Coeur Mining - Earnings Call - Q2 2021
July 29, 2021
Transcript
Speaker 0
Good morning, and welcome to the Koora Mining Second Quarter twenty twenty one Financial Results Conference Call. All participants will be in listen only mode. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Paul DePartout, Director, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Speaker 1
Thank you, and good morning. Welcome to Core Mining's second quarter earnings conference call. Our results were released after yesterday's market close and a copy of the press release and slides are available on our website. I'd like to remind everyone that our press release, slides and some of our comments today include forward looking statements from which actual results may differ. Please review the cautionary statements included in our press release and presentation as well as the risk factors described in our second quarter ten Q and 2030 ks.
Now I'll turn it over to Mitch, Mick and Tom.
Speaker 2
Thanks, Paul, and good morning, everyone. I'll start off on Slide three of today's presentation with some highlights from the quarter. Improved top line performance was driven by an increase in gold and silver ounces sold and an uptick in our average realized silver price. These factors, along with some positive changes in working capital, led to significantly higher operating cash flow both quarter over quarter and year over year. This revenue and cash flow growth was largely a result of a 27% quarter over quarter increase in gold production at Wharf and a 15% quarter over quarter increase in silver production at Rochester.
Kensington's gold production was down slightly due to timing and Palmarejo's production was essentially flat due to slightly lower grades offset by higher throughput. Looking ahead to the back half of the year, we are reiterating our production guidance and expect a strong second half at each of our operating locations for reasons that Mick will touch on. Overall, operating costs increased during the period, reflecting higher throughput and underground development rates, additional maintenance expense, general inflationary pressures and a noncash charge at Rochester. Mick will also provide a bit more color on these items in a few minutes. We continue to advance our largest exploration campaign in company history and established a new record for meters drilled in a single quarter of nearly 100 kilometers with 27 drill rigs currently turning.
We highlighted some of our progress in a press release we issued back in mid June, which showcased a new high grade mineralized zone at our Silvertip mine in Northern British Columbia and more excellent results from our Crown exploration property in Southern Nevada. Turning to Slide 8, you can see we have upped our exploration guidance for the year to keep building on the successes we are having. We now plan to invest approximately $75,000,000 in exploration in 2021, which is nearly 50% higher than last year's record and 2.5x more than our investment in 2019. We continue to view our investment in exploration, which is one of the largest programs in our sector, has a very attractive allocation of capital and an important differentiator. Continuing with the growth narrative, I want to touch on the company's two major development priorities, the ongoing expansion at Rochester and the potential expansion and restart at Silvertip.
Starting with Rochester and looking at Slides 11 through 13, POA 11 is advancing on schedule with overall progress at approximately 31% complete and over 90% of the contracts committed, representing roughly $334,000,000 of capital at the June. Like most companies going through a large capital project right now, we've started to see the impact of inflation in areas such as contractor labor, building materials and fuel on a small number of remaining uncommitted contracts. We'll be evaluating these last few contracts as they come in over the coming months and we'll provide an update on our next call. And finally, our technical team continues to carry out optimization work to incorporate all the important learnings being generated during this transition period until the new infrastructure at Rochester is completed late next year. Turning over to Silvertip and looking at Slide 14.
The ongoing technical work and success of our exploration program combined with much more favorable market conditions have us feeling confident in a potential expansion and restart of Silvertip. As a result, we have accelerated our level of investment to take advantage of the summer construction season to complete a range of mostly surface projects. We plan to pull the ongoing exploration and technical work into an updated technical report, which is expected to be filed in early twenty twenty two. Without question, we believe the growing high grade deposit at Silvertip is well worth the effort despite the challenges we've had there in the past. With a retooled flow sheet and a larger, more reliable processing plant, we see Silvertip becoming a high margin cash flow contributor over a very long mine life in an attractive jurisdiction.
Before passing the call to Mick, I want to briefly mention the strategic investment we made in Victoria Gold. It was a unique opportunity to acquire the 18% block from Orion Mine Finance that aligns with our strategy and further bolsters our portfolio of precious metals assets in high quality jurisdictions. We are pleased to be a Victoria shareholder with how the investment has performed and with how the Victoria team is advancing its new Eagle open pit heap leach operation. Beyond that, I'm not going to speculate on today's call about potential scenarios or next steps, which I'm sure you can appreciate. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Mick.
Speaker 3
Thanks, Mitch. Before going through the operational results, I want to point out a set of slides that highlight our steadfast commitment to protecting our people and upholding our top health and safety initiatives, starting on Slide 20. In order to continuously enhance our safety culture and achieve great performance, we must work free of any uncontrolled exposures. We truly believe that health and safety do not improve unless the exposure is contained, reduced or eliminated. As such, I'm proud to report that we recently completed our recertification for the National Mining Association's core safety program And year to date, we are running towards the lowest lost time injury rate in our company history.
And as I mentioned on my first call a year ago, when companies get health and safety right, strong operational performance follows. Now turning to Slide six and beginning with Palmarejo. Higher mill throughput and better metallurgical recoveries helped to offset lower grades as we continue to encounter some geotechnical challenges. This led us to accelerate the rehabilitation of historical ground controls and re sequence the mine plan. This is expected to result in more ounces coming from the area covered by the gold stream, which results in a higher proportion of costs allocated to silver on a co product basis.
