Q1 2019 Equinox Gold Corp Earnings Call
May 01, 2019 PM UTC
查看原文
JDL.V - Equinox Gold Corp
Q1 2019 Equinox Gold Corp Earnings Call
May 01, 2019 / 09:00PM GMT
==============================
Corporate Participants
==============================
* Christian Milau
Equinox Gold Corp. - CEO & Director
* Peter J. Hardie
Equinox Gold Corp. - CFO
* Rhylin Pauline Arkinstall Bailie
Equinox Gold Corp. - VP of IR
* Ross J. Beaty
Equinox Gold Corp. - Chairman
==============================
Conference Call Participants
==============================
* Andrew Rostislav Mikitchook
BMO Capital Markets Equity Research - Analyst
* John Sclodnick
National Bank Financial, Inc., Research Division - Mining Associate
==============================
Presentation
------------------------------
Operator [1]
------------------------------
Welcome to the Equinox Gold 2019 Corporate Update Conference Call and Webcast. (Operator Instructions) We will now join you with the meeting room in Vancouver, where the presentation will get underway in a few moments.
------------------------------
Rhylin Pauline Arkinstall Bailie, Equinox Gold Corp. - VP of IR [2]
------------------------------
Okay, Ross. Okay, we are now live. So I think we may as well get started. Everybody on the phone is dialed in. Everybody on the webcast is dialed in. I'd like to welcome everybody please to the Equinox Gold corporate update.
Just a reminder, of course, that this call is being recorded. So please ask your questions clearly into the microphone and also a reminder that we will be making forward-looking statements today, a number of cautionary statements. So just a reminder that you should look through our website and to all of our continuous disclosure documents to have a full appraisal of the cautionary notes.
And I'm now going to turn the website (sic) [webcast] over to Ross Beaty for opening remarks.
------------------------------
Ross J. Beaty, Equinox Gold Corp. - Chairman [3]
------------------------------
Thank you, Rhylin, and thank you again, everybody, for joining us today and everybody who's joining us via web.
It's a good chance to update everybody at the same time of what we're doing. We've just put out our results this morning for Q1, and we can talk to all of that on an immediate basis.
And this, of course, is the first annual meeting for a whole year of Equinox. It's our very first year of operations in 2018, and it was a pretty busy, full year. We did a lot of stuff. And today, we're going to kind of go over what we've done, what we have achieved and where we're planning to go in the near term.
So I'll go over a few things to begin with, and then I'll turn over the podium to Christian Milau, who will go into some more depth of things, and then maybe we'll come back for Q&A.
So just to start, of course, we have this wonderful team, wonderful operating team, a wonderful Board. It's a solid team. It's pretty much full now. We've got our whole team for the U.S. especially. Pretty much fleshed out our head office team, pretty much complete. And we've made the new changes to the Board with Greg stepping off as a Board member and maintaining his position as a key member of the management team and President of the company, Greg Smith, that is. Sam Drier joining us as a Board member. And then subsequent to today's meeting, Mohamed Alsuwaidi, from the Mubadala Investment Company, which just spent USD 130 million buying a convertible debenture that will convert into almost 20% of Equinox. He will be joining the Board after today as well.
So that's our Board, 8 wonderful people, better governance. This year, we have 2 Independent Board members joining us. Actually, independent is -- is Mohamed independent or dependent? So just Sam on the independent side and Mohamed on dependent because they have a right to convert into a big position.
And I just have to tell you what a great Board they are. They've been -- it's been a tremendous team these last 12 months, and I know it will continue.
Next. So I'm just going to talk a couple of just general slides about why gold and why Equinox Gold and why now and things like that. I have a conviction that we are in the sort of first -- let's say, third or fourth innings of a gold bull market. It really began in right about here, January 2016. After 5 years of downmarket in 2011, and now, we're sort of bumping up here. When you follow this, any [journalist] will tell you the next is sort of critical things going to happen later this year. And we're going to see quite a dramatic push one way or the other, and I'm convinced it's going to be an up push.
But the interesting thing is even though we have this sort of the start of a secular bull market, I think, in gold the junior market, as demonstrated by the Gold Miners Index, has just been nuked. It is disassociated from the gold price, and it's stuck. And it's actually in a declining trend as people just lose interest in the gold space, lose interest in the junior space, even though the gold price is actually doing okay. It's not doing badly. It's $1,280 or $1,290 gold, $1,300 gold. That's a pretty good price. Most gold producers are making pretty good money at that price. But the junior space has just been hammered. And this is unusual. It's not likely to last. It will correct either by gold going down or the junior space going up. And my bet is gold price is going to stay static or improve in the year to come, and there's going to be a significant correction upward in the junior gold miners. Generally speaking and inside that space, you're going to see outperformance by those companies that have superior growth prospects. And I think in that whole space there's nobody who has better growth prospects than we do.
This is another slide of just how much capital has been taken out of the sort of speculative space that would otherwise and would have gone into this more speculative junior exploration space, particularly, and producers space just in the last few years. We've -- this is the number of financings that have been done by Canadian precious metal equities. This year, 8. Last year, 24. Raising relatively small amounts of money compared to the last 10 years. I mean it's just hardly here. Now what this means, a lot of this has gone into the cannabis space, crypto space.
So what this means is if there's is no capital that goes into the resource space, which means that there's not going to be any new mines developed, any exploration done, and that will have a knock-on effect in production in years to come. You can't explore, you can't discover. You can't discover, you can't build. You can't build, you don't grow your production. So most metals are going to see -- and it's the juniors who make all the discoveries. I mean by and large, most of the big discoveries today have been made by smaller startup companies. And if you lose that, the discovery space -- the majors are all busy buying each other, but they're not actually discovering new mines. And they're not growing that production space that is so critical to keep the industry demand sustained. So gold supply will be ultimately impacted, and that will be another bullish factor for the price.
So let's just go back and see what did -- what have we done in the last year? We started basically December 31, 2017. Just over a year ago, we started with a development asset in Brazil, a couple of noncore assets in other places in South America, Mexico, the Elk gold deposit -- small gold deposit in BC. And then this Castle Mountain project. So when Equinox was formed from NewCastle and Trek Mining brought together 2 development assets, Castle Mountain and Aurizona. We have big ambitions to build a big company.
