Torex Gold Resources Inc Q1 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Mark Mihaljevic - RBC Capital Markets, Research Division - Analyst : Congrats, Fred. Well earned stepping down from the role. Although I guess the retirement might be a strong word considering what you've got planned going forward. I guess my first question, can you guys just provide a bit of a breakdown of the cash spend through April and kind of bucket it between, I guess, corporate spending, ELG, holding costs and what you're spending on Media Luna?

Question: Mark Mihaljevic - RBC Capital Markets, Research Division - Analyst : Yes. Yes. Yes. No, that's helpful. And then I guess just moving on. Once you guys have made the decision to restart active mining, should we envision a bit of a ramp-up period? And kind of how are you thinking about the -- once you go back to the full restart mode, will it be a gradual restart? Will you be going back to the 16,000 tonnes a day or -- that we were kind of seeing before this all started? And any expectations for cost impacts from whatever social distancing you need to implement?

Question: Mark Mihaljevic - RBC Capital Markets, Research Division - Analyst : Okay. That makes sense. And then I guess on the underground mining type of things and kind of just looking a bit longer term. I'm assuming this won't be the first thing you restart, but just do you think that these north of 1,000 tonne-a-day levels are now more sustainable given the positive reserve update you had? And then if you do bring in -- or kind of as you bring in ELD, should we view that as incremental tonnage or tonnes per day? Or would that be more of a -- or kind of just offsetting some of the Sub-Sill?

Question: Mark Mihaljevic - RBC Capital Markets, Research Division - Analyst : Sure. And then just one last one for me. I guess you mentioned that you picked up a little more soluble iron than you were expecting. Are there any limitations to the amount of oxygenation you can -- or the amount of soluble iron you can handle with the current oxygenation capacity with -- in the 2 tanks, like would you potentially need to add a third? Or you guys have more than sufficient capacity right now?

Question: Trevor Turnbull - Scotiabank Global Banking and Markets, Research Division - Analyst : I just wanted to follow up a little bit on the soluble iron question. It sounds like, Jody, that you've started to build metallurgical models to get, I guess, a better handle on where it occurs and in exactly what forms. So that answered that question. But I'm curious, when you put out your original guidance on costs, I assume you factored in some additional costs for dealing with the soluble iron. Is that right?

Question: Trevor Turnbull - Scotiabank Global Banking and Markets, Research Division - Analyst : And I guess what I was wondering, not knowing exactly the extent of it, did you factor that into the full year? Or were you just assuming 1 or 2 quarters would have the iron issue?

Question: Trevor Turnbull - Scotiabank Global Banking and Markets, Research Division - Analyst : Okay. So to make a long story short, I guess, what I'm getting at is so now that you've had some good luck with the oxygenation reduction in cyanide consumption, is there -- are you kind of ahead of the plan now with the reduction in cyanide versus that original guidance? So are you actually starting to win a bit in terms of what your original guidance was, factoring in the iron?

Question: Trevor Turnbull - Scotiabank Global Banking and Markets, Research Division - Analyst : Okay. Great. And then I had a quick question for Steve on the taxes paid in the quarter. I think it was about $47 million. Hopefully, you didn't mention this already in your comments. I got a bit bogged down. But was the $47 million -- could you break that down between kind of what was related to 2019 taxes and what was related to 2020? And can you give us a little bit of a sense of how 2020 cash taxes play out going forward?

Question: Trevor Turnbull - Scotiabank Global Banking and Markets, Research Division - Analyst : So sorry, so -- that makes sense, but you actually didn't -- the $47 million wouldn't have included anything. Where would I find kind of those monthly payments that you would have made in Q1 towards 2020? Or doesn't that happen until Q2?