Endeavour remains on track to achieve planned gold output
Endeavour remains on track to achieve its Group production and AISC guidance, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, as it expects a higher grade profile in H2-2020. Endeavour is also maintaining SEMAFO’s production and AISC guidance on Mana and Boungou mines, and therefore expects the FY-2020 Pro Forma Group production to amount to 995—1,095koz in 2020 at an AISC of $865—915/oz.
H1-2020 production for Endeavour’s assets amounted to 321koz, an increase over H1-2019 mainly due to the start-up of the Ity CIL operation in late Q1-2019 while AISC increased in line with guidance.
Q2-2020 production for Endeavour’s assets amounted to 149Koz, a decrease over Q1-2020, due to a lower production at Ity and Karma.
“We are proud of our achievements during the first half of the year as we continued to deliver on our strategic priorities, despite the global pandemic,” Sébastien de Montessus, CEO, commented.
“I’d like to thank our employees and partners for their dedication to ensuring business continuity. Thanks to these efforts, we remain on track to achieve our full year production and AISC guidance and expect a significantly stronger performance in the second half of the year with higher grades.”
“We are very pleased with the progress made to integrate the SEMAFO assets within our well-established West African operating model, which is now largely complete. These operations are already benefiting from our strong local presence and regional expertise and we look forward to realizing synergies.”
“The combined group is now a top 15 global gold producer, with significant optionality within its portfolio and a healthy balance sheet with a leverage ratio of below 0.5 times. Our goal is to completely deleverage the balance sheet in the coming quarters to further derisk the business, at which point we intend to initiate dividend payments.”
Endeavour expects stronger cash flow generation in the second half of the year, due to higher production, lower non-sustaining spend (already 65% of FY-2020 guidance completed in H1), lower exploration spend (already 85% of FY-2020 guidance completed in H1), the benefit of higher gold prices and its gold collar program (with a cap of $1,500/oz for half its production) finishing at the end of June 2020.