So what were our targets last year? First and foremost, to build Aurizona. We were -- we had all the financing in place to build it, we had to go and build it. And that meant putting the team together, going down there, getting things going. Again, it was brownfields build because, of course, we started with the mine that was in production until just a few years ago. We were just going to make it better. And that's really what we focused on for the last 16 months, and we're there now. It's built. We did a Castle Mountain pre-feasibility study that we finished in June last year. And that showed the potential to build a 200,000 ounce a year mine for a 16-year mine life, a big, big mine in 2 stages, Phase 1 and Phase 2. And Christian will talk a little bit about where we are on that.
We also set a target of getting into production quickly. One of the good things for a company like us is that the rest of the sector is pretty hammered, and it's in pretty bad -- pretty tough shape. You raise a lot of money, which means not only evaluations are good, but there's very few -- very little competition for getting good assets.
And we had a competitive situation last year in different things we looked at. A competitive opportunity to buy this Mesquite mine from New Gold. We were the winning bidder. We got it at a really good time, at a really good price, and we think that's going to be a really excellent asset for us over the medium term. So we achieved that last year. We set it to monetize some of these noncore assets. The Koricancha Mill was sold. We had an option deal to sell the Elk deposit, which we hope to realize on this year. We spun all the copper assets into Solaris that Greg will -- that Christian will talk about in a minute. So we hit that target squarely. And we set out to to be able to grow reserves and resources. And again, we hit that metric very, very successfully. The number -- when we started in 2017, we had reserves of -- reserves from resources -- total reserves from resources of 7.9 million ounces. We ended last December 2018 with 12.8 million ounces, a great big step up in the right direction. So we really hit every single one of those targets in 2018.
It was a very busy year. And this really is, more than anything, what demonstrates potential for production growth for this company. Last year, we had 1 mine, Mesquite mine, which we had 2 months of production, 26,000 ounces. In 2019, of course, we'll add Aurizona. It will be there imminently. We have really crushed -- this morning, we expected our first buyer, and we had a sealed sale or something like that happen yesterday in the process, and it -- so much for that. I mean it's been like that for weeks now. We've been imminently about to pour the first bar and there's always been a little net that's prevented it. But it literally will be any day now. And -- right, Jim? He's never said that before. Actually, he said that for days. But anyway, we're basically there in Aurizona. We were really hoping to be able to announce it this morning, but it didn't quite happen. But it's imminent.
And then, of course, the next thing for us to do is to build Castle Mountain. We're hoping to make a production decision on that in Q3 and get that going by next year.
So very happy and impressive growth, 26,000 ounces. 0 in 2017. 26,000 last year. Approximately 230,000 to 265,000 this year. And next year at least 300,000. And then really, from existing assets we have visibility on, over 500,000. So between 140,000 a year or so from Brazil; plus 200,000 from Castle Mountain; plus 140,000, 150,000 from Mesquite per year, we're at 500,000. But really, I'm hoping we exceed that a lot. This excludes -- there's a little footnote there that says, "Excludes Aurizona underground potential." From my standpoint, that is the real home run at Aurizona is getting an underground mine there that will produce in conjunction with an open pit mine and double the capacity of Aurizona to take that number well over 600,000 ounces from existing assets.
So that's really -- our focus right now is to continue to build production, continue to grow reserves and resources. The bigger we can make this company now, the better it will perform not only if gold is static but also it will be a standout winner if good really moves the way I think it will. And why do I think gold will move? Well, I just think that there's -- I mean -- I just think we're in the ninth inning of a bull market in other financial sectors. It's on fumes right now. It's been sustained by one-off tax reform. It's been sustained by massive amounts of borrowing, both federal, municipal, corporate, personal. The juice is just going to run out. And when that runs out, I think we're going to have a correction in major markets. You're going to see a real big move in gold. I mean, there's a whole bunch of other reasons for me to be bullish on gold. Those are just some of them, but I do see quite a market coming. When it comes -- I donât know when it's going to happen. It might be next week. It might be in 2 years. I want Equinox Gold to be the best positioned of the junior intermediate mining companies, take advantage of it in terms of reserves, resources and production. And if we have great combinations of those, we're going to outperform, and that, of course, is our objective.
So with those introductory remarks, I'm going to turn it over to Christian to go into the weeds a little bit. And then we'll open up to questions.
------------------------------
Christian Milau, Equinox Gold Corp. - CEO & Director [4]
------------------------------
Thanks, Ross.
Turning on to the individual assets and mine space, I'll spend a little bit of time on each but focus mostly on Aurizona because that's the most topical one today.
Looking at Mesquite, being our first producer here. Mesquite was acquired at the end of last year. It's a long-standing producing mine. It was through Newmont in the years '80s and '90s, and then Western Goldfields in the 1,000s. And basically, as it's been producing between 120,000, 140,000, 150,000 ounces for many years. It has produced over 3 million ounces. So it's big heap leach run-of-mine in California down near the Mexico and Arizona border.
Looking at what it's done this year and what the plan -- or what it did last year, last quarter and what are the plans for this year. So 25,300 ounces basically for first quarter, a little bit at the lower end. Mesquite tends to start off at a lower quarter in the beginning of the year. I think in the last 5 years, it's done between 25,000 and 33,000 ounces. And they stopped stacking in December, for those not familiar with that mine. It has a cap on the number of tonnes it can move. So we actually stop stacking partway through. So a little bit of catch up in January as we start stacking again. The other things that we have been doing this year is we've been increasing the percentage of non-oxide material going up on the pad. I think it had 10% or 12% last year in the final quarter, and this year, it's been about 50%, 60% in the first quarter. So we've had a lot more dependent from that.
And the 2 things about the non-oxide to remember if you were back in the New Gold days, listening to them, it is a lower recovery and it's a longer leach cycle. So it does take time for that material to come through. It's slightly higher grade than some of the stuff that we were putting through last quarter. So we expect to see as the year goes on it will improve. We're probably at the lower end or where we'd hope to be at this stage. Costs are reasonable, $873 all-in sustaining cost per ounce. I think our guidance was $950 to $1,000, so not bad there. Revenues, we sold about 27,000 ounces. So that's revenues of $35 million.
What are we doing this year? Well, key focus for us, since we've got involved with the asset, was how do we extend the mine life? This is a long-in-in-the-tooth mine. We didn't pretend it was a Castle with a 16-year mine life to start. So 2 things that we've been just focusing on. There are a whole bunch of mineralized waste dumps from the Newmont days, et cetera as well as some leach pad material. It's basically got materials similar grade to our current ore. It was mined in a time when their cutoff grade was much higher than it is currently. So we've been drilling our off for probably 50% or so all the way through that material. We've actually started stacking that material just recently in the last few weeks. Our goal is to actually use that to extend mine life, but also to smooth out any of the ups and downs along the way.
