Eldorado Gold Corporation Stock

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Eldorado Gold Third Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the conference over to Lynette Gould, Vice President, Investor Relations, Communications and External Affairs. Please go ahead, Ms. Gould.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to our conference call to discuss our third quarter 2026 results. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that we will be making forward-looking statements and referring to non-IFRS measures during the call. Please refer to the cautionary statements included in the presentation and the disclosure on non-IFRS measures and risk factors in our management's discussion and analysis.

Joining me on the call today, we have Christian Milau, President and Chief Executive Officer; Paul Ferneyhough, Executive Vice President, Strategy and Chief Financial Officer; and Simon Hille, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer.

Our release yesterday details our third quarter 2026 financial and operating results. The release should be read in conjunction with our Q3 2026 financial statements and management's discussion and analysis, both of which are available on our website and have been filed on SEDAR+ and EDGAR. All dollar figures discussed today are U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated. For clarity, we have rounded certain figures for the purposes of this conference call. We will be speaking to the slides that accompany this webcast, which can be downloaded from our website. After the prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A, at which time, we will invite analysts to queue for questions.

I will now turn the call over to Christian.

Thanks, Lynette, and good morning. I'll begin with an overview of the third quarter and an update on Skouries. As I begin my first quarterly call as CEO, my focus is on building on Eldorado's high-quality, long-life asset base and the investments already made while improving execution consistency, enhancing capital discipline and converting those investments into stronger cash flow and per share value. We have 2 new operations advancing through commissioning and ramp-up, together with significant exploration potential across the portfolio. You should expect us to set clear expectations, report transparently on our progress and be disciplined in how we allocate capital and deliver our long-term plan.

I can't emphasize enough that our focus is on creating sustainable long-term value. We are making decisions with that objective in mind while remaining disciplined on near-term execution, capital allocation and returns. An important part of that discipline is how we approach project development and execution. With our recently hired and enhanced projects team embedded across the business, we have strengthened our approach to project governance. Going forward, we do not expect to undertake any significant capital project without the projects team involved from the outset, bringing greater discipline and consistency to project evaluation, planning, execution and oversight.

The Skouries inauguration earlier this month was a proud moment for our team and the positive response from government representatives, including Prime Minister Mitsotakis, local communities and other stakeholders reinforce the significance of this project for Greece and the region. In addition, Skouries was designated a strategic project by the European Commission. And in the next week or so, we expect to be transporting our first batch of European produced concentrate, a European smelter just a few hours from Skouries. This is a key milestone for the team.

Earlier in September, analysts and investors visited the site and saw firsthand the progress achieved as the operation advances through ramp-up. And this week, we announced our first filtered tails, which was a critical milestone in allowing the processing plant to operate continuously and start the ramp-up towards commercial production during this quarter. This is an exciting time for Skouries and all our partners and stakeholders. I also want to thank George for his leadership over the past 9 years and for the long -- the strong foundation he helped build. I'm pleased that he will remain an important shareholder, supporter and Board member.

Turning to the quarter. The quarter marked an important step forward for Eldorado. Skouries produced first copper-gold concentrate and McIlvenna Bay continued to ramp up following first copper and zinc concentrate. We expect both operations to achieve commercial production in late Q4. At Skouries, the ramp-up has taken longer and cost more than we expected, and it's important that we acknowledge that directly. Our immediate priority is to safely complete the remaining commissioning work, achieve commercial production and establish stable, predictable operating performance. We are building strong momentum toward that goal and are encouraged by the progress we are seeing.

Based on our year-to-date performance, we have revised our 2026 production guidance. For our operating assets, excluding Skouries and McIlvenna Bay, we now expect gold production of 410,000 to 430,000 ounces. Strong performance at Lamaque is partially offsetting lower expected production at Kisladag and Olympias, with the Olympias expansion now expected to begin ramping up in Q1 2027. At Skouries, we now expect 2026 production of 10,000 to 35,000 ounces of gold and 5 million to 15 million pounds of copper, reflecting the slower-than-expected ramp-up. The revision reflects the timing of the ramp-up and does not change our current expectations for Skouries long-term design capacity.

And based on the progress we are seeing and our current ramp-up plans, we remain comfortable with our expectations for Skouries in 2027. Importantly, the momentum we have built over the last few days with the tailings filter presses and the processing plant now operational, we remain focused on maintaining that momentum through the remainder of the ramp-up. More broadly, despite the changes we are making to our 2026 guidance today, we remain comfortable with our overall outlook for 2027. We expect to enter the year with Skouries and McIlvenna Bay advancing through ramp-up, the Olympias expansion coming online and the benefits of the work underway at Kisladag beginning to contribute.

Turning more specifically to Skouries on Slide 5. First production of the copper-gold concentrate was achieved on September 8. The process plant is substantially complete and operating as expected as part of the ramp-up, optimization and performance testing continuing across the circuit. And one milestone we are particularly excited about is the start of the 2 filter presses at Skouries, which we announced on Monday. And we continue to press tails successfully on a consistent basis this week. If you haven't yet watched the video that accompanied the release, I strongly encourage you to do so. It's impressive to see the sheer scale of the filter presses in operation, the filter cake discharging onto the conveyors and the material moving out to the tailings management facility. It's a great visual representation of the progress being made at Skouries.

Those 2 filter presses enable continuous plant operation, which is an important step forward. We require 4 operating filter presses to support commercial production, and commissioning of the remaining units is progressing well with the additional units expected to come online in November and likely within the next couple of weeks. The site was successfully energized on September 28, completing the grid connection to grid power. All temporary generators have now been demobilized, providing the reliable long-term power infrastructure needed for commissioning and ramp-up. Mining activities in both the open pit and underground continue to perform well with a significant stockpile of both open pit and underground ore, providing substantial feed availability as the plant ramps up. Underground development is advancing according to plan with 2,100 meters completed during the quarter and the East ramp breakthrough achieved.

Following first concentrate and the revised timing of commercial production, estimated total project capital for Skouries is approximately $1.425 billion, an increase that consists of $65 million of project capital and $45 million of previously guided growth capital. That had been expected following commercial production but is now expected to be incurred prior to commercial production and is therefore reported as project capital. To reiterate, this $45 million of capital is not new. It's just reclassified from the operating period to the capital period before commercial production. The actual increase of $65 million primarily reflects higher contractor workforce requirements, extended use of temporary power, additional owners' costs and other execution-related costs associated with the longer commissioning period.

We also expect accelerated operational capital of $390 million, an increase that consists of $95 million of additional operational costs and $35 million of previously guided sustaining capital that had been expected following commercial production. It is now expected to be incurred and capitalized during the pre-commercial production period and is therefore reported as accelerated operating capital. Again, this $35 million of capital is not new and just reclassified from the operating period to the capital period before commercial production. The actual increase of $95 million primarily reflects activities that support continued growth of the ore stockpiles ahead of our first production, further advancement of the underground mine and advancing the site general earthworks.

We have also taken a cautious and prudent approach by separately identifying up to an additional $30 million contingency that may be incurred depending on the exact timing of commercial production. The classification of these expenditures will depend on when commercial production is achieved, with amounts potentially reflected in project capital, AOC, sustaining capital or growth capital. Given the positive momentum we have seen over the past week, we certainly do not expect to use this contingency. However, in the interest of being prudent and transparent, we believe it is appropriate to include it in our estimates at this stage. Based on our current cost and schedule assumptions, the project remains fully funded.

With that, I'll turn it over to Paul to review the financial results.

Thank you, Christian, and good morning, everyone. Turning to Slide 6. Our third quarter financial results benefited from higher realized gold prices, while we continue to invest significantly in driving Skouries and McIlvenna Bay towards commercial production. During the quarter, we produced 106,000 ounces of gold and sold 107,000 ounces. Lamaque delivered another strong quarter, benefiting from higher throughput, grade and recoveries, including the contribution from Ormaque. This helped partially offset lower production at Kisladag and Efemcukuru.

Revenue increased 18% year-over-year to $512 million, supported by an average realized gold price of $4,326 per ounce in the quarter compared with $3,527 per ounce in the third quarter of 2025. The benefit from higher realized prices more than offset the impact of lower gold sales volumes. Production costs were $200 million compared with $164 million in the prior year quarter. The increase primarily reflected higher royalties, higher costs at Lamaque and Olympias and the inclusion of pre-commercial production costs at McIlvenna Bay.

Total cash costs averaged $1,415 per ounce sold, while AISC averaged $2,050 per ounce sold. The year-over-year increases primarily reflected higher production costs, lower gold sales volumes and higher sustaining capital. These impacts were partially offset by increased by-product credits. Depreciation and amortization was $59 million compared with $63 million in the prior year quarter, primarily reflecting lower production at Kisladag. We also recorded a $4 million foreign exchange gain, primarily reflecting movements in the euro on euro-denominated debt and payables in Greece. Other income was approximately $6 million and finance costs were approximately $14 million, with the increase in finance costs reflecting higher interest and financing costs on cumulative debt and changes in the fair value of redemption option derivatives.

Income tax expense was $92 million, including $62 million of current tax expense and $30 million of deferred tax expense. Overall, net earnings attributable to shareholders from continuing operations were $118 million or $0.45 per share compared with $56 million or $0.28 per share in the third quarter of 2025. Adjusted net earnings were $127 million or $0.49 per share compared with $82 million or $0.41 per share a year ago. Overall, higher realized gold prices provided a meaningful benefit during the quarter, partially offsetting the impact of lower sales volumes and continued investment in our growth projects.

Turning to Slide 7. Our balance sheet and liquidity remain important priorities as we complete the investment programs at Skouries and McIlvenna Bay. In August, we increased our revolving credit facility from $450 million to $600 million, extended its maturity to March 1, 2029, and improved our financial flexibility through enhanced pricing and beneficial covenant terms. At quarter end, we had approximately $397 million of cash and cash equivalents and $275 million of availability under the credit facility, providing total liquidity of $672 million. We also held $72 million of restricted cash in the Skouries debt service reserve account, which has been funded ahead of declaring project completion.

Turning to cash flow. Net cash generated from operating activities was $135 million in the quarter. Importantly, cash flow from operating activities before changes in working capital was $249 million compared with $184 million in the prior year quarter. Consolidated free cash flow was negative $191 million, reflecting the significant level of investment in Skouries and McIlvenna Bay as both operations advance towards commercial production. For additional context, the established operating portfolio generated $98 million of free cash flow before the investment in Skouries and McIlvenna Bay during the quarter. This compared with $77 million in the prior year period.

This provides clear visibility into the cash generated by the established operating portfolio while we complete this significant phase of growth investment. During the quarter, cash capital expenditures were approximately $206 million at Skouries and $69 million at McIlvenna Bay, underscoring the significant level of investment reflected in the consolidated free cash flow.

Looking ahead, our capital allocation priorities remain disciplined. First, completing the commissioning and ramp-up to commercial production levels of Skouries and McIlvenna Bay remain our immediate capital priority. Second, we will maintain balance sheet strength and financial flexibility as these 2 assets transition from investment towards material cash generation. Third, as the new operations stabilize and free cash flow improves, we will evaluate the appropriate balance amongst debt reduction, reinvestment and shareholder returns, including the size of our quarterly dividend and potential share repurchases.

With that, I'll turn it over to Simon for an operational update.

Thank you, Paul. Starting at McIlvenna Bay on Slide 8. The total project capital cost estimate from June 1, 2024, to commercial production is now expected to be $975 million, an increase of approximately $23 million following a slower-than-expected ramp-up towards commercial production, which is expected in late Q4. For 2026, growth capital post commercial production is expected to be approximately $15 million and sustaining capital post commercial production is expected to be $10 million.

The full process facility is operational with average throughput in the 70% range. We have focused on improved availability and operational consistency. The remaining ramp-up activities are focused primarily on solid-liquid separation in the pyrite and tailings thickeners, reagent control and improving filtration rates and filter availability. Beyond the ramp-up, we continue to advance exploration opportunities to unlock additional value from McIlvenna Bay and broader district.

We remain on track to include an inaugural inferred mineral resource for Tesla in our annual mineral reserve and mineral resource update in the fourth quarter. Given the exciting prospectivity at the Tesla deposit, we are undertaking additional work before updating the McIlvenna Bay technical report. This includes evaluating shaft location, material handling options for both deposits and planning resource conversion drilling along with mill expansion study already underway. We expect to update the technical report once the work has advanced.

Moving to Slide 9 and the Lamaque Complex. The team delivered another strong quarter, producing 52,748 ounces of gold, supported by strong mill performance, higher head grade and recoveries, including positive contribution from Ormaque. Ormaque is becoming an increasingly important source of high-grade ore for Lamaque. Cost performance remained strong with total cash cost of $897 per ounce sold and all-in sustaining costs of $1,436 per ounce sold, the latter reflecting the earlier transition of Ormaque underground development from growth capital to sustaining capital.

Moving to Slide 10 at Kisladag. Production totaled 22,713 ounces of gold, reflecting lower grade ore stacked, which is associated with mine sequencing as the operation continued to accelerate waste removal from Phase 6 and the Western area. Completion of necessary bench cleanup progressed more slowly than planned during the quarter, delaying access to higher-grade material, which was realized in September. The higher-grade material is now being stacked on the North Heap Leach Pad. However, given the approximate 300-day leach cycle, the associated production benefit is expected towards the end of fourth quarter and into 2027.

All-in sustaining costs were $2,832 per ounce sold, reflecting mine sequencing and the associated lower production, higher cash costs and higher sustaining costs. The accelerated waste stripping is expected to improve access and operating flexibility going forward. We are also continuing to advance initiatives, including the whole ore agglomeration circuit, which remains on track with commissioning and ramp-up expected in the first half of 2027. These initiatives are expected to support improved operational consistency and long-term performance.

Moving to Slide 11 at Efemcukuru. The operation produced 17,073 ounces of gold. All-in sustaining costs were $2,313 per ounce sold, reflecting lower ounces sold and slightly higher total cash costs and sustaining capital expenditures. Efemcukuru continues to be a consistent contributor to the portfolio. While the grades were lower in the quarter, the team continued to deliver strong throughput and advanced development work in the Kokarpinar deposit to support the mine life extension.

Moving to Slide 12 at Olympias. We produced 13,430 ounces of gold. Lower gold grades were partially offset by higher mill throughput, while stable ore blend and stronger flotation performance supported improved metal recoveries. Quarterly gold production was impacted by a decision to stockpile material with elevated lead and zinc content that was originally expected to be processed at the end of the third quarter. This material is expected to be introduced through the controlled blending program during the fourth quarter to maintain stable plant performance and to optimize recoveries.

All-in sustaining costs were $2,067 per ounce sold, supported by higher byproduct credits. Completion of the 650,000 tonne per annum expansion is ongoing with the final circuit tie-ins planned for the first quarter of 2027 and ramp up to nameplate capacity anticipated in the first half of 2027. Across the portfolio, our focus remains on safe, disciplined execution while advancing the operational improvements and growth initiatives that support Eldorado's next phase of production and cash flow.

And with that, I'll turn the call over to Christian for closing remarks.

Thanks, Simon. Q3 was an important quarter for Eldorado. Skouries achieved first concentrate, McIlvenna Bay continued its ramp-up and our established operations generated meaningful production in a strong gold price environment. We've also just returned from McIlvenna Bay, where we visited the site alongside our Board of Directors. Seeing the operation firsthand reinforced the quality of this long-term asset. There is meaningful expansion potential in the next few years and exceptional exploration potential over the long term. And I want to acknowledge the hard work of the team advancing the ramp-up.

As I begin as CEO, my approach is straightforward, set clear expectations, report transparently on progress and respond quickly when results differ from plan. I'm confident in the quality of the mines and exploration properties across the portfolio and in the cash flow potential of the investments we have made. Our focus now is on executing the remaining ramp-ups and translating that potential into stronger, sustainable cash generation and per share value starting in '27. Beyond the near-term ramp-ups, we have substantial opportunity within the portfolio.

Our job is not to chase growth for growth's sake. It's to maximize the value of the assets we already own, invest where returns justify it, strengthen the balance sheet and grow per share value. Realizing that potential requires disciplined execution as we ramp up our growth projects through mid-2027. That is where our focus will remain. So thank you for your support and time today.

I'll now turn the call back to the operator for questions from our analysts.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Cosmos Chiu with CIBC.

Great. Maybe my first question is on Skouries, and great to see that you've got the first of -- the 2 first filter presses now in place. Is that what we need to monitor in terms of the pathway to commercial production, getting the filter presses up to 4 filter presses? Or is there other stuff that we should be monitoring as well?

Cosmos, it's Simon. Thanks for the question. When we think about the operation at Skouries, 2 filters. When we're in -- operating in sort of porphyry ore types, so the long-term ore type, the sulfide that we're producing there. Generally, to get to full nameplate, we probably need 4 filters operating. So we -- through commissioning, our plan always is to sort of start at about 50% and then ramp through to that 100% mark.

With 4 filters, we generally -- when we think about filtration, we like 4 operating and 1 spare. So our target is to get to 5 available. Right now, we have 2 operating. As we recorded, we've got 2 more coming online in the next week to 2 weeks, and then we'll be really available to ramp the mill up to support that. So that's really the last milestone, if you want to think about it in terms of our ability to get to full production. There's nothing else holding us back of significance.

Cosmos, it's Paul. Of course, once Simon and the team have finished producing concentrate, we've got to get it to market, which is where we actually get our cash. And what I can tell you is you should be looking out for confirmation of our first deliveries. We're anticipating those to go to a European smelter just a few hours away, and that will be the next big phase. What I can also confirm is we have got contracts in place for offtake that covers basically the bulk of the next 2.5 years. So once the facilities are humming along, we're going to be able to move that concentrate to our offtake partners and all the logistics for that are in place and ready to go.

Great. Maybe switching gears to McBay and kind of same type of question, reading through your MD&A, it sounds like the key here is getting availability up at the process plant, either be equipment or instrumentation or whatnot. Is that sort of like the critical path to commercial production? And again, is there something else that we should be aware of?

Cosmos, it's me again. I think that's -- I think you've kind of articulated it fairly well. It's really about -- we have had some challenges at the back end of the plant, not really the front end of the plant predominantly where our solid-liquid separation in the thickening and filtration units has had some ramp-up challenges. We think we've got a good line of sight on the root causes of what was holding us back there now, and we're at the right side of that moving forward. So we anticipate that we'll be able to achieve our commercial production in this fourth quarter.

Great. And you had mentioned it, kind of touched on it previously, talking about the different studies in place, the silver circuit and potential for a mill expansion at McBay, and that could culminate into an updated technical report for McBay. But you stopped short in terms of potentially providing a time line in terms of when that study might come out. Could you maybe give us a bit more granularity in terms of timing and when we can expect some of these potential projects and upside potential to be quantified in some type of technical report?

Yes, excellent question, and I'm happy to talk to this one. It's pretty exciting for us. There's so many things, opportunities that we see at McIlvenna Bay. We want to make sure that we have good clarity on our vision going forward and that we wrap in all the strategic aspects. We will probably be able to provide, I guess, more detail in our sort of guidance at the beginning of the year as to the timing of the studies.

But there is quite a few moving pieces. So as you mentioned, we have the silver-lead circuit already underway and in terms of study and an expansion to 7,000 tonnes per day running concurrently, and we have the materials handling study and shaft location trying to adjust for the magnitude of the deposit that we see at Tesla, which coming out at the end of the fourth quarter as some exciting news coming forward. So we will try -- we're working towards pulling all those pieces together into a strategic bin and then make sure that when we talk to the market and yourselves that we have really a good clean line of sight of what all those elements and value aspects are going to bring to the table. So probably Q1 with that guidance, we'll be able to give more timing detail.

And Cosmos, I was just going to add that certainly, in 2027, we're focused on starting shareholder returns in a material way and taking a bit of a breather. So you shouldn't expect construction of any kind of expansion or anything during 2027. It's more of a taking a breather year, looking at our capital allocation and shareholder returns and starting to generate and turn into a cash flow -- or hit our cash flow inflection point, which is still on track for the early part of 2027. So we're excited about that. There's a bit of fatigue with projects I know right now, and we have a number of them underway, but we are so close to the finish line. It's a very exciting period right now.

That's good to hear. And maybe one last question. And I guess, since I have you here, Christian, bigger picture, as you mentioned, the commercial production at Skouries slightly delayed and the commercial production at McBay slightly delayed. But that's kind of 2026. You kind of touched on it in terms of potential impact into 2027, but could you maybe make a broader comment in terms of some of these issues or delays? Are they more encapsulated in 2026? Is there any kind of potential impact into what we can expect in terms of production into 2027? Could you maybe, Christian, make a comment?

Yes, sure. Thanks, Cosmos. And you're absolutely correct. I did allude to that in the comments, and we don't expect that impact on 2027 production. Really, this fourth quarter is the heavy lifting, and we're really pleased with how Skouries is going even over the last few weeks since you visited site or since the analyst visited site. And I think 2027 is not impacted by this. We think that we've got a reasonable expectation, and we've given good guidance for next year, and we're comfortable with that.

The next question is from Tanya Jakusconek with Scotiabank.

Maybe I'll go to Paul since I was a bit confused last night with all of these new capital numbers provided. I just wanted to reconfirm my understanding and if that's correct. So Paul, when I think about Skouries, the additional capital, so not movement from one category to another, but additional monies that have to go out the door for Skouries is really the $65 million plus the $95 million, which is $160 million. Is that a correct way of looking at it?

Tanya, yes, that's exactly correct.

Okay. And then for McBay, it's $23 million. So the total of $183 million is the additional capital new that has to go out the door for these 2 projects?

Yes, that would be the absolute increase, yes. Obviously, as we pointed out, we're not going to be incurring certain growth and sustaining capital. But as far as the absolute are, yes, you've got the figures exactly correct.

And then in the operating mines, there was about a $55 million increase between sustaining and development, so a total of $55 million. So I should be thinking that $237 million is the total additional capital for all development and operating mines. Is that a correct way of understanding it?

Yes. I think you picked up the right figures from the forecast at the end of the year.

Okay. As I said, it was a bit confusing for me with all of the movements in different categories. I wanted to come back to the 2027 guidance because I'm trying to reconcile 3 mines and maybe someone can help me. I don't know if that's Simon. But I'm going to start with Kisladag. Given all of the slower recovery, now we have access, Simon, of higher-grade ore, so the 300-day leach cycle, we had a guidance of 140,000 to 160,000 ounces for 2027. And that's up from the 105,000 to 130,000, which had been the previous guidance. How should we be thinking about 2027? Do we actually have that higher grade coming through and the leach cycle to stabilize and maintain that 140,000 to 160,000?

Thanks for the question, Tanya. As we look forward into 2027, obviously, we're in the process of doing our detailed budgets towards the back end of this year, and we'll have more accurate guidance coming forward. But yes, as we've sort of previously discussed, 2026 was always a cutback year for us in the open pit where we were going to be in lower grade. The intention of that is to ensure that we can set the mine up for the next several years at a sort of steady production rate.

We see that range that we've previously guided getting back into that as our sort of normal cadence for Kisladag going forward. And we have the benefit of the whole ore agglomeration circuit, which will improve that leach cycle, which has been obviously a critical constraint to the operation being commissioned through the end of sort of Q2. And so by second half of next year, we're really excited to see how that performs. Because as we've talked previously, permeability and leach rate are intimately linked, and we expect that to have a direct impact on the speed at which we can -- that leach cycle eases into production. So yes, we're quite excited by that. We think we're through the most difficult part of the transition for Kisladag now.

