AYA

Good morning, everyone. I will now turn the call over to Elizabeth Hamaue, Aya Gold & Silver's Director of Corporate and Financial Communications. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and welcome to everyone who has joined Aya's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Here with me today, I have Benoit La Salle, President and CEO, Ugo Landry-Tolszczuk, Chief Financial Officer, Elias Elias, Chief Legal and Sustainability Officer, Raphaël Beaudoin, Vice President of Operations, and David Lalonde, Vice President of Exploration. We will be referring to a presentation on this conference call, which is available via the webcast and is also posted on our website. As we will be making forward-looking statements during the call, please refer to the cautionary notes included in the presentation, news release and MD&A, as well as the risk factors included in our annual information form.

Technical information in this presentation has been reviewed and approved by Raphaël Beaudoin, Aya's Vice President of Operations, and David Lalonde, Aya's Vice President of Exploration, both of whom are Aya's qualified persons as defined under National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. I would also like to remind everyone that our presentation will be followed by a Q&A session.

With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Benoit La Salle.

Thank you, Elizabeth. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for assisting this Q1 2026 conference call. Let me summarize the quarter before we get through the presentation. I think it's, we need to summarize this as Q1 is an exceptional quarter for Aya. It's an exceptional quarter knowing that Q1 is always the most difficult quarter for the company as we are at 2,200 m above sea level in the mountains with lots of snow and rain and wind. This year, due to the fact that we lost five days of operation due to weather-related situation, we still delivered an outstanding quarter. Aya delivered record revenue, record cash flow, expanding margin, rising silver price, and lower cash costs. We have a very strong Q1.

When you compare it to Q4 of last year with Q1 of this year, on a per day basis, the production per day is very similar, approaching 15,000 oz. The reason the production is a little bit lower in Q1 is due to the fact that we lost an equivalent of about five days of production. When you look at the highlights, it's record revenue of CAD 117 million. It's record cash flow of CAD 70 million. It's a record net income after tax of CAD 49 million. It's a cash balance at the end of the quarter of unrestricted cash of CAD 172 million. It's a production of almost 1.5 million oz for the quarter with record mining rates, you know, really strong quarter.

As we have a record mining rates, we've also increased our stockpiles. Taking you to our presentation that we use, showing you some, you know, graphics. If we go to page four, after the forward-looking statement, you see exactly what I've just said. The record revenue in Q1 2026 at CAD 117 million, compare that to last year at CAD 34 million. The net income of CAD 49 million compared to last year of CAD 7 million, with an EPS of CAD 0.33 fully diluted and CAD 0.34 on a non-diluted basis. When you look at Q1 of operating cash flow this year at CAD 70 million compared to last year, CAD 8 million. Very strong quarter. You see it on the right-hand side.

We're showing you the production profile has increased from Q1 2025, where we produced 1 million oz of silver, to Q1 of 2026, where we're at 1,490,000 oz. Of course, a little bit lower than Q4 of last year because Q4 of last year had no weather-related event, whereas Q1 of this year had approximately five days of weather-related events. Moving on to page five of the presentation. Very interesting on the left-hand side, the quarterly mining tonnage. You know, we've always been saying that the mining has to follow the plant. The plant's production profile has been, you know, 30%-40% above nameplate capacity, the mine also, you know, needs to follow the plant.

The mine is actually now exceeding the plant. You see on the left-hand side, last year, you know, we were running at 2,200 tons a day. In Q4, we were at 4,200 tons a day. Now by Q1 this quarter, we were running at 4,600 tons a day. Absolutely stellar performance from the mine, from the open pit, and from the underground mine. The grade is also, you know, steady and improving. We're pleased with the outcome of the mining and the grade and the throughput. On the right-hand side, you look at the plant. Well, in Q4, the plant was running at 3,800 tons a day. In Q1, the plant's running as well, and if not sometimes higher, but as indicated, because of the lost days.

If some of you have followed the weather in Morocco, it was extremely rare, like they had 2x the historical average rainfall and snowfall in all of Morocco. I was there two weeks ago, and the week before that, there was snow in Marrakech, which is absolutely, you know, rare. This is in one way, it was a little bit difficult on the actual production, but we now have more than 15 months of inventory of water at site, and the rivers are still running. You know, being a little difficult on the production was a great situation for water management and for us and for all the country. Now, all the water reservoirs have been filled.

Some of the reservoirs that had not seen water in many years are now full. The water situation globally for the country was extremely good. Moving on to slide number six, a quick word on Boumadine. You know, at Boumadine, we are reclaiming the pyrite. The operation is going extremely well. We produced 127,000 oz of silver and 1,757 oz of gold. A little bit lower than what we wanted it to be. Again, weather related, because of course, the bad weather of Zgounder was also, you know, weather related in, at Boumadine.

The other situation with Boumadine is because we are exporting the pyrite tonnage, the port in Morocco were shut down for one month because of weather, because of floods. Of course, that's why, you know, the silver equivalent sold, if when you look at page six, you see the silver equivalent produced of 227,000 oz and only 50,000 oz sold. One reason, exporting. If, you know, we produce it, we ship it to port, and then it stayed there because we could not ship it just because of very difficult weather. All of that is behind us. It's probably now going to rain next time in November or December. It's all behind us.

The reality was that even at Boumadine, we were a little bit affected, especially on the shipment of the concentrate to Asia. The Boumadine project is really an add-on to Zgounder. It's minimal CapEx, you know, very low cash cost. It's positive cash flow. The grade reconciliation is actually better. We have the gold grade is a little bit better. The silver grade is better than what we had in our model. Globally, it's a very profitable project and which is at the same time an ESG project because we're cleaning all of the historical waste that was left there for many years. It's still going on, and it's accelerating now in Q2, Q3, and Q4.

We are accelerating the reclamation of the Boumadine pyrite. Going to page seven of the presentation. This, again, coming back to last quarter, this is the most important slide. The one on the left is the margin. Look at the margins from Q1 2025 to Q1 2026. You know, we were working with a CAD 12 margin in Q1 last year and staying at CAD 12 in Q2 of last year. Margins started going up to CAD 20 in Q3, you saw to about CAD 40 in Q4. Margins right now are like CAD 63 in Q1 of 2026. And obviously, you are following the silver price. And we're seeing that this is, you know, is very strong silver price at the moment.

Our costs are stable. We are not affected greatly by the war and the increase in fuel price. We are. Cyanide went up a little bit. We're gonna see that in Q2, but it's marginal. The main reason is our electricity is from the grid, and it's solar and wind. Like most companies are affected because they need to generate their own power at Zgounder, and it will be the same at Boumadine. The power is solar and wind. We do not expect costs to increase more than, you know, maybe CAD 1/oz if they increase by that much. The reason is really because of the source of energy. On the right-hand side, you see the growth of revenue.

As I said, Q1 at $117 million of revenue with a net income after tax of $49 million. This is a very strong performance of revenue increasing. Of course, it's due to the silver price, you know, we understand what the production profile is. The silver price was extremely good in Q1. Our highest selling unit or selling price in Q1, at one point, we were able to sell close to $120/oz. It's showing now the average of $82 as we speak right now, the silver price is higher than the average of Q1, 2026. The net income, net income after tax of $49 million with an EPS of $33.

Very, taking us to page eight, a very strong balance sheet. We finished the quarter with $172 million. in the bank. On top of that, we have the restricted cash that we have for the EBRD loan of $16 million. When you look at this, it's a very, very strong cash position, a strong balance sheet, only one debt with EBRD, which is now below CAD 100 million, and which, you know, we could pay, it's a very good and not so expensive loan with EBRD. There's no point in pushing the repayment of that debt. When you look at cash from operation at CAD 70 million, our capital expenditure program is CAD 4 million.

