Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the IAMGOLD Fourth Quarter and 2020 Full Year Operating and Financial Results Conference Call and Webcast. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Indi Gopinathan, Vice President Investor Relations and Corporate Communications for IAMGOLD. Please, go ahead.

Thank you very much, Sachi, and welcome, everyone, to the IAMGOLD Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2020 Conference Call. Joining me today on the call are Gordon Stothart, President and Chief Executive Officer; Carol Banducci, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Craig MacDougall, Executive Vice President, growth; Bruno Lemelin, Senior Vice President, Operations and Projects; and Tim Bradburn, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. 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. During the call, non-GAAP measures will be referenced, and we direct you to review the reconciliations in our disclosures relating to these measures. With respect to the technical information to be discussed, please refer to the technical information and qualified person slide. The slides referenced on this call can be viewed on our website. I will now turn the call over to our President and CEO, Gordon Stothart.

Well, thank you, Indi. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us reporting on our Q4 and 2020 results. 2020, certainly, I think, a challenging world for the -- challenging year for the whole world, but we're really eagerly looking forward to 2021. So I'll start with the key highlights of the fourth quarter and the year. At the corporate level, IAMGOLD demonstrated that strong leverage to the gold price with a 280% increase year-over-year in mine site free cash flows, generating more than $223 million. We ended the year with almost $1 billion in cash and short-term investments on our balance sheet and nearly $1.5 billion in total liquidity. We continue to proactively manage the impacts of the global COVID-19 pandemic on our operations, development projects and exploration activities with a rapid response and strict safety protocols. Reflecting our long-held Zero Harm vision, we were recognized for our peer-leading environmental, social and governance practices by a number of independent organizations. Focusing on governance, we embraced evolving best practices through Board renewal. Switching to the operational highlights. Essakane continues to deliver with a strong finish to the year and its best quarterly performance in 2020 and Q4. Rosebel demonstrated a strong increase in mining rates in the fourth quarter. And Westwood, despite its challenges, was free cash flow positive and continue to process open pit ore from the adjacent Grand Duc satellite pit. Westwood has a significant resource base, and we are taking a cautious approach as we assess its business continuity plan, while the underground mine is in care and maintenance mode following the seismic event last quarter. At Cote, construction commenced in the fall of 2020 and continues to progress well, with major earthworks having commenced in January. Ahead of schedule. Looking forward, we continue to develop…

Thank you, Gord, and good morning, everyone. As Gord mentioned, we demonstrated our leverage to the gold price in the year, generating $223 million in mine site free cash flow, an increase of 280% over the prior year. Mine site free cash flow was $78 million in the fourth quarter. We continue to prudently manage our balance sheet, recognizing that we have a substantial capital allocation to our transformational growth project, Cote Gold. As at year-end, we had $948 million in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments, excluding restricted cash of $39 million. Combined with our largely undrawn credit facility of $500 million, our liquidity at year-end was nearly $1.5 billion. This month, we further extended the maturity of $490 million available under the credit facility by one year to January 2025. With this level of liquidity, we believe we are well positioned to execute on our growth plans. In the fourth quarter, and subsequent to year-end, we were able to execute favorable hedges on gold, fuel and currency. These activities included the addition of gold hedge collars for 2021 in the range of $1,600 to $2,800 per ounce on 78,040 ounces and gold hedge collars on 24,000 ounces at $1,700 to $2,700 per ounce that covers the first half of 2023. And I'll just pause there because we have received some questions overnight around the collars. And just to be clear, they are collars. So if gold prices are in the last case, below $1,700, then we receive a floor price of $1,700 at the gold prices above $2,700 then we're capped at $2,700. And any spot price of gold between that range, we will receive. In addition, we received a number of zero cost collar options on fuel contracts at prices below $55 per barrel for the period…

Thank you, Carol. IAMGOLD is committed to the health and safety of our employees. In 2020, I am pleased to say, particularly given the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, that we outperformed our health and safety targets. For 2020, our DART and PRI rates were 0.46 and 0.67, respectively, for 200,000 hours worked. Unfortunately, the fourth quarter performance was affected by the Westwood seismic incident. With that being said, we were still able to meaningfully outperform our annual DART and PRI targets and achieved noteworthy year-over-year improvements of 10% and 23%, respectively. We continue to implement several initiatives, including I Am Safe, the revamped health and safety management program, to promote a safe work environment. We just released our updated reserve and resource estimate for 2020, which reflects 13.9 million ounces in attributable proven and probable reserves for a 17% decline year-over-year; 23.9 million ounces in attributable measured and indicated resources for a 12% decline year-over-year; and 11.3 million ounces in attributable inferred resources for a 6% decline year-over-year. The updated figures reflect the sales of the noncore Sadiola mine at the end of 2020. Excluding the sale of Sadiola, total attributable proven and probable reserves decreased by 1.2 million ounces or 7%. The updated figures also include operating mine depletion and the reclassification of reserves at Westwood previously reported in August of last year. Mining is a depleting activity, and this is the first time in several years that we have seen a decline in our reserves and resources. However, as Craig will discuss, we are working hard in exploration to develop further resource potential. For the quarter, we are reporting total consolidated attributable production of 169,000 ounces and attributable gold sales of 172,000 ounces; cost of sales of $1,045 per ounce sold; total cash costs of $998 per…

