Galiano Gold Inc. (GAU) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for standing by. My name is Tina, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Second Quarter 2026 Financial and Operating Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Matt Badylak, CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you taking time to join us today to review Galiano Gold's Second Quarter 2026 Financial and Operating results we released yesterday after market closed. During today's call, we'll be making forward-looking statements and referring to non-IFRS performance measures. Please refer to the cautionary notes on Slide 2 of the webcast presentation and to the risk disclosures in our most recent MD&A. Yesterday's news release should be read together with our second quarter financial statements and MD&A, which are available on our website and filed on SEDAR+ and EDGAR. Unless otherwise noted, all dollar amounts discussed on the call today are in U.S. dollars. Joining me today are Michael Cardinaels, our Chief Operating Officer; Matt Freeman, our Chief Financial Officer; and Chris Pettman, our Vice President, Exploration. I will begin with an overview of the quarter. Michael will then discuss mining and processing, Matt will review the financial performance, and Chris will update you on exploration. I'll then return to provide some perspective on our near-term catalysts and close the prepared remarks before we open up the call up for questions. Turning to Slide 4. Our first half performance has put us in a solid position to deliver our 2026 plan. We produced 34,400 ounces of gold in the second quarter, bringing the first half production to just over 69,000 ounces near the upper end of our previously communicated indicated range of 60,000 to 70,000 ounces. This provides a solid foundation as we enter the higher production portion of the mine plan, which generated -- with grades expected to improve as mining advances at Abore. Our full year production guidance remains unchanged at 140,000 to 160,000 ounces, and our all-in sustaining cash cost guidance remains unchanged at $2,300 to $2,600 per ounce. Safety remains our highest priority. We recorded no lost time injuries and no total recordable injuries during the quarter. At June 30, our teams worked approximately 11 million hours without a lost time injury and achieved 456 consecutive incident-free days. These are meaningful milestones, and I'd like to recognize our employees and business partners for the discipline and care that made this possible. We also maintained a strong financial position and in the quarter with total cash of $105.9 million. This includes approximately $26 million of restricted cash that we will expand on shortly. Importantly, the company remains debt free, and we continue to invest in the future of Asanko Gold Mine. This includes waste stripping at Nkran and exploration activities at Esaase and Abore. Overall, Q2 was a quarter of both delivery and preparation. We delivered against our current mine plan, while putting the building blocks in place for the next phase of growth. With that, I'll turn the call over to Michael to review our operating performance.

Thank you, Matt, and good morning, everyone. Here on Slide 5, mining performance in the second quarter remained aligned with our plan and continues to support our full year guidance. During the quarter, we mined approximately 1.8 million tonnes of ore at an average grade of 0.9 grams per tonne. Ore tonnes increased approximately 15% from the first quarter, while grades remained consistent with expectations. This increase in ore availability keeps us on track for the planned production growth in the second half of the year. Abore remained our primary source of mill feed, contributing approximately 77% of total ore mined during the quarter. Mining advanced into deeper phases of the pit, where we expect to access higher grades as the year progresses. This mining sequence is a key driver of our anticipated second half production profile. Mining at Esaase also continued as planned and provided supplemental feed to the mill. At Nkran Cut 3, we continue to make strong progress on development activities. The team mined 6.1 million tonnes of waste during the quarter, representing a 30% increase from Q1. We invested $22.1 million pre-stripping during Q2, bringing year-to-date investment to $35.6 million. Additional equipment is scheduled to arrive during the third quarter to support the planned ramp-up in mining rates. The work underway today is critical to unlocking access to the higher-grade Nkran ore that supports our future production profile. Importantly, this progress was all achieved while maintaining our strong safety performance, which Matt highlighted earlier. Turning to Slide 6. Processing performance remained solid during the quarter despite some unplanned maintenance activities. Average feed grade was approximately 0.9 grams per tonne, metallurgical recovery was 90% and gold production totaled 34,391 ounces. Mill availability was impacted by maintenance on the ball mill gearbox in June. While work on the primary crush equipment continued throughout the quarter. Despite these interruptions, the processing team maintained strong recovery rates and delivered production in line with expectations, demonstrating the resilience and stability of the operation. The remaining crusher work is expected to be completed during the third quarter. So, looking ahead, our priorities for the second half of the year are straightforward. Complete the remaining repairs of the critical spares for the primary crusher, continue advancing the mining sequence at Abore and deliver the higher-grade ore planned for the balance of the year. With more than 69,000 ounces produced in the first half, we are well positioned to achieve our full year production guidance. I will now hand the call over to Matt Freeman to review the financial results.