Okay. Then the 2 mines that are ramping up, which one is Olympias and the second is Skouries. I think the guidance for 2027 of the 150,000 ounces to 180,000 and 50 million to 70 million pounds of copper for 2027 assumed a 1-year full guidance of normalized ramp-up, like it was a steady state. And my understanding for Skouries is that we're not going to get to steady state until mid-2027. So can someone explain to me how that 150,000 to 180,000 and that 50 million to 70 million is going to pan out? Like should I be halving those? Like what adjustment should we be thinking?

So again, we'll give more accurate guidance in the beginning of the year as we always do, Tanya. However, we have a couple of levers that we're going to evaluate through the budgeting period. So while we are saying that we will be ramping up to full production in the first half of 2027, we do have the benefit of 5 million tonnes in front of the mill today in terms of being able to now pick and choose grade. And that grade that we've stacked is quite a bit higher than the life of mine grade. So we do think that we should be able to maintain those ranges that we previously forecasted, the exact details we're working through right now.

And I think -- Tanya, it's Christian here. I think we did take into consideration that there is a first half of the year. We're ramping towards that full throughput when we put out the 150,000 to 180,000. So that was already factored in. I think when we come out with our guidance, we may have to indicate a little more first half versus second half or something, but comfortable with the full year for sure.

Okay. So the better grade on the stockpile can give us some buffer for 2027. And then the 2028 that had also a step-up. I'm just wondering if I move the 2027 number into 2028, just because of the delay. I guess we'll see more of an update. I think you're putting out -- are you putting out a new study on Skouries that we will be able to reconcile some of these numbers?

That's correct, Tanya. We plan to have one out by the end of Q1 to update our current position and the value of the stockpiles and the detail inside of that.

Okay. And then Olympias, similar thing. We are ramping up in the first part of H1 of 2027. So maybe the 75,000 to 90,000 ounces in 2027 needs to be shaved a little bit unless you had factored in a ramp-up in those 2027 estimates.

Yes, you're probably correct there that that's going to be a little softer because of the ramp-up in the first half. We don't have the exact numbers today, but we'll come out with that in early Q1 to give you better guidance, but we would probably at the lower end of that range right now.

Okay. That's very helpful. And maybe if I could talk about just costing as I think about your cost base going into 2027. Can you maybe share like besides diesel that we all know and fuel that's higher, can you maybe share what you're seeing on your input costs for inflation? I think your inflation assumption, I'm trying to see where you guys were for inflation, about 6% in your 2026 numbers. And just on inflation, what you're seeing overall that you're thinking about for 2027, especially for labor and consumables within your cost structure?

Tanya, it's Paul. The big swing there really comes from Turkiye and what goes on both in the political situation, the management of the economy there and how it impacts our lira costs, which is about 40% of our business there. They're coming out of a period of hyperinflation, which means they're down to sort of 20%, 25% and then how that plays against the government's control or allowance of devaluation of the currency there. So we're still sort of paying attention to that.

I expect a bit more devaluation in the lira next year than we've seen this year. And currently, the government there is forecasting inflation in the sort of 20% to 30% range. So we'll have to see as we get closer to the year-end and understand when we'll next potentially see elections in Turkiye and how that plays out. Across the Greek operations, inflation is in a much more sort of reasonable place. And I'm expecting next year overall, maybe a sort of 3% to 5%. We will be looking at employee wages there as well as we think about the next set of collective bargaining agreements.

But I'm not expecting any massive surprises there in that part of the world. And then in Canada, I think it will just be along the lines of what we see across the country as a whole. So again, sort of in the 3% to 5% range. And then ultimately, depending on whether or not we see any significant movements between the Canadian and the U.S. dollar as we report those Canadian-based costs in our figures there. So I don't see any big changes. As far as input costs are concerned, diesel has been the one that's seen the biggest change this year. That impacts this year, in particular, Kisladag, where we've seen diesel go up something in the sort of 20%, 25% range following on from the conflict in the Gulf there. Diesel will be an important component of Skouries next year, of course, with our open pit mining. And so we're going to be paying close attention to what goes on with the diesel price through the back end of this year and make sure that we include clear guidance on that as we provide our guidance early next year under our usual timetable.

Okay. And are you seeing much in terms of turnover at all, like it's about 7% for you guys. Are you seeing any of that in the tight labor market?

So really, I would say turnover for us is in those areas where we're competing against other key players. So in Greece, we don't really suffer from that. We're the only metal miner there. In Turkiye, I think we compete very well and our staff live close to our mines. And so it's a big deal for them to upend their lives and move to another operator. The big area where we have to watch is in obviously Lamaque, where we've got other operators in and around our facilities.

I think historically, we've been very good in terms of holding on to our excellent operating team there and turnover has been 3%, 5%. It's a little bit different in McBay. It's a fly-in, fly-out operation for a large amount of the staff. And so they don't have that hook where their families are living a short distance away from where they're working. It's much easier for people to move between different fly-in, fly-out sites.

So we're paying close attention to remaining competitive in terms of our remuneration packages, but also building the Eldorado culture there, the way we operate, the way that we connect with our staff, our focus on safety, our focus on sustainability and the environment. And in the end, those are almost the biggest hooks as long as you're paying competitively. So yes, we see higher turnover there, but that's not unexpected for a fly-in, fly-out operation.

And it's in a Canadian market that's been heating up a bit with a lot of the new permits. And I think the support from both Minister Hodgson and Prime Minister Carney pushing forward a lot more sort of responsible resource development in the country. It's a positive thing, but it does put a bit of pressure on labor.

And Christian, if I could have a final question on the just the shareholder returns. What do you need to see to really be aggressive on your shareholder returns? Do you need your assets to announce commercial production? Do you need to see that inflection point in free cash flow? So that would be later in the first half of 2027. And then how would you prioritize share buybacks versus increase in dividends? How do you look at all that?

Yes. I certainly hope that we outperform that expectation and that we'll be hitting free cash flow positive sooner, certainly early in 2027. And if we're even lucky, it could be late 2026. But that will give us a chance certainly with our guidance to come out or with our Capital Markets Day in the first quarter or so with a bit more clarity on that. But definitely at these sort of price levels for our shares, we need to be looking at buying back more shares, continuing our dividend, and we'll evaluate whether we want to increase that in the short term, but certainly in the longer term, we need to look at our dividend.

But at this time, I suspect looking at our shares, they're going to be one of the best allocations of capital within our portfolio because we think they're trading too cheaply right now, and it's still got a bit of that development overhang in them. And so we're pretty excited. I think the first part of '27 will be hitting that cash flow inflection. And so I think we can give some pretty good guidance early-ish in the new year.

The next question is from Ralph Profiti with Stifel Financial.

I have just 2 follow-ups. Firstly, is the early data that you're getting on these -- the filtration presses at Skouries meeting specifications, right, with regards to things like cycle times, moisture content, drainage. And it wasn't clear to me whether or not we're at the point where sort of the entire system, meaning press conveyance and deposition is operating as a single continuous unit now? And is that a prerequisite for commercial production?

Thanks, Ralph. It's Simon. Excellent question. We're actually pretty excited to how well the filters have been ramping up in terms of cycle times, our target is, let's say, roughly 4 cycles per hour, and we're within that window per filter and we're within that window already, which is quite remarkable for a ramp-up and a filter of this size. So for me, that's a great sign.

And in terms of the moisture content, we're sort of in the range -- expected range with obviously some tweaks to go, but definitely what we call transportable and stackable moisture range right now. So that also is an excellent sign that these filters were the right choice for us in this application.

In terms of the conveyance and stacking system, yes, you're right. All of those elements are now operating, which is why we were so very excited to show that with the video online to sort of show end-to-end that now from crusher through to the stacking in the tailings storage facility, we have all of those pieces operational, which allows us to continue to operate. So moving forward, there isn't anything fundamental in that system that is now not operating or not operational.

Okay. Great. That's helpful, Simon. And as a follow-up, it also wasn't clear to me whether McIlvenna Bay solid-liquid separation issues are to deal with control systems? Or is this sort of a physical recalibration of things like reagents? And I was just wondering which one is of the 2? And are you able to quantify sort of some of the data that you're getting on the potential that this is having to recoveries?

Thanks, Ralph. So to be -- to sort of be more specific, we sort of had -- we've had all of the above challenges that we've been working through systematically. So initially, we had a chemistry issue. We then had a sort of process control and operational issue, all of which we've now resolved. And now it's -- and then from the solid-liquid separation in terms of the filtration, we have had some challenges with [ start-up curve ], early failures and systematic challenges in terms of how the filter has been performing. We have recently turned the corner on getting more consistency from those units. And we think that while there's still optimization in front of us, we have a good part of that resolved now.

To answer the recovery issue, this is really the back end that we've been talking about. Just to remind you that the pyrite concentrate that's produced at McIlvenna Bay is really to desulfurize the tail and then we put that in our backfill and that goes back into the underground stopes so that the tailings that we ultimately filter and dry stack is now non-sulfide -- is depleted of sulfide and therefore, potentially acid generating. So that's the key design and sustainability element of the McIlvenna Bay project.

In terms of the front-end recoveries in terms of the copper and the zinc recoveries, we're quite pleased with how well the flotation circuit and downstream elements have all been operating today. So we don't see any impact on recoveries at all because they're sort of somewhat different circuits, but thank you very much for the question.

The next question is from Lawson Winder with Bank of America Securities.

I just wanted to come back to Skouries. It's actually quite reassuring that you're pointing to no change to the 2027 production numbers. I wanted to ask though, with respect to that, just 2 things. So one, the stockpile grew materially, which is great to see. You're at 4.8 million tonnes. How much of that is the friendly sulfide ore? And then how many weeks or months of sulfide ore do you have before you have to introduce the oxide ore? And then, Paul, I have a follow-up for you, which is just with the slight delay here in commercial production at both Skouries and Olympias, is there any impact or read-through for the offtakes that you had so diligently signed over this year? Are there any penalties to that?

Thanks, Lawson. And good question around what is in the stockpiles. Roughly, I think nearly 50% of the stockpiles are sort of predominantly sulfide material. And I'll just -- one of the things we probably didn't talk about in this release was the open pit now is in the primary sulfide ore. So every [ driven ] bench that we mine from the open pit really is predominantly the sulfide ore. So we can feed sulfide ore directly from the open pit into the crusher along with supplementing that from the stockpile material.

So we really do have the luxury of being able to blend that moving forward. And our plan, I think we've spoken about previously, our plan would be to sort of blend in oxide in the -- towards the back end of this year and into 2027 in the sort of 20% to 30% range as we become -- making sure that we maximize our extraction from those different ore types, those oxide ore types. So there isn't any limitation in terms of how we see that going forward in terms of the process plant.

Lawson, it's Paul. Just on the commercial terms for the offtake, I mean, it is a seller's market right now, and we've been able to negotiate into that. And so we've been very careful to ensure we've got flexibility that allows us to deliver when the mine is ready. And so there are no penalties. We're committed to certain volumes to certain offtakers, but that's all been negotiated as part of excellent commercial terms around treatment charges at the moment and flexibility for us to deliver over the next 2.5 years volumes that have been committed. So no, we're getting ready for our first shipments and really looking forward to working with our offtakers as our production starts to ramp up.

I was just going to add, Lawson, it's Christian, that the stockpile is over 5 million tonnes now. So it has continued to grow. And hence, we continue to spend on accelerated operating capital because it's just beneficial to the long-term ability to feed that plant, which will be hungry next year.

Okay. Great. With respect to this discussion around the free cash flow inflection we're expecting in 2027, I mean, one element of this is going to be the sustaining CapEx. With the current operations, the sustaining CapEx guidance was increased for 2026. So we're looking at $170 million to $190 million now, prior was $140 million, $165 million. What does that portend for the current operating assets 2027 wise? Is it -- is $170 million to $190 million a good run rate now for 2027?

And then thinking of the additional sustaining CapEx that will be added from Skouries and McBay, I mean, typically, with newer mines, you'd expect sustaining CapEx to be a little less intensive. But just given some of the work that's being done at those assets, what are the expectations around sustaining CapEx for the 2 projects, Skouries and McBay? And then what are the key items that we should be considering for those assets post commercial production?

Maybe I'll just jump in with the first answer to that. I think you can think of it as kind of continuing on and maybe double that amount when you add several new mines in and the upgraded sort of capacity at Olympias. So give or take, double that amount is probably a reasonable range for now. And obviously, we'll give more clarity when we come out in January or so with our new guidance.

Yes. I mean, just from my point of view, we're working through our budgets at the moment. And just like any company that works through their budgets, is always challenged when the teams come back with their laundry list of requirements for the following year. So we're in the midst of discussing that with them. I'd also sort of remind us that at Skouries, for example, we're also still building our paste plant, which is accelerated to support the underground development, which we're also moving forward faster than the original technical study would suggest. And we will continue to raise the embankment at the tailings storage facility as well as complete our long-term mine water treatment plant. So there's a number of activities that are going to be ongoing next year. But as Christian said, I think up to double is going to be the place it's going to be initially.

Okay. I appreciate that color. And then maybe just finally on McBay. You had previously noted that we should be modeling a cost per ton or OpEx per ton of about $90 to $110 by the end of December. So with the update, you're still planning to get to that $90 to $110, but it's just -- it wasn't clear to me when you expect to get there. And maybe for context, can you give us an idea of what you're expecting for an average cost OpEx per tonne for Q4 '26? And then when you get to that $90 to $110 level in 2027?

Thanks, Lawson. So maybe to sort of answer the first part of that question, yes, again, a little similar to Skouries, we do have substantial stockpiles in front of our mill at McIlvenna Bay. We have roughly 400,000 tonnes, which is a substantial amount. We also have multiple stopes available underground. So until we -- as we sort of ramp up the mill and start drawing on those underground stopes and synchronizing that with paste backfill, we're not going to hit our sort of steady-state optimization point in the mine and mill combined. So that's going to be transitioning through this quarter.

In terms of when we still think those $90 to $110 for the mine is a reasonable number from what we see, but we haven't got to that confirmation point given that we haven't got to those tonnages just yet. But we should be moving through that as we move into commercial production in the coming months. In terms of how does that impact 2027, we'll obviously give greater clarity on that at our guidance in January as we sort of finalize the working budgets that we have today. So I don't have any new numbers for that right now.

I'd probably start out at sort of around the upper end of that range to start, and then we'll try and be working down, obviously, into the range over the next quarter or 2 or 3.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from Harrison Reynolds with RBC.

I appreciate the detail provided so far on the operations. Wondering if you could characterize your current expectations for what commercial production means to you for both Skouries and McBay, what percentage of nameplate and for how many days? And also, I mean, great to see that you reiterated 2027 guidance and the confidence there. I'm wondering if you could say when you're expecting nameplate capacity to be reached approximately?

Harrison, Paul here. So commercial production, there is a significant amount of flexibility that management have in terms of exactly when we strike that designation. But really, it reflects the fact that the assets are performing in line with management expectations. So in line with why you invested in the processing facilities and the mining.

So a couple of things. Basically, you're looking for 60% to 80% of throughput, the production of the salable concentrate and steady operations for, let's say, somewhere between 20 to 30 days, although they're not necessarily consecutive days. But that's sort of the generally accepted definition, and that's what we're going to be looking for both from Skouries and from McIlvenna Bay.

Got it. And then on the nameplate capacity at both of those operations, is that a mid-2027 item? Or when about in 2027, do you expect to be hitting nameplate capacity at both mines?

Yes. Thanks, Harrison. It's Simon. We're sort of guiding on this to sort of be conservative to be sort of by the middle of 2027, just to ensure that we don't overstate capabilities and to give the teams time to optimize the circuits that they have. But yes, we -- right now, we don't see anything challenging us to achieving that today.

Got it. And if I could fit in one more. You mentioned capital returns are going to be an increasing priority in 2027. That's great to hear. Net debt is at $1.6 billion. Wondering how you're thinking about the best use of capital between buybacks, debt reduction and the necessary reinvestment of the projects and what you think the repayment cadence is from here?

Yes. Harrison, the way I think about the debt, it sort of breaks down into 3 things. We've got commitments. We've got nice to haves and then we've got things for the future. Now obviously, for both McIlvenna Bay and for Skouries, we've got commitments under our project financing. And so we're going to start making repayments under both of those agreements from the end of this year onwards. And so those obviously have to be met first.

Secondly, on the debt, the project financing debt that we acquired with the Foran acquisition runs at a much higher interest rate than we can obtain as a corporation. And so I'm going to be looking to refinance that at least on a temporary basis, bearing in mind the cash flow inflection that's coming early next year. So we get it closer to our sort of net level of financing, and we have opportunities to do that. And then finally, in the longer term, it's then assessing what's the right capital stack for us across our project financing, our revolving credit facilities and our bond, and that will be something that we're working on through next year.

The one other thing just before I hand you over to Christian, I think he's going to talk about the equity returns, is we have been using our revolving credit facility, recently renegotiated and upsized with better interest rates than we had before. Paying that back during next year will also be a priority as we move into the beginning of the year. So those are the sort of the ways that we're thinking about the debt.

And then I think as well, the next sort of phases are we've got exploration that we want to do. There's an extremely exciting portfolio that we really haven't been talking about much. And during that Capital Markets Day, I think we'll get a chance for Claire to actually walk through all the assets. And so allocating, I don't know, call it, $80 million to $100 million probably to exploration will be a critical element and will have high returns.

And then I think, like I said earlier, projects will take a bit of a breather on. There are no major projects that we need to start next year, expansion at Lamaque or at McBay or even at Perama Hill. I think 2028 is the earliest you'd be starting any material spend on those actual construction projects at the earliest. So there will be none of that in a way next year. And so dividends and buybacks, I think, are going to be critical. And at the moment, with like I said earlier, the share price where it is and the multiples and valuation, we'll be very happy to be buying our own shares.

And I think the return on buying our own shares will be one of the best uses of the capital we'll have. And I think progressively over time, increasing our dividend as we move into a more steady state cash flowing period during the year. I think that will also take a bit more priority. So we're going to have lots of nice options and some good uses of that capital, but I think that priority starts to shift heavily towards shareholder returns as well next year.

That's all the questions we have for today. This concludes the question-and-answer session and today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Eldorado Gold Second Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to turn the conference over to Lynette Gould, Vice President, Investor Relations, Communications and External Affairs. Please go ahead, Ms. Gould.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to our conference call to discuss our second quarter 2026 results. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that we will be making forward-looking statements and referring to non-IFRS measures during the call. Please refer to the cautionary statements included in the presentation and the disclosure on non-IFRS measures and risk factors in our management's discussion and analysis.

Joining me on the call today, we have George Burns, Chief Executive Officer; Christian Milau, President; Paul Ferneyhough, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Simon Hille, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer.

Our release yesterday details our second quarter 2026 financial and operating results. The release should be read in conjunction with our Q2 2026 financial statements and management's discussion and analysis, both of which are available on our website. They have also both been filed on SEDAR+ and EDGAR. All dollar figures discussed today are U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated.

For clarity, we have rounded some figures for the purposes of this conference call. We will be speaking to the slides that accompany this webcast, which can be downloaded from our website. After the prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A, at which time we will invite analysts to queue for questions. I will now turn the call over to George.

Thank you, Lynette, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin with an overview of our second quarter and provide a brief update on Skouries. I'll then hand the call over to Paul to review the financials and then Simon with an update on McIlvenna Bay our operations. Following that, Christian will make some concluding remarks before we open up the call for questions.

Before getting into the second quarter, I want to note that as previously announced, I will be transitioning out of the CEO role this quarter as we reach our key milestone of first concentrate production in Skouries. After 9 years with Eldorado, I expect this to be my last quarterly conference call in this capacity. It's been a meaningful journey for me personally, and I'm proud of what we've accomplished. We have strengthened our operations, advanced our pipeline and built a deeper bench of talent across the organization.

I'd also like to thank our teams across the business for their support and commitment over the years, which has been fundamental to that progress. As we ramp up both Skouries and McIlvenna Bay towards commercial production, Christian has been closely engaged across the business and is well positioned to step into the role with continuity. I'm pleased to remain on the Board to support the transition as the company enters into its next phase of growth and meaningful cash flow generation.

I would also like to acknowledge the recent [indiscernible] leadership transition. On behalf of the company, I want to thank Steve Reid for his many years of leadership and guidance as Chair. We are pleased to welcome Dan as Chair, and Patrick is Lead Independent Director; and I look forward to continuing to work with them and the Board in my ongoing role as Director.

Turning to the quarter. We've had a solid start to 2026 with Q2 delivering production in line with the plan. McIlvenna Bay has achieved first copper and first zinc concentrate and continues to ramp up towards commercial production. While Skouries remains on track for first concentrate in Q3, having recently achieved first ore crushed. 2026 is a pivotal year for Eldorado as we advance Skouries and Greece into operation and ramp McIlvenna Bay in Saskatchewan. Together, these assets are expected to enhance our production profile and cash flow generation.

I'd also like to highlight a few achievements from the quarter that reflect the strength of our culture and our commitment to responsible mining. During the quarter, we published our annual sustainability report, which outlines the progress we continue to make across our environmental, social and governance priorities. I'm also very proud of our Eldorado Quebec team, which received several significant industry recognitions.

Most notably, the team was awarded 2025 [ F.J. O' Connell ] Trophy for underground operations. This long-standing award recognizes excellence in workplace health and safety and reflects the consistency, discipline and commitment our teams bring to maintaining a strong safety culture every day.

The team was also recognized by the Quebec Mining Association for their leading environmental management practices and for excellence towards sustainable mining framework. These awards highlight innovative approaches to environmental performance, operational efficiency and responsible development. Together, these achievements reflect the dedication, engagement and professionalism of our teams and reinforce the values that underpin our success across the organization.

Finally, earlier this month, Eldorado was recognized on Times 2026 list of Canada's Best Companies for the second consecutive year. This recognition reflects the strength of our culture, engagement of our people and our commitment to creating long-term value through responsible business practices. I want to thank our employees across the global organization for the role they play in making achievements like this possible.

Turning to Skouries on Slide 5. I spent 2 weeks on site in July and came away extremely encouraged by the progress being made across the project. Seeing the work firsthand reinforced my confidence in both the quality of the execution and the readiness of the operations and commissioning teams as we move towards first concentrate production in this quarter.

As construction activities continue to wind down and commissioning activities increased. The workforce outside has declined from a peak of approximately 3,200 people for approximately 2,650 this week, reflecting the project's transition into final stages of execution. The team achieved an important milestone in July with first ore crushed in the primary pressure marking the start of commissioning of the crushing circuit.

The process plant is substantially complete with wet commissioning well underway. Water circulation testing through the entire circuit to the tailings thickener and filter feed tanks is underway. Two tailings thickeners are ready for first store commissioning. At the filter tailings plant, mechanical and electrical work on 2 of the 6 filters has been completed, but all filters ready for commissioning.

On the power infrastructure, construction of all 12 towers and conductors is complete. Final site energization and receipt of final sign-off remains contingent on inspection, which includes final testing and installation of media equipment by the relevant Greek Authority. In the interim, we have added additional gensets to support commissioning activities. These gensets will allow us to test the full processing circuit and produce first concentrate. However, full site energization remains necessary for achieving stable, consistent production ramp-up to nameplate.

Mining activities continue to perform well ahead of start-up. We have approximately 4 million tons of ore stockpiled representing the full planned mill feed for 2026 and into '27 providing a strong foundation for ramp-up as we will process higher-grade ore in 2026. In the interim, we have added additional gensets to support commissioning and start-up. Together, Skouries and McIlvenna Bay are expected to transform Eldorado's production profile, providing a foundation for meaningful growth in cash flow, copper production and portfolio diversification in the years ahead. With that, I'll turn the call over to Paul to review the financial results.

