New Gold - Q3 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning. My name is Sylvie, and I will be your conference operator today. Welcome to the New Gold's Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. Please note that all lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. Please be advised that today's conference call and webcast is being recorded. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star then number one on your telephone keypad. And if you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then the number two. I would now like to hand the conference over to Ankit Shah, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Business Development. Thank you.

Ankit Shah (EVP of Strategy and Business Development)

Thank you, Sylvie, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today for New Gold's third quarter 2024 earnings conference call and webcast. On the line today, we have Patrick Godin, President and CEO, Yohann Bouchard, our COO, and Keith Murphy, our CFO. In addition, we also have Luke Buchanan, Vice President, Technical Services, and Jean-François Ravenelle, Vice President, Geology, available to assist during the Q&A portion of the call. Should you wish to follow along the webcast, please sign in from our homepage at newgold.com. Before the team begins the presentation, I'd like to direct your attention to our cautionary language related to forward-looking statements found on slide two of the presentation. Today's commentary includes forward-looking statements relating to New Gold. In this respect, we refer you to our detailed cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements in the presentation.

There are cautions that actual results and future events could differ materially from those expressed or implied in forward-looking statements. Slide two provides additional information and should be reviewed. We also refer you to the section entitled Risk Factors in New Gold's latest AIF, MD&A, and other filings available on SEDAR+, which set out certain material factors that could cause actual results to differ. In addition, at the conclusion of the presentation, there are a number of end notes that provide important information and should be reviewed in conjunction with the material presented. I will now turn the call over to Pat for some opening remarks.

Patrick Godin (CEO)

Thanks, Ankit. Good morning, everyone. We had a lot of success in the third quarter. We also had some difficult moments. I take this opportunity to commend the team, not just for their commissioning work, but also for how they respond and support each other. As a result, the company is well-positioned, and we look forward to what's to come. Our operations delivered the strongest production quarter of the year to date, with a 40% increase in production over the second quarter and a 13% decrease in all-in sustaining costs. Rainy River delivered an impressive 29% reduction in all-in sustaining costs compared to the second quarter. The strong cost performance allowed us to leverage the higher metal price environment, and as a result, we had an excellent quarter financially, with multiple records achieved, highlighted by a record quarterly free cash flow generation of $57 million.

Yesterday evening, we also provided an update on our key growth projects. I'm pleased to report that New Gold's C-Zone has achieved commercial production, and the gyratory crusher and conveyor system has been commissioned well ahead of schedule. The importance of these milestones cannot be overstated and will have a direct and positive impact on production, cost, and cash flow. Rainy River also achieved first development ore from the Underground Main Zone. Although the ore tonnage from Underground Main Zone will stay relatively low until we commence stoping next year, the achievement marked a key milestone in our plan to prepare the underground mine and ramp up production of higher-grade underground ore. We also realized positive exploration results at both operations during the third quarter. At New Afton, the high-grade eastern sector of the mine continues to grow, with promising results at K-Zone and Hanging Wall Zone.

At Rainy River, in our first major exploration program since 2017, we are already seeing positive results extending open pit and underground mineralization. With that, I will turn the call over to Keith.

Keith Murphy (EVP and CFO)

Thank you, Pat. I'm on slide six, which has our operating highlights. As Pat mentioned, Q3 delivered the highest production and lowest costs of the year. Production totaled approximately 78,400 gold ounces and 12.6 million pounds of copper. This represents a 14% increase in gold production compared to the second quarter, driven by higher feed grades at Rainy River. Consolidated all-in sustaining costs for the quarter were $1,195 per gold ounce, in line with our plan. This is a decrease of 13% over the second quarter. This is highlighted by strong cost performance at both operations, with Rainy River continuing to decrease its all-in sustaining costs and New Afton achieving an all-in sustaining cost of negative $408 per ounce after considering the copper credits.

