Thank you for standing by. This is the Chorus Call Conference Operator. Welcome to the IAMGOLD 2018 Second Quarter Operating and Financial Results Conference Call and Webcast. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ken Chernin, Vice President, Investor Relations for IAMGOLD. Please go ahead, Mr. Chernin.

Great. Thank you very much, Ariel. Welcome to the IAMGOLD conference call. Joining me on the call today are Steve Letwin, President and CEO of IAMGOLD; Gord Stothart, EVP and COO; Carol Banducci, EVP and CFO; Craig MacDougall, SVP, Exploration; and Jeff Snow, General Counsel and SVP, Business Development. Our remarks on this call will include forward-looking statements. Please refer to the cautionary language regarding forward-looking information in our disclosure documents, and be advised that the same cautionary language applies to our remarks during the call. The slides that are being referred to during the presentation can be viewed on the website. I will now turn the call over to our President and CEO, Steve Letwin.

Well, thanks, Ken and good morning, everyone. As you probably have read or most of you have read, we had a very solid quarter. Our operations are very sound. They’re performing very well. Our balance sheet is strong and we confirm our production and cost guidance going forward. Our growth projects are on track and this is a key element of our success going forward, and as you know, our team is executing and communicate, so we’re going to be doing a lot of execution and a lot of communication. On slide number six, at our Investor Day in June, we covered a lot of ground around our growth projects and as we’ve mentioned, the successful execution is everything that we’re about. So our KPIs, our compensation strategy is all linked to make sure that we make these targets as we have communicated. But it’s also critical that as we go along, you know how well we’re doing and if we’re hitting any headwinds or whether or not we’re making better progress than what we expected. So to, me execution is obviously very critical, resources are very critical to achieve this and communication as to how we’re doing so that there are no surprises either way and measuring our progress along the way is absolutely essential. We’ve been very clear about our targets. We’ve been very clear about our timelines and we have been checking the boxes quite successfully, and our expectation is that that’s going to continue. Sometimes, we get asked how we’re able to execute growth projects with overlapping timelines. So let me talk a little bit about that. There are really three points that I want to make. First, we don’t execute projects really knowing. I think people that know us reasonably well, know that there are…

Thanks, Steve, and good morning, everyone. Turning to our financial results, we had a solid second quarter. This next slide presents the key financial highlights. Revenues of $277 million were up in the same quarter in 2017. The increase reflected a higher realized gold price and higher sales volume at Rosebel and was partially offset by lower sales volume at Essakane. Gross profit was $30 billion. Net cash from operating activities before changes in working capital was $73 million up 8% from the same period in 2017. Adjusted net earnings for the second quarter 2018 were $13 million up 205% from the previous year. As shown on this next slide, the bottomline was impacted by a number of non-cash items including the depreciation adjustment and write-down of assets, write-down of a loan receivable related to the Sadiola Sulfide Project and unrealized foreign exchange losses. After the adjustments adjusted earnings per share were $0.03, up $0.02 from the second quarter of 2017. The next slide presents our hedges as of June 30, 2018, Canadian dollar and the euro are hedged for 2018 and 2019, and the oil hedges extend out to 2022. As detailed at the bottom of the slide, in the first quarter we purchased C$60 million at a rate of $1.309 earmarked for 2019 and during the second quarter, we purchased €150 million at an average rate of approximately $1.1975 earmarked for the second half of 2018 as well as 2019. Our balance sheet remains strong with $776 million in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments in money market instruments and this excludes the restricted cash of $29 million. Now, if you net out our debt, our net cash position was $375 million at the end of the second quarter. By the end of this year, we’re scheduled to receive $95 million cash payment from Sumitomo, which is the final payment for their 30% stake in the Coté Gold project. So, total liquidity including the $249 million availability under the credit facility exceeded $1 billion, which gives us flexibility as we continue to execute on our growth projects. So, with that, I’ll turn it over to Gord.

