Equinox Gold Corp. (AMEX:EQX) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

John Sclodnick: Yes. Thanks for taking my questions, guys. Just looking at the covenants for the revolver and the credit facility there. It looked like the coverage ratio was 4.1% in Q3, just wondering if you see this remaining tight moving forward, obviously, it depends on the gold price and production, but just kind of wondering how you’re thinking about it internally and managing that?

Peter Hardie: Yes. As we mentioned on previous calls, we worked with our lenders to loosen covenants during the construction phase of Greenstone. We do expect them to remain tight until construction is complete, but we’re very comfortably on side with our covenants.

John Sclodnick: Okay. Perfect. Yes. I appreciate that. Just in reference to Doug’s comments on removing some of that higher carbon material from Santa Luz. What kind of grade is associated with that? And just really, is this going to impact the head grade in any material way.

Doug Reddy: So you’re asking what the mass pool is of the carbon material?

John Sclodnick: Yes. And really, if that change in your planning there, removing that the higher carbon material, if that’s going to impact your planned head grade?

Doug Reddy: No. So I mean, I’d have to double check. I believe the math pool that we’re looking at is 10% to 20% but the gold that’s lost there is tied up intrinsically with the carbon. So what we’re removing is the most refractory as it were material, and we’re allowing the remaining mass to be able to be properly leached. So we’ve done test work on it, worked quite well, gave us a good bump depends on the TOC of the material that goes in on how much of a bump you get. So the grade is about 1.3 grams that ends up getting lost, but that’s okay because that gold wasn’t coming anyway and it gives us a pump on the remaining material.

John Sclodnick: Perfect. Yes. that makes sense. Yes. No, definitely. I know it’s different when you’re actually operating versus working a spreadsheet, but I appreciate that color. No, fair enough. Just — I mean, obviously, balance sheet looks like it’s in good shape for the cash yet through the rest of the Greenstone build. Just curious how you’re thinking about divestitures at this point at one point in the past or is a bit of a discussion on maybe divesting a smaller asset there. Just curious your thoughts at this point.

Greg Smith: Yes. I mean we’ve always said that we’re commercial, and we’ve sold mines in the past, old assets in the past when it’s made sense and when there’s been a reasonable offer on the table. So we’re — I’d say we’re always open-minded. I never want to comment on any specific mines. I would say that it’s a pretty challenging environment to try to sell assets. There’s not a lot of — especially if you’re looking for cash, there’s not a lot of financing out there. Interest rates are high. You got a high gold price, but with equity values depressed and high interest rates and just sort of tight conditions, it’s just not the best time to try to sell assets. Even on some of our smaller operations, where we’ve really been focused is looking at mine plans where we can sort of optimize our cash flow and optimize value.

So we do get comments on having some of these smaller assets. But to the extent that we can mine them for more value than we can sell them, which I think right now is absolutely the case. That’s going to be the focus. Not to say we wouldn’t be commercial, John, but this is just a tough environment to look at those types of transactions.

John Sclodnick: Yes. No, I appreciate that. And also I know public form questions on M&A are every CEO’s favorite question to get. So I appreciate that color. That’s it for me. So congrats on the great quarter.

Operator: The next question comes from Anita Soni with CIBC World Markets.

Anita Soni: So the first one relates to Los Filos operations. So just looking at the grades, they’ve come off in the open pit. Is that what you can expect going forward? Or is that just a temporary sequencing issue?