Coeur Mining, Inc. (NYSE:CDE) Q4 2022 Earnings Conference Call February 23, 2023 11:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Mitchell Krebs - President and Chief Executive Officer
Michael Routledge - Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Thomas Whelan - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Aoife McGrath - Senior Vice President, Exploration
Conference Call Participants
Michael Dudas - Vertical Research Partners
Operator
Good day and welcome to the Coeur Mining Fourth Quarter 2022 Financial Results Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] After today’s presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note, this event is being recorded.
I would now like to turn the conference over to Mitchell Krebs, President and CEO. Please go ahead.
Mitchell Krebs
Good morning, and thanks for joining our fourth quarter and 2022 earnings call. Before I begin, please note our cautionary language on forward-looking statements in today's slide deck and refer to our SEC filings on our website. I'll start with the main highlights on slide three before turning the call over to Mick, Tom and Aoife.
The fourth quarter was Coeur's strongest quarter of the year, which helped to achieve our overall full year production guidance for the third consecutive year, definitely not an easy task last year with such unprecedented volatility. Rochester was the main driver to our solid finish last year. Both silver and gold production increased over 30% quarter-over-quarter with sharply lower costs. Ongoing operational enhancements and higher grades contributed to Rochester's results as we begin the transition to the newly expanded infrastructure where construction remains on track to be completed mid-year.
We achieved several critical objectives last year that we believe are important value drivers for the company in the short, medium, and long-term. In the short-term, we continue to derisk and advance the Rochester expansion. The project is nearing 80% complete this month and remains on track in terms of budget and schedule. We also further fortified the balance sheet to support our elevated levels of investment in our existing assets that are intended to increase production, decrease costs, extend mine lives, and drive a return to positive free cash flow, which Tom will provide more details on in a few minutes.
In the medium term, the team at Kensington got an early jump on their multiyear development and drilling program last year by adding approximately a year and a half to its mind life. As we laid out during our Investor Day in December, we're optimistic about further extending Kensington's mine life and generating solid returns from higher production and lower costs from this investment.