Kinross Gold Corporation (NYSE:KGC) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Anita Soni: Okay. So, I think we’ll probably take it offline, but could you tell us what the CapEx spend over 2024, 2025, like you’ve given us the overall lump sum, but mentioned that there’s a deferral of capital that basically allowed this to be approved. So, I’m just wondering, what the cap, like the cadence of the cap, the 140 million or 170 million is.

Will Dunford: Like how it’s broken down, are you asking?

Anita Soni: Yes. Every year, how much are you spending on Phase S?

Will Dunford: Yes, we’re spending 1 25 next year on Phase S in terms of capital. That’s about 150 of initial cap capital, and another 10 of sustaining. And then in 2025, we’ll be spending $60 million in capital.

Andrea Freeborough: I’ll just add, Anita, that these numbers are sort of within the kind of billion dollar range of capital we’ve been talking about for total 2024.

Paul Rollinson: Not incremental.

Andrea Freeborough: So, not incremental to what we’ve been talking about.

Anita Soni: Yes, I mean, I took a stab at it last night to try to add this, but key pieces of information were missing. So, I sort of – I need those pieces to be able to give you the credit for it. So, and then moving to Great Bear, could you remind me, with the overall results that you’ve just delineated there, I mean, you said you’re expecting an increase in reserves at the LP fault. Could you give us sort of a ballpark figure on what you think that you could be able to add with these results?

Paul Rollinson: All we’ve said, Anita, is, and we said it on the last call, as the directional drillings increase the density, we’re expecting to increase our resources at depth in the LP Zone, and we’ll give an update at the end of the year. I think we kind of notionally directed towards at least 500,000 ounces. But as the work continues, the density of drilling continues. As you can see from the results, as we tighten up that drilling, that’ll help support that increase in the underground resource.

Anita Soni: Okay, thank you. Thanks for taking my questions.

Operator: Our next question comes from a line of Carey MacRury with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

Carey MacRury: Hi, good morning, guys. I’m just wondering if you could – it’s good to see the uptick at throughput at Tasiast and La Coipa. Just wondering how those ramp-ups are going into Q4 and what sort of run rates you’re seeing now?

Claude Schimper: Yes. So, Carey, at Tasiast, you’ve seen the increased throughput. We’re focused on maintaining the deliverable towards the end of the year, with our progress towards 24,000 into the new year and full-year for next year. At La Coipa, we’ve steadily been improving both stacking rates and milling rates in the filtration piece. And October was a really good month for us at an average of over 13,000 tons a day. So, as Paul alluded to, we consider now both Tasiast and La Coipa projects complete as those mines now sustain their throughputs and build their mine plan around what’s feasible for particular time of the year.

Carey MacRury: So, at Tasiast, should we be assuming something in the 21, 22 range for Q4?

Claude Schimper: Absolutely.

Carey MacRury: Okay, great. Then maybe just on the 2021 guidance, you’re tracking kind of above the 2.1-million-ounce mark. just wonder if you could just – how should we think about Q4 in terms of like, which assets are going to come off of it and which ones are going to be stronger? Any guidance there would be helpful.

Paul Rollinson: Yes, Carey, it’s Paul here. Yes, good question. I mean, look, we’re just reiterating our guidance here. We’re solidly on track for guidance, certainly as it relates to production, probably going to be a little lower, probably in the lower half on cost and maybe in the upper half on CapEx. But our intention is to land on 2.1 as guided for the year.

Claude Schimper: Carey, if I might add, just we did note in the call that Paracatu will be slightly down in the fourth quarter because where we are. We expect Tasiast to be on track. Fort Knox will be on track, and Round Mountain will also be a little bit down due to as – we head into the stacking in the winter months.

Carey MacRury: All right, great. Thank you very much.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Josh Wolfson with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Josh Wolfson: Yes, thanks very much. I had a question regarding the implications of Phase S for Round Mountain, and I guess what it would mean for the existing three-year guidance that was issued. I guess part of it was addressed. I just want to maybe clarify a couple of things. On the production, there’s been a number provided on average for a four or five-year period. I’m just wondering, is that production reasonable to expect over the next – over the two years outstanding for the three-year guidance? And then just going back to the capital, given that capital is tracking high this year, inflation is still present and then the new CapEx, are we still comfortable with that $1 billion target? I think there was this comment beforehand that suggested that. Thank you.

Will Dunford: Yes, you can see on Slide 19, we’ve given a bit of a guidance as to where the production moves at – with Phase S included into the plan. So, you can see that there isn’t a – within the three-year guidance period we’ve provided, there’s not a significant contribution yet from Phase S, and not one that moves the needle enough that we’re changing guidance today. And you can also see that there’s a bit of a dip. So, the 215 over the four-year period that we gave, obviously it’s slightly variable. You can see next year, we’re planning to be similar production scale to this year, and then dipping down in 2025 as we continue to pull off of the leaches and finish up at W2 and start to ramp up activities at Phase S. And then we’ll recover that over 200,000 ounce mark in 2026 forward.

Andrea Freeborough: On the CapEx guidance. I did allude to that in an earlier comment, that we still expect to be somewhere around the $1 billion range in 2024, but I’d just caveat that by saying we’re just in our budget process now, but we should be in a $1 billion neighborhood.

Josh Wolfson: Got it. Okay. And then for Manh Choh, just sort of addressing some of these media reports and legal items, is there any sort of timeframe we can expect to receive an update there?

Paul Rollinson: I think nothing more than what we’ve said really, Josh. I mean everything’s on budget, on track. As we said in our remarks, we actually had a groundbreaking ceremony with the local community, the Governor of the State. Everything’s in good shape and moving ahead.

Josh Wolfson: Okay, that’s good to hear. Thank you very much.

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