Thanks, Carol. Well, our operations performed well in the second quarter, but that first quarter was a tough act to follow. Production in Q1 benefited from the planned mining of higher grade zones and significant positive grade reconciliation at both Essakane and Westwood, whereas Q2 was impacted by planned maintenance at Rosebel and Essakane and the planned mining of lower grade stopes at Westwood. Nevertheless, the performance was in line with our expectations. Production continues to attract post the guidance. Second quarter production of 214,000 attributable allowances brings us to 443,000 ounces year-to-date, which puts us just over the halfway mark of the midpoint of our full year guidance. As Steve said, our annual guidance is reiterated at $850,000 to $900,000 attributable allowances. All-in sustaining costs in the second quarter were $1,077 an ounce and $1,012 an ounce year-to-date. Full year guidance remains unchanged at $990 an ounce to $1,070 an ounce. Turning to our capital spending outlook for 2018, we are reducing our guidance by $40 million to $325 million plus or minus 5%. This was the net result of the $60 million decrease in non-sustaining capital and a $20 million increase from sustaining capital. The $60 million decrease in non-sustaining capital was primarily due to a $40 million decrease at Rosabel relating to the Saramaca project. As a result of more specific scheduling of construction work and equipment procurement timelines based on detailed engineering studies, we’ve been able to defer certain expenditures to 2019. There’s no change to the targeted completion date of the project, which has production starting in the second half of 2019. At Essakane, we reduced non-sustaining capital guidance by $25 million of that amount $20 million is related to the Heap Leach project. This was due to deferring procurement activities until after the feasibility…

Thank you, Gord, and good morning, everyone. Before I begin, please note that the results I talk about today have been previously disclosed in accordance security regulations and signed off by the qualified persons within the company reporting them. Also note that any references to exploration targets potential including potential quantity and grade are conceptual in nature and insufficient work has been completed to define a mineral resource and there can be no certainty then an exploration target will result in a mineral resource being delineated. Exploration had another productive and successful quarter. At Saramacca, we expect to reserve estimate in the near future. During the quarter, we completed an additional 8,000 meters of RC and diamond drilling primary -- primarily to infill the deposits and upgrade the resource. In addition to working on resource conversions to ultimately support the declaration of reserves, the drilling program has also extended some parallels zones to mineralization under the original resource pit shell, which we return some nice grades over solid intervals. This has potential to incrementally increase total resources. On the adjacent to Brokolonko property which is at a far earlier stage of exploration compared to Saramacca, we have initiated an exploration program including activities such as geological mapping, outcrop sampling and geochemical surveys to confirm the historic results and help prioritize targets. During the quarter, we also completed just over 4,500 meters of RC and diamond drilling as part of our first pass drilling program to test selected target areas for the presence of mineralization. The results will be validated and compiled as they come to hand to help guide further exploration on this prospective property. This next slide focuses on regional exploration at Essakane. If we can replicate the success we had at Falagountou with our other satellite targets. There’s…

Thanks, Craig. So to wrap up slide 31, we’ve had a very successful first half of the year. Our operating and financial results have been very solid. We’re on track to meet guidance and the successful execution of our growth projects continues. We’ve checked off a lot of boxes in the first half of the year. We got some key boxes coming up in the second half as we expect to have reserve estimates for Saramacca, a completed feasibility study for Boto and a resource estimate for Gossey. So, with that, we will open it up to questions.

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Mike Parkin of National Bank.

Hi, guys. Congrats on the quarter. A couple of questions, regarding Westwood, just wanted to get a sense of how you see grades trending there for Q3, Q4, we saw in the press release that the actual mine grade was good, brought down in the mill by the lower grade stockpiles. Would we expect any improvement on the mine grade for the third quarter or fourth quarter?

Yeah. Mike, it’s Gord here. Yeah. Looking at the forecast right now Q3 is up slightly versus Q2 and Q4 is actually, we get back into some higher grade mining areas in Q4. So we’re expecting to see a nice rebound then.

Okay. And then just with the major shutdowns planned at Essakane and Rosebel in Q2, can you just give us any comments on how those assets restarted. Did everything come up relatively smoothly?

Yeah. Everything came up very, very nicely and we’re back to sort of the same throughput rates that we were enjoying in Q1 and in recent times it was just sort of that’s the position, we ended up doing all the SAG mills, I think in Q2 and a couple of the ball mills as well. So, it just sort of all added up, everything is running fine. I think just the last couple of months, availabilities for both plants are running 95% plus?

Okay. And then with the greater and greater hard rock feed at Rosebel, are you seeing any kind of wear pattern changes on the SAG at Rosebel or is everything kind of operating as expected?

