Equinox Gold Corp. Aktie

Hello, and welcome to the Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Equinox Gold Corp. Please note that today's meeting is being recorded. If you participate in today's meeting and disclose personal information, you will be deemed to consent to the recording, transfer and use of same. If you disclose personal information of another person in today's meeting, you will be deemed to represent and warrant to Computershare and the company that you first obtained all required consents for the disclosure, recording, transfer and use of such personal information from all appropriate persons before your disclosure. [Operator Instructions]

It is now my pleasure to turn today's meeting over to Mr. Ross Beaty, Chair of the Board of Equinox Gold. Mr. Beaty, the floor is yours.

Thank you very much, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and online and in person here, and welcome to the Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Equinox Gold. On behalf of our directors, management and employees, I thank you for joining us today. Thank you to the shareholder who came in person and the other shareholders amongst our management team and our distinguished auditors, KPMG, and our legal advisory firm, Blakes. And I want to also thank Jamie Kariya for the hospitality of Blakes in allowing us to use this room. Thank you very much.

I'm pleased to offer an online option so that all shareholders can join the meeting. Since this is a hybrid meeting with some shareholders here in person and others joining us online, the following process will apply for the conduct of the meeting. Firstly, questions about a motion can be submitted online by any registered shareholder or proxy holder using the Q&A icon on your screen. If you're not sure how to navigate the online system, please refer to the AGM user guide that was mailed to you and that is also available for download in the Shareholder Events section of Equinox Gold's website. Two, for those registered shareholders or proxy holders attending the meeting in person when asking a question, please indicate your name, which entity you represent, if any, and if you are a registered shareholder or proxy holder. Three, we will only be taking questions that are procedural or directly related to motions before the meeting. If you have questions related to Equinox Gold's financial statements, properties or business strategy, please get in touch with Ryan King, Equinox Gold's Executive Vice President, Capital Markets. And Ryan wherever you are -- there you are. His contact details are on the website.

So yes, normally, we do, do a kind of a full corporate presentation at these meetings and have time for Q&A, but we're not going to do that today in the interest of time. Four, Rhylin Bailie, VP, Investor Relations, will act as question moderator for the meeting.

I will now outline the voting procedures. For those attending the meeting today online, voting on all matters will be conducted by electronic ballot using the virtual interface. To give registered holders and proxy holders sufficient time to vote, we've opened the ballots, and we'll keep them open while I present each item of business to be conducted at the meeting. For those attending the meeting in person, voting will be conducted by ballot. Registered shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders will be asked to vote on each business item. If you've already voted by proxy, it's important that you do not vote again here at the meeting unless you intend to change your initial vote.

We don't have any directors here today in person other than Darren and myself, Darren, our CEO; and myself, but we have most of our -- if not all of our directors online. And I'm just going to read out their names: Len Boggio, Maryse Bélanger, Trudy Curran, Omaya Elguindi, Doug Forster, Blayne Johnson, Marshall Koval and Mike Vint. Other executives and management in attendance, I think in person, do we have Peter? Peter Hardie. There you go, CFO. Dave Schummer. Dave Schummer is our COO. He's hard at work in the office. Daniella Dimitrov, Chief Strategy and Risk Officer. Tom Gallo, EVP Growth. I think Tom is also working today in the office, good. Ryan King, we've already introduced Ryan, EVP, Capital Markets; Jacqlin Anthony, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. Thank you very much. And of course, Rhylin Bailie, VP, Investor Relations.

We'll now proceed with the formal portion of today's meeting, which should take about 10 minutes. To expedite matters, I will move and second all motions. The meeting will now come to order, and I will act as Chair. I appoint Jacqlin Anthony Equinox Gold's General Counsel and Corporate Secretary as Secretary of this meeting. For the purposes of this meeting, I appoint Computershare Investor Services as scrutineer to compute the votes of any polls taken at this meeting and to report the results to me as Chair. The objectives of today's meeting are set out in the company's management information circular dated March 23, 2026. I confirm that the notice for this meeting, the management information circular and the form of proxy were mailed to shareholders on March 25, 2026. The company has received an affidavit confirming proof of mailing from our transfer agent Computershare Investor Services Inc. A copy of the affidavit will be attached as a schedule to the minutes of this meeting. Unless there's any objection, I will dispense with the reading of the notice of meeting.

Copies of the management information circular and other meeting materials are available on Equinox Gold's website and under the company's profile on SEDAR+ and on EDGAR. The scrutineer has advised that proxies were received from the holders of a sufficient number of common shares to constitute a quorum. I declare the meeting to be regularly called and properly constituted for the transaction of business. The formal report of the scrutineer will be attached as a schedule to the minutes of this meeting. As most of you are aware, at annual meetings, most shares are represented by proxies given to management. The scrutineer has advised that a significant majority of the proxies received by management have been voted in favor of each of the director nominees and in favor of each of the other items of business. We thank you for your confidence.

All registered shareholders and proxy holders who have joined online and properly logged in with their control number or invite code and wish to vote will be able to see on their screen all items of business to be voted on at this meeting. Please remember that if you have previously recorded your vote by proxy, you should not vote again unless you wish to revoke and change your initial vote. As a reminder to those online, the polls are currently open for all items of business to be voted on at today's meeting. This means that you can vote on each item immediately or you can wait until the conclusion of discussion on each item before casting your vote.

The items of business to be voted on and your availability -- your available voting options will be visible on the voting panel on your screen. Please register your votes by selecting the for, withhold or against buttons next to the name of each proposed director and next to each of the other resolutions. Once discussion is concluded on all items of business, we will provide a few additional moments for you to enter your votes. For those of you attending in person today, voting for each item will be conducted by ballot. If you are a registered shareholder or proxy holder, you should have received a combined ballot for all items of business to be voted on when you check in for this meeting. If you are a registered shareholder or proxy holder and did not receive a ballot, please raise your hand now and a representative of the scrutineer will come by and deal with you. If you have already voted by proxy, it's important that you do not vote again here at the meeting unless you intend to change your initial vote. Management's proxy nominees will vote all proxies in favor of matters put before this meeting, notwithstanding the ballots being taken.

I now present to the meeting the audited financial statements of Equinox Gold for the year ended December 31, 2025, together with the auditor's report on the financial statements. Copies of these documents have been mailed to the shareholders who requested such statements, and I don't intend to read them at this meeting.

The next item of business is the Board size. The company's articles require that its Board consists of the greater of 3 directors or the numbers set by ordinary resolution. I move and second a motion to increase the number of directors of the company from 9 to 10. Unless there are any questions, I will move on.

We have not received any questions.

Thank you. The next item of business is the election of directors. Management nominates the following 10 individuals to hold office until the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed: Ross Beaty, Lenard Boggio, Maryse Bélanger, Trudy Curran, Omaya Elguindi, Doug Forster, Darren Hall, Blayne Johnson, Marshall Koval and Mike Vint. Each nominee has confirmed that they are prepared to serve as a director of Equinox Gold. Equinox Gold has adopted an advanced notice policy that requires shareholders to give the company advanced notice of proposed director nominations at the Annual Meeting of Shareholders. Equinox Gold did not receive notice of any such nominations for this meeting. As a result, I declare the nominations closed, and I move and second the motion to elect each of the directors. Unless there are any questions, I'll move on.

We have not received any questions.

Thank you, Rhylin. The vote to approve this resolution is required to be taken by ballot. I direct that a poll be taken. Again, as a reminder to those online, the polls are currently open for all items of business to be voted on at today's meeting. For those shareholders and proxy holders attending in person today, please record your vote for each nominee on your ballot. Am I supposed to wait a few minutes or can I carry on?

You can carry on.

The next item of business is the appointment of Equinox Gold's auditor. I move and second a motion to appoint KPMG LLP as auditor of the company to hold office until the close of the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders and that the Board be authorized to fix KPMG's remuneration. Unless there are any questions, I'll move on.

We have not received any questions.

The last item of business, thank you, is the say-on-pay advisory vote. I move and second a motion that on an advisory basis and not to diminish the role and responsibilities of the Board, Equinox Gold's shareholders accept the approach to executive compensation disclosed in the company's management information circular dated March 23, 2026, delivered in advance of the meeting. Unless there are any questions, I'll move on.

We have not received any questions.

Thank you. For those shareholders and proxy holders attending in person today, please record your vote and ensure that you have signed and printed your name on the ballot. Once you have completed your ballot, please raise your hand and the scrutineer will collect it from you. These are all the resolutions before the meeting. We'll provide a few moments for shareholders and proxy holders to complete your electronic and paper ballots.

[Voting]

And I'm told I should tell a joke, but I'm not going to. What I'm going to do is tell you what happened to me at 3:30 this morning. There was a noise outside my bedroom. I have an apartment in Vancouver. I live in Bowen Island. And with somebody hollering with a different noise, woke me up. I woke up, took a while to fall back to sleep. It took quite a long time. And during that period, when I was sort of half awake, I reflected on coming to this annual meeting today and my own career in the public company business. This is my sort of 15th or 16th company that I've been very privileged to chair. And some companies lasted 3 years and some companies lasted now 30, 32 years is the longest, but I've had plenty of others. Equinox, this is its, I think, eighth annual meeting or maybe ninth. In any case, I reflected all these companies and how many times I've been in the privileged position of being Chair reading this stuff. And I think it's like 140. Now you would think after 140 times reading pretty much the same thing, you'd commit it to memory. But you just can't do this stuff, committed to memory. I tried to think what have I memorized duly constituted and ready for the proper transaction of business more or less. I can't do it.

I'm surprised that thinking about that didn't put you immediately back to sleep.

It actually woke me up. I can't possibly because it's 140 times, but it's been a long time, and I'm close to the sunset of my career, but I just will say it has been such a great privilege of knowing not only management teams like the wonderful team we have in Equinox, but also the support team we have in our ecosystem, right? The lawyers who are so good in Vancouver who are such experts in helping companies like ours grow and do all the good stuff that we have to do under the Company Act. Also the accountants, the engineers here, the consulting firms, the whole ecosystem we have, just how very fortunate we are to have this great history and talent in Vancouver. So have I finished my 30 seconds?

Yes, I think that's a good time. Thank you. On behalf of Computershare, I can confirm that the polls have closed.

Great. Thank you, Rhylin. I ask that the scrutineer compile the report regarding the results of voting on all business matters. The results of voting will be included with the minutes of this meeting as well in accordance with the company's majority voting policy and requirements of the Toronto Stock Exchange. Individual results for each Board nominee will be announced in a press release later today, along with other results from the meeting. Is there any further business for the formal portion of this meeting?

There are no outstanding questions related to the business of the meeting.

Thank you. If there's no further business, I move and second that this meeting now terminate and declare Equinox Gold's Annual Meeting of Shareholders for 2026 be concluded. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. If you have any questions about Equinox Gold's properties or business strategy, please get in touch with Darren or Ryan or me or Rhylin or really any of us. And I'd like to ask all people who are on our management team to put up your hands. And if anyone has questions about anything, you can also ask any of them. And thank you all for joining us today very much, and we'll see you a year from now, if not sooner.

Thank you, Ross. Thank you, everybody, for coming. Operator, you can now conclude the call.

Thank you for attending today's meeting. This meeting has concluded, and you may now disconnect.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Equinox Gold First Quarter 2026 Results and Corporate Update. [Operator Instructions]

The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the conference over to Ryan King, Executive Vice President, Capital Markets for Equinox Gold. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking the time to join the call this morning. Before we begin, I'd like to direct everyone to our forward-looking statements on Slide 2. So, our remarks and answers to your questions today may contain forward-looking information about the company's future performance. Although management believes our forward-looking statements are based on fair and reasonable assumptions, actual results may turn out to be different from these forward-looking statements.

For a complete discussion of the risks, uncertainties and factors that may lead to actual operating and financial results being different from the estimates contained in our forward-looking statements, please refer to risks identified in the section titled Risks Related to the Business in Equinox Gold's most recently filed annual information form, which is available on SEDAR+ on EDGAR and on our website.

And finally, I should mention that all figures in today's presentation are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated. With me on the call today are Darren Hall, Chief Executive Officer; Pete Hardie, Chief Financial Officer; David Schummer, Chief Operating Officer; Daniella Demitroff, Chief Strategy and Risk Officer; and Matt MacPhail, SVP of Technical Services.

Today, we will be discussing our first quarter 2026 financial and operating results and provide an update on Greenstone and Valentine ramp-up progress, and then we'll take questions. The slide deck we are referencing is available for download on our website at equinoxgold.com. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Darren.

Yes. Turning to Slide 3, and thanks, Ryan. Good morning and thank you for joining us today on the call. Firstly, I'd like to thank the entire Equinox Gold team, including all of our business partners across the Americas, for their commitment to safety, operational excellence and disciplined execution, which delivered another strong quarter.

There is no better demonstration of the team's capability and commitment than responsibly delivering more than 197,000 ounces of production with no material environmental events and a 25% reduction in our reportable injury frequency rate. Well, done, and thanks to the entire team for a great quarter. We continue building on the positive momentum established in 2025, which reset the foundation of the business, strengthened the balance sheet and established a clear path to a long-term value creation.

Today, we are executing against that foundation with a focus on operational excellence, cost discipline and delivering on our organic growth profile. We delivered a solid start to 2026, producing 197,000 ounces of gold with cash costs of $1,633 an ounce and AISC of $1,950 per ounce. Importantly, our Canadian platform continues to ramp up, contributing over 87,000 ounces during the quarter.

While the quarter reflected a level of variability, not unusual with ramp-ups and winter conditions, based on performance to date and expected improvements through the year, we remain on track to achieve our full year production and cost guidance.

Turning to Slide 4. During the quarter, we sold more than 199,000 ounces of gold at a realized price of just over $4,600 an ounce, generating $527 million in adjusted EBITDA. We reported net income from all operations of $310 million or $0.39 per share and adjusted net income of $234 million or $0.30 per share. We ended the quarter with $363 million in cash and net debt of approximately $80 million, excluding our in-the-money convertible debentures.

Additionally, we completed the sale of our Brazilian assets. repaid $990 million of debt, initiated a share buyback and paid our inaugural dividend. Subsequent to quarter end, following meaningful deleveraging and improved financial strength, we refinanced our revolving credit facility on improved terms, which enhances liquidity, flexibility and our overall cost of capital. As of April 30, the company has nearly $1 billion in available liquidity, providing significant financial flexibility. We also declared our second quarterly dividend of $0.015 per share, reinforcing our commitment to disciplined capital returns.

Turning to Slide 5. Let me take a moment to focus on our Canadian operations, which are central to our long-term value proposition. At Greenstone, we produced just over 60,000 ounces in the quarter. Mining rates averaged 180,000 tonnes per day, marginally lower than Q4, primarily due to heavier-than-normal snowfall, while mill throughput averaged 24,600 tonnes per day, a 6% increase over Q4. Plant performance continues to improve quarter-over-quarter with 51% of the days exceeding nameplate capacity in the quarter compared to 36% in Q4.

With April mining rates increasing to approximately 200,000 tonnes per day and the underlying productivity metrics continuing to improve, the mill -- mine is well positioned to deliver on 2026 material movement expectations, which will result in increasing grades through the balance of the year. At Valentine, we completed our first full quarter of operations, producing over 27,000 ounces. The plant performed well. And despite some significant weather challenges, the team delivered 90% of nameplate capacity for the full quarter.

Importantly, we actually exceeded nameplate capacity over the combined period of February and March. Mining performance was impacted by a severe winter in Newfoundland, which hampered material movement and delayed access to planned ore zones. In addition, early-stage mining practices and sequences impacted mill feed grades. We have identified a number of opportunities to improve performance, including enhancements to blasting practices, better utilization of mine control systems and tighter control around declines to positively impact dilution.

We are seeing progress in April with improving grades supported by continued exceptional process plant performance. To highlight this progress, following a planned 7-day total shutdown at the start of April, the mill has averaged 8,488 tonnes per day or 124% of nameplate since coming out of the shut. Looking ahead, we expect steady quarter-over-quarter improvements through 2026 as mining productivity increases at our Canadian operations ramp up to steady-state performance, underpinning our robust outlook of over 500,000 ounces of annual production for the next decade.