Thanks, Michael, and good morning, everyone. Turning to Slide 7. The second quarter again demonstrated the earnings and cash generation capacity of the business, even as we continue to fund significant development activity. Revenue for the second quarter was $156.6 million on sales of just over 35,000 ounces of gold and a realized gold price, before the impact of the hedging losses, of $4,432 per ounce. This translated into strong earnings with adjusted EBITDA of $78.5 million and adjusted earnings per share of $0.09. Also, as we have discussed previously, we're getting close to the end of our hedge book such that from 2027, our financial results will be able to fully participate in the gold price, leading to a natural inflection point in our cash flows. I must note that at the end of the quarter, approximately $26 million of our cash became restricted following court order relating to a long-standing contractual dispute with a former service provider. This is in direct contravention of an existing court order, and as such, we are confident the restriction will be lifted in a timely manner. Excluding the IFRS presentation of the restricted cash in our cash flow statement, the mine generated cash flows from operations of $31.9 million, which shows that the operation continues to generate meaningful cash flows. The key point here is that our balance sheet remains very healthy. We've maintained substantial liquidity while funding the investment in our growth projects, such as the significant infill drilling campaign at Esaase and accelerating the pre-strip program at Nkran Cut 3. Turning to Slide 8. We're pleased that despite elevated diesel prices since the start of the Iran conflict, all-in sustaining costs were $2,473 per ounce for the quarter and $2,418 per ounce for the first half of the year. And as production increases and grades improved in the second half of 2026, we expect better unit cost leverage, and therefore, our 2026 guidance remains unchanged at $2,300 to $2,600 per ounce. Through this disciplined cost management that we continue to be able to direct capital towards value-enhancing projects, such as the Nkran strip and exploration work, which expected to provide the foundation for mine life extension of the asset. I'll now turn the call back to Chris to discuss the progress made on these exploration priorities.

Thanks, Matt. Exploration work through Q2 was primarily focused on executing our aggressive drilling campaign at Esaase and Abore in order to deliver results and time for the addition in the 2027 MRMR update. The exploration budget for 2026 has been expanded to a very healthy $25 million from the previous $17 million, meaning we are well resourced to deliver on our objectives. Following Q1 drilling success in the first phase of the Esaase infill and conversion drilling program, the full expanded program consisting of approximately 32,000 meters was approved, and drilling was immediately ramped up with a total of 7 drill rigs turning at Esaase by June. The program was approximately 50% complete by the end of Q2 with the team achieving a total of 13,748 meters in the quarter, and drilling remains on schedule for completion in Q3. Results received to date continue to indicate the program will meet objectives of converting a high percentage of the targeted inferred resource to the indicated category ahead of the 2027 MRMR update. This work is specifically designed to dramatically increase the open pit mineral reserve at Esaase, which will anchor the future life of mine transformation. Drilling also continued at Abore as we work to expand the underground resource, which was first released last quarter. 4,565 meters were drilled through Q2, bringing the full year program of 30,000 meters to 54% complete. We remain excited by the growth we are seeing in Abore and are anticipating completion of the remainder of the drilling at Abore by early Q4. That excitement is reflected in our ongoing planning efforts for potential construction of underground exploration at Abore. Permitting and planning efforts advanced well through Q2, and we are on track to make an investment decision for a potential construction start in 2027. This project will be a significant milestone for exploration and the AGM as it would represent the first steps to transitioning the Asankrangwa Gold Belt deposits towards underground operations as has been done very successfully at both the Sefwi and the Ashanti Belt that lie immediately adjacent to us. Back to you, Matt, to discuss our near-term catalysts.

Thank you, Chris. Turning to Slide 10. Here, I'll point out that Chris' update is important because exploration is an integral part of our strategy to extend mine life and strengthen the future production profile. Our immediate priority remains a safe delivery of our 2026 guidance. Looking beyond this year, however, we expect the operating and financial profile of the business to change meaningfully. Production is expected to increase in 2027 and once the hedge program rolls off, we expect to benefit from higher production and full exposure to the gold price supporting stronger free cash flow. This combination represents the key financial inflection point we see ahead. Beyond that near-term inflection Nkran Cut3 is a key driver of a production profile of more than 200,000 ounces per year. Esaase and Abore also contribute to that scale and provide opportunities to sustain and extend the production profile through reserve conversion and underground resource growth. Together, Nkran, Esaase and Abore support both scale and the longevity of this Asanko gold mine. The chart on the left shows that Galiano trades at a discount to many of our peers on an enterprise value per reserve ounce basis. We believe this discount does not reflect the value of our existing operations, the strength of our balance sheet, the visibility of the expected cash flow inflection or the organic growth opportunities across Nkran, Esaase and Abore. In our view, the current valuation understates, both the strength of our business today and its long-term growth potential. Let me close by bringing the quarter back to our broader strategy. In the near term, our task is clear: operate safely and deliver our 2026 plan. Our first half production of 69,000 ounces near the upper end of our indicated range provides a solid foundation for the balance of the year. Our full year production and all-in sustaining cash guidance remains unchanged. At the same time, we are using our debt-free balance sheet to fund Nkran Cut 3, progress reserve conversion at Esaase and advance underground growth at Abore while maintaining substantial liquidity. We are, therefore, able to invest in the future of the mine while continuing to execute the current plan. The result is a clear path to improved operating and financial profile beginning in 2027. And higher production, stronger free cash flow, greater participation in gold price and multiple opportunities to expand reserves, resources and mine life. That combination gives us confidence in Galiano's ability to create meaningful long-term shareholder value. Thank you to our employees and our business partners for their continued commitment and thank you to our shareholders and analysts for your interest in Galiano Gold. Operator, we are now ready to take questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Heiko Ihle with HCW.