We expect the increase in production and decrease in cost trends to continue into the fourth quarter, mostly as a result of higher production at Rainy River and lower costs at New Afton. Our total capital expenditures for the quarter were approximately $63 million, with $20 million spent on sustaining capital and $43 million on growth capital. At Rainy River, sustaining capital is primarily related to capitalized waste, capital components, and tailings management and construction. Sustaining capital is trending lower than guidance, as a lower proportion of waste tons are capitalized and a higher proportion remains in operating costs, but with no net impacts on all-in sustaining costs. Growth capital is related to underground development as the Underground Main Zone continues to advance. At New Afton, sustaining capital is primarily related to tailings management and stabilization activities.

Growth capital is primarily related to the C-Zone underground development and is tracking to the low end of the guidance range due to efficient capital management and early commissioning of the crushing conveyor system. Turning to our financial results on slide 7, third quarter revenue was $252 million, which is a quarterly record. Q3 revenue was higher than prior year quarter, primarily due to higher metal prices and higher gold sales, partially offset by lower copper production. Cash generated from operations before working capital adjustments was $120 million, $0.15 per share for the quarter, higher than the prior year period, primarily due to higher revenues. New Gold generated record free cash flow of $57 million due to higher revenue and lower capital expenditures. The company recorded net earnings of approximately $38 million, $0.05 per share during Q3, an increase due to higher revenues.

Earnings were also impacted by lower depreciation than originally planned due to the lower accounting asset base resulting from the deemed disposition of assets at New Afton when accounting for the OTPP buyback in May of this year. After adjusting for certain other charges, adjusted net earnings was $64 million, or $0.08 per share in Q3, a significant increase compared to adjusted net earnings of $23 million in the third quarter of 2023. Our Q3 adjusted earnings include adjustments related to other gains and losses. At the end of Q3, we had cash on hand of $133 million and a liquidity position of $459 million.

This is after the company made a payment of $43 million to the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan as part of the minimum cash guarantee under the terms of the original 2020 agreement and also repaid $50 million of the $100 million drawn in its credit facility to fund the payment under the amending agreement with Ontario Teachers, which was entered into in May, and subsequent to the quarter end, we paid an additional $20 million on the credit facility, leaving a balance of $30 million outstanding, which we expect to pay off by the end of the year. To sum up, we remain in a very healthy financial position. Now, I'll turn the call over to Yohann to walk through our operating highlights. Yohann.

Yohann Bouchard (COO)

Thanks, Keith. Starting with Rainy River on slide nine, gold production in the third quarter was slightly below 78,400 ounces. Although it was an operation's strongest quarter so far this year, we were slightly behind plan at the end of September, and we're expecting full-year gold production to be about 15,000 ounces below the original guidance range. There's two main reasons for that. First, as discussed on the second quarter call, operations were impacted by a voluntary suspension followed by fatality in July and the progressive return to full production. Both front-end loader were temporarily removed from the fleet. Additional safety devices were installed on one of the units, and the same unit returned to production only a few days ago. The second loading unit is still waiting for parts and not necessary for production on the short term.

Second, we had less high-grade ore on two benches in the open pit. Some rich pockets of high-grade ore on the 160 and 150 benches were lower tonnage than originally expected. Although the impacted volume was relatively small, the reduction in high-grade mill feed impacted gold production. Going forward, the team has reviewed the occurrence of high-grade blocks, considering additional grade control data and historical reconciliation, leading to an adjustment of a small percentage of four blocks to mitigate risk. I am confident in the open pit mine plan for the last quarter of this year, and our 2025 and 2026 production outlook remain unchanged. Despite the lower gold production, the team has done an excellent job to control cost. The third quarter all-in sustaining cost is about 29% lower than the previous quarter, at $1,327 per ounce on a by-product basis.

With the fourth quarter expected to be our lowest cost quarter of the year, we are trending to the top end of the guidance range for the full year. Turning to slide 10, Rainy River also completed some significant project milestones in the underground mine during the third quarter. As you know, the underground mine is divided into two main sectors: Intrepid, which has been in production since 2022, and the much larger Underground Main Zone, which we're currently developing. In Q3, raise boring on the main fresh air raise and the second portal located in the east wall of the pit were completed. The second portal will provide a second means of egress and improve ventilation for Underground Main Zone and will also significantly reduce the underground haulage distances. The operation also achieved first ore development at Underground Main Zone ahead of schedule.

