Thank you, operator. I would also like to welcome everyone to Hemlo Mining's Second Quarter 2026 Financial and Operating Results Conference Call.

Before we begin, I would like to note that we will be making forward-looking statements during today's call. I would direct you to the second slide of our earnings presentation, which contains important cautionary notes regarding these forward-looking statements.

The earnings presentation, including the cautionary notes, can be found on Hemlo Mining's corporate website. All dollar amounts discussed today will refer to US dollars, unless otherwise indicated.

Our news release, MD&A, and financial statements for the second quarter of 2026 are available on SEDAR+ and on our corporate website at hemlomining.com. On the call today, I'm joined by our President, CEO and Director, Jason Kosec; Chief Financial Officer, Jon Case; Chief Operating Officer, Eric Tremblay; Vice President, Operations and General Manager, Garett Macdonald; and Vice President, Exploration, Raphael Dutaut.

Also joining the call is our Executive Chair, Jonathan Awde. Today we are pleased to provide an operating and financial update for the second quarter of 2026, followed by a live Q&A session.

With that, I would like to hand the call over to Jason Kosec to kick things off.

Thanks, Jason, and good morning, everyone. Q2 2026 was our first full quarter under our owner-operator model, and it was a quarter of real progress: resource growth, changes to the mining sequencing, disciplined execution, and several key corporate milestones.

For those new to the story, Hemlo Mining is a Canadian gold producer operating the Hemlo Gold Camp in northwestern Ontario. The Hemlo Gold Mine has produced roughly 25 million ounces since 1985, making it one of the most prolific gold mines in Canadian history.

Our vision is to build the next Canadian gold champion, a nimble, owner-driven company that scales into an intermediate, multi-asset producer through an unrelenting focus on performance and zero harm. Turning to slide 4, on an attributable basis, the Hemlo Mine produced 25,188 gold ounces and sold 27,858 gold ounces during the quarter.

All-in sustaining costs were $2,561 an ounce sold. Revenue was $142 million on an average realized price of $4,467 an ounce.

Net income was $31 million, or 10 cents per share. Adjusted net income was $27 million, or 9 cents per share.

We ended the quarter with a cash balance of $130 million. As we highlighted in our production results, planned changes to the mining sequencing temporarily weighed on the grade profile to the mill.

Eric will provide additional color on this shortly. The underlying operations strengthened significantly.

Importantly, we executed across our strategic priorities: zero lost-time injuries and three straight years without an LTI; an updated mineral resource estimate that grew the measured and indicated resources by 34%, adding 1.2 million ounces of gold. We also graduated to the TSX and made our debut on the OTCQX in the US.

We also signed an impact benefit agreement with Biigtigong Nishnaabeg and appointed Eva Caughey to our board. Together, this quarter's operational, resource, and corporate progress reinforces the confidence in the long-term value creation opportunity here.

I'll now hand the call over to Eric to walk you through the operational results.

Thanks, Jason. Good morning, everyone.

On slide 5, we have highlighted operational metrics for the quarter on the left and key takeaways on the right. Starting with safety, the Hemlo Mine recorded no lost-time injuries and no environmental non-compliance during the quarter, and achieved three years consecutive without lost-time injury.

This reflects a deeply embedded safety culture that we are committed to preserving and building on. The second quarter marked our first full quarter operating under the owner-operator model, the first time the mine has operated this way since 2019.

Recruiting and training progressed well. The mine now employs 529 full-time employees alongside 269 contractors, approximately 75% from local communities.

Turning to operation, the Hemlo Mine produced 25,188 attributable gold ounces in the quarter, with Williams processing 289,000 tonnes at an average grade of 2.53 grams per tonne gold, and Interlake processing 61,000 tonnes at an average grade of 3.05 grams per tonne gold. Recovery for the combined operation was 94.3%.