The exploration and evaluation, exploration mainly, is CAD 14 million. We had a very good quarter on exploration, and I'll talk about the drilling. All in all, when you look at this with a CAD 18 cash cost and, you know, all the CapEx behind us, it's a very, very profitable quarter. Moving to page nine, which is our guidance. Our guidance was presented to you at the beginning of 2026. We are maintaining our guidance. We, though we are a little bit below where we wanted to be. In our production guidance, we knew that Q1 is always a little bit weaker than the rest of the year because of seasonality.

We knew that, so that was part of our planning, and we're very comfortable with our guidance of 6.2 million oz-6.8 million oz. The Zgounder production between 5.2 million and 5.8 million. The Boumadine at 1 million oz of silver equivalent. We're very comfortable with that. When you look at the Zgounder cash costs at CAD 21.50, I understand that we were at CAD 18 this quarter, you know, it's a question of the strip ratio. We know that, you know, over time, we're gonna be a little bit higher than this. We're comfortable to say that on the guidance at CAD 21.50 is where it should be. The Boumadine cash costs at CAD 10.10. In Q4, it was CAD 6. In Q1 of this year, it's more like CAD 11. We're very close.

We are also going to ramp up on quantity. In ramping up on quantity, obviously, the cash cost per ounce will come down a little bit. On the sustaining and growth capital, sustaining is about half, CAD 18, and growth capital is CAD 18 for a total of CAD 36. The main growth capital is really we're pushing the ramp down, all the way down to the granite, so that we can go and reach those lower levels where we see high-grade silver. On the exploration expenditure, well, the budget is CAD 60 million. As you know, as a company, we plan to drill close to 240,000 m this year. This is ongoing. We have always between 14 and 18 drills turning.

David has a team of almost 400 people in exploration, including all the drillers. It's a large program, but we need that program to convert the resource at Boumadine from inferred to measured and indicated for the feasibility study of next year. Taking you to slide number 10. Where are we going this year? What are the priorities? Well, look, Boumadine is a top priority. We're very happy and very, you know, in an extremely good position that we can do Boumadine with no outside debt, no equity financing. We have the money available to push on Boumadine. We are pushing on the feasibility study, which we want to be ready for next year, 2027, and also the updated PEA, which will be ready by the end of June, beginning of July.

We have, you know, we are stepping up on every aspect. I always say every chapter of the study, make it water, DSS, energy, flow sheet, logistics, every chapter is being worked on, and as soon as it's ready, it's being executed. The feasibility study is ongoing. We have identified the contractors for the open pit. We have identified the contractors for the flow sheet, we will be going into detail engineering shortly. I mean, we are working with our partners on logistics. All of that is moving towards completion of the feasibility next year and beginning of construction. On the drilling front at Boumadine, we drilled in Q1, obviously, 42,000 m.

You know, this was the ramp up, plus it was the one month of Ramadan, which we during Ramadan, sometimes we do not drill as much, and we do have a week off at the end of Ramadan. For Q1, we've drilled 42,000 m. We're stepping up there because the objective is 180,000 m for the main structure and an additional 20,000 m on the regional play. That is being done, and we will be delivering on that. At Zgounder, the plan is, you know, be more efficient, control your costs, make sure that, you know, we maximize our revenue, that the mining is very precise, that there's no dilution.

The key thing at $80 or $90 silver is let's not leave an ounce behind and sterilize those ounces. We take it out. If it's between 50 g and 80 g per ton, we stockpile it. We expense it. It's in the cash cost, but we stockpile it. If it is between 80 and the deposit grade, we put it through. We have a stockpile, and then we put it through the plant. It's extremely important for us to maximize what we're mining, the ounces that we're mining, and that's why we're running way above 4,000 tons per day and controlling costs. We've also been working on the tailings facility because, originally, the tailings was planned for 2,800 tons a day.

We're now running close to 4,000 ton a day. We've decided to do the first phase of the tailings construction to increase the tailings capacity, and that will be done this summer. We will be all done over the summer. When you look on page 11 of where we are, we have Zgounder that will be producing life of mine, 6 million oz a year, life of mine cash cost at CAD 16, AISC around CAD 19, life of mine, extremely profitable, and that is only from one structure. You will see sure in the coming weeks some more exploration results coming out of Zgounder because, of course, at Zgounder, we would like to increase the life of mine from 11 years, hopefully, to 15 years and if possible, even increase the throughput.

Our development asset, Boumadine, that is the PEA is being reviewed. The resource update will come with the PEA. As of the end of 2024, we were looking at 450 million oz of silver equivalent. That will be updated because we've drilled more than one year the structure. That will be updated, and it will be included in the new PEA. On the right-hand side, to me, that's the most important strategic view of Aya, is we are currently a 6 million oz producer at CAD 19 all-in life of mine at Zgounder. We will add to that by 2029, 37 million oz of silver production equivalent at an all-in cost of CAD 14, making us a 43 million oz producer, of course, silver equivalent.

That will have an average AISC when you look at 20 or 19 for Zgounder and 14 for Boumadine. You're looking at mid-teen for an AISC. Depending what silver price you want to assume, you can do the math. On top of that, Aya is a major exploration play. We have two districts. We have the Boumadine district, and we have the Zgounder district. Not only do you have two projects, you have two mines. You have the Zgounder mine, and you have the Boumadine in development mine. You have the Boumadine regional play, and that is an extremely large play. We have 800 sq km. We will be drilling there, 20,000 m on the regional play. Of course, the 180 on the main zone that is infilled, though we are finding new zones.

You saw in the last press release we had identified new zones. We will be pushing the drilling on the main zone, of course, up to 180,000 m. On the exploration on the regional, as we keep telling the team, you know, as soon as you have another structure to where you want to really drill it out, just come back to the committee and to the management committee, we will give you more budget. Boumadine as an exploration play is very unique. It's got big systems. The main zone is over 5.4 km. You have also Assirem, which is an 8 km-long structure. I mean, we have very strong zone. Tizi is a parallel zone, it's also 5.4 km long.

Boumadine is a major regional play. Zgounder, well, Zgounder is, we've done a lot of work. We've done a lot of geological work. We've used AI. We have many targets. We have new theories and new geological concept behind Zgounder that we're going to be testing this year. It is also a very interesting geological play. In Aya, you have all the geological upside of a major exploration company drilling 230,000-240,000 m of exploration drilling coming in 2026. Then you have the production coming from Zgounder, and you have the development at Boumadine.

Again, to conclude and to go into the Q&A period, very strong quarter. In our weakest quarter as planned, we are pleased with the production. We are confirming our guidance, we look forward to a stronger Q2 and much stronger Q4 and Q5 to close the year again. Based on the silver price, it should be an extremely profitable year.

Thank you, I will turn it back to the operator for the Q&A period.

Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one one. If your question has been answered and you'd like to remove yourself from the queue, please press star one one again. Our first question comes from the line of Larry Liu with CIBC. Your line is open.

Hi, Valentin. Thanks for taking my question. I guess I'll start off asking about the severe weather conditions. Benoit, can you tell us, you know, what are some of the precautionary measures now that the team have taken? I know you mentioned that this is a very rare event, but are there any precautionary measures you've taken to prevent any further impact to your current operations? I guess second part of that question is, your stockpile did increase by 44% or 15 months worth of production. Is there an optimal, you know, kind of size of stockpile you're looking for or should we start to see it gradually decline as the milling throughput comes back up again?

