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Wesdome Gold Mines

View Company Profile

September 17, 2024 at 1:00 PM (MDT)|Broadmoor Hotel & Resort

Anthea Bath

President and CEO

Prior to joining Wesdome, Anthea Bath was the Chief Operating Officer at Ero Copper where she was responsible for the company’s four mines, which included underground and open pit operations and major shaft sinking and open pit development projects, all located in Brazil. Her efforts contributed to the impressive growth of Ero Copper, from a junior mining company to a $2 billion international mining company. Anthea started her mining career with Anglo American Platinum as Head of Market Development and Intelligence where she initiated and launched a private equity fund the “PGM fund” for the development of new industry opportunities, globally. During this period, she developed multiple new product innovations from conception to commercialization and was awarded the Anglo American Applaud Award for Innovation. From 2012 – 2016 she held the position of Chief Executive Officer at Mitochondria Energy and Pentaquark Energy companies where she was responsible for the end-to-end management of the businesses. Anthea is also a non-executive member of the Board of Epiroc AB, a global mining equipment company. Over her 20 years global mining experience Ms. Bath has demonstrated her capabilities in both the operational and business aspects of mining, including new business development, supply chain, business optimization, strategy and marketing.

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An NCO of West, aren't you? That's right. So thank you, Ava. I hope you can all hear me. Good afternoon. Everyone before I get started, please view the safe office slide behind me as I'll be making forward looking statements throughout this presentation. It is my pleasure to be here on behalf of Wero to discuss our compelling value proposition. We have a very long history of finding and producing gold focused on driving free cash flow and profitability. Earlier this year, we hit a free cash flow inflection point, paid off our bank debt and increased our available liquidity to $200 million including $50 million in cash. Our balance sheet is strong and is debt free, which provides us now with a solid platform to pursue our organic growth pipeline and create value for years to come. Our vision is to become a value driven gold mining company that's built on a culture of ownership and care and we're making great progress. Keenan and Eagle River are two long live. Sorry before to give you a bit of background. We operate two underground mines in Canada. The map behind me shows your locations Akina mine is located just outside of Val D'or in Quebec on one of the most prolific Greenstone belts in the world. The Bitter be our second producing asset Eagle River is situated on the Mitsubishi Greenstone belt about 50 kilometers west of Huawei in northern Ontario. Our assets have been production for years and together they have produced more than 3.7 million ounces of gold. Keenan and Eagle River are long life operations with extremely unique profiles in terms of jurisdiction, Quebec and Ontario are both rated in the top 10 regions in the world for mining as well. Each of our minds have some of the lowest absolute carbon footprints in the space as well as some of the highest reserve grades in Canada. With Eagle River ranked at number one and Ka not far behind at number three, having two high grade mines support strong risk adjusted returns on invested capital West has a history of creating shareholder value. You can see from this next slide that we have a track record on delivering on per share metrics. We expect positive trend to prevail. We are focused on continuing to grant free cash flow per share whilst maintaining a strong exploration program and capital portfolio. Additionally, the company has always taken an extremely disciplined approach to minimizing equity dilution and our goal is to continue to enhance fielder value by self funding, the growth of our assets. We have a strong history but it's our future that we're most excited. Although our minds are mature, there's still a significant pipeline of organic growth potential to leverage from our very large Geological endowment with minimal capital investment, West Home is blessed with over 100 square kilometers of land at Eagle River and 75 square kilometers of land in Ka. Each land package is largely unexplored with this in mind. The opportunities may vary slightly between their minds but they can be distilled into three main priorities, filling our mole to increase our throughput, extending our mind life through mind plan, optimization and exploration and managing our cost structure by optimizing our costs and improving our efficiencies. Success in these areas will drive our long term vision and is anticipated to create sustained value for years to come. Let me elaborate on a couple of our key initiatives, West has a strategic advantage with meaningful excess mill capacity at both mines. Filling the mills could deliver significant economies of scale benefits and lower unit costs high grade low tonnage, gold mining by its very nature as a high fixed cost component, which means increasing throughput can have a marked impact on value at Evil River we batch process and therefore regularly achieve near name play capacity. However, on average, our mill operates at about a 40% utilization rate to increase capacity and leverage our fixed cost base. We are looking at initiatives such as asset optimization and creating new mining horizons near surface at Ka a portion of excess capacity will be absorbed once we gain ramp access to our near surface pros skill zone, facilitating this move to a two mine structure or from Briski could increase utilization to under 50% of the mill still leaving ample room for other