Turning to Slide 6. Beyond our current operations, we continue to advance a strong organic growth profile that underpins our long-term production profile. At Valentine, we announced details of our plan -- planned Phase 2 expansion as part of the updated technical report published at the end of the quarter. We are currently committing funds to long lead time items and progressing detailed engineering to secure schedule. We expect to initiate early site works in the second half of the year following full funds approval anticipated in the coming months.

At Castle Mountain, we continue to advance engineering and permitting activities with the project on track to receive a federal record of decision before year-end. In anticipation, we have hired an experienced project director to lead all aspects of the project and have engaged Worley, an engineering professional services firm, to progress the detailed engineering. I anticipate committing at risk funds to secure long lead time items in early Q3. At Los Filos, we have made important progress strengthening relationships with our host communities and government stakeholders.

With fully ratified new long-term access agreements in place with 2 of the 3 communities and continued constructive dialogue with the third, I am convinced that all stakeholders are aligned on identifying a path forward to a restart of operations and realizing the full potential of the world-class mineral endowment, which exists at Los Filos.

Turning to Slide 7. I am confident that Equinox Gold is well positioned to deliver top quartile valuation based on our portfolio of long-life assets in Tier 1 jurisdictions, a clear and executable organic growth pipeline, strong and growing free cash flow generation, a disciplined approach to capital allocation and shareholder returns and importantly, with the right team in place to deliver on those commitments. In closing, our priorities for 2026 are clear: ramp Greenstone and Valentine to nameplate capacity, maintain cost discipline and operational consistency, advance our growth pipeline, continue strengthening the balance sheet and return capital to shareholders.

With a stronger portfolio, improving operations and a clear path forward, we are entering 2026 from a position of strength. Before passing to the operator, I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge the team's efforts in Nicaragua, which delivered a record 81,000 ounces of production for the quarter, which is a testament not only to the team, but the prolific and enduring nature of those assets. With that, I'll turn it back to the operator for questions.

[Operator Instructions]

The first question is from Wayne Lam with TD Securities.

One question is kind of tough. Let's go with Valentine. Grade in the early years of the mine plan is well above 2 gram a tonne, I guess, supported by the Berry Pit. Just wondering how the grades have reconciled to plan to date. And should we be expecting a big step change on the grade half profile into Q2? Or is that more weighted to the back half of the year?

No, Wayne, thanks for the support. Thanks for the question. If I step back, I look at our reconciliation above an all-waste cutoff, and we're very comfortable with what we see out of Valentine, and we've articulated that over the last couple of years of infill drilling.

Q1 was really our first quarter of how do we reconcile against the selectivity. And we saw some challenges, right? Because we didn't have that reconcilability with respect to the mill because it was the first quarter of taking that run-of-mine material in. And we've seen some deficiencies in that we need to focus on, and that's in and around mining control, utilizing the high precision. And again, that was impacted further by the weather. So no, we'll see improvements into Q2, and we'll see improvements as we work through the balance of the year.

But as we sit today, comfortable with how we've guided the year, and we'll continue to see improvements through the year. And medium, longer term, I think we're comfortable with where we positioned ourselves. And I think that the importance of the Phase 2 of the process to get us to 5 million tonnes is critical in that value proposition as well. I mean we have a significant resource here with great opportunity to expand as we've highlighted with Frank drilling.

This property will continue to deliver for a long, long time, and it will evolve as it goes. I think it's going to evolve to the positive, and that kind of highlights the criticality of Phase 2 and why we're committing today to get those funds in place so we can ensure a schedule to get us into a build as soon as we possibly can, which will take out the variances you see in trying to predict to a grade in the quarter and take out some of the lumpiness. But long-winded answer, Wayne, but no, comfortable with. It's an evolution of, and there's nothing that concerns me at this point.

The next question is from Anita Soni with CIBC Markets.

I just wanted to ask actually about grade reconciliation at Greenstone as well. So, I think the -- so I just wanted to first clarify that in the technical report that the new MRE already includes the reduction as a result of the voids and all that.

Yes. Anita. And I guess there's 2 questions in that. From a technical report perspective.

Sorry, was the follow-up go ahead.

Sorry, it reflects -- the technical report reflects the model update going forward. And if we think about -- so again, the question in and around voids and the experiences that we've had to date is reflected in that model revision. In terms of the quarter, we saw some turnover issues in and around the glory hole, which is that shrink stope in the center of the pit and maintaining focus, but that's where Dave and the crew have brought in some additional resources so we can get that bench turnover rate, which negatively impacts our performance of grade against plan. But from a reconciliation perspective, if we take the last couple of quarters, the model is actually reconciling very well above a cutoff against the model that we've used to predict the longer term. I mean, Matt, is there anything you'd add to that, Bud?

No, that's correct.

And I'll just add one item, if I might. And we included all that information with respect to our guidance for the year as well.

So does that cover the grade issue there?

Almost. The question was just in terms of the technical report, it does also talk about sort of a negative ounces and tonnes and also on the grade a little bit but combined a slight negative on the ounces. And I'm just wondering if the reserve estimate already includes that as well or the commentary in the technical report says basically that it's typical for this early stage, and it's not necessarily included in the reserve estimate yet.

No. Again, the technical report is congruent with the reserves, and they all exactly tie together.

That's right. Yes, best available information was utilized in that technical report, the most up-to-date void model is included. So, the reserve and resource are depleted for that void model. And as Pete and Darren alluded to, Q1, we're reconciling nicely to that model.

Yes. But I think the underlying question there, Anita, is that is the reserve reflected of what's in the forward-looking plan? And yes, the same model is used for the forward-looking plan as used in the reserve. So, there's -- all those things are congruent.

The next question is from Mohamed Sidibe with National Bank.

So maybe going back to Valentine on your grade, tonnage, and recovery there. I know that production was probably impacted by inventory in circuit. Is there more inventory in circuit left that could potentially impact Q2? Or how should we think about that going into the next quarters?

No. I mean the inventory; we're not managing inventory. It's kind of like an AP sort of issue. I mean there's pinches and swells in inventory depending on grades going through. But no, there was no drawdown of inventory at the end of the quarter. We play a straight bat at it. We actually saw a little bit of inventory buildup in the April period as grades improved, but no. There's no noise in there associated with inventory.

Yes. No, I was just asking because trying to get back to your produced results with the tonnage grade and recovery, I'm slightly off, but maybe I can take that offline, if that's fair. On the cost at Valentine, I think the tech report highlighted lower processing costs, mining costs versus what you delivered in Q1. Understanding that you were impacted by the severe weather, but what's the plan to get back to costs that were highlighted in the tech report there? And what are some of the initiatives that you guys will be working on to get us back to that?

Yes. No, Mohamed, it's a good question. And I'll pass it over to Pete, and we can talk specifically about some of the nuances in Valentine. But I will take a step back and look at the business holistically. And I know we don't guide quarter-on-quarter against budget, but I'll use that as a basis of because keeping in mind that all of our guidance it's prefaced off or based in the budget. And of course, you take a budget, you lower it a little bit and that becomes the guidance.

But if we look at Q1 spend, we were within 1% on, kind of, capital costs. And when I say capital, I'm talking about the capital that was -- capitalized inventory and those sorts of things are all in that total spend number. We were within 1% of spend. So, from an outgoing perspective, we're very, very consistent with where we see. We're actually underspent on some of the capital during the quarter, which we'll work on over the balance of the year, but that's the typical of people being a little bit more aggressive about what they can get done at the outset of the year. But now specifically into Valentine, do you want to give a bit of color, Pete?

Yes. Thanks, Darren. Thanks, Mohamed, for the question. Yes, as Darren mentioned, across the board, we're within 1%, very pleased with the control that the team and operators are showing overspend. At Valentine itself, we're a little above expectation, but not in a way that we're concerned about, largely any spend that's above expectation is due to the severe winter and mitigating and mitigations we put in place going forward, and that's on the numerator side.

So, we're pretty happy with what's happening total spend side. It's the denominator, as Darren has already highlighted, on bringing unit costs back into line with expectations, we have to focus on the denominator side, and that's the mining and the processing and grade management that Darren already alluded to.

The next question is from John Tumazos with John Tumazos Independent Research.

Congratulations on net cash today, which every day that's going to be this week or last week or next week. Could you elaborate on your definition of gold production versus inventory versus in circuit. We know you're generating cash, and we know you're really selling gold, but it's kind of amazing that 20,000 ounces fell out of the circuits extra in Nicaragua this quarter.

And it's also equally amazing that Greenstone only had a 12,000 ounce drop from the December quarter when the grade fell by 1/3 and the recovery fell by 1/4 and the recovery fell by 3%. So it seems like the gold and solution is somewhat extraordinary.

No, John, and thanks for your question. Thanks for the support. I'll start with the definition of what we use as gold production. Gold production is bullion, right, is poured. Then we'll have a recovered gold, which represents the kind of the in-circuit changes. There's not a lot of noise between gold poured and gold recovered for the better part.

If we think about Nicaragua, the drawdown in inventory was all not in process. It was stockpiles, right? We ended up the year -- at the end of the year with a significant inventory that we then got into the process plant in Q4 -- sorry, in Q1, that was built in Q4 because we ran out of capacity.

So that was the inventory change in Nicaragua. It's just a build-in inventory outside of the process plant. So yes, it's not an in-process inventory per se. In talking about inventories on Q4 -- or Q1 to Q4 at Greenstone. I'll ask Matt. But from my recollection, I don't think there was a significant change in in-process inventories in circuit Q1 over Q4.

Yes. There's a little bit of variation Q-on-Q, but it's nothing planned. It's just based upon timing of pour at the month end, and it's a natural ebb and flow. But yes, to what Darren said, I didn't think there was a huge change of in-process inventory Q-on-Q.

But we'd be happy to.

So you might have had an extra pour at Greenstone like having an extra ship go off for a copper mine shipping concentrate or something?

Yes. I mean, because what we'll typically do is that we won't kind of pour on the last day of the month, right? We'll just pour on a specific day every week or 2 days a week and wherever they happen to fall, you might see some inventory ups and inventory downs. But no, happy to get on a chat and walk through the specifics of Greenstone as well to make sure, you're comfortable that...

Congratulations on all the cash. Thank you.

I appreciate it. Thanks for your support. It's been a journey, and you've been a supporter of the product for a long time. So, thank you very much.

The next question is from Jeremy Hoy with Canaccord Genuity.

I'm going to talk about Los Filos. Could you give us any detail on, I guess, what's pending or needs to be negotiated on with the third community? And then any update on how you're thinking about that operation? I know you guys internally have been going through some iterations of what that operation could look like if it restarts and just a refresh on your thinking there would be helpful.

Yes. No, thanks, Jeremy, and thanks for your and Canaccord's support over the years. No, Los Filos is -- we're very, how do you say, optimistic about what we see at Los Filos and partly because the 16 million ounces in all categories, it's clearly a world-class asset. It has demonstrated ability to be able to produce -- our view of Filos is really looking to what the long term looks like. We're not in any hurry to restart operations in what was the previous form. It's really about the value proposition of birthing something that's in that potentially 300,000 to 400,000 ounces a year with a 20- to 30-year life within the current resource base.

I mean, it's an outstanding asset. So, what we're working very constructively with all of our stakeholders, including the third community is getting comfortable with a commercial arrangement that's going to ensure that, that product is durable and resilient in all gold price environments and can maximize value for all stakeholders. So, we're working with that third community. The dialogue is suffice to say, it has been very constructive.

It's clear in my mind that everyone is aligned behind wanting that to work. And we're going to make sure that what we put in place ensures that people can have a level of confidence about our ability and our -- I mean, us and the stakeholders working together over the long term to ensure that, that investment we put into a CIL plant and reinvest back in that property is secure. That's our value proposition.

And again, the dialogue has definitely changed over the last year. And again, we're very comfortable with the discussions we're having. And the time -- the agreements will be had in the time they had and whether it's in 2 weeks' time or 2 months' time or 3 months' time, I mean, again, I would anticipate something this year. But it's not important as to whether it happens this year.

It's about making sure we get the right agreements because in the background, we're actually working with an EPC company to look at scale and scope in and around what could this asset look like and what that capital size relationship is. So, our ability to be able to restart this asset is not impacted by the timing in which we have an agreement with the communities. So again, it's -- they're all happening concurrently and the community is aware of it. They're happy that we're doing that work. They see the value. So no, I think this is a win-win, and we'll end up with a world-class asset that delivers for a long, long time.

[Operator Instructions]

The next question is a follow-up from Anita Soni with CIBC World Markets (sic) [ CIBC Capital Markets ].

So I just wanted to follow up on the tailings CapEx, like the remediation that you're going to be doing there with the Shear Keys. Can you just give me an idea of the capital budget for that over the life of mine?

Sure. This is a Greenstone, right, Anita.

Yes. Greenstone.

Yes. Yes, Matt is probably best poised to be able to talk about that. So Matt?

Yes. I don't know if I classify as remediation. It's kind of initial construction of the Shear Key, and it's baked into our CapEx profile for 2026. So yes, I wouldn't call it remediation per se. I think some maybe bleeds into 2027 as well, but it's all baked into our estimates and our guidance figures. And we can dive into more detail on the call if you want to go through dollars and cents.

Yes, I was going to add, Anita, that I think working off memory, we've got $80 million in there for the year 2026, but we'll take offline maybe the life of mine costs, if that's all right.

Anita. And yes, reach out and we'll fill in any blanks that need to be filled in.

This concludes the Q&A session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Darren Hall for any closing remarks.

Yes. I'd just like to thank all our shareholders for their continued support and everyone's participation and questions this morning. It is appreciated, is valued. And as always, Ryan and I and the entire executive team are always available if you have any further questions. So, with that, take care, be well, and back to you, operator.

This brings to a close today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator, and welcome to the Equinox Gold Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Results and Corporate Update. [Operator Instructions] And the conference call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Ryan King, EVP of Capital Markets for Equinox Gold. Please go ahead.

Well, thank you, operator. Well, good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking the time to join the call this morning. Before we commence, I'd like to direct everyone to our forward-looking statements on Slide 2. Our remarks and answers to your questions today may contain forward-looking information about the company's future performance. Although management believes our forward-looking statements are based on fair and reasonable assumptions, actual results may turn out to be different from these forward-looking statements.

For a complete discussion of the risks, uncertainties and factors that may lead actual operating and financial results being different from the estimates contained in our forward-looking statements, please refer to the risks identified in the section titled Risks related to the business in Equinox Gold's most recently filed annual information form, which is available on SEDAR+, on EDGAR and on our website.

Due to the Calibre merger, asset sales and classifying Brazil as discontinuing operations, the audit is taking a bit longer. We do not expect any changes compared to the unaudited results we have released, and we will issue a news release once the final audited results are filed in the coming days.

Finally, I should mention that all figures in today's presentation are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated. And with me on the call today are Darren Hall, Chief Executive Officer; Peter Hardie, Chief Financial Officer; and David Schummer, Chief Operating Officer. Today, we will be discussing our fourth quarter and full year 2025 production and cost results, provide an update on ramp-up progress at our Greenstone and Valentine Gold Mines. Darren will also discuss the improvements of our balance sheet that allowed us to announce capital return initiatives, and then we will take questions. The slide deck we're referencing is available for download on our website at equinoxgold.com.

And with that, I'll turn the call over to Darren.

Turning to Slide 3. And thanks, Ryan. Good morning, and thank you for joining the call today. Firstly, I would like to thank the entire Equinox Gold team, including all of our business partners across the Americas for their commitment to safety, operational excellence and disciplined execution. There is no better demonstration of their commitment than delivering a year with no material environmental events and a 30% reduction in our all injury frequency rate. Well done, and thank you to the entire team.

2025 was a transformational year for Equinox Gold, one that not only reset the foundation of the business, but marked the beginning of a new chapter. The team delivered record gold production, streamline the portfolio and dramatically strengthened the balance sheet positioning the company to deliver meaningful value as we look to the future. The entire organization is aligned on creating shareholder value by consistently delivering on their commitments, which are focused on demonstrating operational excellence, maintaining strict cost discipline and advancing higher-return organic growth. We have made material progress on all fronts, including delivering 922,000 ounces in 2025 with cash and all-in -- within cash and all-in cost items. This strong finish to the year reflects continued progress at Greenstone and Valentine, alongside reliable performance from the balance of the portfolio.