Attributable production of 25,188 ounces was down approximately 4,500 ounces from the first quarter. The decline in production quarter-over-quarter was primarily driven by planned rebuild of one of our three underground crushers, which required all tonnage to be diverted to the remaining two crushers, together with a planned transition from top-down to bottom-up mining sequence across a portion of Williams and Interlake zones.

This sequencing change temporarily delayed access to high-grade stope and increased the proportion of low-grade development ore processed, reducing average mill feed grade. Importantly, because of the incremental lower-grade tonnes were sourced from wholly-owned area of the mine, attributable production represented a higher percentage of the total production than in the first quarter.

We were pleased to see underlying operating metrics improving in the quarter. Relative to the first quarter, development meters increased 42%, long-hole production drilling increased 65%, total tonnes moved increased 5%, and ore milled increased 7%.

We also established several new daily operating records during the quarter, including 1,051 meters of long-hole drilling, 46 meters of lateral development, 4,800 tonnes of paste backfill placed, 7,118 tonnes of ore hoisted, and a new daily processing record of 5,035 tonnes per day. We expect these leading indicators to support improved production in future periods as newly developed mining areas are brought into sequence.

On unit costs, mining costs decreased to $105.60 per tonne mined, and milling costs decreased to $25.50 per tonne milled, reflecting higher mining and processing volumes, while mine site G&A was $26.84 per tonne milled, reflecting continuous build-up of owner-operator workforce. Attributable total site cash costs were $1,880 per ounce sold, and attributable mine site all-in sustaining costs were $2,561 per ounce sold, with the increase relative to the first quarter primarily reflecting fewer attributable ounces sold alongside continuous investment in the fleet and workforce.

On the fleet, we received seven additional mobile equipment units during the quarter, including three bolters, one scissor lift, one 40-tonne haul truck, and two 11-cubic-yard scoop trams, bringing the total fleet addition to 10 of 21 planned new units on site for 2026. Together with planned ventilation upgrade expected to improve blast re-entry time on the second half of the year, these investments are expected to support high development rate and greater production flexibility.

I will now pass the call to Garett to walk through the key upside opportunities and the debottlenecking work underway at the mine.

Thanks, Eric. Turning to slide 6, I want to walk through the key upside opportunities we see across the mine and the work that underpins our path to higher, more consistent production.

The first area to mention is optimizing the mining sequence, involving the move from a top-down to a bottom-up sequence that allows for more efficient material handling, keeping development waste rock underground, and the drilling of downholes rather than upholes that will improve stope performance by reducing dilution and ore loss. Optimizing the mine sequence provides us with greater flexibility, ultimately leading to increases in production rates, lower unit costs, and ultimately lower cutoff grades.

The second opportunity in front of us is to begin utilizing the open pit portal for haulage from the underground mine, which will increase our operational flexibility by having another option for delivering ore to the mill. Nearby is the newly defined E Zone, which presents significant potential with multiple mining fronts available, and we are fast-tracking access and development to this zone.

The E Zone is an independent mining area that can supplement the remainder of the underground mine to maximize mill utilization. The third opportunity is bringing additional ore mining areas into the plan.

We have identified areas outside the mine plan in the Upper C Zone, which presents additional long-hole and Alimak stoping areas, and the B Zone West, which we have identified for bulk mining potential given its proximity to existing infrastructure and a short haul to the underground crusher. Design work is progressing to incorporate these areas into the mine plan.

Finally, a number of other notable opportunities that are being developed, including extending Alimak mining to maximize resources through this proven, efficient, high-tonnage-to-development method; completing underground infrastructure upgrades, including crusher rebuilds and ventilation system expansion; and optimizing and accelerating mining in the past-producing areas such as the B Zone Main and the Golden Giant mine. Turning to slide 7, alongside those growth opportunities, we have identified numerous initiatives to increase productivity and lower our operating costs across the mine site.

