SSR Mining - Earnings Call - Q4 2024

Executive Summary

• Q4 2024 delivered a strong finish: revenue $323.19M, GAAP diluted EPS $0.03 and adjusted diluted EPS $0.10; operating cash flow $95.0M and free cash flow $56.4M.
• Versus Wall Street: revenue materially beat consensus ($323.19M vs $262.16M), while EPS and EBITDA were below; care & maintenance costs at Çöpler drove the EPS/EBITDA miss; revenue strength reflected higher realized gold/silver prices and strong Marigold/Seabee/Puna volumes.
• Operationally: Marigold had its strongest quarter (59,702 oz; AISC $1,638/oz), Seabee rebounded post-fire (27,811 oz; AISC $1,214/oz), and Puna posted 3.0Moz silver with AISC $16.06/oz; Çöpler remained suspended with remediation progressing and heap leach permanently closed.
• Guidance trajectory into Q4: In Q3, Puna production guidance was raised to 10.0–10.5Moz, Seabee production guidance was lowered to 65–70koz, and Marigold cost guidance was raised; 2025 consolidated guidance (including CC&V) will be provided after the acquisition closing.
• Catalysts: progress toward Çöpler restart approvals, CC&V integration/LOM update, record Puna performance, and Buffalo Valley reserve addition at Marigold; liquidity remains strong ($887.5M), net cash $157.9M, positioning SSRM to fund remediation and reinvestment.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Marigold’s Q4 production was the year’s strongest (59,702 oz), achieving the 5Moz life-of-mine milestone; AISC improved to $1,638/oz in Q4.
• Seabee delivered a sharp Q4 rebound after an October restart, producing 27,811 oz on 9.66 g/t head grade; AISC $1,214/oz (below full-year levels).
• Puna achieved record full-year silver output (10.5Moz) and Q4 AISC of $16.06/oz, sustaining healthy margins at ~$31.53 realized silver price.
• “We closed the year on a strong note with solid operating results, a year-over-year increase to consolidated reserves, and the CC&V acquisition to increase scale, free cash flow and diversification,” — Executive Chair Rod Antal.

What Went Wrong

• Çöpler’s continued suspension and Q4 care & maintenance costs ($35.9M; ~$0.18 per share) pressured EPS and AISC; Q4 AISC per GEO was $1,857, up vs Q4 2023.
• EBITDA trailed consensus in Q4 as care & maintenance and remediation spending weighed on profitability (actual ~$88.84M vs consensus ~$100.70M*).
• Seabee’s 2024 production guidance was reduced in Q3 (65–70koz) due to forest fire suspension; Q3 AISC spiked to $2,301/oz with care & maintenance, highlighting cost volatility.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Hello everyone and welcome to SSR Mining's fourth quarter and year-end 2024 conference call. Please be advised that this call is being recorded. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and then zero. At this time, for opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to Alex Hunchak from SSR Mining. Please go ahead.

Alex Hunchak (VP and Investor Relations and Capital Markets)

Thank you, Operator, and hello everyone. Thank you for joining today's conference call to discuss SSR Mining's fourth quarter and full-year financial results. Our consolidated financial statements have been presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP. These financial statements have been filed on EDGAR, SEDAR, the ASX, and are also available on our website. There is an online webcast accompanying this call, and you will find the information to access the webcast in this afternoon's news release and on our corporate website. Please note that all figures discussed during the call are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise indicated. Today's discussion will include forward-looking statements, so please read the disclosures and the relevant documents. Additionally, we refer to non-GAAP financial measures during our discussion and in the accompanying slides. Please see our press release for information about the comparable GAAP measures.

Rod Antal, Executive Chairman, will be joined by Michael Sparks, Chief Financial Officer, and Bill MacNevin, EVP Operations and Sustainability, on today's call. I will now turn the line over to Rod.

Operator (participant)

Pardon me, this is the conference operator. Rod, your line may be muted.