We are confident in our ability to achieve production targets for the year and expect these impacts to be limited to 2021. And with annual EBITDA tax behind us, Palmarejo was able to generate roughly $24,000,000 of free cash flow, over seven times higher than the prior period. This was another great example of how the team can routinely balance multiple priorities and still produce solid results for the business. Moving to Rochester, with a laser focus on short interval controls, we are beginning to see better results from material placed on interlift liners, which drove a 15% increase in silver production during the quarter. Gold production was also higher supported by an aggressive run of mine campaign.
It's also worth noting that these production levels represent significant improvements from where we were twelve months ago. Additionally, we commissioned the new secondary crusher over an eighteen day period, which allowed us to begin placing over liner on the new Stage six leach pad approximately six weeks ahead of schedule. Importantly, initial results from the new crusher have been quite positive. We've been able to operate at higher throughput rates, produce a more consistent crush product and improve leachability of HPGR crushed ore relative to what we saw over the last few quarters. Building on this momentum, the team also successfully completed the fourth and final phase of our Indelift line art strategy on the legacy Stage four leach pad, allowing us to place fresh material closer to plastic during this transition period.
Unit costs came in higher than anticipated, largely driven by a change in our recovery assumptions on historically placed ore on the legacy pad. However, by switching to a coarse crush size and remaining focused on improving those short interval controls, we now expect to achieve a 56% recovery rate for silver on Stage four over the next five years as we finish leaching on that pad. As Mitch mentioned, all the valuable experience and key learnings are helping us further derisk and optimize Payway 11 as we continue to execute on this pivotal expansion project. Switching over to Kensington, we saw slightly lower production as we processed some additional development ore from Jualin and changed out the liners in the ball mill. Unit costs for the quarter remained within guidance and totaled roughly $10.90 dollars per ounce.
The modest uptick in costs was driven by higher diesel prices and additional contractor support for drilling and maintenance as well as fewer ounces sold. Looking ahead to the second half, Kensington is on track to generate its third consecutive year of solid free cash flow. Wrapping up with Wharf, we continue to place higher grade material, which led to a 27% increase production. This stronger performance was coupled with great financial discipline. The team did an excellent job managing costs, while they continued advanced stripping and unloaded one of the leach pads, leading to free cash flow more than doubling quarter over quarter.
All of this important work sets Warfork to finish the second half of the year on a high note. With that, I'll pass
Speaker 4
the call over to Tom. Thanks, Mick. I'll quickly run through our consolidated financial results that are highlighted on Slide five. 6% increase in quarterly revenue coupled with favorable changes in working capital helped us to generate CAD58 million of operating cash flow during the quarter. LTM EBITDA approached $300,000,000 despite the non cash inventory charge at Rochester this quarter, a 41% increase year over year and once again demonstrating the power of our portfolio, especially at these gold and silver prices.
With production guidance reaffirmed, we expect to see increased cash flow generation during the second half of the year to help fund our key internal growth priorities. Next, turning to Slide 15 and looking at the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with a strong cash position and no borrowings under the revolver, leading to nearly $390,000,000 of liquidity and a net leverage ratio of one times, which leaves us well positioned to fund our twenty twenty one CapEx and exploration programs. It's worth pointing out that these numbers do not include the nearly $175,000,000 of equity investments that we have on the balance sheet. As previously discussed, our financing strategy for the Rochester expansion included an element of capital leases.
We were very pleased to have secured a capital lease package of nearly $60,000,000 during the quarter. The cash will be used to help fund a portion of the planned equipment purchases for POA eleven and is above our original target of CAD50 million. The package has a five year tenure and carries a fixed interest rate of 5.2% which which is in line with the senior notes that we issued earlier this year. Lastly, I wanted to quickly note that we opportunistically added to our hedge position during the quarter when spot gold prices approached $1,900 We now have 132,000 ounces of gold hedged next year with an average floor of $16.30 dollars per ounce and then average ceiling of $2,038 per ounce. We will continue to proactively monitor the market to potentially layer in additional hedges on up to 50% of expected gold production in 2022 to underpin our cash flow during this period of elevated capital investment.
I'll now pass the call back to Mitch.
Speaker 2
Thanks, Tom. Before moving to the Q and A, I want to quickly highlight Slide 16 that summarizes our top priorities for the second half of the year. By accomplishing this set of priorities, we expect to enter 2022 with a clear and compelling path to delivering industry leading organic growth from our balanced portfolio of North American precious metals assets. With that, let's go ahead and open it up for questions.
Speaker 0
We will now begin the question and answer session. Our first question comes from Mark Reichman with Nobel Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Speaker 5
Good morning. So my first question relates to Rochester. So the technical report had forecast preproduction expenditures of about $397,000,000 So when you look at your release and you've committed $334,000,000 of capital plus that additional $20,000,000 bringing the total to $354,000,000 So what are your expectations now with respect to preproduction expenditures for the Rochester expansion?
