IAMGOLD Corporation Q1 FY2025 earnings call

• Safety: Total recordable injury frequency rate was 0.67 in the first quarter, with a new safety program implemented to reduce high-potential incidents.
• Sustainability: Released the 2024 Sustainability Report, marking 18 years of disclosing sustainability information.
• Operational Updates: Cote is ramping up towards nameplate production, Westwood faced equipment challenges but expects improvement, Essakane's grades to improve in the second half, and progress in Quebec projects like Nelligan and Monster Lakes with significant resources.
• Financials: Revenues totaled $477.1 million, adjusted EBITDA was $204.5 million, mine site free cash flow was $139.6 million, and progress on gold prepayments with 75% of the last 37,500 ounces delivered in the first quarter.

Cote Gold: In the first quarter, Cote produced 73,000 ounces. It had a critical first quarter with learning curves during ramp-up, but achieved new records for stability and utilization in March and April, operating at over 90% of nameplate capacity. Production guidance for the year is 360,000 to 400,000 ounces. Westwood: First quarter production was 24,000 ounces, impacted by temporary equipment challenges affecting blasting efficiency. Production guidance is 125,000 to 140,000 ounces. Essakane: Attributable production was 86,000 ounces in the first quarter. Grades are expected to improve in the second half as mining moves deeper into phases. Production guidance is 360,000 to 400,000 ounces.

• Attributable production guidance for 2025 is 735,000 to 820,000 ounces.
• Cote is expected to complete ramp-up to nameplate production of 36,000 tonnes per day by the end of the year.
• Westwood production guidance is 125,000 to 140,000 ounces.
• Essakane is on track to achieve its attributable production guidance target of 360,000 to 400,000 ounces.

• Safety: Slight uptick in the total recordable injury frequency rate in the first quarter, with a new safety program implemented to address this.
• Essakane: Impact of security situation and fuel costs on operations and costs.
• Westwood: Temporary equipment challenges affecting blasting efficiency and grades in the first quarter.

Q: Good morning, Renaud and team. Firstly, congratulations on getting Cote up to the 96% throughput rate in the last 30 days. Secondly, I had a question on the mining rates and the grades that you were delivering from the pit. I think it was 0.78, which was a little bit lower than what you delivered at the purchasing head grade. Can you just give me an idea of where your stockpile levels stand, particularly the high-grade and medium-grade portions?

A: Good morning, Anita. That's exactly right. In the coming quarters, the grade mine is going to increase more toward the 1 gram per ton. We're also going to be mining more ore grade ore mine over time. So, there will be some selectivity for sure, but we're trying to minimize that segregation so we can mine closer to reserve grade. So, all in all, we're going to be within 1.1, 1.2. We have close to 2 million tonnes grading at over 0.8 gram per tonne, and we have 8 million tonnes grading at 0.55 gram per tonne. So, whenever sometime we need to use a stockpile to feed, the stockpile varies in average around 0.8 gram per ton. But for the next quarter, the grade of the ore mine is going to be higher than 0.78 to answer your question.

Q: Hi, Renaud and Team. Thanks for taking my question. And maybe just to follow up on that, Anita, is there any cost improvement at Essakane? I was just wondering if this was also maybe positively impacted, or if you expect to see any positive impact from the lower fuel prices or diesel prices that we're seeing.

A: The total cost that we spent at Essakane was actually in line with what we expected to spend, and in line with prior years as well. Fuel costs in Burkina takes a bit longer to adjust to the market prices, so we've not seen the reduction in fuel prices coming in there. So, it is really because we have processed it, but it's more a unit throughput impact that is driving it.

Q: Yes. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. And congrats on getting the mills back up again at Cote doing quite well. I have a few questions. The first one I wanted to start on was just on Essakane. When you put out your cost guidance, I seem to remember it was a much lower pricing than $3000. And now that we have the increased royalty rates from the government, it's over $3000. They get to 8%. Can you remind me if your cash cost guidance reflects that?

A: Good morning, Tanya. So, our cash cost guidance assumes the dividend and the increases, but our gold price assumption in our guidance was $2500 an ounce. So, if we look at our forecast, even with that increase, we still expect to come within the guidance range.

Q: Hi, good morning, guys. Just a question on Essakane. Your reserves are at $1,500. I'm just wondering if you can just remind us what the mine life you're assuming there is? And if your reserves were at $2,000 or $2,500, what's the mine life extension potential there?

A: Good morning, Carey. Of course, with the gold price increasing close to $1,000 over the last six months, we'll have to revisit our gold price assumption when revising our mineral resources and mineral reserves. So, this is a good question. We're going to change our current assumption. And it will certainly have an impact on our Essakane mine. Right now, we have enough material up until 2029. This year, we decided to have a more intense drilling campaign to see what would be the potential of Essakane inside the fence.