And then also there's a few exploration targets. We'll be freeing up some extra area in and around our pits and some identifiable ounces that we want to explore. We need a few dollars to do that. So Scott, who's not here today, he's actually in Brazil, will be doing some of that hopefully later this year. And then also there's some new concessions and permits that are in and around the old pits. Some of them are even across the highway that's been moved once by the previous operator. I think there are 6 new concessions there. We're in the process of trying to permit those. We'd love to stick a few holes in there this year and actually look if this orebody extends across the highway. It's been moved once. All indications are that it should be pretty interesting.
And then the third thing on there is obviously we want to integrate this with Castle Mountain as much as possible. Tom Rinaldi, who is here with us today, and if you want to chat, he's here after the meeting.
------------------------------
Ross J. Beaty, Equinox Gold Corp. - Chairman [5]
------------------------------
Hello, Tom.
------------------------------
Christian Milau, Equinox Gold Corp. - CEO & Director [6]
------------------------------
Tom's in the back there.
------------------------------
Ross J. Beaty, Equinox Gold Corp. - Chairman [7]
------------------------------
Yes.
------------------------------
Christian Milau, Equinox Gold Corp. - CEO & Director [8]
------------------------------
Basically, Tom's come in recently only I think a month ago, and his job really is to coordinate the 2 mines. How do we make this a really efficient operation? They're 200 miles apart. There's going to be synergies in people, systems, equipment, suppliers, all that stuff. We may even be able to process some of the gold down at Mesquite when we get Castle up and running. So there's lots of opportunity there, but we need to be thinking as one.
When you turn on to the next slide, really Aurizona is where I want to spend most of the time because that's all the questions have been recently. As Ross said, we're probably a few months late on pouring gold. Disappointed with that personally. I'm a big shareholder in the company. It's been disappointing to see our share price lag over the last few months for sure. First gold pour, as Ross said, is imminent. I said early May, just to cover my bases there. But the mine is constructed. I mean, basically -- I'm not sure exactly what's the date of that photo, but you can just see everything is there. The new mills are shiny. The ROM pad, which isn't on this picture, is basically full. We've got 3 months of ore sitting up there already. We're ready to go. We've actually been putting ore through the SAG mill over the last week. So it is going through the system. The inertia is starting.
We're just dealing with a couple of things. I get questions, why the delay. I don't have one big major event I would blame it on in a sense. But we've had exceptional rains over the last sort of 3, 4 months. I think we had 1 year's worth of rain in Northern Brazil over the first 3 months of the year. Not saying that's caused this total delay, but it certainly slowed us down. And looking at -- I think Quebec's getting a bunch of rain right now. This is getting more rain right now. And we've been to deal with that. You have to be careful if the electrical's at the end, so it's probably slowed that part of it down. The other parts are you just have your normal startup issues. A pump's gone off, some valves needed changing out, a few false starts in a couple of pieces of equipment, but no major events were imminent. We're almost there, and gold is going through the system now. So we expect to tell you any day that we're pouring gold.
In terms of commissioning, it's ongoing. Most of the actual system has been turned over from Ausenco EPCM. Almost all the contractors have been actually demobilized from site. So our operating team is there. They're actually working night shifts now. So things are really moving along nicely at this stage.
This is just a good picture, and I want to emphasis this to people. And we're in the rainy season so it is a little tougher to mine right now, but we already have 3 months of ore sitting up there, so we don't have to be concerned with that rain at this stage. And our plan is to manage through those rainy seasons with this ore. So we've got it there. We had great control. The reconciliation to our model is done. It's reconciling positively, which is nice to see. Now we just need to make sure the guys that are mining it dig it out with as minimal dilution as possible. But we're pleased that we've got that startup material there. We'll be into the dry season in the next month or so. It will be starting so, we had a good headstart on that.
I do want to give some kudos to the team down at site. We've got 1.8 million hours with no LTIs. It's pretty good for a construction project in the middle of nowhere, basically. Team had done a fantastic job to have no LTIs.
And the other thing that's been great is we've got 2 awards in the last 2 years. We've made a real effort with the communities and the programs we've put in place there. This one, in particular, is mostly about some of the artisanal mining areas where they've actually destroyed the land. We've actually reclaimed, created areas for market gardens and basically for animal gazing, et cetera. And the locals will run it. They will manage it. We'll help them. And then they sell a lot of the product back to us and into the communities. And we've got some really nice awards for that. So good job to the team down there.
Looking at the upside, and Ross mentioned this. I want to start before the underground with a couple of other areas with things that really excite us. This is the 1 million ounce deposit in Piaba here in the middle. We have been exploring -- and we've done a little bit of exploring historically in the Tatajuba deposit. You can see the long strike length there in the light pink. And basically, it's another 4 or 5 kilometers right along the same strike. The grades in the drill holes there have been slightly better actually in terms of grade and it's all near-surface material that we discovered recently in drilling, but also historically in the drilling. So once we're in production and we can allocate some capital back to this, we're excited to get back to there. Because if we're going to double the mine life here, the first place we want to go obviously into Tatajuba. But also, we've had some nice hits in the far east as well, some really high grade holes, might be some small pockets of gold. Obviously, the ocean's there, so we won't go on with the same strike length.
Then we have parallel structures, Piaba North trend. The artisanals have cleared a long 3-, 4-kilometer trend right there. They've been finding nuggets, anywhere from 2 to 4, we've even seen 20- and 30-kilogram nuggets in the system at Tatajuba and Piaba North. So there's definitely some gold in that system. And then you go on our property, and we have another sort of 1,300 square kilometers. And 20 or 15 kilometers away, there's a couple of other areas that are early stage that we're excited about that could be part of a new actual area for us. And ultimately, we see this as a camp and a district. This is not just a 1-, 7-year mine life area. We see this as either spanning a production, extending life or multiple actual operations here.
And looking the underground, which is kind of really come up recently in terms of our real understanding analysis of it. We've done a bunch of work this year. The resource went out -- the new resource. We've doubled the resource underground and also have been able to get more confidence and from limited data and drilling that we've to date. We've done a PEA study internally on this, and we brought it up to over 1 million ounces. And it's at 2 grams, but there is a core of that, that's about 3 grams per tonne. We plan to do more drilling. We want to make this bigger. But we do see this as a potential to really supplement the 2 -- or 1.5 gram material in the Piaba deposit or maybe to the 1.5-plus-gram material in Tatajuba, but supplementing it with some underground material as well with slightly higher grade. So that's what Ross referred to we could make this sort of a slightly larger-scale operation.
