Aura Minerals Inc. (ORA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Okay. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our Aura Day. It's a pleasure to have you all here today. We have gathered the executive management of the company, and the intention is to have a morning to cover last year's accomplishments, what we did in 2023, what the future holds and a bit about the gold market. Please feel free to ask questions at the end, we'll have a Q&A moment at the end of the morning. [Operator Instructions] And I'll turn it over to Rodrigo for his opening remarks. Now first of all, this is Natasha. I'm not really sure you know her, our IR Manager. She's leading all interactions with all of you. Natasha, thank you. When you send an e-mail she's the one receiving reading and getting back to you. He's been doing a great job in interacting with you. Let's back track a slide, please. So before we start, I'd like to recap what mining is, what we do at Aura? Is it only gold and copper, I'd like to challenge investors to think about that. Mining goes way beyond producing or digging gold and copper, everything we see in life, everything we consume comes from mining. There would be no lighting in electricity or building no cars, nothing without mining. As I like to say, there is the Google, no Facebook, no [ NVIDIA ], no AI. Nothing exists without mining. So at the end of the day, we have a very noble mission. Our industry has been heavily criticized, but we need to understand it is key for our lives. So how to do it better. It's not whether we need it or not. It is through money that we provide the world with materials to create and prosper without it, human kind will not evolve. So it is a key industry for mankind. And not only that, very few industries reach the remote corners of the world as we do, unlike all the other industries where you can choose, pick and choose where to go, why to recruit people. We cannot do that. So we reach the farthest corners of the world. Oftentimes places where governments are not present, no assistance. So we do have a mission, a responsibility not only of doing the right thing, but of making a difference where we have our footprint. Take basic infrastructure, education, health and help those communities prosper. And we'll be also touching upon some of those topics today. That very beautiful task that we have, not only providing raw material for mankind to prosper, but also to have a positive social impact around ESG. Very few industries have the same opportunity of working around ESG. This is a big opportunity for us as well. Today we will, of course, show what we do. The Aura day, we open our doors, of course, just as we do in our minds, we have a project called open mines. We invite communities to come and get to know what we do at the mine site. We show our faces, our projects and we'll do just that today with you. So today, we may have technical glitches and streaming problems, but we bring people from their mines to show what they do we're going to take you on a tour of what we do. So you get to know more about the operations and more about the people, our operating directors, our heads of units. That's very important. I think for us to know what Aura is about. We do things. But behind that, we have lots of people, and we think it's important for you to see their faces. We'll try to do this live. The links might crash, but that's what we do. We do it on a trial and our basis and then we use this learning curve to move forward. We're going to have 10 people talking to you today. Each one of our operational heads exploration, pythagoras, our main in Borborema, so an array of people who will be addressing different topics for you this morning. And at the end of the presentation at 11 in the morning or so, we have an economist talking to you, a Brazilian economist who works in Denver, Colorado. He's specialized in macroeconomics and precious metals, a very well-known analyst, he's always giving interviews to important media outlets and we'll be sharing with us a bit of the North American macro scenario, which is going through a very delicate moment now. I'm going to paraphrase Ray Dalio's "If you don't know if you do not own gold, you neither history nor economics." That's a Ray Dalio's quote. And sometimes you forget this, we focus on the short term, we hope interest rates to go down. But that's not simple math. If you study history and you take a look at the cycles we've been through, we see a repetition of previous high interest or high inflation cycles in the past. And that's favorable for gold. If you're in Brazil, that's a challenge I make. You are all investors here, right? And I challenge you around this issue. If you want to invest and move away from the Brazil risk you tend to invest in assets which are pegged to the U.S. dollars. But U.S. dollars, the U.S. may also depreciate just as we saw happening 2 weeks ago. They will start going down. So gold comes up as a hedging against the U.S. dollar depreciation. Everybody in Brazil should be thinking about that, thinking about hedging your assets not only using U.S. dollars but also using gold when you hedge your assets around gold, you are protecting yourself against U.S. dollar depreciation and against inflation. And the world is now waking up the situation. At times, there is some confusion around gold prices. People say gold prices are going up because of the war in Ukraine, they were in Israel but I don't think so. It has to do with the U.S. current economic recession, $3.3 trillion debt. They're going to be having to fund bonds to the tune of $20 trillion in the next years. So if that deficit is bad as it is, as interest rates go up, it's going to get even worse and they need to invest in military expenses now. I'm not a specialist. That's why I bring about specialists, but I'd like to challenge you around those issues so that you can do your own analysis later. Aura for Brazilian investors is the only company that offers that alternative in terms of investment to put together a diversified portfolio providing hedges both against the U.S. dollar and against the Brazilian BRL. So it's a complementary solution for a diversified portfolio. A year ago, we brought specialist from the World Gold Council. And this person said that including gold between 5% to 10% in your portfolio adds a lot of value to our portfolio and not only volume, but also stability. So gold assets today represent less than 1% in portfolios around the world. So today, we have much more subsidies for people to believe that gold will appreciate rather than depreciate. Not to mention copper, there is a concern and a worldwide trend that copper will become increasingly scarce. We have been seeing the trend increase in Panama, in Chile, the cost of copper going up significantly as production goes down and demand going up because of the high use of electricity around the world. So copper gains importance in this scenario. So copper will appreciate above 4.5 per pound Aura, as I said, is a turnaround company we had not performed well until 2016 that a new shareholder came in. In 2016, the Board was restructured, and I was invited to take on the CEO role to do the company turn around the first 3 to 4 years. I did my homework within our own operations. I was never present in a company a firm like this, we didn't have earnings call. And then we had our IPO, we listed our company at the B3. Then we started to have a slightly larger exposure to investors. It's a relatively new history. We have already been awarded 2 prices at the Toronto Stock Exchange. Aura won twice at the Toronto Stock Exchange as the best-performing company albeit a new company. We already have a very large track record, have grown production, 120,000 ounces, now 350 and the idea is to reach 450 ounces, we're already paying out dividends, delivering projects. So there is a track record in place which is consistent in terms of results. There is a seasonal level of frustration in the short run. First, to review the guidance in the short run. That's not good. We know it's not good. We're going to be talking about the reasons behind that but that's 3% to 4%, maybe 5% of a much larger project, which is to double in size. So again, of course, you need to deliver in the short run. We are delivering the short run, not as much as we would like to, but our long-term agenda is materializing, almost being a casing point. We focus on the Americas as our fourth bullet point SaaS. And a company, as I said, since the IPO in 2020, I said we're going to grow -- we're going to pay out dividends. How through high-return projects, fast payback and operations that generate cash flow. We have already paid 13% in yields in 2021, the largest dividend yield payout in the world in this industry. 6% in 2022 and 6% again in 2023, again, among the largest pain dividend company in the world without compromising growth with the ramp-up in Aranzazu, almost also we're now -- we're starting Borborema, so the company is showing that we are able to generate cash, pay out dividends and materialize its projects. And lastly, our 360 Mining Concept. The industry, in general, with a few exceptions, we do have a more centralized management style, more hierarchy based management style. This is not perhaps the best way to manage the business. So what we have been doing in the past years is have been working hard to decentralize decisions to bring about our meritocracy, focus more on cash flow, not only on delivering higher tonnage and have a better or closer look at ESG issues. As we delegate more decisions, we work around the way decisions are made. What are the ethical values based in those decisions. Each decision made will have an impact on the community and impact on the environment an impact on the company, of course. So we all need to think about those impacts. That's why we focus on the 360 Mining approach. Isabela will be touching upon that in a moment. Okay. I just mentioned that -- and I look at this when I joined the company. We had only 2 operations, too. Now we have 4 large operations, 2 projects under development and 2 additional exploration projects with a clear focus on the Americas, as I said, in Mexico for copper, gold in Honduras, 2 operations in Brazil around gold, 1 in Mato Grosso 1 in Tocntins, 1 project under construction in the north and 1 in Mato Grosso as well. And we have exploration projects, one in Colombia. We still need more survey and licensing and one just required Guillerme will be talking about in the Serra da Estrela in the State of Pará, one of the copper projects we're now starting, it's still early stages, but we see information showing that we may have a promising scale in that area. It will take 3 to 5 years to become viable. But in the coming years, we should be able to gather more information to share with you and this is a very promising project. As I said, we have the company's leadership with us today, not for nothing, but the turnaround focused on a very basic thing. This is not rocket science. Any company to grow needs to have good assets good projects, a good balance sheet, a good financing ability and a good team that's only obvious. But I'd like to talk about the obvious. If you look at our track record for the last 6 years, and we did exactly that, we worked around those 6 pillars. We sold a large asset. We bought other projects with high return, Glauber will be talking about that. We restarted a mine, which had been halted. We worked on our financing on. We only take credit in Canada and to lend to Brazil, Mexico and Brazil, we're charging 12% in [ nature ]. So the banks in Honduras are solid. The banks in Mexico are solid, here in Brazil, the same. There is no reason why we should go and borrow money from the U.S. and Canada, while we have important good banks in the south. As we grow and our funding needs grow, we might work on a combination of different bank institutions, but we have good relationships with banks in the company -- in the countries where we have a footprint. For Almas, for example, we leveraged the project 100% in 45 days with debentures. So it worked hard on assets. As I said, we work hard -- and Glauber here will be talking about that in a moment. We work around our balance sheet as well. Glauber we will be sharing a bit of that with you about our leveraging strategy. And of course, team and culture, Isabela will be addressing those in a moment, how we work with our team, our meritocracy model and accountability issues that we have in the company. So we knew from early on that to turn around the company and take it where it is today again and repeat myself, assets, people and assets, we know now which are the ways forward to generate returns to our shareholders. And that's clear in our minds. Once again, it's not rocket science. We're doing the simple things but doing it well and diligently. So how to generate value going forward now? Number one, project execution. In our portfolio, we have all of that on the left-hand side of the slide, execution plan in people moving from 250,000 ounces to 450,000 ounces. Not only that, we have already done the first one. On-time and on-budget, a ramp-up of 5 months in the industry, they talk about 12 months. We did it in 5 months. How? In addition to a great team, we focused on the simple things. There is no reason why we should invest in high large projects with low returns. Almas, for example, a 100% a year in terms of leverage. I had never seen anything like this before. It's delivered. Of course, there are short-term challenges, but those are things where we'll have a quick adjustment when we have to 100% a year in terms of returns, amazing. Almas, Matupa, we already have a feasibility study in place, 50% of internal return fee with no upside. We're talking about 340,000 ounces that we know of. And [indiscernible] we able to double reserves, we're already 55% of return fee. So it's more than doubling the size. Borborema, already under construction 52% and of return. We talk about 840,000 ounces of reserves, but we have resources for 2 million ounces. And what do I mean by that? We do not -- there is no doubt about the existence of gold there. It's 2 million ounces. We cannot include that in our reserves because to do that, we have to have clearance to mine those ounces. Licensing permits, it has to be ready to mine, and there's a highway riding along the open pit. So that limits us to 840,000. If we move that highway, a couple of miles away, we'll have clearance to mine, 2 million ounces. To move highway in Brazil is a bureaucratic legislative process takes time 4 to 5 years, but we will do it. We have already started working on that actually. So that project, 50% of return without doubling the size. Matupa almost the same. So those are projects of very high return. And they are simple. We have focused on the simple things, as I said, open pit projects, CIL technology, something we have been using for a long time in Apoena example, very well known. Again, there is no rocket science. It's merely the execution of simple projects. So execution, once again, that's one of our drivers for growth from 250 to 450 and this will bring results for everyone. Those projects not -- have not been priced into our accounts. Now maybe a bit of Almas, but the others have not been factored in terms of pricing. Number two, to increase the amount of gold that we know of within the mines. We have 630,000 hectares of exploration rights and not far from where we are. They're either very close to our existing operations are close to the ones where we are investing now. And Aura invested nothing, as I said, it was a turnaround company until 2016, '17, '18, generated no cash, very difficult years for us. We started having investment capabilities in 2020, 2021. We invested $6 million, $7 million, $8 million a year simply to replace assets. And we multiply that. Now we're reaching $25 million. So we are able to increase the amount of gold and copper that we know of inside the mines which is still very, very large. Some of those deposits are only now getting to be known and this will bring about value to our shares which is linked to our non-gold amount with a discount. If we increase the amount of gold, of course, share prices go up. For gold and copper, there is no perpetuity as you know. You have a cash flow to the extent of the reserves you know of. So if you increase the amount, there's an immediate increase in share prices. So 3 pathways as I said. So increased production; number two, increase the amount of known gold. And number three, we're going to change our negotiation multiples. When you combine those 3 levers will increase our gains. Why do that? Companies our size that produce 300,000 ounces, they are traded at 40% of their theoretical value or NAV, net asset value. We are below our sector's number, 33%, 35%, below 40%. But if we go over 500,000 ounces, we reach 0.7x, 0.8x our NAV, and I'll show that in a moment. And we know really well how to reach 450,000 to exceed 500,000. We have to go through an M&A, but we do have an M&A track record. We know how to do it. And shareholders with us who've been in the market for more than 40 years. And we have footprint in Latin America and other countries. We have a talented team who is able to bring alternatives to the table. And today, it might be one of the best moments ever to do an M&A. Gold prices are very, very good and interest rates are not helping. We just invested in Altamira, a company with a very high capacity to bring about results down the road and growing at USD 10 million, USD 40 million. So it's a very interesting moment we're going through. Companies such as ours generating cash at a very difficult moment in terms of interest rates. So it's a very interesting moment for us to go after M&As, and we have shown we know how to do it. Glauber will be touching upon this in a moment. But we have already mapped out some possibilities how we plan on getting to those 450,000 ounces. The plan is already being executed and exploration. We invested $7 million, $8 million, $10 million in 2020 we start to increase $12 million and then $22 million, $25 million. We were able to replace resources, this low level of investments you see here, we are now able to increase that. And we do this as we continue to produce so we are replacing and increasing with low investment levels. It's a company that has invested little in exploration. We're only now starting to invest a bit more in the exploration as we better understand the landscape. And Guillermo will be talking about that in a moment. Going back to the multiples issue. Companies are sized rank around 0.5 NAV, it's a couple of outliers, but on average, 0.5 when we move from a peer group, and we want to do that. We're going to be going through M&A. So you have a leverage of 8.9x NAV. We're not very far from that level. Of course, we need M&A to get there, right? We need not M&A for the sake of M&A, but M&A is that will truly generate value. And there are possibilities out there for us to do that. We have already mapped out 20 new projects or potential projects, we're now going through a more detailed analysis of about 5 or 6. There's nothing on paper yet, but we are on the right track, and we are being very proactive in that. Sometimes, the companies wait for banks to present projects. That works, of course, but we also need to be proactive when an interest shows up. That's how Big River emerged. That's how Borborema emerged at 2 million ounces and 50% return. So it's worth looking at the multiple landscape in the mid the short to the long run. We have a very clear view of where we want to be in terms of returns and risks when you include dividend payout, of course, at a moderate level. Very few companies do that. And we started discussing about paying out dividends. We said, are we going to pay out dividends to the detriment of growing the company? No, we can do both and very few companies can do that, pay out dividends and continue to grow. Because we have good cash generation. We have 2-year payback projects, 1 year payback for equity. We finish Almas and we start Borborema. So one thing is latched onto the other, and that creates a very virtual cycle and a reasonable level of leverage. So this was just a brief overview. I'll turn the floor over in a minute to Henrique. we will be changing had -- Henrique the operational manager at Aranzazu. Aranzazu was a restart of a mine we did in 2018, and we saw the possibility of increasing our new management concept, which is -- it was easier for us to include that in a company that was being restarted, then one which was ongoing. So we thought about focusing on the Aranzazu include everything we have in terms of managerial best practices. And when you consolidate that, we roll that out to other operations. That's why Aranzazu has proven to be very stable throughout time, a mine which is difficult to explore and were able to reach very high capacity rates way above what we expected 2 years ago, and it has to do with the team. And Hickey leads that team, and he'll be sharing a bit of an he's doing in Aranzazu.