material sources. Our plan is to continue to unlock other zones along existing infrastructure over time to increase more through rates without displacing a high grade tum from IKEA Deep Zone. Exploration is in Western's DNA and we have a long history of making discoveries and extending the mine life at each of our minds. In 2024 we are spending more than $30 million in exploration company wide which is almost double that of last year. This is all self funded. This slide highlights our robust pipeline ranging from greenfields opportunities to near existing infrastructure accordingly. Exploration remains the cornerstone of our strategy and is proven to be the most prudent and high risk return of our KASPER. The long sections at each of our minds indicate the extent to which we have yet to explore this ore body with extensions remaining open at depth or completely not explored over at Eagle River. We are focusing on zones that remain open at depth where additional drilling will be carried out for the purpose of testing down plunge extensions who are also reviewing several zones close to infrastructure and others identified in our global resource model have the potential for resource inclusion at KA. After years of mainly focusing on drilling out and expanding Ka deeps, we are now also beginning to step out to target shallower zones and parallel structures along the strike of the deposit. The pres skill zone is a good case study where we're advancing a more than two kilometer exploration ramp towards the pres skill deposit, unlocking exploration opportunities from underground across the southern corridor of this property. The ramp will essentially pay for itself by giving us access to this initial resource area as well as a second egress for our mine. This further unlocks opportunities along 33 level production drift where we have infrastructure to move more than 1000 tons per day to surface. It will also provide access to targets and areas that were previously inaccessible, completely unexplored and improve ventilation in the mine and de bottleneck our hoist to some degree offering productivity enhancements to the lower sections of this mine and thereby create this two mine structure. We are seeing different styles of mineralization across this property and we're really only getting started here in January. We issued multiyear guidance and our road map to get there. We're well positioned to deliver sequentially higher production in 2024 and in 2025 based on the midpoint production is expected to increase by about 40% in 2024 and approximately 60% in 2025 compared to the 123,000 ounces that we produced in 2023 based on improvements implicit in our 2024 cost guidance. Together with current spot prices, we're expecting to greatly improve our asic margin and generate significant free cash flow underpinning. Our ambitions remains a steadfast focus on operational delivery. One of the biggest drivers of our first half performance was Akina where we started mining and processing high grade ore from the K A deep level 129 horizon in mid April. This was a very important milestone for Western and we saw significant upgrading in in sorry uptick in grade in Q 2 to 13.5 g per ton. Importantly, when we released our guidance, we also made it clear the investments that we are making this year such as the brick skill ramp and the 33 level drift that we mentioned adding developments to continue to support returns and lower our risk to our minds with strong results. In the first half of the year, we remain on track to meet our 2024 production and cost guidance. The market has recognized West strong, strong performance and fiscal discipline. Our shares have significantly outperformed up here over the last 12 months. We are followed by top South side mining analysts in Canada and have a premier list of institutional shareholders, several of which have been long term investors as mentioned at the outset. Our vision is to be a value driven gold mining company that is built on a culture of ownership and care. Our strategy aims to deliver superior shared returns from a portfolio of high margin long life assets to achieve our goals. We believe that the cornerstones of West Dome's future success are based on having a strong track record of operating safely and responsibly passionate and engaged, workforce, strong community relationships and making differences through sustainable practices. Sustainability is a priority for everyone at West from the board. Right on down for investors, West checks a lot of boxes or Canadian high, high grade producing assets. A long track record of discovering a mining gold, a strong debt free balance sheet and self funding assets with multiple organic or growth opportunities. Our leadership team works under the mandate that every major initiative must demonstrate that it can add value in a year to the long term. We're extremely positive about our future and have spent a great deal of time thinking through our strategy. One thing that won't change with our revitalized growth aspirations is our steadfast commitment to strong execution, effective risk management and delivering on our commitments to our shareholders. These principles are foundational to each and every strategic initiative, driving our future growth and thereby enhancing West's long term valuation. Thank you. Thanks and you. We do have a couple of minutes for some questions. So if there's any questions from the audience, we can start there and then if not, then I'll I have some questions as well. OK. I'll start off first question. you know, again, you know, execution seems to be going really well in terms of both the mines. So that's really good to see. in terms of, you know, when we're talking about development or even grid control drilling ahead of, you know, your production, whereabouts would you be? I mean, are you ahead of production in terms of