B2Gold Corp. (AMEX:BTG) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

William Lytle: Absolutely. I mean what we’ve been saying over the last quarter in which I just validated being down there for 2 weeks, was that the Malian government considers B2 kind of the poster child of what they want in mining there. So Clive didn’t really hit on it, but the reality is that some of this talk about changing the mining code is really bringing up some of the other people that are not under the 2012 code to kind of what we’re doing, right? So as far as we’re concerned, we continue to have a very good relationship. And quite frankly, we expressed our concern on, one, really the way that these discussions around the mining code have been happening. And every one of the government officials I met was saying, we do not want to slow down mining in Mali. It is a cornerstone for our economy.

Don DeMarco: Okay. That’s good. That’s encouraging. At Goose then, shifting to Goose, congratulations on the progress so far. And one of the items you guys did was successfully completed the ice road without any incident. And you actually create — came up with some creative ways to expedite development next year. But my question is have you looked at the cost and benefit of building a permanent road to the site? And if so, what might that cost and some of the benefits be?

William Lytle: Well, I think that Sabina had looked at it. There’s never going to be, at least in the short term, a permanent — and unless you never say never. But the government and the KIA up there do not want a permanent road into the site. And so that would really require extensive, extensive discussions. What you can do is there is some talk that you could actually put down some base within your license area to shorten what the ice road would look like. But I don’t think you’ll ever see an all-season road in there.

Don DeMarco: Okay. Great. Well, that’s interesting, but it seems that’s good for that — thanks for that color. Last question on Masbate. Okay, we see Masbate benefiting from lower fuel prices. There could be a guidance, cost reduction. Are the fuel costs running below budget at the other mines?

Michael Cinnamond: Yes. It’s Mike, as I mentioned, they are also — at Namibia, they’re lower than — they are not as much below budget as Masbate. Remember, Namibia, we’ve kind of of HFO because now we’re connected to the grid. So we’re — it’s only really diesel cost that we’re exposed to fluctuations there. And in Mali, diesel is a bit lower, but HFO — this new blend of HFO is a little higher. So kind of more neutral in terms of overall fuel costs. Masbate is the one that is impacted the most by fuel right now.

Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Our next question comes from the line of Anita Soni from CIBC World Markets.

Anita Soni: Just following on Don’s question about the fuel. As I recall — or maybe I’m thinking of it incorrectly, but — and it wasn’t you, but is there a little bit of a lag in terms of the sort of your inventories and the effect that you have in terms of fuel pricing? So the question really being is, could we see like more of an effect going into next year as fuel prices come down?

Michael Cinnamond: There’s probably 2 or 3 parts to that. Historically, we had disclosed — there was a lag in Mali because the government sets fuel. And what we’ve seen certainly initially over the last couple of years was they were much slower to react to change the fuel price than the underlying market price was. Whereas in the Philippines, you see that correlation impacted much more quickly, for example. So that’s one, the setting of the fuel price by the state, and Mali does create a lag sometimes. The other one to think about as you go forward, that’s not an operation now, but Goose. There’s a short shipping season. So you’re going to be shipping fuel in large increments over the summer, and that fuel is going to be used over the course of the year.