It's Heiko Ihle with H.C. Wainwright. Let's talk about the general and administrative costs on a dollar mill basis. You went from -- you went from $7 essentially $8.50. And I get that that's a small number overall, but on a percentage basis, the change is quite pronounced. Can you maybe give a bit of color on where we should model that out going forward? And what exactly happened? I assume some of that is just labor costs.

It's Matt Freeman here. I think simplistically, the large part of it is just the denominator there. The tonnes milled was a bit lower this quarter given some of the issues that Mick alluded to. Otherwise, nothing really substantial in there. We had a few other maintenance costs that maybe flow through that a little bit on some sort of not kind of plant-related ones. But really, it's just the denominator so your tonnes milled. So modeling going forward, I would think this was a bit of an anomaly. I would think you can look back at the previous couple of quarters, and that would be a much better way of looking at it going forward. We're certainly not seeing any major unexpected movements in our general cost base at all across the operations.

That's what I would have expected and hoped you guys would say, okay. So that makes a lot of sense. And then also, you mentioned the diesel prices in the release, you discussed it briefly earlier on this call. Can you just give a bit of color on how much you actually spent nonfuel per quarter? And what you've been seeing with this figure throughout the first half of Q3? Is that something where the analysts can just -- once we have the total, we can just essentially take it and then take like global diesel prices and sort of like model it like that.

Yes, Heiko. I think on average, we're about 3 to 4 million liters a month. And obviously, as we increase the profile of stripping at Nkran over the next, I guess, 18 months or so, we would expect that to increase a little bit over time. Honestly, we're not seeing it being particularly material to the business. Obviously, we've seen the spike through the summer. And obviously, it's been hugely volatile, particularly what we're seeing in the pumps in Ghana. But I think we're guiding -- we're comfortable in our guidance range. we're certainly comfortable where the costs are sitting. Hopefully, the Middle East situation will calm down a bit, and we'll see the reversion in prices. But say, at the moment, it's not that material to us. We're keeping an eye on things and managing where we can.

Fair enough. And essentially, on a usage basis, flat for the rest of the year, is the way to go.

Yes. I mean we're modeling it within our expectations as being kind of around where it is now slightly elevated and hopefully say things could come off lower than that, and we might have a slight benefit there. But say, as of now, we're very comfortable with our cost guidance. So you can kind of expect us to fall in that range comfortably.

Your next question comes from the line of Frederic Bolton with BMO Capital Markets.

So I've got a few questions here. You reduced your development guidance this year. Can you just talk us through the primary drivers of that reduction? So notice that you're guidance for the Nkran Cut 3 hasn't changed at all. I don't mind just going through the questions bundled. So If you start with that, please.

Fred, it's Matt Freeman here. Yes, we've -- as we said in the MD&A, we expect development costs to be slightly down on what we'd originally said. There's a bit of a delay in some of our relocation projects in terms of the timing. But no, no change in sort of overall cost structure for the life of mine. It's just a timing shift between probably rendition and next year.

Okay. And with respect to this legal dispute -- this [ garnishee ]. What's the current status on the appeal process and what sort of gating factors or milestones are needed before you can unlock some of that restricted cash?

Yes. As I said, this is actually a very recent thing. So as we've said, we believe it to be a contravention of an existing order out there. So -- we're working with local counsel going through a legal process in Ghana to get that rescinded. Difficult to give a indication of exact timing, obviously because of these legal processes and through the summer, there's various court delays and holidays and things. So we're expecting, hopefully, something to be resolved in the short term. I can't give you precise timings, but certainly, we're working as diligently as we can with councel to get it resolved.