These include implementing a modern mine dispatch system to optimize manpower and fleet utilization; re-engineering our paste backfill fences and moving to down-the-hole versus uphole drilling to accelerate the mining sequence; and installing an on-demand ventilation system to direct airflow where it is needed most while reducing operating costs. We are also optimizing ground support standards and reintegrating the use of MacLean bolters, combined with the drill jumbos, to accelerate development across multiple faces; re-establishing automated drilling between shifts; and developing narrower zones under geological control to minimize dilution.

These efforts are foundational to converting the operational momentum we saw this quarter into sustained production growth to achieve our goals of maturely increasing mining and processing throughput in 2026 and 2027. In addition to this, we are well underway on an open pit trade-off study that we look forward to sharing with the market via an updated technical report and mine plan expected in the second half of 2027.

With that, I will now hand the call over to Raphael to discuss our updated mineral resource estimate and exploration drill program.

Thanks, Garett. Turning to slide 8, in June, we announced an updated mineral resource estimate for the Hemlo Mine, incorporating additional drilling completed since the 2025 technical report, as well as updated assumptions to reflect the current metal prices.

On a 100% basis, measured and indicated mineral resources now total 96.9 million tonnes at 1.55 grams per tonne gold for 4.8 million ounces, an increase of 1.2 million ounces, or 34%, from the 2025 technical report. Underground measured and indicated mineral resources grew to 24.9 million tonnes at 3.53 grams per tonne for 2.8 million ounces, up 40%, and open pit grew to 71.9 million tonnes at 0.87 grams per tonne for 2 million ounces, up 25% from the 2025 technical report.

Inferred mineral resources increased to 12.1 million tonnes at 2.22 grams per tonne for 0.9 million ounces, an increase of 240,000 ounces, or 39%, with underground inferred gold ounces up 48%. The key takeaways: overall, the mineral resource estimate exceeds our internal expectations.

We see historical resource-to-reserve conversion of approximately 85%, which gives us confidence in the potential for future reserve growth at Hemlo. Importantly, the overall grade profile is essentially unchanged from the 2025 technical report, despite a reduced cutoff, driven by stronger resource growth underground compared to open pit.

We are also seeing multiple parallel zones being developed with significant upside. A Zone and South Rims are good examples, and importantly, meaningful future growth potential exists outside of Interlake.

This updated estimate represents a key milestone toward a comprehensive mineral resource and mineral reserve update and technical report targeted for the second half of 2027. Turning to slide 9, this illustrates the 34% growth in measured and indicated resources, the 1.2-million-ounce increase from the 2025 to 2026 on a 100% basis, and compares the 2025 and updated 2026 resource shapes.

The growth reflects the combined impact of increased gold price, additional drilling, geological reinterpretation, and identification of new mineralized zones. Notably, the 2026 mineral resources defined larger pit shells, converting a portion of the 2025 underground resources into open pit resources this year.

The image on the right side of the slide highlights the current resource shape, as well as the location of conversion drilling, which is focused on upgrading resource confidence, expanding non-mineralized zones, and testing multiple potential extensions located near existing underground infrastructure. Turning to slide 10, beyond the headline growth, the 2026 estimate demonstrates increased continuity across the deposit.

On the left, you can see the underground reserves and the resource shapes. On the right, we have illustrated the sensitivity of the underground resource to gold price.

The sensitivity underscores the leverage in the mineralization at $2,500 per ounce gold price. Underground measured and indicated stands at approximately 2.8 million ounces, and the resource grows meaningfully at higher price assumptions while remaining robust at lower prices.

The improved geological continuity gives us greater confidence as we advance mine planning and the broader technical work ahead. Turning to slide 11, we continue to execute our approximately 130,000-meter drilling program, one of the largest single-asset drill programs underway in Canada this year.

Year-to-date, we have completed approximately 60,000 meters, with drilling now fully ramped up and 10 drill rigs on site, including three surface drills. The program is structured across three pillars: resource conversion, high definition, and growth.