Thank you, George, and good morning, everyone. Turning to Slide 6. Eldorado delivered another strong quarter, reflecting the benefits of a higher gold price environment solid operating performance across the portfolio and disciplined execution as we advance both Skouries and McIlvenna Bay toward meaningful value creation. In the second quarter, we produced 105,000 ounces of gold and sold 103,000 ounces. While production and sales were lower than the prior year period, primarily due to planned lower tonnes and grades at Kisladag and lower grade to Efemçukuru, this was partially offset by stronger performance at Lamaque, which benefited from increased throughput and the contribution of higher-grade [indiscernible].

Revenue increased to $487 million, up from $452 million in the prior year period as a significantly higher realized gold price of $4,379 per ounce more than offset lower sales volumes. Production costs were $185 million compared to $162 million in Q2 2025. The increase primarily reflects higher royalty costs associated with stronger metal prices, particularly in Turkey and a Greece, together with increased labor contractors and maintenance in both Turkey due to inflation and planned maintenance as well as Lamaque as mining activities continue to advance deeper into the Triangle Complex.

Total cash costs averaged $1,432 per ounce sold while AISC averaged $1,926 per ounce sold. The year-over-year increase was driven by higher production costs and lower ounces sold, partially offset by lower sustaining capital expenditures. Depreciation and amortization declined to $54 million, largely reflecting lower production volumes at Kisladag.

We also recorded a $4 million foreign exchange gain compared to a loss in the prior year period driven primarily by movements in the euro relative to the U.S. dollar on our euro-denominated debt and payables.

Other income was $23 million in the quarter, reflecting gains associated with our project financing derivatives, while finance costs increased to $10 million, primarily due to the change in fair value of embedded debt redemption option derivatives. Income tax expense was $55 million compared to $33 million in the prior year period, reflecting higher profitability and current taxes and mining duties from operations in Canada and Turkey.

Net earnings attributable to shareholders from continuing operations were $173 million or $0.68 per diluted share compared to $139 million or $0.67 per diluted share in Q2 2025. Adjusted net earnings increased to $137 million or $0.54 per share compared to $90 million or $0.44 per share a year ago. Overall, the quarter demonstrates the strength of our operating platform and the leverage of the business to higher gold prices while continuing to invest aggressively in the next phase of Eldorado's growth.

Turning to Slide right, we ended the quarter with $555 million of cash and cash equivalents, providing substantial liquidity as we move through the final stages of development and commissioning at Skouries and ramp-up at McIlvenna Bay. In addition, we maintained approximately $300 million of available capacity on our revolving credit facility, reinforcing our overall liquidity position.

Net cash generated from operating activities was $150 million compared to $158 million in Q2 2025. The modest decline reflects higher taxes paid, lower gold ounces sold, increased production costs and acquisition-related expenditures associated with the [indiscernible] transaction, partially offset by the benefit of significantly stronger realized gold prices.

Free cash flow was negative $334 million during the quarter, reflecting planned investment in our 2 cornerstone growth projects. During Q2, we invested approximately $214 million at Skouries including project and accelerated operational capital and $78 million at McIlvenna Bay as we progress towards commercial production. Importantly, excluding these 2 growth projects, the underlying operating business generated approximately $41 million of free cash flow, highlighting the continued cash-generating capacity of our producing asset base.

Looking ahead, our capital allocation priorities remain unchanged. First, we will continue to fund the development, commissioning and ramp up of Skouries and McIlvenna Bay. Second, we remain committed to maintaining a strong balance sheet and preserving financial flexibility. And third, we will continue to return capital to shareholders through our quarterly dividend and when appropriate, share repurchases under our NCIB.

During the first 6 months of the year, we repurchased approximately 2.4 million shares for $84 million and paid $34 million in dividends, reflecting our commitment to balance shareholder returns and disciplined capital allocation. With that, I'll turn it over to Simon for an operational update.

Thank you, Paul. Starting with McIlvenna Bay on Slide 8. We achieved an important milestone with first copper concentrate produced in June and first in concentrate in July. Our focus through the third quarter is optimizing operations, ramping up the pace plant and increasing throughput towards design capacity. As expected for a new operation, we continue to work through normal commissioning and ramp-up activities as we progress towards commercial production later this quarter.

Looking beyond start-up, McIlvenna Bay is a long-life asset supported by a robust resource base and significant district scale exploration potential. We have commenced an integrated study that will evaluate the potential mill expansion from 4,900 tonnes per day to approximately 7,000 tonnes per day and an addition of a silver led circuit, both of which have the potential to enhance future value subject to the completion of project evaluation [indiscernible] of required payments, indigenous and stakeholder engagement and final positive investment decision.

We are targeting commissioning of the [ Silver let ] circuit in 2028 and expansion in 2030. In parallel, exploration continues to demonstrate the broader potential of the district, and we remain on track to deliver inaugural mineral resource for the [ Tesla ] zone in fourth quarter. An updated technical report is expected to be published in the first quarter of 2027.

On Slide 9, we show a long section, [ Losing South ]. The underground development continues to advance well. in addition to the 400,000 tonnes of ore stockpiled on surface, the underground mine has an inventory of approximately 20,000 tonnes of ore, more than 330 kilometers of production drilling and approximately 2 million tonnes of fully developed reserves within Block 1.

Moving to Slide 10, the Lamaque Complex. The team delivered another solid quarter with production of 52,340 ounces of gold. Results reflect strong mill performance and recoveries supported by the contribution from [ Olmecor ] following the receipt of the operating authorization in March. Cost performance also remained strong with all-in sustaining costs of $1,192 per ounce sold in the quarter.

Continuing to Slide 11 and [ Kishida ] Production totaled 19,108 ounces of gold in the quarter. The planned lower grade and tonnes stacked as the mine develops Phase 6 in the Western strategic push back resulted in lower production year-over-year. All-in sustaining costs were $2,407 per ounce sold in the quarter, primarily reflecting lower sales volumes along with higher labor costs, reagent costs and the impact of higher royalty rates. We continue to advance initiatives to optimize future mining phases and more consistent long-term operating performance at Kisladag, increased waste stripping is underway to support future mining faces address geotechnical considerations and provide greater flexibility in the sequencing of ore and waste movement.

Progress on the whole oil agglomeration circuit remains on track with commissioning and ramp up expected in the first half of 2027. The recently completed geometallurgical study has further improved confidence in future mining planning and recovery assumptions. Together, these initiatives are expected to support improved operational consistency and long-term performance.

Turning to [ FN2 ] crew on Slide 12. The operation produced 1,819 ounces of gold in the second quarter, all-in sustaining costs were $2,232 per ounce sold, primarily reflecting higher royalty rates labor and maintenance costs and the impact of lower production. Efemçukuru continues to be a consistent contributor to the portfolio, while grades were lower in the quarter, the team continued to deliver strong throughput and advance the development work in the [indiscernible] deposit that is required to support extensions to the mine life going forward.

Turning to Slide 13. At Olympias, we produced 15,125 ounces of gold in the second quarter. Strong flotation performance and stable ore plant supported higher metal recoveries, partially offsetting the impact of lower grades during the quarter. All-in sustaining costs increased to $2,465 per ounce sold, mainly driven by the higher total cash costs and higher sustaining capital expenditures.

Higher total cash costs were a result of increased royalties and higher labor costs. Sustaining capital was driven by increased underground development, underground resource classification drilling, [ interprets ] refurbishment and mobile mining equipment rebuilds and purchases operationally Olympias has stabilized over the past 3 quarters with flotation recoveries returning to model levels, completion of the 650,000 tonnes per annum project is expected to end in 2026, with ramp-up anticipated in 2027.

Across the portfolio, our focus remains on safe, disciplined execution while advancing operational improvements and growth initiatives that support Eldorado's next phase of production and cash flow growth. With that, I will turn it over to Christian for closing remarks.

Thanks, Simon, and good morning. As George highlighted, 2026 is a pivotal year for Eldorado. Our operating mines continue to provide a solid foundation while the successful integration of McIlvenna Bay and the transition of Skouries from construction to production underscore the company's long-term growth trajectory.

Before we continue, I'd like to acknowledge George's leadership over the past 9 years. Under his direction, Eldorado strengthened and focused its operating platform, financed and advanced a number of important projects to build an outstanding team and culture. Eldorado is positioned to enter one of the most exciting periods in its history. I look forward to working closely with George and Board as we continue this transition.

What excites me most is the quality of the people across the organization having spent considerable time with our teams over the better part of the year. I'm confident in the technical capability and leadership we have in place and have added in recent months. We are entering the next chapter from a position of strength.

Looking ahead, our focus is straightforward. Safe and reliable execution, disciplined capital allocation and delivering on our long-term commitments. With 2 exceptionally long life, high-quality clients entering production, portfolio of long life operations and a deep pipeline of organic growth opportunities, both exploration and projects. Our priority is to execute well generate strong returns from these investments and continue creating long-term value for our shareholders.

Skouries and McIlvenna Bay ramp up towards full production through the second half of the year and beyond, we expect to enter a period of meaningful growth in production, cash flow and financial flexibility. Importantly, we remain disciplined in the deployment of that cash flow, balancing investment in future growth with a continued focus on shareholder returns and value creation. Our whole team is very excited about the future at Eldorado and confident in our ability to build on the strong foundation that's been established. Thank you for your time today, and I'll turn it back to the operator for questions from our analysts.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Cosmos Chiu with CIBC.

All the best, George. Thanks for all these years. Maybe my first question is on Mc Bay. Great to see that first concentrate was produced in June. And you've given us some numbers, 5,405 tons produced in -- in terms of throughput in Q2. But it's hard for me to try to figure out how the ramp-up is in relation to the 4,900 tonnes per day nameplate capacity.

So maybe if you can help me put that in context in terms of plant availability or percentage of nameplate and what that means as you work towards commercial production later on in Q3. And then also, we're now through a lot of July, most of July. And any comments in terms of what you can say in terms of the continued ramp-up of Mc Bay into July?

Thanks, Cosmos. It's Simon. Yes. So great question. We're really -- the commissioning has been going really well through July. We -- as with all commissioning -- it's all about availability in the early days. I just -- debugging instruments and other things. And that's been our focus through the July phase. But when we are operating, we're operating in the sort of 70% range of our throughput already. And so we see an easy path to get us through to full nameplate in terms of the grinding capacity plantation circuits are operating as expected. And so really, it's more about availability through July, that ramping up through August and then into September.

Great. And then, I guess, Simon, what's your definition in terms of commercial production for later on in Q3?

Cosmos, it's Paul. I'll pick up by that. As a management team, we have some flexibility as to when we call commercial production. But really, this is about us achieving an intended use for the assets. And so as far as my and mill is concerned, that's around meeting throughput of somewhere between, let's say, 60% and 80% of nameplate or intended daily and that's also consistently producing saleable concentrate. So we're going to be keeping an eye on that. And as we move into that and are able to maintain those levels for somewhere between 30 to 60 days.

And again, this is about us being confident that we've reached a consistent and stable level. That is when we will strike that definition of commercial production. And certainly, we're intending to get there at some point in Q3.

That's great to hear. And then maybe, Paul, since I have you here, I'm seeing that, I guess, for Mc Bay, you are budgeting $90 million in CapEx in Q3, slightly up from what you spent in Q2. Just wondering if when I look at it, is that potentially the last quarter of higher CapEx in Mc Bay?

Yes. So Cosmos, I think just remember, of course, we're going to have ongoing growth and sustaining capital at this asset just like you have at any mine. And until we get to that commercial production level, we have to capitalize those costs into the full project cost of the asset.

Now we have had some expenditures with us taking, say, 4 months longer to get to commercial production than the most recent [indiscernible] estimates that has to be capitalized, and we've changed some of the scope as a company with a stronger balance sheet, we've been able to bring forward the investment in things like increases in throughput for the water treatment plant. And so all of these items are going to be incorporated. And then the final thing I'd say is we've been able to invest in some additional clinical spares to ensure consistent operation going forward that a single asset development wouldn't have had the balance sheet to support. So that will be the last quarter where we see stuff going into the project cost estimate.

And so I guess, Paul, in that context, turning to Skouries, I guess, Skouries, the CapEx budget has been maintained at $1.315 million, $1.27 million has been spent cumulatively until the end of Q2. And then in terms of accelerated operating capital, $260 million is budgeted of which $201.3 million have been spent to the end of Q2. I guess my question is, could this happen as Skouries as well like in terms of higher CapEx kind of dragging on a little bit because if I work out these numbers, there isn't much left in that budget for Skouries into Q3.

Yes. So again, I think at the current time, we're confident that $1.315 billion is approximately the final project cost for the development. But the exact cost will come down to when we strike that commercial production. If we're a few weeks later than we think, then you're going to have to capitalize a bit more cost in there. If we were in a couple of weeks earlier, then it will be -- it could be a little bit less.

So that exact date is going to be important. But at the current time, we have a little bit more capital put in. You'll see we still have a letter of credit for around $43 million that is outstanding. We're going to be funding that over the next few weeks and we're coming to the end here. So we're not expecting a cost for the development to be significantly different from that $1.315 billion that we have put our guidance.

And one last question maybe on Olympias. The wording changed maybe a little bit, if I'm not mistaken, expansion to the 650,000 tonnes per annum now by the end of 2026, ramp up in Q1 2027. Previously, it was Q3, Q4 2026 sequentially. Just I think, Simon, you mentioned some of the key drivers driving that change. But I guess my question is, any kind of potential read through to a time line at Skouries? And -- or is it really separate in terms of productivity and efficiency at Olympias versus Skouries?

Thanks, Cosmos. Yes, the 2 projects are separated. Workforce and geographically. So they're running independently in that regard. In terms of the Q1 ramp up, the efficiency of some of the some of the construction work has taken a little longer through Q2 than originally planned. And so we wanted to make sure that we were setting realistic targets going forward. We had some complexity in some of the work in the brownfields with an operating plan. The team has got a good plan to work through that as we now project and [indiscernible] completion.

Cosmos, it's George. Maybe just a few comments on the read-through [indiscernible] Skouries. So I mean, Skouries were in commissioning. There is a bit of ramp-up construction that will happen. In the month of August, we're rapidly going to be reducing the construction workforce to near 0 at the end of Q3. And in terms of our position for ramp up, I'd say we're in really good shape.

And I'd say, and the remaining risk is just that how efficiently do we work through the commissioning phases. I'm quite comfortable with the estimate we have in our production and our costs associated getting to commercial production. But to the point you added, if you're late, and as Paul described, costs that we would spend anyways end up hitting the capital cost rather than the operating costs. So I mean that's probably the remaining risk is exactly precisely when we get to that commercial production date. And again, confidence that our estimate is good.

The next question is from Tanya Jakusconek with Scotiabank.

George, again, congrats on your next adventure and Christian on your new role. Let me start with Olympias, maybe that's the easier one with Simon. So Olympias, Simon, what is left to do at Olympias to get us to be completed on that 650,000 tonne a day so that we then start ramping up in Q1 of '27?

Tanya, thanks for the question. The scope remains the same in terms of the sort of 4 key areas of expansion is a grinding expansion. So we're adding a tower mill, writing some flotation capacity to the lead and the zinc circuit. We're adding a thinking to help with the water balance and we're adding a filter to help with the extra throughput in the long run.

All of the equipment that we need to install is already on site as well as all the construction materials. So it's just a matter of executing on the plan right now. And so we don't see much complexity other than it is a brownfield type expansion, and therefore, you're working in a live operation. And so it takes a little more care and planning to do that effectively.

There's not much to do in the underground is what I'm hearing. It's all in the mill and all the pieces.

Correct. Yes. Sorry, maybe to clarify, it's just a mill only expansion. The underground has already ramped up to these capacity levels, and that's been the work for the last couple of years. And so we're comfortable that the underground mine can deliver the ore, in fact, what we call [ ore ] bound in the underground right now and really waiting for the mill capacity to be available to get to the higher run rate that we're looking for.

Do we have any stockpiles on surface or no?

We maintain a small surface stockpile and then a short high turnover mixing zone that we use to hold -- to help get the steady ore blend that we've been talking about over the last 3 quarters. So that's one of the strategies that we've employed.

Okay. All right. So everything on site just needs to be put together just at the mill, the underground is ready. Okay. Thank you for the Olympias update. Maybe I'll go to Mc Bay since I have you, still, Simon, on. So maybe for myself to understand just to get to commercial production, you mentioned the mill that we've seen just the normal stuff, we're at 70% or thereabout consecutively.

Maybe just to understand on the processing side, on the throughput side, what are you seeing that -- are there anything that you're seeing that is of concern to get to that 70%? And then producing salable concentrate, is that what tell me where we are on that, just so that we can go commercial? And then lastly, is G-mining still there to help you with this ramp-up?

Okay. So maybe just talking to the construction activity. So essentially, all of the primary scope of construction is complete. And so that's, I think, an important milestone. We do have mining there to support optimization construction activities and just organization of contractors. Tables close out opportunity and optimization elements through August, but these are fairly minor and facilitating better availability and throughput down the road.

And beyond that in terms of the concentrate production, we have produced zinc and loaded that on in through [ Flinn ] and out onto the rail cars so that we've already sent one shipment. And I think he's also being trucked and shipped. So in pretty good shape there in terms of the concentrate specifications. Obviously, quality will continue to improve as we continue to optimize the flotation process through the next few months.

Tanya, it's Paul. We're also shipping copper concentrate already. So the first deliveries occurred in July.

Okay. So the copper comp meet salable specs, as zinc you've just sent it off. So hopefully, we get that to be a salable spec. And then we're just waiting Simon, if I can just read from a higher level. You've essentially reached the scope of what you wanted. It's just within the mill, you're just doing this ramp-up to get the availability to be at that 70% for those consecutive days to been this commercial? Is that a correct way of thinking of it?

I think that would satisfy included the mill is operating at a 70% level when it's operating, it's more about consistency as we [ devote ] the instrumentation and other things through the circuit.

And is there anything in the circuit that's causing issues? Or is it just the normal ramp-up that we see pretty much and normal ramp-up?

Yes, nothing fundamental that we're seeing most of the equipment that we've installed is operating within specification.

Okay. Look forward to getting some more data out of this operation with your Q3 results so we can kind of benchmark ourselves where everything is. And I guess we're getting more an updated plan next year for Mc Bay or guidance, I guess.

Correct. That's correct. Yes. Okay.

Okay. George, my final question for you because this is your final question for me on a conference call, so I have to be the best to last. Skouries. So you spent 2 weeks on site. You've gone through -- you've talked about the front end of the mill being ready, were wet commissioning. We -- you've talked about the 2 filter presses being ready for -- get ready for commissioning. Can you just give me an update where are we then with the conveyor from the plant to the tailings? So that starts there. Where are we with that?

Sure. So essentially 2 of the 6 filters are complete. We're well advanced on the other 4. Out of the filter building, we have a transfer pit, which is a series of conveyors and ability to feed of spec material back into the circuit. And that's nearly complete. And then we have a series of conveyors that bring that material over to the edge of the valley. We've got one conveyor completed.

The second ones in construction will be completed in the coming weeks. From there, there's a series of fixed conveyors that go down the valley on kind of switch back road. They're mechanically all in place, and we're working to tie up the electrical on a couple of those. And from there, we have 6 grasshopper conveyors 5 of the 6 are constructive, 6 is under construction, and we'll be positioning them into their final place over the next couple of weeks.

So we're -- I'd say we're in good shape on the conveyance and we'll really be working from what's already commissioned the primary pressure through the rest of the facility, comfortable we'll have first cost this quarter and comfortable will be in commercial production in the fourth quarter.

And maybe, George, if I can understand correctly, just we're all waiting for the Greek authorities to come and as I said it just turned on the switch so that the power line can be energized. But maybe I'm making it -- I'm simplistically putting this, but maybe you can tell us like what exactly from the time that Greek authorities come to site, I mean, is it just going to be a phone call high were at the gate, that is them.

Like from the time they come to site, what is required to energize this line? And how fast does the whole mill go up? And sort of from then how long is it going to take for the Greek authorities once they energize it, is there a procedure that within 5 days, you're going to get your permit. I'm just trying to understand the logistics of all of that from when they come to site.

Sure. Probably the answer on the 2 phases. So specifically on the electrical power, and we're connecting to the grid, the substation that we've felt will be owned will transfer ownership to the power authority. So we've constructed it under their design approval. We've tested it, and we believe it's ready to connect.

Then the Greek power authority is called [ IPTO]. [ Ipto ] has departments, they have a construction apartment. That's who we deal with. And they have signed off on our paperwork, and they have also conducted inspections of all the electrical equipment, and we passed that test. Now once that's completed, they transferred the documentation over to [ Gipto ] operations. This is the final step.

If the operations does their own inspection. It's about a 10-day inspection. It's currently scheduled for the middle of August. Once that inspection is completed, as I say, the tests have already been done twice. So we're highly confident we'll pass the third test and from there, it's a matter of paperwork within the agency a few days, we should be connected. So at this point, our best estimate is we'll be connected to the grid by the end of August now. we've seen slippage in schedule. So there's some risk this could slip into September.

But the second part of the answer is this isn't going to impact our ability to test ramp-up towards commercial production. So we had 10 megawatts of gen sets in place, and we made the decision about a month ago to bring in another 26 megawatts. So we're now at 36 megawatts. The connected power will be 50 megawatts. So we're, I don't know, 70% of the capacity once connected with the gen sets we now have on site. That will enable us to run all of the equipment. It will not enable us to get to nameplate throughput, but that's not expected to year-end.

So I'm feeling very comfortable with our ability to start the entire plan to begin significant ramp-up of the facility and to be able to achieve the production we have in our guidance. So I'd say we've derisked the connecting to the grid power. And again, confident we'll get this done. Just maybe a couple of comments on IT. Obviously, they need to make sure that this is a smooth transition that they don't impact the grid overall.

So they've got lots of checks and balances to ensure that happens. And so we just derisk our ability to ramp up by bringing in these gen sets. And that was about a $5 million commitment both the rental of the gen sets and our estimate to run these sets for a couple of months. So anyway, I think we're in a really good position now to deliver the ramp up, but I'm not concerned about the connection to the grid.

George, if I was to understand it correctly, the last cap and your scheduled for this for mid-August. And then once this test is done it's about 10 days to do paperwork plus others. So that puts you towards the end of August, if all goes well to get the receipt that you can energize basically start the -- go ahead.

Yes. So it's the inspection scheduled for mid-August. There's 10 days of test work a couple of days of administrative work. So we do expect to be connected at the end of August. And if that slips into September, it won't affect our wrap-up.

Because you can start ramping up with your 36 megawatts that you have and then ultimately connect when you connect even if it's September, October? Is that a fair way of looking at it?

That's correct. We have the ability to run the entire facility, but it name play throughput, but at significant throughput well ahead of what we expect to do in Q3.

So George, to finish off when we're all there on September 15, 16 or 17, 18, I'm hoping to see some sort of a [indiscernible]?

You'll be disappointed because we're just producing concentrate, but you will see concentrate [indiscernible].

Okay. I don't want [indiscernible] to take concentrate. I don't see a core. I'll take the concentrate.

You definitely will.

Okay. And George, best of luck to you. Congrats.

The next question is from Don DeMarco with National Bank.

George, congratulations. Best wishes on next steps. A few quick questions from me. Starting Paul, total debt is now at $1.75 billion. You got the [indiscernible] end debt on the balance sheet. What amount of leverage are you comfortable with? Or how would you approach derisking? What would a repayment schedule possibly look like?

Thanks, Don. So look, we're basically at peak leverage. We've drawn down all of the project financing facility at Skouries and in fact, at Mc Bay any day that we brought on to our balance sheet. We still have, obviously, significant cash and liquidity available to us throughout the rest of this year and into 2027.

Repayment and debt servicing for the project financing starts at the end of the year, both for Skouries and for Mac Bay. And so as we move into next year, we'll start to see us reducing that debt part. And in fact, when you think about the inflection that's coming for us, strategically how we fund the firm going forward and how we then get into the next set of opportunities is going to be something we're working on over the coming months. So we're about at the peak. And really, it's just continuing to manage our -- to strengthen our balance sheet with the cash and the liquidity that's available to us.

