussions with the interim prime minister of the interim president. They haven’t reached out to us, and likewise we haven’t reached out to them. As I mentioned when I was responding to Mark’s question, we’re just focusing on what we do best.

Okay. What about some of your ESG initiatives in terms of support with local peoples with respect to COVID-19? Is there any heightened increase to communicate that work that you’ve been doing in country as a good steward?

Dan, do you want to speak to that, just because I know you were personally leading some of those initiatives with your team?

Well, certainly I think it was--it’s very telling to the--you know, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and there was a lot of upheaval in the country, obviously yet our local region and our local people that we deal with certainly did not take any aggressive stance against Kumtor. We have a lot of programs, especially lately. We’ve modified them because of COVID, so we’ve done some very local donations and contributing to the medical supplies in the immediate region, and we also contributed a large fund to the central government so that they can be more prepared. But we’ve had robust community initiatives and we’ve really focused on our environmental stewardship and transparency for years, and it really came to rest during this upheaval because we were seen really almost as the only mining company that was not affected by the political turmoil.

Great. Just switching over to Oksut, it’s obviously had a brilliant ramp-up. The mining costs are looking quite impressive there relative to what was in the technical study. Should we read into that, that that’s sustainable possibly on lower fuel and favorable FX rates there as well, or is it more just you’re in the upper portions of the mine and maybe it’s a little easier mining to start with? How should we think about the performance?

Dan, do you want to answer that?

Yes, again we have a long term contract with our mining contractor, as indicated in our life of mine plans. There’s no reason to think--this isn’t typical like a Kumtor, a deep open pit. We’re more on the edge of a valley, so our rates should stay similar. You hit the two key things - fuel and FX and just depending on what happens with those, but at this time it is reflecting in very [indiscernible].

Okay. On that, is it you purchase and supply the fuel, or is that through the contractor as well and is that were the benefit kind of flows?

Yes, it’s contractual. He manages his own fuel, but we have benefit within the pricing of the contract, depending on his pricing.

All right, that’s great. Then with Oksut, great expectations for Q4. Should we expect something similar to Q3 or starting to move into lower grade as early as this quarter?

I think what I’d guide you towards, Mike, is we’re targeting the top end of guidance at Oksut, and obviously you saw what we’ve done year to date - 67,000 ounces, so you can kind of calculate from there in terms of your modeling.

Okay. Then with Mount Milligan too, you’ve got impressive costs. You’re benefiting from ample water supply, turning off some of the pumping requirements. Can we read into any reserve upside there by potentially lowering cut-off grade and bringing in some lower grade tons?

Dan, do you want to respond to that?

Certainly. As you know, we did update our life of mine plan only a year ago. We’re obviously looking at that carefully, and any time you have robust costs or get a more consistent higher throughout in the mill, it will have a positive effect. We are studying that, along with a few other initiatives that we have. At this time, we’re not prepared to go forward with a longer life of mine, but certainly that is one of our key goals, is to run as efficiently as possible on the cost side and on the production side, with the goal that it’s a large resource there. Also, Dennis and his team continue to explore in the area to get better definition and understanding of what is available, but at this time we’re not updating our life of mine.

Okay. Maybe another way also to look at it, too, is as you come across lower grade material that in that life of mine plan is modeled as a waste block, but given superior metal prices, beneficial cost structure, does that get brought into the mill plan on a--whatever, week by week, month by month basis, given that it’s there and you can take advantage of it, and do you stick to a more conservative budget scenario and put it to a waste pile?

The set-up at Mount Milligan is much of our waste goes to building the tailings dam. If it is mineralized waste, potential asset generating, then it has to go within the tailings pond. We only have limited ability to stockpile, but right now we’re just working on a--the best way to look at it is a smaller footprint, so our strip ratio is still about the same and there wouldn’t be that much ore or potential sub-grade ore at this time. But as we see our efficiencies in our cost structure change, you would have a bigger footprint than that, so that’s where you would come across greater ore.