Rod Antal (Executive Chairman)

Okay, thanks Alex. I want to start today's call by acknowledging that February 13 marked the one-year anniversary of the tragic incident at Çöpler. An emotional memorial service was held at site to reflect on the nine lost colleagues. This incident has left an indelible mark on all of us here at SSR, and I want to acknowledge the hardwork and dedication demonstrated by everyone across this entire organization in 2024. We have made good progress at Çöpler, especially in recent months. Constructive discussions continue with the relevant Turkish authorities on a pathway to advance the restart of the operations. Bill will provide further update on the current activities at Çöpler later in the call.

Now, looking at our results for 2024, I'm pleased to report that we close the year on a strong note with solid operating results, a year-over-year increase to our consolidated reserves, and a major strategic announcement with the acquisition of Cripple Creek & Victor mine from Newmont. As a result, CC&V will increase our scale, free cash flow, and portfolio diversification, and we have made excellent progress on the integration planning since announcing the transaction in December. Our consolidated 2025 cost and production guidance, including CC&V, will be released shortly after the transaction closes in the coming weeks. Looking forward, and as we progress our efforts at Çöpler, we have several important priorities and catalysts on the horizon in 2025.

These include the delivery of a technical report and updated life of mine plan for CC&V, advancing Hod Maden towards a construction decision, continued progress on an updated and extended life of mine for Puna, including potential laybacks in Chinchillas, and evaluation of a longer-term potential of Cortaderas, advancing the Buffalo Valley deposit at Marigold, which now hosts more than 500,000 oz in its maiden reserve, ongoing exploration activities across the portfolio as we evaluate other opportunities for mine life extension at each one of the operations, and most importantly, continuing to advance Çöpler to a restart. I also want to highlight two significant milestones achieved by SSR team in 2024. At Marigold, we celebrated 5 million oz of life of mine gold production from the asset on December 30, a huge accomplishment and a testament to the quality of the mine and the team.

Additionally, Puna produced 10.5 million oz of silver in 2024, which was a record for the operations 15 years' life and hitting the top end of its previously increased production guidance. We are proud of our team in Argentina for their efforts in building Puna into one of the premier silver mines. So let's turn the slide forward for a discussion on the MRMR update. Our consolidated reserves total eight million gold equivalent ounces at the end of 2024, excluding any contributions from CC&V or Hod Maden. This was a 3% increase over 2023 after mine depletion, which is a strong result that showcases the success of our resource development drilling. Notably, Marigold reserves increased 14% year-over-year, driven by the declaration of a 523,000 oz maiden reserve for Buffalo Valley, which will be a key life of mine extension opportunity for Marigold going forward.

It is also worth noting that metal price changes were not a material driver in this reserve growth. Gold price assumptions at Çöpler and Seabee were unchanged from 2023, while Marigold and Puna increased their metal price assumptions by just 3% over the prior year. Our gold equivalent resources, exclusive of reserves, were down just 1% year-over-year despite the strong reserve conversion and unchanged metal price assumptions. Gold-only M&I resources increased 9% over 2023, driven in part by continued resource additions at Seabee. Further, the addition of both Hod Maden and CC&V will deliver meaningful reserve and resource growth in 2025, and we will continue advancing resource development activities across the portfolio as we strive to extend mine lives at each one of the producing assets. This includes the progress at Marigold's New Millennium and Buffalo Valley deposits, Seabee's Porky's target, and at Puna, the Cortaderas project.

Now I'm going to hand the call over to Michael to discuss the quarter on slide number five.

Michael Sparks (CFO)

Thanks, Rod, and good afternoon, everyone. The fourth quarter of 2024 was our strongest of the year, with 124,000 gold equivalent ounces produced at all-in sustaining costs of $1,857 per ounce. For the full year, we produced 399,000 gold equivalent ounces at AISC of $1,878 per ounce. Production of Marigold, Seabee, and Puna combined to produce 371,000 gold equivalent ounces in 2024 at an AISC of $1,542 per ounce. As a reminder, under U.S. GAAP, we do not adjust for care and maintenance costs incurred during the year, and the cash impact of these expenses are reflected in our AISC numbers. Excluding the approximately $178 per ounce of cash care and maintenance costs incurred at Çöpler and Seabee in Q4, AISC for the quarter was $1,679 per ounce. For the full year, excluding care and maintenance costs, AISC was $1,699 per ounce.