Speaker 2
Mark, it's Mitch. We're still anticipating kind of that even split between 2021 and 2022, roughly around that $200,000,000 level in each of those two years. So maybe a little bit more now into 2022 with that additional $20,000,000 that we referenced in the release that you mentioned. But otherwise, that kind of even split between this year and next.
Speaker 5
Yes. Well, Snow, just you don't really break out the development sustaining capital by mine. And I know that like Rochester, development capital has been higher kind of like than the average for the entire budget for development. But so what would you say your development capital would be in 2021 and 2022?
Speaker 2
Developments, we break that out in the release in each of the mine by mine sections. There's a CapEx, little point or two as sustaining versus development. Tom, do you happen to have that in front of you? I don't have that in front of you. I think the Rochester sustaining this year is only 10,000,000 or $15,000,000 And then the rest is all development related to POA 11.
Speaker 5
Okay. So 10,000,000 to $15,000,000 in each year, so to speak, and then the remaining. So if you kind of keep it at 200,000,000 a year, and then the $15,000,000 would be sustaining and the remainder would be. So do you think you'll get pretty close to that $397,000,000 Or do you think you'll run under? Or do you think with inflation, I guess I'm just trying to gauge kind of whether that's still a pretty good number?
Speaker 2
Yes. Great question. It's a fluid dynamic time like we mentioned in the release and in our comments. We're lucky or we're fortunate to have the vast majority of the capital already committed.
Speaker 4
We
Speaker 2
have just a tad over $60,000,000 uncommitted still. So that's where we'll have some we'll receive some bids here in the next few months. We'll pick those apart. But those have a lot of steel, piping, cement and contract labor rates in there. And so we're our eyes are wide open on those remaining elements, and that's where some of this escalation pressure is starting to be seen a little bit.
So we'll have more to say at the end of the third quarter once we get all that in and sort through it and see where we are. But at least at Rochester, that's only on a pretty small relatively speaking, small piece of that remaining uncommitted capital.
Speaker 5
Okay. And just to clarify one thing on our discussion on the development capital. So if you're saying $200,000,000 it sounds to me like you kind of expect to be at the upper end of the range Rochester in terms of where the guidance is.
Speaker 2
Yes. That's I think that's probably a fair assumption for now until we come back and give you more clarity later this year.
Speaker 5
No, that's really helpful. I really appreciate it. Thanks very much. Yes,
Speaker 2
sure, Mark. Thanks.
Speaker 0
The next question is from Joseph Rieger with ROTH Capital Partners. Please go ahead.
Speaker 6
Good morning, guys, and congrats on a solid quarter.
Speaker 2
Hey, Joe. Thanks.
Speaker 6
So a little bit more on Rochester. So in the release, you mentioned that $20,000,000 the previous caller mentioned as well.
Speaker 0
Can you give us a
Speaker 6
little bit more color on where that's going and how accretive you think that extra investment is?
Speaker 2
Yes, sure. Good question. It's a lot of little things, but Terry Smith is sitting here he'll Terry, can you cover that quick?
Speaker 7
Yes, sure. Good question, Joe. The funding is really underpins that we want to build Rochester for the long term success. And there's a lot of incremental pieces to this, but it really comes down to improving the safety, availability and operability of the infrastructure that we're putting in place. And just to give you some color on that, we upgraded the geotechnical design in the crusher pocket, making that a safer excavation for the long term.
We put some redundant pumps into the Merrell Crow plant. That will increase availability of that plant in the long term. We've put a more sophisticated control system in the leach pad and the Merrell Crow plant, which will make that a more efficient set of leach operations going forward. So overall, we're pretty happy with all of these little upgrades. Unfortunately, it costs money, but we feel these are good returns for the long term.
Speaker 2
Does that help, Sure.
Speaker 6
Yes. Yes, that's helpful. And then on the inflation that you guys mentioned, can you give us kind of an order of magnitude on that? Are we talking a couple of percent? Are we talking 10% to 15%?
Or are we talking some larger magnitude level of pressure?
Speaker 2
More on the OpEx side, Joe?
Speaker 6
No. Specifically with the contracts at Rochester.
Speaker 2
Yes. I would say it's the labor rates that are the biggest component of the pressure being seen and then probably followed by the I'm just thinking about the dollars associated with each cement, steel, a lot of copper conduit goes into the Merrill Crow into the crusher corridor. Those are four of the main drivers. Tom, Terry, am I leaving any Mick, am I leaving any big ones out?
Speaker 4
No. And Joe, just to add a little color, right? I mean those two SMPI contracts are in the budget, we're roughly about $60,000,000 just to give you a sense of what that order of magnitude is. So again, as Mitch said earlier, we're obviously pretty happy that we've committed a lot of the capital earlier. And so we're evaluating we'll be evaluating those bids here in the third quarter, and we'll be back to everyone during the next call with where those ultimately landed.
Speaker 6
Okay. Fair enough. And then one final thing. There's been a number of companies that are traditionally Mexican focused silver miners or just miners in general who seem to be diversifying out of Mexico. They've made some, let's call it, unfavorable tax decisions in recent years.
What do you guys think about long term of Palma Rayo? Do you see it as something where when it's mined out, you're done in Mexico? Or do you see other opportunities there? Maybe just big picture five year plan there.