Yeah, thank you for your question. I'll pass it over to Raph, who was at site for all of that period, and will tell you what we have done to mitigate the risk of weather-related events and what it does to our production profile, which is only in Q1, by the way, because after that, it's sunshine for the rest of the year.

We're in the mountain, and as a good mountain climate, when it rains, it pours. That essentially results into stickiness of the ore and decreases throughput of the crushing circuit. To catch up, it's something we've been working on for a while to increase the crushing throughput, which is the actual bottleneck in the plant. We did in Q1 3,633 ton per day on average in Q1. As soon as sunshine came back in April, we're back on track at 4,000 right there in April. The worst is behind us for the rest of the year, essentially.

To answer your question, to mitigate that, we gave a small contract to a contractor, a crushing contractor that is up in operation now a bit as a contingency for weather and also to help debottleneck the plant a bit from the crushing side. This contractor will stay there as long as we need it. We're also contemplating to increase our own crushing capacity within this Zgounder plant, and that's something under study that we should be able to make a decision on that soon.

Bottom line is we have a contractor that helps us out since maybe a bit less than a month now that can compensate for a bit lower crushing capacity to make sure the plants remain saturated.

The stockpile?

Yeah, sorry. The stockpile, we sit about 300,000 ton right now. It's close to a three months worth of production. It's a buffer that I'm personally comfortable with. We've been really pushing over the last year to bring the open pit to steady state. Now we're producing comfortably over 3,000 ton per day in the open pit, with peaks much above that. It gives us time to do the pushback if we want to later on this year. It gives us time to shut down upper levels in the underground that will be that will be mined in the open pit. It's a flexibility that we always believed in that helped us out in many ways.

To answer your question, 300,000 tons is probably where we wanna be. It gives us the flexibility we need for future pushback and the flexibility to maximize, again, the ore recovery by the open pit. Now that we've reached this capacity and this flexibility, we will look to continue optimizing the underground development, especially on the sub-levels. We can focus now more our efforts into the lower levels and keep the stockpile around 300,000. I wouldn't be surprised we see it go down a bit through the year, which is fine. That's why it's there.

Perfect. Sounds good. Thanks, Raphaël.

Sort of push back in the open pit towards the end of the year.

Perfect. Sounds good. Thanks, Raphaël. I guess, you know, kind of shifting gears away from Zgounder now and walking back to Boumadine. You know, this quarter, there was some commercialization of the pyrite concentrate. We see the cost come in at CAD 11.86/oz of silver equivalent. How should we look at it? I know it excludes mining, but how does that compare to your PEA, for example, and would this be a good read-through in terms of cost we should see within the feasibility study coming up?

For the current pyrite reclaim, we essentially dig a pyrite stockpile, we crush it, and we send it in trucks. Our costs are really low. Our costs will remain for the rest of the operation, it's tough to make a parallel with that with our future Boumadine project. It has nothing to do, this is a small project. It's gonna be reclaimed for the next two years. It gives good cash flow. It's a good exercise to start building a small operating team at Boumadine and to have more presence on our Boumadine site, as we go from PEA to feasibility to construction. One is not comparable with another.

Got it. Sounds good. All right. I think that's all the questions I have today. Thanks, Raphaël, and thanks, Benoit team for taking my questions. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Justin Chan with SCP Resource Finance. Your line is open.

Hi, guys. Congrats on a good quarter, and thanks for the update. My first one's just on the, I guess, on the mine plan for the rest of the year. I guess, compared to Q1, how should we think about strip for the open pit? I saw the underground really pushed tons quite hard. Do you expect that to continue? I think you were foreshadowing maybe you're shifting more to development and into the lower level. Should we expect tons mined to come down a little bit from that high pace in Q1 from the underground?

Hi, Justin. Yeah, good question, actually. It's We've been, as you all know, we've been pushing tonnage both in the underground, the open pit. We really wanted to bring back the stockpile we deserve, show everybody we could have a good throughput at Zgounder, both in the open pit, in the underground, in the plant. I think those discussions are behind us now. We have full team on the ground. The open pit has showed it can deliver. The open pit is wide open. We have room to work.

First for your strip ratio, we expect the long-term strip ratio to be what we published in our latest 43-101. This strip ratio of 9, it's temporary. We will have months at 8 or 9, like we have now, and we will have months at 20, like we had in the past. Overall, it's between 13 and 16, and this is what we expect on the longer term. Can you hear me, Justin?

Yeah, I can hear you well. Thanks, Raph.

Okay. For the underground, absolutely. We've been, you know, we've been at a rate of over 1,500 ton per day underground. We have some of these levels that we wanna shut them down because we want to increase the maximum ore recovery through the open pit. To answer your question, yes, there will be a shift in focus in Q2 moving on for the rest of the year to accelerate the ramp down and to transfer some of this production power into stope development and sub-level development. We're comfortable at the underground rate at around 1,000 ton per day is something we're comfortable with because the open pit is well-established now. You can expect moving on to have the rate of the underground to slightly decrease.

1,000 to 1,200 to 1,300 tons per day is probably the sweet spot. We need to really focus on those, on those sub-levels, for which we also know we have pretty good grade going down.

Okay. Got it. Thanks, Raph. That's great color. On the plant, do you think you'll keep the mobile crushers around even when it gets dry? What would your throughput potential be if that's the case?

Again, what we publish in our feasibility is above 3,600 this year and 3,850 next year. Internally, we're trying to beat that. We have like our best days right now are around 4,300 ton per day. Those are punctual, like best daily performance. I think, Justin, the around 3,800 is probably where we'll be comfortably at in the near future. We're really pushing this plant. As you know, nameplate is 2,700, now we're near 4,000. It's difficult for me to speculate above that because we need to go bottleneck after bottleneck. I think there's a bit of juice left in the plant, but we need extra crushing capacity for that.

3,800 is probably where we would be. Some good months above that, some bad months around that. To answer your question, 3,800, including the mobile crusher that we'll keep as long as we need.

Okay. Perfect. Thanks. I'm not sure who's the best person to ask this question to, but on Boumadine, I guess the ounces that weren't sold this quarter, do you expect to sell them in Q2, or should that become spread through the rest of the year? Also just given the world being pretty short of sulfur, will there be any noticeable increase in payability, do you think, for Q2 and Q3, or is it too early to say that?

Hi, Justin, it's Ugo. For production, for sales of Boumadine, it's not that the clients don't want it. I think we get called every week and they say, "Can we get more material?" Especially with what's happening in the sulfur market today. We are logistics by truck, like we're learning it, so it's going to be spread out throughout the year and we're trying to modify things a little bit to send larger shipments. So that on that, I think it's going to be put, it's going to be through the year, but the 1 million oz of silver equivalent is still what we're on track to do.

In terms of payability, it's not gonna change because it's old material that's been there for a long time, the sulfur quantity is a lot less than fresh rock from Boumadine. The payabilities aren't gonna the volumes are small on the 200,000 to 240,000 tons total. That we've agreed on a price and on a contract for with our traders, and so that's not gonna change throughout the throughout that stockpile.

Justin, if I can add on payability, the payability is changing on the bigger project.

Yeah.

Yeah. Because that has 45% sulfur. As Ugo said, the tailings is a bit worn down, so it's got very good gold and silver content. Pyrite is a bit tired, so it's not changing on the small project, but on the bigger project it is changing in an important way.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, thanks very much. That's, that's really helpful color. Thank you, Ugo, and thanks Benoit. Thanks overall. I'll stay off the line.