I think it’s operating as expected. We do see obviously a little bit of increased where on a per tonne basis. I guess it’s increased, where on a time basis it’s not really that much different because the SAG throughput is really driven by how much hard rock you put in. So that’s what tends to cap it out and we sort to run it at maximum hard rock throughput there. The additional tonnage is really the softer rocks that get more or less a free ride through the SAG, not seeing a lot of a difference in the maintenance.

Okay. Super. That’s it for me. Thanks, guys.

Thanks Mike.

Our next question comes from David Haughton of CIBC.

Good morning, Steve and team. Thank you for the update. Just having to look at the guidance and your year-to-date performance, it does look as though Essakane has got the potential to over sheet your expectations, while Rosebel might be lagging a little bit. I am just wondering in the case of Rosebel, what you have in mind to have if you like a bit of the catch up in the second half?

Yeah. I mean, Rosebel plan for 2018 has always been a much stronger second half than the first half. We do see we are forecasting internally for some grade rebound there and do expect it to come back. We’re continuing to look at African and you’re right we are running a little bit above the cadence that we’ve guided to. We’ll reevaluate at the end of Q3 and if we need to make some changes in guidance we’ll do so at that time. But for right now we’re comfortable with where we’re at. And yeah, Rosebel does have a stronger second half.

Okay. So just looking at Rosebel, I presume you’re fairly comfortable with the throughput right of about 34,000 tonnes a day. So for the grade would it be kind of nudging up towards the 0.9 gram kind of level, a high 0.8 to maybe 0.9?

Yeah. Yeah. In fact it’s -- it’s in -- it certainly gets into sort of the ranges you’re talking about is not even a little better.

Okay. And the other thing I noticed with Rosebel is that your mining rates higher than your processing rate. So you’re building up a reasonable stockpile there. Is that so you can present better grade material to the mill or what’s the strategy there with the stockpile management?

It’s a bit of a long winded answer. Historically, we always see very strong positive reconciliation on our times at Rosebel particularly in satellite rock i.e. we find a lot more soft satellite ore then is identified through the diamond drilling models as we go in and we drill off the RC grade control on a tighter spacing we find this addition of -- these additional zones. We do exploit that and do use that to maximize the grades, the mill and stockpile, the lower grade materials. We have some fairly significant low grade stockpiles that build into the future. Because they’re softer rock though or primarily softer rock, we also use that to help offset and take advantage when there’s opportunities to get some slightly additional throughput through the mill there and feeding those lower grade stockpiles. And it’s an interesting question because it’s a discussion we’ve had with the team there as to how we manage the stockpiles over the next couple of years in terms of maximizing profitability.

Okay. Just changing topic slightly, you’ve got your CapEx deferral into 2019. Is there any risk of a change in price of those items that are pushed into the future?

No. And really I think the best explanation is when we did our budget for 2018 and we came out with our capital guidance for Saramacca and the other projects, because Saramacca was being fast track that was done before we even had a scoping study in place. So the team there put some thoughts together as to when they felt they were going to be spending money. We -- the assumption conservatively was that we would be paying cash upfront for equipment. As we got in and I did the more detailed engineering and procurement work, we recognized that the upfront capital is typically just down payment, but we’re locking in the prices that we expected. There’s some give and take again because just the level of engineering was not very advanced at the time we did the original budget. But we’re comfortable with sort of the capital envelope we’re working within and we’re also looking at some opportunities to do some leasing of that equipment. Well, it’s really just the timing of the expenditure, it’s not -- it hasn’t really changed the amount we’re expanding on that equipment right now.

Okay. And one last question, this one maybe for Carol. You’ve got some pretty sizable euro hedging there. What sort of percentage of the costs. I presume that Essakane are exposed to euro?

It will be like a significant amount, right. In terms of the -- it’s really the labor that would be the largest exposure there, obviously on the capital fiber, it’s still in the U.S. based, but it would be the labor component pay, but that would be the largest component.

So possibly 50% plus of the cost base at Essakane would be euro…

That’s a lower than that, about 30%.

30%. Okay. That’s it from me. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Dan Rollins of RBC Capital Markets.

Yeah. Thanks very much. Gord, maybe a question for you, caveat that realize every project is different, every company is different and some companies do a lot more work internally to get projects off the line quicker, but with Coté Gold, I was wonder if you could provide a little bit of color on some of the work that you’ve been doing behind the scenes as a company and with your team to sort of shore up the cost estimates, the production rates, the ramp up rates and sort of the capital cost spend for Coté? Just given the recent challenges that a couple of other assets Ontario and then if you look farther back down the road or behind us, there’s been another number of new startups here in Canada, both tonnage that have taken significantly longer to actually hit steady state than anticipated in the technical reports. Just wanted if you could provide a little bit color on what the IAMGOLD teams doing to shore up and take out that risk?

