Fortitude Gold Corporation (FTCO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Fortitude Gold 2024 Year-End Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Jason Reid, CEO and President. Jason, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Jenny. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Fortitude Gold Corp's 2024 Year-end Conference Call. Following my brief comments and associated presentation for those who joined online, we will have a brief question-and-answer period. Joining me on the call today for the Q&A portion will be Ms. Janet Turner, our Chief Financial Officer. Let me remind everyone that certain statements made on this call are not historical facts and are considered forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties as described in our annual report on Form 10-K and other SEC filings, which could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by our comments. Forward-looking statements in the earnings release that we issued yesterday, along with the comments on this call, are made only as of today, February 26, 2025, and we undertake no obligation to publicly update any of these forward-looking statements as actual events unfold. You can find a reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures referred to in our remarks on our Form 10-K filed with the SEC for the year ended December 31, 2024. 2024 was another successful year of low-cost gold production and strong shareholder dividends for Fortitude Gold. Despite the long and arduous 4 challenging years for the resource extractive industries, including permit backlogs caused by the Biden administration and its anti-mining BLM lead. Any shareholder who voted for that administration and/or what would have been a devastating continuation of a Harris administration did so while voting against their investment and financial interests in Fortitude. For 4 years, it's been widely known among shareholders, including countless comments made by me on these conference calls that Fortitude's business plan of layering production from several mines on top of one another was derailed by the Biden administration. Even staunch Biden supporters that our shareholders are coming out of the woodwork acknowledging to us how bad the previous administration was for our industry and our company's business plan. Had Harris won, Fortitude would surely returned to the ranks of an exploration stage company, likely not receiving any new mine development permits and having squeezed everything possible out of the Isabella Pearl's depleting asset. But it is fortuitous. Most of America spoke, and we are excited about the next 4 years under the Trump administration. Trump previously demonstrated support for natural resource extraction in the United States, under which our Isabella Pearl mine was granted its permits. Trump's proposed replacement for the BLM head is a pro-business, pro-extractive industry professional, and I am excited to watch the confirmation hearings. What a novel idea to appoint such a good candidate to the BLM lead for the benefit and interest of Fortitude shareholders. 2024 year-end results, including $37.3 million net sales, $27.1 million cash balance, 16,472 gold ounces produced, $37.7 million working capital, $11.6 million paid to shareholders in cash dividends, $1.4 million pretax income, which did swing to a $2 million loss after taxes, $18.3 million mine gross profit, $12.9 million exploration expenditures and $966 all-in sustaining cash cost. A substantial exploration budget of $12.9 million was deployed in 2024, which focused on the County Line, Golden Mile and Isabella Pearl trends, Scarlet North area and East Camp Douglas. All of these properties returned high-grade gold intercepts reflected in the numerous press releases issued throughout the year. As we look to conserve cash while waiting for permits, we have limited our drill exploration programs and are focusing on mapping new areas and modeling known mineralized zones. For 2025, our mine operations are targeting additional mineral opportunities at Isabella Pearl found outside of the original mine plan. We also remain highly focused on our County Line project as our next Nevada USA mine build, along with Scarlet expansion at our Isabella Pearl trend and our Golden Mile project. We will remain focused on obtaining as many mine permits as possible during these next 4 years. It is not a coincidence that the week after the election, the attitude and stance of the regulators began to change. We are seeing continued positive movement in our mine permit efforts within the agency since the election. Don't let anyone tell you an administration doesn't impact everything. Operationally, we estimate 43,000 recoverable gold ounces on the heap leach pad at the year-end 2024 to be recovered in future years. As of March, we will have effectively completed the mining of the Isabella Pearl mine plan and are evaluating the economics of a pit layback to access high-grade oxide and oxide transitional gold that continues into the southeast corner of the Pearl pit deep. But our long-term objective and focus is on obtaining the needed permits to mine County Line, Scarlet, North and Golden Mile. Our ability to execute our business plan is directly tied to our ability to acquire the needed permits to bring new mines into production. While the exact timing of BLM permits is out of our hand, we optimistically await the new administration's pro-business and pro-mining team to be compiled, solidified and deployed on fixing the Biden permit backlog. For years, we have heard from the BLM that they were understaffed as one of the reasons for their delays. We are now hearing from the BLM that they are nearing full staff. Again, the federal administration makes all the difference, even one whose reputation precedes them and is proving yet again to execute on an expedited basis on numerous fronts. We are ready to build more mines. We have been pivoting, creating optionality and tightening our belt during the last 4 years in the Biden's desert from which that administration caused damage to Fortitude's business plan. We received our last mine permit for the Isabella Pearl mine under Trump's first term. It is not a coincidence that we did not receive a mine permit during Biden's term. So thankfully, we optimistically await our opportunity to put County Line into production under Trump's second term. With that, I would like to thank everyone for their time today on this conference call. Operator, please open up the lines for any possible Q&A.