Thanks, Justin.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Mike Kozak with Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is open.

Good morning. Morning Benoit and team. A few questions from me. First one, Q1, it was the fourth quarter in a row where unit costs at Zgounder on a per ton basis have trended down. I mean, a portion of that is obviously more and more open pit material, but I mean, they can settle in around CAD 80/ton in Q1. You were north of CAD 10/ton a few quarters ago. Is that CAD 80/ton a good number going forward? Do you think it's gonna continue trending down, or where do you expect to settle out?

I can comment a bit on the ounce unit cost. Our costs have been going down, and we're happy about that. Throughput has been going up and production has been stabilizing in the open pit and the underground. A lot of that unit cost saving comes from the underground unit cost per ton as well as the open pit unit cost per ton. We've also had gains in the plant as we process more throughput and stabilize their cyanide consumption. We've been winning on all fronts, including site services and surface and utilities. As we're towarding being more a mature operation, and we're happy to see that.

That being said, there is a lot of cost fluctuation at Zgounder based on the open pit strip ratio, as you can imagine. Depending on the sequencing, we have months. Now, this quarter strip ratio was around 9, which is quite exceptional. The overall strip ratio of the open pit gets better through the life of mine. Again, we've made that quite clear in our latest 43-101. It will increase slightly this year. Especially towards the end of the year, we'll have a bit higher strip ratio in the open pit, and I expect our strip ratio for the year to sit between 13 and 16.

We'll continue to improve our overall cost. Inherently, the open pit will be more expensive in terms of cost per ton because we'll converge more toward the 13 to 16 strip ratio as opposed to 9. Let's not forget underground, we need to develop new stopes. Now we have lower levels around 1925 that are operating, that costs are good. On the long term, the underground cost of the Zgounder mine will slowly creep up as we go deeper and deeper, which is also normal and captured in our projections.

Okay. Thank you. That's good color. Second, now that you're making so much money, what do you expect your average income tax expense rate to be this year?

Ugo?

Income tax rate. I think five years ago, the government of Morocco, when we were back at 20%, had put out a new law and said that it was going to get increased to 35%, being 2026 at 35%. During COVID, they added a 5% COVID tax, which got converted into a 5% solidarity tax, which is supposed to be temporary, okay. It's been three years now and going on a fourth year of that tax being in existence. We are one of 187 companies in Morocco that pay that tax rate. Everybody else that makes less than MAD 100 million of profit pays 20%.

We know there's the World Cup coming. I think the government, like all governments, needs money. More and more, we're starting to see companies like ourselves within the 127 that are saying, "Hey, 40% income tax is simply not competitive." I would expect that 27 moving on, at least that 5% falls away, and then we'll see what happens with the additional tax rate. Yeah, it's our biggest cost today.

Yeah. Got it. One more, if you don't mind. Cash obviously building at a fast pace. Do you have any options available to you to accelerate repayment of the remaining EBRD debt?

Yeah. We, if we wanna repay, like, all debt, we have a, there's prepayment penalties. We do have a slight out, is that we can do cash sweeps out of the country back to head office and we have a cash sweep of 30%. With that comes no prepayment. We have to do that at specific timings when we pay and when we repay capital in January and July. Assuming things continue like this, I think we're gonna be using that option to cash sweep money out of the country and then force a cash sweep and prepay some like that. That's the expectation. Capital cost cash has to keep going up. Assuming it does, I think that's an option we'll use.

Okay. Very good. That's helpful. That's it for me. I'll jump back in queue. Thanks.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Eric Winmill with Scotiabank. Your line is open.

Oh, hi everyone. Thanks for taking my question today. Just wanted to ask quickly about the tailings. I know you're increasing capacity there. Can you just remind us, how long that's gonna get you? How much runway you'll have once that expansion's done?

Sure. We, the first phase was obviously a short one to keep capital costs throughout the initial construction. Phase II is our biggest raise. We have, well, we have about 2.5 years of storage in it. Obviously, it went down because throughput went up quite a bit. We have over 2.5 years, after which we have another phase planned.

Okay, great. Thank you very much. Maybe just on the Boumadine, you're coming out with a new PEA, you said, sort of May, June or excuse me, June, July timeframe. Any views on CapEx there? Should we expect meaningful changes from the last study that you put out?

Well, Raph is with us today, and he's in charge of the team that's overseeing the Boumadine study, so I guess it's the right time to ask him.

In the PEA, we had a CapEx with a healthy contingency for that level of the study. At that point, as we're advancing through this updated PEA and also the feasibility study, we will have some extra costs as we define and detail the project, but we'll also reduce the contingency as the project is well-defined. Right now we said that we don't expect capital to go higher than the PEA or sit in the same range.

Okay, great. That's really helpful. Appreciate it. maybe just one more on Zgounder as well. You're looking to increase crushing capacity. there any updates in terms of, you know, ordering of long lead time items or critical path items we should be looking at or maybe updates on the status, please?

Well, the good news is we already have the process unit, the cone crusher, we have it. That's a relief. Once we decide to go ahead with that expansion, we're probably looking to a nine-month expansion. Yeah, it's something that can be done within, probably within a year. It's not really important 'cause in the meantime, we have the crushing contractor then bridge that gap.

Okay, fantastic. That's very helpful. I appreciate the added color. I'll hop back in the queue. Cheers.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our Q&A period. I would now like to turn the call back over to Benoit for closing remarks.

Thank you, operator. Thank you for all the question. What is coming for us now, as I mentioned it, we'll have some exploration results coming in the next few weeks. We'll have a Boumadine exploration press release in the next week or two. We'll have the same as Zgounder. We also are looking at in-country consolidation of ground because Morocco is very interesting. It's got fantastic geology, and we have a first-mover advantage, and we are taking advantage of this. You can expect some, you know, more news from us. You know, we will be on the road for the coming two months meeting some of our shareholders in United States and in Europe.

As you're fully aware, we started trading one week ago on or 10 days ago on Nasdaq. It's going extremely well. We're getting a lot of positive feedback, so we're really pleased with the Nasdaq listing. Globally, and again, I will close on this, you know, Aya is a company that is in Morocco, focusing in Morocco, where the geology is exceptional. You can see it on our discovery cost. There were some slides that were put together by a competitor recently on discovery cost, we have the lowest discovery cost in our industry because of the geology. The jurisdiction is probably one of the best in the world with the permitting, with the employees, with the people.

You know, we are in a country that does not just tolerate mining, but in a country where mining is part of their strategic plan, they want it to be very successful. You have a, we have a team at Aya now, which has built many, many mines and has shown geological expertise. You have a very strong growth profile with Boumadine, you know, being developed and starting to be built in the next few quarters towards a 37 million oz of annual production of silver equivalent coming at Boumadine, which is just from only one structure. You have beautiful growth profile in the company. You have core assets with two districts, the Boumadine District and the Zgounder District.

You have a company that will spend $60 million in exploration, drilling, you know, over 200,000 m and over 230,000 m this year. Major geological upside, strong cash flow, great core assets in one of the best jurisdiction in the world. Look, we will be coming back to follow Morocco in the World Cup of soccer or what they call football, because they have an amazing team and that will be the topic of all the news flow coming out of Morocco for the next couple of months. Again, thank you so much for participating in this conference call. We look forward to seeing you at the Q2 call.