Although the ore tonnage is still quite small, it marks a significant milestone in our plan to prepare the Underground Main Zone for stoping in the first half of next year and ramp up to about 5,500 tons per day by 2027. Turning now to New Afton on slide 11, New Afton delivered another strong operating quarter. B3 continued to deliver to plan, with C-Zone ramping up well, leading to a 31% increase in tonnage over the third quarter last year, offset by the planned lower gold and copper grade from B3. All-in sustaining costs decreased significantly compared to the prior year period, driven by lower operating expenses, lower sustaining capital spent, and higher byproduct revenue. The first nine months at New Afton delivered according to plan and were trending favorably with the annual plan.

We continue to transition from the B3 cave to C-Zone and expect to see a continued ramp up in C-Zone mining rate throughout the year. We expect mill throughput to continue increasing in the fourth quarter, partially offset by lower feed grade due to the cave draw sequence, leading to a fairly consistent quarterly gold and copper production profile as planned. Continuing with New Afton on slide 12, C-Zone commercial production and commissioning of the gyratory crusher and conveyor system is completed two months ahead of schedule and on budget. With the material handling system now fully operational, truck haulage is eliminated from C-Zone, removing production constraints and resulting in significant cost reduction going forward. We also completed a total of 18 drawbells as of mid-October, achieving hydraulic radius and commercial production in C-Zone.

These two milestones are transformative for New Afton, increasing production and decreasing costs to generate meaningful cash flow. I would like to provide an update on some of the technical study that we're working on to unlock additional value at Rainy River and New Afton following the positive exploration results from both operations. At Rainy River, after adding phase III to mineral reserves at the end of last year, we extended the open pit mine life by approximately one year and deferred reclaiming of the low-grade stockpile. Based on the near-surface exploration results this year and considering a high gold price, we're now looking at leveraging the existing mill capacity and open pit mining fleet to further extend the open pit mine life while keeping capital investment to a minimum.

While still in the early stages, we have identified potential opportunities to add an additional pushback to the main pit and potentially some smaller satellite pits. At New Afton, the company continued to optimize C-Zone with the potential to increase mineral reserves at no additional capital expenditure. The team is also advancing the East Extension technical study with the objective of adding a new high-grade zone to the east of C-Zone. East extension has the potential to improve the New Afton copper and gold production profile and also to unlock other high-grade zones in the eastern section of the mine, including K-Zone and Hanging Wall Zone. In terms of news flow, the first quarter of 2025 will be active for the company. The company will report year-end 2024 mineral reserves and mineral resources in February 2025.

A three-year operational outlook will also be provided in February, supported by an investor and analyst technical session. And the technical information for both operations will be provided in updated NI 43-101 technical report in the first quarter of 2025. With that, I will hand over the presentation to Pat for closing remarks.

Patrick Godin (CEO)

Thanks, Yohann. Slide 15 summarizes our 2024 outlook. For the full year, we expect consolidated gold production to be slightly below the level that we presented at the start of this year. While New Afton's gold production is expected to be at the top of the guidance range, Rainy River is expected to be below the guidance range due to the reasons that we outlined earlier. Although gold production is slightly lower than planned, all other consolidated operational metrics are in line with or better than target. Copper production is on track to be at the midpoint of the guidance range and consolidated all-in sustaining costs are trending to the lower end of the guidance range. This is a testament to the team's operational discipline and capital management.

Sustaining capital is tracking below the lower end of the guidance range, and the growth capital is tracking to the lower end of the guidance range, partly the result of early commissioning of the mineral handling system at New Afton. Before handing over for questions, the slide summarizes some of New Gold's key accomplishments. Nine months into the year, we have already successfully delivered on the majority of our stated strategic goals. A highlight for me has been the cost performance of our operations, as we have highlighted throughout this presentation. By achieving our cost targets, even with the slightly lower gold production, the operations are realizing increasing margins with the higher metal prices. The increasing margins, together with production growth and declining capital spending over the guidance period, drive higher free cash flows.