As we can hear you. Over to you, Henrique.

Good morning, good morning, everyone. Well, let me take this opportunity to give the message to all those who are attending this event. It's a great pleasure for me to be here on another Aura day to talk about Aranzazu mine. We are lucky today is already bright. So we can see the [ asset ], we can see the mountains as well. Aranzazu is in Mexico, in the north of Mexico, winter is about to arrive. So we have the proper clothes and it's an altitude of 2,200 meters. To complement what Rodrigo has already mentioned, I simply love when he says what you're doing is not rock science, but there is discipline behind everything we do. I would like to say that I could divide into 4 fundamentals that we apply here. And they are all connected with our Mandela our 360 culture that will be described by Isabela. But I would like to make 4 pillars that would summarize the deliveries that we have been making. One of them is related to people, Rodrigo mentioned described very well. We take very seriously to provide the right time to choose the right person, the right personnel develop them because, after all, they are the ones who are going to make justice to all the other pillars, and they are all necessary for us to make the proper delivery. Rodrigo mentioned also the strategy was the second pillar. So the asset has to be connected to the strategy. I would say that this would be the second base or the second fundamental for us to be delivering the right results. And the third pillar, the third fundamental would be the PDCA we have to have plants connected to this strategy. I set plans in the plural because we are thinking about alternatives. We know that mines are dynamic and we cannot be frozen in a single plan because if things do not go as planned, we have to make the right changes following the PDCA cycle so that we can act properly. And lastly, as another foundation would be the operating discipline that we have to have. Rodrigo mentioned the execution part, and we understand that what we do is a discipline applied on a daily basis because this -- what we do is to deliver what the company expects. Our daily lives are very dynamic. And we have to think about the PDCA, the people, the strategies, and they all have to have the operating discipline so that we can deliver what is expected from the company. Before giving the floor to Isabela. I know that Glauber and Guilherme will also mention what I'm about to say. But I would like to mention the potential of Aranzazu was reborn in 2018, and that would be the 5 years that would this year, but I can give you some numbers. We invested more than $25 million, more than 160,000 meters of drilling and Aranzazu has a useful life of another 8 years. So we're going to be operating up to 2031. And the region has a great potential. In the ranges of 50 kilometers, we have other 3 mines and there's a mine close here that produces more than 1 million ounces of equivalent gold showing the potential that the region has. We understand that Aranzazu has still a lot to offer. Generally speaking, this is what I need to say. And I give the floor back to Isabela, who is going to talk about our 360 culture. Thank you, everyone.

Good morning. Good morning, everyone. Can you hear me? I'm Isabela, and I'm here to discuss a topic which is very important to us, which is our culture and our people. As Rodrigo mentioned, this is one of the pillar of our growth strategy. We have a very strong culture, a very strong team. And I would like to show you what we have been doing in order to take care of our people and of our culture. Culture has been transforming has been having a new shape with the new corporate control with Rodrigo who joined Aura. He made some restructuring of the team, he implemented a decentralized management approach, and he brought our Mandala, which is the symbol of our culture. So we know that a cultural change, the company takes time and demands a lot of discipline, a lot of consistency. And this is what we have been doing for many years now. I would like to bring a snapshot of what happened in the past 3 years. '22, '23 and '24 so that we can materialize this Mandala. I would like to bring a little bit about what Aura vision for the future is so that we can leverage our culture so that the growth can happen. So we see culture as making the company grow, maintaining a healthy culture and also strengthening people value meritocracy. This is the main goal when we look at the snapshot of 3 years. Last year, we conducted a survey. We made a diagnosis -- we wanted to know what's making sense what could be improved in our culture. And as we listen to what people had to say, we revisited our plan for the future, our mission, our values. And we saw if there was anything that needed to be adjusted. And this is when the Mandala was updated, and this is the model that we have today. In 2022, we had an action plan that would be performed in the following year. So this was a year of a lot of action of very successful year. Many of the planned actions were executed and we had some key activities in 2023. The first one was to bring the senior management to the game. So the senior management had to be very close to this cultural change. They needed to understand our value or practice because they are the ones that are key to the transformation. We also use the agile methodology and because they would translate our values in our practice Together with that, we also have a very comprehensive communication at all levels so that everybody would understand the Mandela. And for 2024, we are going to continue implementing the Mandela and we are improving all even further. And the idea is to listen to our employees once again, so that we can understand whether or not we need to make some adjustments to the path. So I would like to talk about the results that we can see related to people we reached a very important hallmark. We have 360 days with no accidents, no incidents. There was a drop of turnover. So we are being able to retain our talents much better now. We have also been able to attract women in the mining area. We understand that mining is still a very male area. But now we have reached 27% of women in the leadership positions. They are all very important goals that we have accomplished, and they bring about our cultural transformation. There are also some other examples outside the company because this healthy culture expands across -- outside the company -- we have received some [ shields ], socially responsible company. So there are many rewards that we have received from the market. All this movement of the consolidation of this Mandela is connected to our strategic inputs, they are connected to the mission to the values. And this is story that we've been -- have been telling and bringing them home so that people can connect themselves with them. Beginning from the rituals, the behaviors that we demand and they provide a guidance for people to behave. And also our ESD agenda have been followed and they are all connected with our strategy. I would like to give you some examples, we have a very intense agenda as I mentioned, but I would like to give you some examples so that you can understand the actions that we have been implementing in the ESG agenda. In Borborema, for example, and this is a unit that is under construction. We have a project for water reuse, water that would no longer be used. The company decided to treat the area, the water to reuse the area. We have been operating in the cultural area. We had a literature fare in Aranzazu in Mexico, we have a program for children in the region for them to play sports like soccer and baseball. We -- In Aranzazu, we also support a foundation that provides services, medical services to the community for needy people. So the company is also providing support to the financial in Apoena, in Mato Grosso. We have a very important initiative in relation to the environment, involving schools and teachers waste collection. In Almas we received the community, we opened the doors for them to visit the company so that they can understand our operations. And in Almas, the impact has been very big at the company at each job that we generate, 9 other jobs are generated indirectly because we are present in that community. I would like to bring some highlights to Minosa, [ Antoine ] will talk more about it. But I would like to say that we have a foundation that is a social segment of the company that connects the company with the community. And we've been doing a very important work in that area involving women entrepreneurship more than 600 people have been served by different services, medical services, and this is provided to the company. And we have also done a reforestation initiative with more than 500 sealings that have been planted. [ Antoine ] will talk about the green house that we have been using to keep those ceilings. And he will give more details about how this is going to be done. Now I would like to invite you to know some of the stories told by some people that have been impacted by the presence of Aura in those communities. I would like you to see a video telling some stories. I hope you like it. [Presentation]