Greenstone ramped steadily throughout the year, with Q4 gold production 60% higher than Q1. Valentine commissioning progressed exceeded expectations with first gold achieved in September and commercial production declared in November. The result of the team's focus and commitment to deliver is also measured in the significant transformation of our balance sheet.

In June 2025, our net debt was approximately $1.4 billion. And at the end of January, we had reduced it to $75 million, all while completing construction and commissioning of Valentine. With a stronger balance sheet and consistent robust cash flow, we are well positioned to take the next step in returning capital to our shareholders. Given the strong position, I am pleased to announce the company's inaugural quarterly cash dividend of $0.015 per share. Additionally, we are filing our notice of intent to initiate a share buyback of up to 5% of the issued and outstanding shares. Together, these actions mark the start of a disciplined capital return strategy and reinforce our commitment to delivering long-term per share value.

Turning to Slide 4. Touching briefly on the financial results, and Pete can provide additional color as required. Equinox had a strong finish to the year with 247,000 ounces produced in Q4. We sold over 242,000 ounces at a realized price of $4,060 per ounce, generating $579 million in adjusted EBITDA and $272 million in adjusted net income or $0.35 per share. Importantly, we exited 2025 with over $400 million in cash and minimal net debt, giving us financial flexibility heading into 2026.

Looking forward, we are encouraged by the strength of the gold price. However, the organization's focus is clear: cost control, disciplined capital allocation, and delivering consistent performance across the portfolio. As our cornerstone assets ramp up to nameplate, we see a clear path to expanding margins and strengthening free cash flow generation.

Turning to Slide 5. Greenstone finished with a strong fourth quarter, producing over 72,000 ounces, a 29% increase over Q3. We saw meaningful improvements in mining rates, mill throughputs and grade, with the plant achieving nameplate capacity for 30 consecutive days during December.

For 2026, we anticipate production of 250,000 to 300,000 ounces at all-in sustaining costs of between $1,750 and $1,850 per ounce. To support continued performance gains, we are making targeted investments in the operations including the purchase of a trommel and other mobile equipment designed to optimize mine and process plant performance.

Our long-term objective remains clear at Greenstone, to establish life of mine production around 300,000 ounces annually. We've demonstrated that the mill can process 30,000 tonnes a day. With the team we now have in place, I'm confident that we'll continue to build on the demonstrating meaningful operational improvements.

Consider the progress on the key metric of daily tonnes processed greater than nameplate over the last year. In H1 2025, we delivered 17% of the days greater than nameplate. In Q3, we increased to 28%, in Q4 to 36%. Looking at Q1 to date through yesterday, we're at 50%. So we're demonstrating continued and demonstrated steady ramp-up of the assets, which sets up well for the future.

At Valentine, we poured over 23,000 ounces of gold in Q4, its first quarter, with the plant averaging 90% of nameplate capacity. We expect to achieve constant or consistent nameplate throughput during Q2 2026, as we anticipate Valentine to contribute 150,000 to 200,000 ounces of gold this year. We are working on the feasibility study for the Phase 2 expansion that would increase throughput to 4.5 to 5 million tonnes per year and result in production of greater than 200,000 ounces a year for more than the next decade. I anticipate completing the feasibility study over the next couple of months, which will then go to the Board for investment approval in Q2 with work anticipated to commence in the second half of the year.

Valentine continues to show strong exploration upside. Our 2025 drill results confirm consistent high-grade mineralization over broad widths at the Frank Zone, supporting the potential for a fourth open pit. In 2026, we have 25,000 meters of drilling planned to advance the Frank Zone. We also announced a new discovery, the Minotaur Zone located 8 kilometers north of the mill with a 20,000-meter drill program set to begin this spring, the zone remains open for expansion. Importantly, the Minotaur discovery confirms that significant gold mineralization exists well outside of the main Valentine Lake Shear Zone, opening the broader property and reinforcing the long-term growth potential of the Valentine District beyond the current mine plan.

Turning to Slide 6. As we close, I want to underscore the momentum across the business. We have the key ingredients in place to deliver top quartile valuation, new high-quality, long-life assets in Tier 1 jurisdictions, and organic growth pipeline a team focused on delivering into expectations, which deliver strong free cash flow and return capital to shareholders.

In 2026, our priorities are clear. Ramp up Greenstone and Valentine to nameplate capacity, allocate capital in a disciplined and balanced manner across the portfolio, sustaining investment and shareholder returns while maintaining a strong balance sheet. Our inaugural dividend and application for a share buyback are key steps in this strategy. Consistent with our focus on disciplined growth, we are investing in the long-term value creation. This year, we will advance Phase 2 at Valentine, refresh Castle Mountain studies and progress Los Filos both technically and socially.

At Los Filos, I'm encouraged by the continued engagement with our host communities and support from the state and national governments as we remain focused on realizing the assets full potential and unlocking significant long-term value for all stakeholders. With a stronger portfolio, solid cash flow and clear execution priorities, we are entering into 2026 from a position of strength. Our focus remains on disciplined growth, operational delivery and creating long-term value responsibly and consistently for our shareholders and all stakeholders.

With that, we'll turn it over to the operator for any questions.

[Operator Instructions] And the first call for today will come from Francesco Costanzo with Scotiabank. .

I'll start with my first one here. It's great to see the announcement of an inaugural dividend alongside NCIB and with production and free cash flow growth on the horizon. Can you speak to the potential for this dividend to grow in the future and maybe your approach to fixed versus variable dividends? And then on the buyback program, can you explain your strategy for how you plan to deploy those funds?

Yes. Francesco, thanks for the comments. And I'll pass it across to Pete to talk about some capital allocation and specifically address the questions in around dividends and buybacks.

Yes. Thanks, Darren. Yes, we're really excited to be in a position to announce the inaugural dividend. It's been a long-term goal for the company, something we have talked about it over the past years. So we're really pleased to be able to do that now. And it underscores the confidence we have in our forward production profile and in our forward cash flow.

We started small with our inaugural dividend. We started with a fixed dividend. You can expect it to stay there for the coming future, probably the next 12, 24 months. As we firm up the development pipeline, the peer-leading development pipeline that we have, starting with our Valentine Phase 2 that Darren already mentioned and then looking forward to Castle Mountain heading into 2027.

So with that development in front of us, you can expect we'll stay on a fixed dividend, and we will be looking to increase that over time. And that will be a bit of a stay-tuned story with respect to those plans. But again, we're just really excited to have been able to announce the inaugural dividend.

With respect to the share buyback, we still feel there's a lot of opportunity in our stock price, and at these levels, again, being conservative in our approach. We want to be in a position to when we felt like we -- the shares were not trading as we think they should to be able to buy some of those back and also return capital to shareholders in that manner. And you can expect us to continue to do that. But again, with the peer-leading pipe development pipeline we have in the dollars, we're going to devote to that over the coming years for it to remain somewhat conservative.

Yes. Thanks, Pete. And just kind of layer there Francesco is that we will take a somewhat conservative view. But as we work through 2026, and we have a fulsome understanding about our capital requirements in '27 in lighter Valentine Phase 2, importantly, Castle Mountain with a record decision anticipated at the end of the year, and the positivity we see in and around the dialogue in Mexico, we will have some demands in 2027. We feel very comfortable in being able to fund those organically, but we want to make sure we don't put ourselves in a position where we overcommit to a return on capital through dividends and find ourselves compromised to fund the organic growth, which we don't anticipate, but I think that we've got an outstandingly positive look forward on our organic growth. So thanks for the question. .

Yes, great. Maybe just one more, switching gears here. The sale of the Brazilian assets definitely simplified the portfolio and accelerated deleveraging with the transaction closing in late January and the $900 million check already cleared. Although post close, there was a bit of news out of a certain Brazilian regulator. So I'm just wondering, Darren, if you can just explain the situation from your side of the table and tell us if there's anything to be concerned about here?

Yes. No. Thanks, Francesco. No, it's an interesting situation there. I mean we're confident the sale of the Brazilian operations fully comply with all laws and contractual obligations. And I'll provide a little context and bear with me as I do. And in Brazil, mineral resources are constitutionally owned by the federal government, and mining titles are granted and administrated by the National Mining Agency. Mining titles such as those for Aurizona, Bahia, and RDM are administered through the federal framework. At group Bahia, CBPM has made claim that their was required regarding the sale of the Santa Luz operation. However, the transaction took effect through the sale of the outstanding shares of 2 non-Brazilian wholly-owned subsidiaries that then indirectly own all of the Brazilian operations.

So we're kind of arms length away from that claim. But again, we, as Equinox and the pads on the other side of the transaction are confident that the sale of the Brazilian operations fully complied with the Brazilian law and all contractual obligations were met, and we remain committed to constructive dialogue with any party who wants to raise an issue. And as you mentioned, as a sale closed on January 23, we deployed proceeds towards debt reduction, strengthening the balance sheet. And along with cash flow from operations, resulted in ending cash with net debt of around $75 million, which has positioned the company to commence the capital return programs, which we just discussed.

The next question will come from Jeremy Hoy with Canaccord Genuity.

I'd just like to revisit something that was asked about a month ago when some of the team was through Toronto. And that's with -- if there was to be a positive development at low CLOs, it seems like the timing of that could go inside with Castle Mountain. Could you give us an update and a refresh on your thinking about how you would approach the development of both of those opportunities if it were both available at the same time?

Yes. Jeremy, I mean to be great to be in that Sophie's Choice first world sort of situation. But we are encouraged by the dialogue we're having in Mexico. We've got still a lot of work to do to establish robust 20-year land access agreement, which sets us up for most reliable production over the long term. But fuels is a significant asset. If we think about 16 million ounces in ore resource category. The opportunity that sits there is significant.

So our focus this year is really about understanding scope and scale and the early works that were done there in -- back in '21, 2022 with the feasibility study, we're all conceived at a $1,350 gold price in terms of the designs and around the open pits and the underground, not suggesting we would plan around $4,500 metal price. But if we consider something at $2,000 to $3,000 an ounce, the scope and scale of that asset changes materially. And so we'll work diligently through that this year. which will allow us to be in a much more intelligent position at the end of the year to make a decision if we're presented with the opportunities to develop.

But we are comfortable in. We see great opportunity in and to my earlier comments in and around the rate at which we increase dividends and buybacks will be somewhat foreshadowed by the rate at which we see these organic growth opportunities presented. But to make a decision between those 2 properties, we're a long way from that right now. We're confident in what we're seeing at Los Filos Filos. But we do have a guaranteed record of decision decision at Castle Mountain here in December of this year. So that is a known entity. We are working on that feasibility be able to firm up those estimates. So we're well positioned to be able to make a commitment decision in there in H1 in 2027. So let's see how the year progresses. But yes, spoiled for choices is kind of the way I would characterize it and fund it as well for whatever choices we make, which will be great.

Yes. We'll watch for developments at Los Filos and Castle eagerly. You did mention that we're going to see a refreshed study for Castle Mountain. Also, we would see the same for Los Filos if positive developments come there. Are you planning to release anything on Greenstone as we've spoken often about expectations for that operation be somewhat different from what was presented in the last feasibility study. Just wondering what we might see in terms of an updated like mine plan, will it come in the form of a study, what the timing might be, et cetera?

Yes. No, absolutely, Jeremy. To remove any ambiguity, we will provide updated technical reports for both Greenstone and Valentine right around the end of this quarter associated with our annual filings. So we get everything current nice enticed tied with the AIF and the AIF will also include a refresh and clarity on our reserves and resources as at December 31 as well. So that's the time for those properties for Castle. We're continuing to work in the background on the feasibility study and no surprises from what we've articulated over the last 6 months. We're just going through crossing tea starting eyes firming things up so that we have a high level of confidence in and around the scope of work so we can go out there and have constructive discussions with EPCM contractors and the like in the back half of this year.

Filos is a little earlier in the process. We're in the process of kind of doing an order of magnitude study to understand scope and scale associated with that property, and I anticipate that, that will probably lead into a, I'll call it, a pre-fees, if you will, early in Q2 as we have a bit of an appreciation for scope and scale. Hopefully, we're in a situation where we've debottleneck some of the land access agreements, which allow us then to actively explore across all portions of the deposit and then allow us to appropriately scope and scale. So a little bit of what might sound like confusion there in Los Filos, but it's actually very positive. And again, we see -- again, I think the stat is probably somewhere in the fourth or fifth largest not operating gold assets in the Americas right now. So the talk there is significant. The opportunity is real, and we're definitely seeing a change in narrative out of Mexico, which is great.

The next question will come from Anita Soni with CIBC World Markets.

Just a few on Greenstone. So I was just wondering the recovery rate declined a little bit from third quarter to fourth quarter. Can you give us some color on why that was?

Yes. Anita, thank you absolutely did. I think we've discussed previously that there is an association with arsenic and grade. We did see a much higher grades in the fourth quarter and a consequence saw lower recoveries associated with the arsenic lockup. So not an issue per se. It's kind of all anticipated and expected as part of the metallurgy of the deposit, so.

And then just a similar question, just on the unit costs. The G&A was a little bit higher this quarter. Was there anything specific that was happening this quarter that would be alleviated in the go forward?

Yes, there is. I'll pass it to Pete.

Yes. Anita, sorry, I don't have the G&A details at hand. Can I reach out to you or one of your associates after the call? I'll pull that together. Yes.

And then I had one more on just a question that I noticed for both Valentine and Greenstone. I wanted you to explain to me how are you -- how you guys are calculating the the recovery rates as they come out because when I put the tonnes the grade and the output of production, I'm getting to recovery rates that are a little bit different. I've said differently, I would have got about 75,000 ounces of gold by the 3 numbers there, and you reported 72 and Valentine is a similar issue. So I'm just wondering, like are you calculating it as it exits the mill? Or is there a certain different point at what you're saying, this is production?

No. I think we'll find that the small differences we may see there is that the numbers we quote as production are poured and bullion and some of the tonnes grade recovery will be metallurgical as well. So there will be a minor change there based on inventory changes. And to your point, I think you'll probably end up with a marginally higher recovery at Greenstone in Q4 than maybe what we reported, if you back into the metal content because we actually did see an inventory build at Greenstone in fourth quarter. But we can -- we're happy to sit down and walk through that in a model discussion, happy to do that. But I think we'll find it's kind of the metallurgical production versus the pure production differences. .

Your next question will come from Mohamed Sidibe with National Bank.

Maybe staying on Greenstone. And given your comments on the throughput and the ability to achieve over the nameplate capacity. How should we think about the throughput levels in 2026? And call it, in the medium term at Greenstone, should we still be thinking about 27,000 tonnes per day of work towards increasing it towards that 30,000 tonnes per day to maybe offset some of the autopista maybe coming to the tech report.

Yes. No, thanks, Mohamed. And I say here that have a good Ramadan, right, day 1. So -- if we think about throughput, we've guided 250,000 to 300,000 ounces at Greenstone this year, and we hold firm on that. We will see opportunities over the course of the year to continue to improve throughput. Some of that is already baked into our numbers. We've demonstrated the ability to do more than 30,000 tonnes a day, which will be more longer term. But through this year, I think that the big round numbers are, if you think about 9.5 million tonnes of around 1.1 grams per tonne at feasibility recoveries you get into that midpoint of guidance. So I think that's a good place to hang our hat.

So I think of recoveries average over the year in that 25,000, 26,000 tonnes a day. There will be days we do better. And as we're demonstrating as we -- when we operate the plant, as I mentioned earlier, I mean month or quarter to date, we've got 40 -- 50% of the days greater than nameplate. So -- and we are seeing sustained and improved performance on a daily basis. Our focus now is reducing downtime and getting the operations guys more time to be able to run the plant. And that's our focus. And it's going to be a journey through this year, and there will be dips and waves along the way. The grades will be higher and lower, depending on where we're mining. The recoveries as a need of for shadow will be different based on different metallurgical types. So there will be some peaks and valleys through the year, but the trends on a quarter-by-quarter basis will remain positive. And I would like us to see see us coming out of 2027, looking to be talking more intelligently to those 30,000 tonne a day rates going forward. As we -- the HPGRs and store capacity are probably mid-30, 30,000, 35,000 tonnes a day, but we've got to get the reliable performance through the plant before we can start to talk about those sort of numbers openly and public given I am now, but to be able to commit to those is we've got some work to do this year.

