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 and rain and wind.

This year, due to the fact that we lost 5 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 had 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 5 days of production. When you look at the highlights, it's record revenue of $117 million.

It's record cash flow of $70 million. It's a record net income after tax of $49 million.

It's a cash balance at the end of the quarter of unrestricted cash of $172 million. It's a production of almost 1.5 million oz for the quarter with record mining rates, really strong quarter.

As we have a record mining rates, we've also increased our stockpiles. Taking you through our presentation that we use, showing you some, graphics, if we go to page 4 after the forward-looking statement, you see exactly what I've just said.

The record revenue in Q1 2026 at $117 million, compare that to last year at $34 million. The net income of $49 million compared to last year of $7 million, with an EPS of $33 fully diluted, 34 33 or 33 cents, sorry, fully diluted and 34 on a non-diluted basis.

When you look at Q1 of operating cash flow this year at $70 million compared to last year, $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 a million ounces of silver to Q1 of 2026 where 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 5 days of weather-related events. Moving on to the page to page 5 of of the of the presentation, very interesting on the left-hand side, the quarterly mining tonnage.

We've always been saying that the mining has to follow the plant. The plant expand is is the plant's production profile has been, 30% to 40% above nameplate capacity, but the mine also, needs to follow the plant, and the mine is actually now exceeding the plant.

You see on the left-hand side, last year, we were running at 2,200 t/d. In Q4, we were at 4,200 t/d.

Now by Q1, this quarter, we were running at 4,600 t/d. Absolutely stellar performance from the mine, from the open pit, and from the underground mine.

The grade is also, steady and improving, we're pleased with the outcome of of the mining and the grade and the throughput. Then on the right-hand side, you look at the plant.

In Q4, the plant was running at 3,800 t/d. In Q1, the plant's running as well and if not sometimes higher, but as indicated, because of the lost days and and if some of you have followed the weather in in Morocco, it was extremely rare.

Like they had two times the historical average rainfall and and snowfall in in all of Morocco. I was there 2 weeks ago, and the the week before that there was snow in Marrakech, which is is absolutely, rare.

This is 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. 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 in many, many, many years are now full.

That the water situation globally for the country was extremely good. Moving on to slide number 6, a quick word on Boumadine.

At Boumadine, we are reclaiming the pyrite. The operation is going extremely well.

We produced 127,000 oz of silver and 1,737 oz of of gold, a little bit lower than what we wanted it to be. Again, weather-related, because, of course, the bad weather of of of Zgounder was also, weather-related in at Boumadine.

The other situation with Boumadine is because we are exporting the pyrite tonnage, the the the ports in Morocco were shut down for 1 month because of weather, because of floods. Of course, that's why, the silver equivalent sold, if when you look at page 6, you see the silver equivalent produced of 227,000 oz and only 50,000 oz sold.

One reason: exporting is, we produce it, we ship it to port, and then it stayed there because we could not ship it just because of of very, 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, it it we were a little bit affected, especially on the shipment of the concentrate to Asia. The Boumadine project is is is really an add-on to Zgounder.

It's minimal CapEx, very, very low cash cost. It's it's positive cash flow.

The the grade reconciliation is actually better. We have the 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 of the historical waste that was left there for many, many years. It's it's still going on, and it's it's it's accelerating now.

In Q2, Q3, and Q4, we are accelerating the reclamation of the Boumadine pyrite. Going to page 7 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, we were working with a $12 margin in Q1 last year and staying at $12 in Q2 of last year.

Then margins started going up to $20 in Q3, and then you saw to about $40 in Q4, and now margins right now are like $63 in Q1 of 2026. Obviously you're you are following the silver price, and and and we're seeing that this is is is, is very, very It's a very strong silver price at the moment, and our costs are are 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 going to 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 should we do not expect costs to increase more than, maybe $1 an ounce if they do if they increase by that much, and the reason is really because of the source of energy. On the right-hand side, you see the the the growth of revenue, and obviously as I said, Q1 as at $117 million US revenue with a net income after tax of $49 million.