Okay. Great. And you mentioned inflection. Just shifting over to Mc Bay, when would you expect to inflect the positive free cash flow in Mc Bay?

So Mc Bay, we're predicting as it goes through its commercial production rates and then continues to ramp up into the fourth quarter, we should start to see it producing positive cash flow at the end of the year there.

Okay. And just continuing on Mc Bay, I mean, you've been delivering against targets for first concentrate. I heard earlier that the commissioning has been going well through July. Has there been any surprises since the project was handed over? I mean you've touched on some of the processing and downstream moments. Has the mining been ramping up as expected? What's your balance of contractors versus labor, you expect that to decline? Maybe just any additional color would be great.

Thanks, Don. It's Simon. To sort of maybe just to pick the underground operation is there last week, we were super happy with how the team has been progressing. The ramp is ahead of schedule where we want that to be in terms of the brand depth. So that sets us up nicely for future production.

We have, as we sort of tried to show in the conference call, we've sort of broken the main ore zone into sort of Block 1 and Block 2 and we're well progressed on opening both of those blocks up to really allow us good access to multiple ore sources as we ramp up this mine. So the mine itself has been operating well, and the teams are well motivated to keep going.

Great. And you have contractors versus labor on site, you expect that to decline to? What's the current compassion?

I just took out the second half of that question. So the contractors in terms of construction contractors, they're almost all ramped down. So we should have that fairly well complete by the end of August other than ongoing longer-term water treatment plant and other things that we're building. So in terms of construction workforce, that has greatly diminished.

In terms of underground contractors versus our own team that there's a reasonable split between the 2, and we're balancing off our ramp-up of our own workforce and supplementing with contractors as needed. That migration will continue to happen through Q3 and into Q4 as we build our own workforce with the availability of people and bringing out their skills.

The next question is from Josh Wolfson with RBC Capital Markets.

Just going back to McIlvenna Bay for a moment. Trying to get a better understanding what the cost profile looks like. I appreciate some of the details in the release, and that there's probably still some fourth time with the tech report. On the unit costs that were provided, I guess, is that a reasonable run rate that we should be assuming for 2027? Or should we expect that to decline?

And then similarly along those lines, I guess, because there's 1 quarter of commercial production and there was sustaining capital of $20 million to $25 million should we assume that as a run rate for sustaining capital going forward? Or is that going to vary from steady state?

Josh, Simon. Maybe I'll take the cost profile. As you're ramping up the mine. Obviously, those efficiencies, we've been able to estimate as best we can, what our efficiencies look like in Q4 and Q4 is just a starting point for us. We expect those efficiencies into 2027 to doing -- continue to improve as the mill continues to ramp up through nameplate as well as the underground ramps up through nameplate.

And so you would expect those costs to decline, and we'll be in a really solid position at the end of the year to be able to provide more accurate guidance as to what that's going to look like than we can today as we're still in that ramp-up mode.

Josh, it's Paul. Just to confirm, so we won't have any sustaining capital in the third quarter because we're still moving through to commercial production. So our guidance for the year is really just looking at the fourth quarter, okay, for Mc Bay sustaining production -- sustaining capital, sorry.

Got it. Okay. And then just back to some of the questions on the debt side. What is the minimum cash balance the company needs just sort of to maintain steady operations?

Yes. So I mean, look, significantly less than we've got on the balance sheet at the end of the quarter. I mean, there's no sort of real rule around this, but it really sort of looks to a number of months of what you would require to fund operations. And whilst I must say we hold ourselves to this, I would say, the minimum that we would want at any point in time is around $250 million.

And then on Lamaque, good results there with the contribution from [ Mac]. The grades, I guess, improved quite a bit quarter-on-quarter in line with expectations. Is there any kind of additional visibility you can provide on maybe what the great expectations are now that you're in the ore body for the second half of the year? I mean, is there a reasonable potential you'll exceed the grade guidance just given the performance in the second quarter?

Thank you. Yes. Thanks, Josh. Yes, Lamaque is performing very, very well. Obviously, the team is well seasoned and performing to plan. we probably see the grades in the second half, maybe towards the top end of our range, which is between 6 to 6.5 grams, but we wouldn't see it being higher than that at this moment.

Got it. And if I can sort of tuck in one more. In terms of the discussion about the expansion and utilization of some of the spare throughput capacity there, is there any visibility on timing on when we could receive that update?

We're just working through our sort of business planning cycle right now to sort of really articulate what that's going to look like. We would probably be in a better position to talk about that in the Q1 of next year. But yes, we're very excited by this opportunity, which is underpinned by the great performance of the team. and underpinned by the exploration potential we see in the region. So all of these things are giving us great tailwinds into a future a very bright future for the Lamaque Complex.

The next question is from Lawson Winder with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

And then I would just say congratulations to everybody moving to new roles and then best of luck to those moving on to other pursuits. And there's just a few discussion points that I kind of wanted to follow up on. So one would be the energization in Greece. I think we've covered almost everything. One thing I wanted to touch on, though, was the difference in power cost between running the gen sets versus the grid. Is that a material difference? Or are those relatively close?

No, the power grid is significantly cheaper than diesel generating, particularly with the high diesel cost these days. But as I said, the rental and lease is included in our estimate, it's about $5 million per diesel. And the sooner we get on good power, the better.

Okay. Yes. Thanks for that, George. And then with McIlvenna Bay, other operators in the Finland belt have been reporting labor shortages. And so as you transition from construction to operations, do you feel you'll have sufficient staffing to support that ramp up and then full operations, I guess, in Q4 or whenever you hit that? And is there any need for contracted labor once your [indiscernible]?

Yes. Thanks, Lawson. We do see -- we do see pressure in terms of the labor in the [ Saskatoon ] area. And I guess we have the ability right now to continue on and spread the load as we build out and build our team with the contractors that are on site and helping us to both vertical and lateral development work. The -- we have employed several strategies, both in the community and in terms of just recruitment to help us support the project in the long term. And we'll continue to work through that as things progress.

But we're pretty comfortable that the team has a good strategy and we're supporting as well as we can to help make sure that and working for a bigger organization, I think, has been a bit more attractive to help us gain some more retention. So we're pretty comfortable right now that we can move in the way we plan.

Okay. And then just finally, if I could ask, in the past on these calls, you've sometimes provided some directional quarterly guidance for the gold production at Kisladag rather just given the both the large heap leach cycles. Would you be able to provide just directionally where things are heading in Q3 versus Q2, whether that's just a range like but are we up like a couple of percent, maybe 5%, a little bit more, that type of thing would be really helpful? And then that would be it for me.

Yes. Thanks, Lawson. So yes, we have -- obviously, as we've spoken about several times that this is a cutback here. So it's a low production year for Kisladag in the mining cycle due to cutback phase our removal. And this year, we do see a sort of back-end loaded a little bit to sort of like a 45-55 split in terms of half 1, half 2 is what we would see. So we would expect sort of more tonnage and grade to improve through Q3 as we're in the summer months and then on to Q4.

That is all the time we have for questions today. This concludes the question-and-answer session and today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Eldorado Gold Corporation 2026 Annual Meeting. [Operator Instructions]

I will now turn the meeting over to the Chair of the meeting, Steve Reid. Please go ahead, Mr. Reid.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our 2026 Annual Meeting. I'm Steve Reid, and I'm the Chair of the Board of Eldorado Gold Corporation. As provided in the company's bylaws, I'll be the Chair of the meeting.

Eldorado is conducting its annual meeting this year in a physical and virtual hybrid format held in person at the offices of Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP in Vancouver, BC, and virtually using the Computershare virtual meeting platform. We also urge shareholders to vote via proxy or voting instruction form prior to this meeting if they were unable to attend the meeting.

I'd like to remind you that for those attending this meeting virtually, only registered shareholders that have logged into the meeting with their previously obtained 15-digit control number or duly appointed proxy holders that have received an invite code from Computershare are entitled to vote at the meeting, ask questions or take an active part in the meeting on the web portal. Beneficial shareholders who have not duly appointed themselves as proxy holder are able to attend the meeting virtually as guests and listen to the webcast, but will not be able to participate or vote at the meeting.

The active participation by only registered shareholders or duly appointed proxy holders virtually is customary and consistent with our in-person meeting procedures. Any registered shareholder or a duly appointed proxy holder with a question that's relevant to the business of this meeting is welcome to ask it through the web portal or in person if you're attending the physical meeting. If you have a question not directly related to the business of this meeting, I kindly ask that you wait and ask that question after the formal business of the meeting.

Some of the statements made at this meeting may be considered forward-looking. We caution you that results of future operations may differ from those anticipated. We urge you to review the cautionary statements and other information contained in Eldorado Gold Corporation's filings on SEDAR+, which identifies a number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those mentioned in any forward-looking statements made at the meeting.

To ensure this meeting covers the required business in an efficient manner, I'll dispense with the seconding of motions of the items of business that are identified in the notice of meeting. This procedure is merely a way to expedite proceedings.

The meeting will now come to order. Karen Aram, Corporate Secretary of Eldorado, is present and will act as Secretary of the meeting. Computershare Trust Company of Canada is the registrar and transfer agent for Eldorado, and Teresa Kwan of Computershare is present and will act as scrutineer for the meeting.

I have before me an affidavit of mailing from Computershare declaring that the notice calling this meeting and other meeting materials were duly mailed on May 22, 2026, to registered shareholders as at the record date of April 29, 2026. And as such, proper notice of the meeting has been given.

According to the preliminary scrutineer's report, at least 2 shareholders entitled to vote at the meeting are present in person or represented by proxy, representing not less than 25% of the votes attached to the issued and outstanding common shares entitled to vote at the meeting. I adopt the scrutineer's report and declare that a quorum is present. With notice having been given in the proper manner and a quorum present, I declare that this meeting is regularly and duly called and is now ready for the transaction of business.

Before commencing with the business of the meeting, I'd like to comment on the voting procedure. We will conduct each vote by way of ballot. I understand that the scrutineer has tabulated all the votes received prior to the proxy voting cutoff.

If you are attending virtually and have previously voted by proxy, you do not need to vote again when prompted. By voting virtually, again, you will revoke any previous vote made by proxy prior to the proxy voting cutoff. If anyone present in person is a registered shareholder or a proxy holder and has not received a package of ballots, could you please see Computershare at this time.

We'll now open the voting for all of the resolutions on the Computershare platform. Each shareholder present in person or represented by proxy will have 1 vote for each Eldorado common share held or represented. If you're attending the meeting in person, please feel free to ask any questions you may have about any motion that is properly before the meeting when we open up the floor to questions after the resolutions have been introduced and prior to closing of the polls.

For the expediency and decorum of the meeting, questioning will be limited to 2 minutes in each case. If you're attending virtually, if a registered shareholder or duly appointed proxy holder has a question on any motion before the meeting, you may submit it through the system now or throughout the meeting, and we will address any such questions after the resolutions have been introduced and prior to closing of the polls.

I may exercise discretion in limiting the number of questions that any person in valid attendance at this meeting may ask. Once questions on the resolutions have been concluded, I'll give you a minute to complete voting and then declare the polls closed. Again, please keep any questions which are of a general nature until after the formal part of the business -- formal business part of the meeting.

The first item of business is the presentation of the annual audited consolidated financial statements of the company for the year ended December 31, 2025, and the accompanying auditor's report thereon. Copies of the financial statements and the auditor's report has been provided to shareholders of record and have also been filed under Eldorado's SEDAR+ profile. Copies are also located on the Computershare dashboard page.

I now declare that Eldorado's financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2025, and the accompanying auditor's report have been received by the shareholders as submitted at this meeting.

Next item on the agenda is the election of directors. Our Board currently consists of 10 directors, and the Board of Directors has fixed the number of directors for the ensuing year at 9. The only persons who have been nominated to stand for election as directors of Eldorado in accordance with the procedures set forth in the advance notice provisions contained in the company's bylaws are the management nominees set forth in the management proxy circular for this meeting.

Each of management's nominees has consented to act as a director of the company. Accordingly, no further nominations will be accepted, and I declare the nominations closed.

I invite a motion from a shareholder that the following management nominees, being those individuals set forth in the management proxy circular for this meeting, be elected as directors of Eldorado to hold office until the close of the next Annual Shareholders Meeting or until their successors are elected or appointed: Carissa Browning; George Burns; Teresa Conway; Samantha Espley; Sally Eyre; Patrick Godin; Judith Mosely; Daniel Myerson; Steven Reid.

I so move.

Thank you. Our next item of business is the appointment of KPMG LLP as the auditor of the company for the ensuing year. I invite a motion from a shareholder that KPMG LLP be appointed as auditor of the company for the ensuing year.

I so move.

Thank you. Our next item of business is to authorize the Board of Directors of the company to set the auditor's remuneration. I invite a motion from a shareholder that the Board be authorized to set the auditor's pay for the ensuing year.

I so move.

Thank you. Our next item of business is a nonbinding advisory vote by way of an ordinary resolution supporting our approach to executive compensation as described in the management proxy circular. I invite a motion from a shareholder that the ordinary resolution as described in the management proxy circular for this meeting be approved and that the full text of the resolution as contained in the circular be taken as read and be made a part of the minutes of this meeting.

I so move.

Thank you. That concludes the placement before the meeting of all the resolutions to be considered. I'll now ask if there are any questions specifically related to the foregoing items.

There being no questions, I'll now move to the final voting. For those attending in person, please complete and sign your ballots, printing your name under the signature. When you've completed your ballots, please raise your hand, and the scrutineer will collect them.

For those attending virtually, the polls are still open. For those of you that have not voted on the resolutions virtually, please do so now. I'll pause for 1 minute to allow you to complete the voting.

[Voting]

Now that everyone has had the opportunity to vote, I declare the polls for this meeting closed. The scrutineer will now tabulate the results of the votes and will provide us the results shortly.

Okay. I'd like to call the meeting back to order to report on the voting results. Based on the preliminary scrutineer's report, I report and declare that all 9 nominated directors have been duly elected as directors of the company to hold office until the next Annual Shareholders Meeting of the company or until their successors are elected or appointed.

KPMG LLP has been duly appointed as auditor of the company for the ensuing year. The Board has been duly authorized to set the auditor's pay for the ensuing year.

The nonbinding advisory vote on executive compensation has been duly approved. The exact number of votes on each of these resolutions will be filed on Eldorado's profile on SEDAR+.

There being no further business to be conducted at this meeting, I will now declare the formal business part of the meeting to be terminated. The final report of the scrutineer will be included in the minutes of this meeting.

Now that the formal business part of the meeting is concluded, we will address questions from the registered shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders which were not directly related to the business of this meeting.

As there are no questions, this concludes Eldorado's Annual Meeting. I'd like to thank you for your support and input and look forward to our second quarter earnings release on July 31 to update you on our progress. Thank you, and good morning.

This concludes the meeting. You may now disconnect.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Eldorado Gold First Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] And the conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the conference over to Lynette Gould, Vice President, Investor Relations, Communications and External Affairs. Please go ahead, Ms. Gould.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to our conference call to discuss our first quarter 2026 results. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that we will be making forward-looking statements and referring to non-IFRS measures during the call. Please refer to the cautionary statements included in the presentation and the disclosure on non-IFRS measures and risk factors in our management's discussion and analysis.

Joining me on the call today, we have George Burns, Chief Executive Officer; Christian Milau, President; Paul Ferneyhough, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Simon Hille, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer.

Our release yesterday details our first quarter 2026 financial and operating results. The release should be read in conjunction with our Q1 2026 financial statements and management's discussion and analysis, both of which are available on our website. They have also both been filed on SEDAR+ and EDGAR. All dollar figures discussed today are U.S. dollars, unless otherwise stated. We will be speaking to the slides that accompany this webcast, which can be downloaded from our website. After the prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A, at which time, we will invite analysts to queue for questions.

I will now turn the call over to George.

Thank you, Lynette, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin with an overview of our first quarter and provide brief updates on McIlvenna Bay and Skouries. I'll then hand the call over to Paul to review the financials and then to Simon with an update on our operations. Following that, Christian will make some concluding remarks before opening up the call for questions.

We've had a very busy and solid start to 2026 with performance in the quarter tracking in line with our expectations and full year guidance. This year, production is back half weighted as 2 mines come into production and several other operations deliver stronger results later in the year.

2026 is an important year for Eldorado as we continue to advance 2 high-quality growth projects, Skouries in Greece, and McIlvenna Bay in Saskatchewan. Mac Bay is nearing first concentrate production followed by first concentrate at Skouries in Q3. Once in operation, both assets will meaningfully enhance our production profile and cash flow generation.

Starting in the third quarter of 2026, to provide greater transparency as these polymetallic assets come online, we plan to enhance our disclosure by reporting copper assets on a dollar per pound, co-product basis for Skouries and Mac Bay.

Before getting into the project updates, I want to note that as previously announced, I plan to retire as CEO later this year as we ramp up Skouries towards commercial production. Christian, who joined us last September has been deeply involved across the business and is set up to seamlessly step into the role at that time. I'm pleased to remain on the Board to support continuity and Dan Myerson has joined the Board as Deputy Chair providing important continuity from the Foran side.

I want to take a moment to recognize the achievement of our colleagues at Lamaque. In March, they received the TSM Gold Leadership Award, a special recognition for mining operations who achieved level AAA, the highest possible rating across all applicable TSM performance indicators. This recognition reflects the dedication of our employees and our unwavering commitment to responsible mining in Quebec and across our global operations, where TSM protocols are applied as a matter of practice, under Eldorado's Sustainability integrated management system, well done Lamaque team.

The Foran transaction represents a significant milestone for Eldorado. At Mac Bay, we have now begun the integration activities and working closely with the existing team as the project nears first concentrate production. Following the close, members of our management team visited Saskatchewan and the Mac Bay project to welcome the team to Eldorado, see progress firsthand and engage with our stakeholders in Saskatchewan.

What stood out was the enthusiasm of our new team, the capabilities supporting the operation and the clear focus on safety, collaboration and responsible execution. Now that Mac Bay is part of our portfolio, we expect to provide the following with our second quarter results. Mac Bay production and cost outlook for 2026, timing for an expansion study and progress on a study for potential lead silver circuit.

Following the close of the transaction, we have already approved approximately $17 million spend on exploration for the remainder of 2026, reflecting the target-rich environment in our view that continued exploration success has the potential to drive meaningful long-term value. The quality of Mac Bay and its exploration potential reinforce our confidence that it will become a long-term cornerstone asset within our portfolio, delivering near-term growth while adding copper exposure in a stable top 3 global mining-friendly jurisdiction.

Turning to Skouries in Greece on Slide 6. Construction activities continue to progress well across all major areas. The team remains focused on disciplined safe execution as we move through the final construction phase. At the end of the quarter, overall project progress was approximately 94% steadily advancing towards first concentrate production. As execution activities have progressed and the project advances towards construction completion on schedule, we have updated our forecast to complete and have revised our total project capital to $1.315 billion, an increase of approximately $155 million from the prior estimate.

The primary driver was the increase related to construction workforce levels to support sustained final construction momentum. Total workforce has increased from 2,350 in mid-Q1 to approximately 3,200, which includes about 490 in operations. Advancing Skouries into safe production in the current metal environment is a key driver of value creation. This incremental capital reflects our continued focus on maintaining momentum towards first concentrate production.

Accelerated operational capital at Skouries is now expected to be approximately $260 million, reflecting an incremental $82 million to expand pre-commercial mining and site works. This supports open pit mining and advancing underground development ahead of first production. We're well positioned for start-up with more than 2.8 million tonnes of ore stockpiled which provides the entire planned mill tonnage for 2026. Overall, this investment supports a smoother ramp up into production.

On the process plant, work remains focused on final mechanical installations, piping, cable tray, cabling as we prepare for first ore. With respect to the damaged cyclone heat pump variable speed drives, temporary replacement equipment is expected to be installed in Q2, high- and medium-voltage electrical distribution for multiple substations is progressing. The process control building structure is complete and electrical rooms are being progressively handed over to commissioning.

On the power line and substations, the 150 kV power line and primary substation continued to advance to start up in Q3. Ahead of grinding area ore commissioning, final electrical regulatory authority approval will require completion of inspection and energization protocols. Power line construction is progressing with the transmission tower assembly complete and pilot wire pulling now underway along the transmission line.

A primary substation is advancing through ongoing assembly of the substation structures and control building structural completion. Pre-commissioning is now underway, starting with the substations that feed the process plant, filter plant, the primary crusher, while commissioning continues across fire, utility and process water systems.

In parallel, we've begun pre-commissioning and flotation focused on here and instrumentation as well as the SAG and ball mill instrumentation, electrical and control systems, and we started wet commissioning in the process water pumps and tailings thickeners. Together, Skouries and McIlvenna Bay represent a step change for Eldorado in scale and portfolio diversification across jurisdictions and metals.

With that, I'll turn it over to Paul to review the financial results.

Thank you, George, and good morning. I'll start on Slide 7. In Q1 2026, we produced 100,358 ounces of gold, a 13% decrease year-over-year, primarily reflecting lower tonnes at stacked grades at Kisladag and lower grades at Efemcukuru, partially offset by higher grades and improved recoveries at Olympias and Lamaque.

Gold sales totaled 100,619 ounces at an average realized gold price of $4,891 per ounce, generating total revenue in excess of $532 million, a 50% increase from $355 million in the comparable quarter last year, driven by significantly higher gold prices.

Production costs were $188 million, up from just over $148 million, driven primarily by royalty expense in Turkiye and Greece, which accounted for approximately 70% of the increase, with the balance largely attributable to labor inflation in Turkiye and incremental labor and contractor costs associated with continued development of Lamaque Complex.

Royalty expense increased to $50 million from $22 million last year, reflecting higher realized gold prices and higher royalty rates, partially offset by lower sales volumes. On a unit basis, total cash costs across the portfolio averaged $1,470 per ounce sold, up from $1,153, while ASIC averaged $1,942 per ounce sold compared to $1,559 in the prior year period, mainly reflecting higher royalty expense, driven by the higher gold price environment, lower production and labor cost impacts.

Below the line, net earnings attributable to shareholders from continuing operations were $136 million or $0.69 per share compared to $72 million or $0.35 per share last year primarily due to higher realized gold prices, partially offset by lower sales volumes, higher production costs and higher income taxes.

Adjusted net earnings were $188 million or $0.95 per share compared to $56 million or $0.28 per share last year. The adjustments this quarter included an $18 million foreign exchange translation loss on deferred tax balances, a $20 million unrealized loss on derivative instruments and $8 million of acquisition costs related to the Foran Mining transaction.

Turning to Slide 8. We ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of approximately $630 million, maintaining a strong balance sheet and significant financial flexibility to fund our growth initiatives. Cash declined in Q1 relative to Q4 2025, primarily due to capital investment, share repurchases, dividend payments and income taxes paid, partially offset by cash generated from operating activities.

As we prepared the company for the significant cash flow that will come following ramp-up of production, at Skouries and McIlvenna Bay, it's worth reflecting on our developing capital allocation policy, which is based on a framework that is built around 5 key priorities. First, we continue to allocate funds towards the highest return opportunities within our global portfolio, including potential expansion projects at Lamaque and McIlvenna Bay, advancement at Perama Hill, ongoing optimization and expansion of Olympias and continued investment for our stable cash-generating mines in Turkiye.

Second, we've meaningfully increased our exploration investment focused on mine life extensions and the discovery of new resources. Third, we remain committed to maintaining balance sheet strength with a focus on reducing leverage over time including the prudent management of our $500 million high-yield bond maturing in 2029, while preserving the flexibility to execute our pipeline of development projects.