Maybe if I could switch quickly to Valentine. And given the asset is in ramp-up phase, can you give us some color on the cadence in terms of quarter-over-quarter production should we expect higher production in the second half? And what magnitude should we be modeling for 2026?

Yes. No, absolutely. I mean, we're in the second quarter of ramp-up. And Newfoundland through some surprises that is in January. Full disclosure. We think about -- we had 90% throughput in a percentage of nameplate in Q4. And we think about January and January was 70%, right? It got cold, it got better. There were some learnings associated with the winter and we've worked through those. I mean -- in February, we're now at 110% of nameplate. So there's peaks and troughs and valleys as we work through. But the team are systematically addressing those things, we will continue to see quarter-on-quarter improvement in reliability in the plant, which will lead to higher tonnes, which will lead to improved confidence in feeding higher-grade material. So we'll say that grades will be manifested that way as well.

So we're still comfortable with our guidance of 150,000 to 200,000 ounces, but it's definitely H2 weighted as a function of throughput and also greater making progress in developing the very pit. So -- but we're happy to sit down and walk through a model and fill in some blanks for you as well quarter-on-quarter, not fill in, but -- that's just with that math.

The next question will come from John Tumazos with John Tumazos Very Independent Research.

Looking at the big picture, the current gold price is $5,000 neighborhood and say $800 million of CapEx. You generate something like $600 million more cash paying off all the debt. It looks like your -- you had a couple of extra dollars buying around. Are you planning the business on $400 gold plus success at all 5 locations where all the capital calls come in because you've got more gold produced as opposed to building a war chest for acquisitions.

Yes, John. No, it's a first-world predict we're in, I guess, is that our focus is given the opportunities we see with organic growth is ensuring that we exit this year well funded to be able to do that organic growth. M&A is not on our radar. If something passes our screen that makes sense, we will do something. But I can assure you, as of today, we do not have a CA signed with anyone. So our focus is absolutely optimizing what we've got. We spent a lot of time and effort putting all of these assets together over the last 6 or 7 years and now is our time to be able to start to realize that from that growth.

With 400,000 to 500,000 ounces of organic growth in our portfolio that we can see over the next 5 years, I mean, that's where our focus is. So -- there's been a positive confusion in our story right now as we've significantly delevered from $1.5 billion worth of net debt to 0. We're generating cash. We see the opportunities that present in 2027 and beyond. And let's make sure that we do the intelligent thing for the long term in 2026, which is to remain absolutely focused on operational performance, and don't lose sight of the fact that we produce widgets at a cost. So let's keep that business focused on that so we can maximize our margin of whatever gold price there is and then use that capture to be able to fund our organic growth.

I don't know, Pete, anything you'd layer on that, but.

We're -- you've highlighted, John, really well that we're in a great position to fund this future growth. And we're really focused on ensuring that we retained a very solid and build on the various solid foundation that we've laid in place here over the last several months. As Darren said, to build out these world-class assets that we are very fortunate to have in our pipeline. .

I can ask one more.

Sorry, go on, John.

No, you go ahead.

No, no, no, no. You guys we work for you, right? So the investors, our focus is we're aligned with you, and we...

In Nicaragua, you projected $1,800 cash costs up 40% or a little more on 225,000 ounces of output. The second half came in better than that. Could you give us some color on how the costs are going up so much in Nicaragua?

Yes. No. Thanks, John. It's a bit of a first well problem. What we're seeing here is the majority of the cost increase is not cost inflation per se, but it's volume driven. As we develop some newer pits and an underground that are going to basically fund or fuel a level of production at that 200,000 to 250,000 ounces a year over the next 5 years, there's some increased capital that results in those higher strip ratio and reflects in a higher all-in sustaining cost. So that's really where that comes from. It's not a driving that kind of cost per tonne mined or a cost per tonne process. It's volume-driven as we go from arguably what I'll call smaller pitlets to larger pits, highest refracs this year, and that's manifested itself in higher all-in sustaining costs. So which lays us up well for the next 5 years, which is kind of our story has been over the last 5 years in Nicaragua is to take some assets that were headed towards closure and we produced what 1 billion -- 1.2 million, 1.3 million ounces from those properties in the last 5 years, and we've taken reserves from extensively 100,000 ounces to an excess of 1 million ounces. So 5 -- let's say, 5 years, 40,000 ounces a year of organic growth. Now we're starting to see track in front of the train. We're investing in that from developing these larger pits, which will continue that momentum for the next 5 years. So that's really what it is, John.

With the cash cost, the second year out 2027 drop, say, the $1,500 in Nicaragua after this surge.

I mean I think we'll see that the strip ratio go down, and that will have a positive impact on all-in sustaining costs. Yes.

Congratulations.

Appreciate it, John. Thanks for your support. I know you've been a shareholder for a long time and persistent through the doing. Thank you.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Darren Hall for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Yes. Thank you, operator. And I'd like to thank all of our shareholders for their continued support and your participation and the questions today. It is appreciated and valued. As always, Ryan, Dave, Pete and I are always available if you have any further questions, and take care, be well, and I'll pass it back to the operator.

This brings a close to today's conference call. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you for your participation, and have a pleasant day.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Equinox Gold Third Quarter 2025 Results and Corporate Update. [Operator Instructions] And the conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Ryan King, EVP, Capital Markets for Equinox Gold. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking the time to join the call with us this morning. Before we commence, I'd like to direct everyone to our forward-looking statements on Slide 2. Our remarks and answers to your questions today may contain forward-looking information about the company's future performance. Although management believes our forward-looking statements are based on fair and reasonable assumptions, actual results may turn out to be different from these forward-looking statements. For a complete discussion of the risks, uncertainties and factors that may lead to actual operating and financial results being different from the estimates contained in our forward-looking statements, please refer to the risks identified in the section titled risks related to the business in Equinox Gold's most recently filed annual information form, which is available on SEDAR+, on EDGAR and on our website.

And finally, I should mention that all figures are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated. With me on the call today are Darren Hall, Chief Executive Officer; Pete Hardie, Chief Financial Officer; and David Schummer, Chief Operating Officer. We will be discussing our third quarter 2025 production and cost results and providing an update on ramp-up progress at our Greenstone and Valentine mines after which we will take questions. The slide deck we are referencing is available for download on our website at equinoxgold.com, under the Shareholder Events section. You can also click on the webcast link to join the live presentation. And with that, I will turn the call over to Darren.

Thanks, Ryan, and turning to Slide 3. Good morning, everyone, and I appreciate you taking the time to join us on the call today. Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the efforts of all of Equinox's employees and business partners for their continued focus to responsibly deliver over 236,000 ounces during our first full quarter, including Calibre assets. Well done to the entire team. It is truly an exciting time for Equinox as we begin to realize the value of our expanded Americas-focused gold portfolio anchored by 2 new cornerstone gold mines in Greenstone and Valentine. As I've mentioned previously, the leadership team, supported by the entire organization is focused on creating shareholder returns by consistently delivering on its commitments, which are focused on demonstrated operational excellence, advancing high-return organic growth, rationalizing the portfolio and disciplined capital allocation.

These are more than just words. Over the last quarter, we have made material progress on each of these commitments. Just a few examples: operational excellence. Production and costs were in line or favorable compared to consensus expectations and we remain on track to deliver into our full year consolidated production guidance. Importantly, we have made meaningful progress at Greenstone, which I'll talk to shortly. Advancing high-return organic growth. We poured force gold at Valentine where the ramp-up is progressing extremely well, a game, which I'll provide color on shortly.

Additionally, Castle Mountain was accepted into the U.S. Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council's FAST-41 permitting program, which defines an anticipated record of decision in December of 2026. Rationalizing the portfolio. Post quarter end, we closed the sale of our Nevada assets for $115 million, including $88 million in cash. Disciplined capital allocation. We retired $139 million of debt during Q3 and have commenced Q4 with an additional $25 million in October. Turning to Slide 4. During Q3, we sold 239,000 ounces at an average cost of $1,434 per ounce at an all-in sustaining cost of just over $1,800 per ounce which underscores the enhanced scale and earnings power of the new company.

Our adjusted net income was $147 million or $0.19 per share with adjusted EBITDA of $420 million. We ended the quarter with $348 million in cash, not including the $88 million from the sale of our Nevada assets, which closed post quarter end. With year-to-date production of 634,000 ounces, we are well positioned to deliver the midpoint of our 2025 production guidance of 785,000 to 915,000 ounces after divesting Nevada and prior to considering any production from Valentine. Equinox has entered a pivotal phase with increasing Canadian production driven by asset optimization and the addition of Valentine, positioning us for stronger cash flow and earnings in the quarters ahead.

Turning to Slide 5. Greenstone's performance improved meaningfully in Q3, and we remain on track to deliver into the low end of our production guidance at Greenstone. Importantly, Q3 mining rates exceeded 185,000 tonnes per day, which was a 10% increase over Q2 and a 21% increase over Q1. Importantly, process grades improved 13% in Q3 to 1.05 grams per tonnes. Improvements to pit floors, haul roads and dumps, along with implementation of double-side loading have led to lower cycle times and increased productivity. Our focus on equipment maintenance practices, more efficient shift changes and the use of hot seating during shifts is also contributing to improved equipment utilization, which is resulting in increased daily mining performance.

Since July, we have implemented additional dilution management measures, including enhanced grade control protocols and improved tracking systems, which is positively contributing to increased grades quarter-over-quarter. In the mill, despite 10 days of downtime due to planned maintenance events, including a 7-day shut to replace HPGR grinding rolls, total tonnes processed in Q3 were consistent with Q2 as we saw a 6% improvement in tonnes per hour processed. Further process improvements are underway, including commissioning of additional final refeed and core source stockpile conveyors that will enable consistent delivery material to the grinding circuit during periods of downs by providing additional redundancy.

The positive momentum has continued into Q4 with October mining rates exceeding 205,000 tonnes per day, a 10% increase over Q3. In the process plant, we have seen mill grades improve to 1.34 grams per tonne, a 27% increase over Q3 and a 15% improvement in tonnes milled per day versus the Q3 average. The strategy being made across the board, coupled with increasing grades underscores our confidence that Greenstone will deliver a strong Q4 and continue that momentum into 2026. Turning to Slide 6. Valentine commissioning continues ahead of expectations with ore introduced into the circuit on August 27 and first gold was poured on September 14. The plant averaged nearly 5,000 tonnes per day or 73% of nameplate for the first 66 days of operation.

Performance in October continues to demonstrate strong progress with throughput averaging over 6,200 tonnes per day or 91% of nameplate. Importantly, 18 days or 58% of the days during October were greater than nameplate. Recoveries exceeded 93% for the month from lower grade commissioning ores, which again, are consistent with feasibility level recoveries, albeit a lower grade. Performance at this level is truly a testament to the robustness of the design and disciplined execution by our construction, commissioning and operations teams over the last 18 months. While we're still early in the journey, based on what I have seen, I fully expect Valentine to deliver into the upper end of the Q4 production range of 15,000 to 30,000 ounces.

With the ramp-up progressing extremely well, I anticipate Valentine will reach nameplate capacity by Q2 2026. On this basis, 2026 should be a strong year with production anticipated to be between 150,000 to 200,000 ounces. In parallel, we're advancing our Phase II expansion studies and see a clear path to increasing throughput to between 4.5 million to 5 million tonnes per year. I will provide a fulsome update when we announce full funds approval which I anticipate in early Q2 2026. Concurrently exploration drilling has accelerated across the property with 4 drills in operation, the team is following up on several new discoveries, including the previously released Frank Zone. Assays are pending for a number of significant intercepts, which could meaningfully add to the resource base in the coming years.

Needless to say, we are very optimistic on Valentine's exploration potential. Turning to Slide 7. Looking to 2026, I expect continued improvement in production and cash flow, supported by increasing contributions from both Greenstone and Valentine. We have seen a lift in our share price over the past few months, supported by a stronger gold price and steady operational delivery. That being said, I believe there is still a disconnect between our intrinsic value and how we are currently trading. Since 2022, our peers have seen significantly higher equity performance and while I recognize we've got work to do as we continue to build confidence by delivering our commitments. I believe there's a meaningful upside potential in our share price.

The opportunity ahead is significant, and our strategy is solid. By demonstrating operational excellence, advancing our high-return organic growth assets, rationalizing the portfolio with a disciplined capital allocation strategy, I'm confident that we will become a reliable top quartile value to diversify gold producer. With that, operator, we are ready to take questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question today comes from Francesco Costanzo with Scotiabank.

Congrats on a good quarter. Maybe I'll start with Valentine. With the first of gold poured that was completed in September. Can you discuss some of the key performance milestones that you're tracking during the mine and mill ramp up? And then maybe after that, could you give us an update on the Phase II expansion study to increase the throughput to 5 million tonnes per annum?

Yes. Francisco, thanks and appreciate yours and Scotia's continued support. When we think about the milestones of Valentine, I guess, is that there's a lot of moving parts as you birth a new asset like Valentine. But I guess as the headline number here is that if we think of the first 66 days of performance of the entire facility since introducing ore in August 27, we've exceeded 70% of nameplate. And if we think about October in isolation, it's over 90% of nameplate. So all of the things that the team are focused on are clearly delivering in a great product.

And as we look forward, they're now thinking about what's happening next, which is a good segue into Phase 2. We've tried purposely not to distract the team with Phase 2. But in the background, we have been doing work and over the last quarter, we've continued on our, we'll call it, options study analysis. And we now have good clarity on what the preferred option is going forward. And it's really a much simpler view than what we'd ever seen before. It doesn't include the addition of flotation. It specifically includes the addition of a twin ball mill, which provides additional redundancy in the circuit, which we see will comfortably deliver close to 5 million tonnes.

So in this month, we'll actually commence the feasibility study and as I foresee earlier, I would anticipate going to the board in early Q2 for full funds approval so I would anticipate providing a fairly fulsome update here in the latter part of Q1 or early Q2.

Yes, that's great. Maybe if I could just 1 more on deleveraging. So net debt currently sitting around $1.3 billion. Can you outline your strategy for deleveraging and how that might relate to portfolio rationalization work that's underway. And with the Pan sale now closed, can you maybe highlight when we might expect to see the next transactions?

Sure. I guess there are 2 things that are running in parallel that we can kind of put a ring fence, if you will, around portfolio optimization. But if we think about -- I think you mentioned a $1.3 billion net debt. And if we look forward for the next 12 months and we think about our production portfolio, we call it 1 million ounces given the buoyancy and the privilege we see with buoyancy and gold price right now, and we look at our total cost, it's easy to see over $1 billion that we can put against delevering the balance sheet. So ignoring any asset sales, by the end of next year, we're going to be in a very, very solid liquidity position with a significant portion, if not the majority of our debt extinguished.

So as we start to think about Valentine coming online, I would anticipate that we'll definitely be fully funded on Valentine before we make a go commitment. And we think about the additional organic growth that comes post that with Castle Mountain, we're going to be in a very solid position with that as well. Now specifically as it relates to our assets, well, if I think of assets as children, I love them all, but for the right price, I'll gladly part with one. So we have seen interest in some of our assets. And to that end, there are people when we encourage people, if you're interested in having a discussion come to us and we'll gladly entertain and we'll see how it makes sense.

And if those assets and that offer would make more sense and value to our shareholders in someone else's hand versus ours. But we're not desperate to transact. But for the right price, if it makes sense for our shareholders, we'll gladly entertain and progress any opportunities. But this is very clearly a path for us to realize some additional value and look at how we could use cash from any sales in terms of funding our organic growth portfolio. But to reinforce also, this is looking at disposal of, not acquisitions.

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

Darren, I just wanted to ask about your calculation of mine site free cash flow. I think there are some items in there that relate to basically nonoperating mines, so Los Filos, Castle Mountain and Valentine. Can you give a breakout of percentages or even millions of dollars like which ones I would allocate it to?

Yes, Anita. Again, I don't have that information in front of me, but I'll ask Peter. Pete, you're in a position to...

Unfortunately, no, not at this moment, Anita. I'm happy to -- we'll have that for you after the call.

Okay. Then I'll ask on Valentine, a follow-up question, I guess. On Valentine, the grades that you're introducing right now, it was like 0.77 grams per tonne, I think. And then I'm just -- not that this is the time to be concerned, but I was just curious, was that just a deliberate decision right now until you get the recovery rates where you want them to be, not to waste or is that something where you are in the mining sequence at lower grades initially? And how will that evolve over the next couple of quarters?