For many of you, we will be seeing you in all the conferences that are starting next week, in Vegas and continuing to London the week after and on and on for the rest till the Rick Rule conference in July in Boca Raton. We should take a few weeks off for the summer. Thank you very much. We'll see you in the coming weeks, otherwise, we'll see you at the Q2 conference call in August. Thank you.

Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.

Good morning, everyone. I will now turn the call over to Elizabeth Hamaue, Aya Gold & Silver's Director of Corporate and Financial Communication. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and welcome everyone to Aya's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Here with me today, I have Benoit La Salle, President and CEO, Ugo Landry-Tolszczuk, Chief Financial Officer, Elias Elias, Chief Legal and Sustainability Officer, Raphaël Beaudoin, Vice President of Operations, and David Lalonde, Vice President of Exploration. We will be referring to a presentation on this call, which is available via the webcast and is also posted on our website. We will be making forward-looking statements during the call. Please refer to our cautionary notes, included in the presentation, news release and MD&A, as well as the risk factors included in our AIF.

Technical information in this presentation has been reviewed and approved by Raphael Beaudoin, Aya's VP of Operations, and David Lalonde, Aya's VP of Exploration, both of whom are Aya's qualified persons as defined under National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. I would also like to remind everyone that our presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Benoit La Salle. Benoit?

Elizabeth, thank you. Welcome everybody to this Q4 2025 presentation and full year 2025 as well. I would like to remind everybody that for Aya, the year 2025 is a ramp-up year. That's when we started after the commissioning, which was in December of 2024. We did the commissioning of the new plant, and then we went into the ramp-up year. Obviously, each quarter saw some improvement. Today, we're pleased to report that the fourth quarter was an excellent quarter and that the year overall is finishing very, very strong. In the presentation that you have, I would ask you to go to page four, and you see here that we have record revenue, record net income and operating cash flow.

For the year 2025, our revenues are at $202 million, always reporting in US dollars. $202 million compared to $39 million for the previous year. Our net income stands at $46 million after tax and compared to a loss of $26 million in 2024. I also would like to point out that the $46 million is after more than $14 million of stock-based compensation, which is our three-year option program for senior management, which is being expensed. When you look at it on a earnings per share basis, at $46 million after tax, it's an earnings per share of $0.32 or $0.33 per share.

When you look at it on before stock-based compensation, you need to add $0.10 to the earnings per share basis. The cash flow is very strong. We had a cash flow of operating cash flow of $72 million compared to -$9 million on the previous year. We have a very strong position, and we're ending the year with a cash balance unrestricted of $136 million. To that, you need to include $16 million of restricted cash, which is in an account for EBRD, just as part of our long-term $100 million loan that we've obtained from EBRD for the construction of Zgounder. Globally, a very strong Q4 and a very strong year, knowing that it's a ramp-up year.

Moving to slide five, which is where the KPIs are, which I've been telling you about and how we manage, starting on the left-hand side on the mining tonnage. If you see in Q4, we've mined more tons than we've processed, which is a great sign, meaning that now the mine is putting through more ore than we need at the plant. Therefore, we are increasing our stockpiles. You recall that in Q1, Q2 and Q3, we were processing more than we were mining. Now, in Q4, we are mining more than we're processing. If you look at it on a yearly basis, you can see that we mine 1 million tons and we process 1.1 million tons.

For the year, we did eat up a little bit of our run pad, but for the quarter, we have changed the trend and we're now building run pads, which is excellent. The total mining came 62% from the open pit. You know our goal is to be 70/30. We're getting there. But for the year 2025, we are at 62% from the open pit. The milling rate, which is in the middle on page five, is. You see the milling rate, how interesting it is? If you look at Q4 of last year, we were at 1,200 tons a day. You recall that historically we were at 700 tons a day. We were just commissioning the new plant.

By the end of Q1, we were at 2,800 tons a day nameplate capacity. We were at nameplate capacity. You see Q2, we were at 3,000 tons a day. Q3, we were at 3,300. Now Q4, we're at 3,800 tons a day average. By one year of ramp up, we're 1,000 tons a day above the nameplate of 2,700. It's about 40% higher than nameplate. Exceptional plant, very well built. If you go to the right and you look at the recoveries and the availability, well, that tells you everything.

Not only are we operating 40% above nameplate, the recovery for the year is at 88.4%, but the recovery for Q4 is at 91%. Again, you recall that in Q1 2025, we had issues with the oxygen plant. The recoveries were in the low 80s. We told you we would fix that. It was under-designed during the construction and the planning. We corrected it. Now you have a recovery rate of 91.2 in Q4, which is exceptional. It's actually above the design. When we did the feasibility study, our average was supposed to be around 88, and now we're exceeding that by three to four points. Plant availability, you see it on the right-hand side of the slide, page five. Plant availability in Q4 is 99%. I don't think you can beat that.

It's extremely high. For the year, we're at 96%. Obviously, it's a brand-new plant, so we, you know, we're comfortable with this. But all in all, what this is telling us is the plant is absolutely running well. It was built, you recall, a little bit under budget. We commissioned it on time. We ramped it up in one year or in three quarters, and now we're running above nameplate. It's a very robust plant that we have. We produced in Q4 1,547,000 ounces, some of which came from Boumadine, because you know that Boumadine, we're processing stockpile. Globally, it was a very strong quarter. Going to page six, I think that is the summary of our industry.

On the left-hand side, you see it's all about now margin. It's all about margin. Q4 2024, the margin was at the time because we were in ramp up, so in commissioning even, so the margins were very, very small. Then you see to Q1, we get into a margin of $13. Q2, we have, well, $13 margin. Then in Q3, the margin becomes almost $20. Now the margin's $38 in Q4, and the margin for Q1, because, you know, we're now done Q1, we know that the average realized price for the period of Q1 is more like $80. We're about $20 above Q4. That is everything. This is what our industry is all about right now, is the margin. The margin is very high.

It's something that, you know, helps us manage the mining, the grade, the cutoff, but also is showing us and it's creating a lot of liquidity. On the right-hand side of the slide, you see the revenue from Q1 at $34 million to all the way up to Q4 at $75 million. That Q4 at $75 million is based on a net realized silver price of $58. You can imagine that going forward, we are a believer in the silver price. I mean, it's just going to get better. If you look at the net income, Q1 in the ramp up, and I said that in the previous quarters, you know, how many times do you see net income in a ramp-up period?

Net income of $7 million in Q1, of $9 million in Q2, $12 million in Q3, and $18 million in Q4. Very strong Q4 again, and with in Q4 with an earnings per share of $0.12 and for the year of $0.32. Again, and this is after $0.10 of stock-based compensation. Very strong quarter. The plant's running well. The profitability is there. The margins are there. And we have enough cash, and that what takes us to slide number seven, is we have a very strong balance sheet with $136 million in cash. In Q4 of this year, we generated before working cap $68 million of cash flow before working cap changes, $68 million. For Q4, it was $35 million. $68 million for the year, $35 million for the quarter.

That pays for all of our expenses. You know, the CapEx, the capital expenditure for the year was $33 million. The exploration was $42 million. That's for 2025. Now, for 2026, capital and exploration are similar, a bit higher on exploration. But you can see that the cash flow generated covers more than the capital expenditure and the exploration expense. Very strong year again. The cash position unrestricted is at $136 million. We also have a little credit facility of $10 million available with EBRD, it's a $25 million. We did draw on $15 million on it just because we have it, and we did not want the credit facility to end, but we still have $10 million readily available. These are the results, but we're looking at the year 2025.

