Joe Dick
Analyst · CIBC. Please go ahead
Thanks, Phil. And good morning, everyone. Here's a quick summary of our quarterly operating results. As George mentioned, we produced 115,950 ounces of gold in the quarter at cash operating costs of $627 per ounce sold, and all-in sustaining costs of $952 per ounce sold. This was consistent with Q4 2019, but slightly below current plan. Looking forward, we are maintaining our 2020 guidance at this time. We have not observed any negative productivity impacts of results of COVID-19, but we are continuing to monitor the situation. We have seen a reduction in our workforce of approximately 25%, as some workers who are considered to be high risk to COVID-19 have been asked to stay at home as a precaution. This has led to a reduction of certain discretionary activities at our sites, and has affected underground development and waste stripping out of Olympius and Kisladag, respectively. Here on Slide 9, we have some further color on the quarter at each of our operations. At Kisladag, as George mentioned, we had increased rainfall during the quarter. This led to increased solution volumes and impacted our production. The amount of gold that was leached into solution was in line with tons of waste, and we expect to recover this gold in the coming months. At Lamaque, we had a very good quarter, despite having to temporarily move the mine into care and maintenance on March 23 to comply with restrictions, as mandated by the Quebec government. The Quebec government has since declared mining operations an essential service, and we put Lamaque back into operations on April 15. We lost about three weeks of production there, but we are confident that we can make up for this over the remainder of the year. I'd also like to note that at Lamaque, we have initiated testing of a mechanized mining system called Minrail for extraction of shallow dipping structures. Current resources potentially minable with this technology are estimated at 160,000 tons at an average grade of 9.16 grams per ton. We expect to have results on Minrail tests during Q3. Commercial success of Minrail could support increased exploration opportunities to expand resource and gently dipping vein systems common to the Lamaque project area. Efemcukuru was once again consistent with our expectations. Production was lower compared to the fourth quarter, due to lower grade mines so far this year. We did manage to offset this a bit by increasing the amount of tons put through the mill. And finally, at Olympius, I'm pleased to report that we had our highest gold production in 18 months. This was a result of the work we have completed on underground development and improvements to the pace backfill system. That said, unfortunately, Olympius had a poor quarter from a cost perspective. Low base metal and silver prices, as well as higher treatment charges, led to increased cash operating costs and all-in sustaining costs. We will continue to drive operational improvements and look to lower costs as the year progresses. Over to a quick update on some of our projects on Slide 10. At Kisladag, we're continuing waste stripping, though at a reduced rate. We have also selected a vendor for the HPGR, and expecting delivery of that unit late this year. At Lamaque, we are continuing technical work to increase production from Triangle, and we now have the permit to increase underground production up to 2,650 tons per day. We intend to increase our mining rate to roughly 2,200 tons per day, which is the current capacity of the Sigma Mill. As a reminder that --this expansion requires no incremental capital investment. It simply accelerates underground development in the current plan. Eldorado will continue to study and optimize the Triangle deposit. We'll focus on the decline of Triangle deposit to the Sigma Mill, and we'll also look at de-bottlenecking the mill, and long-term paving solution to enable us to go beyond 2,200 tons per day. At Efemcukuru, construction of the flotation columns is underway, as you can see from the picture. Once these are completed and commissioned, which is expected in the second half of the year, we will able to further increase the quality of our concentrate, which reduce our treatment charges. And finally, over to Skouries. Early in the quarter, we mobilized crews to commence site protection work. We place concrete at the mill building to protect the rebar that was installed several years ago, and we had planned to install the mill building, but that work has now been postponed due to COVID-19. With that, I'll turn it back over to George for closing remarks.