[Operator Instructions].

Operator, while you see if there's any live questions, we do have several writing questions. The first came in via e-mail. I apologize if I mispronounced your last name. [ Wayne Polasek ]. Three questions. What is gold production required to achieve the top of the aggressive dividend per share of $0.60? Fun question, Wayne. I like where your head is at, but there's too many variables for that. Obviously, what our capital expenditure is we build new mines, what the gold price is, what our production levels are. So I don't have that at the top of my head of what that would be and in large part because there's too many variables. The second question, since the corporate report lists 1,380,000-plus waste tons for 2024, what is the intended use of the waste? Does it contain cassiterite? The waste is just waste. There's nothing else in it, and we won't be doing anything with that. Number -- the third question, can toy processing companies extract any other elements such as tin from the waste? Any additional elements that the refiner that purchases our gold, silver, alloy, any additional metals wouldn't be material. And so that would -- that's kind of a nonevent, but interesting question, nonetheless. We have several additional questions in the portal. What is your -- this one comes from Blair Salsbury, retired mineral explorationist. What is your sense of the local labor and housing market as it may be involving today? I assume you mean local labor and housing market in our areas as it relates to the mines. We have a team in place. So -- and obviously, they have housing so that's not going to impact us at all as it relates to building additional mines. Another question from [ Ray Liev ]. How much mining of Isabella Pearl Deep has occurred since permit was received in September and what remains? How much exploration results need to be reported from last year? What feedback have you received from the BLM?

Okay. Just bear with me a second -- can you hear us, Jason?

I can. Can you hear us? Can you hear me?

Okay. Yes, your line just cut out slightly, but you're back. So all good.