Okay, great. That’s it for me, guys. Thanks so much.

Our next question comes from the line of Fahad Tariq with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my two questions. First on the production guidance, you maintained it for the year, which suggests lower production in Q4, but just following up on Mike’s question on grade, maybe talk a little bit about what grades you’re seeing at Kumtor and Oksut in October. I’m just trying to get a sense of how to bridge it, because even the high end of the full year guidance would suggest there’s quite a substantial drop quarter over quarter on production. Thanks.

Dan, how should we respond to that? I mean, we’re targeting the upper end of the gold production guidance at Kumtor, and in terms of throughput rates, etc, I think we’re seeing a continued level quarter over quarter. I think really, Fahad, we’re just guiding you to back calculate from there what the grade would be. Dan, anything you want to add to that?

We’re feeding from the stockpile, so we do have some flexibility, but I don’t think we’ve got that specific on ore guidance, certainly at Kumtor.

Okay, no problem. My only other question was on the balance sheet - obviously very strong, you’re almost at $500 million of cash now. Is there a minimum cash balance that you’re targeting before you would feel more comfortable on the dividend or anything else in terms of capital allocation?

Darren? I don’t think there really is. We’re just--when we look at our profile moving forward, we had our strategy session with the board back in September and we just see year-over-year, we’re going to be generating meaningful free cash flow, so it’s not like there’s a minimum cash balance that we require. We’re not building anything, there’s no growth projects moving ahead, we’re really just focusing on maximizing our existing operations. Darren, is there anything that you want to add to that?

No. As I said, we’re going into this budgeting cycle and I think that will give us that medium term picture, but once again we’ll have a lot more thinking and thought around that, to your question. But right now, the board has got a limit or a number in mind.

Okay, thank you. That’s it for me.

Our next question comes from the line of Anita Soni with CIBC World Markets. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning Scott, Dan and Darren. Just a question with regards to the capital that was not spent at Kumtor this quarter. Is it safe to assume it will get pushed into next year?

Dan, do you want to take that?

Yes, again a majority of that is deferred mining tons. We have a limit on how much we can mine in terms of shovel equipment - we have 13 shovels, so those tons will be into next year, but we only have the ability to move between 180 million and 200 million tons per year. There won’t be an excess for next year, it’s more a shifting of the access to the ore, and we’re updating all our plans to reflect that going into stockpile.

Okay, and then in terms of the actual stockpile level at Oksut, can you tell me how many tons and at what grade it sits at right now?

Yes, we have that in one of our write-ups. I don’t know how specific--. In terms of ore stockpile, we have approximately a million tons in stockpile, and we have about 300,000 tons crushed. It’s all in that average pit grade, but we don’t really give that specific guidance in terms of the exact grading of that and when we would place it.

Okay, and then just looking at the capital expenditures for next year, so far you’re tracking pretty well on the Kumtor technical report that you had put out previously for 2020. You mentioned that the production would be similar than the old technical report for 2021. Would the capital similarly also have a drop-off from the prior technical report, or would that be revised with the new technical report that’s coming out?

I think--sorry, go ahead, Dan.

No, I was going to say that there would be some changes versus--that technical report is quite old, so. But go ahead, Scott.

I was just going to say, Dan, I think Anita, in the 2021 year in the draft technical report, we’re most likely envisioning some addition to our mining equipment fleet, just given that the mine life is expanding meaningfully. When you think about the useful life of--you know, the composition of our existing fleet, the current trucks, etc, they won’t last the entire mine life, just given the meaningful increase, so we’re probably going to be taking advantage of upgrading some of those trucks, so there will be a capital item. But the quantum of that capital item, I think is insignificant relative to the level of cash flow that the mine does produce on a yearly basis.

Okay, thank you. That’s it for my questions.

We have no further questions at this time.

Over to you, John.

Very good. Thank you everyone for joining our call today. If there are further questions, please reach out to us. At that point in time, we’ll end the call. Thank you.

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