Speaker 2
Yes. Great question. Mexico has become a more challenging jurisdiction relative to our other jurisdictions here in The U. S. And up north in Canada.
From a growth standpoint, you can see the majority of our growth really organic growth is coming over the next few years from The U. S. And Canada. That all said, though, you look at you referenced, Joe, a five year window. What we can do at Palmarejo over the next five years operationally, what we're seeing with our exploration, especially at these elevated levels.
And there's a whole new world off to the east there at Palmarejo that sits outside of the Goldstream AOI that we are very focused on sort of extending our exploration reach East Of Palmarejo. There's a lot of targets, a lot of potential, a lot of historic resources that we inherited when we bought Paramount, you'll recall from several years ago. So there's a lot more to do there, especially with a higher exploration budget. For the last four or five years, frankly, we've been pretty focused on that corridor, right, between and including Independencia and Guadalupe and sort of extending those both to the Northwest and to the Southeast and then drilling in between them. But we're starting to now develop enough of a runway down there that we're able to kind of pick our heads up a little bit and look around in a more expansive way, and there's still a lot to do down there.
So totally committed on Palmarejo and excited about the prospects there for what should be a hopefully a long time still.
Speaker 5
Okay. Thanks for the color.
Speaker 2
Yes, sure. Thanks, Joe.
Speaker 0
The next question is from Brian MacArthur with Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Speaker 1
Hi, good morning, and thanks for taking my question. My questions relate to Silvertip. So a couple of things. You talk about making a bigger mill. There are some pictures in there showing you're cleaning up the site, but we're spending 50,000,000 to $65,000,000 now.
I'm just trying to think through the timing of this, and I realize you may not be able to give us everything until the study comes in early next year. But you talk about starting in 2023, and
Speaker 8
winter up there
Speaker 1
is not the easiest time. If you go forward with this, is the concept you get the study early next year, you'd be able to order what you need for the bigger mill, and then you get it up and running sort of late twenty twenty three? Is that kind of the way we're tentatively thinking about it? I'm just trying to get a little bit more color on the spending and you're obviously trying to get ahead a little bit with that capital, but any more color on how that actually could unfold would be helpful.
Speaker 2
Yes, sure. Fair question. And I think you have it about right. If all sort of signs point to yes later this year, that sort of early twenty twenty three commissioning ramping up throughout the middle of the year and hopefully hitting a commercial production level later in 2023 would be the way we'd envision it playing out. And you're dead on in terms of Northern BC taking advantage of this season now the way we are with some of this early works capital that we're investing helps kind of derisk that potential timetable.
I guess just the other piece I'd throw out there is when you think about capital, which schedule and capital are the two things we're working very hard to pin down here in the second half of the year. But we anticipate that the majority of capital that would be invested in Silvertip would be funded from an offtake financing. So hopefully, that helps you think through to the extent you're thinking about balance sheet or any liquidity questions. That's sort of going to be a large part of the solution there.
Speaker 1
That's very helpful as well. But are you actually going have to put a new mill in there? I'm just trying to think of when you'd be shipping that in with the weather and all that up there. Or is that being envisioned? Or that's the other part I was just trying to figure out timing wise to get that in, I guess, next summer would be the goal is kind of what you're looking for, I guess.
Is that am I thinking about that right?
Speaker 2
You're thinking about it right. Bigger mill building, there's some pieces of infrastructure that will be carryover or remaining. But that's one of the big elements of this early works going on right now is decommissioning and cutting out a lot of that legacy infrastructure. So it's going to be a little bit of a mix, but that would all hit the site next construction season would be the plan under that 2023 scenario.
Speaker 1
Great. Thanks very much for that color, Mitch. That's very helpful.
Speaker 2
Yes. Sure thing, Brian. Take care.
Speaker 0
The next question is from Karl Blunden with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Speaker 9
Hi, good morning. Thanks so much for the time. Maybe just a follow-up on Silvertip. You anticipated a question I had there around funding of it, right, because you're obviously funding Rochester right now as well. And good to hear that you've got other ways to finance it relative to the balance sheet.
When you think about that project, is it fair to say at this point that you're committed to it? Are there some risk factors you're still exploring before you go ahead? Or have you learned enough at this point in time?
Speaker 2
Still there's always an off ramp. We don't want to do anything there that's not we need to get that right. Expanding and restarting that, we're not going to get another chance at that. And this approval or this kind of inflection point late this year, let the drills keep turning, get all this technical work done, get the mine plan updated with all the drilling. There will be very much of an off ramp available to us later this year.
I'd like to think that, that off ramp is more around the question of timing and not a question of if regarding a Silvertip restart, more of a when, not an if. But let's get the answers, and then we can lay it all out and see how it looks.
Speaker 9
Got you. And then as the had decisions around what an offtake agreement might look like? Is that something that is a later 2021 event? Or is the timing of that decision also subject to some kind of wider time frames?
Speaker 2
Tom, you want to just give a little bit of color on
Speaker 4
Yes. That Thanks, Mitch. So obviously, we've had some preliminary conversations with potential partners. And I think it's fair to say the market has turned around a lot faster and is much better than we anticipated. And we're looking forward to sharing some of the network that we've been busy executing here over the last twelve months and marrying that up with the schedule and mine plan, those conversations will accelerate here in the second half of the year.