As previously reported, we achieved our free cash flow inflection point in Q2 slightly ahead of schedule, and we have just achieved a record quarterly free cash flow for the company. Another key accomplishment is the successful completion of key project milestones. From New Afton C-Zone to Rainy River's Underground Main project and Tailings Dam Raise, the team consistently delivers projects on schedule and on budget. Project execution is now one of New Gold's biggest strengths. With the operation running well and project advancing as planned, the company has increased its production program this year. In Q3, we report positive results at both operations, which we expect to be reflected in our year-end reserves and resources updates.

Finally, we reduced Teachers' Free Cash Flow interest at New Afton from 46% to less than 20% in Q2, generating meaningful shareholder value and increasing our exposure to a high-quality operation with significant exploration upside. This completes our presentation. I will now turn it back to the operator for the Q&A portion of the call. Sylvie.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, as stated earlier, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your touch-tone phone. You will then hear a prompt that your hand has been raised, and if you should wish to decline from the polling process, please press star followed by two, and also note that if you're using a speakerphone, you will need to lift the handset first before pressing any keys. Please go ahead and press star one now if you have any questions, and your first question will be from Mike Parkin at National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.

Thanks, guys, for taking my questions. If I'm looking at slide 13, it's an aerial view of your open pit. Just to be clear, you had some issues in the past with grade reconciliation. If I remember correctly, that was in the North Lobe. But is that not completely done and behind you? And if I'm looking at it in the right orientation, that is the right side of the picture where you're actually backfilling that pit. So what seems to be a temporary issue is not in that problematic area of the pit. That's done and behind you completely. Am I correct on that?

Jean-François Ravenelle (VP of Geology)

Hi, Mike. This is [Jean]. I can answer your question. No, this is not in the North Lobe. It's where we're currently mining. As you know, I started about two years ago in gold. And during that period, the open pit has reconciled well. But like we see in any mine on a monthly basis, we see some positive and negative variance, but overall, it's balanced. And like Yohann mentioned earlier, on two benches, we had rich pockets of high-grade ore that were lower than we should expected. Going forward, there's only a few of those high-grade blocks remaining in phase IV mineral reserves. So we've applied a capping on those remaining blocks to improve mine planning. We don't believe it will have an impact on our 2025 and 2026 production outlook.

Okay. That's great. And then at New Afton, can you just give us a bit more color? You've got the underground crusher online, the conveyor. Can you just give us a bit more color of how and when that's kind of come on and what kind of tonnage rates you're tracking at for, say, the month of October? Because that was kind of, from what I understood from the site tour last year, that was kind of the key deliverable for unlocking the tonnage, which is up quite a bit quarter over quarter. But how soon do you expect to be able to bring that mill up to full capacity now that you're really kind of unlocking the potential C-Zone with, well, both the conveyor system and crusher, but I guess also the hydraulic radius being achieved?

Do you expect that to be several quarters, or could we actually see that achieved relatively early into 2025?

Patrick Godin (CEO)

So thank you, Mike, for speaking. So the first part of it is, as Yohann explained, we will accelerate the draw of B3. So I think it's one thing. And the fact that we were able to start the conveyor and crushing system in advance, it's eliminating all the trucking that were coming up the ramp to discharge of the mineral feed close to B3. So it's a huge cost saving for us. And also, these equipment were interacting with development activities and construction activities. So it will improve the efficiencies of all our work moving forward. So we want to see that in the short term. The fact is that the block cave is a block cave. So the pace of the block cave is something that we shall not. If you accelerate, then you have short-term gain and long-term pain. So we have a good sequence that we present in the outlook.

So if you look at the depletion curve of B3 and the production curve of C-Zone in the outlook, so what that means is we'll accelerate B3, and we'll also, it means that C-Zone will show up more in the second part of the year. But basically, we respect the ramp-up, and this production ramp-up will go to 14,500 tons per day at the end of December 2025.

Okay. And is there any major shutdowns that we should be thinking about for either Q4 or Q1 of next year?

No. You're talking about New Afton, or you're talking?

Jean-François Ravenelle (VP of Geology)

Either one.

No, nothing that is exceptional. So we have regular shutdown at both sites, but to do the maintenance, we are planning our mining sequence and in our production profile, and nothing exceptional going forward.

