Earnings Labs

Eldorado Gold Corporation (EGO)

Q1 2017 Earnings Call· Fri, Apr 28, 2017

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Mike and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Eldorado Gold Corporation First Quarter Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] I will now turn the call over to George Burns, President and CEO, you may begin your conference.

George Burns

Analyst

Thank you, operator, and good morning and welcome to our 2017 first quarter financial and operating results call. I'm excited to be here as a new President and CEO of Eldorado Gold, as of this morning. With me here in Vancouver I have Paul Skayman, Chief Operating Officer; Fabiana Chubbs, Chief Financial Officer and Krista Muhr, our Vice President of Investor Relations. We have provided detailed financial and operational information in the press release that went out yesterday evening. Before I begin, I want to remind you that any projections and objectives included in our discussion today are likely to involve risks, which are detailed in our 2016 AIF and in the forward-looking statement disclaimer at the end of the news release. As I stated yesterday at our Annual General Meeting, I took this job as I admire the work that Paul Wright and his team have accomplished over the years. I also see tremendous opportunity for growth based on our internal project pipeline. I visited our assets in Greece last month, and I must say that I was particularly impressed with the quality of work that is going into our development projects there. Olympias 2 is in the final stage of commissioning and we expect commercial production to be declared in the third quarter. During the first quarter, we announced that we have received multiple tenders for significantly better concentrate sales terms, which we expect will increase annual production from Olympias Phase II to approximately 85,000 ounces of gold. At Skouries, a key growth project in Greece, work is continuing with start up on track for 2019. During the quarter, construction was restricted due to poor weather and unnecessary targeted work, including tailings, thickener foundations and stockpiled dome embankments. With that said, the engineering team continued to work on…

Paul Skayman

Analyst · Haywood Securities

Thanks, George. Good morning, everyone. Starting with Turkey. Kisladag produced 52,600 ounces of gold, which was in line with our expectations for the quarter. I should remind everyone traditionally Kisladag has a slow first quarter due to cold weather and rainfall. Inventory levels rose during the quarter, in line with material placed on the pads been better grade than previously and also have been at higher levels on the pad than previously. Tonnes of ore mined and placed on pad were in line with budget and the grade of the material exceeded our budget. However, 0.94 is still our predicted overall TRID [ph] rate for 2017. Year-to-date, strip ratio at Kisladag was 1.27, slightly above our Q1 budget number, but approximately in line with full year guidance of 1.18. Cash cost for the quarter, as George said, very good at $446, a combination of currency exchange and site efficiencies were responsible for that number. Also in Turkey, Efemcukuru turned another solid quarter, production of 22,500 ounces. Tonnage mined and processed was slightly over budget, ounce production slightly behind due to lower traded head grade in Q1. Cash cost for Q1 were $515 an ounce, and again, slightly lower than our guidance of $525 to $575. Moving over to Greece. Olympias is in the final stage of commissioning, things appear to be progressing well. Material has been mined, placed on surface, now moving through the circuit and we're happy with how things are going. We remain on track for commercial production in Q3. And as George said, we're looking forward to hosting some of you over the next month or 2, as you get to see for yourself the progress on site. At Skouries, I indicated earlier in the year, we had a slow start to 2017 with significant snowfall for most of the first 2 months over the site. With improving weather conditions, work is now moving forward again and we continue to work on areas in the process plant, along with proprietary works around the tailings pond. At Tocantinzinho, we received the installation license just this week. However, we're still waiting for permits surrounding tailings and solution ponds. We're satisfying request for extra work on these areas of the project, which are required due to design concerns on tailing dam given the recent tails dam issues in Brazil. However, we do not anticipate any specific issues and expect to have these permits later this year. At the same time, basic engineering is nearly completed in Vancouver on Tocantinzinho. And with that, I'll turn it over to Fabby.

Fabiana Chubbs

Analyst · Scotia Bank

Thanks, Paul, and good morning, everyone. We have a quite first quarter for financial reporting. We ended the quarter with cash, cash equivalents and term deposits balance of $874 million compared to $888 million at the end of 2016. The decrease in the cash balance is mainly the result of cash flow generated from operating activities [indiscernible] working capital of $28 million, net of usage of cash of $74 million in capital programs and $11 million in dividend payment to shareholders. Net profit attributable to shareholders of the company was $3.8 million or $0.01 per share in the first quarter of 2017 compared to a loss of $2.5 million in 2016. Excluding the $3 million loss recorded on finalization on the sale of Chinese asset, we reported adjusted net earnings of $8 million or $0.01 per share in Q1 2017 compared to an adjusted net loss of $0.7 million in 2016. Gross profit from continued operation for the year of $69 million was $3 million higher year-over-year, due to higher realized gold price and lower cash operating cost. The effective tax rate was impacted by withholding tax accruals in Turkey, foreign exchange effect and unrecognized losses in Canada and Greece. At the ways of reference, a 10% changed in the exchange rate for the Turkish lira will result in approximately $8 million assortments to deferred taxes. These are noncash assortments. Those are my comments on the financial statements. I will turn the call back to George.

George Burns

Analyst

With that operator, we'll open it up for questions.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And first question is from Kerry Smith of Haywood Securities.