No. Thanks, Anita. And I appreciate the question, and it's a really, really good question. No, we're seeing very solid and actually positive reconciliation from our ore control to our resource and reserve models at Valentine. So very comfortable with what we see there, as we've talked about previously. As we talk about being in the first 2 months, we've specifically commissioned the plant on lower-grade materials. And the reason being is this that we want to practice on material is less important. But in hindsight, Jason and the team have done such a fantastic job that we probably should have just commissioned on the highest grade material because we're seeing recoveries in excess of feasibility out of the gate.

So no, the team has done a great. But no, it's been a purposeful decision to process lower-grade materials and ramp up as we get comfortable with getting to the point where we can declare commercial production, which we would anticipate probably in the next month or so, right, definitely in the quarter.

Okay. So I'm going to ask 1 more since the first one didn't get answered, if that's okay. But it's similar on the grades going into Greenstone. So I think it said in October, you're at 1.34 gram per tonne material. I'm not sure if it was being fed to the mill or if that was what was being mined. But if it's 1.34, are you starting to see higher grades coming out of the pit specifically the underground areas where you were wondering if sort of the remnants around the old workings were there or not? Like have we seen -- is there any progress or update on the profile of the skin?

Yes. No, absolutely. And thanks again for the great question. Is that if we think about quarter-on-quarter, we saw a significant improvement at grades milled at Greenstone. It did go to 1.05 and they are milled grades, not mine grades. We have seen an improvement in mine grades as well in the quarter. I mean average mine grade in Q3 was 0.91 grams per tonne compared to $0.78 in Q2 and as you're aware, we're mining more material than what we're processing. We're purposefully processing the higher grade material. And from the material we are seeing, we are seeing a higher grade because of where we position ourselves geographically.

But secondly, I think that the concerted focus we've had on getting reliable tonnes mined, which is allowing the team to focus on quality which is minimizing dilution and then also being very purposeful in and around how we treat material in and around the voids is definitely having a very positive impact on grade. And I think I mentioned on the earlier part of this call that there's been a focus for quite some time. But I'll suffice to say, in July, things got pretty serious with respect to grade, and we saw a step change in September with the average grade in September process to 1.38 and we've been able to maintain a 1.34 in October.

So I think what we're seeing is a combination of the performance in the mine, allowing for focus on quality, which is allowing for a consistency in grade fed, which was always the model, but I think that we've got the right people focused on the right things, and we're starting to see the benefit from. So that, coupled with the continued improvements we see in mill throughput on a tonnes per hour or tonnes per day basis will definitely lead to a much stronger Q4 with growth momentum into 2026.

The next question comes from Mohamed Sidibe with National Bank Capital Markets.

Maybe I could start with Greenstone. Just wondering if you could maybe give us a little bit of color on your current stockpile in terms of tonnage and grade at Greenstone currently, if possible?

Yes. No, sure. At the end of month October, again, this is from memory, but I guess is that the important part of the stockpile is the highest grade material and we have the better part of a month of high-grade material in front of us and the grades in excess of 1.5 grams. Then there's the other material, which is a little lower grade material, but we're talking 2 million or 3 million tonnes at around 0.7 grams per tonne and then we've got the lower grade material as well. But in total, we've got in excess of 8 million tonnes of stockpile in front of the plant as it stands today.

That's great. And maybe if I could just move in terms of capital allocation priorities. I think back in Q2, you talked about, of course, deleveraging your balance sheet, paying down debt and reinvesting within your growth projects. But in terms of capital return, you had talked about potentially mid-2026. Since then, I think gold has moved over $500 per ounce. Have your thoughts changed around your capital return program at all? Or should we still target mid 2026 for a potential update on that front?

Well, I guess, is kind of foreshadowed earlier, if we kind of ignore any potential cash that can come in from an asset divestment, I think we're going to find ourselves significantly delevered by the end of 2026 and at that point, we'll be having some pretty material conversations about vehicles to be able to return additional capital to shareholders. I mean, Pete, what would you layer on this one.

Yes. I think, Mohamed, if you're -- as you said, if you're looking at 2026, that will be a 2026 discussion. So for purposes of modeling, if you will, just assume no capital returns for next year. We are really very entirely focused, as Darren just said a couple of times now on delevering.

Yes. And if we think about capital allocation holistically. Aside from exploration, the most accretive investment we can make is to ensure that we deliver into our production commitments at a responsible price. From that, with cash it's delevering the balance sheet, but it's positioning ourselves for our significant organic growth as we see through Valentine Phase 2, Castle Mountain. And then the additional benefit we'll see from Los Filos in the next couple of years as well. So I think our strategy on capital allocation is very clear.

And if we find ourselves with a cash inflow vis-a-vis an asset disposal that could then provide additional talk to return capital to shareholders through a dividend or a share buyback or some other form. But the organic growth opportunity within the portfolio, exploration and the assets are mentioned Valentine, Castle, Los Filos will provide significant returns to our shareholders.

The next question comes from John Tumazos with Very Independent Research.

Could you elaborate on the Phase 2 expansion to 5 million tonnes potentially for Valentine. Would the 15,000 tonnes a day, be it the same grade to suggest the 2029 output as much as 400,000 ounces?

Yes, John -- and thanks for the question. I appreciate your support. If we think about the feasibility study that was put out at the end of 2022 for Valentine, it had a 2.5 million tonne base plant, expanded to 4 million tonnes. And what that did is that delivered into the feasibility study, which generated a 175,000 to 200,000 ounces a year over a reserve life of 14 years. So now what we've been looking at is what's that optimal increment that we could add to the base facility. And what we've been looking at is that optionality. So where we see right now is this that we see a path to something that's comfortably in that, call it, 5 million tonnes because it makes the math easy so would it be a 20% increment in throughput over what was included in the feasibility study.

So I think then you make some assumptions on what would the incremental grade be. So if we be -- let's be -- let's assume that the grade is consistent with the average. It would then demonstrate a proportional increment of 25% improvement in production. Stepping back, I think that if we look at this -- the exploration success we've seen from Frank and the other potential along the property that will all come together around the same time. I think over the next year, we'll be sitting back and saying, clearly, we'll have an optimal incremental throughput, the material that feeds into that will be significantly impacted by our exploration success, and we look at optimizing the plants. Everything we've done to date has assumed the same relatively conservative mine plan, resource base and pit designs that we used in the 2022 feasibility study.

So I think that we have a very favorable view on the increment at Valentine. But I think that will become more favorable as we optimize the plant 4 or 5 million tonne plant, and we start to see the benefits from the reconciliation that we anticipate going forward. Early days, but given the nature of the deposit, I would anticipate we're likely to see some positivity in terms of reconciliation above a cutoff. So no, I think that it's -- it's too early to say absolutely what the numbers are, John. But if I was sitting on your side of the table, trying to fill in a model, I would probably replace the $4 million with $5 million and then use something that was just proportional on throughput accordingly. Throughput beg your pardon on ounces.

If I can ask another, what is the best way to manage the benches at Greenstone when you have waste benches, 0.7 gram stockpile benches. And then highs as nice as 1.5 grams. Do you have all the same size shovels and trucks? Or do you have a few half size to quarter size shovels and trucks to go in and get those sweet spots without waste.

It's a good question. It leads to really a selectivity issue, John, in terms of how selective can you be. And I think that we're seeing that with the level of control, we can be more selective. But to take the situation where you're running from, say, a 10 or a 12-meter bench. You're making the benches smaller. Do we think there's going to be a material improvement inability to be able to deliver higher grade as a function of selectivity -- and I think in short, it's early days, but I don't believe from what I see, there's going to be a significant opportunity. There's going to be interesting areas where maybe it's more relevant than others.

But generally speaking, I consider as it stands today, a Greenstone is more of a bulk mining, want to have a level of quality. But for the equipment size is rightsized for the operation we have, and it's really going to be about lowering our unit cost of production vis-a-vis mining processing and spending G&A as efficiently as we possibly can to have the most positive impact we can on all-in sustaining costs and maintaining margins given whatever gold price. And I'll maybe ask Tom. Tom, is there any layer in there from a selectivity perspective in terms of what we see from a resource reserve perspective.

No, Darren, I think you covered it. I think the again, John, some of the things mentioned in the commentary of the conference call with respect to some of the ore control practices and things we're putting in with some of the automated systems and paying close attention to the geology as we go bench to bench is helping manage dilution. And we definitely are looking at some of these selectivity studies in the background. But to Darren's point, on mass, there doesn't appear to be a benefit. There can be selective areas where we can go in and be very in certain areas pick cherries out. But on mass, John, this isn't going to be a flitched -- several fetched benches as we go down.

Again, if we think about the contrary here at Valentine, we see good opportunity, and we have 2 specific mining fleets, a larger fleet, the smaller fleet and specifically to use a smaller fleet where there's a good opportunity to be more selective, and therefore, preferentially mine at a lower grade, not only just use the stockpiles. So yes. No, I think we have a good plan at Greenstone and we'll continue to look for those opportunities to positively impact grade.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Darren Hall for any closing remarks.

Yes. Thank you, operator. I'd just like to close by thanking all of our stakeholders for their continued support and everyone's participation and questions on the call this morning. It is appreciated and valued. And as always, Ryan, I and the entire leadership team are always available if you have any further questions. So with that, take care. Be well and back to the operator.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Equinox Gold Second Quarter 2025 Results and Corporate Update. [Operator Instructions] and the conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Ryan King, Executive Vice President, Capital Markets for Equinox Gold. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Well, good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking the time to join the call this morning. Before we commence, I'd like to direct everyone to the forward-looking statement on Slide 2. Our remarks and answers to your questions today may contain forward-looking information about the company's future performance, although management believes that our forward-looking statements are based on fair and reasonable assumptions, actual results may turn out to be different from these forward-looking statements. For a complete discussion of the risks uncertainties and factors which may lead to actual operating and financial results being different from the estimates contained in our forward-looking statements, please refer to our second quarter and year-to-date MD&A and consolidated financial statements available on our website as well as on SEDAR+.

And finally, all figures are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated. Present today with me on the call are Darren Hall, Chief Executive Officer; Peter Hardie, Chief Financial Officer; and David [ Schumer, ] Chief Operating Officer. We will be providing comments on our second quarter 2025 production and cost results and an update on the Greenstone and the Valentine Gold Mines, after which we'll take questions. The slide deck we will be referencing is available on our website at equinoxgold.com, under the Shareholder Events section.

You can also click on the webcast to join the live presentation. And with that, I will turn the call over to Darren.

Turning to Slide 3, and thanks, Ryan. Good morning, everyone, and I appreciate you taking the time to join us on the call today. Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the efforts of our employees and business partners for their continued focus during the quarter to responsibly deliver over 219,000 ounces during what can be a distracting time as you integrate 2 businesses together. So well done, and thanks to everyone. With the completion of the merger, we have created a significant Americas-focused gold producer anchored by 2 cornerstone Canadian mines, Greenstone and Ballantyne. It is definitely exciting times as we build One Equinox with the leadership team and the entire organization focused on delivering on its commitments, operational excellence, advancing high-quality organic growth rationalizing the portfolio and importantly, disciplined capital allocation.

The benefits of bringing the teams together are already paying dividends. One example of which is reflected in improvements at Greenstone, which we'll talk to later. The company has entered into a pivotal phase with production, cash flow and earnings expected to grow meaningfully in the coming quarters. Turning to Slide 4. Q2 financial results predominantly reflect Equinox's premerger assets -- on an attributable basis, the company sold just over 148,000 ounces at an average realized price of $3,200 an ounce.

Interestingly, as the Calibre transaction being effective January 1, and the pro forma consolidated revenue for H1 would have been approximately $1.33 billion from 401,000 ounces, which clearly underscores the enhanced scale and earnings power of the new company. Looking forward, Q3 and Q4 will see increasing production as we benefit from a full quarter of contribution from the Calibre assets, continued improved performance at Greenstone and First Gold from Valentine. Turning to Slide 5. Greenstone is a key focus. The ramp-up is progressing, and we are seeing tangible improvements.

Q2 delivered solid results, where mining rates increased 23% and processing rates improved 20% over Q1. Building on that momentum, Q3 is off to a strong start. With reported to-date mining rates 10% higher than Q2 and with month-to-date August mining rates averaging 200,000 tonnes per day. Over the 30 days ending August 10, we processed an average of 24,500 tonnes per day with more than 1/3 of of the days above the nameplate capacity of 27,000 tonnes per day.

There is still work to do as we focus on minimizing dilution and mining losses around historical workings concurrently with targeted programs to improve fleet productivity and operating discipline. I'm pleased to introduce Dave [ Schummer ] as Equinox' Chief Operating Officer, who brings over 35 years of mining experience to the business. Dave and I worked together at Newmont and most recently Calibre, and he has been working closely with the Greenstone team since mid-May to accelerate the ramp-up, improve efficiencies to safely deliver reliable performance.

With that, I will ask Dave to discuss a little more color on some of the team's recent progress at Greenstone.

Thanks, Darren. We've moved quickly to put more horsepower behind Greenstone's ramp-up. This includes bringing in seasoned advisers with decades of load and haul experience. improving shovel loading cycle times through operator training, the addition of ancillary equipment to maintain pit floors and shovel dig faces and the introduction of double-side loading to essentially eliminate all truck spotting time.

We've also recently taken steps to bring in technical specialists to optimize and monitor our blast designs and performance, targeting improved fragmentation, reduced dilution and improved ore presentation to the mill. On the hauling side of things, improved road designs and construction, tighter dump exchanges and recently added support equipment are all helping us move material much more efficiently through increased average speed across the haulage fleet.

These enhancements, along with a concerted effort to reduce operating delays, specifically through the implementation of an efficient hot change between ships are already contributing significantly to stronger daily performance. As Darren mentioned, month-to-date August mining rates have been around 200,000 tonnes per day, with best demonstrated performance to date of 227,000 tonnes per day and the focus remains on driving dilution down and fine tuning the process plan to steadily improved operating time, throughput and recovery. Turning to Slide 6, and back to you, Darren.

Thanks, Dave. Ballantyne is a conventional crush grind CIL plant and will be our second Canadian cornerstone mine and a significant contributor to cash flow. Before providing the Valentine update, it's important to note there are currently active wildfires in Newfoundland and Labrador, with a number of communities on evacuation alert. Our thoughts and best wishes go out to those impacted and our operations have not been impacted, but we remain vigilant and supporting those that have been.

In Q2 2024, we assembled an operating team with significant commissioning experience led by Jason [ Sie, ] who's been working symbiotically with [ Kyle Kunz and Pier Lagarde, ] who are leading the construction front over the last year. This investment in talent is paying off as evidenced by our current state of operational readiness, which includes the process plant is fully energized, key circuits have been tested and commissioning crews are working through performance verification. Maintenance systems alive, operating procedures have been developed and crews have trained.

We have invested over $25 million in critical spares to support a smooth ramp-up. First ore to the plant is scheduled to commence before the end of August, with first gold anticipated approximately a month later, followed by a steady ramp-up to nameplate capacity in Q1 2026. Turning to Slide 7. With Greenstone ramping towards nameplate capacity and Valentine on track until the First Gold, we are entering a period where production and cash flow will materially increase -- these 2 Cornerstone Canadian assets, combined with our diversified portfolio, give us the scale, stability and leverage to gold price required to drive a step change in margins, earnings and therein, shareholder value.

Our strategy is clear: quality over quantity, focus on production that moves the needle in terms of free cash flow and valuation, advance high return organic growth invest where we create the most value per dollar spent, rationalize and streamline continuously assess the portfolio to focus our human and financial capital on our best opportunities, A recent example of which is the sale of our Nevada assets for $115 million, deliver tangible returns. Share price appreciation through margin expansion disciplined cost control and production growth, while positioning the company to return capital directly to shareholders through dividends and/or share buybacks once our deleveraging objectives are achieved.

We are focused on executing with discipline, and I'm confident in our ability to realize our vision to be a top quartile valued gold producer. With that, we're happy to take questions. And back to you, operator.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Ovais Habib with Scotiabank.