Then we turn our minds back to California again, so Castle Mountain. Once we're done with Aurizona, which is really imminent here, then we want to look to Castle Mountain. That's the next exciting growth phase of this company internally. Phase 1 is basically ready to go. The engineering work is done. KCA has been helping us down in the U.S. with the team here and as well down in California. We've done the drilling work that Scott's done to identify the first -- well, in the actual PFS studies, a 3-year mine life was actually identified...
------------------------------
Ross J. Beaty, Equinox Gold Corp. - Chairman [9]
------------------------------
Can you go back for a second? Sorry. I just wanted to point out to everybody here, just looking at this screen. This was a mine, of course, that was operating in the late '90s -- for what, 8 years, 7 years?
------------------------------
Christian Milau, Equinox Gold Corp. - CEO & Director [10]
------------------------------
Almost 9 or 10, I think, yes.
------------------------------
Ross J. Beaty, Equinox Gold Corp. - Chairman [11]
------------------------------
And it was a heap leach mine. This is the pit -- the old pit, and then they leached. But then they reclaimed it. It closed down and they reclaimed. And then it was sold, and it was sold again. And then we acquired it through NewCastle. This is an old leach pad here. It looks just like a hill. They did such a beautiful job on the reclamation. I mean you can go by there, you wouldn't even know it was an old mine, except for the pit. These old leach pads are perfectly reclaimed. They upgraded it. It's just a model for what a mine can look like when it's reclaimed. And that's why -- mining is often criticized as an ugly thing, and it is true. It is ugly. And it is impactful when it's running. But when a mine is closed down, it can be restored very, very truly to bring back original vegetation in large part, and in some cases, like this, topography that looks so similar to the original topography you would hardly even notice it was a mine or a leach pad when you go by this. It's just amazing how well they did it. And that's, of course, what we will do when mining closes after 20 or 30 years that we're going to hopefully be in business here.
------------------------------
Christian Milau, Equinox Gold Corp. - CEO & Director [12]
------------------------------
Yes. So we've done the engineering. We've done the drilling work for Phase 1, and we think that could be a 6- or 7-year mine life, not 3. There's enough material there that's sort of low-hanging fruit for that, plus maybe some more in situ gold which we haven't even got our heads around yet. So we've got a nice starter kit ready to go.
It's about $50 million of capital, maybe it's a little less with some synergies, but $50 million of capital. So a small, bite-sized chunk relative to other mines that are producing about 50,000 ounces a year. So we're ready to go as soon as we basically present to the Board the go ahead, and we're ready to go in Q3, as we say here.
But just looking -- stepping back, for those not as familiar with this project. It's as well in California, obviously, near the Nevada border, about 1 hour and 15 from Las Vegas on the road on a paved highway effectively with a little bit of dirt road at the end. It's 4 hours north of Mesquite, so it has a really nice connector along that paved highway there, so we can really share in the skills, knowledge and other things. But it's a 3.6 million ounce reserve. This is a big project already. 16-year mine life, and a good cost base. So we're really excited about this. Again, a big run-of-mine heap leach operation similar to Mesquite, but it's also got a small mill that you could be attaching on to it that will produce about 30% of the gold at 3.3 grams. So it's got the high-grade component, and it's got the big low-grade heap leach component to it. This will also become almost like a super pit, but effectively, that's where the gold will come, those old, historical pits and expanding them.
We currently have the permits for Phase 1 for all the key things. We do need ministerial permits basically for the air quality emissions as well as water discharge of Phase 1. Those are expected, say, quarter 2, quarter 3 this year. We really don't expect any challenges with those. The water discharge, we have to prove that we're not discharging into the environment, which -- this will be an Aurizona discharge. That shouldn't be a problem. Air quality emissions, well, the equipment's gotten more efficient, and as well, we're not crushing on this first phase as well. So there'll be slightly less emissions as well in that sense.
So that's the first phase. The really exciting part is second phase, 200,000 ounces a year. And that's where we really want to get to. But what we've allowed ourselves with Phase 1 is at least a couple of years running this, becoming a good corporate citizen again, showing everyone that we're creating jobs, good to the environment, part of the local fabric. And then we're also in the background just increasing or expanding the permitting. So we've currently got an environmental impact statement that has an area of disturbance that allows us to operate Phase 1. For Phase 2, we keep that same environmental impact statement area, but we do need to update so it allows us to disturb a slightly wider area within that. So that will take us a couple of years. We're in California. We're pretty open to that.
And the second piece is obviously we need to expand the water and probably double the water capacity for Phase 2. That's something that at the moment we've identified probably 5 to 7 areas we want to go and explore essentially and drill for water. Some of those are right within our permits. Some are within land we own outside the permit, in the monument. Some is further down even. So we're going to keep exploring those as we get permits to actually go and drill, which we hope again is sort of Q3 this year. And then we'll continue to identify that water source. There is lots of water in the area. There's a big aquifer that runs through south of the project. The question is what's the easiest place to access it with the least amount of challenges, regulatory-wise.
Now stepping back and sort of changing gears, looking at sort of quarter 1 results we put out today. We'll have out the MD&A financials today as well, so if you want to read in greater depth. First quarter really is about 2 things, basically: production at Mesquite, which is mostly here, and then continuing to build Aurizona.
So the first part is obviously on production. So again, we've already talked about the upper items on the production and the cost. Operating cash flow from operations almost $7 million. Sustaining capital is a small number, about $2.8 million. Most of that's waste stripping at Mesquite, and we probably spent about $25 million on Aurizona CapEx in the first quarter as well. At the end of the quarter, our cash and cash equivalents were about $24 million. It doesn't include $16 million of restricted cash, which part of that's for some bonding in Brazil. But also the other portion is for the Aurizona project financing with Sprott, which has now been freed up since the quarter end when we refinanced Sprott out. And basically, Mubadala's money paid them out. So we've got another $7.5 million to $8 million come in from freeing up that money.
Turning to the next slide. One of the key events, and this is not technically in the quarter, it's a subsequent event, but I think it's a really important piece to our quarter in a sense. And there's lots of disclosure in the financials that will be out. But basically, we'd always planned this year, we pretty much telegraphed to the market we want to mature our capital structure and actually refinance our balance sheet. We thought we would in the second half of the year as we were just finishing off Aurizona, but the Mubadala guys were kind enough to come along and spot an opportunity to really partner up with us. And they said, "We can take out that Sprott debt effectively." And now, we've got a 5% coupon piece of debt that's basically replaced a 10% coupon. So we've been able to cut that coupon in half. We've also been able to free up the structure completely. When you bring that in and you put in a revolving credit facility, we can now move funds between all of our sites. We have the ability to do hedging, bonding, anything we need to do within a normal capital structure for a midsized company.