Great. Thanks very much. That's it for me.

Patrick Godin (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question will be from Eric Winmill at Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Eric Winmill (Mining Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Good morning, Patrick and team. Thanks for taking my question. Nice to see the results out this quarter. Maybe just quickly on the guidance for the balance of this year. Obviously, production's down a bit at Rainy, but costs also coming down as well. Any additional comments there in terms of how you're able to get the cost down here for the balance of the year?

Keith Murphy (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, it's Keith. I'd say going side by side at Rainy, the team has done a great job of focusing on cost control and optimization, which has added the impact of reducing gross costs and unit costs as well. The open pit drilling and blasting, they've made improvements there, reducing haulage distances as well. In the mill, they've been able to optimize and lower consumable consumption. And then on the maintenance side, optimize again and look at our preventive maintenance programs and optimize and reduce costs there. On the capital side, then we're performing the tailings dam raise ourselves. So we're at the raise this year, and we're seeing savings there. And also then on the overall mining costs, capital stripping is down. There's no net impact on AISC. So overall, kind of a lower gross costs at Rainy River.

At New Afton as well, then you've seen the decrease in mining costs every quarter as the C-Zone tonnage continues to ramp up. So that's having a really positive impact on costs as well.

Eric Winmill (Mining Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Great. Thanks for that. Really appreciate it. And maybe just one more on New Afton, if I could. So obviously, good positive progress here on the tailings projects. Anything additional milestones you're looking at for the rest of this year or sort of stable over the winter months? Is that typically how it operates?

Patrick Godin (CEO)

We are really pleased by the tailings, the dewatering of the tailings, and we are overperforming compared to the original plan, so we are slightly in advance. I think we had a pretty dry year this year, and as you know, in B.C., it was pretty warm too, so the evaporator overperformed compared to what we planned. We maximized the utilization period for the evaporator too. The team is in control. Nothing to report here, other than success.

Okay. Thank you. Great to hear. I know I'll certainly be watching that. All right. Thanks for taking my questions. I'll hop back in the queue. Cheers.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question will be from Jeremy Hoy at Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

Jeremy Hoy (VP of Mining and Metals Equity Research)

Hi everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. A lot of them have been answered already, but got a few more to touch on. You mentioned that there'd be an immediately positive impact on costs from the early commercial production at New Afton. Can you provide any more specifics on how you expect this to impact the rest of this year and early next?

Keith Murphy (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. It's Keith again. As Yohann mentioned, the commissioning eliminates the haulage from the C-Zone level and increases our ton throughput. Throughout 2024, we've continued to see a decrease in the mining cost per ton as C-Zone tonnage increases, and we realize the benefits from the capital investments that we've made. That trend will continue into Q4 and into 2025. I'd say once fully ramped up at C-Zone, we'll have a similar cost profile to what we had in the early lift one from 2012 to 2020. It's all trending very well.

Jeremy Hoy (VP of Mining and Metals Equity Research)

Got it. Understood. And in terms of the ramp-up, the timing, we're still talking about 14,500 tons per day in 2025. When are we expected to see that in 2025?

Patrick Godin (CEO)

If I'm looking at the production profile, it's in Q4. So we have a time range for that. When we develop a block cave, actually, we have 18 drawbells. At the end, we're close to 90 drawbells. So our objective is to draw as little as possible. So we are performing extremely well on the development. We are doing also extremely well on construction, actually. And when we'll get close to that, just to remind you, 14,500 is the average tonnes processed per day. But the processing plant is, I think, 16,000 tonnes of capacity. So the 14,500 is including the shutdown. But actually, it will happen mostly in the Q4 of 2025.

Jeremy Hoy (VP of Mining and Metals Equity Research)

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you very much. The last one for me is on the automation system. You mentioned that that would be online in H1 2025. Are you providing any more specifics on how this will improve mining costs?