Fourth, we have established a sustainable base dividend policy of $0.075 per share per quarter. And finally, we continued in Q1 to opportunistically repurchase shares reflecting our conviction in the company's intrinsic value, particularly given the potential for an estimated double-digit free cash flow yield based on our current valuation compared to industry-leading peers who currently trade at a lower yield. Overall, we believe our capital allocation framework appropriately balances growth, financial strength and shareholder returns.

With that, I'll turn it over to Simon for an operational update.

Thank you, Paul. Starting on Slide 9 at the Lamaque Complex. We produced 42,306 ounces in Q1, up 5% year-over-year. The outperformance was primarily grade-driven. And we also saw the initial contribution from Ormaque following the receipt of our operating authorization. All-in sustaining costs were $1,370 per ounce sold, modestly lower year-over-year, reflecting higher production volumes and continued cost focus, partially offset by impact of deeper mining and timing of sustaining capital spend.

Total capital spend was totaled $48 million, including $20 million of sustaining capital, primarily for underground development, drilling and equipment. Growth capital totaled $28 million, largely related to development of Ormaque and ramp development at the Triangle mine and supporting infrastructure.

Continuing to Slide 10. At Kisladag, we produced 28,339 ounces as planned. As we have previously disclosed in 2026 is a cutback year for Phase 6 of the open pit, where the average grade is lower than the life of mine. All-in sustaining cost was $2,060 per ounce sold primarily reflecting lower volumes sold and on a higher cost base.

Sustaining capital spend included $4 million, while growth capital included $51 million including a onetime $24 million purchase of strategic land to support the North Heap leach pad and North Rock Waste Dump expansions. The remaining planned $27 million was largely waste stripping and continued construction of the Phase 3 at the North Heap leach pad. The GMS study covering future phases and evaluating whole ore screening remains on track for completion in Q2 of 2026.

At Efemcukuru on Slide 11, we produced 15,394 payable ounces in Q1 relative to 19,307 payable ounces in Q1 of 2025. The lower output is primarily due to lower grade and partially offset by the higher throughput. All-in sustaining costs increased to $2,528 per ounce sold primarily reflects the lower volumes sold and the higher cost base as expected with the higher sustaining capital tied to the increased development meters.

Sustaining capital spend included $5 million primarily underground development and $2 million of growth capital related to the new portal development at Kokarpinar along with the development cost for the new Bati zone.

Finally, to Slide 12. At Olympias, we produced 14,319 payable ounces of gold in Q1, up 21% from 11,829 ounces in Q1 of 2025. This improvement reflects a stable ore blend and flotation performance that drove higher metal recoveries. Revenue increased to $88 million from $46 million, primarily on the higher realized gold price, higher sales volumes for gold and base metals and with the base metals also benefiting from higher grades and recoveries.

All-in sustaining cost was $2,031 per ounce sold reduced from $2,842 primarily reflecting improved metal recovery and stable mill performance that resulted in lower cash cost per ounce sold as a result of higher volumes sold.

Sustaining capital was $5 million, while growth capital was $8 million driven by the mill expansion project, with sequential area completion commencing at the end of Q3 and ramp up through Q4 of 2026. Across all sites, safety remains core to our operations and we continue to reinforce a culture of safe, responsible production.

I'll now turn it over to Christian for closing remarks.

Thanks, Simon, and good morning, everyone. Overall, the first quarter reflects a solid start to what is defining year for Eldorado. We're delivering solid operational and financial performance while continuing to make meaningful progress on our key growth projects that march towards the finish line. In addition, we initiated our dividend and bought back over $80 million worth of Eldorado shares in Q1.

Importantly, we've continued to strengthen our leadership team over recent months, including the well-deserved promotion of Simon to Chief Operating Officer, and the appointment of Gordana Vicentijevic, who will be joining our -- shortly as Senior Vice President of Projects. Gordana has significant experience leading projects of large and small-scale globally as well as experience working with G Mining Services, who will be a key partner on a number of future projects.

Additionally, we'd like to recognize Sylvain Lehoux, who has been promoted to Senior Vice President, Operations for Canada, taking on responsibility for Eldorado's growing Canadian portfolio. The deliberate steps we've taken to enhance our bench strength, particularly in project execution and operational leadership are already contributing to improved alignment, stronger integration across the business.

Complementing these efforts, in 2026, we entered into a project alliance with G Mining Services to support the project, development and execution, reinforcing our technical capacity and ability to deliver projects safely, efficiently and on schedule.

As I spent time across our sites and corporate offices, I've seen strong alignment with our values, particularly in how our teams are approaching collaboration and execution. These behaviors will be critical as we move through the remainder of the year. With Skouries and McIlvenna Bay advancing towards key milestones and first production and with the strength of the team we have in place, we're entering a period of meaningful transformation for the company, one that we believe will enhance our scale, diversify our portfolio and strengthen our long-term value proposition.

Looking ahead, while Eldorado remains predominantly a gold producer, the addition of meaningful copper production from Canada and Europe represents an exciting extension of our portfolio. At McIlvenna Bay, we are building exposure to copper in a top-tier mining jurisdiction with dependable infrastructure and access to a skilled workforce. And we appreciate the major projects office support of the strategic project for Canada and Eldorado.

Further, the district scale exploration potential and work being done by the team in Saskatchewan is extremely exciting with excellent targets to be followed up as evidenced by our increased investment in exploration. We expect to aggressively explore the near mine and wider land package starting this year. This potential and the already long mine life will enhance our peer-leading average mine life and exciting exploration portfolio across all jurisdictions.

At Skouries, we expect to deliver a long-life copper gold assets in Europe, where demand for responsible produced metals continues to grow. Northern Greece is highly prospective, and we will continue to grow as a core part of our portfolio. These 2 near production mines provide substantial exposure to copper and its key role in electrification and the energy transition, while also enhancing the resilience of our portfolio through greater commodity and geographic diversification, while also extending our average years of mine life into the mid-teens with excellent potential to extend further.

I'm excited about Eldorado's future and a strong culture and teams across the company. As we reach a significant cash flow inflection point later in 2026, I have a high level of confidence in our team, our strategy and our ability to surface significant value from execution of peer-leading near-term growth.

Thank you to our employees, partners and you, as shareholders for your continued support. I'll now turn the call back to operator for questions from our analysts.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Don DeMarco with National Bank.

First question, looking at Skouries, given that labor cost pressures contributed to the CapEx increase, is there a read-through to potentially cost pressures on operating costs going forward?

Don, thanks for the question. No, no read-through there. So really what drove this capital increase as we get to the final stage of construction was completing electrical and instrumentation in the plant. So we brought in 3 EU contractors just recently to help ensure we can maintain the early Q3 start-up of the plant. So it's essentially some extra labor to complete that electrical and instrumentation.

No read-through in terms of our operating costs, our operating manpower levels are going to come in as expected. And we've only had kind of normal inflationary pressure on labor costs. So -- and if you look at our cost guidance for the fourth quarter, as we bring it into operation, we continue to maintain a very low cost profile once we're into production.

Okay. And so then looking at the next couple of quarters before first concentrate, are there any risks on the horizon maybe lingering cost pressures, whether related to labor, contractors, et cetera, that might require additional capital that might be unforeseen at this time?

No Don, we don't see that at this point, again, from a construction perspective. We should have construction complete at the midyear point. And we've said Q3 as first concentrate and really, the variable for us remaining is how efficiently we can get the energy connected to be able to put first ore through the grinding mills and through the plant.

And there we're collaborating with the Greek power authority. So we get our construction completed in July. Our expectation is final checks with us and them on that main substation can happen together in parallel. And that would result in an early Q3 start-up. If we can't get that collaboration and they do their checks subsequent to ours, it could slip to mid-Q3. But really, that's not a cost impact. We'll be ramping down construction workforce rapidly as we get this construction completed around midyear.

Okay. Great. And then for final question, just shifting over to Mac Bay. I see that you've approved an exploration budget. Can you share the split between infill and expansion and some of the targets that you might be focusing on with that budget?

Thanks, Don. It's Simon here. The -- I can maybe give you some color on what our plans are around the exploration portion of the budget. The Foran team had around a $4 million exploration budget for the year, of which, we are adding $17 million for the remainder of the year. And the teams are quite excited to sort of mainly focus on 3 key targets. They are the Tesla copper-rich feeder zone, Big Stone expansion and then adding some more geoscience to the existing land package around some airborne geophysical surveys and expanded lifts on the whole body characterization. These things should set us up for good success moving forward. In our exploration budget, we typically don't have infill. Infill is a part of an operational budget.

The next question comes from Sam Overwater with Scotiabank.

Just a couple more questions on Skouries. We were quite surprised by the increase in capital costs, and you mentioned it was related mainly to the workforce at the electric plant. But what else happened? What else changed since the previous increase in Q4?

Yes. Again, really the 60% of that cost increase is the additional contract workforce since completing the electrical and instrumentation. And then the balance is kind of split between materials, FX and owner support costs. So bottom line is it's taking us a couple of months additional full workforce to get the final construction complete.

If you go back to our last guidance on Skouries Capital, at that point, the view was we'd be waiting to get the power connected in the power line and doing some final things in the tailings filtration plant. So bottom line, this increases -- we're spending some additional dollars bringing in some additional EU contractors to ensure we're ready to run once that power is connected, hopefully early Q3.

Okay. Great. And then, you said 60% was the contract work with the balance being materials, FX, et cetera. Could you give us a little bit more of a breakdown between what the materials, FX and what else -- the split of that remaining 40%?

Yes, there was about $15 million in materials and kind of 4 key items. In the dry stack filter plant, our insurers have requested and we've agreed to put in additional fire protection, that's about $5 million. We've added about $4 million in additional spares to ensure smooth ramp-up in the balance of the year. We've added about $3 million in additional gen sets that are helping us do precommissioning as we wait for power connection, and there was about $1.5 million in freight. And then there was about $15 million in foreign exchange impacts and the balance is really the indirect cost to support that a couple of months of high labor intensive to finish the construction.

Okay. Amazing. Last question from me. What are the remaining risks in your opinion, whether that be capital or operating to start up? And what contingencies do you have in place to make sure we hit this Q3 time frame?

Yes. Again, I think the key risk for the year remaining on Skouries is to get that power connected. And the timing of that really will depend on where we are closer to the bottom end of our production guidance or the top end of our production guidance. So if we can get that power connected in July as we expect, we'd expect to be higher in the production guidance.

In terms of cost risk, I'd say that's not a worry for me now. We've got a couple of months of maintaining these high workforce levels to complete the construction. The only remaining risk beyond that is just the normal commissioning risk. So once power is connected, we start moving ore through the circuit. And as always, in every construction, you have adjustments that need to be made. At this point, I think we've got a 20-year mine life plus here, fantastic infrastructure that's been constructed and pretty darn confident about the ramp-up.

Amazing. Best of luck with ramping up these 2 projects.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Josh Wolfson with RBC Capital Markets.

Just going back to this labor conversation on Skouries, I understand the need for the additional contractors to meet the timelines. But was there some difference in thinking versus the prior plan in terms of labor productivity being challenged? Or what sort of -- what really is prompting this change?

Yes. I mean it's really taking more hours of electrical and instrumentation to get this finished. So yes, for sure, we haven't hit the numbers we expected and again, brought in 3 European contractors to button this thing up and get it running.

Got it. And I understand it's only been a short amount of time since the Foran acquisition has closed. I noted the second quarter will have more comprehensive of an update. Is there any sort of perspective you can provide in terms of what is required ahead of first production? Or sort of what milestones we should be looking at there?

Josh, it's Simon here. Josh, look, we're pretty excited. We've been on the ground just a couple of weeks ago. Obviously, we're close contact with the team. The team is right in the thrust of what we call hot commissioning right now, which is where we start to add ore into various parts of the process to sort of test the components and simulate what we will be as we run into full production and we link those things together on a sequential basis. So we're pretty excited that things are moving to plan and we expect to see this running in this month.

That's all the questions we have for today. This concludes the question-and-answer session and today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Eldorado Gold Fourth Quarter 2025 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] And the conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the conference over to Lynette Gould, Vice President, Investor Relations, Communications and External Affairs. Please go ahead, Ms. Gould.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to our conference call to discuss our fourth quarter and year-end 2025 results in addition to details of our 2026 guidance and overview of our 3-year production outlook.

Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that we will be making forward-looking statements and referring to non-IFRS measures during the call. Please refer to the cautionary statements included in the presentation and the disclosure on non-IFRS measures and risk factors in our management's discussion and analysis.

Joining me on the call today, we have George Burns, Chief Executive Officer; Christian Milau, President; Paul Ferneyhough, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Simon Hille, Executive Vice President, Operations and Technical Services. Louw Smith, Executive Vice President, Greece, is at site today and not able to join the call. So Simon Hille will speak on his behalf for Skouries and Olympias.

Our releases yesterday detail our fourth quarter and year-end 2025 financial and operating results as well as our 2026 guidance and 3-year production outlook. They should be read in conjunction with our year-end 2025 financial statements and management's discussion and analysis, both of which are available on our website. They have also both been filed on SEDAR+ and EDGAR. All dollar figures discussed today are U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated. We will be speaking to the slides that accompany this webcast, which can be downloaded from our website. After the prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A, at which time, we will invite analysts to queue for questions.

I will now turn the call over to George.

Thanks, Lynette, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin with an overview of our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results and highlights and then provide an update on construction and the time line at Skouries. I'll then hand the call over to Paul to review the financials and then to Simon with an update on projects and operations. Following that, Christian will provide an update on our 2026 guidance and 3-year production outlook before I conclude with some closing remarks.

It's been a busy start to the year. We have continued to execute on a clear value creation strategy, achieving the high end of 2025 production guidance, launching a quarterly dividend to formalize a capital return framework and advancing a disciplined exploration program that reinforces the company's discovery strategy. The announced acquisition of Foran Mining further strengthens the company's long-term growth pipeline, adding a high-quality Canadian copper-gold development asset and enhancing portfolio diversification with a focus on per share value creation and sustainable free cash flow growth.

Turning to Slide 4 and our fourth quarter and full year highlights. 2025 was a year of strong execution and meaningful progress across our portfolio. We delivered safe gold production at the upper end of our guidance, finishing the year with 488,268 ounces. This performance was supported by another strong year at Lamaque Complex, steady contributions from Kisladag and Efemçukuru and a solid finish at the Olympias mine, bringing it back on track.

Solid operating execution, combined with a favorable gold price environment drove strong financial results, including $1.8 billion in revenue, $743 million in operating cash flow and $316 million in free cash flow, excluding Skouries investment. In Greece, we are reaching a key inflection point. The first production from Skouries later this year, together with the Olympias expansion and ongoing advancement of the Perama Hill project, Greece is set to deliver meaningful growth. This momentum is complemented by the continued long-life potential at the Lamaque Complex, supported by production from the Triangle deposit, development from the Ormaque deposit and a robust exploration pipeline and by our Turkish operations, which remain a stable cash-generating foundation for the company.

Turning to Slide 5. In the fourth quarter, our lost time injury frequency rate was 0.55, an improvement from the LTIFR of 1.02 in the fourth quarter of 2024. While there is always room for improvement, this safety performance also comes during the peak of our construction activities at Skouries. We continue to implement multiyear programs to support continuous improvement in workplace safety, supporting our vision of everyone going home healthy and safe every day. During the quarter, we achieved safe production of 123,416 gold ounces at $1,894 all-in sustaining cost per ounce sold. Simon will speak further to each of the assets' performance later in the call.

With a strong balance sheet, we are well positioned to advance our growth pipeline while maintaining flexibility to return capital to shareholders. As previously announced, we were active on our share repurchase through the NCIB program, and we repurchased approximately $204 million of shares during 2025. Additionally, we announced in January the initiation of a quarterly dividend program, which commences in the first quarter of '26. Coupled together, these mark an important milestone in delivering value to our shareholders and reflect the company's strong financial position and confidence in executing our growth strategy.

At Skouries, first concentrate production has been modestly delayed and is now expected in early in the third quarter of 2026 with commercial production anticipated in the fourth quarter. This timing adjustment is expected to increase construction capital by approximately $50 million. The delay relates to primarily required replacement of the cyclone feed pump variable frequency drive capacitors in the process plant due to moisture damage that occurred while in storage. And secondarily, our power line connection delays resulting from a slower-than-expected approval of the detailed engineering and delayed ramp-up of the subcontractor. Prior to commissioning, final electrical regulatory authority approval requires completion of inspection and energization protocols.

Importantly, the project is mitigation measures well underway and Skouries remains a multi-decade high-quality asset expected to generate meaningful cash flow in the second half of 2026 and beyond. Ramp-up of first production towards commercial production is expected to accelerate as the project team will continue to complete additional areas as we advance toward first production. We see the impact of the delay is minimal when looking at the long-life nature of the asset, and we are confident in the delivery of this multi-decade mine.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Paul for a review of our financial results.

Thank you, George, and good morning, everyone. Turning to Slide 7, I'll summarize our fourth quarter and full year 2025 financial results. Consistent and reliable operational performance through the fourth quarter enabled us to deliver results at the high end of our tightened production guidance, while operating costs for both the quarter and the full year remained within expectations. Strong gold prices contributed positively to operating cash flow, further supporting the execution of our strategic and operational investments.

Net earnings attributable to shareholders from continuing operations were $252 million or $1.26 per share in the fourth quarter. For the full year, net earnings attributable to shareholders totaled $520 million or $2.56 per share. Net earnings increased both for the full year and the fourth quarter compared to the prior year periods, driven by higher revenue, partially offset by increased production costs, including higher royalties and losses on derivative instruments.

After adjusting for onetime nonrecurring items, adjusted net earnings for the quarter were $126 million or $0.63 per share. The primary adjustments in the quarter included a $104 million recovery related to the recognition of deferred tax assets and a $27 million unrealized gain on derivative instruments. For the full year, adjusted net earnings were $355 million or $1.75 per share. Adjustments during the year primarily included a $178 million recovery related to the recognition of deferred tax assets, a $39 million unrealized loss on derivative instruments and a $19 million foreign exchange gain related to the translation of deferred tax balances.

Free cash flow in the fourth quarter was negative $55 million or positive $109 million when excluding capital investment in the Skouries project. For the full year, free cash flow was negative $233 million or positive $316 million when excluding Skouries. Cash flow generated by operating activities before changes in working capital totaled $752 million for the year compared to $636 million in the prior year. The increase was primarily driven by higher revenue, which rose to $1.8 billion in 2025, supported by higher average realized gold prices, partially offset by lower production volumes during the year compared to 2024.

Production costs for the full year increased to $678 million from $564 million in 2024, primarily due to higher royalties, which accounted for approximately 40% of the year-over-year increase. Royalty expense totaled $124 million, up from just over $79 million in 2024. The balance of the increase reflects labor cost inflation across the operations, notably in Turkiye, where local inflation continues to outpace devaluation of the local currency, the strengthening euro impacting Olympias and increases at Lamaque related to labor and contractor costs required to support the Triangle Mine as it operates at greater depth.

Fourth quarter total cash costs of $1,295 per ounce sold were at the lower end of our tightened guidance range and $1,176 per ounce sold for the full year. The year-over-year increase was primarily driven by higher royalty expenses driven by regulatory change in Turkiye and by the stronger gold price environment and overall lower gold volumes sold. Higher total cash costs resulted in increased all-in sustaining costs for both the quarter and the full year. AISC in the fourth quarter was $1,894 per ounce sold and $1,664 per ounce sold for the full year. Year-over-year comparisons were also impacted by higher sustaining capital expenditures in 2025.

Growth capital investments at our operating mines totaled $74 million in the fourth quarter and $218 million for the full year. At Skouries, growth capital investment totaled $475 million for the year, including $137 million in the fourth quarter. Accelerated operational capital at Skouries amounted to $35 million in Q4 and $86 million for the full year.

Current tax expense was $85 million in the fourth quarter and $229 million for the full year. This full year $115 million increase compared to 2024 was driven by improved profitability across all jurisdictions. Deferred tax was $118 million recovery in the fourth quarter and a $207 million recovery for the full year, primarily related to the recognition of deferred tax assets in Canada and Greece.

Turning to Slide 8. Our balance sheet remains strong and provides the flexibility to support growth initiatives while returning capital to shareholders. Total liquidity was approximately $976 million at the year-end, positioning us well to complete construction at Skouries, support ramp-up and continued disciplined capital allocation, including to our recently announced dividend program and ongoing NCIB repurchases. During the fourth quarter, we purchased and canceled approximately $80 million of Eldorado shares under the NCIB. Following our additional investment in AMEX announced in December, our year-end cash balance was $869 million.

Before turning the call over to Simon, I'd like to take this opportunity to announce that commercial terms for the Skouries concentrate offtake arrangements have been agreed and contracts are being finalized ahead of execution. These contracts cover approximately 80% of planned copper concentrate production over the next 2 to 3 years at terms significantly better than those assumed in the Skouries 2022 technical study.

With that, I'll hand the call over to Simon, who will provide an update on our operations, beginning with Greece.

Thanks, Paul, and good morning, everyone. Let's begin with Slide 9, which highlights the progress at our Skouries copper-gold project. As George outlined, we have adjusted the timing of our Skouries project. However, I want to be very clear, the project continues to make strong progress and execution on the site remains solid. As of the end of 2025, overall construction has reached 90%, and our focus is firmly on delivering safe and high-quality startup. The open pit is operating ahead of plan. Substantial ore stockpiles have been established and grade control drilling is substantially complete from Phase 1, which has confirmed the first 3 years of production. While the timing has shifted modestly, the fundamentals of the project are unchanged, and the team is executing with discipline as we move towards the first production.

Turning to Slide 10. Photos here and on the following slides illustrate the advancement of the work underway. Work in the process plant remains focused on mechanical, piping, cable tray and electrical installations in preparation for first ore. As mentioned, recent inspections have identified the need to replace the cyclone feed pump variable speed drive capacitors in the process plant, which experienced moist damage during storage. We have ordered and expect to install temporary replacement equipment in Q2 with permanent equipment in Q3. The prefabricated electrical distribution room for the compressors has been installed with cable and terminations progressing. The reagent areas are advancing in line with the commissioning plan.

Moving to Slide 11. Two of the 3 tailings thickeners are mechanically complete with electrical cabling and instrumentation installation underway. The third thickener not required for start-up is in progress in line with the plan. Water testing is complete, piping installation is advancing and the support infrastructure, including pump house and flocculant building is moving forward.

Slide 12 focuses on filtered tailings plant, which remains on the critical path with electrical installation and commissioning being the final step. The prefabricated electrical room was installed and electrical work is advancing. We're also making steady progress on the tailings handling infrastructure, including the stacking conveyance system. The accessibility and productivities of the tailings infrastructure have been mildly affected by recent rain fall above the historic levels. However, these are short-term challenges that the team is actively managing.

As seen on Slide 13, construction of the crusher building is advancing well. Concrete work is complete. The crusher is mechanically installed, electrical work is underway. Conveyors to the coarse ore stockpile and the process plant are in place. The stockpile dome assembly is progressing. The installation of the prefabricated electrical distribution room was completed and electrical cable installation and terminations are in progress.

Moving to Slide 14 and Olympias. Fourth quarter gold production was 18,473 ounces. And all-in sustaining costs were $1,676 per ounce sold. Progress continued on the planned mill 650,000 tonnes per annum expansion during the quarter. All of the major equipment, including the verti-mill, flotation cells, thickener, cyclones and e-room have been delivered and installation has commenced. We expect progressive commissioning and ramp-up in the second half of 2026.

Turning to Turkiye on Slide 15. Kisladag production totaled 41,140 ounces with all-in sustaining costs of $1,933 per ounce sold. On the growth initiatives, the long lead procurement for the whole ore agglomeration circuit is underway with installation targeted for 2027. The new secondary crusher has been ordered with delivery expected in the second half of 2026 and the geometallurgical study to assess future screening needs to remain on track for completion in the second half of 2026.