Thank you, Bruno, and good morning, everyone. Before I begin, please note that the results I talk about today have been previously disclosed in accordance with securities regulations and signed off by the qualified persons within the company reporting them. In 2020, our exploration spend was $36.3 million compared to $47 million in 2019, exclusive of project studies, a reduction largely reflective of the impacts of COVID-19 restrictions on our exploration programs in various regions. In 2021, planned exploration spending totals $56 million, split approximately 60-40 between greenfield and brownfield targets. I will now review a few highlights from the exploration work completed in 2020. At our Nelligan project in Canada, we reported assay results from our 2020 infill expansion diamond drilling program throughout the year. Starting in the second quarter, highlights included 25.1 meters, grading 1.9 grams per tonne gold and 27 meters grading 2.9 grams per tonne gold Additional assay results were reported in the third quarter with highlights of 39.1 meters, grading 2.1 grams per tonne gold and 34.5 meters, grading 1.9 grams per tonne gold. And finally, the remaining results from this program were reported in the fourth quarter of 2020 and included 17.3 meters grading 7.6 grams per tonne gold and 21.8 meters, grading two grams per tonne gold. At an adjacent -- or sorry, at our Gosselin discovery adjacent to the Cote Gold deposit in Ontario, we reported assay results in January 2021 from 24 diamond drill holes totaling just over 10,000 meters completed as part of our 2019-2020 delineation drilling program, which continue to intersect wide zones of alteration and associated mineralization similar to that observed at the Cote deposit itself. Highlights included 86 meters creating 5.6 grams per tonne gold, which included a 30.5 meter interval grading 14.7 grams per tonne gold.…

Well, thank you very much, Craig. So IAMGOLD is beginning an exciting transformation as we focus on the future through the execution of our growth pipeline. In 2020, we announced the decision to proceed with the construction of the Cotw Gold project located in Ontario, which, along with the derisking of the Boto project in Senegal, positions IAMGOLD in a few years' time as a one million-ounce producer with all-in sustaining costs well below $1,000 per ounce, greater geographic balance and long-life mines. We look forward to continuing our quarterly conversations with you on IAMGOLD's operating mines, construction progress at Cote, derisking progress at Boto and exploration news. Thank you to everyone for joining our call today. I will now pass the call back over to the operator.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Fahad Tariq from Credit Suisse.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. On Westwood, can you give some more color on what the business continuity plan assessment entails? It sounds like the decision to access underground in the second half of the year has already been made. And I'm guessing that's already baked into the guidance, but maybe talk about like what exactly is being evaluated in that plan. And how could that change the way it's mined this year or what that means for the guidance this year? Thanks.

Bruno, would you like to discuss that?

Yes. So in fact, as you mentioned, we are -- we keep investigating the incident from October 30. And what we want to make sure is that we don't have the same condition in the other zones where we're going to be mining. And so we're finalizing some geotech drilling and logging and analyzing just to ensure that Westwood remains safe, profitable and sustainable over time once we restart. So this is what we're doing. So we can have some line of sight as to when we expect to restart the operation. However, we need to, again, summarize the investigation first.

And does the guidance for this year already incorporate accessing the underground or parts of the underground in the second half? Or is that upside to this?

Yes, roughly around 50% of the ounces in the guidance are deemed to come from underground. That being said, Grand Duc is already somewhat overproducing. So -- but the guidance is based on an assumption of a second half restart at a limited pace initially and then building through the remainder of the year.

Okay, that's very clear. That's it for me. Thanks

The next question is from Josh Wolfson from RBC Capital Markets.

With regards to this royalty transaction, what payments would you expect to receive up front? And is there any sort of anchor asset that's driving the overall value?

Craig, did you want to cover that?

Sure, I can do that. The portfolio is essentially a group of historical royalty assets that date back -- some of them date back quite far in the company's history. I wouldn't say there's any specific anchor assets in there. There are variable attributable values depending on what the asset is, but there's not an overall singular anchor asset that's driving the value. It's just a collection of well-positioned royalties we've had over time that, in the current environment, have value. So we've assembled those and had groups looking at them, and essentially, the transaction that's documented in a release is the value that was put on it by the potential purchaser or the one that we'll be purchasing it. And it will be essentially all cash up front has been documented in the disclosure.