Previously, in the first quarter basically we had siloed financing for Aurizona and siloed financing for Mesquite. You couldn't move things between there. You had different sets of lenders and competing interest. Now we have aligned interest. Mubadala is sitting at the top level with us, very aligned at growing the company and supporting us as we grow.
The second level is obviously the corporate revolving credit facility, Scotiabank, BMO, ING and SocGen have stepped in when our lenders on Mesquite actually increased this slightly to $130 million. But they've just taken the Mesquite loan and converted it into a corporate revolver. So it allows us to borrow and draw and pay back as we see fit.
And at the moment, it's $100 million drawn. As soon as we hit commercial production at Aurizona it will be $130 million. So a much more flexible balance sheet, much lower cost of capital. And at this stage of our development, I think it's a very good capital structure, I mean, the key 4 points here, reduced interest cost, deferred principal payments, increased our capital availability and just the flexibility within the system, which can't be understated.
And totally shifting gears, so that's kind of on the Equinox side, but this is an important piece, too. It is consolidated currently in our financials, but we still own 40% of Solaris Copper. Last year, in August, we basically spun it out. 60% of the shares went to shareholders at that time, the other 40% stayed with us as Equinox. It's a private company for now.
Really, the goal here was to put the copper assets into a separate vehicle, allow them to ultimately get their own valuation in due time as we delivered on these assets. No one was buying Equinox stock to buy these copper assets at these earlier speculative stage [stories], but now there's a real interest. It had a lot more interest since it has been a separate company.
Greg is running it currently and Federico has been very active in it as well. And our focus to date really has been on Warintza. It's a really exciting copper porphyry that Dave Lowell discovered many years ago. It's in Ecuador and, basically, we said we would take this company public again as soon as possible.
The goal is second half of this year. And the 2 events we really wanted to hit before we took it public were essentially getting a partner for Ricardo in Chile Freeport is now in there with up to $130 million they'll spend on drilling there. The second one was basically unlocking Warintza. So Federico and Greg have done a great job in actually advancing that.
The 2 things that have happened there are we now have 4 or 5 permits to drill. We need a fifth one, which, let's say, Q2, Q3, we hope to have that this year. And then the second part, ultimately, was getting a community agreement, and we've got that community agreement subject to the public hearing, which is now required in Ecuador. We're hoping we'll be having that in sort of June or certainly in early Q3. Once we have those 2 items in place, we then have a story with the ability then to take it back to the public markets and allow people to actually trade their shares publicly.
Then we look to pulling it back together on Equinox. So the story for us and what we've been telling the market is we're still, and as Ross said, we were a developer about year ago, purely a developer. Now we have one asset in production, a second one on the cusp and then a third project in the pipeline. We're still trading in that sort of 0.5, sometimes 0.6 range, which is more around that junior sort of developer almost junior producer space, but we're starting to move up this curve. So without the gold price changing if we can deliver this year, really, the goal is to continue to move up that multiple curve, and there's no reason we shouldn't be able to. If the gold price moves, well, great, that would be the cherry on top for sure.
And what do we set for ourselves to help achieve that and move -- basically move up that curve? Well, some of them are pretty obvious and we've already been talking about it. But Mesquite, we've got -- it's currently in production, we are going to look to see if we can extend that mine life. We're doing some exploration, drilling some historical dumps.
Aurizona, ramping up to commercial production, pretty obvious. We need to get on with that. We're almost there. Explore there, we'd like to get back to exploring because I think, really, the exciting upside in equity story at Aurizona is actually the exploration around it and then continue with the underground studies. So we're going to optimize that underground study.
Castle Mountain will be our shift in terms of our construction focus. Like I said, we have 2 ministerial permits we need. We need to construct and to assess the financing, whether it comes from cash flows or current debt providers. We're going to look at our alternatives for financing that. And then we want to do the feasibility study for Phase 2. So it's got a pre-feas on Phase 2, but basically feasibility study level for Phase 1.
And then corporately as well, let's not forget about that. So we're going to finish closing the financing, basically have gone through first close. The funds have been released to repay Sprott. There's still a small amount in restricted cash, I think it's about $11 million from Mubadala. And as soon as we get a security registered effectively, the main gating factor on that, those moneys will be rereleased. We expect those in May.
What are we also going to do? Well, we're looking at listing potentially in the U.S. and on the TSX. We're currently only TSX-V. I think we may be the largest TSX-V certainly mining company out there. And certainly, our liquidity is one of the key areas I think it's important for us to be focused on.
At this space right now, as you've seen, all those passive funds have really dominated in the last few years here in North America. They continue to dominate. We are on none of the indices right now. We really want to get into at least the GDXJ to get started, but I think our key gating factor at the moment is daily liquidity. I think it's around $1 million. So a U.S. listing, a TSX listing will help get us out visible. We got lots of U.S. shareholders, we have 2 US projects. I think it's the obvious next step for us this year, then the index inclusion.
And then, ultimately, we haven't really talked a lot about this in the last little while and I know Ross, maybe -- you'll probably give -- have the questions for him, but we've talked about growing, we have a target. And even if you look at the next page, I'll kind of conclude on this. We've set this long-term goal of being a million ounce producer. Ross talked about building a big company, well, million ounces is a good size. We have about 0.5 million that we can get to within our current portfolio. How do we get to that million? Well, we probably need to add a couple more assets along the way.
Mubadala has joined us to be a partner along the way with that. And we're really excited about looking at opportunities, as Ross said, in this space right now and valuation is still pretty reasonable out there.
Our goal will be, in the second half of this year, really to put our head up again and start looking forward. And certainly, Greg's key folks will be looking at other opportunities out there to consolidate in our space.
So I think that brings it all together. I'll conclude the formal part of that and maybe turn it back over to Ross for the questions.
------------------------------
Ross J. Beaty, Equinox Gold Corp. - Chairman [13]
------------------------------
Yes. Thanks very much, Christian. I think we will open it to questions now. So thank you again all for coming and please feel free to ask questions and we'll do our best to answer them.