On Slide 16, at Efemçukuru, fourth quarter gold production was 14,496 ounces at all-in sustaining costs of $2,536 per ounce sold. Compared to Q3 of 2025, gold production was lower due to lower grade and recovery despite higher mill throughput.

And now moving to Lamaque on Slide 17. Lamaque delivered production of 49,307 ounces at all-in sustaining costs of $1,392 per ounce sold for the fourth quarter. During the year, the second Ormaque bulk sample was processed, and this higher-grade ore was treated in a blend with the Triangle ore and performed very well. We look forward to advancing Ormaque into production later this year.

And with that, I'll turn the call over to Christian for an overview of what's ahead.

Thanks, Simon, and good morning. Turning to our 2026 guidance and 3-year outlook. Eldorado enters the year from a position of strength. Skouries' exciting value proposition is unchanged. It's a high-quality, long-life asset that will generate strong cash flow for decades. As it advances towards production, Skouries will be transformational, resetting our production profile and cost base well into the next decade.

Slide 18 outlines our consolidated 2026 guidance and 3-year growth profile. From our existing portfolio, we expect production to increase by approximately 40% in 2027 versus 2025, supported by a solid base of relatively lower cost operations. The addition of Skouries further accelerates this growth, enhancing scale, margins and long-term cash flow generation. For 2026, we expect total gold production to be between 490,000 and 590,000 ounces with copper production of between 20 million and 40 million pounds. On a consolidated basis, all-in sustaining costs are expected to be between $1,670 and $1,870 on a per ounce of gold sold basis.

Growth capital and operations is expected to be between $375 million and $405 million and sustaining capital is expected to be between $140 million and $165 million for the year. As previously announced, we've increased our planned exploration investment for 2026 by 60% compared to 2025. We expect to spend between $75 million and $85 million during the year, focused on resource conversion drilling at Lamaque and Efemçukuru, resource growth and discovery programs in Quebec, Turkiye and Greece.

All-in sustaining costs at Skouries are expected to be between negative $100 and plus $200 per ounce of gold on a net of by-product basis. Over the life of the mine of Skouries over the life of mine, Skouries is expected to be a low to negative all-in sustaining cost mine given spot and higher copper prices in the current market and forecast by market commentators. As a result, Skouries will have the potential to transform Eldorado into one of the highest free cash flow yielding companies in the sector for 2027 onwards, with free cash flow yields estimated by some groups of over 20% based on their gold and copper price forecasts. Given we anticipate Skouries' first production in early Q3 2026, commercial production in Q4, we have provided cost guidance for our current operations. Following commercial production at Skouries, we expect to issue updated consolidated cost guidance later in the year.

On Slide #19, we provided the mine-by-mine 2026 detailed production guidance. At the Lamaque Complex for 2026, production is expected to be between 185,000 and 200,000 ounces, reflecting the start-up of Ormaque. Our focus remains on advancing Ormaque development and continuing resource conversion drilling at both Triangle and Ormaque.

In Turkiye Kisladag, we expect 2026 production of 105,000 to 130,000 ounces. Expected production compared to the previously guided range has been impacted by a high waste stripping year, coupled with longer-than-planned leach cycles and lower grade stacked. The higher metal price environment has opened up a significant opportunity for the Kisladag open pit to allow us to evaluate the opportunity to move from $1,700 to $2,100 pit shell, which is expected to unlock the western area of the pit to support resource expansion. To facilitate this opportunity and assist in resolving ongoing geotechnical challenges at the open pit, we expect to increase waste stripping in 2026 by 6 million to 8 million tonnes. The mine optimization plan is expected to be beneficial in the long term by improved balancing of ore and waste movement and supporting consistent year-over-year performance.

At Efemçukuru, we expect production of 70,000 to 80,000 ounces in 2026. Costs are expected to be higher this year due to increased labor, electricity and royalty expenses.

Finally, in Greece and Olympias, production is expected to be between 70,000 to 80,000 ounces, reflecting the ramp-up of the 650,000 tonne plant in the second half of the year. Our focus will be on executing the plan, managing feed blends and supporting stable flotation performance. Higher gold production and improved payability terms are expected to support lower unit costs, though quarterly variability will continue due to timing of by-product shipments. With the portfolio we're genuinely excited about and clear path to cash flow inflection, we believe we are well positioned to create long-term sustainable value.

And I'll now turn it back to George for concluding remarks.

Thanks, team. Our 2025 performance reflects the dedication and capability of our employees and contractors across the organization. I want to thank our teams for their ongoing commitment to responsible production, safety, operational excellence and collaboration. As we look ahead to 2026, our focus remains on safely delivering Skouries, strengthening our operating foundation and continuing to create long-term value for our shareholders.

Before we conclude, I want to briefly revisit the announcement we made almost 3 weeks ago regarding the combination of Eldorado and Foran. Together, we bring 2 high-quality assets entering into production in 2026, in addition to 4 operating mines that support near-term growth and long-term value creation. The combination enhances free cash flow potential, strengthens our production base, improves our cost profile while maintaining a strong balance sheet to fund growth, advance exploration and return capital. It also adds meaningful copper exposure alongside long-life gold production, creating a more balanced and resilient portfolio.

Overall, this creates a compelling platform for growth and operational excellence that will drive sector-leading cash flow per share. We're confident in the opportunities ahead.

Thank you for your time today. I'll now turn the call back to the operator for questions from our analysts.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Cosmos Chiu with CIBC.

Maybe my first question is on Kisladag. As you mentioned, in the 3-year outlook, 2026 guidance is lower than what there was before. And I think you explained why part of it, lower grade, higher strip. But how about 2027? I noticed that 2027, your 3-year outlook is also lower than what you had previously disclosed. So the reasons in 2026, are they also sliding into 2027?

Cosmos, this is Simon. Thanks for the question. So yes, as we explained, we are looking to open up the Western area. I think that's going to provide us with a new ore source, and we're quite excited what that could do for us by adding some more mine life into Kisladag. So that's one of the positives coming out of the extra stripping required this year.

As we look forward into sort of 2027 and beyond, we are probably setting up the mine to be in that range that we've sort of 150,000 to 160,000 ounces on a steady year-on-year basis. However, there will be focus on making those profitable ounces through cost initiatives and other things. But that's sort of the outlook for right now. We don't see it really spiking in any given year.

So I guess to confirm, it sounds like 2027 numbers that you've given today, 140,000 to 160,000 ounces has incorporated some of the potential impact from an increase from a $1,700 an ounce to a $2,100 an ounce pit shell. Is that what I'm getting?

Yes, I think it's fair to say that.

Okay. And then so in terms of the stripping then, the 6 million to 8 million tonnes of pre-strip in 2026. Is that going to stay high then potentially if you move to a $2,100 an ounce pit shell? I'm just trying to figure out if that's a good sustainable number of tonnage to use to think of continue on a going basis.

Yes, that's a good question. To clarify, we typically move roughly around 20 million tonnes of waste every year. And so that's been driving our -- it's split across growth and sustaining capital. Beyond -- for 2026, what we're flagging is an increase -- an extra increase on top of that of roughly around 6 million to 8 million tonnes. The extent of that moving forward will be, I think, fairly modest. This year is probably where we're trying to open up the area. And the $2,100 shell was, I think, always a part of our long-term plan with the metal prices moving in the direction they have.

Great. And then maybe just another question, switching gears a little bit. George, as you mentioned, it's been almost 3 weeks now since you announced the acquisition of Foran Mining. You've had a chance to talk to a lot of investors and shareholders of both companies. How has the reception been so far?

Thanks, Cosmos. Yes, we're out explaining to both sets of investors why this transaction is really a 1 plus 1 equals 3 transaction. I think our shareholders are listening to the benefits that flow to both sets of shareholders. In the case of Eldorado, this is a compelling opportunity to have a multi-decade life asset with massive exploration upside. We also, with our balance sheet, know we can lower the cost of capital relative to a development company and then accelerate investment in things like a lead circuit and doubling the capacity of the plant much faster than the Street is assuming. So we're selling the benefits, compelling benefits to our shareholders, and it's going to be up to them and a shareholder vote in the not-too-distant future. So we remain optimistic.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Tanya Jakusconek with Scotiabank.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

I don't know, George, if you want to take this or maybe Simon wants to take this. I just want to circle back to Skouries. With this delay that we've had, does this give us any -- I'm assuming it gives you a little bit more breathing room on the tailings. Maybe just review the tailings and you mentioned weather, Simon. Are we getting drier weather? Does this help us a little bit on the tailings side is what I'm asking, this additional time.

Yes, it's George. So yes, a couple of things I'd point out. So this 3- to 4-month delay in getting to first concentrate does give us some breathing room in really 2 areas. The plan all along on the plant construction was to get 2 filters up and running and begin the ramp up. With this delay, we're going to be able to get more of that equipment finalized before first concentrate. So we'll have more than 2 filters at start-up, and we'll have a number of other equipment required for ramp-up complete before we start. So that's a positive.

And yes, I mean, we've seen heavy rains in the Mediterranean, both in Greece and in Turkey. Some record rainfalls are hitting the area. So it's a nuisance when you're out trying to do earthworks, open pit mining, but these haven't caused any significant delays in the construction. It's just we're being transparent about those issues. So for sure, the delay in start-up will advance all of our earthworks and put us in a better position for a solid ramp-up in the second half.

Mean you're going to have a very big -- well, I'm going to say big, but you're going to have a nice stockpile ready to feed that mill. And I think Simon mentioned we've done the drilling for 3 years of mining, detailed drilling in the pit. So we've defined for 3 years with a nice stockpile. Is that safe to assume that I'm understanding it correctly?

You are. We're going to be in a fantastic position to feed the mill. We're at more than 1.5 million tonnes today on the ground stockpiled. And with this 3-month delay, that stockpile is going to grow even further. So the beauty in all this, we're going to have more ore than we're going to process this year. We're going to be able to select the higher grade, more valuable ores to feed the plant. So we're in a great position from a mining perspective, great position from an ore body quality perspective. We've got 3 years of the open pit infill drilled, confirming the grades and recovery. And the underground has been unfolding very positively. We're 900 meters ahead on development. We're going to do 4 test stopes this year rather than 2. And the 2 test stopes that -- one that we've completed mining, the other one is roughly half completed. Fragmentation was excellent. The cavity is holding up. It's increased our confidence to go to larger stopes this year.

So the 4 stopes we're going to mine this year around 97,000 tonnes compared to the 2 last year were just over 60,000 tonnes. So we're in a great shape for mining. This delay does allow us to have the plant more ready for a faster ramp-up. And it's unfortunate we had an issue with one of the key pieces of equipment, but I think we're in good shape for a strong year.

And George, I'm assuming that with these -- with the issues on the cyclone feed pump, all other areas have been checked, like we're not -- checks have been done is the only damage the nothing else be checked?

Yes. I mean that's a great question. To put it in context for this concentrator, there's over 4,000 pieces of electrical mechanical equipment. There are 891 motors, and there are 190 variable frequency drives. And so yes, all of this stuff has been inspected. Unfortunately, with the cyclone feed pump -- let me back up. All the electrical equipment had been stored since 2017 in warehouses that were constructed in the first phase of construction. I think that's a testament to the original design of this that often doesn't happen at the beginning.

So when we went into care and maintenance in 2017, the electrical equipment was stored under cover. What we have found is we put this VFD into the motor control center just days ago. There were some signs of some moisture damage on this particular unit. And as a result, we got the manufacturer involved, opened up the capacitors and found this damage. And we've remarkably been able to find the quickest solution is to repurchase new capacitors. The repairs are going to take longer. And essentially, that's our critical path now to start up.

So to answer your question, all of that equipment had been stored other than this one piece. These capacitors were marked cyclone feed pumps on the crating. And we now believe these were stored outside for a while and then later brought into the warehouse. So unfortunately, we were just in the phase of installing these, brought them into the MCC, notice a bit of moisture damage on the outside of the gear and got the manufacturer there to open up this electrical equipment and found the damage. No other equipment had any of those indications and all the additional variable frequency drives have been checked and confirmed to be okay. So we think we're out of the woods on any repeats to this unfortunate issue.

Yes. It sounds like the manufacturer is working with you, and I think Simon said they've already been ordered, and I think we're expecting them on site soon.

Yes. So the replacement new capacitors have been ordered. The rebuild of the damaged capacitors will come in Q3. So our best estimate from accelerating the manufacturing and shipment to site is we will be ready to run in 3 to 4 months from our late Q1 original date.

Okay. And then just maybe just turning to the power line connection. So I'm assuming the subcontractor is there now ready to working away and the critical path there is just getting that approval from the regulators. Is that how I should think about this power line? There's nothing else that needs to be done?

Yes. I mean we wanted to just point this out being transparent. We've talked all along that the dry stack tailings facility was the critical path. and that the power line and substation were not too far behind it. We did have some slippage in the detailed engineering. And just to describe this part of the infrastructure, it won't be owned by Eldorado. This is being constructed for our project, but it will be owned by the regulatory authority in Greece. And so it involves 11 power transmission poles and associated line and then this main substation.

So the engineering took a bit longer. The subcontractor that's constructing it wanted full sign off before they started the work, and we saw some slippage there. But we've mitigated that. And with this delay now on the capacitors, we'll have this energized and ready ahead of time. But we did want to point out that we're not also in control of the inspection. So once the construction is complete, the regulator will come out and inspect all of that infrastructure that will be handed over to them, and they'll make the final determination when it's ready to flip the switches and energize our plant.

And we've got temporary generators on site that we can do our commissioning on all areas of the plant with the exception of our grinding mill. So we have to have this power for that final commissioning and then start up. So at this point, it's not the critical path to actually the capacitors. We just wanted to highlight there was a bit of slippage, and we're focused on mitigating that.

Okay. So just so that I know when is that going to be ready, the power plant?

We expect the power plant in late Q2 and then shortly after that, the capacitor is up and running for the cyclone feed pumps.

Okay. Good luck with all of that. I'll be asking again on the Q1 call.

I'm sure you will.

That's all the questions we have for today. This concludes the question-and-answer session and today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Eldorado Gold and Foran Mining Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Lynette Gould, Vice President, Investor Relations, Communications and External Affairs at Eldorado Gold. Please go ahead, Ms. Gould.

Thank you, operator, and good morning. Welcome to our call to discuss today's announced combination of Eldorado Gold and Foran Mining. Before we begin, please note that today's remarks will include forward-looking statements and references to non-IFRS measures. Full cautionary language is included in the accompanying presentation. Joining me today are George Burns, CEO of Eldorado Gold; Christian Milau, President of Eldorado Gold; and Dan Myerson, Executive Chairman and CEO of Foran Mining. All figures are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated. The presentation will be available on both companies' websites following this call. After the prepared remarks, we will open the call for analyst Q&A. I'll now turn the call over to George.

Thank you, and good morning. Today marks an important step as Eldorado and Foran combined to form a stronger, more competitive gold and copper producer. This transaction reflects a shared vision of building a business with industry-leading growth, diversified long-life assets and a resilient organization focused on sustainable value creation. From the outset, it was clear that both companies share aligned and thinking values. We both believe long-term success hinges on people, bringing together teams with complementary strengths and a unified commitment to operational excellence and responsible mining.

This combination delivers tangible benefits to shareholders of both companies, including 2 world-class projects entering production in 2026. The exceptional long-life nature of these mines will enhance Eldorado's peer-leading long average mine lives, enhanced exposure to copper and increased presence in Canada, a top-tier mining jurisdiction, a stronger balance sheet and improved financial flexibility, further enhances our company as a free -- high free cash flow margin business, supporting a potential market rerating and shared sustainability priorities and strong alignment on carbon reduction goals. Turning to Slide 4. This transaction creates a diversified gold, copper producer with long-life assets across Canada, Greece and Turkiye. We are particularly pleased to expand our presence in Saskatchewan through McIlvenna Bay, reinforcing Canada as a core jurisdiction for the combined company.

Slide 5 details the key terms, which include Eldorado will acquire all outstanding Foran shares via a plan of arrangement. Foran shareholders will receive 0.1128 Eldorado shares per Foran share, implying equity value of approximately CAD 3.8 billion. Post-transaction ownership, approximately 76% Eldorado shareholders and 24% Foran shareholders. All foreign directors and officers have entered voting support agreements in favor of the transaction and shareholder meeting is expected on or around April 14, 2026, with closing targeted for Q2 2026. I will now hand over the call to Dan to cover the benefits of this combination and provide more details about McIlvenna Bay.

Thanks, George. Turning to Slide 6. This combination strengthens Canada's role in supplying critical minerals and supporting the energy transition. The combined company will remain headquartered in Vancouver with McIlvenna Bay contributing long-term jobs and economic activity in Saskatchewan. Slide 7. Skouries in Greece and McIlvenna Bay in Saskatchewan are both fully financed and entering production in 2026. Skouries is expected to produce 140,000 ounces of gold and 67 million pounds of copper annually over its 20-year mine life. McIlvenna Bay provides additional long-life, copper-rich production and supports our growth profile. McIlvenna Bay is significantly advanced with most capital investment and execution risks largely mitigated.

At year-end 2025, the project was approximately 85% complete, on budget and on schedule for production in 2026. Together with Skouries, the combined portfolio is approaching a meaningful inflection point, characterized by rising production, increasing free cash flow and a clear path to sustained growth. Christian will now walk us through some of the details of the combined company.

Thanks, Dan. And turning to Slide 8. These assets will transform our production profile, driving free cash flow to almost $1.5 billion in 2027 based on consensus estimates. And at the consensus pricing levels, this could be over $2 billion of EBITDA in 2027 with even greater upside at spot prices. Looking at Slide #9, Eldorado stands out amongst its peers, forecasted to increase production by 80% to over 900,000 gold equivalent ounces in 2027, placing us at the upper end of the sector. However, the cash margin of both companies' assets in the long term is more compelling. On Slide #10, you can see that the addition of McIlvenna Bay allows Eldorado to diversify its asset base in 2 key areas. First, we gained meaningful exposure to copper, which is expected to account for roughly 15% of our revenues in 2027.

Second, we diversify our geographic risk and balance by adding a second asset in Canada, a Tier 1 jurisdiction with strong support for responsible resource development. Importantly, McIlvenna Bay also enhances our long-term production profile, complementing the step change we'll see with Skouries and positions Eldorado with a broader, more resilient mix of assets across 3 countries. On the next slide, turning to Slide 11. Eldorado currently operates 4 assets, the Lamaque Complex in Quebec, Olympias in Greece, Kisladag and Efemcukuru in Turkiye. These assets provide a stable gold and copper business, diversified production base, supported by ongoing optimization and exploration programs.

On Slide #12, the combined company has an excellent spread of fully financed development assets, as Dan mentioned, including Skouries and McIlvenna Bay, both advancing towards production here in the near term in 2026. Alongside Perama Hill and the Ormaque deposit at Lamaque, our portfolio offers robust optionality and long-life multi-jurisdictional growth potential. On Slide 13, it shows the exploration momentum remains strong, including new high-grade zones at Ormaque and continued upside Olympias and Stratoni Skarn, which were announced recently. At McIlvenna Bay, the Tesla zone represents the most promising near-term expansion opportunity with resources open down plunge and direct access to existing infrastructure. I'll now turn it over to Dan to talk a little bit more about Tesla.

Thanks, Christian. Turning to Slide 14. Beyond the current mine plan, the most important opportunity for near-term expansion potential at McIlvenna Bay is the Tesla zone. Tesla represents a significant near-mine mineralized system open down plunge with immediate access to existing infrastructure. As we continue to advance exploration and resource definition at Tesla, this is the area we see as the most likely driver of future expansion opportunities, providing the potential to increase scale, extend mine life and enhance the overall value of the operation. I'll turn it over to Christian.

Thanks again, Dan. Slide #15 shows the details of the combined company that had approximately $1.5 billion of cash and equivalents at the end of quarter 3 based on a pro forma set of numbers. Based on consensus estimates, the company is expected to generate over $2 billion of EBITDA in 2027 and maintain minimal net debt, approximately $90 million on that same pro forma basis. This provides flexibility to fund development, exploration and continuing returns to shareholders. On Slide #16, Skouries, along with McIlvenna Bay are expected to transform Eldorado into a high-margin free cash flow business that will provide the opportunity to meaningfully increase our combined value over the next few years.

And then what this means on Slide #17 is that, again, on the back of this exciting combination, we believe it supports a potential market re-rate and move towards the right with higher multiples. McIlvenna Bay further enhances this outlook by adding very long-life growth, excellent jurisdiction and critical minerals exposure. And turning to Slide 18. In terms of the upcoming catalyst, it's a really catalyst-rich period. The key upcoming milestones include commercial production at Skouries and McIlvenna Bay in mid-2026, Tesla zone made resource later 2026, Olympias expansion at Ormaque commercial production in the second half of 2026, so it will be a very busy year full of many catalysts. So I'll now hand it back to George to take -- to summarize.

In summary, this combination positions us as a new gold copper growth leader with near-term cash flow, long-life assets and strong alignment on culture and sustainability. With major projects entering in production in 2026, we are well positioned for meaningful value creation in the years ahead. Dan?

Thank you, George. Echoing George's remarks, this is a tremendous growth company with tremendous amount of free cash flow generating and production growth -- of peer-leading production growth in the sector. We are very excited for what's to come. Thank you for joining us, and we will now open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question today comes from Cosmos Chiu with CIBC.

Maybe my first question is on the metal mix. I don't know Foran as well, mostly because in the past, it's been viewed as a base metals company. And I guess my question is, should Eldorado investors be surprised that you are essentially acquiring a base metals company? And what's the metal mix before and sort of after the transaction?

Yes. Thanks, Cosmos. I don't think this is going to surprise anybody. If you look at the basic metal mix, the metals being produced at McIlvenna Bay are already being produced in our portfolio. Gold, copper, lead, zinc, silver are in our portfolio. So it's a perfect match. In terms of strategy, again, a perfect match. Rebalancing our portfolio, we've got a lot of cash flow and production coming into Greece this year, but this asset then increases our jurisdiction in Canada and is, I think, a perfect balance of our overall portfolio. In terms of copper and Eldorado's strategy, we're a gold company. We're still going to be 77% gold production pro forma, but we're becoming a pretty serious copper producer, bringing on Skouries.

So by adding this asset, it's additive. And from a strategy perspective, I would tell you, both of these projects have been largely derisked. If I can speak to Skouries. At Skouries, we've drilled off the first 3 years in the open pit. That drilling has confirmed the ore body. We have a large stockpile of ore ahead of the mill. In the longer term, the underground is going to be important at Skouries. We've done 2 test stopes. We've confirmed the geotechnical parameters. That has gone very well. And now we're confident to go to larger stopes this year. In fact, we're going to do 4 test stopes this year rather than 2 that was planned last year. So I'd say in a mining perspective, we've derisked the Skouries ramp-up, and we're in the final stretches to get the mill wrapped up and to begin commissioning at the end of this quarter.

So we don't have risk of a blowout. We don't have risk of a misstep, and it's going to be a catalyst unfolding to the positive. Now -- our team has done our due diligence on McIlvenna Bay, and we're very confident about where they sit. We're basically in lockstep with one another with catalyst unfolding. We've got to know G Mining Services with our Tocantinzinho divestment. They've done a fantastic job to bring value to us and the execution of that construction project, which was essentially built on our schedule, on our budget, which is amazing post-COVID. And now they're building the project [indiscernible], and we were very impressed with the construction where it sits today. And we're also partnering with them with our Perama project in Greece. So we like everything they've done, and we think both of these projects are well positioned for massive rerate this year for the combined company.