Yohann Bouchard (COO)

We can start, and Yohann will cover. But the main advantage is when you go down at New Afton with a vehicle just to transport the employees. It's mostly half an hour to go down. It's slightly 35-40 minutes to go up. And in BC, we're restricted, limited to 10 hours per day on the ground. So the big advantage of that is the fact that we operate between shifts, and it will be steady operation. So basically, what is important is, and it's safe, and people are on the surface. So I'm really impressed, honestly, and what they present to me at the beginning and what they achieved today is really impressive. And it's difficult for us to factorize that in the cost that we are going to improve.

But basically, it will mainly provide a steady operation on the ground in the 24-hour business going forward. Yeah.

Jeremy Hoy (VP of Mining and Metals Equity Research)

Okay. Thanks. Really appreciate the color. I'll step back in the queue.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question is from Michael Siperco at RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Michael Siperco (Director of Global Mining Research)

Yeah. Thanks very much. Maybe first on Rainy River. Could you talk a bit more about what the potential there is for a pushback or the other satellite pits that you mentioned? Would that be purely gold price-driven at this point, or is it dependent on further drilling or other considerations? And maybe can you quantify the potential opportunity there, even at a high level?

Hi. It's Luke here. So, like Yohann mentioned, there's a few different opportunities. So, one of them is another pushback to the main pit. So, that one we already have the measured and indicated resources for. So, we don't need any additional drilling for that pushback. It'll just be depending on the gold price. So, we're currently evaluating that at the moment. We're going to provide an update in the first quarter. For some of the other satellite pits around the main pit, we are continuing to do some RC drilling in those areas. So, we'll also provide an update next year on that.

Sorry. So just so I heard you right, should we be expecting an update on those opportunities with the updated technical report, or is that longer term?

Yeah. They'll be included in the technical reports, either as resources or possibly as reserves. We're still evaluating that.

Okay, and then maybe just one follow-up. If you were to start refocusing on, excuse me, on open pit operations at Rainy, would that have anything to do, or would it impact the plans for underground development, or would you think of doing both in parallel?

We'd continue to do both in parallel. The main benefit would be to defer the reclaim of the low-grade stockpile and to keep them in the old fields longer.

Right. Okay. And then maybe.

Patrick Godin (CEO)

The benefit, sorry, right? The benefit for us would be to provide the higher quality answers to the new feed.

Michael Siperco (Director of Global Mining Research)

Right. Right. Offsetting the lower grade. Right. No, it makes sense. Maybe a similar conversation on capital allocation. Obviously, gold driving that opportunity. Gold up about $400 since you reconsolidated part of New Afton from Teachers. You've now declared commercial production. How are you thinking about the remaining 20% stake there? And is a full reconsolidation something that we should be thinking about, that you're thinking about when it comes to capital allocation?

Patrick Godin (CEO)

It's part of the possibility that we have. So we're always looking for these types of possibilities. So the first tranche that we bought was really strategically important for us, and I think it creates value for our shareholders. We're still keeping our mind open, and it's one of the possibilities that we're currently looking at.

Michael Siperco (Director of Global Mining Research)

So would it be fair to say, if I can put words in your mouth, maybe, that you have significant opportunities for organic growth both at Rainy and potentially at New Afton that maybe keep you looking internal rather than potentially looking outside the company for growth? Is that a fair assessment?

Patrick Godin (CEO)

I don't like to bite myself in this type of question, Mike, as you know, but we're keeping all our options open, so I strongly believe that the good way to return value to shareholders is through organic growth when the capital is reasonable, and we are really careful about that, and I think we have a nice possibility of our two assets, and we respect our people, and I think that if we can increase the mine life, it will position themselves for the future, and we really appreciate that. For the other options, I can say to you that all of my peers, we are vigilant. We are keeping our eyes open, and as we did recently in May, we want to grow, but we don't want to grow to be big. We want to grow to create value. If we're not creating value, we're not growing.

We don't want to trade a buck for quarters. We are vigilant, and we have capacity to address different challenges. We have a team today that has know-how to mine open pit and underground, and we have a lot of skills to mine different types of ore body underground. We have shown experience also in the Americas. We keep our eyes and all our options open.

Michael Siperco (Director of Global Mining Research)

Great. Thank you very much for the answers.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question will be from Anita Soni at CIBC. Please go ahead.