Wilton. Can you hear me? Okay. Great.

Yes, I can hear you.

Yes, over to you.

Okay. Great. Isabela. Good morning, everyone. I'm speaking directly with our [indiscernible] greenhouse and connected to what Isabela has just mentioned, I would like to say that we have the capacity of 660,000 seedlings per year. And we use those seedlings to plant in the areas where we operate. And because the capacity is much larger, we donate part of the seedlings that we produce so that we can recover the areas in the surrounding areas. At the back, we can see our greenhouse for the conservation of species of [ orchid ] which is species that's protected by law. So we collect the orchids in all the areas we operate. and we store them properly so that we can replant the orchids at areas that have been recovered. So we closed the cycle so that we can maintain and conserve our areas and connect to the foundation which is a foundation that has lots of projects focused on the social area. Now talking about our operation in 2023. We had a very challenging year, and we understood that we will be operating at minus with lower content areas because this was part of our operating plan. So this is the reason why the year was a bit more complicated. And we went for different alternatives that we could keep the historical level of production. So we expanded our production capacity and the processing of ore. So we made those investments along the first quarter part of the second quarter. There was a number of problems at the plant that made us lower our production level and also that affected the way we use the plant. And this impacted the physical availability of our production and this is the reason why the process mass was a bit lower and that impacted the production. After May, we started to ramp up our capacity, and we maintain a level of stability. In the production. And this is what we have been seeing since May until the end of November, we saw very stable production and reaching production records, and we are likely to end the year 2023 with a process mass of higher than 7 million tons, which is a number that had never been reached before in spite of all the problems that we had to face in the first and second quarters. And we also focused on cost reduction. So that made us renegotiate a number of agreements so as to bring more stability to our results. So all of those preparation made us prepared for 2024 with high expectations of regular production with adjusted cost levels and also bringing about good perspectives in terms of production for 2024. Minosa is a very important operation considering our growth plan. And Glauber will tell us a bit more about how Minosa will help us in the expansion plan that we have established for our as well as other projects and operations that we have included in our portfolio. Glauber over to you.

I'll now talk a bit 0bout our assets. One of the most responsible mines that we have result-oriented and so on. Rodrigo mentioned the pillars early on. And then Isabela had a chance to talk about the company's culture and how that has helped us in transforming the company. I will be going into more -- a bit more detail about our assets, our operations out in the field and the evolution of our projects that will support our growth plan as we move towards 450,000 ounces. But before that, and going back to the pillars because everything is connected, Isabela, did mention a bit about this, but I'd like to reinforce this because this is really key. This number is key or rather this target is very important, which is to have one whole year without accidents that entailed days away from work. That's a true benchmark. That's a really amazing figure, one whole year because we know this is a very risk prone activity so we are very proud of this number now of having reached that number. This was in June the [indiscernible] and through October, we were able to maintain that. So this is a worldwide benchmark, quite a feat. That's a continuous effort that we have put in, and we talk internally about it. Safety is first, and we work that on a day-to-day basis. But that's a true example of how we put our Mandala into practice how we put our culture into practice. Now speaking a bit about production. Here, we have a chart where we have production on a quarterly basis, and that curve shows the year-to-date numbers, right? Production for the past for quarters in annualized terms for climate reasons, we always have a second half of the year, which is stronger than the first half. So the fourth quarters are usually the ones where we have higher production this year specifically is no different. As Wilton said, we had some difficulties in Minosa in the first half of the year. We had already expected Apoena to have a lower production because of different content and different sequences. But here, in addition to recovery at Minosa, Wilton mentioned all the expansion work that was done, all the improvements that were made at the plant today in the third quarter, we have -- production going up 50% when compared to the first half. Even though third quarter is usually affected by rainfall, which, of course, impacts yields. But we expect this benefit coming from all those improvements at the plant, we'll be able to take Minosa back to the production level you all expect. As for Aranzazu, Henrique did mention about the secret sauce that we have put in to reach that stability. It's truly amazing. A mine by nature, is a very varied project. We only know the ore truly know it after we process it. So there are several variables to be taken into account energy draining sustainability support of the whole process to provide access ventilation ducts. All of that makes those operations very complex. So 9 consecutive quarters of stable production is also a source of a lot of pride to all of us, and we try to replicate that across all other operations. We have reached record numbers in tonnes processed at the plant, which shows that continuous search for a continued improvement without leaving quality aside. We try to concentrate on volume and not so much on quality. But there in this mine, we do well on both fronts, given the maturity that we have from the standpoint of the technical front from the standpoint of a better definition of our processes and also because of the team's capacity, of course. As for Apoena, we started a turnaround process 2 years ago. We are redesigning the whole structure, redesigning the whole team, the culture, the 360 concept and we're also redesigning the whole operational design. We are now focused on cash generation and not as much on the maximum possible production that led to very high inventory levels. So today we have stricken a balance between high content ore and inventory generation, always trying to maximize cash flow or cash generation. All of that combined with Almas. I'll be talking about Almas in a moment. As we concluded the process, the ramp-up phase, but I'd like to share with you a bit of what's happening now. And today, when you look at our operations, we see a very high technical level, a very high maturity level because of the team's ability and skills, a team, we have trained, people we are bringing from abroad are developing internally and also maturity across all processes. When we talk about culture, culture includes behaviors management models that decentralization approach mentioned before and also new techniques, new technologies, best practices in a very consolidated manner. And that forms the basis that we have that will send us forward. We'll have less or fewer difficulties for new projects because they are a [ management system ] will be a sort of a plug-and-play process for new projects that can be started right off the bat. That has happened in Almas and it will happen in Borborema as well. And even when you talk about acquisitions, Rodrigo Barbosa mentioned M&A acquisitions that we might bring on board. They will simply plug and play into our oral management system. Almost a success story, not very common to see that in this industry, a project being executed on budget and on time. I know that's something we have planned and it's our obligation to do that to what was planned, but that's not what we usually see. So we are also very proud of seeing that. This was a very, very tumultuous time, early construction. We were still living through COVID logistics difficulties. And still, we were able to exceed and get around all those adversities. We are very creative in terms of trying to find alternatives, lower costs. and ensure deliveries. The plant was commissioned in record time. We have reached nominal figures already. If you look at Almas because it is a new project and because of all the risks involved in a new operation, we see that as a done project, whatever risk was there that could hurt performance and profitability of the operation that has been addressed and why because of our approach, equipment up and running process routes also up and running. Well of course, we have pilot scale tests. It's only done when it's working in practice. It is working. We're able to recover gold as predicted by our surveys. Processed capacity. We are on a continuous flow, reaching nominal capacity and already thinking about expanding the plant. The plant was designed to be expanded actually. Geological model. That's the highest risk. If I have a change in the entry level of concentration, there is low efficiency gain that will offset the last and gold content, the first analysis. If I lose 10% in content, I will not very likely be able to offset that loss. So the previous survey, the previous analysis and studies are important, but we can only be sure after we process it. So everything that we processed circles back to what we had predicted as per our geological models. That's the best news of all proven mine parameters high scale, size, they have all been assessed and confirmed. Not everything is perfect. Of course, mining operating performance is an issue. Mine performance again. We are talking about the equipment productivity or scaling of the equipment training of our labor, our learning curve was a bit steeper than we had anticipated. Within Aura, we had this concept of not looking at big players working with lower size or smaller third-party contractors. And we have been able to have better prices that helps us keep our operational costs at a low level. Number two, we also ready -- they -- those smaller guys are more open to accepting our culture, our way of working. So that's why we choose to work with those smaller-scale contractors. The downside is that they are not that well structured, so they need more help, they need more support on our side. So we need to walk them through the process more than we would with larger players. So we need to help them get structured. And that takes time. We're talking about a short period, of course. In August, we declared operational to be commercial. So that has an impact in the year's guidance, but it has been well addressed. When you look at the numbers, we see a we are getting back to previous levels. That's what we had planned for. That's what we have been executing in blue is a more friable material when we were at a softer material equipment were was responding well and performance was up when we started addressing harder rocks we were not able to keep productivity at the same level. So you need larger pieces of equipment, better labor. But the critical point here was the size of the equipment, and this has all been addressed. So those are figures for your reference. We're talking about 700,000, 800,000 tonnes a month and Apoena reached 1 million tonnes. So it's nothing out of this world. We do have internal know-how to address that. And we can already see the results in November, December. And of course, in 2024, we're going to be at full rate for AMS. So we are quite optimistic about it. And we do believe we have resumed the right track. Our next speaker, Andréia, our Operational Director at Almas and she will tell us a bit about how she's been leading those efforts and how she sees almost going forward. She is connecting now. Andréia, can you hear us? Good morning. Yes, I can. Over to you. We can hear you all.