So, with respect to the construction timelines and construction cost estimates, we’ve -- we’re obviously -- we’re working with the feasibility study engineer who is Wood, formerly Amec. From their Vancouver office, we’ve done a lot of truth testing with respect to the capital estimates visited a number of sites that have recently installed equipment and looking at that. We’re pretty comfortable generally with evaluating those capital estimates. We have done a lot of construction ourselves in the past and can cast I think a pretty balanced eye on construction cost. We have done some -- a little bit more original or a little different way of approaching certain things on some of the major civil packages. We’ve actually brought in contracting outfits. This is not -- not bringing the contractors in on a bid basis to execute the work, but bringing contractors into the design team to sit down with our design elements and really challenge the capital estimates and the timelines have been put in place and we think that, that really gives us a much better handle on how we can execute those and what the final cost will be. With respect to ramp up, we have actually as part of the feasibility work we commissioned a fairly, fairly in-depth study on ramp-up. What people have been able to achieve in different parts of the world and how they achieved it and what issues sort of have caused challenges to ramp up schedules. So that analysis is being incorporated into the design. We just had a discussion with the team there yesterday on some of those results and what is being put in the feasibility study I think is appropriate. I think there is opportunity to do better, but we’re trying to make sure that we don’t sort of oversell the early years of production. I am not uncomfortable with the amount of effort we’re putting in. We’ve done a lot of work as well on and you will see it when the new reserves and resources come up, but we drilled. I think it’s around 47 kilometers of additional drilling as part of the feasibility study work and a fair bit of that was really focused on the first two years to three years of production, bringing a lot of that material from indicated status into measured status in a number of cases and doing a lot -- we actually did some very tight drill patterns, not quite to great control grids but almost great control grid over some sections to validate that we’ll be able to get the selectivity that we were hoping to get. So there is a lot of selectivity work going in, so that we don’t get in a situation where we can achieve the grades in the early years that we’re planning to achieve.

Okay.

Our next question comes from Michael Fairbairn of Canaccord Genuity.

Hi, guys. Just a question on Westwood, the ramp up appears to be going very well and it looks like you guys are still processing stockpiles at a fairly high rate. I was just wondering if you can give us an idea of approximately what remains in the stockpiles and what great there?

Yeah. I mean the grade of the stockpiles and it’s always a bugger to track and effectively estimate stockpile grades from old stockpile. It’s called PBT or very low grade material, most of it is old open pit material from the old Doyon pit and it’s actually sort of a twofold benefit. The grades we see there are sort of in the 0.9 to 1.1 range and that material as we re-handle it is also alleviating some of our future closure impacts because it’s higher sulfide material, so running it through the mill. And on a campaign by campaign basis, we do an analysis to make sure that we’re making money from it, but that’s the kind of grades we do have -- still have some relatively significant volumes. I will say additionally in last year, we did some custom milling with a third party again to utilize that spare capacity. That customer we had in the prior year’s decided to go elsewhere. However, last month, we started with a new custom milling client. So, on the basis of it we -- the custom milling is slightly better economics for us than treating the lower grade material. So, we’re happy to accommodate that client for the time period when we have that excess capacity. So moving forward between now and the extra -- the rest of the year, the mix from Westwood, from an IAMGOLD standpoint will be a little less of the low grades than we’ve seen in the past. You’re going to see the IAMGOLD grades come closer to sort of the underground grades for the second half of the year.

Okay. And to be fair to assume that the stockpile is remaining, you have more than enough to keep the mill full pretty much between now and 2020 when you’re filling it up pretty much entirely with the underground ore?

Correct.

Okay. Awesome. Thanks a lot. That’s all for me.

This concludes the time allocated for questions on today’s call. I will now hand the call back over to Ken Chernin for closing remarks.

Great. Thank you very much, Ariel. And thank you ladies and gentlemen for joining us today and for your continued interest in IAMGOLD. We look forward to you joining us for our Q3 2018 conference call on November 7th. Thanks again.

This concludes today’s conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.