We just talked about the financial results, the operation, the fact that the mine is producing more than what the mill needs. The mine's running well, the underground's running where we want it to be. The open pit is running where we want it to be. The open pit needs to increase a little bit its throughput, but we're exceeding what we need at the plant. What we did as well in 2025 was a new resource and reserve update at Zgounder. We reviewed the mine plan, we reviewed the geological model. We've, you know, changed the mining approach going from selective, very restrictive mining, where we would take the high-grade zone, and we went to more of a bulk mining scenario.

The reason is because Zgounder is very, very unique geologically. It's not a vein system. You're not following a vein like most silver mines, where you mine what you see and you mine the vein, and you have most of the time silver, a little bit of gold, some have lead and zinc. Here, it's not the case. Here, this Zgounder mine is a loaf of bread. It's 200 m wide, it's 1.4 km long, it's 700 m deep, and it's mineralized. In there, you have some structures where the fluids went by, and those structures are extremely high grade. But globally, the envelope is mineralized. So we've changed the approach. We've reviewed what was there.

Of course, with the new silver price, it's extremely important to understand the geology because we do not want to leave behind pockets of 100 g per ton silver, though they're not in the model or they were deemed to be uneconomic four years ago. Today, this is absolutely economical. What we have is we now mine the entire structure. We have created stockpiles, so a lower grade stockpile between 40 g and 80 g, which is set aside for later. We have the regular stockpile, which we, you know, quantify. Of that, we have 250,000 ton on the regular stockpile.

We follow the mining based on our mine model, but what we are mining is not, again, not a vein, but really a mineralized loaf of bread, which is, you know, we've gone from selective mining to bulk mining. Makes a big difference. You see it on page nine. On page nine, you have the new mine plan. The new mine plan accounts for 6 million ounces of production per year for 11 years. It has an average cash cost for the period of $16.26, an AISC of around $19. If you look at the mine plan in the 43-101 document, you see that for 2026, we're forecasting in that mine plan 5.8 million ounces per year with a cash cost of around $21.

The reason is because of the strip, we're at the beginning of the open pit. We have a lot of strip. Strip ratio is between 13 and 15. We have a lot of strip, and hence, that increases the cash cost in the first few years, and the cash costs will reduce in the later years as the strip is going to be coming down seriously. Today's Zgounder is done. It's built, it's debugged, it's running smoothly. It has its own team. It's accountable, and it's predictable. It will be 6 million right now based on what we know in geology, because, of course, we're always looking for more. But with what we know, it's 6 million ounces per year for 11 years with an all-in, with a cash cost of $16.26.

Also this year, and going to page 10, this year being 2025, we've completed the PEA on Boumadine. Now that's been, you know, in the making for a couple of years. We've done a lot of drilling. We knew that this was a very robust project, and we did it on the 2024 resource, which was available at the beginning of 2025. We did a very thorough PEA with a lot of the work done to higher than a PEA level. What this is showing us, the highlight of the PEA is the low initial CapEx.

That's the highlight of the PEA, $446 million of CapEx to build a company or a project that will be producing per year for the first five years, 400,000 ounces of gold equivalent or 37.5 million ounces of silver equivalent. Now, we're showing it to you on a one to five year basis because year six and after will be compensated by putting in the 2025 drill program, which was not put in at the time. We are doing this as we speak, and that will be ready for the end of June, beginning of July. That's going to change the mine plan, and it's going to change the production profile in the later years.

based on the 2024 results. When you have a project using $2,800 gold and $30 silver, you have a project on a pre-tax basis that gives us $2.2 billion of net present value. It's got a CapEx efficiency ratio of five to one, CapEx to NPV, an internal rate of return of 69% and a payback of 1.3 years. That is using $2,800 gold and $30 silver. You can imagine that at the current price and with the production that's goin to be updated, this project is even more robust than what we're seeing. All of that for year one to five, the AISC on a gold equivalent production will be around $920.

Where do you have that kind of a project that can produce 400,000 ounces of gold equivalent on an AISC of low $900 and a CapEx of $446 million? Extremely unique, extremely rare in a great jurisdiction, and that's what Boumadine is all about. When we looked at Boumadine on page 11, it's a district scale project with low initial CapEx, extremely rare, extremely unique. It has a strong production profile with high-grade material. The mining permit is in hand. Strong economic base on production of three marketable concentrates. Now, that's very important. You have a lead concentrate, you have a zinc concentrate, and then you have a pyrite concentrate. Out of the three concentrates, we will recover silver and gold, silver, lead and zinc.

Now, the pyrite concentrate, which historically people thought was a problem, well, it's actually now an asset. Because following the war and following what's been happening in the Middle East, sulfur has gone from $100 a ton to $500 a ton and is expected to go as high as $800 a ton. Sulfur comes from the pyrite concentrate because we have sulfur in the pyrite concentrate. So the value of our concentrate has never been as good as it is right now and is expected to continue. So historically, when people were saying, "you know, projects like that are complicated," and all that, sure, if you have low-grade material, it can be more complicated.

In this case, with a project where on a silver equivalent basis, you're at 450 g per ton or in a gold equivalent basis, you're almost 5 g per ton. You're in open pit situation and underground, and you have 45% sulfur in your pyrite concentrate. This is really a valuable concentrate. We're fast-tracking this. We're pushing now on the revised PEA, which to show you exactly how profitable this project is going to be once we've inputted the new resource reserve resource model and some of the new data that we have, especially on the marketing side of the concentrate. Again, to close the year 2025, we did a lot of drilling.

As I always say, Aya is an exploration company, but it has, you know, one project in operation, one project in development, and we do a lot of drilling. At Zgounder this year, we completed 28,000 meters of drilling. The budget was 25,000. And the average cost per meter is $144. Extremely good cost. This is all core drilling. It's all diamond drilling. It's giving us a lot of information. We have many new targets. We have discovered extensions to the Zgounder main project, and we also have many new targets that we will be drilling this year. At Boumadine, we've drilled 150,000 m this year, this year being 2025. The target was 140,000 m. We exceeded the target.

Our cost of drilling is also similar at $144 a meter, diamond drilling. We have discovered extension to the zones, the three mineralized zones that we have, and we've also discovered new zones in the Boumadine complex. You know, Boumadine is a very large piece of land. It's a district. This year, we've added 10 new permits. We have a footprint that is in excess of 300 km2 under the exploration permit, and we have an additional 500 km under a reconnaissance permit, which is an exploration permit, but not yet turned into the exploration permit that gets transferred into a mining permit. It's different steps in how they approach exploration in Morocco.

We have, we've had a fantastic year drilling almost 180,000 m in 2025 with beautiful results at Zgounder and at Boumadine. Moving just to the guidance. This is already public. We told you that this year we expect to produce between 6.2 and 6.8. We know that in the mine plan at Zgounder, it's based for 5.8 million. Again, just to be conservative, we've given a guidance of 5.2-5.8, and we've put in 1 million ounces silver equivalent at Boumadine, where we're treating tailings. The cash cost at Zgounder is as per the mine plan. Again, I would refer you to the 43-101 document, FS 2025, and Boumadine is at $10. That is extremely conservative.

You'll see that in Q4, we were a lot lower than this. Sustaining and growth capital for the year is at $36 million, which is at Zgounder mainly to push the ramp down to the granite, to the contact of the granite, where we see high-grade mineralization. We're going to be pushing this all the way down. We will also be putting in an ore sorter, and we are working on increasing throughput capacity, though we are at 3,800. We're putting a little bit of work to bring our throughput capacity to exceed 4,000 tons per day. Very reasonable capital to be spent this year.