Good morning, everyone. I am now at Almas, the site of Tocantins. And I am watching the event with part of our leadership. Today, we had already done our first track of the day, actions to revert. And of course, vis-a-vis the results. I'd like to share with you some of the points that we have raised, so follow me as we toured the plan. So we have now a plant, which is focused on reverting the results for the mine. We have worked with our third-party contractors in some of the levers, including 2 of them. Number one, a focus on people, where we didn't have to retrain some people we brought in master drivers, very experienced specialists that work close with operational review and techniques and thus ensuring sustainability for results. We have already reinforced our specialists for maintenance, bringing on board about 30% of specialists, we wanted to engage 100% of the teams align them so that they would understand and would focus and would prioritize reverting the result of the mine. So we were able to gain time in the purchase of services integrations. We also did a deep dive to bring about resources from other units specialists who came to us to help us and bring knowledge and support our work plan. And also external consultants, our corporate arm and more importantly, we did all that around our well-based practices, behaviors and culture that we look for. So this was a very rich moment for us, and we are now reenergized to reach our second lever, which is what we call process review. And throughout this process review, I'd like to highlight a couple of points, which are basically the following: for drilling and disassembly of rocks that we could have quality material and more fragmented materials. So that -- the subsequent processes would flow more seamlessly, more productive. So we have increased the drilling networks by 15%. We also had a very important process as we review the processes, which was to change the fleet profile, so our part of the fleet anyway. Especially our fleet of digging machines that carry the materials, we are now migrating to a different configuration for 45 tons -- from 45 to 50 and 75 tonnes. So this change will ensure a productivity gain and will allow us to gain a new pace of production at the same time and to support this curve and make it sustainable in terms of results, we also decided to add yet another contractor. So now we have more infrastructure capacity more loading capacity, more transportation capacity, and we can already see results. Here, I am showing a daily average of results, for example, for October and November. In those 2 months, we went up 33% on this daily average. From November to December, we have yet another 25% of gains. And when you look at the pace we have today, with the levers already in place, that ensures that we will be able to reach our targets and our plan for 2024. I have a video footage I'd like to share with you that shows a bit of those examples I mentioned in terms of process review that we did at the mine level. We can see an operation that happened yesterday at the mine we can see a fragmentation process, a very good quality and a much better flow between loading and transportation. And we can see the 75-ton piece of equipment coming from the new third-party contractor. In the background, we can also see that our third-party contractor who is currently working already changed to a larger scale. That's a 50-ton machine that provides us with more efficiency and which ensures our better daily levels. So that new fleet configuration, the change in profile allows us to move forward across all dimensions. So today, now we're now at the upper part doing the pushback, opening up the mine with work fronts, which are dedicated to that. And with that, we are now reaching the levels we would expect to reach 2024. When we see a robust mine plan, and we go to the plant, as Glauber mentioned, a great success story in terms of ramp up, a lot of planning, a lot of discipline went into it. When you look at this video footage, you can see practices, procedures, which are benchmarked for the industry now being adopted here to make sure we can reach results in a sustainable manner. But not only that. Today, in addition to be delivering 15% above what had been planned at the project phase we can see the team already hard at work in this new video analyzing -- identifying bottlenecks, working on plans for us to be able to take another leap in the near future. So as you can see, that's a robust plan we put in place, I love knowledge being brought in a very engaged team, very skilled personnel. I am sure we have already reverted those numbers. But I'd like to show you in detail a bit of that operation live online. And so you'll have a chance to see things happening. The main process is around concentration, our hydro steel plant as they are full steam. So we're going to wrap up with this wonderful image of the plant and full speed. So that's it from me. Just as a final comment. We have learned a lot, but we also have had the chance to implement great practices. We want to share with all of you. So Glauber now back to you. Thank you for your attention.

So in practice, Andréia gave more details about how we are recovering in other ways how we are restructuring ourselves. And speaking of the new projects, after the success that we saw in Almas, there are lots of good things that happened, and we have to make sure that this is going to be repeated. So it's the same team. Well, in fact, we -- new people joined our group, but the pace is still the same, the leadership is still the same. As to Borborema, we see a totally different environment. we have to purchase all the equipment as to this asset. We used to have the milk, and this is a critical part of the process, and it's being manufactured. We had a chance to visit the mill factory in China. And the first package has already been sent to Brazil. It's in transit, so that -- it will arrive in Brazil in the beginning of next year. In relation to the activities, the permits have been granted at 100% in terms of earthmoving activities. We have already reached 85% of all this step completed. So we are a bit ahead of what we have planned as to engineering, equipment and machinery purchase. It's important that 58% of all the purchases have already been completed on budget. And so we understand that we are going to complete the CapEx of the project. Another point which was the cost that could affect the deadline would be the execution. We have group contractors experts that were higher than they will provide support in the engineering part and all the details. Together with that, we also have a very strong governance practice. We hired specialists in the sector so that we can they can provide the foundation for compliance and governance so that everything can be completed as planned. In end of December, we are likely to have 80% of the projects already completed. Another project is Matupa. Matupa comes into play right after Borborema. Lots of headway were made in the beginning of this year. We had the permit that was provided by the proper agency of Mato Grosso. It is granted after it is judged by a committee from different dimensions, and the project was unanimously accepted. And this is not usually seen in this area. And we were very successful when the preliminary permit was granted. We are going to file the installation permit in December and the installation permit is likely to be granted in the third quarter of next year and construction restart. Together with all of this, when we talk about Matupa, we also have [ San Andres ] asset that is close to X1 deposit and Guillermo will provide more details about this project. And Pitágoras our construction manager is managing those assets. And he will provide details about the structure and how he sees the development of this project. So Pitágoras over to you.

Okay. Glauber. It's an honor for me to be talking about the second growth project of our, as Glauber said, we are in [ Honduras ] North in [ Carajas ], we are bringing a bit of what we already have done and what we are about to do. At this time, we are in the phase of earth-moving activities. We have professionals that are focused on the earthmoving activities. And with peak of 1,200 employees working in the beginning of the first quarter of next year. We have contractors which are also involved in the engineering aspects, and they are also in the field working in this project. And we also have the civil activities, which is very important as to earth-moving activities, as you can see in the video. We have the operational plateau that has already been completed, and some civil activities have already been anticipated, and these are related to the area of the milk that would account for about 60% of all the activities and we brought forward some activities. And when the civil construction is about to start, the service will be ahead of time. And talking about the civil activities, which is our next focus, they are likely to be here in the beginning of January. So the personnel has already been hired. And as we can see, this plateau has already been completed as towards moving activities and also the activities for the containment die and also the offices. So this is -- what you see is an area that has already been completed. Now speaking about the challenges and the next steps and what we are about to do up to 2025. So we have to be in the start-up period in the first half of the year. So the mobilization of the employees, we are about to have all the employees contracted, and we are going to start all the activities as a April next year. And the purpose is to have the commissioning in the fourth quarter and the start-up in the first half of 2025 we have activities on-site and off-site. And we have off-site activities, which are in the part of contracting. And this relates to the transmission line that goes from [indiscernible] to the site that is kilometers and reuse facility. We are going to capture the water, and we are going to bring the water to the site. So 27 kilometers of facilities that are going to be delivered and they are under construction at the moment. Now in relation to continuing working and thinking about the future, we continue structuring the project so that the expansion can happen. The project was device so that it will operate without any interference when we need to expand it. All those crushing part has already been planned. So we already put in the plan an additional area so that when the expansion is materialized, this expansion will not negatively impact the operation. And this was a strategy that was very successful in Almas. So in the first step, we are going to have a preassembly area when we are going to optimize the civil works without a major interferences in the assembling activities. And this will reduce any problems related to safety. And now we are going with ethics, and we're always innovating with decentralization, and we have a high level of engagement from the team. And we are going to continue delivering and bringing the project -- the growth projects as expected by the company. I'm now talking about Matupa, the same team that was mentioned by Glauber. So everything that we had in terms of experience positive and negative, we brought into this Matupa project. In this period where we are getting ready and we are getting the licenses and the permits and getting ready for the installation. We understood that we would have 2 years in terms of feasibility to the permits. So we implemented all the lessons learned. And today, we managed to get to a level in which the inflation variation and all the reductions that we had in terms of the purchases, we understand that all the negative aspects will not impact our Matupa project. So we are ready to start on budget, on time and with quality. And to continue all those Barbados revenues. I'm going to pass the floor to [indiscernible]. [ Canedo ], over to you.

Thank you, Pitágoras. Good morning, everyone. I'm going to be talking about the exploration. I'm going to give you a concept because when we talk about exploration, we talk about mineral prospect surveys. And you know the result of the surveys are not immediate. So the results are going to be seen in the mid and long terms. And we can see that we made higher investments in the past years. So about $20 million have been invested in the past 3 years. It's a very interesting number showing how assertive we've been. The graph show the cost per ounce discovered. So we see the average stands at $21 per ounce much below that of the market. When we look at the industry figures in the Western area, we see $43 per ounce. So it shows that we are making investments, and we are being efficient. I would like to draw your attention to those numbers because those numbers are not updated. These are pre-pandemic numbers. And when I say soil boring, I'm talking about chemical analysis, and we have an exploration costs related to analysis. But there was an increase of 76% as to the inflation. So even considering the inflation, we are below the average cost of the industry in the Western. So we are going to close the year with 124,000 meters of soil boring. And I'm going to show you the highlight of each asset. In Almas, we have been developing our work. And one year ago, I talked to some of you to show the potential of Almas. Almas is a region that from the geological viewpoint is a greenstone belt. It's a geological formation that where gold is produced. And we -- I would like to show what are the potentials in Brazil. So we have the Greenstone belt in Pillar with more than 11 million of ounces in terms of resources. But you look at the works. So more than 1 million meters drilled. And here, [indiscernible], we have more than 1 millimeters of soil boring, there's more than 5 million meters that were drilled, and we have 75 million ounces. When we look at Almas, this is where we are. We have more than 340,000 hectares of rights in this geological environment, which is very favorable to Gold Mine. So we have total resource of more than 900,000 ounces. So we have a large potential still to be explored. And we are getting the results of all this. So we have identified this year at the original level that is 20 meters at 1.2 grams. It's the same of pau-a, which is the mining Almas. And this is located less than 10 kilometers. So we have just started the studies. So we have this potential, and we are getting the results after years of doing some research in the area and all the surveys. Another work that we are doing is in Matupa, which isn't the construction pipeline that we have. We are focusing on [ San Andres ] asset, which is 20 kilometers to the south, away from X1. And with the soil boring, we have already confirmed that there is 800 kilometers of strike. So it's 800,000 kilometers of continuity in the mining operation. So in the next year, we are like -- we are going to di [ San Andres ] is a target that contemplates at least 9 other sub targets. And what we show here is the MP2 is which is only one of those. So we have a potential to double or even more than double the reserves that we have today for the Matupa project. Now talking about Aranzazu now as a highlight of what we did this year, you can see this image. So this is a section and we can see the mines that we explore nowadays, we are developing work so that we can test the continuity of this target and conversion of the resources. We are confirming all this. We have positive intersections already. And in addition to that, we are doing some surveying new targets, and we were able to identify a target that we call a connection zone that would connect to those targets that are known for us. that have already been mined and there's another one for copper. So we have some positive bowls showing this. So it's a totally new target, and we are planning to do the follow-up on the years to come. So it shows the potential of the region. As [ Enrico ] mentioned, it's located in a world-class area. So in ranges of less than 25 kilometers, we have Penasquito, which has more than 20 million of Mineral Resources with a production of 1 million of equivalent ounces also have Camino Rojo, which is another for another company that has more than 9 million in resources and another asset beside that is Aranzazu. So it's a region whose geological potential is enormous. Geology doesn't happen by chance. So it's not by chance that petroleum reserves are on the coast and the largest copper deposits are in the end. So they happen in different geological environment, and we are located in a very interesting geological area. Still talking about Apoena, I had a chance to talk about it about 2 years ago. And we mentioned that we had developed the theory, the ours would connect to other areas. And after the work, we have -- that this is confirmed. We see that this mineralization, this ore production is continuous and we are updating the technical report of all those resources and of the reserves. And we expect that we may not only compose and we're going to -- we are likely to increase the use of life of the asset. And we have also been working on other regional assets. [indiscernible], that at the surface, it has the same characteristics of the mine that we explored. So Japanese we were able to mine 70,000 ounces. So we believe that beside it, we can have a similar deposit. We started all the soil boring operations. And there is another one that has recently acquired that is not on the slide that is [indiscernible] in Para. We understand that in Carajas region is another world-class region with large deposits, and there are many copper deposits called IOCG. And that deposit has all the characteristics of the other assets that we have. And we have the surface anomalies of nearly 5,000 kilometers. And we -- in the second half of this year, we have already started all the soil borrowing operations. And we have been testing this 5-kilometer striking, then we have indications that we are being successful. We have been sending out the samples to the to the lab, and we are likely to have the results by the third quarter of next year. So in a quick way, I try to give the a summary of what we have been doing. Of course, we are doing other activities in other targets, so they can make headway. But I'm going to ask the operational manager that he can tell us about the plans for the next years. Thank you.

