Anita Soni: Okay, thanks. I definitely would want to talk to you offline on that. Thanks. That’s it for my questions.
Operator: The next question comes from Mike Parkin with National Bank. Please go ahead.
Mike Parkin: Hi guys, congrats on the strong quarter. Nice to hear everything at Côté is going well. Just following up on your earlier comments around getting money out of Burkina Faso, can you give us a sense of the cash reported, how much of that is in-country versus in your accounts in, I assume, Canada?
Renaud Adams: Thanks, and first of all, Mike, nice to have you back. Maarten, can you answer this?
Maarten Theunissen: In our disclosures, if we break out our cash balance between Essakane, Côté and corporate, the cash balance for Essakane, which was $99 million or around $100 million for Q1, that is all in Burkina Faso.
Mike Parkin: Okay, and thanks Renaud, it’s good to be back. That’s it for me.
Renaud Adams: Thanks.
Operator: Once again, if you have a question, please press star then one. The next question comes from Tanya Jakusconek with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
Tanya Jakusconek: Good morning everyone, and thank you so much for taking my questions, and congrats on the good operating quarter and that Côté is on track. A couple of questions I have. I’m going to start with just understanding–I mean, that realized gold price, Maarten, was amazing given the fact that it includes the prepaid in there. It looks like you realized $2,091 without the prepay. I have to believe it was just $20 an ounce higher than the quarterly average, just the way you sold your gold through the quarter. Was there anything else I should be aware of?
Maarten Theunissen: There’s nothing else that you need to be aware of. We try to sell our gold equally over the month, every month. It doesn’t get delivered and shipped equally, but we’ve got some sales strategies just to try to hit the peaks, but no instruments or anything. It’s just trying to sell–meet the market, and sometimes we’re lucky and we hit the peak, but that’s all that it was.
Tanya Jakusconek: Yes, it’s just the first company I saw that–I cover that had such a delta to the gold price, given your prepaid. Second question I have is just following up on Anita’s questions on the profile for this year. Just wanted to confirm that it looks like Westwood is evenly distributed during the year, and Essakane would be Q1, Q2 stronger and then lower with the grades in Q3, Q4. Would that be a safe assumption to model?
Maarten Theunissen: Definitely for Westwood, and because we–Phase 5 has been behaving the way it is and it’s kind of continuing into Q2, I would also agree with your assessment. Originally, of course, it was more some sort of a flat type of same H1, H2 at Essakane, but we’re very pleased with the positive reconciliations, so you could assume a higher stronger H1 over H2, as you said.
Tanya Jakusconek: Okay, that’s very helpful. Thank you. Then if I can move over to Côté, and just to finish off some of Anita’s questions on that, just some–you know, can you give us an idea how April and May have gone, like in some of the stats? More on the processing side, you mentioned that recovery is 81%, we have the gravity circuit coming in, in Q2, so that should move your recoveries up. Can you just walk me through how April-May is, and where you see this recovery moving at once we get the gravity circuit up?
Renaud Adams: I guess what I can say, I really like the approach that the team is to kind of understanding the next milestones ahead of time. When we enter the pre-commissioning, we obviously are positioning ourselves to be able to do this in a relatively short, so all the prep behind, so about the same thing in April and May. Yes, it was about stabilization, but it was also to understand at a very early stage if the capacity installed was there. I think April-May was really about understanding a few bottlenecks, which we’ve done a lot of corrections in the last shutdown, but it was really at very early stage to understand that the next milestone of the 90% nameplate was achievable. That was largely the focus of April and May, so now we know that, it’s about now to ramp up the availability and stability until we reach the commercial.
But that’s what I could say has been the focus in April and May, at the same time of ramping up and improving the mining operation, which is now basically very close to the plan, you know, of sustaining a full capacity mill.
Tanya Jakusconek: Okay, and so the mining is now ramping up with the mill, the sustainability there. What about this recovery once we get this circuit in, the gravity? Eighty-one percent is, I think, what you have right now.
Renaud Adams: Yes, Bruno?
Bruno Lemelin: Yes, hello Tanya. So far, we’re seeing very good results in terms of recovery, despite that the gravity circuit is not fully commissioned yet. It’s right away at target, if not a bottom, but again be careful because we’re still ramping up, so the [indiscernible] tank is greater than when we’re going to be processing at full capacity, but so far we’re pretty pleased with what we’re seeing.
Tanya Jakusconek: Okay, so what should I be thinking about when you go commercial, this recovery?
Bruno Lemelin: [indiscernible]
Tanya Jakusconek: Sorry, about 81?
Bruno Lemelin: Ninety-one.
Tanya Jakusconek: Oh, 91? Sorry. Okay. Thank you. Then maybe over to Maarten again, my final question is just a reminder. When I look at the prices for gold today and I look at your ability, let’s assume everything goes positively, and in terms of buying back your option back from Sumitomo, would it be fair to assume that looking at current spot prices, assuming everything goes well, that that would be achievable in the first half of ’25? Is that what you have in your model?