Hi, Darren and Equinox team. Congrats on our Q2 beat and really great to see Greenstone mill hitting the over nameplate capacity. Darren, a couple of questions from me, just starting off with Greenstone. The grade at Greenstone came in at around 0.9, down from around 1.06 as per tonne in Q1. When should we start seeing grades improve going into the second half and what measures are you taking to manage and improve grade dilution? Essentially, what I'm asking is, are you expecting grade to improve in quarter-over-quarter kind of going into Q3? Or is this more of a Q4 situation?

Yes. Thanks, Ovais. Appreciate your support and questions. grade, we are seeing improvements in grade. Month-to-date August grades are right around a gram a tonne. So improving over what was we will continue to see improved grades because of face position and face position driven by kind of where we sit in the pit.

But obviously, the more material we move, it means the more face positions we make, which means the deeper we get, the more material we have. The more material we move, it allows us to be able to operate more effectively along that grade tonnage curve. But importantly, in everything we're doing right now, it's about ensuring we get the quality as well as the quantity. So Simon and Dave and the team are absolutely focused on moving as many tonnes as [ swiftly ] as we can, but importantly, minimizing dilution to be able to segregate out the waste from the ore. And then secondly is that is also to minimize the ore losses in around historical working. So it is a work in progress.

And as we go forward, I anticipate that we'll see quarter-on-quarter improvements in grade. But I would anticipate that Q3 grades probably won't be too dissimilar to right? May be marginally better, but we are also ensuring that we make face position so that additional capacity that we've got is ensuring that we end up with nice areas to work in that provide really, really effective mining areas that will positively impact the unit mining costs as well, which will then flow through to margin escalation as well.

Got it. And just in terms of the fleet that you have in place in terms of improving the mining rates as well, do you have all the equipment and money fees in place? Or do you think you need to be cut up.

No. I think from what we've socialized vis-a-vis the feasibility study or more recently is that all the equipment that we require is in place. it's really about maximizing the value of our committed capital and what we've delivered into, and that's working with our business partners and our vendors as well. to ensure that they have skin in the game and are focused on our performance as well. And we have seen over the last quarter at a significantly higher level of engagement from both Komatsu, Caterpillar and SMS as well.

So that's great to see. So short answer is that we have the equipment. The Board have afforded us some additional support equipment, which is positively impacting things as well as we've -- as Dave indicated, by increased haul speeds for the truck fleet. So no, no, we have what we need, and it's really about ensuring that we maximize the value out of that invested capital.

Got it. And just moving on to [ Los Filos. ] Obviously, you've kind of had the agreements in place now with the 2 communities. Are you -- I'm forgetting the name of the third community, I apologize, but -- in terms of -- are you in discussion with that third community as well right now? Or are you dealing with just the 2 communities that basically have signed on to move forward with [ Los Filos? ]

Well, in every jurisdiction that we operate in, we maintain regular and engage communication and coordination with all of our stakeholders, and that's in -- whether it be in Mexico, Nicaragua or Ontario. So no, we maintain open dialogue with everyone. The third community is that we're having in discussions with is [ Karelia. ] But what we have done is that we do have fully executed agreements in place with 2 of the 3 communities, and we're currently working with those communities to recommence exploration activities and look at a 2 community plan to be able to exploit lost fuel loss as well.

But no, we are hopeful that we will work towards a solution. But as we do everywhere, for those that want to work with us, we will work constructively and responsibly with every stakeholder.

Got it. And just my last question over Darren. I mean, great to see you've started selling off non-core assets and we saw that with Van. Are we going to see more of that going into the second half or early 2026? Any color there would be appreciated.

Yes. No, base is we love all of our children, but again, if we find that some of our assets can create you and our other shareholders and us more value in the hands of someone else, then we will actively explore those opportunities. So are we running processes? No. But have we seen a level of engagement in inbounds as a consequence over the last quarter or 2, yes absolutely.

And as we demonstrated with the Nevada assets, we will move agilely to be able to surface those values as they present. But they will all be focused on ensuring that they positively impact share price, and that's where our focus be.

Perfect. And again, congrats on Q2 beat.

The next question is from Anita Soni with CIBC World Markets.

And firstly, congratulations, David, on your appointment. I think we crossed pass when you were at New Gold in 2014, 2016. My first question, just a follow-up on the grades at Greenstone. You did indicate that the grades increased quarter-over-quarter of what was mined. Can you give us an idea what those actual numbers were in terms of what the grades that you mined out of the pit this quarter and last quarter? And then secondly, what would the block model have predicted just so that we can get a benchmark of the kind of ore losses that you're experiencing right now?

Yes, Anita, and thanks for the questions. And I don't have the mind information in front of me right now. And I guess, is that there's 2 parts I think we want to focus in on here is that we will see an improving grade quarter-on-quarter as we get deeper in the pit and as we improve our practices in around mining dilution or minimizing mining dilution and ore losses. And secondly is that the volumes of material will also impact the grade that we see presented to the process plant. If we step back and look at the veracity of the feasibility study over the longer term from memory, I think it was around 300,000 ounces a year or thereabouts. And that what we see is that from a high level, we see the reconciliation of total metal being pretty consistent with that. We are seeing more tonnes at a lower grade and that's where our focus on dilution and a loss.

And as we work through the balance of the year, I think we'll be in a better position to be able to talk about what those shorter-term grades look like. But I'm comfortable with the ability for the asset in the long term to deliver into the feasibility, which is not specifically answering your question. I just want to provide a little bit more color around what the long term looks like because I don't have the mine -- the actual mine on mine grades because as of end of month of July, we had about right around 6 million tonnes on stockpile.

So there's a large stockpile of material as well and how that figures into the as mine versus the as [indiscernible] Happy to...

Yes, I can appreciate that. But I think that grades were supposed to be in the order of about 1.3% this year. So that's where we're -- the 0.92 is where I'm trying to understand. And then secondly, you also -- you mined 50% more than you milled. Did you just direct ore feed what you mind? Or was there -- I'm trying to understand like the movement between what's happening at the mine? Is there any stockpiling happening? And then like -- and then you also -- you guys also talked about the grades being the lower available like lower grade availability within the stockpile that you pulled going to the mill. So I'm trying to kind of understand an understanding of the material movement and what's happening there.

Yes. And again, it's probably worthwhile sitting down and walking through what that looks like. But absolutely, right, there's a stockpile and there's a surge capacity in front of the plant. I mean, I don't have the number at hand. Maybe Dave does, but I would anticipate that probably less than 1/3 of the material that is dumped into the primary crusher. I think the majority of the material is actually rehandled from the stockpile to be able to ensure that we get a consistent feed from not only grade but also arsenic and sulfur -- and we get a nice blended product to get a nice stable feed into the plant that will have a positive impact on recovery. So the stockpile is a critical part of the process here because we don't go direct mine to mill.

And it's Peter here. We did see an increase of the stockpile from the end of Q1 to the end of Q2, but we can address some of those items, perhaps in more detail offline.

Okay. Second question in a series of questions, and I'll leave it at 3. But the second question, just in terms of the disclosure that you provided on both the tax and the legal front in the MD&A. One on taxation in Nicaragua and dispute on the tax rebate. And secondly, the [ Aurizona ] legal matter. Can you give me some color on -- firstly, on the tax, like on the tax issue there. I mean, do you expect a resolution in the near term? Or is that something that we should be concerned about? And secondly, on [ Aurizona, ] a similar question. And would that impact your ability to execute on asset sales if you were thinking about asset sales in Brazil?

Yes, it's Peter here. On Nicaragua, without getting into too much of the detail because it is an ongoing discussion with the tax authority. -- tax law changed. We are quite confident that the Nicaragua operations are grandfathered under the preexisting regime. And we're actually reasonably confident will come to a beneficial resolution there. As to a time line on when that might be settled, I don't know. But we did not record a provision with regards to it, which indicates our expectation of likelihood of a successful resolution.

And then with respect to Arizona, the legal wheels in Brazil turned very slowly. So we don't expect that to be resolved in the near term. We do not expect that -- there is no process on Arizona. I just want to reiterate that or on any of the Brazil assets or any of the other assets for that matter. But we wouldn't expect that kind of thing to interfere if there was one. We wouldn't expect it to interfere with the process.

As it didn't, we've given this recent merger between Caliber and Equinox.

Exactly. Yes.

Okay. And then last question, I guess I'll move to Los Filos. So Los Filos in the last 2 years, Peter, as you guys had indicated previously, it had has been a bit undercapitalized. You were preserving capital to get their ramp up at Greenstone up and running. So if loss fuels comes back outside of the CIL, what kind of CapEx should we be expecting in terms of a recapitalization of that mine?

Yes. And Anita, I mean we're working through what a potential restart may look like at Los Filos. And as we have visibility into that, we'll be absolutely transparent with what those requirements are. But our focus right now is working with the 2 communities under developing a community plan, which would involve the construction of a CIL. And that's starting with recommencing exploration activities here in the next we'll call it, weeks and then continuing the studies in the background to be able to look at refreshing some of those longer-term economics.

So it's really about the longer-term capital requirements and what that asset looks like as a world-class gold asset. And if we're faced with the first world problem of being able to restart then we'll start to provide that information because those numbers change on a pretty regular basis. And depending on the commitments we make and the agreements we have in place with the communities that will also impact what that capital start looks like.

But we're comfortable that the provisions that we've made and the progress that we've made is preserving our ability to recommence when we do have those agreements in place.

That's my question. Sorry, go ahead.

No, I was just going to say it, it's Peter again. And given the longer history perhaps with Los Filos than others in the room, no one will actually be happier than me to have to come forward with that information. So looking forward to the day when we do.

The next question is from Mohamed Sidibe with National Bank Financial.

Darren, just maybe on the cost front in the quarter. I just wanted to maybe dive in a little bit deeper into the Brazilian operations cost. They seem to have been doing better than guidance and better than what I was expecting there. Should we expect those similar unit costs to continue into the back half of the year? Or how should we be thinking about cost out of the Brazilian operations?

Well, maybe I'll start with a kind of a 30,000-foot view and then see if Pete has got anything to add to it. But on June 13, I think or thereabouts, we reestablished guidance for the full year, and we're very comfortable with our consolidated and peace guidance for all of our assets going into it. And I think with that, we will see variation on a quarter-by-quarter on a month-by-month basis as we see different levels of spend and different reaction, too.

But again, holistically for the year, we're very comfortable with the guidance. I mean Pete, anything you layer on that?

Just that Brazil, as those who are familiar with the company would know is very seasonality driven and we tend to generate most of the production cash flow in the second half of the year, which has obviously an impact on the unit cost overall. But as Darren said, very solidly in range for delivering on our updated guidance.

Yes. And I think that just to layer in that someone -- Anita, maybe had raised it. But in terms of the capital constraints that we had seen over the last few years in terms of where we deploy capital. As our organization changes, and as we generate that capital, it's allowing us to look at that capital deployment throughout the assets. And I think that we'll see assets like Brazil will be able to better perform as we can deploy more capital that will positively impact their ability to be able to see what's in front of them and then be able to more reliably produce as well.

And whether that be exploration through results of exploration through the drill bit, or whether it be investing in capital for equipment to be able to lower unit costs, all those things will positively impact our portfolio. So I think that with this pivotal change we're seeing with Greenstone coming on board -- or sorry, ramping up. And then we're imminent respect to Valentine, that very much changes the paradigm, which is Equinox and will allow us to then be able to reinvest back into some of these assets that arguably, probably haven't seen a lot over the last couple of years. So again, very exciting times for our entire portfolio of assets.

Great. And then if I could shift maybe to Greenstone, maybe just a follow-up on a great question there, but maybe as it relates to the stockpile, you noted an increase in the stockpile that you have at the asset there quarter-over-quarter. Would you be -- would it be possible to know which -- the 6 million tonnes, what great $6 million at?

Sorry, you broke up there right at the end. Do you mind just repeating that question?

Would you be able to tell us what are the grades for the stockpile, the 6 million tonnes of stockpile that you have in Greenstone?

In terms of splits, there's different grade splits. And from memory, Mohamed, I think we're looking at about 6 million tonnes at just over 0.5 gram as a total. And I believe this is about 1.5 million tonnes at about 0.7x right, in terms of the higher grade portion, so we'll call it the BIN 2. But we can go offline and provide more color than you would like. But again, we've got a significant stockpile that's very similar to what we have processed year-to-date and then a larger stockpile of lower-grade material.

So we talk about 1.5 million tonne basically the average grade process year-to-date.

Right. And then just a final question on Valentine. So in the MD&A, you noted that you have about CAD 54 million left on your total CapEx there. How should we think about the capital spend at the asset as you ramp up, specifically as you relate development CapEx or initial CapEx or nonsustaining CapEx for that asset in the second half of the year.

So the spend on the project itself that's in the MD&A takes us through to first gold port. And so when you're thinking of -- and that's a fairly -- it's a tail end of the project and that spend, it becomes less lumpy than earlier in the project. So I suppose if you're trying to understand it is the easiest way to look at it is just a smooth spend through first gold. And then subsequently, it's a very typical working capital build up and ramp up and the costs that are typically associated with that. We haven't guided on Valentine costs as of yet, and we won't do that in all likelihood until commercial production. But you can make, I suppose, typical assumptions on a 2.5 million tonne per year plant and mining operations.

Yes. And I think that, again, if I was sitting in your issues, Mohamed, I mean I'd be taking average mining costs and average processing costs and using them as the basis for -- there is no surprise in terms of we deferred $100 million worth of spend and now it's going to come out in Q4 as opposed for capital.

There's none of those shenanigans that have been played out. I mean we've played this pretty straight bet at this at providing updates as we've gone through and the EAC estimates that we foreshadowed, we're tight on, we're comfortable with. And as Pete mentioned, it's really going to be the operating ramp-up, which are tied into basically capital demands from an operating cost perspective as opposed to capital injection per se from lumpy per

And I'd just add to that funded. Fully funded.

Absolutely, absolutely funded out of cash and cash flow from. And part of the reason that we didn't provide all-in sustaining and cash cost guidance for the tail end of the year when we provided guidance just recently is that the production, I think we're pretty comfortable with an estimate of but you get some really wide swings there in terms of unit costs and then it becomes distractive to the discussion.

But we see nothing that's concerning there from a delivery in the back half of the year or being able to fund -- our focus is on getting to close to nameplate by hopefully the end of Q1, but definitely in Q2. And again, we've afforded the Board has afforded us significant investment there in terms of capital spares as we've talked about, the redundancy the additional time that we've had through the build has allowed the operating team to come in, do that redundancy checks, and we've got $25 million worth of additional spend or spend associated with pumps and redundancies to ensure that when things do go bump in the middle of the night as we ramp up, we can just switch between and minimize those impacts which are all factored into the initial project capital. So congrats on the quarter.

Next question is from Jeremy Hoy with Canaccord Genuity.

Remaining on the topic of Valentine, you let us know what the key metrics we should be watching are during the ramp-up process?

Yes, it will be tonnes milled, Jeremy. And as soon as we commence production there, we'll provide regular updates on throughput. And I think that, that's going to be the measure. This is a long life asset. And there will be dips and leaves along the road with respect to grade. I mean we're comfortable with respect to grade, as we've demonstrated through the releases we're provided and through recent kind of production results but no, I'm comfortable with. It's really going to be about showing that steady state or that ramp-up in throughput. That's going to be the key measure. Everything else is kind of how do you say consequential related to that.

Mining rates are going to be fine. We've got -- we've had good mining performance. We've got all the material, all the assets ready to turn on. We've actually had some delays in providing that as we've seen the project being delayed in terms of the build. So we're very comfortable from a mining perspective. It's really going to be about mill throughput.

Appreciate it. One last one and just thinking about the future. There's a lot of exploration potential at some of these assets, and I appreciate that there's focus on ramp-ups and operations at the moment. But are you able to sort of give some sort of loose priority or ranking in terms of where you see the greatest exploration potential?

Yes. No, thanks, Jeremy. And again -- and even though there's a few things happening in the business. We haven't lost sight on the fact that our routes are very heavy in exploration. We continue to explore in Nicaragua. We provided a bit of a summary there. We spent about $70 million to $90 million this year. We provided -- sorry, consolidated. We did provide a release here on July 25 in terms of some very encouraging results out of Nicaragua, which are arguably some of the best results have returned from the property.