So that any restart would be tied to an offtake agreement. And again, just reiterating Mitch's point that the majority of the funding of any additional capital would be supported from this offtake financing.
Speaker 2
Karl, it's hard to imagine a better environment for Tom to have this objective in his 2021. It's a great time to be to have a good high quality concentrate product to be looking for, as you Tom say, happy home.
Speaker 4
Yes. And again, I think during the while we were operating Silvertip, one of the things that always worked well was the logistics. So the trucking, the shipping, that piece of it was always great. And I think it's fair to say people are looking for high quality counterparties like Core, New York Stock Exchange listed, top ESG. We'll be in this will be an attractive concentrate, and we're looking forward to advancing those conversations.
Speaker 9
Yes, that's fantastic. If I could just squeeze in one more. So as you have these different growth options, you also then would look to potentially extend mine life. I get some questions about Kensington, for example. Is that something that you could look
And would there be significant capital investment required as you look over the next two or three years?
Speaker 2
Yes. You point out that's our shortest mine life there at Kensington, and we have accelerated our level of exploration investment there last year, in particular. Now this year, I think it's our third biggest allocation this year at about almost $14,000,000 That's one of the reasons we bumped up our full year exploration investment guidance ranges is because of the elevated levels of investment there at Kensington, all of which should help move that needle in terms of overall mine life. It's not quick. It's not the easiest place to drill and expand and extend just given the nature of the deposit and the infrastructure and where it is.
But we're optimistic there that we'll have some success come year end. You may recall a lot of the conversion drilling, the infill drilling last year didn't take place till late in the year. And so it didn't make its way into the year end reserve. So we've got a lot of that from last year carrying over into 2021 plus an elevated level of investment there. This year, They're having some really good results.
And so we're encouraged. I know Mick and Hans are excited. They're heading up there next week to get a deeper dive into the exploration program there. So hopefully, that gives you some additional color, Karl.
Speaker 9
Yes. Yes, that's really helpful. Thanks, Mitch. Thanks, Tom. Appreciate it.
Speaker 0
Okay. The next question is from Michael Dudas with Vertical Research. Please go ahead.
Speaker 8
Good morning,
Speaker 2
Hi, Mike.
Speaker 8
First question, Mitch, maybe you can update us on I know you've done great protocols relative to COVID, but like at your operations, Mexico, percentage of employees vaccinated, has there any issues or any incoming concerns or recent evidence with the variants starting to show up a little more aggressively, especially in the South?
Speaker 2
Yes. Great question. After the last, whatever it's been, fifteen months or so, one of the biggest risks is just people putting letting their guard down. I think though our controls have been serving us well. At this point, we feel good with where we are in terms of vaccination rates.
Interestingly, at our underground mines, so Kensington, Palmarejo, Silvertip vaccination rates hover right around that eighty percent level. And I think a lot of that has to do with if you get vaccinated, then you're going to have less of a quarantine requirement or logistical issues going to and from site. And so that's been a big incentive, and I think that's driven those vaccination rates up like that. Out west here in The U. S, vaccination rates are a little bit more typical of what you're seeing kind of on a national basis, a little shy of half of our folks vaccinated.
But that doesn't mean that we're not still doing testing, distancing, masking for unvaccinated. The technology that we implemented has continued to really help in terms of distancing and contact tracing, those things that were all the new buzzwords a year ago. We're still doing them. And I'm really, really proud of the what we put in place, how we've stuck to it and how it's allowed us to continue to largely, except for the hiccups in Mexico, the government suspension temporarily in Q2 last year down there. Otherwise, we've been continuing to operate, which has been great.
Mick, did I miss anything?
Speaker 3
No, it's great. Really good robust controls at all of the sites, and we continue to apply them, not on the quarantine front because we'll have really good vaccination rates and continue with those other controls. But overall, a high level of confidence that we have control of that issue.
Speaker 2
Does that help, Mike?
Speaker 8
Absolutely. No, very good. That's very helpful. So my second question is maybe Mitch could share some observations on some of the corporate activity going on in Southern Nevada and how that highlights your block down there and just the kind of longer term prospects of how things could work out from a value creating standpoint from all the parties down there?
Speaker 2
Yes, yes, exactly. That's well asked, Mike. Is an exciting Lots of activity obviously going on. We really like the kind of the strategic land position that we have there in Southern Nevada. Even though some activity is going on with our neighbors, it doesn't really change what we need to do, which is continue to drill, hopefully continue to have success expanding the resource there at Crown in those four deposits, Daisy, SNA, Secret Pass and Seahorse.
We're continuing to focus on pulling the drilling together there into assessment or technical report middle part of next year. So we can take a look at that as a future potential operation in Southern Nevada to go along with what everything we have up in Northern Nevada. And as far as the activity, look, we're always open to talking to our neighbors and evaluating opportunities or ideas for how we could rationalize capital, share risk, expand the collective pie, right? And so we got good relationships, I think, in the neighborhood down there and hope to continue to build on them as we keep the drills turning. I think we're spending about $14,000,000 in drilling there at Crown, a little bit of that is also at Sterling, just to the south.