At Çöpler, full year reclamation and remediation spend was $128 million. We also spent approximately $14 million advancing Hod Maden in the fourth quarter, bringing full year spend at the project to $42 million as we progressed engineering and preliminary site development activities. Lastly, as Rod mentioned, we had a good year at the drill bit in 2024 and look forward to continued advancement of these brownfield opportunities in 2025. Moving to our financial results on slide six, we recorded attributable net income of $0.03 per diluted share in the fourth quarter and adjusted net income of $0.10 per diluted share. Care and maintenance costs at Çöpler and Seabee, which totaled $36 million in the fourth quarter, accounts for $0.18 per diluted share. Fourth quarter operating cash flow was $95 million, and free cash flow was $56 million, a very strong result to close out 2024.

We finished the year with $388 million in total cash, a net cash position of $158 million, and total liquidity of approximately $890 million. With this existing liquidity and an outlook for continued free cash flow generation in 2025, we have closed the year in a strong position financially, and we are well positioned to manage remediation costs at Çöpler as well as our reinvestment needs across the business. Furthermore, we expect CC&V will contribute immediate free cash flow to our business upon integration, enabling a rapid payback of the transaction's $100 million upfront consideration, particularly at these gold prices. Now over to Bill for slide eight.

Bill MacNevin (EVP Operations and Sustainability)

Thanks, Michael. I'll start with a brief update on Çöpler. In the fourth quarter of 2024, we continued to advance reclamation and remediation activities at site, and we have now removed all of the displaced heap leach material from the Sabırlı Valley. We are continuing discussions with Turkish government officials around the final remediation plan at Çöpler. Positively, we continue to note public commentary from Turkish officials, affirming that there was no recordable contamination to local soil, water, or air in the location sampled. Following the incident, we commissioned Call & Nicholas, Inc., or CNI, an international mining consultant firm, to conduct an independent review of the Çöpler heap leach failure. This was an important body of work for us as we sought to determine the cause of the Çöpler incident.

CNI determined the most likely cause of the Çöpler incident was a deep-rooted flaw in the third-party engineering design of the heap leach pad, namely an overestimation of the shear strength properties of the liner system at the base of the heap leach. This error inflated the calculated factor of safety and resulted in insufficient shear strength along the liner interface to support the as-designed heap leach facility. CNI also determined that in all material aspects, the heap leach pad construction and operation was carried out in conformance with the issued for construction engineered design parameters and that there was no substantiation that excess water, ground vibrations from blasting, or stacking beyond the design caused the event. These outcomes provide clarity and understanding for our team on the ground as we seek to restart the Çöpler mine, and we continue to work closely with relevant authorities on this front.

As a reminder, we expect Çöpler to be restarted within 20 days from the receipt of the necessary permits, with initial operations consisting of processing a combination of stockpile doré and ore mined from Çakmaktepe while the remediation work continues. Now let's move on to slide eight for some commentary on Marigold. Marigold produced 60,000 oz in the fourth quarter, its strongest period of the year, and marking 5 million oz of total production over the mine's 35-year operating life. This is a significant milestone for any gold mine and is a clear testament to the quality of the people we have on the ground in Nevada. For the full year, Marigold produced 160,000 oz, an AISC of $1,711 per ounce, with costs reflecting increased royalty expenses given the current gold price and also continued cost pressures with respect to OEM components.

We expect these costs to remain elevated in 2025. As Rod noted in the MRMR update, we made some great progress with brownfield exploration and studies at Buffalo Valley, enabling the declaration of a 523,000 oz maiden mineral reserve at the deposit. We also delivered mineral resource growth at New Millennium and will continue to advance brownfield drilling activity at Marigold in 2025 to build on these positive outcomes. Now on to Seabee on slide nine. Operations restarted Seabee on October 11, and the mine closed the year with its strongest quarter of 2024, with production at 28,000 oz at an AISC of $1,214 per ounce. This strong production was driven by a higher-than-expected head grade, which averaged 9.7 g per ton in the quarter.