Thank you. Welcome, everyone. It's an honor to be talking to you. As [indiscernible] mentioned, it was very cold there, but it's very cut here. 38 degrees Celsius. So I made it a point to be here in this area, in this position where you can see the equipment. And I can also see other targets and in the last 2 years, it has been very significant for Apoena for the exploration. We managed to have a high level of assertiveness. We are waiting for the updated report with -- in relation to the reposition and also to understand how extended the use of life of Apoena will be for the future. And of course, we are still looking at the everyday activities in the short term. We faced some difficulties in the beginning of the year. We had already planned there would be a reduction in production in the first half of the year. And we understood that the production would ramp up would grow in the second half of the year. But in the region, times have been different because if we look back in the past 3 years, we didn't have any rain. And in September, there was a lot of rain in September. And that made us delay this development for [ Anastomine ] for safety reasons, but also in relation to the geotechnical structure. So we cannot operate. When we operate the mines in rainy seasons, we have to lower down the production. And this is why we needed to make a proper plan. So the answer I said are going to be moved to next year, but we are not going to lose them, but we had to revise the guidance. But considering the scenario, we had major initiative at Apoena that will encourage what we do for the years to come. We have just finished the activities in the dams, the dams that receive the tailings and the dam has been expanded, and it will support 2 additional years of operation. So for 2024 and 2025, we'll be ready to receive all the tailings from the metallurgy operations. So the production has been covered. And we are about to finish the permit initiatives. And the next pit that we are going to operate in is what we refer to as big pit because it connects Nosde and Lavrinha, which are potential areas for our site. So with this new permitting and all the work being done, we'll be -- we have space enough for 25 and for the sterile stack so that we can bring all the benefits that was mentioned. When we look at the fourth quarter, we see that we reached the historical level of 2023 and the second largest volume of production on Saturday, our plants managed to produce nearly 500 tonnes to 600 tonnes. So 5,000 tonnes is the pace that we need for -- so that we can start the first quarter of 2024. When we look at what we have, we can see that we have more than 100,000 of disassembled mass. So we broke the barrier of BRL 1 million, and we are about to reach 1.3 billion, and this is going to sustain the plan that we have for 2024. Of course, this is all sustained by the strong culture, as mentioned by -- and the women in leaderships. A very important fact in relation to the ESG agenda is that we increase the percentage of reuse of water so that it will help us in the ESG agenda. And this is going to ensure our growth and the sustainable growth based on our ESG initiatives of our 360 culture. And if there is growth, there is another third pillar. And Glauber will provide more details about how this growth is structured in our financial balances prepared to support all this. Thank you very much, and have a good day, everyone.

Before getting Glauber on stage, we will -- I will call to stage Otávio, who is also online. Otávio was going to speak later because we were a bit late. He's going to come before his scheduled time. Let's just give him a minute to connect. Otávio, can you hear me?

Yes, I can. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone.

Otávio, a brief introduction.

I'll start the presentation, if I may. Thank you all, especially Rodrigo for his invite. Go ahead Rodrigo.

Just a brief introduction of Otávio. Otávio a very special person I met in 3 months ago in person, but I had known him from interview. He used to be a top-notch tennis player in the U.S., then he went into business on those boring things, economics, investments and so on. Anyway, look at his face a young guy with a huge reputation in the West. He works at a fund called Crescat. He has been interviewed by Bloomberg Whitters, the Wall Street Journal and other media outlets and he has a very clear view of what's happening in the U.S. in a more macro economic context, and he's going to share the strategy he's been using to face all that. Over to you, Otávio.