We have had good success in around Valentine as well. And we would anticipate maybe later this quarter, providing an update on some recent exploration results. out of Valentine. But I think as we chatted a little bit earlier is that as we're in the -- as we generate cash, and we're coming out of the back of 2 significant builds and capital draws, it will allow us to be able to refund or reinitiate some work in some of the areas that have been maybe a little bit underloved from an exploration perspective, Los Filos is a good example with the 2 community playing going forward.

Obviously, maintaining focus in Nicaragua will be key Valentine because the potential in both of those assets is significant. And then Mesquite as well. I mean, Mesquite has been an enduring asset with a long life and again, it's been pretty low on the food chain from a capital deployment perspective over the last few years. So we'd like to see -- and we will see exploration programs recommenced there here within the next few months.

So I'd like to think of this as an exploration company backed by $3 billion to $4 billion of revenue. And again, as you know us as pedigree, I would anticipate that if I was modeling sitting on your side and modeling this, I would anticipate roughly $100 an ounce of exploration spend it's kind of as an operating cost going forward as well. I mean we see great talk across all of our assets to exploration success.

Great. Appreciate the color. I'm looking forward to developments there. I'll step back in the queue.

The next question is from John Tumazos with John Tumazos Independent Research.

Thank you for the good job that's going on. Looking to next year, assuming most pilot as it is at the moment, what is a reasonable target for cash cost company-wide, 1,400, 1,300, 1,200, 1,100. How much better do you think since will get?

No, I'll sit back here a little bit. I mean I'll maybe pass it to Pete to start with, and then I'll pick up the other -- and then I'll close out. As I kind of collect my thoughts, thanks for the question, though, John. He's sitting there thinking.

Well, it's starting to become blessed with an embarrassment or is. But and John, we have -- I mean, obviously, for everyone on the call, anything we say today is not guidance for next year. So if you're just thinking about ballparking, An example is for Q2, if we're looking at things on a combined basis, we're at about 14 -- a little under $1,400 per ounce cash cost. And that's with Greenstone not fully ramped up in Valentine, not contributing. And so if you're trying to model it through, John, you could probably knock $100 an ounce off of that $150 an ounce.

But I do want to emphasize, we'll have that guidance in the new year as we normally do. But we're just starting to see the benefit of our larger lower-cost producers coming online. And getting -- I know that's where your question is getting to. And so we're looking forward to being able to provide that information more confidently next year. But if you're trying to look at it now, that's how I'd approach it.

Yes. And I think that kind of put Pete on the spot there, sorry, Pete. But as you sit back and you look at the guidance we've provided this year, we provided $1,400 to $1,500 an ounce. If you look at the profile as we move into 2026, right? As Pete foreshadowed, right, we're going to have Valentine and Greenstone being larger contributors on which will lower our production cost per ounce. So in the current gold tape that we see, I mean the ability for cash flow generation is going to be significant.

When we're talking about $1,000 to $1,500 an ounce margin. I mean, we're going to be blessed in a very in a very great situation be able to: one, delever the balance sheet, primarily first and then look at -- by this time next year, we'll be having I'm sure lots of made discussions around how additionally to be able to return value to shareholders through dividend or share buybacks as well. But yes, no, I think that we need to work through the balance of the year. So we can create expectations that we can deliver into in 2026.

But taking the guidance that existed for this year and even rolling that forward, that puts us in a very, very favorable position, John.

If I could ask you to stick your neck South out a little further in 2027. Is it a reasonable goal to be assuming the Castle Mountain Capital doesn't start [indiscernible] mill doesn't start. Is it a reasonable target to be in a net cash position, the current gold prices by the end of '27.

Yes, I think that's reasonable.

Thanks, John. Appreciate your support and continued support over the journey. It is much value. Thank you.

This concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Darren Hall for any closing remarks.

Yes. No, I'd just like to thank everyone for joining the call today and taking the time. It is appreciated. Our continued support is acknowledged valued and respected. And again, as always, myself and the entire team are available to field any questions after the call in any time during the quarter.

So look forward to continued engagement. And if anyone has any questions, reach out. But other than that, have a wonderful day, and back to you, operator.

This brings to the close of today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Equinox Gold Corporate Update regarding pro forma guidance. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Rhylin Bailie, Vice President, Investor Relations for Equinox Gold. Please go ahead.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Rhylin Bailie, Vice President, Investor Relations for Equinox Gold. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Thank you, everybody, for joining us this morning. We will of, course, be making a number of forward-looking statements today. So please do visit Equinox Gold website, Calibre website and our various continuous disclosure documents that are filed on SEDAR+ and on EDGAR and I should note that all the dollar figures that we reference today will be in the United States dollars unless otherwise.

I will now turn the call over to Equinox Gold's President and CEO, Greg Smith.

Thanks, Rhylin, and good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us on the call today. With me today on the call are Darren Hall, who's currently the President and CEO of Calibre Mining; Ryan King, who is the SVP, Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Calibre; and then Rhylin Bailie, VP of Investor Relations at Equinox Gold. As we reported yesterday, we are approaching the completion of our business combination with Calibre Mining. While the transaction has not yet closed, we have been working closely with the Calibre team on planning for integration of the 2 companies. Darren has been spending time at our mine sites and with our teams, and I'm looking forward to having Darren join as President and Chief Operating Officer of the combined company on closing. And just for clarity for everyone on the call, where Darren and I refer to we or our, we are talking about Equinox Gold today and then the merged company post closing. But until the transaction is officially closed, the 2 companies remain independently managed.

So with the merger almost complete, we are focused on entering our next phase of Equinox Gold with a stronger, more diversified portfolio of assets anchored by 2 high-quality long-life gold mines in Canada. Ross Beaty will remain Chair of the Board. I will continue as CEO. And as I said earlier, Darren will step into the President and Chief Operating Officer role. Darren will also be bringing over his proven operating team from Calibre.

Yesterday, we also issued pro forma consolidated 2025 guidance for the combined company of between 785,000 and 915,000 ounces of gold at all-in sustaining costs of $1,800 to $1,900 per ounce. These numbers exclude production and costs from the Los Filos mine and also from the Valentine Gold Mine, which remains on track to begin production in Q3 of this year.

On a stand-alone basis, excluding any production from Calibre assets, we expect Q2 production at Equinox of 135,000 to 145,000 ounces of gold of which 45,000 to 50,000 ounces is from the Greenstone Gold Mine. On closing of the merger, we expect the combined company to have well over $350 million of cash combined with robust production and operating cash flow through the second half of the year, we are in excellent financial position to complete the construction of the Valentine Gold Mine, while continuing to focus on reducing our leverage.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Darren to provide some further details and insight on what you can expect for the remainder of 2025. Darren?

Thanks, Greg. Turning to Slide 4. Firstly, I see significant opportunity to create shareholder value across the consolidated portfolio of assets upon closing the transaction, which, as Greg mentioned, which was expected before the end of the month.

I believe a reset of short-term production and cost expectations for the Equinox assets is necessary to establish a credible foundation to enable long-term shareholder value creation. The revised guidance primarily reflects the slower-than-planned ramp-up at Greenstone, which has faced some challenges, including lower loading fleet availability, which has impacted mining rates and delayed access to higher grade. Year-to-date 2025 grades have been below expectations in part due to higher-than-anticipated dilutions and issues in and around voids from historical operations.

Milling rates and gold recoveries are improving, but are lower than initially forecast. As a result, Greenstone guidance has been revised to 220,000 to 260,000 ounces at an all-in sustaining cost of $1,700 to $1,800 per ounce. Integration planning is well underway, and we have and will continue to deploy additional equipment and operational expertise to support Greenstone and the consolidated portfolio. This includes the relocation of David Schumer, Calibre's Chief Operating Officer at Greenstone. A comprehensive plan to address the ramp-up challenges will ensure we are aligned and delivering into clearly defined expectations.

With the detailed improvement and delivery plan well underway, we are seeing positive momentum in mining rates, with May performance 25% higher than Q1. We expect continued steady quarter-over-quarter improvements at Greenstone with higher grades and stronger production in the second half of the year.

At the Valentine Gold Mine in Newfoundland, commissioning is progressing well, and we remain on schedule for first goal by the end of the third quarter. With an experienced operating and team in place who have significant commissioning experience, we are confident in a smooth and efficient ramp up. It is also important to note that production from the Calibre assets remains strong, and we anticipate that another 70,000 plus ounce quarter, positioning us well to deliver into the higher end of production guidance.

Looking to the future, our focus is clear. Operational excellence and disciplined execution will be the driving force as we work to unlock the full value of our combined assets.

With that, Greg and I are happy to take questions.

Operator, can you please remind everybody how to ask the questions.

[Operator Instructions]

While people are joining, I'll take a few questions from online. First question that came in was how does the reduced production guidance affect the pay down of debt? Will you need to do raise any equity or increase your borrowing?

Well, I can take that. And as I said earlier in the call, we're actually closing with a fairly meaningful cash position in the company. And even with the revision to our guidance, we've got very robust production and cash flow expected in the back half of the year. So combined, you're in that sort of north of $1 billion of liquidity in the system and that gives us plenty of flexibility to complete the construction of Valentine and also continue to focus on reducing our leverage. We have been continuing to deliver into our gold prepays. So we have been continuing to satisfy those liabilities, and we intend to continue with that as we go through the year. So no need for additional financing.

Perfect. Thank you. Operator, can you please take some questions from the phone?

The first question comes from Anita Soni with CIBC.

So firstly, can I -- can we talk about the stockpile level and what that is currently? So the average grade, the total tonnes and then sort of the higher grade bucket and want that tons and grade on that?

Darren, do you have that detail? I don't have that detail yet.

No. No, sorry, Anita. No. I don't have that information in front of us, but happy to get on a call and walk through those specifics in terms of inventory. What I can comment on though, is that there's a significant inventory in front of the primary crusher. There's no shortage of available material.

Our focus really at this point is to get mining performance to a point where we're seeing the material movement, which will then allow the folks to focus on quality and segregation to minimize dilution and losses in and around the voids. That's really the focus. It's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy here is that as we've fallen behind our material movement, it drives a focus on moving tonnes and it's probably been a little bit distracted from the quality issue. So I think as we look through the balance of the year, we'll see grade improve as a consequence of delivering into expectations on material movement, which allow people to focus in on quality.

Okay. So moving to the equipment issues. When you're referring to loading equipment issues, you're just talking specifically about the shovels, right, not the haul trucks as well or...

Yes. No, it's really about the -- a right determining step here has been about loader availability leading into. We've seen improvements in that performance recently, but we also have a fifth shovel, which will be commissioned here by the end of the month, which will provide a significant level of spending reserve to be able to offset any further availability issues if there are. We're not anticipating. So we'll have that -- how do you say the resilience, if you will, in terms of the loading fleet. The focus specifically now that the David, I want to say the David, just the Schumer and Newhook, and Simon, the mine manager is focused on how do we ensure that we're getting the most material moved, and that's focusing on trucking fleets pretty quickly, the bottleneck is going to move from loading to trucking. And we're implementing double-side loading on the shovel units, we're augmenting with additional auxiliary support equipment to be able to maintain a level of quality and roads and loading positions so we can see great speeds, reduced operating delays, which will result in more material moves. So no, I mean, I think we're back through the -- we've broken the back of the historical loading equipment availabilities and additionally, with the commitment that Equinox has made to the additional loading capacity, we'll have plenty of reserves. So that issue was well behind us.

Okay. So you feel like the loading issue, the shovels are not the issue right now, but now it moves to the haul trucks. And in terms of the equipment...

It's not so much the issue moves the haul trucks. The opportunity moves is that what was driving, the rate term step was loading equipment availability were through the back of that, we have additional capacity. Now the opportunity that sits in front of us to be able to exceed what was anticipated for the level of spend to be more productive with the trucking fleet, which will unlock a significant amount of value as we go forward.

Okay. So as we move to the trucking fleet then, what are the key issues in terms of the trucking fleet? Are -- so is it downtime in terms of availability? Are they going through more maintenance than expected? Are they just waiting around with the shovels? Or like what's the key driver there?

Yes. And it's like of an issue than it's an opportunity. There's not a problem with the quality of the fleet. This is about how the tool has been utilized. So what we're now very much focusing in on is eliminated -- eliminating wasted time. So this is looking at operating delays. This is making everything more efficient by double-side loading while increasing speeds which requires having good floor conditions, which is a level of quality and around drill and blast, bench control, having support equipment around shovels, so that you're not -- you can move everything much quicker. That's really the issue. So it's not about an issue with the trucks. It's about how you utilize them and set up the environment that allows for that fleet to be as productive as it can. So we've deployed additional resources that are specifically focused on this. There's 2 gentlemen who have arrived in the last month that specifically focused on this. They are folks that Schumer and I have worked with for the last 30 to 40 years that are very, very experienced in this to be able to help Simon and the team reduce those operating delays, increase those level of efficiencies, which will drive volume for a similar level of spend, which were very accretive from a cost perspective.

Okay. I had a number of questions. So let me just list off a few of these, and my apologies to the other analysts. But hopefully, some of these answers will help other people as well. On the unit costs, I'm just trying to understand the longer term value for Greenstone. And one of the things that has been -- has caught my eye over the last few quarters is that the mining costs have increased as mining continues, which is not the norm. I'm just trying to understand how these mining cost -- like what do you think the longer-term mining costs are, are you confident in the prior technical report and the numbers that they have there? Or do you think those mining costs should increase similar question for the processing costs. They went from [ $7.40 ] in Q3 and the last quarter came up to USD 15 a ton. So just trying to get a handle on what the longer-term value proposition on the cost side is given that you just increased the cost guidance this year by 30%.

Yes, [indiscernible] Sorry, go on Greg.

Darren and I are not in the same room, so we can't like make eye contact to see who's going to answer first. Why don't I will make a couple of general comments. Darren, you can jump in, if that works. So Anita, one of the things that on a unit cost basis that you'll see in the context of a ramp-up like this, is that we've -- through the back end of last year and into Q1 here, increased the fleet size, increased the head count and -- but was not -- did not see a commensurate increase in the material movement in part because of the availability issues that on the loaders and the shovels that Darren had mentioned. And so you've ramped up to be at full capacity, but you're not yet at full capacity, and that has an effect on the per unit cost. On a -- like on a sort of overall cost base as Greenstone is actually tracking quite well. Processing, a lot of the costs or incremental costs that we saw earlier this year and probably will still be experiencing in the near term. has been on really working to dial in the processing plant. We've had a number of different groups coming and helping us. We've had more downtime than we anticipated, resulting in more maintenance and lower throughput. And so on a per unit cost, you get the same issue where the overall cost has maybe some minor increases, but it really reflects on a per unit cost. I'll stop there, Darren, you can jump in here.

No, Greg, I think you covered it. But I think if you think about mining, and I guess I'll differentiate in my simple mind between spend [indiscernible] and cost. Spend is the amount of money that goes out the door and then we unitize it into a cost. If we look at the cost to run a truck or the spend to run a truck, right, we have an operator, we pay for the operator, whether that truck is or isn't productive, it cost is the same for the operator. So the fixed-cost plus portion of those costs is significant. So looking at eliminating waste and improving efficiencies will lower our unit costs. So I'm comfortable that what we have seen historically is very much on the end member of what we will see going forward in terms of unit costs. That's on the mining piece. There's incremental costs associated with moving more material as you as you blow more stuff up, you're going to consume more explosives, for example. But you don't have any more drills operating, right? The variable portion of the cost is very, very low.

On the process end, I think Greg covered it, right, is that the cost -- plant runs costs the least to run when it's running, right? When it's down, that's when you spend the most money. So as Corey and the team worked through reliability in the process plant. And we see less down, we will see unit cost per tonne favorably impacted as well. And that's what we're seeing as we continue to work through the gremlins, get consistent and reliable tonnage through the plant, it will positively impact those unit costs. So I think that where we're at in the very early stage of what is a very long-life Tier 1 asset. We're very embryonic, if you will, in terms of that cost profile. And I think that looking too critically at the last couple of quarters of costs and trying to then foreshadow what it means for the long term is absolutely premature in my mind. So I look at the opportunity that sits there from getting more volume for the same spend will positively impact both mining and processing costs, and then the grade will then drive the cost per ounce.