Anita Soni (Managing Director)

Hi, Patrick, Yohann, and team. I just wanted to ask a little bit more about, firstly, at New Afton. Could you just let us know how much the tonnage was this quarter from the C-Zone?

Patrick Godin (CEO)

Again, the tonnage from C-Zone, so in the total tonnage and what C-Zone was representing.

Sorry, Yohann. Sorry, Yohann. You're talking about Q3? Most of the ores coming from, yeah, from B3, actually. And we have, I would say, an average of about, I would say, 1,000-ton targets coming from C-Zone just to prepare the drawbells.

Anita Soni (Managing Director)

Sorry, you said 1,000 tons per day from the C-Zone?

Yohann Bouchard (COO)

Yeah. I mean, we just extract enough to remove the falling factor. I mean, that's all. But what we're going to do in Q4 with some of that topic is we're going to mobilize the construction of the drawbell, and we're going to blast all at once, pretty much the other drawpoints to just allow us to be more efficient at construction and save some costs. But the goal is to have, at year-end, about 30 drawbells fully developed to increase the footprint of the cave.

Anita Soni (Managing Director)

Okay. Second question around Rainy River as it pertains to next year in 2026. You said you're confident that it won't impact the mine plan. Can you just talk about, I guess, the evaluation that you did on the 2025 and 2026 grade profile to come to that conclusion?

Ankit Shah (EVP of Strategy and Business Development)

Yeah. For sure. I mean, so your question is about maybe to reiterate our outlook 2025 and 2026. Is that right, Anita? That's what you're looking for?

Anita Soni (Managing Director)

Yes. I'm trying to understand why you know what they, yeah. Go ahead.

Ankit Shah (EVP of Strategy and Business Development)

Very good, so what we did, as you know, we're in the process of preparing our budget and long, and we basically will change—we look at the, I would say, the Rainy River. We looked at the blocks, aggregate blocks that were remaining in phase IV. And basically, we don't have many blocks that have been adapted to what happened in Q3 and started maybe in Q4. We have really good certainty on those. We applied some capping as well on those blocks. But again, there's not any of those blocks that really quite consistent going forward. We re-sequenced everything, and basically, we came up pretty much as, I would say, the same mine plan that we presented at the end of last year outlook.

Anita Soni (Managing Director)

Yeah, so I guess that explains the fourth quarter impacts, but I was just trying to understand how you basically came to the conclusion that there would be no impact in 2025 and 2026. Are there no higher grade ore costs? Or did you apply capping?

Ankit Shah (EVP of Strategy and Business Development)

Exactly. And I mean, we did apply all the factor on the remaining of the block model, the factor I just was talking about here. And basically, we revamped the mine plan, and we came up pretty much at the same production.

Anita Soni (Managing Director)

Okay. So maybe higher tons, lower grade, or is it completely the same?

Ankit Shah (EVP of Strategy and Business Development)

No. I mean, the capping that's been put is really, I would say, impacting on this year, but no much impact in the remaining years because there's no much high-grade blocks.

Anita Soni (Managing Director)

Okay. All right, and then just in terms of the sustaining capital guide that you talked about being about $20 million under, some from operational efficiencies and tailings dam, I guess, wins there. But the other aspect you said was a little bit of timing of spending. So how much do you think would be pushed into 2025 for the sustaining capital?

Luke Buchanan (VP of Technical Services)

Yeah. Not much. So at Rainy River, the majority of the reduction in sustaining capital is effectively reclassification to OpEx. So there's about $2 million in savings on the tailings facility, but the remainder is reclassed to OpEx. So that is all savings and not much deferrals at Rainy River. At New Afton, in terms of capital, a little bit of deferrals on the growth side as we're down to the low end of the range, but some savings as well as the team have optimized and commissioned the conveyor early.

Anita Soni (Managing Director)

So maybe $5 million pushed into next year, or?

Luke Buchanan (VP of Technical Services)

Yes. Yes.

Anita Soni (Managing Director)

I'm looking for numbers. Yeah. Okay. And then lastly, on Rainy, as you brought it up with the stripping, sorry, the capital moving to OpEx, is that a result of higher gold prices and waste becoming ore? I'm just trying to understand why that happened and what the carry-on was next year.