Thanks to the strong fourth quarter, Seabee finished the year above its previously revised production guidance with 79,000 oz AISC and an AISC of $1,515 per ounce. The team continued evaluating the drilling at the Porky's and Porky's West targets in 2024, which helped deliver an 88% increase in measured and indicated mineral resources for Seabee. We are advancing further drilling and technical studies to better delineate the opportunity to potentially extend the operating life at Seabee through both additional mineralization at Santoy and a potential new development pathway at the Porky's targets. Now on to Puna. Puna produced 3 million oz of silver in the fourth quarter, driving record full year production of 10.5 million oz of silver. This production met the top end of Puna's previously increased guidance, bringing a strong close to a truly exceptional year for the operation.

Full year AISC at Puna was $15.56 per ounce, delivering significant free cash flow margins in the current silver price environment. We made good progress evaluating life extension opportunities at Puna in 2024, including at both Chinchillas pit and Cortaderas target. We expect to be in a position to provide further updates on these initiatives within 2025 and are excited to be in a position to build on Puna's recent success by delivering a longer mine life and continued economic benefits for our local stakeholders. Before I turn back to Rod, I will quickly speak to the Cripple Creek & Victor acquisition. I've personally overseen the integration process since we announced the transaction in December, and I'm confident we're positioned to realize significant value from CC&V right out of the gate.

Our due diligence identified meaningful opportunities to build on the sizable mineral reserves and resources that already exist at the asset, and we look forward to demonstrating other opportunities to deliver additional value from the asset in an updated life of mine plan for CC&V within 2025. I'm thrilled to bring an asset and team of this caliber into our portfolio and look forward to discussing our long-term plans for the mine in the near future. I'll turn back to Rod for closing remarks.

Rod Antal (Executive Chairman)

Thank you, Bill, and thanks, Michael. When I close this call at the end of the third quarter, I noted that we were looking forward to a strong close in 2024. I'm happy to say that we delivered on those expectations, and we look forward to continuing this positive momentum by delivering a number of catalysts in 2025. With the CC&V transaction closing in the coming weeks, we have added another long-lived and free cash flow generative asset to our portfolio, and we look forward to sharing our consolidated production and cost outlook for the company before the end of the quarter.

At the same time, we continue to diligently advance towards a potential restart of operations at Çöpler. Çöpler is a meaningful contributor to the local and national economies in Türkiye, and we are keen to return to operations while we continue the remediation and reclamation efforts in 2025 and beyond. We're proud of the tremendous resilience of our teams and the business, what the business demonstrated in 2024. We have entered a new year with renewed optimism, and while we have a busy year ahead, we look forward to surfacing value across all of our assets in 2025. So with that, I'm going to turn the call over to Operator for questions. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Mr. Antal. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. And to withdraw your question, please press star and then two. We will pause for a moment as callers join the queue. And your first question today will come from Ovais Habib with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Ovais Habib (Precious Metals Analyst)

Thanks, Operator. Hi, Rod and the SSR team. Just a couple of questions from me. Just starting off with Seabee, obviously had a great quarter in Q4. Should we expect any sort of outperformance like this to continue into 2025?

Rod Antal (Executive Chairman)

Hey, Ovais, I've got another. Bill, take that one.

Bill MacNevin (EVP Operations and Sustainability)

Yeah, thanks for the question. It was a great quarter. We obviously hit some very, very special grade. We continue to search and do further exploration in Santoy. Cannot expect those grades to continue each and every quarter, but we do expect to continue along that same vein year in, year out. But as you know, if you've been tracking Seabee, there's times where we hit some of that better grade, and this quarter was definitely one of them.

