Agnico Eagle Mines Limited (NYSE:AEM) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Mike Parkin: Okay. That was kind of what I was getting at was where the guidance is kind of based on. And then, in terms of the Canadian Malartic mill, in the past, you kind of talked about potentially needing to tweak the front end of it, the grinding segment of it to better balance the lower tonnage eventually coming through with Odyssey. But now with this potential to fill the mill or get closer to a build mill with regional upside, is that something you could potentially avoid having to do?

Dominique Girard: Yes, absolutely. Mike, it is an opportunity that we have right now into our PA study, we have money to decommission a part of the mill. Now, we see that as an opportunity to keep it running. And maybe if I go back, I think to Carey’s question before about the mill capacity and — so currently, we’re mining with open pit at 55,000 tons per day. We are depleting those pits, Canadian Malartic is going to end this quarter, and we’re going to move everything to Barnat pit, but the tonnage is going to decrease from the pit and the underground tonnage is going to increase. Coming into 2029, we’re going to be third time less throughput. We’re at 19,000 tons per day, but the grade is going to be 2.5 times, 3 times higher than where we are right now, which is going to bring equivalent ounces, those two.

Mike Parkin: Okay. And just jumping over to Kittila, with this final ruling on the greater tonnage permit, you noted that if it doesn’t prove favorable, this ruling coming this year, you would submit kind of a new permit application. If that were — obviously, hopefully, that’s the worst case and you can avoid it. But if you have to do it, do you have a sense of what the time line of getting a new permit through would take?

Ammar Al-Joundi: Yes. I think it’s — we’re quite hopeful that we will — so remember, we got the permit. And we got the support from all the regulatory bodies. There was an appeal and during the appeal, the court has asked us to go back to 1.6. So, we are hopeful. If it doesn’t — and again, just to emphasize the guidance we showed just to be on the conservative side is at the 1.6. If in the unexpected situation where we get denied or there’s a reversal of what was already permitted, we will have to resubmit, and that could take a few years.

Operator: Your next question comes from Ralph Profiti from Eight Capital. Please go ahead.

Ralph Profiti: Thanks for taking my two questions, Ammar. Firstly, on LaRonde, you talked about moving to a slower mining rate. Would the same virtue be extended to development rates, meaning that if you do slow down the mining rates, do you have an opportunity to sort of enhance productivity with, say, perhaps reduced dilution? So, does the slower mining rate affect development rates as well? And maybe can you touch a little bit upon sort of the lateral exploration prospectivity as opposed to at depth?