Okay, got it. And for Cote, I understand the capital ranges have been reiterated. Within the overall expenditures so far, is there any sort of additional insight you can provide on directionally what's coming ahead of expectation, what's coming below? Just kind of giving us some insight on some of the inflation or perhaps even maybe deflation trends you're seeing on the line items.

As we're working through on our commitments and signing up our firm contracts, we're not seeing anything that is wildly outside of what our initial budgets were. We have allocated some contingency to cover off some things, and there are a few areas where we've gained some contingency back. But given the level of engineering that we had by the time we actually came out with the construction announcement and understanding that a lot of the stuff was pre-negotiated, we really haven't seen a lot of surprises one way or the other. Obviously, the things still to be determined are volume variances on earthmoving. The fact we've already started our major earthworks on the tailings and the plant site already, as you saw from the photos that Bruno had up, and we'll be starting on the pit. I mean pit volumes were not so -- were not very worried about seeing a lot of volume variances there. But the other zones, in the tailings, will be up and out of the ground, have a lot of those foundation items out of the way by the end of the summer this year. So as we're working through things, Josh, it's more or less going as planned. There are minor variances, but nothing has really sort of -- has caused us too much concern on a materiality basis, either up or down. And again, it's just because of how far advanced the project was when we launched it, and that's sort of the same concept we're going through for Boto as we look at that.

Got it. Okay. And then, maybe last question on Gosselin and looking at the opportunity there for the resource in the second half of the year. With -- assuming that, that turns out to be as expected in larger contribution to resources and perhaps reserves, would that result in any potential scope changes for the project? I know there's obviously some constraints on tailings. But is there anything maybe between today and actual first production where you would look at leveraging what that opportunity could be in the mine plan?

It's a great question, Josh. And it's certainly something we've had a look at. That being said, we really are focused on executing the project that we've laid out. I am -- I don't have any problem in saying the design of the plant already has baked in a potential future expansion of around 20%. So that's actually built into the design and the layouts. We're not planning on building that future expansion at this point in time but that is one of the considerations we'll be looking at. The other place that Gosselin probably has some applicability, if you look at the production profile, and the grade profile for Cote over the life of the mine, we have a good run of six or seven years at relatively high grades, and then we get into a lower grade valley, if you will, in the production portfolio. Given -- obviously, we're still evaluating what Gosselin looks like. But assuming it has similar grade distribution and especially if there's any nicer grade areas closer to surface, there would be an opportunity for us to really look at maybe filling over that valley with higher grade materials from Gosselin if the opportunity presents itself. So those are the two main impacts we see from Gosselin, and we're in the process of evaluating, but we're really focused on executing that project as is.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from Anita Soni from CIBC World Markets.

First question, I think, is with respect to Saramacca. So there was some commentary in the release last night about the grades out of Rosebel -- sorry, out of Saramacca. Can you just talk -- give a little bit of color about what's going on there? Q4 was a little lighter than I had expected. But overall, how can we expect to evolve into 2021 there, both at Saramacca and Rosebel proper?

Bruno?

Yes. So for 2020, as we were, in fact, developing the Saramacca project, we got access to the first ore packets, which were lower grade material. The first blocks of mineralization are showing that with grade that is lower than average. So we expect for 2021 to have the grade to go closer to the average of the deposit and after that again increasing over time. So that's going to help in terms of gold production overall. And same thing for growth at Rosebel. For our other pits, we know we have some stripping to do. There's some stripping that were supposed to be done in 2020 that we're going to do some catch-up in 2021 due to the reduced capacity we have with the mining crew. But after that, we also expect to have -- after a couple of years to have the grade to increase as well for Rosebel.

Okay. So was that in line with your expectations around the first few packets? Or was that -- is that what the block model is predicting? Or was that something?

So far, it reconciled very good, and we are satisfied to some extent to what we are seeing right now. Again, it depends on the pit sequencing and also the -- where the position of your shovel. And again, right now, we don't have any surprise for Saramacca.

Yes. I mean -- sorry, I was just going to say, the topography of Saramacca was such that we started sort of in the southeast on the highest part of the deposit, and the grade does improve a little bit as you move towards the Northwest or west Northwest. So as we're obviously mining down in the sequence and gaining access further and further west, you will see those grades come up. But the reconciliation for Saramacca has actually gone very, very well.

Okay. And then just still on Saramacca, a bit more about the more about the reserves and resources. There -- I noticed in the M&I category, there are some higher grade material. Is that the underground, and that's why it's not in reserves right now?

We haven't included any of the underground in resources. The higher grade is -- there's a zone to the -- closer to the northwest that we'll get down into in the mining, but we haven't included any underground yet in resources.