This is a very strong performance of of revenue increasing. Of course, it's due to the silver price, as as we understand what the production profile is, but this that the silver price is is 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 it's showing.

Now, the average of 82, as we as we speak right now, the silver price is higher than the average of Q1 2026. The net income, well net income after tax of $49 million with an an EPS of $33.

Very and taking us to page 8, a very strong balance sheet. We finished the quarter with $172 million US in the bank, and on top of that, we have the restricted cash that we have for the EBRD loan of $16 million US.

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 $100 million and which, we we we we could pay, but it's it's a very good and and and not so expensive loan with EBRD.

There's no point in in in pushing the the repayment of that debt. When you look at cash from operation at $70 million, our capital expenditure program is is $4 million.

The exploration and evaluation, exploration mainly, is is $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 an $18 cash cost and and, the all the capital expenditure behind us, it's a very, very profitable quarter. Moving to page 9, which is our guidance.

Our guidance is was was presented to you at the beginning of 2026. We are maintaining our guidance.

We though we're a little bit below where we wanted it 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, and we knew that. That was part of our planning.

We're very comfortable with our guidance of 6.2 to 6.8 million oz, the Zgounder production between 5.2 and 5.8, the Boumadine at 1 million oz of silver equivalent. We're very comfortable with that.

Now when you look at the Zgounder cash cost at $21.50, I understand that we were at $18 this quarter, but, it's a question of the strip ratio, and we know that, over time, we're going to be a little bit higher than this. We're comfortable to say that the on the guidance at $21.50 is is where it should be.

The Boumadine cash cost at $10.10. In Q4, it was 6.

In in in Q1 of this year, it's more like 11. We're we're very close.

We're also going to ramp up on quantity, and 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, 18, and growth capital is 18 for a total of 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 $60 million.

As 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 it's a 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?

Look, Boumadine is a top priority. We're very happy and very, in 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, we are stepping up on every aspect I always say every chapter of the study, make it water, PSF, 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 are We have identified the contractors for the open pit.

We have identified the contractors for the flow sheet. For we we will be going to detailed engineering shortly.

We we we are working with the 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 2020 in Q1, obviously, 42,000 m. This was the ramp-up plus it was the the 1 month of Ramadan, which we for during that Ramadan, sometimes we do not drill as much, and we do have a a a 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, well, just, be more efficient, control your costs, make sure that, 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 and and sterilize those ounces. We take it out.

If it's between 50 and 80 g/t, we stockpile it. We don't, we expense it.

It's in the cash cost, but we stockpile it. If it is between 80 and and, the the the deposit grade, we put it through.

We have a stockpile, and then we put 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 t/d and controlling costs.

We've we've also been working on the tailings facility, because originally the tailings was planned for 2,800 t/d. We're now running close to 4,000 t/d.

We've decided to do the first phase of 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 $16, ASIC around $19, life of mine extremely profitable, and that is only from one structure. You will see 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 and, if possible, even increase the throughput.

Our development asset, Boumadine, well, that is the PEA is 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 1 year the structure, so that will be updated, and it will be included in 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 $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 $14, making us a 43 million oz producer, of course, silver equivalent.

That will have an average ASIC when you look at 20 or 19 for Zgounder and 14 for Boumadine, you're looking at mid-teens per an ASIC. 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.

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 a new zones. We will be pushing the drilling on on the main zone, of course, up to 180,000 m.

On the exploration on regional, as we keep telling the team, as soon as you have another structure where you want to really drill it out, just come back to the committee and to the management committee, and we will give you more budget. Boumadine as an exploration play is very unique.

It's got big systems. The main zone is is over 5.4 km.

You have also Imhirine, which is an 8 km-long structure. We have very, very, very strong zone.