Okay. I'm going to wrap with one last question and then leave it for other analysts and get back in the queue. But could you just tell us what your guidance to the 220 to 260, I think it is what -- like the key drivers. So what's the grade you're assuming for that on average for the year, I guess, is the biggest question in my mind, what's the average recovery rate and what do you think the mill is going to get to average in Q4. So we can try to figure out what a ramp would look like in terms of the main levers. Yes.

Okay. And what we've done is that we believe that looking forward in H2, we've taken a very deliverable look at setting guidance from a physical perspective. To be into that midpoint of guidance and around the 240, we would anticipate grades in the -- approximately the 1.2 grams per tonne in Q3 to 1.4 in Q4. So that's significantly lower than what we have been for share before because we don't want to disappoint, right? So from a grade perspective, looking forward, the balance of the year, it's in that 1.2 to 1.4 type range between -- from basically Q3 to Q4.

So the mill throughput is forecast to be in that 23,000 to 24,000 tonnes per day or thereabouts for the balance of the year, right? It ramps up during the course of the year, but there is a kind of a trend. Recoveries are basically consistent with what we've seen in the last couple of months, as well going forward. So again, I think what we've done is it's taken a prudent reset to creating an expectation that we know we can deliver into so we can regain confidence in the product, which is Greenstone going forward.

So then just the last follow-up there was, you said the last couple of months, we don't know what the last couple of months are. Could you clarify what the recovery rates have been in the last couple of months?

Yes, better than Q1. And in that 83%, plus or minus 85% range, it creeping up as we go forth.

The next question comes from Mohamed Sidibe with National Bank Financial.

I guess maybe shifting the focus a little bit to Brazil with where you had also pretty high driver, an increase in total cash cost in AISC there. But the production guidance was overall trimmed by less than 5%. Or could you maybe help us understand what are the key drivers of the higher cash cost in ASIC there?

I'll make a general comment again, and then Darren can jump in. I mean, in all cases, obviously, the change in the denominator being the gold production has an outsized effect on the per unit cost, right, the cost per ounce. So that's obviously part of it, that makes up a big piece of it. We did in Brazil overall, look at cash costs being a little higher than anticipated, some 10% was higher than anticipated. And then looked at just introducing a bit of a buffer. We are dealing with a few things at Fazenda, for example, where we're going to increase some of the stripping, and this is to manage around some of the voids in the new open pit and then a few other areas in Brazil, where Aurizona and where they're increasing some of their material movement this year. So it's not this sort of fundamental change. The denominator has the biggest effect and then it's sort of one-off issues that we're taking a provision for this year as we move into the back half of the year.

Darren, anything else?

No, I think you covered it great. Greg. I mean -- and the other thing I'd layer on Mohamed is that we've got an asset base that has always set itself up for kind of higher end levels of performance. And with that, it drives a behavior within the organization. We have people absolutely focused on delivering into that. But we thought prudent, Greg and I have discussed over the last couple of months as we work through this is recalibrating those expectations in the things that allow people to be able to deliver into, will allow them to develop a more success-based culture and nothing breeds success like success. So if we can start to have them have some wins, they feel confident in it and makes some -- it allows them to make intelligent risks and make intelligent decisions in the business about going forward. So I think that's a little bit of this as well as is it not just reframing the product externally. But also taking a little bit of the heat out that allows people to then not worry about not delivering into, even though they're absolutely focused on it. is that giving them a little bit of cushion will allow them to actually perform better if that makes some semblance of sense.

And I guess I'll shift gear to back to Greenstone and just -- I think you mentioned that in Q2 or in May, you're seeing a 25% improvement in the mining rates. But as you exit the year, is there a target that you have in mind that we should think about as analysts in order to model in terms of mining rates exiting 2025?

Yes. I mean again, I think about it is -- if we look at our budgeted rates, we're around the 70-plus million tonne a year, I think that our installed capacity. So I'm not guiding the number, but I think about what I would feel is a good result. It's probably around 225,000 tonnes a day. So that have put us at about 80-odd million tonne a year. I think that's kind of a very comfortable position to hang our head in terms of deliverability. So I would like to see us at that annualized rate or the capability by the end of the year. Now there are some things we need to consider in that and making sure that the volume that we can move is accretive that we maintain within our permit conditions and those sort of things. But I think the installed capacity of the fleet, Mohamed, much should be in that 225,000 tonnes a day.

Great. And then just final question, I guess, on Valentine. I know you didn't provide guidance for that one, but -- just looking at the ramp up there. I know the initial few years of the mine time are expected to be higher grade than the reserve grade. And I know in your Q1 call, you mentioned achieving nameplate capacity by Q1 '26. Could you maybe give us some color on, one, when you expect to get to nameplate capacity there? And how we should think about grades? And then ultimately, any color you can provide on the cost front, given what we've just seen at Greenstone.

Yes, absolutely. And happy to have a more in-depth discussion to bring up to speed as well with Valentine given that I don't believe you covered it historically or Calibre. So those [indiscernible], happy to do that Mohamed at your discretion. But no, comfortable in our ability to deliver into metal by the end of Q3. We'll see all going through the plant in the latter part of August. So -- and that's really the key here is to get tonnes through the plant once tonnes through the plant, then we can produce a button or a bar of gold whenever we like for the better part. So we're comfortable with that.

In terms of ramp-up, we've got a quality team in place, that have been in place now for over a year, led by Jason Cyr at Valentine. A great team of people who uniquely all have a level of commissioning experience as well. And what we have seen is with the additional time that's been provided by the delays in delivery is given the operating team more time to get prepared for operational readiness to ensure that we have -- we're in a good position to have a nice smooth ramp up. We've also factored that in terms of redundancy and pumps and things within the designs as well, which is driven into some of the capital that we've allowed for. So I think we're setting ourselves up for longer-term success. Coming into grade -- we provided updates for both. There's 2 pits that provide the majority of the ore in the short term, it's Leprechaun and Marathon. We provided great control updates to both of those, one in February of last year and the other one in May. And Leprechaun showed an 18% positivity with respect to grade against the reserve model and Marathon for a fixed volume, which is what we are in a mill-constrained environment, it was actually 45% higher grade. So as we see it today, we're comfortable with the grade. There is no absolute obviously, until you put it through the mill. But all indications are that we don't see an exposure with respect to able to deliver into the expectations on grade. Q4 will be a ramp-up period. Q1 will continue into the ramp-up period, but I would expect to be close to nameplate by the end of the first quarter, given, again, a relatively simple design. We've got quality equipment being put in place. If you look at the press release, there's a link there you might want to have a look at where we commissioned the primary crusher here a couple of weeks ago. We've inched the mills. We'll be able to spin the mills here by the end of June in terms of the motors. We can't put them under-- we can't spend the shelves until we have load. So that will happen in August. But all of those things are leading to a pretty comfortable ramp-up, I believe.

The next question comes from Jeremy Hoy with Canaccord Genuity.

On Greenstone, the press release in talking about the grades said the lower grade was in part due to the dilution. And then here on the call, you mentioned the voids. Can you comment on reconciliation so far appreciating that it is early in the mine life?

Yes. No. And I think that, again, the reason we talk about those things, and it's kind of -- there's 2 parts to this, Jeremy. First one being is if you're falling behind on material movement, what it drives you to, it drives you to quantity versus quality. So we've probably seen the team focus on arguably what is the right thing to do is that when you're 25% historically behind on material movement, you're focused on getting as many tonnes as you move as you possibly can. As you do that, you fall away from a little bit of the focus on quality. So we're probably seeing additional dilution associated with trying to get tonnes moved rather than the quality of the tonnes, one.

Secondly, as you're trying to push volumes your ability to manage in and around those voids becomes more problematic as well. So you end up moving material around a lot through blasting, which mean to end up with all losses as well into the voids. So once you end up with what would be kind of reasonable grade material and you blow it up and you're losing the void, it basically becomes lower grade or even waste. By the time it dilutes its way out, you're ability to be able to pick that material up again becomes significantly reduced. So that's where I kind of allude to that as we become more efficient in our mining practices, what allow us to do is then focus on the quality issues as well. So that's the interplay there between volume mined and voids. So yes, that, in essence, is what we're focused on. And as we continue to mine more material, we'll see that positively impact grade as well because we'll be able to focus on quality.

Okay. Yes, that's clear. And I mean, I know there was the issue mining that [ I land ] initially early on, which you're now through when there was the winter maintenance issues with the shovels. And so it sounds like there's a bit of catch-up going on. As for how the mined material is reconciling to the resource? Are you able to provide any comment there?

Yes. No, it's underperforming with respect to the resource model because of the issues I just mentioned, right? If we were reconciling okay, I mean, obviously, the plans and the forecast that would have been historically presented were based on those estimates. We have been falling short with respect to the estimates because of the way we've been interacting with the estimate. But as we go through and we better understand what our dilution, what our recoveries and all sort of recoveries in terms of ore losses in and around, we'll be able to refresh and revise what that look ahead grade looks like. But is there a material issue from a fundamental floor perspective? No. Is there always going to be challenges with respect to grade? Yes. As we work through the ramp up over the next 6 to 12 months, we will continue to develop a better level of understanding in and around the ore body model. But I'm not particularly concerned about the ability to be able to deliver into the longer-term average grade of what Greenstone, it represents.

Okay. Yes. I appreciate that color. And so I guess we could expect to see slightly higher tonnes at slightly lower grade, just attributable to that dilution and additional material taken around the voids, as you said.

Yes, I think so. Again, yes, I think in short, would be a reasonable assumption if I was coming in this [indiscernible] looking at it, is that looking at on average, average is a safe way to look at it because then there's only upside in terms of whether we mine more material and can operate higher on the grade tonnage curve and realize those opportunities. It presents us with flexibility and optionality as opposed to always running on that to have to deliver into expectations.

Understood. Okay. And you do remain confident in the resource going forward.

Yes. Yes, there's always going to be dips and weaves as we go through. But again, it's a long-life asset. There's lots of potential here. It's going to be a long-life, high-quality asset. And again, being able to estimate so early in, plus or minus 10%, 15% is -- it's too early to tell, right?

Totally understand. Okay. Can you give us a little bit, you've left Los Filos out of 2025 guidance and understand that it is in development status. Is there any update? Or could we expect to hear an update any time on progress in discussions with the community there.

I'll jump in on that one, Jeremy. It's Greg speaking. No, our comments that we made at the last quarter are still valid. We are in the suspension of operations at Los Filos. Certainly, our preference is to ultimately have an agreement with all 3 of the local communities. We've got an agreement with 2 of them now. But I wouldn't expect any -- necessarily any movement on that in the near term and certainly would not include production from Los Filos in your near-term forecast.

Thanks, Jeremy. I've got lots of questions from online that I think has been answered in some form, but 1 that hasn't come up yet is what is driving the increase in growth CapEx at Greenstone.

I can -- I'll take the first cut at that, Darren. So a couple of things that are included in there. And the primary one being that we have added for this year, the construction and the commencement of construction of the Ontario Provincial Police Department that initially was going to be something that would have been done in cooperation with third parties because of the time frame that is required to get that complete in order to continue mining on our existing mine plan. We need to get started sooner than those negotiations were able to be completed. So the company will step in, fund that construction. It's likely that in the next year or so, that building to be sold. But we need to get on with the replacement construction ASAP. So that's a primary driver of that increase at Greenstone. We've also added in some of the costs associated with the increase in rolling stock and that shovel in particular, is in there now as well.

Perfect. Operator, can you please go back to the phone line?

The next question comes from Anita Soni with CIBC.

I had that growth capital question, but that hope that replacement for the OPP unit -- how much is that? Sorry, I recall that maybe this is a really old number, I'm wrong, but I thought it was like $11 million.

Yes. We've added $25 million into the budget this year for that, Anita.

Okay. And then just in terms of another question, I think the -- on the throughput rates, Darren, you were talking about 22 to -- 23 to 24 k tonne per day. What's the expectation for 2026 in terms of -- like I just want to confirm that we are still targeting a 27,000 ton per day plant.

Yes. No, I think that's where we want to end up. I mean, again, we're going to be a sliding scale to go through the year. But I think that given that Ankur and the team are going to refine little gremlins and things I need to fix. And this is a large volume plant is ramping up to 25,000 tonnes a day through the course of this year is probably reasonable. And looking at what it looks like longer term, I think there's no fundamental design flows with respect to what's required. I mean we've allowed for some capital. We're starting to see very good indications of things like tailings pump capacities. We've got some capital included for those sort of things, which is a very good indication. There's probably $8 million in what we'll call [indiscernible] related activity as well so that we can get into some of the learnings out of the last winter to make sure that we can winterize and put in place a reliable level of reliability, if you will, as well. So I think all of those things will lead us to that 27,000 tonnes a day. Again, if we're going to recalibrate expectations, let's make sure that we allow ourselves a level of prudent reserves. And we -- it doesn't mean that internally, we're focused on this. This is remember, our external voice here, not our internal voice. We're absolutely unrelenting on doing everything we possibly can to extract as much value as we come from this asset. But again, the whole context of this call today and what we're doing is recalibrating expectations so we can get your confidence in our ability to deliver into expectations.

Yes. I guess my questions are driving at the outlook beyond this year. You've given us some parameters for this year. But as we -- 2026 there was a technical report that was delivered on October 1, 2024. So about 9 months ago that had 450,000 ounces for 2026. And so I'm trying to frame what does next year look like? And if we're going from 84% recovery rate to -- is 91% recovery rate in 2026 and 1.6 gram per tonne material in the mill, are those reasonable expectations for 2026?

Yes. No, I think that as -- it's still early in the life as we go through and we continue to learn and we continue to understand what that '26, '27 and longer term looks like, we'll be absolutely transparent in providing those updates as we go through. But to sit here today and foreshadow that, it would be premature. And again, we talked a little bit last evening about the tech report in 2026. And Again, that's a very aggressive estimate of 460,000 ounces. There's no doubt. So if you look at -- even if you consider an average life of mine a 10 million tonne process, and you take an average reserve grade, which we feel comfortable in at a recovery of 86%, 87% even somewhat being conservative. It still provides a very robust production profile there in the amount of cash that's going to be generated is significant.

So average reserve grade, 10 million tonne per annum, 86% recovery rate is what you're sort of ballparking, not necessarily...

No, I'm just -- I'm not foreshadowing anything. I'm saying if you use those check report basis and put it in there, and just said on average over the life, that gives you an arguably a conservative base in the short term. That's all I'm saying, right? Again, as we get more granularity into what mine sequencing delivers and how we can accelerate grade and do those sort of things, we'll absolutely provide that clarity. And whether that be vis-a-vis an updated technical report or whether it be just through these sort of conversations, we'll make sure there's an absolute level of transparency and confidence in those assets.

One more amalgamation of questions from online here. Lots of questions about capital allocation priorities with gold prices where they are and also about portfolio optimization post transaction close.

Well, I can start, I guess, with that question. I mean we're going to focus on getting the transaction closed here first. The combined company will have a fairly large asset base in terms of the quantity of mines in the jurisdictions that we have. And all I'd say is both Calibre and Equinox in the past have been commercial around both acquisitions and divestments when it makes sense and ramped up, and also completing the ramp-up of Greenstone. We've got a number of other assets in the portfolio that represent some future growth, including our Castle Mountain deposit and project in California, the Aurizona underground and others. So we always look at what makes the most sense, what's going to provide the highest return. Obviously, focusing on our largest, longest life assets is going to be a priority for the company. Darren, anything to add to that?

No, Greg. I think you covered it. Bud.

All right. Perfect. So all the questions that came in online. I think they were all answered during the call. If they weren't for some reason, either Ryan or I will get back to you by e-mail today.

Greg and Darren, do you have any closing remarks?

From my perspective, I just appreciate everyone joining the call today and would reiterate that we are available for further discussions. You can get in touch with Rhylin at Equinox or Ryan King at Calibre. Of course, Darren and I are also available. Darren, anything to add on your end?

No. No, just again, thanks, everyone taking the time. And please, if there's any questions, don't be shy, reach out, and we'll be glad to address the questions. And we will regularly contact and interact and provide people with updates [ it is ], but please don't let any ambiguity creep into the system here as we go forth. It's an exciting time for the combined entity, and I'm here to support and Greg and I are absolutely focused on surfacing as much shareholder value as we can through share price escalation. So...

Do not agree more.

Perfect. With that, we'll wrap it up, please. Operator, can you please conclude the call.

Certainly, this brings to a close today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect your lines.