New Gold Inc. (NYSE:NGD) Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call May 1, 2024 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Ankit Shah - EVP, Strategy and Business Development
Patrick Godin - President and CEO
Keith Murphy - CFO
Yohann Bouchard - COO

Conference Call Participants

Mike Parkin - National Bank Financial
Eric Winmill - Scotiabank
Anita Soni - CIBC World Market

Operator

…statements relating to New Gold. In this respect, we refer you to our detailed cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements in the presentation. You are cautioned that actual results and future events could differ materially from those expressed or implied in forward-looking statements. Slide two provides additional information and should be reviewed.

We also refer you to the section entitled Risk Factors in New Gold's latest AIF, MD&A, and other filings on SEDAR Plus, which set out certain material factors that could cause actual results to differ. In addition, at the conclusion of the presentation, there are a number of endnotes that provide important information and should be reviewed in conjunction with the material presented.

I'll now turn the call over to Pat for some opening remarks. Pat?

Patrick Godin

Thanks Ankit and good morning, everyone. We had a good start to the year with the first quarter delivering as planned. We continue to see excellent health and safety performance at both operations through our Courage to Care campaign.

Rainy River surpassed three million hours without a last time injury and New Afton surpassed one million hours. Our operation delivered on their quarterly plans as outlined in our operational outlook release from February.

New Afton delivered strong first quarter production results. Rainy River made excellent progress on the planned waste stripping program, which will lead to unlocking higher grade ore in the second half of this year. We are one quarter away from securing the substantial increase in production and cash flow expected in the second half of the year.

We also made excellent progress on key growth projects, including the first concrete four at C-Zone gyratory crusher, and we set a record on the quarterly development advance rate at Rainy River's underground Main Zone, our exploration efforts continue to ramp up as planned.

At New Afton, the company made great progress on the exploration drift, which is expected to be operational for drilling in May. Q1 exploration focused on drilling D-Zone and starting drilling C-Zone [ph] from current infrastructures.

At Rainy River, the exploration program is ramping up with newly identified targets and an additional $4 million will be allocated for 2024 to drill these new targets. Four drills are expected to be turning at Rainy River during Q2.