Tizi is a parallel zone, and it's also 5.4 km long. Boumadine is a major regional play.

Zgounder, well, Zgounder is 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 the all the geological upside of a major, major exploration company drilling 230, 240,000 oz oz, 240,000 m of 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 as planned, as planned. We are pleased with the the production.

We are confirming our guidance, and we look forward to a stronger Q2 and much stronger Q4 and Q5 to close the year again. Based on the the silver price, it it should be an extremely profitable year.

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

Hi Benoit and team, thanks for taking my question. I guess I'll start off asking about the severe weather conditions.

Benoit, can you tell us 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 that were 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 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?

Thank you for your question. I'll pass it over to Ralph, 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 and 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 t/d on average in Q1, and 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 and in operation now, a bit as a contingency for weather and also to help debottleneck the plant a bit on the crushing side.

This contractor will stay there as long as we need it, and we're also contemplating to increase our own crushing capacity within the 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 plant remains saturated.

The stockpiles? Oh

yeah, sorry. The stockpile, we sit about 300,000 t right now.

It's close to a 3 months' worth of production. It's a buffer that well, 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 t/d 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 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 t is probably where we want to 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 sublevels, we can focus now more of 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 what it's there for.

Perfect. Sounds good.

Thanks, Ralph.

Towards a pushback in the open pit towards the end of the year.

Perfect. Sounds good.

Thanks, Ralph. I guess kind of shifting gears away from Zgounder now and walking back to Boumadine.

This quarter, there was some commercialization of the pyrite concentrate. We see the costs come in at $11.86 per ounce 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 costs 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, but it's tough to make a parallel with our future Boumadine project. It has nothing to do.

This is a small project. It's going to be reclaimed for the next 2 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, but one is not comparable with another.

Gotcha. Sounds good.

All right, I think that's all the questions I have today. Thanks, Raphaël, and thanks, Benoit and team, for taking my questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, guys. Congrats on a good quarter, and thanks for the update.

My first one's just 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?

Then I saw the underground really push tonnage quite hard. Do you expect that to continue, or I think you were foreshadowing maybe you're shifting more to development and into the lower levels, should we expect tonnage mined to come down a little bit from that high pace in Q1 from the underground?

Hi, Justin. Good question, actually.

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 where it deserves, 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 steam underground.

The open pit has showed it can deliver. Now 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. This is what we expect on the longer term.

Can you hear me, Justin?

I can hear you well. Thanks, Ralph.

Okay. For the underground, absolutely.

We've been at a rate of over 1,500 t/d underground, and we have some of these levels that we want to 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 sublevel development.

We're comfortable at an underground rate at around 1,000 t/d 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 12 to 1,300 t/d is probably the sweet spot we need to really focus on those sublevels for which we also know we have pretty good grade going down.

Gotcha. Thanks, Ralph.

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

Again, what we published in our feasibility is above 3,600 this year and 38.50 next year. Internally, we're trying to beat that.

Our best days right now are around 4,300 t/d. Those are punctual best daily performance.

I think, Justin, around 3,800 is probably where we'll be comfortably at in the near future, and 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.

So 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.

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 3 or is it too early to say that?

Hi Justin, it's Ugo. 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 trucks, we're learning it. It's going to be spread out throughout the year, and we're trying to modify things a little bit to send larger shipments.

On that, I think 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 going to change because it's old material that has been there for a long time, that the sulfur quantity is a lot less than fresh rock from Boumadine.

The volumes are small on the two to 240,000 t total, and so we've agreed on a price and on a contract with our traders, and so that's not going to change throughout that stockpile.

Justin, if I can add on payability, the payability is changing on the bigger project. Because that has 45% sulfur.

As Ugo said, the tailings is a bit worn out, it's got very good gold and silver content. Pyrite is a bit tired, it's not changing on the small project, but on the bigger project, it is changing in an important way.

Absolutely. Thanks very much.