Okay. So that pocket that was like a 3.8 gram per tonne material. Is there a reason why it's not in the reserves right now?

I have to come back with you. Anita, I'm really -- I need to look at that. I don't know if Craig or Bruno have some insight there.

Unless I'm -- it was late last night, so maybe I'm. We can take it last, we can take it off-line.

Yes. I think just to -- I mean, remember, resources have done or 1,500. The reserve shells are done at 1,200. So it's just looking at the stripping ratio and the assumptions at the time. But we can look into, Anita for more color on that.

So that makes sense. Yes.

It does make because it might be getting down into those underground zones, even with a pit at that higher price.

Got it. Okay. And then, just in terms of the actual reserve resource update, as you guys had mentioned, I mean, you usually have a pretty strong track record of reserve replacement. I think it's almost a decade running. So understanding that COVID hit everybody this year, can you just talk about the -- like why reserve replacement was almost nil? Like was it just a matter of timing? Or was it just -- was there something that's kind of held back getting some of your resources, reserves converted or drilling done? Or is it just a matter of not enough drilling done this year?

Originally, we had planned for more fulsome reserve and resource updates at the sites. We did sacrifice drill programs in 2020 as we adjusted for COVID and camp capacity. So yes, it's mostly a matter of us understanding where those reserves and resources are. That being said, we have restarted those programs, and we do expect that we'll be able to give a better picture this year. We're also looking at what are mining sequences and everything are doing. And I think also important to point out that we've retained a $1,200 gold price for reserve definition mostly to really protect cash flows through the construction period for Cote and eventually Boto. But on the shorter life assets at some point in time, we'll need to think about what gold prices we apply because there is -- there's certainly much more gold at Essakane and Rosebel that is potentially accessible under a higher price.

Okay. And last question for me is with respect to the special unity levy, is that what they're calling it in Suriname, so that's your best understanding is that that's just for this year, and it will expire into 2022?

That's the way it's been written. It's for this year. And we're still in discussions with them as to how that applies.

Okay. And that's as a result of COVID? Or was there some other precipitator for that?

No. I think the new government coming in, the treasury was in a bit of a mess. So they they've done a lot of work on refinancing the country and trying to get things straightened out. Several years of lower gold prices and oil prices hadn't helped them. And I think they're just trying to put the house in order. The reason it's relatively temporary and something that a lot of developing countries don't have is they recently had a significant oil find in Suriname. And the expectation is that as that gets developed over time, it will significantly change the finances of the country. So it's a short and medium-term issue more than a systemic long-term issue for them.

The next question is from Tanya Jakusconek from Scotiabank.

I just wanted to circle back to Westwood, and I appreciate some of the information on what's happening there with the geotechnical drilling and logging and trying to assess the other parts of the mine and the impact. Just a question for when are we going to get some more clarity for the longer-term outlook for this mine. We're obviously waiting. We've had a change in sort of the mine plan, I guess. And we are now looking at more satellite deposits being supplemented to the production profile. So when are we going to get an update on the long term.

Bruno?

Yes. Thank you, Gord. Look, we have issued 43-101 in August last year, and it was composed of not only derisking some mineral areas but also was including new mining methods. So we firmly believe that these new mining methods is going to be key for the future success of Westwood. Where we had the seismic event, it was an area where it was developed back in 2016. So for -- and right now, that area was almost already mined out. So for the future development, and for the future extraction or extraction that was -- we're going to rely on those new mining methods, and that will -- is still in the plans. Again, it's just what we are planning to mine in 2021. Just want to validate that the condition that were present during the seismic event of October 30 are not replicate in the other zone where we had prior development. So once we have this -- and we restart, we're going to have rejuvenation and update of our life of mine, including those new mining methods, and we'll be able to publish it. So probably in the next quarters, we'll be able to have a better signal with regard to the longevity of Westwood. With the under -- Longueuil stop it's clearly going to help us out and diffusing the constraint away from the mining zone. So we have asked many experts, we have many from all around the world, working on the Westwood plan, and we are confident that with this new mining method, it's going to help us out in having, again, a more predictable and safe and sustainable mine. So we just need to make sure that we do our check and balance with the geotech data before restarting and, after that, completing the new zones with those new mining methods. It's not all the zones that -- have been developed. We still have many other zones to develop, what needs to be developed with the new mining methods and the new mine -- stock sequencing as well. So those new practices will be put in place.

This concludes the time allocated for questions on today's call. I will now hand the call back over to Indi Gopinathan for closing remarks.

Thank you very much, Sachi, and thanks to everyone for joining us this morning and for your continued interest in IAMGOLD. We look forward to having you join us again for our first quarter 2021 conference call in May. Goodbye.

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