Yes, I'm going to share my screen with you, if I may. Just give me a second, please. I hope you can see. Crescat Capital. Today, I'd like to focus on the gold market and also on commodities and also to provide a macroeconomic view. We are going through a difficult moment in terms of global economics, but with several opportunities at the same time. And that's why I oftentimes say this, say that it is a moment that favors the commodities market at large. So a bit above the international market first, especially the U.S., which I believe has a super assessment of companies, especially the multiples around fundamentals are very high. The prices were never this high in the U.S. when compared to places like Brazil. And that chart is very important. The red line shows the liquidity level or levels of the market from central banks. You see the asset balance sheet in an aggregated manner in red and in white, you have company's performances in the U.S. So there's clearly a positive correlation across those 2 lines. And as of recently, we see that because of more restricted monetary policies, we see the red line starting to drop, which might indicate that the white line will possibly follow suit. Yet another important indicator that we use among others. Of course, there are several potential indicators that we can use that suggest that a recession is likely the short term. This one is very important, only looking at the unemployment rate, the 2-year average -- and whenever the unemployment rate goes above that 2-year average, that's what you have in the red lines. The start of a deterioration of the labor market as a whole. Across all those women when you see those declines or rather an increase in unemployment as it exceeds that critical average. There were exceptions, of course, but that indicator has never failed. Another important correlation I could cite job openings and companies announced that they'll have new openings that they will start hiring. That's the red line, you see the number, the number of openings, which are available for people. Again, we see a strong correlation with the performance of the U.S. market, S&P 500. So in my opinion, there is a risk that is not worth the premium that could be received by the American market. And I believe there are other opportunities which may be much more interesting in other economic factors. Back in 2018 -- back in 2018, I created this indicator here you see on the screen, which looks at a more thorough at the U.S. yield curve. And I show this to institutions here in the U.S., and this was an indicator that became, in my opinion, one of the most important for you to be able to predict a recession. You look at all the potential spreads or the difference between yields in the U.S., and you can do that globally as well. So there are several interest rates, 30-year, 10-year yields, 5-year at the rate and so on up to a month or even daily yields. When you look at all those differences across all those interest rates, for some of them, they are inverted. For example, the 30-year rate is lower than the month rate or monthly rate. So when you start seeing that several of those differences are inverted. That's what it is showing. 87% of those differences are inverted right now. When we go beyond that level, which would be a threshold 70%, whenever we went up above 70%, we -- that was the beginning of a recession. Not only that, that also marked very important moments for the market as a whole. That's why I like to show this chart which -- for which the gold market seems to be a good opportunity. And why is it important to invest in mining companies? Why is it important in investing in mining projects as a whole. And my focus in this market, along with Aura, why is there such an interest in this opportunity? Well, I believe it happens because there are main issues or 3 main macroeconomic imbalances, which are new to this economic scenario. We've seen this happen before independently, but in a combined fashion, of those 3 imbalances, that's really, really new unheard of. Number one, that the current debt level in the U.S. was the same debt level that they had in the 40s, the valuation of companies in the U.S. They are very expensive, if you will, at this moment, very much like what we saw in periods such as the end of the '90s, where we had the tech bubble bursting or the end of the 20s. And number 3, inflation. We Brazilian's know inflation really well. Here in the U.S., that's something newish. Even market analysts are finding it difficult to understand whether or not this is cyclical or structural. In my opinion, it is structural for several reasons, deglobalization would be one of those reasons. But not only that, something we're going to be explaining is this lack of investments in natural resources companies. So this chart shows that there are large institutions for policymakers here in the U.S. and around the world to place monetary restrictions, in other words, to increase interest rates in a very sharp manner. So we need to have interest rates at a low level. And all of that will make the scenario more favorable to tangible assets. So all investors and policymakers should look at this chart very carefully because I think that's what's going to happen in the U.S. Inflation waves in the U.S., they happen like this. You had a first wave of inflation the second wave and then the third wave of inflation. And the reason underlying that is that there is a psychological effect, which reflects in the economy. In other words, people start behaving differently when inflation grows. So we should expect to continue to see yet another wave of inflation, in my opinion. It's difficult to predict when exactly that will happen, but that's a structural issue. And for large investors, that spells an opportunity around tangible assets. When we start analyzing the market from a broader standpoint, you realize that there is -- there are 7 companies out in the market who leads everything. We're all familiar with that. Those tax shares or mega caps as they call it here in the U.S., all those shares account for the larger, the bulk of the market, and they do that like never before in the past. Specifically, I have picked 2 companies, Apple and Microsoft. Today, they have a share in the S&P 500, which is close to 14%. That's higher than 4 whole industries of the economy put together. We're talking about oil and gas. I'm talking about real estate utilities, materials and all of them combined or 3x as much as the oil and gas sector alone which, in my opinion, when you look at how critical that industry is for the global economy, we would expect 2 companies alone to have that level of representativeness. But more importantly is what's happening with this imbalance in the mining sector. It's unlikely to have this scarcity of capital going towards that industry for a long time, given this potential demand for metals in general, and I'll be touching upon that in a moment. Back in 2018, I came across this chart. The first chart I looked at concerning the expense cycle for the commodities industry and you look at mining companies or energy companies, they were spending a lot of money. When they are doing that, you are at the peak of the commodity cycle. Today, we have the opposite. Companies are quite conservative. They are paying out large dividends. They are doing share buybacks. They're not investing in exploration. They're not investing in new projects. And that usually those signs of a more conservative management style is highly correlated with the following -- with the following indicators. Now for example, we see the lowest level in terms of expenses in this time line. And why do we adjust by GDP or USD 1 billion spent and project development in 2008 because of inflation, it's not the same number today, $1 billion today is different, not only materials or costs or labor but also you have to take into account other issues concerning the size of the economy, which is a much larger space. So we always need to adjust for GDP. Two other things that are important to mention when you analyze the gold market, number one. And why do I believe will have a much favorable market for gold in the coming years. One of them is what we call traditional investment for. Here, we call it 60-40 in the U.S. We have a portfolio and you place 60% in shares, 40% in fixed income. That's very normal, very traditionally in the U.S. shares would be your offense and 40% would be your defense in fixed income. So 0% is allocated towards commodities and gold specifically. In the past, we saw gold being a way to defend to hedge the portfolio. Gold has always had this profile. But today, after several decades where gold was pretty much ignored by those capital allocators. We are now going through a period, and that's why it's called 60-40 because it does not include gold in any of those situations. So that chart you see on the screen, the white line looks at the valuation, the yield you get if you invest in such portfolio. So this is looking at this from 1893 on the left-hand side of the chart, and you can also see that we are now going through one of the most expensive moments or one of the lowest yield moments for this portfolio. When we look at situations like that we tend to see those 2 assets, shares on the one hand and fixed income on the others, they'll be hurt in the coming years. So something to be expected in the coming years. Also important to mention and which is also in line with the previous chart is the -- this is a survey conducted by Bank of America here in the U.S., and they ask their financial advisers and other capital managers in the U.S. and they ask the following. How much do we have in gold in your portfolio? 70% said they have between 0% and 1% exposure to gold. Most importantly is that 0% said they have more than 10%. In the '70s, the number was way above 10%. So for us, to move from 0% to 10% for those traditional portfolios, large ones, that would be really huge in the sense of capital flowing towards that industry. A second major capital pool is made up of the central banks. They have 2 things. Those investment portfolios, which are more traditional, and then they have the central banks. Central banks used to buy gold in the '70s. Here in this chart, you see in the lower part of the chart, you see gold purchases for the past 5 years. So the gold purchase in green. In the '70s you had green parts and red parts. Now on the top part of the slide, you see how much gold is purchase relative to the asset balance of a central bank. So central bank has a monetary system in place. For example, the euro in this case. We have the European Central Bank and they have 2 ways of creating stability for the currency, for the euro. And they do that usually by anchoring or pegging assets to quality indicators. So in the '70s, it was -- usually it was common to see gold having a higher weight in the makeup of those portfolios. As you can also see, 74% of those portfolios included gold back in the '70s. So large central banks at the time had a lot of gold in their portfolios, and the idea was to create stability across the financial system or the monetary system. Since then, we've seen the prices of those sovereign assets net income or the American National Treasury, they all became very cheap. So central banks started to buy those assets because yields were high and that made sense, of course. So we had this drop in gold of the weight of gold in the makeup of those portfolios of international reserves. And now we see a reversal of that. We now see central banks because of several problems linked to the deglobalization and gold be a neutral asset, and also a great asset for you to invest during inflationary periods. For several reasons, gold might -- or might provide great returns in the coming years. And also, gold may also improve the quality of those assets held by central banks. So we see now gold becoming interesting again, and that's important globally speaking. And this is just the beginning, in my opinion, if you look at the average, that's close to 40% historically, 40%. And in terms of the assets, the asset basket today, we are below 20%. So I'm talking about twice as much as what we have today. So what I'm saying is that there are huge opportunities in this market. And that's why I like this asymmetry offered by this market at large. We've talked about 2 gold cycles since the '70s. Once again, back in the '70s, as I mentioned, when we had high inflation rates and more recently, there were several central banks buying gold during inflation phases. Another gold cycle happened in the year 2000s because of the tech crisis. A lot of capital went to tech which seems to be happening today as well, by the way, very similar to what we see today. But anyway, we didn't see central banks at the time, buy gold at the time. What happened back then was that China was becoming the huge manufacturer of the world, you're investing in infrastructure and they created a huge demand for commodities across the world. So at the time, what we had was this large commodity cycles, along with the gold cycle. Today, we see 2 things happening. Those 2 factors that we saw happening in the first cycle, in the second cycle are happening today. We have inflation. We have gold being bought by central banks. We see large global economies decreasing their reliance or their dependence on China, investing in infrastructure in the U.S., we have difficulties in finding real estate in the U.S., and that will generate a large increase in housing starts in the U.S. That's why Warren Buffet has a large part of this portfolio around construction. We also have traditional portfolios that ignored gold for some time, they are expected to go back to gold now. So there are several reasons to buy gold today. After a period where the exposure was very low. That's why I think I believe this is one of the most interesting opportunities we have in the market today. Especially in the mining industry. So let's look at a potential momentum we could see around gold, the Japanese economy has had debt problems for many, many years. So the red line, you see the price of gold in a market as linked to the Japanese yen. And you can see that the gold market has already exceeded the yen. So it's only a matter of time, in my opinion, for the white line to be detached not only in Japan or in the U.S. but across the world to reach record levels. And when you look at the gold prices and we see gold prices starting another cycle, and I do believe this is going to happen. This will create a huge capital influx into the mining industry, which remains a cheap industry. I have never seen a gold market when you talk about a secular long-term cycle, that did not bring about a very favorable market for commodities. So those things are linked. When the gold market goes up in the long term, the commodities market usually covers that. When you talk about silver, platinum, all of them tend to go up, even in agriculture, that's why I have a very optimistic stand when I look at Brazil, countries that have plenty of natural resources, including Brazil, in Latin America, we saw an investment in Bolivia recently, and there are other great opportunities in Peru, and Aura invest in Mexico. There are great opportunities in Latin America today. So this will be one of the places where we'll have great strategic opportunities to be explored not only in terms of confirming my positive opinion, but also of creating good alliances with countries such as the U.S. that depend on that demand for materials. So Brazil, especially leaving aside political opinions, of course, there is an inflationary wave coming in, in my opinion. There are macroeconomic reasons for you to place money in this Brazilian market, which remains cheap when compared to the U.S. So we've seen 3 favorable markets for commodities, when you look here at the market, at the Chart 4 -- actually, 3 of them from 1910, 1940 and 1970. Those 3 periods that you see where you have a green line going up, those were inflation periods. Which is what we see today. The fourth period, the one I talked about, and I mentioned, China, when China was becoming this huge powerhouse of manufacturers. Today, we are seeing the 2 things together. So that makes me extremely optimistic that this will be very favorable for commodities, and this is only just starting. Lastly, I'm not really sure how we're going to create this change, this green revolution that politicians like to talk about. And they have been creating this demand for this swap for electric vehicles here in the U.S., even kitchen stoves that use natural gas. Now people are changing that for electric stoves. Anyway, other items that use electricity. So a big change is happening around those areas, and that requires large infrastructure investments, airports, bridges, the U.S. is still depends a lot on that, not only the U.S. but also other countries, especially if we want to diminish that dependence on China, among other authoritarian countries, because of this deglobalization process, many companies are no longer worried with the low cost of production in China and -- but rather prioritizing logistics, safety. So this is a trend that we see, and there is this demand to bring back what we call reshoring back to developed countries. And of course, housing construction and other issues that sometimes people do not connect with the precious metals market would be -- fiscal expenses that we have in the U.S., for example, which, of course, leads to inflation. Along with expenses that we see in military -- in the military front. The military industry, of course, has a high demand for metals. Today, we have a very low level of military expenses vis-a-vis GDP. There are 2 wars going on right now. So those military expenses will very likely go up significantly. We are close to 2%, 3% of GDP in other periods that has reached a level as high as 9%. So there is room for that to grow military expenses in the U.S. So all of that will create high demand for metals in general. And I believe that industry which has been pretty much ignored by several portfolio managers will become relevant again. So that's why I -- as I said, I continue to be quite optimistic about this market. So thank you so much for your time and attention. I hope have been -- used. Thank you for the invite, once again, Rodrigo, and congratulations on the work you've done at the company for the past few years. I believe you are poised for a very interesting decade going forward, very positive, and I do believe this is the best moment, very timely for you to talk about gold, you're going to become a large company, not only in Brazil but across the world. And I think you're doing a great job. Keep it up. I think you're just starting a very positive and beneficial cycle. Thank you once again for your time.

I'm going to ask Kleber to present the financial aspect of our company.

