Frederick Earnest - President and Chief Executive Officer John Engele - Senior Vice-president and Chief Financial Officer

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Vista Gold’s First Quarter Financial Results and Corporate Update Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Today is Friday, May 4, 2018. It is now my pleasure to introduce Vista’s President and CEO and your host, Mr. Fred Earnest. Please go ahead, Mr. Earnest.

Thank you, Jack. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining Vista Gold Corp.’s 2018 Q1 financial results and corporate update conference call. I’m pleased to be joined on this call by Jack Engele, our Senior Vice President and CFO; and also by Connie Martinez, our Director of Investor Relations, both here with me in our corporate office in Denver. In Q, we achieved two very significant milestones in the advancement of our Mt. Todd gold project. On January 2, we’re notified by the Australian Commonwealth Department of Environment and Energy that the environmental authorization required under the Environmental Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act of 1999 had been approved. With this approval, this now holds all of the major environmental permits for the development of the Mt. Todd project. Subsequently, on January 24, we announced the results of an updated preliminary feasibility study, which reflect the results of the testing and processory design changes that were completed in 2017. On March 2, we published the technical study detailing the work completed and the results of the preliminary feasibility study. Well, I will discuss the importance of these results later in the call, I want to iterate our believe that the Mt. Todd gold project is one of the most well-advanced and underappreciated gold projects in the hands of a developer today. In the course of this call, we will be making forward-looking statements. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Vista to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Please refer to our Form 10-K for a detailed discussion of risks and other important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in our forward-looking statements. I’ll now turn the time over to Jack Engele to discuss the financial results for the quarter.

Thank you, Fred. Good morning, everyone. I’ll start with our statement of income and loss for the quarter. We reported a net loss of $0.9 million, or $0.01 a share for the quarter ended March 31, 2018. This includes $3.1 million of operating expenses, net of a $2.0 million mark-to-market gain on our investment in Midas Gold and other income of about $0.2 million. The main components of the $3.1 million of operating expenses include $0.9 million of fixed-site management cost at Mt. Todd, about $1.3 million of fixed corporate G&A costs, about $0.5 million in non-cash stock-based compensation and depreciation, and about $0.3 million of discretionary programs, the biggest of which involved drilling to provide samples for additional ore sorting and met testing programs. 2018 fixed cost at Mt. Todd trended higher than our Q1 2017 fixed costs, as baseline monitoring activities have been introduced in compliance with the terms of the EPBC permit, which was granted in January 2018. In addition, we have added a site employee. Q1 2018 corporate G&A costs also trended higher than our Q1 2017 costs. Higher 2018 costs were incurred principally as a result of the completion of the Mt. Todd PFS update, which drove an increase to our Investor Relations, regulatory, and compensation costs. Turning to our balance sheet. Our working capital totaled approximately $18.6 million on March 31, 2018, which included cash and T-Bills of about $13.3 million. The $18.6 million of working capital is down about $0.5 million from our December 31, 2017 working capital. The reduction results from the normal usage of cash to run the business during the quarter, offset by an improvement in the value of our investment in Midas Gold. The mark-to-market value of our remaining 7.8 million shares of Midas Gold at March 31 was…

Thank you, Jack. On our last call, I discussed the environmental authorization and the results of the updated preliminary feasibility study in detail. Rather than repeat what was said previously, I’d like to spend more time on the importance of those results. What do they really mean? As demonstrated in our corporate presentation, the Mt. Todd project is positioned to be a top five gold producer on the Australian continent with lowest quartile all-in sustaining costs. We have improved the project through extensive testing of proven off-the-shelf automated sorting technology, followed by metallurgical testing to support the design of a new and more efficient grinding circuit. The inclusion of automated sorting is estimated to generate efficiencies resulting from the elimination of 10% of the run-of-mine feed from the processor prior to grinding as uneconomic waste. This results in proportional cost reductions in the grinding, leaching and tailings handling areas. By utilizing the excess capacity of the HPGR crushers generated by the sorting, we expect to achieve efficiencies that provide benefits in the grinding circuit. The grinding circuit is now designed as a two-stage grinding circuit with smaller ball mills and a second stage of grinding utilizing horizontal IsaMills. Test work indicates that this combination of two-stage grinding will efficiently produce a finer final product with less energy consumption. Leach test indicate an important improvement in gold recovery, resulting in improved revenue generation. As we’ve done in the past, we continue to use well-respected industry professionals and widely acclaimed testing facilities for the work at Mt. Todd. The cost estimates for Mt. Todd have been developed based on first principle estimates and current quotes for consumables. We have used the McDonald’s salary survey, a broad-based Australian-centric salary survey to estimate labor costs. We have designed the Mt. Todd project to be…

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] There are no questions at this time.

Very good, Jack. I’ll just wrap up the call then. We’d like to thank everybody for taking time to join the call this morning. We’re very pleased with where the Mt. Todd project is positioned, and we’re working very diligently to advance the project, while creating shareholder value. We want to thank each of you for your time and we wish each of you a very pleasant day.

This concludes today’s conference call. All participants may now disconnect. We thank you for your participation.