But that's a reflection of how enthusiastic we are about it and how quickly you can grow a resource, an oxide near surface gold resource in Southern Nevada. Just keep the drills turning, and we're seeing some good results. So hopefully that gives you a little bit of flavor for how we're thinking about things.
Speaker 8
No, I appreciate that. And just to qualify, it sounds as if it will be different this time as opposed to historical alliances and situation, it appears that there's too much to be had, especially in a world of ESG, carbon and capital discipline, I would think.
Speaker 2
It's yes. And it's great to I certainly hope so. I guess I can't speak for everybody that's stopped down there. But to have a blank slate, essentially, new large it's a great place to operate down there. And we can hopefully approach it with that sort of mentality, Mike, of how do we do this in a way that works best for everybody, works best for the environment, for community, for all the stakeholders.
It's probably the most exciting thing going on in Nevada right now in terms of gold and new discoveries and exploration. So it's a lot of buzz. Beatty is hopping. Beatty, Nevada in Nye County is a place to be.
Speaker 8
Absolutely. Good luck. Thanks, Mitch. Appreciate your thoughts.
Speaker 2
Yes. Thanks, Mike.
Speaker 0
The next question is from Mike Sciarco with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Speaker 10
Thanks. Thanks guys for taking the question. Back to the quarter for a second. Could you get into a little bit more detail on the inventory charges Rochester in the quarter? Maybe what the specific cause was of the lower recovery that you're seeing?
And if we should be expecting any further impacts going forward there?
Speaker 2
Yes, sure. I'll just start with one or two quick comments and then pass it over to I've got Tom and Mick both looking at me, nodding their heads. But that Stage four pad, Mike, a legacy mature pad deep, a lot of noise that exists within that pad. The way we're trying to derisk that in the interim here in the near term is mitigating it with some inner lift liners. And so all of this sort of goes away then as we transition over to Stage six once it's completed.
But there's been, as we've mentioned in the past, some ore in the pit, variable ore types that have led to the creation of fines, some with some higher sulfide content. That material sits out there on Stage four as we've mined and crushed that and learned about those different ore types. And so all of those learnings essentially have gone into then the need to adjust that estimate in terms of a recovery rate on Stage four. I don't know if that gives any good color. But maybe, Mick, Tom, over to you to fill in any blanks that I left out.
Speaker 3
On the ore type, it was a new ore type, a little bit softer. So the balance between soft and hard ores, it's been a great learning for us. We're doing some additional core drilling over the next eighteen months to make sure that we'll have a really good characterization of that ore body and the ore body knowledge as we head into pad VI. So really, really good timing for us to get that knowledge.
Speaker 4
And maybe just the last piece of your question, Mike, was do you expect anything more? And so the answer is no. Again, we've gone back, looked at the data, analyzed it. And as Nick said, going forward, we've got a 56% recovery rate on Stage four for the remainder of the life of that pad. And so we're comfortable that we took the accounting charge that was required.
Speaker 10
Okay. That's great color. And then maybe just back to a higher level question. Depending on how you look at it, you have maybe four or five projects on the go between Rochester, Silvertip, the extended exploration program and maybe Crown as well as whatever ends up happening in Victoria. So you have offtake financing potential, you have some downside protection from the hedges, you have available credit.
But can you talk a little bit more about your confidence in executing on all of these priorities over the next couple of years in the context of the balance sheet, maybe some of the inflationary pressures you're seeing. Are there other levers to pull there? Are you looking at maybe your equity investments as a source of capital? How are you thinking about all these things, appreciating that it's an ongoing process?
Speaker 2
No, it's a great question. It's kind of the key question, certainly one I've devoted a lot of time to. Maybe I'll take the kind of bandwidth question that you're asking. And then Tom, you can cover maybe the levers and the balance sheet aspect of I the think with the Board, over the last few years around development of our strategy, along with that came concerted effort to kind of bolster the team to align with that strategy to be able to deliver on the strategy. And then sitting on top of all of that has been a lot of work that has gone into culture.
And I know people like to talk about culture, but we have one here that is very much of a performance driven, make an impact and achieve meaningful things. And we have a, I'd say, a highly motivated and inspired group, not and I'm not talking about the people just in this room, but even deeper into the organization that have a high level of motivation about achieving great things and and getting this company from kind of the here to there. And that there looks really exciting. Every time I'm talking to a group of people here at the company about where these initiatives can take this company, there's a lot of enthusiasm in the room excitement and a lot of alignment around making it happen. And so that's contagious.
I think we've got a we have a lot on the move, but I think we're able to prioritize stay above kind of a lot of the noise because we have good teams underneath us that are handling a lot of the blocking and tackling and allowing us to really focus on these high impact initiatives that you kind of walk through there. And so three or four years ago, capacity, bandwidth, definite challenge. Now I think we've built the organization up to where it's capable of delivering on the strategy and delivering on those priorities. And I wasn't able to say that in years past. Tom, do you want to cover the other aspect of the question?