Ovais Habib (Precious Metals Analyst)

Okay, thanks for that, Bill. And just then moving to Çöpler, Rod, just in terms of, is there any sort of key information or study the regulators are waiting for before they make any sort of decision on moving forward with the restart of operations? Or was the recent findings of CNI enough for the regulators to make their decision to move forward?

Rod Antal (Executive Chairman)

Yeah, look, I think the simple way to think about it, Ovais, it's a package of work. If you think about in the year that we've had since the incident, we've made tremendous progress as we've been continually reporting all through 2024 and obviously now with our full year financials. And the priorities that we set ourselves and the aggressive timetable that we set ourselves to achieve what we've actually done in terms of control the site, ensure we didn't have any environmental contamination, to remediate and clear the Sabırlı Valley, to make the site safe, are all sort of precursors to a restart, as you would expect. Similarly, the CNI report itself obviously isn't a precursor, but it's important to understand as we're talking and working with the regulators.

And the last few pieces are really around locking down and agreeing on what the closure plans will be, and that is in respect to the storage facility that Bill mentioned. So that's concluding now, as well as the final heap leach closure itself. So it's all been a package, if you like, as a progression to where we are today to get us into this place as we're looking forward to a restart. We've still got work to do, as similarly as we always will. Remediation efforts will continue beyond even when Çöpler restarts, as we've talked about before, etc., etc. So restart doesn't necessarily mean there's not more work to be done.

But I think as I think back to where we were this time last year, where clearly we're all shocked about what happened and to where we are now, we've come a long ways, and obviously we're working confidently with the regulators to seek a permission and permits to get restarted at Çöpler.

Ovais Habib (Precious Metals Analyst)

Thanks for that, color, Rod. And then just kind of number three on my end, again, in terms of moving on to Hod Maden, does the commencement of the development of Hod Maden hinge anyway on the restart of operations at Çöpler?

Rod Antal (Executive Chairman)

Yeah, I think the simple way to think about it, Ovais, we may have talked about it before. When we acquired our interest in Hod Maden, we did talk about the fact that we wanted to take the time to develop a plan, and when I say a plan, a technical study that represents our approach to developing the asset with the necessary detail around the execution plan, the necessary technical detail, particularly in the sort of years one, two, three after you start the asset up to get a higher level of fidelity around what we expect in the asset in the initial years, because that's clearly where the payback is, etc., etc., etc.

So that work's been going on in the background, and we're seriously working on all those components exclusive of Çöpler and that work will continue during this year until we're in such a stage where we can wrap all that up to basically redo the technical reports and then start the project financing discussions externally with the banks to bring Hod Maden into construction. It's not hinged on Çöpler and in fact, the work we've been doing and the way we've separated the teams and the efforts around the teams is set up to be mutually exclusive.

Ovais Habib (Precious Metals Analyst)

Perfect. Thanks for that. And thanks for taking my questions, Rod, and looking forward to the guidance after the closing of CC&V.

Rod Antal (Executive Chairman)

Great. Thanks, Ovais. Appreciate it.

Operator (participant)

Your next question today will come from Cosmos Chiu with CIBC. Please go ahead.

Cosmos Chiu (Executive Director of Institutional Equity Research)

Hi, thanks, Rod and team. Maybe my first question is on Marigold. Good to see that you have declared an initial reserve at Buffalo Valley. Could you remind me in terms of how that slots into the production profile of Marigold?

Rod Antal (Executive Chairman)

Yeah, look, I'll let Bill answer the question, but I think what's important for us. Yeah, I think for most people to take away from the year, there could have been a period where we may have forgotten about the rest of the business, but the fact that we're able to achieve what we achieved with the challenge of Çöpler in respect to the operations performing as well as continuing to evolve and daylight the growth from the portfolio. I'm really proud of the team and what they've been able to do. And I want to make that declaration very public because we sort of forget, right? We just take it, I think, for granted.

But the efforts in the background to bring a Buffalo Valley now into a reserve shouldn't go unnoticed because it is important for the future of Marigold and again, another really good indication of the focus that we've had and energy that we've got in the business. But Bill, why don't you answer the question around the sort of timing?