The exploration program, of course, the $60 million exploration program, and that is mainly, you know, 200,000 meters at Boumadine, which we really hope to exceed. I have to say that as of now, we are ahead of schedule there on our drilling, and we will be drilling 20,000 m at Zgounder as well. Going forward for 2026, the guidance is straightforward. The costs are well under control as we are now, you know, in cruising speed at Zgounder. Just to close, what's the focus and where are we going? The focus is to accelerate Boumadine. We do not need debt financing. We don't need new equity financing. We can do Boumadine with our own cash.

We totally have $130 million in cash. If everything stays where we are right now, we could be generating net-net of all expenses, $200 million this year. We can fast-track the feasibility study in which we are fast-tracking the feasibility study. All the work that needs to be done, every chapter in the feasibility study is being worked on right now. We will start the construction of every element that is completed in this feasibility study as quickly as possible. The drilling, as I've mentioned, is ongoing, at 180,000 m of infill drilling on the main structures, which is to convert inferred resource into measured and indicated. Regional is really depending on what we see and what we find, but currently budgeted at 20,000 m.

Again, this is completely open as we're drilling some very high priority targets on the Boumadine regional play. At Zgounder, we will continue to optimize mining operation. As I said, we want to increase the open pit a little bit more. We want to better control the grade in the open pit. We still need to work on that. Of all the KPIs, the only one left is to really control the grade in the open pit a little bit better. The underground is done. The throughput is done with the underground. We will continue to optimize mining operation. We have steady-state production. Of course, our goal is to take the 3,700 tons per day and push it up to 4,000 tons per day. We always look at other means to increase plant capacity.

The story is very simple, is you have an asset that's in production, that's built, that's debugged, that has 100 million ounces of measured indicated resource, that will give you 6 million ounces a year at an AISC of $19, let's put it, 16 cash cost plus about three. Let's say $20. You have 6 million ounces with a $20 all-in cash costs or costs, not cash costs. With that, it generates enough money to build the second asset, which is currently in development, which is called Boumadine. Boumadine today stands at 450 million ounces of silver equivalent, but that is being updated because that did not take into account the 2025 drill results. That's being put in as we speak. We'll have the revised PEA available for you in a couple of months.

On page 15 to the right, that to me is the future of Aya, is you look at Aya and what kind of strength it has. Well, it has a project that will produce 6 million ounces called Zgounder, and it has a second project, which is discovered geology done, metallurgy done, flow sheet done, water identified, power from the grid, people available. We're taking the same construction team. Many suppliers are the same. And that project, once built, will produce 37 million ounces per year of silver equivalent. So as a company, we will be approximately 43 million ounces silver equivalent as a company. So when you look at this and you compare this level to others, we're clearly the up-and-coming silver producer with these two assets, not taking into account Zgounder regional, Boumadine regional, and the other assets that we have.

Going to page 16 to close. As I always say, to be successful, you need three things, and these are the three, the ends of each of the triangle: you need geology, which we have in Morocco. You need jurisdiction, which we have in Morocco, because it is absolutely one of the best jurisdictions in the world. You need the people that have done it, that have built mines, have developed mines, have made discoveries, and we have that. If you have geology, you have jurisdiction, you have people, and you are disciplined in not issuing too many shares, this is the success to have the best return on equity, meaning you have strong production, and we have here. If you look at our triangle, geology is at the top.

Strong growth profile, absolutely, moving from 6 million ounces to 43 million ounces of silver equivalent. Core asset strength. We have two districts, and we're adding more districts to the story as we're putting in more permits. Exploration track record, I think we have the best in the industry, having discovered 550 million ounces of silver equivalent in the last five years. You have a tight capital structure with only 141 million shares outstanding. No need to increase that number. We have cash in the bank. We're generating cash, and we're building a tier one asset, which is Boumadine, that will add 37 million ounces of silver equivalent as soon as it's ready to get into production.

When you look at this triangle, this is, you know, why you want to be with us in Aya, because you have the three elements that really create success. This completes the formal part of the presentation. I will now, operator, open it up for questions.

Our first question comes from the line of Justin Chan of SCP Resource Finance. Please go ahead.

Hi, Benoit, Raphael, Ugo, and team. Congrats on a big year. My first question is just, you touched on sulfur today. I was just curious, I guess maybe both, on both the positive and negative aspects of current events. Could you talk us through, are you seeing any changes in terms of fuel pricing? I guess, how do you plan ahead for that this year? Then on sulfur, for the updated PEA, could you give us a sense of how the payabilities might look? I realize, like, today's terms might not be what you've modeled long term, but I'm just curious if you can kind of give us a quantum on the payabilities from the prior PEA.

Yeah. Thanks, Justin. It's a very, very good question and very current question. We're on that on a regular basis. I'll turn this over to Ugo, and Ugo and Raphaël are managing that part of, you can imagine, of the PEA. Ugo, do you want to go ahead?

Yeah. On sulfur, there's a few things. Obviously, sulfur pricing has gone from $150 when we did our PEA to close to $700 today. And also gold and silver prices have significantly increased since our PEA. The second thing is that because we're selling our tailings, we also have a much better idea of the market. We actually have some guys in China right now, meeting with some of our clients, and so we expect that the payables that we have in our PEA to go up pretty substantially. Will we get paid for sulfur?

I don't think we're going to have that as a base case in our update, but we are looking at some stuff in Morocco. We do have one of the largest purchasers of sulfur in the world in the OCP, and with current price environments, obviously, us exporting a pyrite, which is very high sulfur content, I think they'd like to have some of that. We're looking at that as well, but I think that's going to be a kind of a separate thing from the main project.

Justin, just in the PEA, the payability was established at 73%. Since then, they had revised their offer to 75% payability, and there's no long-term agreement yet signed because they're indicating to us that, you know, this will also improve, as Ugo said, considerably. We're keeping all of the options open. We have an agreement that is signed for the Boumadine tailings because that is being exported every quarter right now to the probably similar clients or the same clients that we're going to have for the Boumadine main production in a couple of years. Is that-

Yeah. Above 75 and potentially materially above that?

Exactly. Yes.

Okay. Perfect. Yeah, just maybe the other part of the question was just in terms of, I guess, what are you guys seeing in terms of fuel prices, consumables? I'd imagine where you are, it's not a question of availability, but just curious how you guys. If you have anything to manage with regards to price and, you know, protecting yourselves, I guess, in the long term.

So on that, for sure what's happening right now is affecting fuel prices everywhere. Morocco is not special. Morocco's fuel prices have gone up basically $0.30 in the last. It's by law. The law states the fuel prices, and they've gone up pretty substantially. We have that. We have zinc and we have cyanide. Those are our three main aspects. Our procurement teams are on it. We have quite a bit of cyanide and zinc on site already. I think on that, we're quite fine. Then fuel, we have to manage, and it's not so much a price. It's obviously going to affect cash costs like everybody else.

On availability, we're keeping a close eye on it, and we're working with our contractors and ourselves to see if we can get more storage locally. We have a pretty healthy stockpile as well. Even if ever we'd have to stop the mine, we don't run. We run our plant on electricity, and so we can still run for a good while, even if there was ever a constraint on fuel.

Yeah, Justin, the big element here is our energy is from the grid. It's solar and wind, as we know. Unlike many other production assets in Africa where they have to buy fuel for energy, we do not have to buy fuel for energy. Our consumption is actually quite low when I compare that to what we were doing historically at SEMAFO and what we're buying right now in Aya. It's much lower. The risk exposure is quite much smaller. As Ugo said, we have stockpile, but we don't see any issues at the moment except for a small increase in the price.