Speaker 4
Mike, you almost you kind of answered it almost for me. But again, between our cash on hand, the debt capacity and the cash flow from operations is essentially the key way that we're going to fund. Again, that debt capacity, just as a reminder, we've got a $300,000,000 revolver completely undrawn. There's a $100,000,000 accordion that's completely at our discretion that we could draw upon. And then again, Silvertip, we talked about earlier in the call, the offtake agreement.
I mean other things that we do have at our disposal that we've got $175,000,000 of equity investments, which include the big chunk of that's Victoria Gold, how that plays into the future funding. All this kind of underpin with robust scenario analysis that we go through with the Board once a quarter in tremendous detail, flexing all of the various assumptions, commodity prices, capital costs, etcetera, etcetera. So we feel really confident in our ability. And most importantly, we talk about this a lot, everything is still within our control. And we look forward to telling you more about the story as we make some more decisions throughout the rest of
Speaker 2
the year. And I'd just add a tack on at the end here, Tom. The pie of funding sources can't overstate the importance of the free cash flow coming from Palmarejo, Wharf, Kensington and then Rochester's own operating cash flow as it continues to improve quarter over quarter. Combined those from that our multi asset kind of portfolio here, that's a big chunk of the funding that goes along with all the other levers and options that Tom mentioned. So $1,800 gold and $25 silver, obviously, help.
But together, we feel you put all those pieces together and you look at this year and next year, and we feel good about the balance sheet.
Speaker 10
So I guess if I can maybe I'm backing into a CapEx question for Silvertip. But I guess then what you're saying is it's fair to say that you can maintain the level of exploration spending at least into partially into 2022, fund the restart of Silvertip and Rochester, and you're comfortable doing all of that within the available capital that you have, the balance sheet that you have today without really doing anything else. That's a fair statement?
Speaker 2
It's a fair statement. Mick's got to execute on the operations and gold and silver can't fall through the floor. But with those two caveats, yes, your statement is a fair one.
Speaker 10
Okay, great. Thanks very much for the time guys.
Speaker 2
Yes, sure. Good questions.
Speaker 0
The next question is from Dalton Baretto with Canaccord. Please go ahead.
Speaker 2
Hey, Dalton. Thanks, Brad.
Speaker 11
Hey, Matt. Good morning.
Speaker 2
A couple of
Speaker 11
questions from me. Just kind of in
Speaker 1
that same vein. Let's start
Speaker 11
with Silvertip and offtake financing. If memory serves, there was an offtake agreement with Ocean Partners. Has that completely fallen away now?
Speaker 2
Tom, you want to take that?
Speaker 0
That
Speaker 4
agreement just isn't valid right now because we haven't been able to produce a concentrate quality that's within the specification that's required by that contract. We're again hopeful that with the restart, we'll be in a position to have a concentrate quality that we know we can produce consistently and we'll be able to have a further discussion with them and others around finding happy homes for the concentrate.
Speaker 9
Okay. But it doesn't restrict you
Speaker 1
in any way from talking to other offtake partners?
Speaker 11
Correct. Got it. Okay. And then as you were listing off your funding sources, you didn't mention the ATM. What are your plans around that?
Speaker 2
Great question. You're two for two, Dalton. First question was a good one. That's a good one, too. Yes, we put that in maybe a little over a year ago, maybe even actually in April, when the darkest of days of COVID and a lot of uncertainty, a lot of unknowns.
One thing at that time, we felt like we could probably consider unknown is just the liquidity in our shares. And so we thought, look, we should put something in place so that we have a last resort source of liquidity if things really go upside down here. And at that time, of course, it seems like forever ago, but we didn't know where things were going to go. Now fast forward to today, we've just we've left it there and don't have any plans to use it or tap into it. But it's not a bad arrow to have in the quiver.
It's just almost like a mixed shelf, just maintain that. So if things play out in a way that are totally unanticipated, it's there. But that's kind of how we think about it. Tom, did I anything you want to add? Okay.
Does that help, Dalton? Yes. No, that makes a
Speaker 11
lot of sense. And then given what you were saying about inflation around the remaining contracts at Rochester, are you moving to secure anything at Silvertip ahead of time?
Speaker 2
Well, it's a good question. Also, we part of the early works was let's get some of the stuff done before the planning on some of this stuff goes back a little ways so that we were able to lock in some kind of pre escalation levels on some of this work. It's another kind of moving target as we work here in the second half toward a more definitive capital estimate, too. So we're now we're kind of we rushed to get some of this early work stuff in and remove some of that escalation risk in the very near term. Now as we think about the next the larger build out, now we're going to have to really sort of take the full effects of escalation into account and thinking through that and then how can we potentially mitigate that, how can we approach our strategy, our contracting strategy potentially in this world that we're now all kind of living in.
So it's a good question, and it's something that we're it's going to be incorporated into a lot of the aspects of what we'll need to do up there at Silvertip.
Speaker 11
Okay. And then on the $300 and change million that's been committed already for Rochester, those contracts, are they fixed either from unit price or from a volume perspective? Or are there escalators in there?
Speaker 7
It's a blend of hey, Dalton, it's Terry here. It's a blend of lump sum and unit rate contracts.