That's really helpful color. Thanks, Ugo, and thanks, Benoit.

Thanks, overall. I'll hop out of the line.

Thanks, Justin.

Good morning, morning, Benoit and team. A few questions from me.

The first one, Q1 was the the fourth quarter in a row where unit unit costs at Zgounder on a per-ton basis have trended down. A portion of that is obviously more more open pit material, but I mean they they settled in around $80 a ton in Q1.

They were north of $100 a ton a few quarters ago. Is that $80 a ton a good number going forward?

Do you think it's going to continue trending down or where do you expect to settle out?

I can comment a bit on the on the ounce unit unit costs. Our costs have been going going down, and we're we're happy about that.

Throughput has been going up, and and production has been stabilizing in the open pit, in the underground. Now a lot of that of that unit cost saving comes from the underground unit cost per ton as well as the open pit unit cost per ton, and we've also had gains in the plant as we process more throughput and stabilize our cyanide consumption.

We've been winning on all fronts, including a site services and and and surface and utilities as we're towarding being more a mature operation. We're happy to see that.

Now 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 on the sequencing, we have months Now this quarter, strip ratio was around 9, which is which is quite exceptional.

The overall strip ratio of the open pit gets better through the life of mine, and again, we've we've made that quite clear in our in our latest 43-101. It will it it will increase slightly this year towards, especially towards the end of the year, we'll have a bit higher strip ratio in the open pit, and and I expect our strip ratio for the year to sit between 13 and 16.

Our our we'll continue to improve our overall cost, but 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 that costs are good, but on the long term, the the 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 in our in our projections.

Thank you. That's good color.

Second, what do you expect your average, 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 5 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% in 2026, a 35%. Then 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 3 3 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 100 million dirhams of profit pays 20%. We know there's the World Cup coming.

I think the government, like all governments, needs money, but more and more, we're starting to see companies like ourselves and 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.

It's our biggest cost today.

Yeah. Got it.

Then 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. If we want to repay like all debt, there's prepayment penalties.

We do have a slide-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 repay capital in January and July. Assuming things continue like this, I think we're going to be using that option to cash sweep money out of the country and then force a cash sweep and prepay some of that.

That's the expectation. Cash has to keep going up, but 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.

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 going to get you, how much runway you'll have once that expansion is done?

Sure. The first phase was obviously a short one to keep capital cost throughout the initial construction.

Phase 2 is our biggest raise. 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.

Great. Thank you very much.

Maybe just on the Boumadine, you're coming out with a new PEA, you said sort of June-July timeframe. Any views on CapEx there?

Should we expect meaningful changes from the last study you put out?

Ralph is with us today, and he's in charge of the team that's overseeing the Boumadine study, 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 don't expect capital to go higher than the PEA or sit in the same range.

Fantastic. 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 ordering of long-lead-time items or critical-path items we should be looking at, or maybe updates on the status, please?

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 9 months expansion. It's something that can be done within probably within a year.

It's not really important because in the meantime, we have the crushing contractor that then bridges that gap.

Fantastic. That's very helpful.

I appreciate the added color. I'll hop back in the queue.

Cheers.

Thank you, operator. Thank you for all the questions.

Look, what is coming for us now is, 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 at 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 more news from us.

We will be on the road for the coming 2 months meeting some of our shareholders in United States and in Europe. As you're fully aware, we started trading a week ago or 10 days ago on NASDAQ.

It's going extremely well. We're getting a lot of positive feedback.

We're really pleased with the NASDAQ listing. Globally, and again, I will close on this, 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, and 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. We are in a country that does not just tolerate mining, but in a country where mining is part of their strategic plan, and they want it to be very successful.

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 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, and 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 US in exploration, drilling 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 jurisdictions 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, and 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. Then we should take a few weeks off for the summer.

Thank you very much. We'll see you in the coming weeks, and otherwise we'll see you at the Q2 conference call in August.

Thank you.