I have what, 2 minutes? Okay. Good morning, everyone. I'm going to try to speak fast. I'm not going to bring anything new. I'm going to give a financial overview and talk about the numbers. I'm going to touch upon 3 topics that are more related to the financial dimension. The first one was even mentioned by Rodrigo in the beginning of the presentation. You know the history of paying dividends. We are facing another topic that are more related to short-term challenges, guidance for this year. And when we go back and reflect on what was the story we told when we had the IPO at B3, 3 years ago. Many things have happened, and we had a very detailed plan with Aranzazu which is performing better than the plan and other things that were not according to plan, such as the Gold Road almost had no feasibility at the time and now it's in production. So many things change, but our investment status is that, Aura would be a case in which investors could purchase and they would be exposed to growth. So we would invest in growth and the growth of the company and pay dividends without harming the financial health of the company. I remember some of you were there at the time. And in one of the road shows an investor said, and he said the following. "We cannot make the cake grow and eat the cake at the same time." So either you're going to grow or you're going to pay dividends. So as we see it. The main promise and the main case of investing in Aura is that we are in line after all these years. So '21 was the best dividend yield. In 2 years, we paid 6% in dividend, which is a reasonable level of yield. So we have been paying dividends. We are investing in growth. We invested in the growth the company by more than $250 million. If we consider the pipeline what we were and what we would be in the future, when we compare to 2024, our pipeline is much more robust. And we invested in different fronts, M&A with acquisition of Borborema and also Japones Oeste that was acquired, that will provide support to the life of mine. We bought Serra da Estrela in Altamira more recently. So M&As are being materialized, and we believe that they are going to continue being materialized for the future explorers. Canedo, Rodrigo and Glauber showed that we accelerated the investment exploration we understood we needed to catch up in the past 3 years, more than $20 million. As mentioned by Canedo, we invested in exploration. We doubled the funds and we've also invested in exploration and expansion with the construction of Almas and now we are starting the investment in Borborema as well. So when we look at the capital structure and our cash position, we see that we are at a very comfortable level. So we are moving towards closing at [ $2 million ] equivalent cash. And our leverage did not exceed 1x of net debt over EBITDA. If we consider '22 and '23, we can see that the investments were very relevant. It was a year where we constructed Almas, we only burn the cash. And we also started the construction of Borborema. So we feel comfortable because when we look into the future of 450,000 ounces. We understand we are going to continue being able to pay dividends. We are going to continue investing in [ M&M ], and without putting our financial health at risk. So we did all this with 3 business units with Apoena, Aranzazu and Minosa. And now we have ARMZF as well, helping us for the next steps. So that it's going to be easier from the financial viewpoint. Now talking about the second topic that I would like to share with you that was also mentioned by Rodrigo, which is capital management by third parties, the relationship with the banking community. As Rodrigo mentioned, we try to have a banking relationship at a global level. So we work with major American banks, Canadian banks, English banks, but we also try to work with average or large-sized banks in all the jurisdictions where we operate. So we want to have this spread in our relationship so that we can access more sophisticated products, such as the capital market. But we also look at minor lines. Some -- like what happened in Honduras we need a smaller financial structure. And a local bank helped us. And this approach has helped us in our commercial area. So we have been able to reach those credit lines at very interesting costs. And I'm going to show you that. In nominal costs, they are already very interesting. But since we have purpose of maintaining the investment level and the debt level at this point. So we depending on the area, we can also look at the fiscal aspects with a reduction of nearly 25% in income tax depending on the case. So we can see all the banks that -- with which we have been working, and we had interesting transactions involving all those banks. And because we have this strategy, we have already been favored. We have major cases or minor cases of success. And in the IPO, we counted on an international bank and 3 Brazilian banks without which we would not have been so successful in our IPO process. And as Rodrigo mentioned, we had the issue of debentures with a subsidiary of Almas within 45 days, it was so quick, and we were supported by a Brazilian bank. And now in 2023, we closed the package in Brazil of $100 million that allowed us to announce the beginning of construction of Borborema. If we look at the 3 or 4 years, we had more than USD 400 million in debentures and other bonds that helped us finance the growth. Sometimes people challenge us because our consolidated gross debt is close to $300 million. So we hear people say or people ask, why don't we make a bond because there is the perception that the line, considering the way we work and our indebtedness is very short. And the costs are very high. So we can say that even if we are focused on the region, we have been managing to extend the debt and extend our loan lines. And this has to do with the relationship that we have developed along the years with our partners. And when we see the financial costs, as we can see here, we can see that they remained in line. Here, we can see the level nearly flat and a little increase because of the loan that we had, but we have to consider that interest rates went from 0 to 5.5%. So the strategy has been very successful also in terms of costs. And it's all very strategic, but we have not been halved in terms of costs, in terms of deadlines, we have been able to work ever better so that we can extend the bet. And the third topic that I would like to share with you that was also mentioned by Glauber and Rodrigo is the vision of how we allocate capital for the new project. As Rodrigo mentioned, we see many companies, many of our peers who operate in our sector. They see that there is buyers because of the size. So you may announce that -- you were announcing a project of producing 100,000 ounces with life of mine of 20 years or more. Which may be interesting because when you compare major projects in comparison to minor project. But usually, there is a cost involved. So the point is, sometimes we see that the major products that bring along a very high level of CapEx and they reduced the expected returns, and they add complexities and risks even to build or to put them into operation. And the construction and operation times tend to be extended. Our mine sight is the opposite. When we look at the new project, we look from the financial viewpoint and not at the size. What's the project setup, we'll include the 3 indicators. The size of the product, how are you going to optimize the internal rate of return. This is more important than size for us. Another indicator that we look at along designs is the [ VPL ] over CapEx. The highest the ratio that would indicate a risk metric. If you have -- if you need a higher CapEx, you're not going to harm the return. And what would be a project that can optimize the payback and reduce risks. And with this, we make our decisions, how -- where are we going to invest and what are we going to do in relation to project. And -- but we do not close the door for growth, to get to 200,000 ounces. As mentioned by Pitágoras in Borborema, we are building -- we are prepared for expanding the capacity. And we are going to increase our company by investing the returns from the same operation, the same asset. So this is a page describing some of the projects of gold mining that are very relevant in the Americas. Host stages are very similar to ours, or they either have the feasibility already completed. They are ready to build or that have just started operating. So these are some of our peers, and we can see that it's -- they're all in line with what I mentioned. You see that our projects are smaller when we consider the annual production size, and out of those items in the titles, ours are the smaller. So we can see the leverage. And with the leverage for one project, price would be over 100% with Matupa and Borborema and considering the studies of visibility we can see that the returns are already interesting at about 20%. But with significant upside. As Guilherme showed, we understand that the upside is going to happen. Borborema is also another case. It has no additional fund that will increase our reserve. Even so, these are projects that are already with interesting returns potential. And to illustrate, I would like to share with you 3 cases. One which is more mature, which is in the middle of the case, and one is the beginning of the case so that we can understand how we analyze the new projects. So the first is of Aranzazu. I think that Aranzazu was mentioned a lot, it's a successful case. It has the stability and everything else. But maybe not everybody knows that Aranzazu before being so successful, it had failed. It was a story of failure. It operated between 2011 and 2015. It lost a lot of money. And it went bankrupt in Mexico. And it had a new controller, a new management, and we spent a lot of time to understand what went wrong in Aranzazu, and we study it how we could put the asset into production without running the risks that we had in the past. And in 2017 and 2018, we completed a new feasibility study. And we returned the operation at $200 million with a life of mine that was -- or 5 years, considered to be very low. But with the mindset that we would need to have a long project. We could be a small projects and then increase its life. So in 2019, we saw that there was a stabilization. And in 2020, we start to generate cash, and we start investing in geology. We increased production by 20%, and in 2021 we can compare to 2014, and we can see that has been a complete turnaround in terms of production, in terms of quality, content, metal recovery. I think this number is quite impressive, which is the cost of cash per pound of gold produced. So 8 years in spite of all inflation pressure. So we are producing at half of the cost. So we started with baby steps, we eliminated the initial CapEx after cash has started generation, we started to have more efficiencies, and we continued reducing costs. So we have the accumulated of nearly $250 million, and $100 million of profit since the beginning. Another case is Almas. Almas was acquired in 2019 by Aura. When we acquired it already had a feasibility study that had been published 2 years before in 2016. That feasibility study estimated that the CapEx would be $93 million, to be built, adjusted to today's price would be $113 million. And our first step was to study the project, and then do a new feasibility study, considering that mindset. How are we going to reduce the CapEx from $93 million or $115 million? And how are we going to increase the internal cost of return. In the beginning of 2021, we completed a new feasibility study with CapEx of $73 million, NPV lower and the lower leverage. So it was also in line with what we wanted. So we were confident to give the next step, and we announced the construction of the project. So we went to this -- that other phase for the construction of the project, which was very successful. We built our budget. If we consider that we faced global inflation pressure of 2 years, on schedule and the leverage was much later -- much higher. So we see that the leverage was about 100%. And then we went to the third case, which is the phase of return, cash flows, return on capital invested. And we are now in line with what we expected according to the feasibility study in spite of all the challenges mentioned by Glauber. We look at the short term. So 3 months below this has no impact. So in '24, the capacity is very close or even higher than that of the feasibility study. So this is our guidance for '23 cash cost which was above what we saw in the feasibility study considering the inflation in the period, but that inflation increased the gold price. So we can see that there's still the expectations for us to have returns which are the same of the feasibility study or even higher. And the third case is that of Borborema, we acquired the Borborema and we conducted the feasibility study. We had some challenges when -- was related to the water, and we eliminated that risk related to water. And then we implemented the case. And what we saw was at current prices -- gold prices. We have already implemented $145 million in CapEx and the return is close to 6%. And the project still has an upside because our base case considers that the road is going to be removed. So we see a major upside to improve those returns. With this, I finish my part. Yes, now we are going to open the Q&A session. We can see there's some lights are on. So if you have any questions, just turn on the light, and I'm going to take the microphone over to you.

Thank you, [ Nate ]. Congratulations on the event. I'm [ Edgar ] with Itau BBA. It's interesting to see the evolution in Almas with an office, the plant, different from what we saw 2 years ago and also see Fred and everybody at the plant, everybody we met, 2 years ago. My first question is related to copper. We can see there is a concern in terms of the deficit, the market for copper.

This is because of the difficulties to execute projects. Some people say that copper projects take about 20 years since the exploration starts.

So along those lines, I would like to understand how you see this as to time line for this Serra da Estrela project? You know we have the right of exploration that will last 3 years. And I understand you're going to renew this license for another year and then for the extra year. But once the geological part and the exploration parts have already been developed, how long do you estimate to put this project into operation. Also considering that we are installed in Para, which is a state that may pose some challenges in terms of permitting processes and licensing processes? Maybe Rodrigo could answer this question. We have already discussed M&A. And your answer has always been M&A has offers what we want, but it also presents what is available. However, today, you have about 20 products that you are considering for M&A. What would -- considering other projects, what are you focusing on? Are you focusing on copper? Is it something that would be considered before Serra da Estrela starts operation so that you can ensure the 20% or 30% shares of copper in the results? How do you see the balance between copper and gold? And maybe Kleber would answer my last question, which is related to baking the cake and eating the cake, how much do you need to add in terms of ingredients, so that it can grow. What would be the leverage peak? How -- what's the ceiling you want to reach so that you can do everything that you plan, M&A, return to shareholders and dividends.

Okay. The situation of copper in the world is very complex. We saw the numbers that were mentioned. Mining sector is abandoned by investors, companies are not investing so much. There are ESG restrictions, and it's difficult to gather permits. What's happening? The returns is increasing for those who are operating in this sector. So no new investments in copper has been seen. And maybe the projects are too complex and the deposits are being delayed. Costs have increased. So if you see what's happening in Chile in terms of cost of copper, and this is going to put pressure on prices. As to Serra da Estrela, I can say that it's difficult for you to estimate how long geology will take to be ready. It may take 2, 3 years or 5 or 6 years. So considering that everything goes well. So it's 2 -- 4 years of exploration and other years for feasibility studies and everything. So the project would have to take many years. it's a long shot, but things are getting consolidated along the years. As we move along with the project, we are going to see what would be the cash situation in the future. So of course, the results have to be positive. But it's important to mention an adviser said this to me. He said, "Where will you find elephant in the places -- where in the lens of elephants?" So we expect to evolve in this direction. Of course, we're going to give big steps so that we can become bigger. And the second question was in relation to M&As, right?