Yohann Bouchard (COO)

It's just the timing of the strip ratio. From an accounting perspective, we have a cap on our ratio that we capitalize. When we were doing our original guidance, just the way the strip ratio ended up over the year. The main message is there's no change in the mine plan in terms of the total tons. We've stripped in line with plan. It's just a little bit on the accounting reclassification.

Anita Soni (Managing Director)

Okay. And then so next year, as I recall, earlier this year, you had said that the remaining life of mine plan, the strip was at the start of the year 1.95, and you're doing, I guess, about three or more right now. So is it fair to say in 2025, 2026, you're going to be below 1 to 1?

Yohann Bouchard (COO)

Yeah. I haven't got that number exactly in front of me, but you're right. It's that 2024 was focused on stripping and exposing that ore for 2025 and 2026 in phase IV, so yes, we will see a significantly reduced strip ratio in 2025 and 2026.

Anita Soni (Managing Director)

All right. Okay. That's it for my questions. Thank you for taking my questions there.

Operator (participant)

Thank you.

Ankit Shah (EVP of Strategy and Business Development)

You too.

Operator (participant)

Next question will be from Lawson Winder at Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead.

Yeah. Thanks very much, operator. Good morning, New Gold team. I just wanted to, well, first of all, could I ask about the reserve update for year-end? What are you guys thinking in terms of gold and copper price assumption in estimating that reserve and resource update, and particularly as it pertains to the exploration success you've had to date?

Luke Buchanan (VP of Technical Services)

Yeah. Hi. It's Luke again here. So just a reminder that at the end of last year, we used metal prices of $1,400 per ounce of gold and $3.25 per pound of copper. So with the significant increase in the consensus long-term prices this year, we are looking to modestly increase those metal price assumptions for year-end reserves, but we're still running some sensitivities and evaluating that at the moment. So I can't provide the exact numbers for sure.

Sorry. Did you say modest increase?

Yeah. It's still going to be significantly below the spot prices, but yeah, we are looking at an increase compared to what we did last year.

Okay. Great. And I mean, I was also going to ask about your exploration budget for next year. Given that you're still in that process, I'm not sure if you can give us a very specific number, but perhaps you could give us a directional range. Do you anticipate that exploration budget to increase in 2025 versus 2024?

Patrick Godin (CEO)

We have two things here because it's not because Jean-François is in the room that Jean-François presented projects in 2024 at the beginning of the year, and so the way that we are working is projects were good projects, we were successful in most of them, some others, it's geology, it's exploration, we were not, and depending on the progress, we are shipping more, so we adjust the budget two times during the year based on the exploration projects and the ideas that were generated by the team, so for next year, we're still working on this, we are also drilling, so the success of the current exploration work will dictate the next step, so we will probably be next year as much as we can aggressive in this matter because this year it was excellent for future.

And we expect that next year also still have to define the size of K-Zone. We still have to do some to test other ideas of property. We have room to stay at Rainy River. So I don't want to, I can't parse in the number here. We're working on that as much as we can to try to get Jean-François the full financial support to execute these adjacent tests.

Okay. Yeah. Thank you for that color, and then if I could just ask one more question. As you think about potential expansions to Rainy River, are there areas where you could expand that would be exclusive of the Royal Gold stream, or are the areas you're looking at also subject to that stream? Thanks.

Yohann Bouchard (COO)

Yeah. The stream is on the land package at Rainy River. So I think most of the pit pushbacks, etc., would be subjected to the stream. But the team are always looking at opportunities around to see if there's other activities. But yeah, most of the pushbacks would be subjected to the stream.

Okay. Thanks very much, Yohann. Appreciate it.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. And at this time, Mr. Shah, we have no other questions registered. Please proceed.

Ankit Shah (EVP of Strategy and Business Development)

Thank you, Sylvie. And to everyone who joined us today, thank you again. As always, should you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to us by phone or email. Have a great day.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, this does indeed conclude your conference call for today. Once again, thank you for attending. And at this time, we do ask that you please disconnect your lines.