Got you. Thanks. No, that's really helpful. Just one last one is, we're almost through the first quarter now. I know it's Q4 reporting, but just curious. I guess with almost a quarter done, I'm just curious what you're seeing in terms of mining from the open pit and underground. In Q4, you did really well on grade from the underground, good on volume. The open pit had a ton of volume, a little bit lower grade. I'm just curious if Q1 looks similar to Q4 or quite different actually.

Well, Ralph, do you want to take this question?

Yes. Hi, Justin. The beginning of the year went quite well. We have continued to increase our stockpile. We have continued to increase our mining rate in the open pit. As I've mentioned before, with what we call the Super Pit and our change in mining strategy, everything is focused on ounce recovery to increase the recovery in the mine of silver, especially in this pricing environment. This is what the team is focusing on, continue to accelerate the open pit, sustain the underground as it is, and focus on ore recovery. If there's silver in it, we mine it. The head grade has been stable as of what we've seen last year.

We continue to evaluate what the best way, the most cost-effective and the fastest way to increase and to sustain plant throughput. This year, we have several projects on the go to sustain throughput and to even increase it further. That's reflected in our guidance. Now as for the grade, as you said, Q1 is almost over, and it's been quite similar, but the strip is slowly decreasing, throughput is stabilizing, and we continue to increase our stockpile. As the year goes on, we will also continue to at least sustain the throughput and find ways to improve it.

Okay, thanks. That's really helpful.

Thanks, Justin.

All right. Thanks, guys. I'll stay on the line. Thank you very much.

Thank you. As a reminder, if you have a question, please press star one one. Our next question comes from Don DeMarco of National Bank. Your line is open.

Good morning, Benoit team. Thanks for taking my call. Benoit, you mentioned that a focus is to accelerate Boumadine, and of course, we're looking forward to the updated PEA later this year. What are the levers or potential bottlenecks that you have to fast-track the FS? And then even looking at the construction beyond that, you know, how can you potentially expedite that, and how much wiggle room is there in the schedule in certain optimal scenarios?

Well, you know, the fact that you don't need debt is major because as you know, if we needed some debt, you'd have to complete the feasibility study, give it to the lenders. They would hire outside consultants that would come over for a couple of months, review the work, question the work. We'd have to answer. You're looking at six to nine months of time that is needed just to put the debt facility in place, as we did when we did Zgounder with EBRD, and you know, we went through a whole process. In this case, assuming the silver price stays where it is and is or increasing, we don't need that. The team is doing, like let's take water.

Water, we're putting together the strategy where the water is coming from. We probably will have to build some pipelines in between some of the villages where we're going to take gray water. We're also going to use one of the aquifer. As soon as that's done, the team will look at what can be done immediately, and we will start that right now. Same thing for power. Power will come from the grid. Power is built, as you know, with the national utility company. We're not going to wait for a banker to accept the PEA and give us the debt. We will get going immediately. Every chapter that we do, we look at what we can do and how fast we can do it. It's, you know.

Of course, it's not as nice as having a Gantt chart, and you say, "We'll be ready by mid-2027, and then we'll do the debt financing, and then we'll do the construction." Our mind is let's get this done as quickly as possible. We you know are not cutting corners on technical things. We're not cutting corners on the flow sheet or because it's still an 8,000/10,000-ton per day flotation plant, so not complicated, but you still have to build it. We're not cutting corners, but clearly the fact that you don't need equity or debt will accelerate the construction of this project.

Okay. Yeah, that's a good point. On the debt, I mean, you've got a little bit of debt on your balance sheet right now and looking at the cash flows that are coming in. Are you thinking that maybe you might delever some of that, ahead of, you know, as the FS, you know, gets finalized and ahead of the Boumadine construction decision?

Yes, absolutely. The debt, as you know, is with EBRD. They're very, very good financial partners. They've been great. They're important in the country. You know, we don't want to pay them down and if we have even small penalties to pay, which we do have, that's per the agreement. We're looking at what we can do with them. On the other hand, the fact that, you know, it's a repayment over four years allows us. Yeah, we think of this EBRD facility today as funding for Boumadine. We could pay it down almost today if we wanted to and be done with the debt. We're also keeping it in.

Keeping it there while we see where the silver price goes, what's the cash flow per quarter, because think of it as being, you know, utilized. Whatever is generated is utilized on accelerating Boumadine. But we do have the flexibility. Yes, you will see over the next quarters and next year that the debt will be lower, knowing that if we wanted to at one point in time in country, we could utilize Zgounder to you know if we needed some debt, which we don't, but if we needed some debt, Zgounder could be also the backbone of a special financing, you know, balance sheet financing, not project finance.

Okay. That excellent color there. Thank you. Just finally, as a last question, what are your thoughts on M&A at this stage? I mean, I think over time there's been some discussion about there might be some smaller opportunities in Morocco, whatever stage that might be, maybe even close to production. But is that part of your strategy going forward over the next few years? Or is it more singularly focused on Boumadine? Thank you.

No, it is, and we do review opportunities all the time, but we're extremely disciplined. We have something fantastic, two districts, Zgounder and Boumadine. Often people say, "What about... What after Boumadine?" I say, "Well, there'll be Boumadine two, Boumadine three, Boumadine four because of the size of the district." There's a lot to come. We do look at things and if we don't like the price because they're asking too much and we don't think it's justified, we are extremely disciplined. You're not going to see anything outside of Morocco. We have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of potential in Morocco. We're staying focused to this jurisdiction. We like it. We're comfortable.

We have our team there. We are disciplined. Are we looking to buy in Morocco? Absolutely. Very small transactions that's not going to affect really the AISC, and most of that is not for shares. Most of it is also for, you know, small cash payments and payment over time. Yes, we are looking to increase the portfolio. We do want to have a third and maybe a fourth district. It will. I'm quite comfortable that something's going to get done in 2026.

Okay. Thank you very much. Congratulations and good luck with Q1.

Thank you. Thanks, Don.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our Q&A period. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Benoit for closing remarks.

Thank you, operator. Thanks everybody for being on the call today. Look, Q1 is done. It's done today. What's coming for Aya in the coming few quarters is you will still see some Zgounder and Boumadine drill results. We have a very large program at Zgounder and an extremely large program at Boumadine. You will see drill results on a regular basis. You will see, of course, our Q1 financial results mid-May. I believe May the 15th, we'll be issuing our Q1 financial results. Also, we didn't talk about this yet, but we are completing our U.S. listing. We were waiting to have our financial statements for the year 2025. Those are going to be filed with the American and with the Nasdaq stock exchange.

Hopefully, in a couple of weeks, we'll be able to announce that we will start trading on the Nasdaq in the States. Coming is the Boumadine technical report, as we said, over the summer. As soon as we have that available, we will be putting this out to show you the strength of this tier one asset. As Don asked, for 2026, there's going to be an in-country consolidation of new districts that we like, that we see, with the. We believe that there's a silver component to it. Some may have silver gold, others that we look at are silver copper, but we definitely are looking to increase our land package with silver exposure. Look, that is the end of this call.

I believe we had a very good year, 2025. The ramp up is a ramp up. It ended very well. We had a strong performance. We're getting into 2026 with a very strong view on silver. We're very happy with our new mining method at Zgounder, where we know we go bulk mining because we believe that bulk mining silver is extremely rare, but it's also very appropriate when you have a strong silver price. Thank you, all of you for being there. We will see you in 45 days, in May for the Q1 financial results. Thank you and have a good day.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.