During the quarter, we announced the first growth drilling results from the program, focused on the South Rim Zone, a newly recognized high-grade mineralized domain hosted within the regional metasediments and located adjacent to active mining in C Zone. The first seven of 20 planned holes confirmed mineralization, with top hole intersecting 16.07 grams per tonne gold over 8.1 meters, including 59.67 grams per tonne over 2 meters.

South Rim remained open along strike and down plunge, and we will continue to release results for the program through the remainder of 2026 and into 2027. I will now hand the call over to John to walk through the financial results.

Thanks, Raphael. Turning to slide 12, the second quarter yielded strong earnings and showed a continued improvement in our balance sheet.

Revenue for the quarter was $142.5 million, generated from 32,425 gold ounces sold. Revenue decreased relative to the first quarter, driven by 6,260 fewer gold ounces sold and a $456 per ounce decrease in the average realized price.

EBITDA in the quarter was $77.2 million, while operating cash flow was $35.6 million, and free cash flow was $11.3 million. Net income was $31 million in the quarter, or 10 cents per share, an increase of $8.9 million over the previous quarter.

I'd note, in our disclosures, we have added the new metric of adjusted earnings to help investors and analysts adjust for the noise in our earnings from gold stream accounting, non-recurring items, and the quarterly mark-to-market of derivatives. The calculation for underlying adjusted earnings can be located in the Management Discussion and Analysis section of our financial statements.

Our adjusted earnings in the quarter was $27.3 million, or 9 cents per share. Total capital expenditures during the quarter were $24.4 million, an increase of $4.3 million over the previous quarter.

Those capital expenditures in the quarter comprise $17.5 million from sustaining capital, directed primarily to underground development, mining fleet additions, and tailings storage facility work. Growth capital in the quarter was $6.9 million, largely for exploration drilling, mobile equipment for growth, and processing plant improvements.

Switching to the balance sheet, we closed the quarter in a strong liquidity position, with cash on hand of $130.2 million, and net debt was $19.8 million. Net debt decreased quarter-over-quarter by $6.6 million due to the build-up in our cash balance.

Finally, on our transition service agreement with Barrick, we have successfully implemented and transitioned key information technology systems, and we are on track to terminate the transition service agreement with Barrick before the end of the third quarter. With that, I will hand the call back to Jason Banducci to walk through our key objectives and corporate timeline.

Thanks, John. Turning to slide 13, we have outlined key objectives and corporate milestones through 2027.

On the corporate front, we achieved several key important milestones during the first half of the year, including graduating to the Toronto Stock Exchange, commencing trading on the OTCQX in the United States, and completing our impact benefit agreement with BN. We also recently hosted our first formal site tours of the Hemlo operation in more than 25 years, welcoming nearly 30 analysts, investors, and lenders to the site in July.

Looking ahead, we remain focused on a number of strategic initiatives, including pursuing additional index inclusion opportunities. In July, we were added to the Solactive Canada Broad Market Index, representing our first equity index inclusion, and we continue to target broader inclusion in indices such as the GDXJ.

We are also actively evaluating a future US exchange listing to further expand our access to global capital markets. Operationally, our priorities remain centered on optimizing mine sequencing, advancing the development of our owner-operated workforce, upgrading site infrastructure, commissioning new equipment, and completing planned maintenance programs.

Together, these initiatives support our targeted throughput increase to 4,800 tonnes per day by year-end 2026, with a phased ramp-up towards approximately 6,000 tonnes per day to exit 2027. On the exploration and geology front, in addition to the 130,000-meter drill program Raphael highlighted earlier, we are also advancing updated technical work to support a report targeted for the second half of 2027, which will incorporate updated reserves, resources, and mine planning assumptions.

With that, I will turn the call back to the operator to begin the Q&A session.

Thanks, operator, and good morning, everyone. There was some discussion in the MD&A about hiring and execution and sort of labor tightness.

