Agnico Eagle Mines Limited (NYSE:AEM) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Jackie Przybylowski: Okay, yeah, that’s terrific. And if I could just ask maybe one last question. I think earlier on the call you’ve talked about the integration. And I noticed more in context of the change to Sean Boyd’s role. But what’s the integration between critical like and technical now being completed, have you got any maybe updated comments you can give us in terms of divestments or how you’re thinking about that? I would assume it’s just kind of like as a go forward standalone, fully integrated company now, but is there any thoughts in terms of like anything in the near term?

Ammar Al-Joundi : It’s a fair question. And we are always looking at that. And, and we frankly, we started looking at that very hard before the integration during the integration, and we’ll look at it after the integration. Right now, we’re happy with what we’ve got. But for sure, we’re always looking to optimize the portfolio and whatever makes the most sense for our shareholders, we’ll do it and we’ll do it in a heartbeat.

Jackie Przybylowski: Understood. Thanks very much Ammar.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Tanya Jakusconek from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Tanya Jakusconek: Great, good morning, everyone and congrats on a good quarter and again, reiterating guidance as needed for challenges in this market. So congrats on that. Just two questions, if I could, can I ask the GI whether going back to Hope Bay, so just looking at your Slide 18 And looking at those 13 holes in the under patch and other GI. What do you think you need to do like how first of all how many drill holes do you have in that gap area? And what do you think you need to do before we can get a resource there?

Dominique Girard : Hi, Tanya. I can on the top of my head like that, I don’t know exactly how many drill hole we drill over there. But we’ve been having six rail rig and the focus was really to demonstrate maybe the timing to get to infer or reserve over there is less important for us then understanding that the positives there keeps going remain open at depth. So we were looking for that long-term vision that they know it’s going to get bigger. After that, while we are obviously looking at well, the drill spacing in that specific area where it is needed to get to start to see some of that throwing up in resources. I don’t think we’ll get any of that by year-end, because we’re still intend to rely on the TMAC PFS. We’re not expecting any significant change.

But that was not the main objective of our exercise over there. So eventually, once we’re going to firm up our let’s say assumption on cost revise the potential cutoff grade, we’re going to be adding on that new drilling integrated. So maybe we can we can get to see starting to see the benefit of that maybe towards maybe the back end of the year end 2024 and 2025, where we should have a better understanding of the power the cutoff grade. We don’t — I don’t want to — we don’t want to do yo-yo with the resources over there. So we’d rather integrate all of that drilling and make a good update good updates once we’re going to firm up our cutoff great assumption and mining approach.

Tanya Jakusconek: So is it safe to assume that you need another two years you mentioned, back end of 2024-2025? So is it another two years of drilling this property before we are going to be able to say whether we have that target of that 350 to 400? And, ready to put some sort of numbers on this? Is that be fair?

Dominique Girard : To every sources? Yeah, but we’re going to do some thinking on mineral inventory on something that is having a larger drill spacing, but in order, obviously, to come out with a public number, we’ll need to reach the inferred resources specification, and maybe Ammar, you may —

Ammar Al-Joundi : Yeah, it’s again, a good question, Tanya. It’s expensive for us. It’s expensive up at Nunavut. And the plan we have is to aggressively drill. And as Gi said, we’re more interested in is this going to make money? And does it have a lot of legs, rather than necessarily meeting the criteria for various classification? So your question, is it going to be another two years before we know if we’re going to — if we’ve got something? I think it’ll be less than that. And we’re pushing pretty hard. And then it’s looking good. And, again, we are what Gi is doing as Gi is looking at, you know, is this thing going to be a multi decade a lot of production rather than, the more traditional okay, we’ve increased it from X to Y is that sort of thing?

Tanya Jakusconek: And so would it be similar to Odyssey where you would make the decision to build based on resources and not tighten up? Yeah.

Ammar Al-Joundi : Good example, Tanya, and also similar to what we did at Meliadine.

Tanya Jakusconek: Yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. Now, that’s very helpful. Thank you. And then if I could ask Dominique a question, just some Dominique, just on the shaft thinking, to Odyssey. Can you talk a little bit about the water that you’ve encountered? And what you’re seeing there, and sort of, I just forget where you were, relative to the water table. So just a little bit about the water. Thank you.

Dominique Girard : Yeah, Tanya. We reached water at some point during shaft sinking. Now behind us, the team did the grouting and everything related to that. And that’s normal in part of the doing shaft sinking. The thing is, it was expected to get some water there. When we did the test hole, we saw that we had fractures. So the team the good news, the team was ready to react and to do the grouting. And now we don’t expect to have more water on short term. We said we saw some other area that with other fracture, but we’re going to know it when we’re going to be there. The good news also is now the ramp is getting, we’re going down with the ramp close to the infrastructure. So this is also helping to collect the water.

Tanya Jakusconek: Okay, so you’ve gotten through the water was you see — you were anticipating the water in this in this area, Dominique you grouted you got through it. And now we’re I’m going to say smooth sailing we’re just about to sort of normal thinking rates into the proper rock without water.

Dominique Girard : Yep.

Tanya Jakusconek: Yeah. Okay. Great. Thank you so much. That’s all my questions.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Lawson Winder from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Lawson Winder: Thank you very much, operator. And hello, Ammar and team. Thank you for taking my question. I just wanted to ask one thing about that great slide, you guys put up on the optimization of the assets of infrastructure in the Abitibi region? And just inquire around your thinking on rail versus truck? I mean, it’s just like standing back and looking at it. I mean, rail seems like a really obvious and perfect solution here. But it’s trucker, realistic alternative if rail doesn’t work out.

Jean Robitaille: Hi, Lawson, Jean speaking. Listen, we have to compare both. I agree with you, the most efficient way will be to use rail. The study is progressing very well. And after the way I see it, this after we will have the infrastructure in place, it will be there for decades to come. So we’re really looking to create value. So we’ll give you a good update in February on this.