Okay. So I was trying to address Ray Liev's question, how much mining the Isabella Pearl Deep has occurred since permit was received in September and what remains. So we mined -- everybody knew we were mining down deeper in Isabella Pearl pit, primarily the Pearl and that ore transitions from oxide into transitional and into sulfides. And there's a lot of gold in the sulfide form, but we don't plan to do anything with that. We don't have the processing facilities to do anything with that. But what we did find -- and we're through that to answer your question. But what we did find is there's oxide and transitional oxide high-grade gold that goes deeper and it goes off at an angle to the Southeast that would require a pit layback. So we're running some evaluations both in an initial pit layback and then a much larger pit layback, just see if one or both makes sense to go after. And so that's what we're doing right now. Hopefully, that answers your question. The second part of your question, how much exploration results need to be reported from last year. I think we're pretty much done. There might be a few stragglers, but for, I think, all instance and purposes, just consider them out. The third part of your question, what feedback have you received from BLM since the change in administration? It was like a light switch. The week after the election results, all of a sudden, the BLM's attitude changed us. That tells me, and this is solely my opinion, but that tells me that this directive came from above, came from the Biden administration to slow things down, and they grind it to a halt in excellent fashion, not just us, but many miners, many other resource extractive industries. And so it's interesting that the day after the election, it was like a light switch, far more responsive. We're hearing word recently that they're staffing up. It's pretty amazing. And in doing so, without even the new BLM lead being appointed so what that tells me is the BLM, hard-working BLM individuals on the local level that are doing a great job, they were hamstrung by the federal administration. And now they're trying to get back to doing a great job. So interesting times, that's for sure. Okay. On to the next question. [ Scott McLeod ], if you get all the permits, what do you think we can anticipate in ounces in the ground at County, Golden Mile and Scarlet. We're still working on that, and we'll continue to do so. Scott, in this industry, it's such a long lead time industry. It can be 15, 20 years sometimes going from discovery to putting a mine in production. We don't operate that way. We look at what the minimum number of ounces we find in an area, what's the capital to put into production, what's the payback we move forward. So that's how we were able to get Isabella Pearl into production 2 years from acquiring it. So we operate a little differently. So we don't have all the answers. We don't need all those answers. We operate pretty nimble and quick. We know we have a couple of years of production at County Line. Golden Mile, that is real fun potential. It's really complicated geologically. That is a good thing. It's a good thing and a bad thing. Bad thing is complicated. Good thing, a lot of open spaces for ore-bearing fluids to move. But we want to produce from Golden Mile. But then the Scarlet has been the dark horse that on our Isabella Pearl trend, it's 700 meters away, but we've discovered several pods of gold mineralization, good grade, some outcrop at surface. Well, unfortunately, the previous BLM under the previous administration said, look, we're not going to give you any NOIs, notice of intent to drill over there because it's so close to the operation. So they were kind of tying our hands over there. But now we're moving this thing forward, I think, with the new administration that we're really moving to get additional acreage to drill because we ended in gold at the last drill program. So it's open, if you will, to add more. But the target to be producing from each of these. And right now, I see County Line and then Scarlet filling in between that and Golden Mile. That would be the goal. Thanks for your question, Scott. Moving on, there's a lot of questions. We may not get to them all today, guys, but thank you for the interest. [ Carl Lobue ], apologies if I mispronounced your name. Have you asked the governor to help with your issue with the regulators? We don't have a lot of connections in government. We've had a little bit, but under the previous administration didn't get us very far. I don't think that's going to be needed going forward, Carl. Things have just changed. It feels different. When you talk to the BLM, the offices, et cetera, it feels different. And we're seeing more movement forward in just a few weeks than we've seen in months and months with the previous administration. So I don't think that's going to be needed, but good question. Next question, again, with Scott M. MacLeod, how much money do you anticipate spending in 2025 on exploration? Good question. We are pulling back on our drilling. We'll still do a ton of mapping, which needs to be done, a ton of field work, which is always good. It generates targets. But because we've lived these last 4 years in this brutal Biden administration, where our hands were tied behind our back, we find ourselves today where we need to start looking at conserving cash. So we're not spending $12 million like we did last year. So we've curtailed dramatically our exploration drill budget. But yes, we don't -- until we get our permits, I'm not going to have really an answer to that. We're not going to drill much, I guess, is the long and short of it until we get our permits and then have some clarity on when we can get County Line up and running. Another question from Scott. Would you look at M&A in regards to expanding our ounces under control? We always look at M&A. 99% of what we look at doesn't work, doesn't fit, isn't accretive, but we'll continue to look at it. Some interesting things out there. Funny thing is on some of the M&A, you talk to some of these, especially individuals, not companies that have prospective properties with gold on them. In their minds, they already think they have a gold mine that's operating and they're worth a tremendous amount of money. So it's pretty challenging to do M&A under environments like that. Plus the way the metal prices are running, I think there'll be less and less M&A from us anyway. Unfortunately, the industry does huge M&A when the gold spikes. M&A should be done when the gold is in a bear market, and we did most of our M&A in acquiring most of our properties during the last bear market.

We have a little bit of distortion on your line, Jason? Let me see if I can sort that out.

Yes. No, thanks for that. How is that? Is that any better?

A little better. I think it's a signal related.

Do you think it's phone related?

Yes. I can't understand you at the moment.

Okay. Yes, this is -- I think this is where I'm at in making this call. If you -- can you hear me?

I think you've just come through again. Could you say your name and I'll just check.

Jason Reid.

Okay. We've got you back. Great.

Well, listen, yes, we've gone through a lot of questions. How about this? Since we're having kind of a rough connection, and I apologize, that's on my end. We'll just conclude the call today. And those of you who are in the queue for questions or if you come up with one down the road, contact Greg Patterson or myself. We're happy to circle back with you. And with that, let's close the conference call out, and thank you for your time. We'll talk to you next quarter.

Thank you very much, Jason. This does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.