Hochschild Mining plc (HOC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello and welcome to the Hochschild Mining Q1 2024 production results. I will now hand over to Eduardo Landin, CEO, to begin today's call.

Thank you very much. Hello and welcome to our conference call to discuss the first quarter production results. I am here with Eduardo Noriega, our CFO; and also with Charlie Gordon, Head of Investor Relation that is in London. Just to begin with, the group production in the quarter was almost 70,000 ounces of gold equivalent or 5.8 million silver equivalent ounces. At Inmaculada, output was nearly 37,000 ounces of gold and 1.4 million ounces of silver, which is a gold equivalent total of almost 55,000 ounces of gold. This result was in line with our mine plans. And although grades and tonnage were a little bit lower than the previous quarter due to the scheduled mine development that we were catching up, we remain on track to meet the annual target in the operation. In Argentina, the first quarter always contain the staff's seasonal vacations, and consequently, tonnage throughput at the mill was lower in the period. Output was 2.2 million silver equivalent ounces which -- and improved on the result from last year's. I mean that this mine is also scheduled to hit the annual target. Going to Mara Rosa, our new mine in Brazil. As you know, we achieved the first gold pour in February, and so far, the ramp-up process has proceeded smoothly. We are expecting to reach commercial production in the next weeks. And also I also want to point that the project has recently gone past 6 million free injury (sic) [ injury-free ] working hours, something that the team is really, really proud of it. Our 2023, 2024 brownfield campaign has begun over the last few months. And although it is very early in the program, the result at Inmaculada has been highly encouraging, as you can see from the news release. And we are aiming to give you an update on the resource addition later in the year. In terms of costs, I am pleased to say that we are keeping the 2024 guidance, which is between $1,510 and $1,550 per gold equivalent ounces in dollars. On the financial side, we approximately have $73 million in cash. We translate today with $282 million on debt, a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 0.9x. The cash balance [ obviously ] reflects the investment that we have made in Mara Rosa in the first quarter and also the money that we have invest in Monte do Carmo option. And also there is some temporary working capital variations that are included on [ that ] cash balance. To sum up. We had a strong start of the year, with operations very much on track to meet production and cost guidance for the year. And we are really excited on our new Mara Rosa mine. It's so close today to achieve a commercial production. That's it from me. Thank you very much again, to be here with us today. And I would like to open up for questions. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from the line of Richard Hatch from Berenberg.

Congrats on a good quarter. Just a couple of questions. The first one is just on the gold grade at San Jose. I think, when we spoke previously, you were suggesting that, that would be pushing up more nearer towards the sort of historical levels of 6 grams a tonne. And the same goes for the silver grade pushing above current levels. I appreciate throughput was better, but can you just give us a bit of a steer on what the grade profile looks like for San Jose over the course of this year, please?

Well, I think we are going to be able to achieve the guidance in terms of grades and -- grades for silver and gold this year. As I said, I mean, the first quarter, we have been in areas where we have less grade. And that's the reason we have more tonnage during this Q1, but I think, I mean, we will be able to achieve the grades that we have been -- I mean, that we have projected on our guidance for the end of the year.

Okay, all right. So should we expect to see a pickup in Q2?

Yes, probably, yes.

Yes, okay, cool. And then I just wonder. Can you just remind me just on the exploration at Inmaculada, the Tesoro and Nicolas veins? I mean the Nicolas intercept of 23.5 meters at 4.8 grams gold and 164 silver looks pretty good, well, very good. Can you just remind us what that -- where that is in relation to existing operations and how that kind of [indiscernible] ultimately feeds into the plan?

Yes, yes, of course. You remember that we were talking on the Capital Market Day. We were talking about the Eduardo belt, which is between 2 faults. And we have Angela North East, yes. Angela North East is a vein that was discovered a couple of years ago. I mean, Nicolas and Tesoro, they are parallel veins. Remember that we established that there were these hypotheses that they were parallel between these 2 faults where we call Eduardo belt, yes. So Nicolas and Tesoro are a belt. I mean they are veins that they are parallel to Angela North East. And I mean they are discoveries that confirm the hypothesis. And they are not very far away. They are not very far away. We are talking about 100 meter, 200 meters from Angela North East. So yes, very excited with those results, I mean, and looking forward to finish the drilling and present resources to the market.

Yes, okay, good stuff. And I just note there's nothing new here around permitting [indiscernible]. Is that -- should we just assume that that's just continuing as expected and nothing to update on that one?

Exactly, yes. We have continued working with SENACE. I was personally with -- have a meeting with the authorities. And I mean we have their commitment to try to accomplish the government times in terms of the revision and all that. And there is a lot of willing from the actual government to give us the permit as soon as possible. So since we are working with these 2 new consultants, Ausenco and Stantec, doing quality control, I mean, the authorities are very happy with the quality of work that we have already presented. So I mean I see a smooth process better than the Inmaculada one, but let's see what happen. I mean we have -- it's too far away today. I mean we are expecting to get that permit in 2026. A lot of work to do, but today, I would say that we have a lot of coordination and a very good relationship with SENACE, which is the authority that it will give us the permit on 2026.

We currently have no questions in the queue. [Operator Instructions] We have no further questions in the queue, so I will turn the call back over to your host for any closing remarks.

Yes. Let me say that we have a good term. I mean good Q1. We are very excited with the progress at Mara Rosa. We are waiting for some results on Monte do Carmo and to see if we can convert that into a project with the option that we have signed. And we have a lot of expectations with these new discoveries on brownfield, so I think we have a bright future this year, so we will continue working on that and trying to get the best results and the best returns for our investors. Thank you very much for your attention.

Thank you for joining today's call, and you may now disconnect your lines.