Bill MacNevin (EVP Operations and Sustainability)

Yeah, so Cosmos said we're very excited about it. It's like a satellite of that main area. There was a lot of good work done already working it through this year. We're taking that further into feasibility study type work with a lot of engineering. And we'll be updating our life of mine plans as typically throughout this year. So in terms of the timing, it'll be driven by two things. The net value, which we believe is going to be high for Buffalo Valley, but we've also got to still go through the permitting processes. So it's still several years off, but it's definitely something that we're excited about progressing through the pipeline. And we'll be able to give more color to that later in the year after we've worked through our life of mine scheduling processes.

Cosmos Chiu (Executive Director of Institutional Equity Research)

Great. And thanks, Bill. And echoing your comments, Rod, and that's why I wanted to ask that question in terms of I was pleasantly surprised as well that we were able to see progress at some of these different assets, including Buffalo Valley. So I agree with what you said, Rod.

Rod Antal (Executive Chairman)

Yeah, I appreciate it, Cosmos. I think the other thing, just one more thing on Marigold just while you're talking about it. I think the other area of focus for us in 2025, beyond what Bill described for Buffalo Valley, which is important, will be people putting holes into the New Millennium target, which is another one that's progressed, just not as far advanced as what Buffalo Valley is.

Cosmos Chiu (Executive Director of Institutional Equity Research)

Yep, great. And then as you mentioned, you put out your updated mineral resource estimate today as well for the year. And as you mentioned, you used very conservative commodity price assumptions, $1,500 for some of the assets, even lower for the other ones. Could you maybe talk about the decision to use these conservative commodity price assumptions and what would have happened? Some of the like Marigold, for example, I would imagine there's some assets that could come in into the pit if you were to have used a higher commodity price assumption. So two parts, why did you continue to use a commodity price much lower than spot prices today and what could have happened?

Rod Antal (Executive Chairman)

Yeah, look, I'm not going to speculate on what could have happened because they're all sensitive in their own right. But what I'll say is the simple reason for where we ended up, Cosmos, is if you look at Çöpler given the asset is on care and maintenance, we left the metal prices unchanged. It just made sense to until we get a restart. That was really key. Seabee, as you remember, is already at $1,650 because of its relatively short mine life. So we didn't see a reason to change it. And then the other ones increased slightly, obviously, as well. So that was a decision made as we were going through our assumptions. We also take a sort of view of consensus. We look at what our peers are doing. And that's how we ended up with the reserve and resource statements as they were.

We'll continue to review that. We only do one sort of strategic mine plan review a year because otherwise it just becomes unwieldy. And we'll review that during 2025. Remember, we've also got to take into account now the acquisition of CC&V. And historically, Newmont have been fairly conservative in their resource and reserve statements. We'll have to wait and see what they do with their new resource and reserve statements here in the next little while. And we'll take that into account as we look at the sort of full portfolio review strategically through our mine plan process in 2025. So there could be some updates to it as we progress into this year or later in the year. How they impact, how the commodity prices impact the pit shells, the optimal pit shells, etc., they're all very differently positioned in terms of their sensitivity.

So again, I'm not going to sort of go into wax lyrical about each one of them, but they will obviously have the benefit of a higher commodity price over the years. So more to come later this year.

Cosmos Chiu (Executive Director of Institutional Equity Research)

Of course. And maybe one last question, as you mentioned, sorry, bringing this back to Çöpler here. As you mentioned, the remediation and containment costs overall, $250-$300 million. You've spent $127-ish million so far. Could you remind us in terms of the timing of the remainder of that spend?

Rod Antal (Executive Chairman)

Yeah, I'm going to let Michael take it, but it's over to you, Michael.

Michael Sparks (CFO)

Yeah, thanks, Cosmos. I think as you look at what Rod mentioned earlier in this call, a lot of the focus in 2024 was the Sabırlı Valley, and that work has been completed. As we work for the engineering and the timeline for the East Storage Facility, the material movement will be subdued throughout 2025. Once that facility is constructed, then the material movement will pick back up. So I would expect that remediation and reclamation spend to be lower than it was in 2024. And as we get that permitting and other things done for the East Storage Facility, we'll ramp up that material movement again.