------------------------------
Rhylin Pauline Arkinstall Bailie, Equinox Gold Corp. - VP of IR [14]
------------------------------
I'm just going to turn it back to the operator quickly to remind people who are on the phone and on the webcast how to ask a question. So while she's giving us instructions, we will get everything organized and then we'll alternate questions from the phone, questions from the room and questions from the webcast. Operator, please go ahead.
==============================
Questions and Answers
------------------------------
Operator [1]
------------------------------
(Operator Instructions)
------------------------------
Rhylin Pauline Arkinstall Bailie, Equinox Gold Corp. - VP of IR [2]
------------------------------
Are there any questions from the room? There must be at least one question. We've got one. Remember, please wait for the microphone to come. Robin is bringing it to you.
------------------------------
Unidentified Analyst, [3]
------------------------------
My question is there's a lot of excitement with Aurizona with the -- because it was a mine that was a brownfield project. It was shut down 4 years ago. And so there is an excitement about how it's going to be operated better and all the exploration upsides. So I'm just wondering if you can just sort of summarize what is it that, from an operational perspective, is going to be better than what was -- how it was sort of operated before? And on an exploration front what's being done now that wasn't done as well as before?
------------------------------
Christian Milau, Equinox Gold Corp. - CEO & Director [4]
------------------------------
So I'll certainly take the operational side. And if you want, as a geologist, take the other side, go for it. But the operational side, I mean, when you look at the historical operation there, it was built during 2008, '09 during the financial crisis. I think we built it for, I'm going to say, $50 million, $60 million, but a very small amount of capital. It really wasn't a crusher there, it was 60 year-old asbestos mill from Québec. So I'd say the plant was undersized and certainly undercapitalized and they mined out actually the soft ore. They did okay, actually. But when they started getting to harder rock, boulders of certain scale and size, they weren't able to process it. So what we've done is we stepped back and said what would you build if you had a complete greenfield and how much of the plant can we use. And so what we've done is we ditched the part we can't, where we spent $150 million approximately to put in place a plant that can handle all materials. So whole crushing system, which it didn't have. Two mills, which can handle a ball mill and a sag mill, which can handle the hard rock, has a lot more power capacity as well to crush and grind materials. So we're capable of actually mining everything now, so it's a huge difference. And I think they had planned to expand it and planned to do it, but don't forget, we hit that financial crisis. So it's easy always to give previous management a hard time, but they didn't have the money and the funding available to actually do that. We set up and said we're going to do it first time. And interestingly, one of the good examples is we put in a ball mill, we donât need the ball mill for, I think, I'm going to say, almost 2 years. We've got soft material, but we said we're not going to take shortcuts, when we put it in. So that's how I think we'll be able to operate better in a sense. The plan is fit for purpose.
------------------------------
Ross J. Beaty, Equinox Gold Corp. - Chairman [5]
------------------------------
And then there were the harsh financial reality of a very burdensome royalty that Sandstorm had that was really just punitive and failed, actually. And then the glorious problem of gold going from $1,800 when they started up to $1,000 when they were really going, that didn't help. And when you lose those kind of value parameters, it's very hard to make money. So that hurt them and a ton of other mines in Brazil at the same time, in fact, these other mines globally. So we're going to build it right, we've got a long-term plan -- we have built it right, long-term plan. We have a modest royalty now. And I think we're having this -- we're going to have sustainable run of the gold price.
------------------------------
Christian Milau, Equinox Gold Corp. - CEO & Director [6]
------------------------------
I think from an exploration front, I mean I donât think we see anything different than they did. They just didn't have the money and the time to be able to go and explore. I think we're going to be able to give ourselves that runway.
------------------------------
Ross J. Beaty, Equinox Gold Corp. - Chairman [7]
------------------------------
The thing that I love about Aurizona, really, more than anything, is it's not just a, as Christian said in his presentation, it's not just a 7-year mine life that we have right now modeled at our feasibility study. It's a [cap], and it's going to be, I'm convinced, when we get it running and running at a sustainable basis as for the feasibility study, which should happen very soon, we will add Tatajuba, Piaba North, Piaba East, all kinds of other exploration [drivers] will come in with the reserves and will be able to feed into the open pit operation, extending the 7-year life a long time. I donât know how long, 20, 30 years, something like that is my guess. But equally important to me is the potential underground that is -- the shocking thing I saw, when I went there for the first time in June last year, I went through every single section, cross-section across the deposit, and I had no idea. But I saw that it had been heavily drilled. I think 200 drill holes have been put in by previous operators below the open pit. And every single hole hit what looked to me like an economic width, an economic grid, around 2 grams per tonne over significant widths, like 10 to 20 meters. I mean astonishing numbers and continuous of subvertical. Just exactly the kind of orientation you want to have for a large tonnage, bulk minable, low-cost underground mine. It just looked beautiful. And so when we kind of got over the big thrust of getting the open pit going and the construction going, we started to look at it more closely. Scott Heffernan did a great job on this, our Exploration VP. He started putting together all of the underground zones with a consultant, an independent mine consultant, and came out with a resource of that's about 1.6 million ounces at around 2 grams per tonne, which is a pretty good grade for a bulk underground mine. And that's a multi -- a multi-year and probably multi-decade mine life. And that, I think, will be added to the open pit to bulk up the production to some higher level. It could be doubled. I mean, who knows? We haven't done any real studies, but I just see the potential is there for a long-life operation at Aurizona, spanning decades. And that's kind of what we're planning for and all of our organization and construction decisions have been founded upon.
------------------------------
Rhylin Pauline Arkinstall Bailie, Equinox Gold Corp. - VP of IR [8]
------------------------------
Thank you. Operator, can you please take the 2 questions that we have on the phone?
------------------------------
Operator [9]
------------------------------
Certainly. The first question from the phone is coming from Andrew Mikitchook with BMO Capital Markets.
------------------------------
Andrew Rostislav Mikitchook, BMO Capital Markets Equity Research - Analyst [10]
------------------------------
Congratulations on moving along Aurizona and starting off Mesquite here for the year. Just a 2-part question. With the slower leach kinetics at Mesquite, did you guys expect that to essentially catch up in the balance of the year? With much stronger production in the balance of the year as this is all kind of gets rolling. And then second part of the question is for Aurizona. Should we expect that once you guys are well in the commissioning or maybe the commercial production, you guys would revise 2019 target for that mine?