drilling in terms of development? Any thoughts? Yes, I mean, I think if you look at our development program, it's very focused. We spend this year a lot of time ensuring that the program is well managed. I would argue that last year West was just in time in terms of development. And we spent a lot of time as a team to commit to try and push ahead as we move to level 136 it unlocks further potential in terms of that flexibility in Eagle. It's no different. We, we have a strong development understanding, we understand where we need to be and that's something we track actually on a weekly basis. Thanks and, and just maybe moving on towards you know, maybe some questions on M and A. you know, again, you know, in terms of your production, in terms of your cost profile, it's pretty enticing for someone else to be stepping in wanting to have a presence in Canada. And on the flip side, are you as well. Looking at any sort of opportunities within Canada or outside Canada Western is very prudent on these things. I think we will obviously always remain open to M and where it will add long term value to our shareholders and show us a strategic fit to the organization. However, anything that we do needs to not dilute what we're doing and obviously ensure that we're actually having our resources do what they need to do. So from a potential perspective, something we would consider, we'd need to add value to the portfolio. We need to make sure that it aligns with our competitive strengths that we believe we have as well as hopefully look at efficiency opportunities as time come. I think you know, when I look at this, I consider it, we have to be, you know, we don't have to do something. What we have to do is be prudent. What we have to think about is if these assets actually add industrial logic and value and also we need to ensure that we demonstrate whatever we're doing, actually adds value to what we're doing right now. Is it better than what I have right now? And any sort of, if you are going to be looking outside, would it be still within Canada or would you look outside of Canada? Our approach is very disciplined. I think we prioritize based on our strengths. We are currently high grade Canada underground long life, those sort of things are obviously critical to us. Tier one jurisdiction is critical to us, but we actually remain very focused on opportunities with this proper industrial logic. You know, we're looking for things that are, if we do look for things, we have to see proper strategic value to our shareholders. It's all about quality in my view and sustainability and value. Excellent. We still do have some more time if there's any questions from the audience, OK. I'll keep going in terms of you know, exploration you touched upon exploration. I mean, it looks like there's significant upside within you know, your infrastructure. Is there other opportunities regionally that you can expand on? And what kind of budgets would you allocate to that? I mean, West Ham is blessed. I have to say that. So when I look at the format of exploration inside West, we look at obviously near mine, we're looking at parallel, we're looking at regional as well. So if you look at Eagle as an example, I mean 100 square kilometers, it's barely looked at in terms of its actual potential. We're currently reviewing it at the moment. We've done a lot of work technically to understand where we should focus. So we have got a good budget on that, not a significant budget. It's actually rated and range correctly in terms of a proper geological budget in Eagle in Ka, we focus on the Southern Corridor, our focus has got to be where we've got access to infrastructure where we can see it filling the mill with time. But it's also relatively exploration driven because some of these areas have to be explored. First. Some of them, we understand a bit better. We have zones where there is already a resource. It might be an inferred resource. Some of them have got a developed resource. So we're allocating our thinking accordingly to think how we can fill the small and actually make sure it gets into our reserve. Excellent in terms of how you're looking at the communities around there, around your operations. Obviously, there's been a lot of new mines coming up in Canada. Has there been any portion pole in terms of labor, labor inflation? Any thoughts there in terms of the actual labor cost itself? That's right. I think it's competitive both in Northern Quebec and Northern Ontario is push and pull. I think it's quite nicely structured in terms of way it works. But I think you have to think about how you're competitive in the labor markets there. And we continue to look at our compensation packages holistically to see how we can do that. Yeah, so to answer your question right now, I think it's pretty, it's pretty standard. But I think, you know, to be competitive, you need to understand what you need to do and whether that's sitting at a compensation level or more than that, you know, broadly in terms of what we can do to drive people to want to be with us. That's what we're focusing on. Excellent. OK. And, and my last question to you then is, again, execution has gone pretty well since, you know, the last couple of years., anything keeping you up at night or anything you're worried about in terms of, you know, moving forward. No, we just need to do what we're supposed to do and we've got to keep sticking to the plan. I think the focus that we have is really very deliberate, very clear and we need to deliver what we said we're going to do. So it doesn't keep me awake at night. I've got a very strong approach to risk management within the organization. We understand our risks, we manage them and we just to keep making sure that we deliver as we said, we would. Ok. Thank you. Thanks very much an appreciate it.


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