And just to add to that, Cosmos, on revenue mix and metal mix and all of that. The beautiful thing about McIlvenna Bay is, as George outlined, it produces gold, zinc, copper, silver, lead. It's a wonderful, wonderful asset. So you can look at it many different ways. The key is that there was no streaming done or anything like that to finance the operation. So you have full exposure to all of those metals. So it's a wonderful metal mix. And yes, you've got a lot of optionality in that sense.

And George, as you mentioned, I know the kind of key criteria, key sort of critical path items for Skouries fairly well. But how about McIlvenna Bay? I'm just trying to get a better understanding in terms of -- because you talk about perfect match. This is perfectly matching in terms of commercial production at the same time for both assets. So I just want to make sure how well derisked McIlvenna Bay is, what investors need to look for. And then as a follow-up to that, there was forest fires in sort of Northern Manitoba, Northern Saskatchewan last year. Did it impact Foran in any way?

Yes, Cosmos, so I'll answer both of those questions. So where is McIlvenna Bay in terms of construction progress? Well, we are 85% complete as of the end of December. We will be coming out with an update for the month of January in the next few weeks, but 85% complete. We are in wet commissioning already, and we're on track for first -- not first, but we're on track for commercial production by middle of 2026. So as George outlined, it's in lockstep with Skouries and quite a wonderful thing to have 2 brand-new polymetallic copper or gold, whichever way you want to look at it, primarily mines coming online in this year. I think that's quite incredible.

To your question on wildfires, yes, there were significant wildfires in the region last year. We had to evacuate our site for almost 4 weeks. We evacuated at the time, we had 567 people. We evacuated them all within 2.5 hours. It is actually a record for Saskatchewan. And we lost about just under a month in terms of our schedule. But how George outlined G Mining Services and the team at Foran. Even with that, it did not impact the schedule one bit. So to lose the month of May, which in Canada is one of your best construction months in the year, they still were able to achieve the schedule on -- that they had set out. So it's quite incredible and full credit and testament to the team that we have in place.

That's good to hear. And then maybe one last question. As I mentioned, I don't cover Foran. I don't have a model on it. But if I look at consensus numbers, it looks like consensus is CAD 2.4 billion in terms of NAV, the sort of acquisition price earlier today was higher. So Dan, as you mentioned, Tesla, the Tesla zone is clearly an upside sort of potential to it. I guess my question is, the technical report, the latest one that's out, does it include the Tesla zone? How does the kind of market look at NAV at this point in time? And how can -- or is the Tesla zone valued within the -- by the market? How is it being valued by the market right now?

Sure, sure. So Cosmos, just to help you get up to speed, as you said, you don't cover the company, and we can spend some more time together going forward. So McIlvenna Bay, the technical report you referred to, look, that's a snapshot in time, and that snapshot in time was a number of years ago, and that is only referencing Phase 1. Now we aren't here for Phase 1, these kinds of assets, these BMS systems, the reason why they are called company makers is because of their scalability, i.e., they expand and you have Phase 2, Phase 3, Phase 4, which we are planning at Foran. And also they go for multiple decades and multiple generations and hence, the name company maker. So I think that's probably where the distortion in the value of the technical report being that it referenced Phase 1 only. And as you said or alluded to with Tesla, we will be announcing the maiden resource on that later this year. And then we will be accelerating the expansion to Phase 2 given the combined company and the tremendous free cash flow that comes with the combined company.

I'd just like to add, if you reflect on Eldorado's history, in 2017, we acquired the Integra Advanced Exploration Project in Quebec. We came out of the gun with a $430 million acquisition. And you fast forward today, today, the Street NAV is $3.2 billion. That's a 650% increase in value creation. From an internal perspective, it's 900%. And that's adding in the exploration upside that we see right around the Triangle underground mine that was known at the time. Well, it was a resource when we acquired. Since then, we've discovered a second ore body and both of those have massive upside potential.

And we see really exciting exploration beyond those 2 underground mines. So is Eldorado focused on the opportunity that we have with Foran? We see similar metrics. We see a large land package with massive exploration upside. Our exploration geologists are extremely excited about working with Dan's team to bring value forward. And combined, we got the balance sheet to attack the opportunity. So for us, a massive opportunity to expand the value they've already created and bring that additional value to both sets of shareholders.

The next question comes from Tanya Jakusconek with Scotiabank.

George, Chris, and Dan. Maybe just to continue on the transaction. Maybe just a little understanding, was this an auction? Or was this a -- how did this all come about? George, you mentioned you've done your due diligence. So how long has this been in the works? And what did you do? And perhaps a breakup fee as well? That's my first question.

Yes, I'll start with how does it come together. So over the last couple of years at Eldorado, we've been focused head down to deliver the massive growth opportunities and really, last year, we started focus on -- we're about ready to close our 5-year strategy with this year delivering Skouries, delivering an expansion and mine life extension at Lamaque, expanding our plant at Olympias. And as I said, we've largely derisked and are about ready to create that value. And so we've been working for the last 6, 7 months on what the next 5-year strategy would look like. I can tell you, you've seen a lot of acquisitions, divestitures of assets in Canada. We didn't look at those. We were head down.

And generally, most of those have been older assets that need capital or higher cost assets. And so as we were looking at the new strategy and looking at this asset, again, we reflected on what we created when we acquired Integra. And the more we looked at it, the more we did our due diligence, the more excited we got about this opportunity. And so bottom line is we got the balance sheet to do this. We see enormous growth opportunity for both companies, and we're excited to deliver the catalyst right in front of us and to grow those catalysts for decades based on this combination.

In terms of break fees, Tanya, it's customary break fees for a deal of this size in the space.

And in terms of...

Go ahead.

Yes, Dan Myerson here. So in terms of auction, no, we don't run an auction process. As George outlined with the 5-year strategy, we had a very similar one at Foran. Over the last 5 years, when we essentially started the company, we -- our focus was to permit the mine, to finance the mine and to build the mine. Now we've done that, and we had to look at the next step for growth. And that's how the match and marriage happened. And yes, as we outlined earlier in the call in terms of growth and free cash flow generation and as George said, in terms of low-cost operations, I think it's hard to find something better than this combined company. So we were very excited about that. And that's how we've got to where we are today.

Yes. So just to answer my question, I'm trying to understand how long this process has been going on for. So if you were heads down doing all of this, does this mean this was a 2026 focus? Or did it start sometime like mid-'25? I'm trying to understand when this all came about.

Second half of last year, Eldorado was focused on due diligence, and we've been ramping up our understanding of the opportunity up to this point. So it's been the last 6, 7 months.

Okay. And I'm assuming that you've done -- gone to site several times and other for technical due diligence. Just trying to understand.

Yes. We've had our executive and technical teams to site, and they've done reciprocal due diligence on our key assets and both excited and comfortable with what we're embarking on.

Okay. And so my question then is on the timing of it when you said you're at the point of moving Skouries into production? And would you not have thought you got a re-rate there on a stand-alone as well, George?

Well, I think we're going to get a re-rate based on this combination with 2 fantastic assets coming into production at the exact same time. And this is a 0 premium deal at spot. So in our book, both companies, we think this is a great deal.

And I would echo that. You could ask the Foran side the same question. You could say, would you not have wait and done a re-rate. I think we've done the exact same thing. We'll re-rate 2 brand-new copper, gold assets -- copper, gold assets together, I think it's just going to be tremendously powerful.

And the last thing on our side, I would say is that we have an enormous amount of growth happening this year stand-alone in Greece. And this acquisition allows us to expand our footprint in Canada, a jurisdiction that gets, I think, high valuation, and it's very supportive of our P/NAV going forward. So this is a 1 plus 1 equals 3.

Maybe, Dan, if you can just go through the risks. You talked about the ramp-up in commercial production, I think you mentioned mid this year. Maybe just -- at what point do you get to steady state and just maybe go through the risks like George reviewed the mining risks at Skouries. And maybe you can kind of give us a similar idea of what's been done on the mining side, how your block model is looking and et cetera, et cetera, just so that we can understand some of the risks. We don't cover Foran -- trying to understand.

Yes, yes, yes. No, absolutely. I'll take just one step back. So in terms of risk in mining, the major risks, I always divide them into 3 buckets. Number one, permitting risk. That's gone because this is fully permitted, and we are in the best jurisdiction within Canada and 1 of the top 3 in the world. Number two is financing. That's gone because we fully financed the mine. And as I said earlier on the call, there's no streams or anything like that on the asset. So you have full exposure to the multi-metal mix. And number three is execution.

And as George explained, with G Mining Services and the Foran management team, we have built an integrated project management team that has just done such an incredible job. So the execution is largely done as of the end of December, we're 85% complete. We're now into wet commissioning at the mine. And yes, in terms of the mine, it's going incredibly well. We have fired at least 5 stopes and continue to do so. We have built up a significant stockpile of ore ready for hot commissioning over 200,000 tonnes of ore. And yes, it's going incredibly well on the mine side. So from a risk perspective, look, they're largely all behind you. You're now just going into commissioning and ramp up.

And sorry, ramp up to full capacity. When is that happening? When is that scheduled for?

So we allow around 8 or 9 months to do so. However, we like to be conservative and under promise, over deliver. So we'll see how it goes, but second half of this year.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Lawson Winder with Bank of America.

Could I -- just to start off with on the approval side, can you just confirm that are there any required approvals from Investment Canada or any other similar organizations in either Turkiye or the other regions in which you operate?

I can speak to the Canada side for Lawson. There's nothing required from Canada. It's 2 Canadian companies coming together. So if anything, it's a wonderful thing for Canada to have an emerging Canadian champion.

We don't expect any approvals in the overseas jurisdictions.

Okay. Fantastic. And then just George and Christian, how do you view Turkey now in light of this additional footprint within Canada? I mean should we think about this as part of a diversification away from Turkey? Or is Turkey still an area where you see potential for growth? And could we anticipate some sort of M&A transaction in Turkey at some point? Or should we think of that as being off the table?

Yes. I'd speak to this way. We like all 3 jurisdictions. Canada, as I said earlier, investors look to Canada as a premier jurisdiction. We expect our P/NAV to improve with the rebalancing of our portfolio towards Canada. Greece, we're the only metal miner there, but it's an emerging mining district. The Tethyan belt runs right through Greece. We're the only operator there. We've got now 2 great mines, one in production and expanding, another one just about ready to produce. And we have the Perama project in Northern Greece. And we have massive exploration upside around this that we're focused on.

And we just put out a press release so you can look at those details. Turkiye is fundamentally foundational for Eldorado. We've been producing there for a couple of decades. We've got 2 great assets. We are definitely the operator of choice in country. We're investing in 5 early-stage exploration projects that we're very excited about. And yes, we'd love to grow our business in Turkey as well. Right now, this combined company is focused on Skouries and McIlvenna Bay, where we're going to create enormous value this year. But yes, Turkiye, for sure, we're committed to that jurisdiction, and we'll look for opportunities into the future to grow value.

And Lawson, this is Christian here. I mean, I think what we've been articulating, we love the balance of our portfolio, and we want to keep that balance. And we've got such exciting growth and opportunity in Greece. With this, the Canadian portfolio becomes very similar in scale and excitement in terms of growth. And Turkiye, we want to continue to invest in. So that balance, I think, is what brings in diversity, enhances multiples, creates value. We have such a long-term view on this business. This is one of the longest mine life -- average mine life businesses, we believe, in the sector in our peer space. And so we look at it long term, and we're investing in all 3 of these jurisdictions over the long term. So we're very excited.

And then in terms of those projects that you mentioned, it seems from the catalyst slide, that next project would likely be Perama Hill followed by the Tesla expansion at McIlvenna. Would that be a reasonable assumption?

That's correct. I mean -- I'd say they're in a little bit different phases. So for Perama Hill, we're focused on permitting. So we submitted an EIA in December this year. Will be continuing consultations with communities for support and trying to get an approval on an EIA, which then sets us up for construction perhaps next year. Tesla, I mean, for that, it's really getting drilling, dropping the vertical progress in McIlvenna Bay as quickly as we can to get access as quick as we can, but I'd say less complicated from a permitting perspective.

And if I could ask just one final question, Dan, for you. I mean, I think you have a very exciting project here. There is another corporate shareholder in your registry. From your point of view, why does Eldorado make sense?

Yes. I think the big one was -- look, the cultures of the 2 teams match perfectly. That was number one. Number two was, as I think Christian and George both outlined, the long-life nature of the assets within Eldorado and their commitment to sustainability. Like this combined company, 5 out of its 6 assets are going to have dry stack tailings. That's just unheard of for a mining company. And then three, why Eldorado? Well, what we've done is we've just multiplied the re-rate potential that's going to happen from developer to producer, not by 2, it's by like 3 or 4 because the combination of 2 brand-new gold copper assets in the world is just incredible.

I mean these assets, Lawson, are just so difficult to permit -- and not just permit and build and CapEx and all of that. And we've gone through the last 5 years to be ready now where I think the timing is just incredible, as you see with the commodity prices. So we're very grateful to be a part of such a growth company, and I think it's going to be very exciting to see where it can go from here.

[Operator Instructions] This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Eldorado Gold Third Quarter 2025 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] And the conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the conference over to Lynette Gould, vice President, Investor Relations, Communications and External Affairs. Please go ahead, Ms. Gould.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to our third quarter 2025 results conference call. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that we will be making forward-looking statements and referring to non-IFRS measures during the call. Please refer to the cautionary statements included in the presentation and the disclosure on non-IFRS measures and risk factors in our management's discussion and analysis.

Joining me on the call today, we have George Burns, Chief Executive Officer; Christian Milau, President; Paul Ferneyhough, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Louw Smith, Executive Vice President, Development, Greece; and Simon Hille, Executive Vice President, Operations and Technical Services.

Our release yesterday details our third quarter 2025 financial and operating results. This should be read in conjunction with our third quarter 2025 financial statements and management's discussion and analysis, both of which are available on our website. They have also both been filed on SEDAR+ and EDGAR. All dollar figures discussed today are U.S. dollars, unless otherwise stated. We will be speaking to the slides that accompany this webcast, which can be downloaded from our website. After the prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A. At this time, we will invite analysts to queue for questions.

I will now turn the call over to George.

Thanks, Lynette, and good morning, everyone. We are pleased to welcome Christian Milau as President joining as part of my succession planning. Christian has already been actively engaged with our leadership team through recent budget and strategy discussions and has met with a number of our shareholders and analysts since joining last month. He brings a fresh perspective and a strong focus on our key priorities. His appointment further strengthens our leadership team as we continue to advance our growth strategy and position Eldorado for long-term success.

Turning to the outline for today's call. I'll begin with an overview of our third quarter 2025 results and highlights. I'll then hand the call over to Christian for his remarks, followed by Paul on our financials and then Louw and Simon with an update on projects and operations.

Turning to Slide 4, our third quarter highlights. We achieved safe production of 115,190 gold ounces and generated approximately $77 million of free cash flow, excluding securities investment. Operational performance remained strong at Lamaque, benefiting from early processing of the remaining portion of the second Ormaque bulk sample. Kisladag had fewer tonnes placed on the pad and lower grade stack as a result of reduced equipment availability and short-term mine plan resequencing as well as placement of ore on a test pad for the whole ore agglomeration project. Efemçukuru maintained stable production, while Olympias had challenges from stockpiled ore containing the viscosity modifier used in the tailings paste backfill that negatively impacted the process water chemistry in the flotation circuit.

During the third quarter, we improved management of the stockpile of ore but modest negative impacts on metal recovery may persist as we continue processing material from affected backfill stopes and stockpiles. Given our strong performance through the end of the third quarter, we are tightening our 2025 guidance range on gold production and now expect to be between 470,000 and 490,000 ounces.

Turning to cost. We have revised our 2025 guidance upwards. Total cash costs are now expected to be between $1,175 and $1,250 per ounce sold and all-in sustaining costs are expected to be between $1,600 and $1,675 per ounce sold. These increases were primarily driven by: one, record high gold prices and recently enacted higher royalty rates in Turkiye driving higher royalty expense; and second, lower-than-expected performance at Olympias has resulted in lower byproduct sales, higher processing costs with production expected to be at the lower end of the guidance range. Additionally, for 2025, we also expect sustaining capital cost to be at the higher end of our $145 million to $170 million guidance range. In line with previous 2025 guidance, operations growth capital is expected to be between $245 million and $270 million.

Lastly, at Skouries, project capital investment for 2025 has been revised upward to between $440 million and $470 million as a result of the acceleration of work originally planned for 2026 across several noncritical path areas and proactive derisking efforts. The estimated overall project capital remains unchanged at $1.06 billion. We are on track with accelerated operational capital and are maintaining our guidance of $80 million to $100 million for 2025.

Turning to Slide 5 in the third quarter. Our lost time injury frequency rate was 1.21, an increase from the LTIFR of 1.10 in the third quarter of 2024. We recognize there is always room for improvement and remain committed to continually strengthen our safety performance. Throughout 2025, we're advancing health and safety initiatives. These efforts are reinforced by the multiyear rollout of our Courageous Safety Leadership program launched earlier this year.

On sustainability, our team in Quebec recently welcomed a delegation of external and internal verifiers to complete the verification against the standards of: one, our sustainability integrated management system; two, the Mining Association of Canada's Towards Sustainable Mining initiative; and three, the World Gold Council's Responsible Gold Mining Principles. The objective of the integrated verification was to demonstrate our commitment to health and safety, social and environment performance. While the reports are in the process of being finalized, we are encouraged with the preliminary results and look forward to sharing our performance when they become available.

During the quarter, we continued to execute on our share repurchase program, buying back and canceling approximately 3 million shares for a total of $79 million. For the 9 months ended September 30, 2025, repurchases have been approximately 5 million shares for a total of $123 million. The program reflects our continued commitment to disciplined capital allocation and returning value to our shareholders.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Christian to say a few words.

Thanks, George, and good morning, everyone. I'm very excited to be joining you today in my new role at Eldorado. While I've only recently joined the company in September, pleased with the company's strong culture, talented people and high-quality asset base, including operations and projects in attractive mining jurisdictions with long average mine lives and significant prospectivity throughout the portfolio. I have already spent considerable time with our leadership teams through initial budget strategy meetings. These sessions have given me a strong sense of the ambition, opportunities and discipline that will guide the company during the next phase of the strategy as well as the strong alignment around delivering sustainable value to all stakeholders.

What stood out most to me is the depth of talent, the capacity across the organization and the clear commitment to safety, operational and ESG excellence as well as disciplined capital allocation. My focus in the months ahead will be on supporting our teams as we advance our near-term priorities and ensuring that we positioned -- we're positioned to deliver our long-term strategy as we go through the Skouries' cash flow inflection point in 2026.

Having just returned from our sites in Turkiye and with visits planned to Greece and Quebec in the coming months, I'll have the opportunity to see all the mines firsthand. The visit so far stood out to me with the excellent commitment and pride on display. It's been impressive to witness the energy and collaboration of our teams on the ground, and I look forward to continuing to engage with more of our sites, communities and investors in the months ahead.

With that, I'll now hand over to Paul to walk through the financial results.

Thank you, Christian. Moving to Slide 6. Our third quarter results reflect consistent operational performance and are aligned with our tightened full year production guidance. Robust gold prices have contributed positively to cash flow from our operations, further supporting our capacity to execute our strategic and operational investments in the coming months.

In Q3, Eldorado reported net earnings from continuing operations of $57 million, equivalent to $0.28 per share. Excluding onetime nonrecurring items, adjusted net earnings were $82 million or $0.41 per share for the quarter. The principal adjusting item was a $22 million unrealized loss on derivative instruments, primarily due to gold commodity swaps. Free cash flow for the quarter registered a negative $87 million. However, underlying free cash flow, excluding capital investments in the Skouries project amounted to positive $77 million.

Turning to our producing assets. Cash flow from operating activities before changes in working capital totaled $184 million during the quarter. Our corporate gold price collars will continue to settle monthly through the year-end with approximately 50,000 ounces outstanding for the fourth quarter and an upper limit of $2,667 per ounce. Following the expiration of these collars, we will be fully exposed to market gold prices with only minimal hedging derivatives remaining tied to the Skouries project financing facility.

Production costs for the quarter reached $164 million, representing a $23 million increase over Q3 2024. 1/3 of this increase is attributable to higher royalties while the remainder stems from the rising labor costs in Turkiye, where inflation continues to surpass local currency devaluation, and at Lamaque where additional labor and contractor expenses were incurred due to the planned deepening of the Triangle Mine.

In Q3, total cash costs were $1,195 per ounce sold and all-in sustaining costs or $1,679 per ounce sold. Gross capital investments at our operating mines totaled $58 million for the quarter. At Kisladag, these expenditures included planned waste stripping and equipment costs related to construction of the North Heap Leach pad second phase. At the Lamaque Complex, investments focused on the Ormaque development as well as construction of the North Basin water management facility and initial procurement for the recently approved paste plant. Progress continued at Skouries, including facility and process construction as well as early mining activities in both the open pit and underground areas. Throughout the quarter, approximately $138 million was invested in the project, supplemented by an additional $18 million in accelerated operational capital for self-performance of open pit mining operations.

Current tax expense for quarter 3 was $52 million, reflecting a $13 million increase from the prior year period, attributing to improved profitability in Canada and Turkiye. Deferred tax expense stood at $2 million compared with a recovery of $11 million in Q3 2024. This included a $4 million expense related to net movements against the U.S. dollar, mainly driven by the lira and euro partially offset by the reversal of temporary differences.

Advancing to Slide 7. Our balance sheet remains robust, providing the flexibility needed to support growth initiatives and return capital to shareholders. With liquidity totaling approximately $1.1 billion, we continue to be well positioned to invest in our cash-generating assets, advanced Skouries towards completion and create additional value through disciplined capital allocation and the NCIB program.

Earlier this month, and with Skouries production coming ever closer, several staff members attended LME Week in London, the foremost annual event for the global metals community. Productive discussions were held with traders and smelters regarding the sale of our high-quality, clean copper-gold concentrate from Skouries. As a result, we anticipate finalizing initial multiyear offtake contracts by year-end.

With this overview concluded, I will now hand the call over to Louw, who will present the highlights of our Greek assets.

Thanks, Paul, and good morning, everyone. Let's begin with Slide 8, which highlights the progress at our Skouries Copper Gold project. As of the end of Q3, overall progress on Phase 2 construction reached 73% and 86% when including Phase 1. We remain on track to achieve first copper gold concentrate production towards the end of the first quarter of 2026. With commercial production expected in mid-2026. We now have approximately 2,000 personnel on site, including 236 members of the Skouries operational team. This strong workforce has enabled us to derisk several areas early. Our skilled labor ramp-up began with concrete, structural and mechanical trades and is now transitioning to electrical, piping and control systems. While we've exceeded our labor targets, our focus remains on aligning skilled resources with active work fronts to support our execution plan. From a productivity standpoint, construction performance continues to track at or slightly above plan across the site.

On the bottom of Slide 8, you'll see a photo of the open pit. This week, our fourth crew started operating, enabling the transition to a 24/7 rotation. As of the end of October, we had stockpiled approximately 531,000 tonnes of ore from the open pit and an additional approximately 93,000 tonnes from the underground, containing an estimated 21,000 ounces of gold and 5.5 million tonnes of copper, positioning us well as we prepare for commissioning and initial concentrate production.

Turning to Slide 9. The photos here and on the following slides illustrate the steady advancement of work underway. Infrastructure around the process plant continues to progress. Final foundations for support buildings were completed in early October and structural mechanical piping and electrical work are ongoing across the key areas, including the substation, line plant, flotation blowers, compressors at guar area. The control building structure is complete with electrical installations underway on the first 2 levels. We have completed pre-commissioning of the concentrate filter presses and water testing of the flotation cells and tanks, preparation for pre-commissioning the pebble crusher are in progress.