------------------------------
Christian Milau, Equinox Gold Corp. - CEO & Director [11]
------------------------------
Thanks, Andrew. I'll take that. For Mesquite, first off, we do expect the year to improve as we move forward. We do expect to catch up, and that's the plan here. We've now got more flexibility, certainly, with the waste dumps and old leach pad material. But also, we're moving to other pits as well. So that is the opportunity. I mean, we knew that the first quarter would certainly be weaker. Leach connects have made it a little slower than we hope, but the plan is to catch up, absolutely. As for Aurizona, and I think you said we're asking about resetting guidance for that. At this stage, we don't see that. We certainly factored in there could be delays when we're looking at guidance on that. We'll see as it ramps up here in the next sort of number of weeks and then we'll reassess for quarter 2. But at the moment we don't see that as a sensible thing to be resetting guidance on that. We certainly considered that when we were starting up.
------------------------------
Operator [12]
------------------------------
Our next question is from John Sclodnick with National Bank Financial.
------------------------------
John Sclodnick, National Bank Financial, Inc., Research Division - Mining Associate [13]
------------------------------
Yes, Andrew covered off -- had a question on guidance. But just wondering if you might be able to give a little color on your expectations for commercial production at Aurizona?
------------------------------
Christian Milau, Equinox Gold Corp. - CEO & Director [14]
------------------------------
In terms of commercial production at Aurizona, I guess you're asking about time lines. I mean, certainly, if we'd say we're pouring gold imminently here, we expect in the next sort of couple of months, certainly, month or 2 months to be in commercial production. So we've given ourselves sort of this quarter, I think is what our aim is.
------------------------------
Rhylin Pauline Arkinstall Bailie, Equinox Gold Corp. - VP of IR [15]
------------------------------
Are there any questions from the room? It's a quiet crowd.
------------------------------
Ross J. Beaty, Equinox Gold Corp. - Chairman [16]
------------------------------
They're letting us off.
------------------------------
Rhylin Pauline Arkinstall Bailie, Equinox Gold Corp. - VP of IR [17]
------------------------------
All right. Well I've got 2 questions from shareholders online. The first question is from a shareholder in Canada. For the acquisitions that you spoke of, especially to reach your target of 1 million ounces, would you strategically prefer larger mines or relatively mid-sized mines that have some expansion upside?
------------------------------
Ross J. Beaty, Equinox Gold Corp. - Chairman [18]
------------------------------
Yes. It's -- right today, it's not really the best time to be talking about where we're going next because we've obviously got a lot of work to do to get Mesquite running like a top, getting Aurizona running like a top, getting the construction decision made on Castle Mountain and getting it going and making sure it's running well, and then we'll look at where to go next. We've got so much opportunity with our existing assets alone that we really don't need to look at anything else for the time being. We're going to be very opportunistic. It's impossible to define with any certainty what sort of criteria we're looking at producing nonproducing sites, jurisdiction, et cetera. We would like, if we do anything, it to be synergistic, it to be logical, it to be something that the market will reward us for in terms of -- these are smart people, they know what they're doing, that was a smart deal. We'd really like that to be the bottom line conclusion. The way we got rewarded when we bought Mesquite, it was a smart deal, it was a bright price, it was an opportunistic deal, great synergies, perfect fit, adds value to the Castle Mountain and Castle Mountain adds value to it. It just was well-received, and that's the kind of deal we'd like to do again if the right one comes by from the sea of opportunities that's out there, most of which we would not even look at, let alone do any due diligence on. So that's kind of where we're at on that. Ask that question probably in Q4 and maybe we'll have more ability to answer it with more definition.
------------------------------
Christian Milau, Equinox Gold Corp. - CEO & Director [19]
------------------------------
Can I just add, though, that in terms of size, which is one part of that question is, we prefer larger rather than smaller. I mean, it takes similar management, amount of time, to manage 150,000 to 200,000 ounces of annual production versus 40,000 or 50,000 ounces. So 100,000 ounces and greater is sort of an unwritten target for us in terms of annual production.
------------------------------
Ross J. Beaty, Equinox Gold Corp. - Chairman [20]
------------------------------
I think also the -- we're not interested in growth for growth's sake. Just to get bigger is not the objective. It's to get bigger and better and more profitable. So scale truly is important in this business. In fact, it's important in almost every business, especially public markets. With a larger company, you have much more income to offset your overhead. You have much more liquidity, you are accessible to larger capital markets. You are more resilient if things turn down with multiple assets in multiple jurisdictions, you can have a problem in one and a great situation happening in another. And yet 3 months or a year from then you might have exactly the opposite situation happening. So multiple assets really does make good business sense. Scale really is important and that's why I think any sensible company that's trying to build a real long-term business should try to become as big as you can within reason and provided that you're not just, say, issuing a pile of shares just to get bigger, that doesn't make any sense. You've got to have a value proposition that informs every single deal you do. If you do have a logic and it really is a 1 and 1 is 3, you should be doing it. And that's very much where we stand right now, I think.
------------------------------
Rhylin Pauline Arkinstall Bailie, Equinox Gold Corp. - VP of IR [21]
------------------------------
Another question from online. What do you see for the mine life at Mesquite?
------------------------------
Ross J. Beaty, Equinox Gold Corp. - Chairman [22]
------------------------------
Mesquite currently has a mine life under the feasibility study that was done last year of 16 years.
------------------------------
Christian Milau, Equinox Gold Corp. - CEO & Director [23]
------------------------------
(inaudible)
------------------------------
Rhylin Pauline Arkinstall Bailie, Equinox Gold Corp. - VP of IR [24]
------------------------------
Mesquite.
------------------------------
Ross J. Beaty, Equinox Gold Corp. - Chairman [25]
------------------------------
I'm sorry. I beg your pardon. I'm sorry, I was thinking of Castle Mountain. Mesquite currently has a short mine life a few years under current reserves and resources. And then another few years of leaching where it will be in operation, it will be generating cash, but it won't have actually mining. So every single tonne we now add from other successful exploration in greenfields areas or making larger mining areas of existing pits or taking -- making ore from waste, which is exactly what we've done this year quite successfully. In other words drilling in areas that were waste at a gold price of $300 an ounce 20 years ago, but at $1,200 an ounce that waste is today ore, and that's now adding to our long-term reserves. We've got 100,000 ounces so far this year.
------------------------------
Christian Milau, Equinox Gold Corp. - CEO & Director [26]
------------------------------
About 100,000.
------------------------------
Ross J. Beaty, Equinox Gold Corp. - Chairman [27]
------------------------------
And that's recovered - recoverable, [mineralized] -- recoverable ore, so that will be -- it's almost a full year already. And we expect to have significant increase to that by the end of this year.