Yes, it has what we want and it has what is available. So sometimes you can have the right opportunity and what you want. But we have very clear what we want, and this is the reason why we have been conducting studies. But what would be the ideal world for Aura in terms of M&A?

Our ideal world is to have something that can start operation or can -- that are already producing something in the area, in the Americas. We see many assets, which are available, and available for gold more than for copper, and this becomes ever more challenging even though we have to consider that it's not impossible since we have some points that are already aligned. In relation to the question, we do not think that we need to add any ingredients to the cake. We always say the following that, our target leverage is 1 and 1.5x. So we have even reached to 0.9, and we are going to have it even reduced for the quarter because we now have Almas, which is also generating cash. And then we are going to build Borborema and Matupa and things are going to become ever easier. So when we look at the projections, we feel that we're going to be comfortable and reach those levels of leverage.

I have 2 questions on my side. Focused a bit more on production. And if I may have a follow-up to a previous point about Almas. But first off, I know Rodrigo, you do not announce guidance and you do that on purpose because you're finalizing your budget, but you have a pretty good idea in terms of production for next year, I do not want a number, but at least some color or indication about Aura as a whole for next year, that would be very helpful. As I see it, we may need to think about a single delta around the production for Almas because you have 2024 as a complete year according to your presentation. So we could think about something close to 50,000 ounces would makes sense. Aranzazu at the same time is usually resilient, but it depends on the price of copper and then more doubt about EPP and San Andres. And my second question, you mentioned that -- you've been mentioning a drop in content. And we've seen also a drop in recovery. So how can we think about San Andres for next year and think about the potential San Andres going forward. My question is, will we ever San Andres going back to 90,000 ounces. That's my bottom line question. San Andres in the long run. And quickly, if you could talk about Almas, Andrea and Glauber mentioned small acquisitions of trucks new third-party contractors. I just want to confirm the number. Is that the number we need to have in mind in terms of guidance for costs? We now see some deviation of cost, which is larger than the one you showed or is the number in the presentation the most updated one. That would give us some color.

So I'll start and then turn it over to Glauber and Kleber. 2024, we do not have a guidance. What I can do is invite you to look at what's happening. Aranzazu had a very stable position now. We've seen Honduras improving, we've mentioned an increase in production, especially in the second half of the year. We do not expect a year as difficult as we had in the first half of this year, which compromised content and recovery in addition to volume. So we think Honduras might have a better year than we had in 2023. As for Apoena, we also had some challenges this year, but now reaching high content is half. So this will be seen in the first quarter of next year, the results, the benefits of that. And as for Almas we have already done their ramp-up. We saw some small difficulties in this last quarter, which were well addressed, and we are now recovering the level of production as planned. Glauber mentioned that it could come out even better than the feasibility study than before. So over to Glauber now for him to talk about Minosa's outlook. You mentioned 90,000 ounces, a difficult target. But I'll turn it over to them.

Right. Okay. As for Minosa, what we did was mainly improvements at the plant level considering the existing structure. There is a drop in content that was expected when we compare to the years where we explored and had 80,000 ounces. Even though recovery is quite efficient, we still have room to improve but we hardly reach 90,000 ounces. I don't see that happening. But we won't see the same level of loss either. If you consider the bad quarters, we'll come out much better than those would be much more in line to the better quarters, Q3 and Q4. More than that would be something more structural if we were to redesign the plant, and that's what we're doing. We have surveys going on, but to the mid and the long run. As for the cost in Almas, even though there was this investment in equipment and additional contractors, the agreement terms are the same. So they execute the volume, which is missing, but based on the same unit cost. So we are impacted by lack of production. And so is the third-party contract as we reverse that, everybody wins. If you ask me about Almas, I think there is a much higher upside potential because it's a new mine in terms of efficiency gains, process optimization, things we did in Apoena, Aranzazu, Minosa because now we have a better command of the operation. And we haven't reached that level of operation at Almas. There is stabilization phase, which will happen in the first half of next year. But secondly speaking, there are many opportunities to improve, and this will reflect in better productivity and as a consequence, in better cost control, just to reinforce this equipment purchase is not being made by us. It's our contractor's doing, we pay by ton. They are penalized if they are not efficient and then they -- but firstly win-win, everybody wins.

My name is Nelson from [indiscernible] Engineering. Congratulations on the explanations you are able to show good numbers in terms of budgeting, managing, and it shows you're going in the right direction across all projects. We work with several projects. We are building in Mara Rosa, along with [ Magnesita ] and Vale and other projects. Something that caught my attention Glauber was the absence of state-owned banks. Don't you have any credit lines from the BNDES, the Amazon bank, why is that? Are they not present? Or are they not viable within your funding plans.

We're not working with state-owned banks yet, but that might happen. We're open to that. The BNDES credit lines, the ones we've seen, they've been attractive and then no longer and there's a question mark now around that. but we look at what makes more sense, more business sense. So we might come to a point where we will work with them. And of course, agility we raised capital in 45 days for Almas. That would never happen with a state-owned bank. So cash flow agility is also a defining factor. We have no access to funding, of course. But what I've seen is that clients have sought state lines because of the rates, which are very attractive. So if you have time to have -- or to get attractive rates, they are there. That's why it caught my attention, only private banks, no state-owned banks that cut my attention. Of course, it's faster, more agile. I have no doubt about it because they have a solid balance sheet. But at the same time, it seems to me that those rates are not as attractive as those offered by state-owned banks. It's just an opinion, just an observation. May be an opportunity.

So we have time for one more question. We are a bit late. I talked a lot early on, and we are out of time, but we have time for one final question, if you have one final question.

Max from [indiscernible] Investments, a question for Glauber. In all presentations and all projects, we see something called recovery factor. In addition to run of mine and the specific content or content. That's one of the main value drivers. So I'd like you to comment on it in terms of technology or the technological classification of the ore, what would be the limiting factors to recovery?

Well, the ore characteristics are key. This is also linked to the type of technology you want to use when you analyze costs, you have more sophisticated plants as most of our -- CIL for different types of ores. So they mill -- there's a milling plant at the site and that, of course, consumes more energy, also the use of cyanide to dissolve gold and then neutralize the material to transport it. It's all a consequence of the characteristics of the ore being mined. The recovery factor will depend on the type of material the ore is associated with what kind of exposure, what kind of binding we have that will allow us to have -- allow us to reach the highest recovery level, which is tested at the pilot phase. Those plants on average, it takes us -- we have about 92% to 96% of recovery, which are very high levels. Of course, the nonrecoverable fraction is fixed, so having higher the amount that you cannot recover is much lower than the entry level and the opposite is also true. When you have lower entry content, that fraction is constant. So the recovery turns out to be lower. But at the end of the day, the nonrecoverable slice, if you will, is pretty much fixed. And in Minosa, on the other hand, we have a simpler process. but the recovery factor is slightly lower. We're talking about 68% to 75% of recovery. But that's what is expected from that type of process for that type of ore. So in short, what defines the process to be used in the maximum recovery factor is linked to the type of ore, and this will vary across different deposits. And sometimes even within the same deposit, that number will vary. So plants are designed for an average profile. And perhaps sometimes you have a higher level than the mine is ready for, and then you lose efficiency, you lose recovery. So all of that has to be well planned and well designed and then discipline in managing all that.

Well thank you all for your participation. We are now wrapping up. For the first time in person, our Aura day, I hope you've learned a lot about the business. The intention here was for you to get to know us to see us. That's how we look, that's how we speak, talk how that's how we dare. At the mine site, we had a couple of technical glitches. That's part of the process. It only happens with those who do things differently, with those who test their limits. I'm very proud of this team. This team is really, really working at full steam, one of the best teams I've ever worked with, and it's getting better by the day. Isabella mentioned Aura 360, it's difficult to translate what we're doing in terms of culture. But if I could summarize that at Aura, we're all free to give the best we can. We do not lock people into small missions. We want everybody to provide us with their best. Of course, we need the right tools for that to happen along the lines we expect. And with that, we have been able to attract the best people and to retain the best people. We give them freedom for them to give the best. We talked about operations, Kleber talked about finance, Glauber talked about operations. And those are the 3 main pillars, as I mentioned. Any company to grow needs those 3 pillars: culture and management, good projects, good assets and a sound balance sheet. Once again, our 3 main avenues for growth and to generate value to you, shareholders. Number one, to deliver our projects on time and on budget. Execution, from 250,000 ounces to 450,000 ounces. Number two, to increase the amount of resources and reserves, the amount of gold that we know and that we mine. This will also bring value to you. Number three, we need to change our own multiples. We are already discounted when compared to our peer group. We want to move from peer group to a higher peer group. Companies that produce over 500,000 ounces. This will move our multiple from 0.35 to 0.70, 0.80. You were doubling the multiples, if you increase production, at the same time, you will increase the amount of gold known. There is a clear upside for a company which is already paying out dividends and showing a very robust balance sheet within a sector, within an industry and I challenge you all to look at the numbers carefully, look at the industry carefully, not only Aura but the other companies. This industry has been ignored for decades in terms of investments. We already see the results of that. Gold price is going up. We see pressure on copper prices. We see iron ore prices breaking records, very low investments, large restrictions, banks that stopped financing mines. We have investors who do not want to invest because they think it's not ESG friendly, but it's the opposite. We are an industry which has the most potential to have positive impacts on the environment. And nations cannot grow without investing in mining. So those who are already in the industry, they're only seeing returns to their investments. You see the level of the returns. You invest in other industries, 50% to 60% returns a year. Where do you see that happening? Maybe the tech industry does where return will happen 10, 12 years down the road. We're talking about 2 to 3 years down the road. You heard what Otavio say that not many people are investing in gold. So the decision is about when to invest, not if. Are you going to wait for all central banks to go in with their portfolios or before? Those are questions you should ask yourselves when you decide where to invest. That's an opportunity for profit for those who pay attention. Of course, for those who have a team, which is ready to execute, of course, the risks as anywhere else. But with our capacity, we're quite optimistic. Once again, thank you, and see you next year.

Thank you, everyone. And we have a gift for you as you leave. This came from Almas from the community in the surrounding areas. So once again, thank you for your participation, for your questions, and thank you for our team online and see you next time.