Kerry Smith

Analyst · Haywood Securities

Paul, for Skouries, you only spent $14 million in Q1 on construction. Was that kind of in line with what you're budgeting or did you actually spent less than you expected there because the weather was worse than you had anticipated?

Paul Skayman

Analyst · Haywood Securities

Yes, little less than we anticipated. I mean Q1 was never going to be a big quarter, but it was certainly -- I mean, I have never seen snow like there was on site on those days during our first quarter. So obviously, we were fairly well hampered for that period. So under what we thought we might.

Kerry Smith

Analyst · Haywood Securities

Okay. So do you think you'll still kind of be on budget there and on schedule, given that you have the slow start?

Paul Skayman

Analyst · Haywood Securities

Yes, I mean, it's early days. We're hoping obviously to sort of catch that up as we move through the year, Kerry.

Kerry Smith

Analyst · Haywood Securities

Okay, And Olympias 2, I guess, most of the CapEx that's been in Q1, is that project still going to come in on budget and I think, you were talking 55 million this year and you've spent 37 already?

Paul Skayman

Analyst · Haywood Securities

Yes, pretty close. I mean, we've done and there is a few sort of hangover payments to do on the Phase 2. But we're pretty well there.

Kerry Smith

Analyst · Haywood Securities

Okay. And then the incremental 15,000 ounces that you expect to get out of the better pay factors on the concentrate out of Olympias Phase II, is that -- that's starting in 2018, obviously, I think you suggested five years, is that 15,000 ounces per year for five years or how long should we think of that better pay factor?

Paul Skayman

Analyst · Haywood Securities

I mean they are the sort of numbers that I'll be using for that five years, Kerry. They'll start, as we start production later this year. And then 15,000 ounces is a full year, obviously. So '18, '19 and onwards, as we're in the head grade stays where it is, we would expect that extra ounces.

Kerry Smith

Analyst · Haywood Securities

Okay. So you're kind of assuming that incremental improvement until Phase III comes on and however long that takes?

Paul Skayman

Analyst · Haywood Securities

That's correct, yes.

Kerry Smith

Analyst · Haywood Securities

Okay. I got it. And just one last question, what does the installation licenses at Skouries [ph] actually allow you to do Paul?

Paul Skayman

Analyst · Haywood Securities

That allows us to move forward with works on site in terms of that sort of construction on the plant, et cetera. But obviously, we're still waiting on tailings dam and solution ponds, couple of small CIO ponds that are going in. So it allows us to move forward, but not with the whole site.

Kerry Smith

Analyst · Haywood Securities

Okay. So it's more like road construction, but you could actually start plant construction, if you want with that license?

Paul Skayman

Analyst · Haywood Securities

That's correct, yes.

Kerry Smith

Analyst · Haywood Securities

Okay, great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Scott Macdonald from Scotia Bank.

Scott Macdonald

Analyst · Scotia Bank

Just had three, hopefully, quick questions for you. Firstly, if you could maybe just walk us through a little bit how you see the next three quarters playing out over the course of the year, particularly at Kisladag, but maybe also at Efemcukuru and Olympias, just from an operating perspective?

Paul Skayman

Analyst · Scotia Bank

I would just point you back to guidance for that one, Scott. I'm not saying it's being any different than what we've guided to.

Scott Macdonald

Analyst · Scotia Bank

All right, I meant sort of like quarter-over-quarter, do you see it kind of directionally being fairly even over the remaining quarters at each of your operations or do you see some ups and downs?

Paul Skayman

Analyst · Scotia Bank

No, we don't generally give quarter-by-quarter guidance, Scott.

Scott Macdonald

Analyst · Scotia Bank

Okay, fair enough. My second question just on Skouries, if you could maybe just point us to some of the critical path items we should be looking for over the next few quarters?

Paul Skayman

Analyst · Scotia Bank

I guess, the one that we do need to submit and work on is the dry stack permit, that's something that we're in the process of submitting now. And then it sort of has to go through the government process. So that's one that we'll be updating you as we move forward with that.

Scott Macdonald

Analyst · Scotia Bank

Okay. Any sense now when you’re kind of expecting that?

Paul Skayman

Analyst · Scotia Bank

No, not at this stage. I mean, obviously, we’d be hoping for it by the end of the year, but I wouldn’t --.

Scott Macdonald

Analyst · Scotia Bank

Just sometime this year, you’re hoping.

Paul Skayman

Analyst · Scotia Bank

Sure, yeah.

Scott Macdonald

Analyst · Scotia Bank

Okay. And then maybe one just for Fabby. I noticed there was a big fat refund coming back on the cash flow statement this quarter, just wondering that something you expect any more of those over the next few quarters or are those kinds of one-time thing?

Fabiana Chubbs

Analyst · Scotia Bank

I can tell you we like them to be a reported, but it depends on the government funded allocations. We do the presentation of the VAT returns, but the deadline requirement on they’ve also have the internal process on time, they work a bit faster than others time. So I kind of guarantee that we'll be in that, there was three quarters that we haven’t received any single VAT rate, and we'll received then all together at one quarter so.

Scott Macdonald

Analyst · Scotia Bank

Right, okay. So it’s not that reliable. Okay. Great. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. I will turn the call back over to George Burns, for closing remarks.

George Burns

Analyst

Well, thank you, everybody for joining us today. And I look forward to hosting many of you on our upcoming site visits in Greece. Thank you.