Gatos Silver, Inc. (NYSE:GATO) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call February 21, 2024 11:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Dale Andres - CEO
André van Niekerk - CFO
Conference Call Participants
Lucas Pamatat - Canaccord
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Gatos Silver's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Financial and Operating Results Conference Call. Presenting today will be Dale Andres, CEO of Gatos Silver; and André van Niekerk, Chief Financial Officer.
We will conclude today's session with a question-and-answer period where other members of Gatos Silver management team will be available. [Operator Instructions]. At this time, all participants' lines have been placed on mute for the duration of the presentation to prevent any background noise.
Turning your attention to Slide 2. Please note today's call contains forward-looking statements. Various risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to vary. Gatos Silver does not assume the obligation to update any forward-looking statements.
I would now like to turn the call over to Dale Andres. Please go ahead.
Dale Andres
Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone.
Turning to Slide 3. I'd like to highlight three points for the quarter. Number one, we continued to further strengthen our balance sheet, increasing the cash balance while remaining debt free, including at the 70% owned Los Gatos joint venture. André will speak to this in more detail, but I want to highlight Gatos Silver's free cash flow of $22 million in the fourth quarter and continuing distributions received in the first quarter of this year.
Number two point, I want to highlight is that operations continue to perform very well with the Cerro Los Gatos mine setting another record for throughput rate. We ended the year within our upwardly revised production guidance range, and we finished the year at the lower end of our cost guidance range for all-in sustaining costs.
As a result, our free cash flow was approximately $22 million for Q4, and $85 million, and that's at the Los Gatos joint venture, for the full year 2023. And the third point is, yet again, we're aiming to extend the mine life, by an additional three years when we update our life of mine plan in the third quarter of 2024. And we continue to drive operational performance with a medium-term goal, of ramping up production to 3,500 tonnes per day on a sustainable basis.
Turning to Slide 4. Mill throughput in the quarter was over 3,000 tonnes per day, while silver grades improved, compared to the prior quarter, which resulted in a 15% increase in silver production of approximately 2.6 million ounces. Importantly, we demonstrated in December that the current capacity of the mill is closer to 3,500 tonnes per day and we are planning some minor upgrades, to make sure it can sustain those kind of rates.