Moving to Slide 10. Progress continue on the thickeners, water testing of the first two thickeners is complete and piping installations have commenced following completion of the pipe rack installations. Slide 11 focuses on the filter tailings plant, which remain on the critical path. As of the end of October, structural steel installation at the filter tailings building was approximately 92% complete. The time lapse video showcasing this progress is linked for reference. Mechanical work progressed with the assembly of the filter presses with 4 complete at the end of the third quarter and the remaining tool on plan for completion in November with each press equipped with 98 plates. The compressor building steel structure is 98% complete and all 6 compressors and all -- and air receivers have been installed.

As seen on Slide 12, construction of the crusher building structure is progressing. Concrete workers reached the final elevation above the foundation with the final wall lifts advancing. The primary crusher is assembled in position and work is underway on cable tray and internal structural steel stairways and platforms. Conveyor foundations between the primary crusher and the process plant, including the coarse ore stockpile are now complete. Conveyor preassembly and support steel installation are well underway.

At the coarse ore stockpile on Slide 13, the stockpile dome foundation is nearing completion and assembly of the dome has commenced. The first of the 3 reclaim feeders and associated chute work has been installed with preassembly continuing on the remaining 2 feeders.

Moving to Olympias on Slide 14. Third quarter gold production was 13,597 ounces and total cash costs were $1,869 per ounce sold. Production was impacted by flotation circuit stability issues earlier in the year, which led to a modification of the paste backfill blend to eliminate viscosity modifiers in the backfilled stopes. While plant operations recovered substantially in Q2, affected stockpile ore continued to be processed in the third quarter despite efforts to minimize negative impacts in the processing circuit, ongoing process water chemistry challenges further reduce the metal recovery during the quarter. While mitigation measures are underway, modest negative impacts on the metal recovery may persist as we continue processing material from affected backfill stopes and stockpiles.

Progress continued on the planned mill expansion to 650,000 tonnes per annum during the quarter, with the early works advancing and demolition activities underway within the concentrator. All of the major equipment, including the verti-mill, flotation cells, thickeners, cyclones and E-room have been delivered. We expect progressive commissioning and ramp-up in the second half of 2026. We remain committed to driving transformation at Olympias. A comprehensive program is now underway to modernize and optimize the process plant and surrounding infrastructure alongside leadership and skills development program aimed at strengthening capabilities across all levels of the organization.

I'll stop there and hand it over to Simon to discuss the Turkish and Canadian operations.

Thanks, Louw. Starting in Turkiye on Slide 15. Kisladag production totaled 37,184 ounces with total cash costs of $1,309 per ounce sold. The decrease in production during the quarter compared to Q2 2025 was primarily due to lower tonnes mined as a result of lower-than-planned equipment availability and the resulting short-term resequencing of the mine plan. Fewer tonnes placed on the pad and lower grades from prior periods along with the placement of ore on the test pad to support the whole ore agglomeration study. The decision has been made to proceed with a whole ore agglomeration at the capital cost of approximately $35 million, reinforcing our commitment to enhancing permeability, improving leach kinetics and shortening the leach cycle. Over the life of mine, we expect operating and capital cost savings driven by a shortened leach cycle specifically the shortened leach cycle is anticipated to reduce sustaining capital expenditures through lower consumable requirements such as liners and associated pipeline. Installation of the agglomeration drum is expected in 2027, with long lead items expected to be ordered in Q4 of 2025.

We made a strategic decision to decouple the whole ore agglomeration from the HPGR screening reflecting our continued focus on capital discipline. To support future optimization, geometallurgical studies, continue in order to characterize future mining phases and will evaluate the benefit of additional screening for the HPGR. These studies are expected in the first half of 2026.

On Slide 16, at Efemçukuru. Third quarter gold production was 17,586 ounces at total cash costs of $1,522 per ounce sold. Gold production throughput and average gold grades were in line with the plan for the quarter.

And now moving to the Lamaque Complex on Slide 17. Lamaque delivered production of 46,823 ounces at total cash costs of $767 per ounce sold. Third quarter production was positively impacted from higher throughput driven by processing the remaining portion of the second Ormaque ore sample. The high-grade ore was treated in a blend with Triangle ore and performed very well. I would also like to congratulate our team at Lamaque hosting during the quarter nearly 30 Quebec members of Parliament of Canada. The visit was a proud moment for our team as they showcased our commitment to innovation, operational excellence and sustainability leadership.

And with that, I'll turn back to George for his closing remarks.

Thanks, team. Before concluding today's call, I'm pleased to announce that yesterday, we finalized the sale of the remaining gold project, Certej. This transaction marks the end of a lengthy process aimed at divesting noncore assets within the portfolio. I look forward to monitoring the progress of the project given our retained equity and royalty.

Gold prices have remained strong, but we've seen some sharp swings lately. Through this environment, we remain strongly committed to disciplined cost management, to protect and expand our margins. Capital allocation continues to be a key priority. We're returning capital to shareholders through our enhanced share buyback program while at the same time advancing our high-return growth initiatives across our global portfolio. This positions us for sustained growth, margin expansion and driving enhanced shareholder value as we enter the next phase of Eldorado's transformation.

Thank you for your time. I will now turn it over to the operator for questions from our analysts.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Cosmos Chiu with CIBC.

Welcome, Christian. Maybe my first question is on the transaction that happened earlier today. Fresnillo buying Probe gold with the support of Eldorado Gold. I guess my question is, George, has this always been the desired outcome for that investment? And then I guess broader scale, M&A is heating up in the sector. How do you see Eldorado positioned?

Sure. On Probe, I mean, we took a toehold in Probe a number of years back with the view that there was a property package that could have potential supplemental ore to feed our really permitted mill capacity that exceeds our current run rate. And so our hope was that they would discover some high-grade, high-value underground opportunities that subsequently could be part of the Lamaque complex. Really how that has evolved as they've discovered a large, low-grade open pit opportunity. And as we assessed that opportunity, it really didn't stack up with our other capital allocation opportunities. And so when we heard this week that Fresnillo made an offer, it didn't fit our strategic initiatives going forward. And so we didn't agree to sign on to support that acquisition.

On the bigger, broader M&A opportunities ahead, I mean, at Eldorado, our focus is head down, deliver the high-value project Skouries, Olympias expansion and other investments across the portfolio. That's our priority. As we come out of delivering Skouries in the first half of next year, and we're going to be positioned to continue to invest within the portfolio, but look for other opportunities externally. So I think we're in a great position in a great market. But for now it's head down focused on what we're doing.

Perfect. Maybe switching gears a little bit to Skouries. Certainly, sounds good to hear that it is on time for first concentrate in Q1 2026. As you have mentioned, the filter tailings plant is on a critical path. Louw did a good job in terms of summarizing it. But is there anything else that's on the critical path? That's number one.

And number two, it is a fairly tight schedule, delivering first concentrate by Q1 2026 and it kind of straddles your holiday season. I know there has been some changes in the schedule in terms of work schedule. But how have you factored in potential workers taking time off during the holiday season. Does it really go kind of dead in Greece during those months or during those weeks? And how should we look at it in terms of kind of like looking at the risk on the time line for delivery by Q1 2026?

Thanks for the question, Cosmos. Yes, so for a critical path, the dry stack filter plant given the short or the small footprint that we're dealing with there is the key focus for us. Obviously, everything in front of that has to be done and constructed on time to be able to put ore through that filter facility. But I did tell there's nothing at this point that we're worried about. Now looking forward, you hit the nail on the head. It's the transition to get the additional trades on piping the electrical and control system that are critical to delivering everything ahead of the dry stack filter plant. I'd tell you we have good visibility on that.

The transition is evolving week-over-week, month-over-month and will continue right up to the first quarter, and then there'll be a dramatic drop off in construction workers and a huge focus on preparing for commissioning. So we're feeling good about that transition. We've got visibility on the required workers over the next 5 months, say. And as we say, we're on track to deliver first concentrate at the end of the first quarter.

Great. And maybe just one last question on Kisladag quickly, the whole ore agglomeration project. Could you maybe remind us what's the potential impact here on recovery, on throughput? And is it really just overall kind of potentially having less wear and tear on the HPGR longer term? Is that what we're trying to do here?

Thanks, Cosmos. It's Simon. The whole ore agglomeration, the purpose of that is primarily to enhance permeability in the leach pad, so that we get a good contact with the lixiviant and the ore particles. And so where we see the best benefit there is, as we've reported previously, we've got a very long leach cycle. Our leach cycle currently is sort of around 300 days on average with enhanced permeability that comes with the whole ore agglomeration. We expect to see that reduced to 200 days. That provides us with the primary benefit of obviously getting our returns faster in terms of metal recovery, but also less infrastructure requirements in the longer term because we need less footprint in order to leach the tonnes in the plan. So at the moment, we're not planning any enhanced recovery in the model but faster kinetics generally are a positive sign for that in the long term.

Yes. Thanks, Simon. I forgot that the leach cycle is that long at 300 days. So 200 days certainly gives it much needed benefit.

The next question comes from Tanya Jakusconek with Scotiabank.

Welcome, Christian, on board. So maybe, George, can I start with you? Just on Skouries, can I just review with you, we've got that end of Q1 for the concentrate first gold pour. We are then going commercial by mid-2026. Can you remind me again what your definition for commercial production is so that we can monitor the correct 60% of the mill or whatever, however you're going to define it, so we can model that? And then can you remind me from commercial, when do we actually get to steady state? And what do we need to get there? So that's my first question.

Yes. Thanks for the question, Tanya. On the commercial production, we're expecting to be at 80% of design nameplate throughput at that point and then expect to get the rest to 100% by the end of the year. So that's the key criteria. We're feeling comfortable with that given that it's a single floatation circuit. Olympias is much more complex with 3 concentrates. And we've got already some of our operators from Olympias at Skouries going through training on that particular facility. And I think we're in good shape to deliver that ramp up.

Okay. 80% of designed nameplate capacity to go commercial, is that 80% over 30 days?

I believe that's correct.

Okay. And then from midyear, you expect 6 months really of ramp-up to get to nameplate by the end of 2026 is what I heard. Is that correct?

That's correct. That's what we're assuming.

Okay. And then -- sorry. And with that, the old technical report and I say old because it is quite outdated, when are we going to have a better understanding? Obviously, as soon as you operate, you have a better understanding on operating costs, but when is the market going to be given an update on costing for this operation, both on the operating and sort of the capital sustaining costs?

Yes. So we'll be updating the market on our 2026 guidance in Q1. And with that, will include the remaining capital spend and the operating cost post commercial production. So that will be the first window. Just to reference back to the technical study. So I mean we completed that technical study just prior to getting the financing in place and then initiating construction. So it's only as stated as the construction has been. But again, we'll be updating that as we work our way through next year and getting the actual results that can then be built into an updated technical study.

Okay. So we would -- so you are expecting to give us an updated technical study in 2026?

No, I'd say we're going to collect the data from 2026, and that will inform the timing and results in an updated study. So we haven't had a date on that. We're waiting for the results.

Okay. All right. And then just secondly, as we come towards year-end, I know in December, you'll be releasing your -- and we're literally a month away or thereabouts for your reserves and resources. Can you talk to me about how you were thinking about cutoff grades? What are you thinking about inflation on your costs, gold price inputs. And how do these reserves look and resources?

Yes. So I mean, the first thing on metal prices. So we're in the process of determining where to land on update on our reserve price assumptions. We use a look back on metal prices as well as staying consistent with our peer group. So we're expecting a modest increase in metal prices. Our focus is to keep our reserve price conservative, ensuring we have very strong margins to drive profitability in the company.

So I'd just tell you, it won't be consistent with the peers, a modest increase in metal price assumptions, and we do all this in the fourth quarter at Eldorado so that we have the latest and greatest information to support our budget for next year and our guidance that we'll set in the first quarter.

So -- and then in terms of inflation, cutoff grades, I mean, we're working through all those as we speak, and we use actual data and project through our life of mine studies that are done during the summer to set those assumptions. So it's work in progress. I would tell you we're not expecting any radical change in any of those inputs, a modest increase in metal price assumption.

Okay. And do you expect to replace, do you think your reserves this year?

Yes. I mean, we haven't finished the work. We're feeling good about it. Stay tuned. We're not far away from releasing that information.

Okay. And then I guess my final question would be to Christian. Welcome on board, Christian, and you've mentioned in your opening remarks that you're looking forward to the next phase of the strategy and you visited all of the operations. So maybe you can share with us as you look at the company, what are your top 5 priorities for the next 12 months?

Yes. Thanks, Tanya. And actually, just to clarify, I haven't visited them all yet. I said in the next month, I'll visit Quebec and Greece. I'm sort of following along with the preplan visits in our budget strategy cycle here. But I've been really impressed with what I've seen so far. Obviously, I've seen a lot of mines around the world and the ones at Tüurquie I got to visit last week and the week before, very impressive in terms of an ESG approach, in terms of how they operate, the longevity of the team and just the skill and experience and reputation in the industry. In terms of priorities, really for me right now, it's really getting an opportunity to settle in for me when I came in, looking at the culture and how I can slot into a team and really the transition with George, I think it is a wonderful period of time for me to just get caught up without the pressure of having a quick change.

And you see in our industry, it happens quite often overnight and get up to speed with the budgets. We're going through that next phase of strategy for the 5 years coming once Skouries is up and running. And I think critical to us will be that post-Skouries cash flow inflection point and how to allocate the capital. So in our sort of 2030 strategy planning, that will be something we're going to be looking at very closely. And I don't have any answers for you today specifically because I think we're going through that process, but it's a wonderful time to be joining a group like this where, for me, the culture fit was really good.

I think the team is diverse and deep. And I think the spread of assets is wonderful and the exploration upside and the long lives already in the portfolio are really exciting. And there's growth projects here are very valuable from our own cash flow. So it's kind of building all those into that next phase of the strategy as it sort of inflects and turns to cash flow generation from pure spending and building Skouries over the last couple of years.

Okay. So I guess what I'm hearing from you, and maybe I don't want to have my own assumptions, but maybe you can tell me if this is correct. So you've taken a look at the team, the culture, you're happy with that. You're looking to get Skouries behind and producing so that we can then, number two, look at capital allocation, whether that's continued share buyback, dividends, et cetera, et cetera, for return to shareholders. Maybe you can talk about the portfolio itself, like what does Perama stand in here? Any of the other assets, Probe is noncore, anything else that you see noncore, other assets that you want to push through further in the Eldorado strategy?

That's a fulsome question, Tanya. I think at this stage, when I looked at it, exploration and just continuing to extend and advance mine life is critical. And now there's an opportunity with these kind of gold prices in this environment. And again, my superficial early look is there's real opportunity to spend some money and focus on that. There's a great team here, I think, that has some plans and excitement around our current assets and in the countries we currently operate. So I think that will be one of the key elements. And Perama Hill, I mean, literally going through that phase of, I think, getting GIA updated and submitted.

So assuming there's a permit over the next year or so, it would be nice to put that into the plans. I don't think we're quite ready to actually build the timing in yet. But I think there's been a good job done in Greece to build the sort of social license and the acceptance of the relationships. And when you look at Skouries and Olympias, there's a really nice platform. So I think Perama could come in afterwards, but I can't commit to timing at this stage, obviously.

And as George alluded to, I think there are these opportunities, which Simon was saying in Turkiye to continue to improve, enhance and some of the operations are already underway and are performing well. In Quebec as well, there's exploration opportunities. There's already good results coming out of Ormaque underground, and there's an ability to expand that plant if there's enough ore there. So all those things could be part of the plan, but timing and specific commitments, I think it's a little bit early on that, but that's a good place to park some of the capital over time, I think.

Okay. Well, good. Look forward to working with you.

Thanks, Tanya.

The next question comes from Don DeMarco with National Bank Financial.

Maybe I'll just start off with Olympias. So obviously, the challenges in the flotation circuit were evident in Q3. And I heard on the call that they may persist for some time. And then concurrently, you've got this expansion underway. Does that expansion perhaps complicate things with regard to resolving the challenges in the flotation circuit? And maybe if you could just give a little bit more detail on when you think you might see a rebound in recoveries?

Well, maybe starting with recoveries. I mean, we've seen a rebound just in the last 2 months. So when we're successful at managing the ore fed into the plant and not getting a slug of this viscosity modifier in the plant, we're seeing good recovery. So it's been good in the last 2 months. But if we get a slug of this material in, it messes up the process water, and it takes time to clean it up. So we end up lowering throughput. We end up getting lower recovery. And that's the reality looking backwards. As Louw mentioned, this is a cut and fill mining method underground. And so these -- we put this viscosity modifier in the cemented backfill in stopes between Q3 of last year and Q1 of this year when we realized we have this problem.

So as we mine next to all those stopes during that period, we have the risk of getting the viscosity modifier into that fresh ore. And that residual risk will remain until the second quarter of next year. Obviously, our mine operators and our plant operators are day to day, shift by shift, managing the blends. We do have a design to take the higher risk stockpile ore and -- ore will be coming out of the underground and process it before it goes into the plant. So there were crushing and screening and taking the coarse material. It won't have a significant amount of that modifier in it, and that goes into the mill. The fine material, we're looking at permitting and the ability to wash it and remove that most of that viscosity modifier. So later on, that could be put in the plant.

So these are the things that we're doing. And it's fair to say there's some risk remaining into Q2, but I'd say we're getting better at managing it. We're trying to be as proactive as we can to not have another significant upset. But as Louw said, the risk will remain. In terms of the expansion, really, there's no connection between this problem and the expansion. We're basically having to move some of the infrastructure like piping and cable trays to make room for the equipment that we're installing. So that work is in progress. We'll get that construction completed next year. It will be a staged approach.

Some of the equipment will get stalled earlier in the year that will help improve the performance of the mill. The throughput won't happen until we get the grinding mill in and that happens in the second half. So we're expecting some really exciting results that come out of Olympias once we get this expansion completed. That's no longer the bottleneck. It will be back on the underground mine ramp up. And as we've talked over the last 2 years, we've done a really good job of debottlenecking the underground. So we get this mill expanded. Production goes up, margins expand, and we get this viscosity modifier behind us, Olympias will be a key contributor to cash flow.

Okay. And then on to something else then. With the guidance adjustment that we saw with Q3, costs are higher. But of course, some of the drivers of those costs are outside of your control, such as the Turkiye royalty rates and so on. Could you just give us maybe a rough percentage of looking at the delta in that cost increase, how much was within your control and how much was not?

It's Paul here. So I think I heard you, you were breaking up a little bit, but the question is around our increase in our guidance for all-in sustaining costs. There's 2 things basically that have driven that. One that is in our control and that we've been dealing with and one that isn't. And they split about 50-50 in terms of how it's impacted our guidance for the rest of the year. So the first one is around gold price. If you remember, our original budget was set with a gold price of around $2,300. We're now assuming an average price to the end of the year of $4,000 an ounce.

And at that level, we continue to see increased royalties, both from the absolute cost, but also the increase in the slate of royalties that we saw in Turkiye early in the year, and that's responsible for around 50% of the increase. And then the second 50% is really just a reflection of Olympias performance with those recovery issues and lower volume, and that has pushed up our per ounce costs. So it's 50-50 between them. We're not actually seeing any real inflation in costs in terms of -- versus our guidance for the year outside of that.

Okay. And then just as a final question. Also in Q3, we saw a big increase in your share buybacks quarter-over-quarter. So I just was wondering, going forward, do you expect to maintain the level of buybacks in Q3 or maybe ease a bit, increase a bit? Just kind of -- just to get your sense at this point? And then also while on the top of capital allocation, maybe even any additional color on the dividend or the timing of the dividend as I know Christian brought that up in his response to Tanya.

Yes, sure. So as far as the share buybacks are concerned, we signaled at quarter end Q2 that we had extended our NCIB program for another 12 months with a maximum repurchase of 5% of our outstanding share capital. We do intend to be opportunistic around that. We think our shares are incredibly good value at the current level. But really, it's when there's opportunities in the market or if we're underperforming, then we will actually use the NCIB program to purchase those shares. As a good sort of working average, I would assume over the next 3 quarters that we continue to buy at approximately the same rate, okay?

As far as dividends are concerned, I think we haven't changed our messaging around this. Next year is an inflection point for us in terms of cash flow generation as Skouries comes into operation. And that feels like a great time for us to then be considering if it's the right moment to put in place a sustainable dividend that we can stand behind going forward. And so I think that will be back on the agenda for us in terms of capital allocation as we move into next year.

The next question comes from Lawson Winder with Bank of America.

Thank you for today's update. If I could maybe push you a bit more on 2026 and the CapEx outlook. So for 2025 sustaining CapEx, we're running at the high end of the $145 million to $170 million. When you look to next year, I mean, is that higher end of the 2025 a pretty reasonable baseline for 2026? And actually, you know what I had asked a similar question for the growth capital at the operations. I mean, is that is the current $245 million to $270 million range, a decent level heading into next year?

Well, again, we'll be updating you in the first quarter on next year's guidance, maybe a couple of comments that might help. So the Olympias expansion, that's obviously underway in Quebec. We're completing the second bulk sample, but we're in the middle of permitting for a paste backfill plant, an operating permit. So the timing on that is uncertain, but there'll be capital to spend on Olympias when we get those permits. So stay tuned for that. As well, Simon's walked through the whole ore agglomeration, and we've committed that $35 million. So we got to build all that into next year's plan depending on permitting. I'd say those are the moving parts. The rest of the portfolio is pretty consistent.

And then on the growth capital, well, beyond that is Skouries, obviously, we've kind of walked through that Q1 is the bulk of the spend next year in Skouries and we're commissioning in Q2. So there'll just be some residual growth capital happening there. As you look forward on Skouries though, remember that the pit is up and running, we're in good shape there. The plant will be running next year. We've got the first blast on the test, but over the next 3 years, we'll be investing in that underground to get the infrastructure in place for it to ramp up to be the sole feed to the plant at the end of the next decade.

So there's incremental growth capital that will be happening over the 5-year plan. Next year, some of that capital on the underground will begin to be spent, but the ramp-up really starts happening at '27. So it's hard to give you specific numbers on next year. Hopefully, I gave you a little bit of color there, and it's not too far away from given the specific updated guidance on '26.

Yes. Actually, that summary was very helpful. And I just would want to say, it's impressive that, that Skouries remains on track. And if I may, and just to cover off potentiality, should there be any delay, what would be a rough weekly or monthly holding cost of just keeping that going for a slightly extended period of time?

Yes, the way I would describe it, we're comfortable. We have all the equipment and materials there. So there's no risk on that side. We have the workforce. We're over 2,000 people at site right now, construction and operations ramp up. So the impact next year if for some reason, it took a little bit longer to get the first concentrate, those fixed cost that we were going to spend on a monthly basis is about $15 million. So that's really the impact of a delay.

Okay. Relatively small percent of the overall CapEx. And then if I could -- I think I've asked you this before, but like I acknowledge you do not like to give guidance on gold production for -- on a quarterly basis. Just with Kisladag, there's obviously a lot of variability when it comes to the leaching times. Can you give us any sort of directional point or hint here on Q4, just when you consider what was stacked at the end of Q2, what was stacked in Q3? And yes, I'll just leave it there. Anything would be very helpful.

Yes. I mean, again point you back to guidance, although Q3, we had some negative impacts, we're still going to hit our guidance at Kisladag for the year. As you say, Q4 is a little bit tough. We had lower placements, precisely understanding how that's going to impact Q4 versus Q1, it's difficult to say. There's a bit of art and science in heap leaching. But all I can tell you at this point, we're comfortable we're going to be within guidance at Kisladag for the year. And so Q4, don't expect anything dramatic one way or another. It's going to be a good year at Kisladag.

That's all the time we have for today. This concludes the question-and-answer session and today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.