I'm just wondering, are any of the labor shortages and challenges you're facing preventing you from commissioning any of the new equipment? Or are you keeping pace in that respect?

I'm just trying to get a sense of the confidence in the 4,800 tonne per day exit rate at the end of the year. Are you sort of needing to execute that by allocating more of the hiring plan by prioritizing getting to that rate, as opposed to sort of taking on some of the other labor-dependent debottlenecking initiatives?

Thanks, Ralph. This is something that plagues the entire industry from a labor perspective, obviously.

It has caused some slight delays. We're still very confident in executing our plan and executing on that 4,800 tonne per day run rate by the end of the year.

I can pass it over to Eric to give you a little bit more color.

Yes, with the delay that every company have with the manpower, we're lucky to have 30 years of working with Manroc, who's been there with us. We use also Manroc to have a little bit extra manpower to help us during the ramp-up of that manpower.

Helping out a lot there.

Thanks. I want to also come back to the accelerated KPIs, specifically the long-hole drilling being up by 65%, which is a significant improvement.

I'm just wondering how were you able to achieve that? Were there any one-offs there?

Can we continue to expect to see improvement? How is that aspect of KPI performed July through August?

That when we took over, all the equipment used by the contractor was their own equipment, owned by Barrick and pretty bad shape. How we did achieve that is, first of all, to put good driller on the seat of those drill, using board there, and also doing all the refurbished of all the front of those drills.

We did a lot of work on refurbishing the drill and reusing the automatization. Now they drill between shifts, and they were not doing that in the past.

It's all those kind of addition of all those little thing that we did there.

I see. Thanks very much.

Thanks, operator. Hi, Jason and Hemlo team.

Congrats on the earnings beat. Just a couple of questions from me.

Starting off with just the guidance for this year. You've decided not to provide guidance for 2026 in Q3, which I completely agree with, as I believe 2026 is really a transition year with the new people joining the team, the new equipment, the new mining method that you guys are implementing.

Jason, what targets do you have in place to exit the year in terms of hiring, additional equipment, maybe mining rates and milling rates? Maybe some color there, please.

I'll kick it off, Ovais, and then pass it over to Eric. As we discussed at the site tour, we got feedback from both the analysts and the buy side, and obviously discussed that with the board with regards to guidance.

I think we were a little bit aggressive at the beginning of the year on what we could achieve and how quickly we could achieve it. You have to remember that we really couldn't do any of our kind of debottlenecking exercises or any of the changes we wanted to make due to the constraints of the Barminco contract that was in place.

We phased them out in the middle of March. We implemented all those changes starting in April.

Coupled with the slight equipment delays and the constraints and the competitive labor market has pushed that out. I think we are, as a team, we're very confident to beat what was delivered last year under Barrick, and over the last, call it, roughly 5 years.

We're very confident in that, and to exit at that 4,800 tonne a 4,800 tonne per day run rate by the end of this year. As Eric highlighted too, given the competitive labor market, we have brought in extra crews from Manroc to help bridge that gap for the time being.

Right now, we have basically about 30 positions left to bring in to have that full crew ready to go to hit that 4,800 tonne per day run rate. We currently have, as of last week, I believe, 11 of the 21 pieces of equipment arrived.

We will see the remainder of that fleet arrive mid of October. That's giving us a lot more confidence in that exit rate.

Then, like I said, there's still 30 people left, and of the 30 people positions open, there's about 15 in kind of the hiring process. That's giving us a lot more confidence.

Again, we thought that that would have happened a month or two ago, I'll leave it at that.

Any additional color from Eric, or can I move to my next question?

If that answers your question, because at the end of the day also, for the question was the 40 4,800 tonne per day. We have bulk stope coming in.

We have more Alimak coming in. Really, we're in a good direction to hit the target.

Ovais, to add to just what Eric said, is that we have three Alimaks ready to go. Of the 42 stopes remaining for this year, 95% of them are pretty much ready to go.