Speaker 11
Okay, great. And then just maybe one last one for me, Mitch. I know you said you wouldn't comment on Victoria, but I'm just wondering, Eagle is reasonably proximal to Selvertsen. Are there any form of operating synergies there at all?
Speaker 2
Dalton, potentially, just on a map, but too early to say, not a question that for now is one that's probably worth trying to answer. But it's duly noted and something that's worth keeping in mind.
Speaker 11
Great. Thanks again, guys.
Speaker 2
Yes, sure, Dalton. Thanks.
Speaker 0
The next question is a follow-up from Mark Reichman with Nobel Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Mr. Reichman, line is open. There you are.
Speaker 5
Thank you. Just a quick follow-up on Silvertip. So you're increasing the investment ahead of the economic analysis and really ahead of the signing of any offtake agreements to kind of lock in the economics. And so everything seems to be moving in a really good path there, a really good direction. But my question is you mentioned the off ramp.
So if you decided not to move this forward, how much of that 75,000,000 to $90,000,000 would you have spent? Or how much would you end up kind of writing off of that? I mean in terms of versus the alternative of waiting to spend that money or commit that capital after the economic analysis?
Speaker 2
No, fair question. I think the way we think about it, Mark, is almost everything that we need to do that we're doing actually right now needs to be done no matter what. And whether that is for us, whether that's for somebody else, if we look to monetize it down the road. These are things that are adding value to the project when you have a long term kind of lens on Silvertip. And just pulling back the lens a little bit further, we're trying to balance as a company a few priorities, right?
We want to number one, POA 11, we've got to deliver a successful project there. And we don't want Silvertip. We've heard this feedback from a lot of our stockholders, don't let Silvertip take our eye off the ball at Rochester. And we're very mindful of that, and we're not letting that happen. We also want to we're very committed to that 2023 positive free cash flow objective.
We've staked a lot on that. And
Speaker 4
I
Speaker 2
think that's important for our investors as we think about potentially getting into a place where we can think about returning capital rather than investing capital into our assets. And I think delaying that out into the future is not a good thing for the company. But then we also we don't want to strain unduly strain the balance sheet, especially in 2022. And so those are all the pieces that we're trying to find the right sort of combination with some variables still unknown to get that mix right and try and ensure that we're satisfying all of those priorities. And so one of the with that 2023 goal, in particular, investing this capital now at Silvertip is really essential to allowing us to kind of achieve that schedule that we talked about a little bit ago with a prior question in terms of how that 2023 start up would go.
In order to do that, we've got to do this work now that we're doing. So I don't know if those thoughts help, but that's how we're thinking about it.
Speaker 5
No, that was really helpful. I really appreciate that. Thanks, Mitch.
Speaker 2
You bet. Thanks.
Speaker 0
The next question is a follow-up from Brian MacArthur with Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Speaker 1
Thank you for taking my follow-up question. Two things just back to Silvertip. First, just so I'm really clear because I sort of Dalton had question about that historical concentrate contract. And you sort of said you never met the qualifications, which makes sense. But just to be clear, do they still have a right because you never met that qualification so that there's something enforceable about that contract?
Or do they have a right of first refusal or anything? Or do we start with a clean slate if we go down that route, meaning we can get there's no historical concentrate deals that have to be filled first, which would have some impact on the potential financing going forward?
Speaker 2
Tom, you want to take it?
Speaker 4
Sure. Yes. So look, it's fair to say the company has a strong relationship with Ocean Partners. They were great partners for us while we're in Silvertip production when we were not producing concentrate qualities where they needed to be. We sell some of our off the concentrate at Kensington with them.
And so we'll find a commercial agreement. I think that, again, it goes back to what we've been stating all along that a majority of the Silvertip funding of the capital will be funded via an offtake. And I'll just leave it at that.
Speaker 1
And I guess to be fair, obviously, you build a bigger operation, you'll have more common to play around with anyway. So that gives you more flexibility, right?
Speaker 2
And a consistent attractive product as well. Yes.
Speaker 3
Yes. Correct.
Speaker 2
More of it.
Speaker 1
Okay. And sort of my second question, and I realize this is not the critical factor making your decision on Silvertip. But are there tax pools that would enhance whatever return that you decide you could get at Silvertip if you go ahead? Because again, as we talk about allocating capital around the world, tax is an important part of the equation.
Speaker 2
Great question. And the short answer is yes. Tom, over to you. Do you want
Speaker 4
to fill in the blank? Yes. No, there's we have nearly $300,000,000 of operating losses that will help shelter some of the taxable income that we'll be generating. So absolutely, is a factor in any capital allocation decision that we make across the company, but obviously helps with when it comes to Silvertip that the amount of tax that we'll be paying is not as high as you might otherwise think.
Speaker 1
Great. Thanks very much. I thought that was right, but I just wanted to check.
Speaker 0
Thank Yes.
Speaker 2
No problem.
Speaker 0
This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mitch Krebs for any closing remarks.
Speaker 2
Okay, great. Well, hey, we appreciate everybody's time this morning. A lot of great questions and we look forward to speaking with you all again in the fall to discuss our third quarter results. Thanks again.
Speaker 0
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.