------------------------------
Rhylin Pauline Arkinstall Bailie, Equinox Gold Corp. - VP of IR [28]
------------------------------
Are there any questions in the room? All right. Operator, we have a question on the phone from a private investor. And since it's such a quiet room and phone, can you please remind people how to ask a question, just in case they forgot?
------------------------------
Operator [29]
------------------------------
(Operator Instructions) Our next question comes from [Glen Zeitzer], a private investor.
------------------------------
Unidentified Shareholder, [30]
------------------------------
My name is [Glen Zeitzer]. And my brother [Rob] and I were investors in the Augusta Group Stock, Augusta Mining, Aurizona Mining, New Castle Gold, and now of course, Equinox. And our question is we wanted to know if Richard Warke is still a major stockholder.
------------------------------
Ross J. Beaty, Equinox Gold Corp. - Chairman [31]
------------------------------
Yes. I can answer that absolutely, unequivocally. He is a large shareholder. He participated in our last equity financing, pro rata to his existing stake. And we're delighted to have him. We have some very solid, long-term, high net worth investors like Richard, Lukas Lundin, myself, in the company. And combined with Mubadala, which is a very, very deep-pocket massive, sovereign wealth fund in Abu Dhabi, we have a tremendous financing capacity in the company should we need it to buy or grow or do whatever our future holds. It's a fantastic shareholding base, and Richard is absolutely part of it.
------------------------------
Rhylin Pauline Arkinstall Bailie, Equinox Gold Corp. - VP of IR [32]
------------------------------
We've got 3 questions online. The first one, your underground mine at Aurizona, do you consider that as a sort of midterm target, less than 3 years, or is that a longer-term target for you?
------------------------------
Ross J. Beaty, Equinox Gold Corp. - Chairman [33]
------------------------------
Yes. It will be defined within 3 years, quantified, defined. We'll be drilling there hopefully later this year and then continue to drill and define it further. Do some economics studies. We would not probably start development there within 3 years. So it's going to be a midterm situation.
------------------------------
Rhylin Pauline Arkinstall Bailie, Equinox Gold Corp. - VP of IR [34]
------------------------------
Another question from online. Are there any metal streams or royalty with third-party companies, such as Sandstorm, on the other properties other than Aurizona?
------------------------------
Christian Milau, Equinox Gold Corp. - CEO & Director [35]
------------------------------
Yes. I'll take that one. So there is a 3% on Aurizona with Sandstorm. There is -- I think, it's 2.5% on Castle with [Frank Nevada] and on Mesquite I think there might be some small ancillary, like -- what is it, Peter?
------------------------------
Peter J. Hardie, Equinox Gold Corp. - CFO [36]
------------------------------
Average royalty rate, overall, is also about 3%.
------------------------------
Christian Milau, Equinox Gold Corp. - CEO & Director [37]
------------------------------
About 3% overall as well.
------------------------------
Rhylin Pauline Arkinstall Bailie, Equinox Gold Corp. - VP of IR [38]
------------------------------
All right. One more question online. Do you expect additional equity dilution with your planned capital expenditures and exploration expenditures? Or do you hope to use internally generated cash flow?
------------------------------
Ross J. Beaty, Equinox Gold Corp. - Chairman [39]
------------------------------
The latter.
------------------------------
Rhylin Pauline Arkinstall Bailie, Equinox Gold Corp. - VP of IR [40]
------------------------------
Short and sweet. Are there any other questions from the room? All right. Well I guess if there's no more questions on the phones either. So I will remind people that this webcast will be archived on our website, so if you do think of questions down the road, you can e-mail me or you can go back and listen to the archive. And now, I will hand it back to Christian to -- for closing remarks.
------------------------------
Christian Milau, Equinox Gold Corp. - CEO & Director [41]
------------------------------
Nothing more to say. I think we've had a good session here. Thank you all for joining us once again. And if you have any questions you'd like to ask privately, phone him. Thank you all.
------------------------------
Peter J. Hardie, Equinox Gold Corp. - CFO [42]
------------------------------
Or just come up.
------------------------------
Christian Milau, Equinox Gold Corp. - CEO & Director [43]
------------------------------
Thank you again.
------------------------------
Definitions
------------------------------
PRELIMINARY TRANSCRIPT: "Preliminary Transcript" indicates that the
Transcript has been published in near real-time by an experienced
professional transcriber. While the Preliminary Transcript is highly
accurate, it has not been edited to ensure the entire transcription
represents a verbatim report of the call.
EDITED TRANSCRIPT: "Edited Transcript" indicates that a team of professional
editors have listened to the event a second time to confirm that the
content of the call has been transcribed accurately and in full.
------------------------------
Disclaimer
------------------------------
Thomson Reuters reserves the right to make changes to documents, content, or other
information on this web site without obligation to notify any person of
such changes.
In the conference calls upon which Event Transcripts are based, companies
may make projections or other forward-looking statements regarding a variety
of items. Such forward-looking statements are based upon current
expectations and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ
materially from those stated in any forward-looking statement based on a
number of important factors and risks, which are more specifically
identified in the companies' most recent SEC filings. Although the companies
may indicate and believe that the assumptions underlying the forward-looking
statements are reasonable, any of the assumptions could prove inaccurate or
incorrect and, therefore, there can be no assurance that the results
contemplated in the forward-looking statements will be realized.
THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN EVENT TRANSCRIPTS IS A TEXTUAL REPRESENTATION
OF THE APPLICABLE COMPANY'S CONFERENCE CALL AND WHILE EFFORTS ARE MADE TO
PROVIDE AN ACCURATE TRANSCRIPTION, THERE MAY BE MATERIAL ERRORS, OMISSIONS,
OR INACCURACIES IN THE REPORTING OF THE SUBSTANCE OF THE CONFERENCE CALLS.
IN NO WAY DOES THOMSON REUTERS OR THE APPLICABLE COMPANY ASSUME ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY INVESTMENT OR OTHER
DECISIONS MADE BASED UPON THE INFORMATION PROVIDED ON THIS WEB SITE OR IN
ANY EVENT TRANSCRIPT. USERS ARE ADVISED TO REVIEW THE APPLICABLE COMPANY'S
CONFERENCE CALL ITSELF AND THE APPLICABLE COMPANY'S SEC FILINGS BEFORE
MAKING ANY INVESTMENT OR OTHER DECISIONS.
------------------------------
Copyright 2019 Thomson Reuters. All Rights Reserved.
------------------------------