Sounds good. Looks like, in terms of the confidence you guys have, it looks like you guys are setting up really nicely for Q4 and kind of going into 2027.

Correct. Yes.

Perfect. Just moving on to my next question then.

I get a question on this a lot from a couple of clients. Obviously you guys have a lot of significant spare milling capacity right now.

Is there an opportunity to toll mill in the near term until the mine ramps up and you release the trade-off study on the open pit?

Listen, we don't need to talk about that, Ovais, quite frankly. Obviously, there's a number of inbounds from other parties, but we just need to focus on delivering what we told everyone we are going to deliver.

Frankly, anything else is quite frankly a distraction. The team has to be laser-focused on getting out at 4,800 tonnes this year and exiting next year at 6,000 tonnes, and those are our priorities.

Everything else is, frankly, noise. We're not in it to make a couple of bucks on toll milling.

Got it. Thanks for taking my questions.

I'll get back in the queue.

No worries, Ovais.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, Jason and team. Maybe I'll just continue on with some questions to put the guidance deferral to rest.

Of course, there was only two quarters left in the year, and you confirmed that you've got guidance pending beginning of next year. Was the decision to defer the guidance, was it really looking at, your forecasting was just coming out with wide ranges that just weren't that meaningful?

Or was there something maybe that was more negative that needed to be derisked before you put it out, or just wondering if you could kind of just give a sense of your thoughts when you made that decision. Because I look at a lot of the factors here that were cited, and a lot of those were largely known, did one of them trend worse or better?

Any additional incremental color would be great. Thanks.

Listen, Don, we're about call it a month or two behind, then it's pushing guidance out till October-ish instead of September. Then feedback from the buy side clients is that, okay, if you get it done in October, what is the point in doing it for just Q4 really?

Okay. Right, exactly.

Just kind of running running up to the end of the year, I see. Thanks for that.

Then, with that, the quarter generated modest free cash flow, net debt declined, repaying the facility. With operations trending, would Q2, should we consider Q2 to kind of mark the low low-water mark of financial performance for the year?

I'll pass that off to Case.

Don, it depends what you mean by financial performance. If you're looking for sort of guidance on spend, everything that you've heard Jason and Eric talk about should lead you to believe that capital spending will continue to grow through the end of the year.

I guess I was referring to free cash flow. You still, even though it was a tough quarter and you managed this transition, you still delivered single-digit free cash flow.

Do you think this is kind of a platform that free cash flow is positioned to base with the growth from here?

I think we've positioned this year with our investor base that it's not a year to expect free cash flows. We have a business plan that requires a lot of investment in the asset, which is all kind of coming to bear now.

Our capital spending does step up in the summer as most Canadian producers do, and then into Q4 as we try and set the mine up for that 4,800 tonne per day run rate, there's going to be more capital required. What I was getting at with your question is free cash flow is operating cash flow less investing cash flow, right?

The investing cash flow is going to step up. Whether or not that results in net free cash flow will really depend on the gold price here in Q3 and Q4, and how the operations deliver.

I think the message to investors and to people listening on the call is that this is a year where setting up the business for next year, it's not one where necessarily expecting strong free cash flows in the coming quarters.

To add to that, John, there was a number of preventative maintenance things we had to do, tailings things we had to do, double the mobile fleet, one of the biggest drill programs in Canada. It was quite a capital-intensive year.

Just to hammer that point home is that we've always said that 2026 is quite frankly an investment year to set us up for success in '27 moving forward.

Got it. That's really helpful.

Thanks, guys. That's all for me.

Thank you, operator, and thank you all for your questions. Just want to state that we're still in the early innings of a multi-year value creation story, and the progress we made this quarter sets us up well for the balance of 2026 and beyond.

Thank you all for joining today, and please feel free to reach out to myself or anyone else on the Hemlo team. Have a great day, everyone.