Rod Antal (Executive Chairman)

Yeah, we'll put that out with guidance, Cosmos, best we can. The one thing I would say too is it's important. You pronounced the numbers correctly in terms of the liability that we're carrying because I think it's important that people understand it. The $250-$300 million is still our estimate. That hasn't changed, and that's sound. And we're obviously already churned through quite a lot of that with the 2024 effort. So the expectation is the rest of the spend will take place over a number of years beyond 2025 as we progressively build the East Storage Facility and the remediation efforts on the pad, as Michael said. So I think taking away from that, if you think about overlaying that on our liquidity position, we're obviously in an extremely strong position.

Cosmos Chiu (Executive Director of Institutional Equity Research)

Great. Thanks, Rod, Michael, and Bill. Those are all the questions I have. Thank you.

Rod Antal (Executive Chairman)

Thanks, Cosmos.

Operator (participant)

Your next question today will come from Lawson Winder with Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead.

Lawson Winder (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yes, thank you very much, Operator. Good morning or good evening, Rod and team. I wanted to ask about Marigold in advance of your guidance. I mean, I'm not going to ask you for a preview of the guidance, but just conceptually, Marigold a year ago was conceived to be going through a period of investments. So 2025 would have, as a result, experienced lower gold production and then a rebound in 2026 and then still higher in 2027. Just generally, is that still the concept or could there be a push out of the investment that was considered a year ago?

Rod Antal (Executive Chairman)

Sorry, Lawson, I had you on mute. I think if you use the tech report we put out this time last year as the placeholder for guidance, I think that still sounds. So until we do it, I think that's the best reference point.

Lawson Winder (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, fantastic. And then to what extent can you provide us some additional color in terms of what Türkiye is considering as conditions for reinstatement of the operating approvals for Çöpler? So for example, is there any consideration to some increase in local ownership of part of the mine? Is there a consideration for a resubmission of a completely new EIA? Or what are some kind of the moving parts? Or if you have some stage gates that you can share with us just to help us kind of think about potential timelines, anything you could share would be very helpful.

Rod Antal (Executive Chairman)

Yeah, look, I think sort of I'll repeat what I sort of said a moment ago, but if you think about the incident itself, it was unprecedented, right? So there is no playbook to this in terms of what needs to be done for a restart. However, the efforts that we made and have made in themselves is entirely in alignment to seeking a restart. So we've made terrific progress on those fronts, and we continue to make progress on those fronts. We believe we're getting to the pointy end of that work, which necessitates the completion of the engineering for the East Storage Facility and the engineering around the heap leach pad remediation, which we're closing in fast to complete.

Obviously, those discussions are going on in parallel with the regulators to ensure that we're doing all the things that we need to do before we seek approval for the reinstatement of the temporary operating certificate. So there's no condition precedent. There's no determinant around you have to do a new EIA. We will be operating under the 2014 EIA. And as I mentioned, I think probably on the last call, no matter what, we actually had to do a new EIA for Çöpler anyway, which we fully expect to complete this year for submittal of what we'll call the Çöpler 2025 EIA. That will take into account the anticipated gold leach circuit and some of the expansion opportunities that we identified in the last tech report this time last year. And that's sort of normal course.

It's obviously more important now because we want to get the higher throughput rates back up at Çöpler, but nonetheless, it was sort of more in the ordinary course for us than having to be done because of anything the regulators want. So I think, again, as we're moving forward, we're doing all the things we need to do, and we've got to just continue to deliver those and continue with our dialogue with the regulators.

Lawson Winder (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, thank you. Look forward to further updates on that. Appreciate it.

Rod Antal (Executive Chairman)

Good stuff. Thank you, Lawson.

Operator (participant)

Conclude the question-and-answer session as well as today's conference call. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant.