McEwen Mining Inc. (NYSE:MUX) Q3 2022 Earnings Conference Call November 7, 2022 11:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Robert McEwen - Chairman and Chief Owner
Perry Ing - Chief Financial Officer
William Shaver - Chief Operating Officer
Stephen McGibbon - Executive Vice President, Exploration
Michael Meding - Vice President and General Manager, McEwen Copper
Stefan Spears - Vice President Corporate Development
Conference Call Participants
Jacob Sekelsky - Alliance Global Partners
Heiko Ihle - H.C. Wainwright
Joseph Reagor - ROTH Capital Partners, LLC
Michael Kozak - Cantor Fitzgerald
John Tumazos - John Tumazos Very Independent Research
Operator
Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the McEwen Mining's Q3 2022 Operating and Financial Results Conference Call.
Present from the Company today are Rob McEwen, Chairman and Chief Owner, Perry Ing, Chief Financial Officer, William Shaver, Chief Operating Officer, Stephen McGibbon, Executive Vice President of Exploration, and Michael Meding, Vice President and General Manager of McEwen Copper.
I’ll now turn the call over to Mr. Rob McEwen, Chief Owner. Please go ahead, sir.
Robert McEwen
Thank you, Operator. Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us today.
During Q3, we addressed a number of the overhanging concerns about McEwen Mining. First, the financing of McEwen Copper. We completed an $82 million financing in a really tough market. Not only did we complete it, but we have the second largest mining company in the world becoming a shareholder through its subsidiaries.
We had high costs at our operations at Fox, and in the third quarter, we turned in operating costs, cash costs per ounce, below industry averages, of $774 per ounce.
At Gold Bar, we saw our production fall in the first half of the year as a result of carbonaceous ore, and it resulted in unusually high costs, unacceptably high costs. We are opening up the Gold Bar South deposit, and it has no carbonaceous ore. It has higher grade ore, and it’s a lower strip. We should be seeing lower cost production coming from there.
In Mexico, it looked like we are coming to the end of the life of the mine. We did have a feasibility study there for a project called Fenix, and we’ve improved the economics of it considerably with the purchase of a process plant on very advantageous terms. These issues all obscured the value of McEwen Mining, in my mind. With these resolved and a steady improvement going forward, I believe the value of McEwen Mining will become more apparent, and after the presentations of my associates, I will talk about the value I see behind McEwen Mining.