Agnico Eagle Mines (TSX:AEM) held its first-quarter earnings conference call on Friday. Below is the complete transcript from the call.
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Summary
Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd reported a strong start to 2026 with production above budget and costs in line with guidance, driven by record operational margins and high gold prices.
The company reiterated its 2026 production and cost guidance, with production expected to be 48% in H1 and 52% in H2.
Operational highlights included record mill throughput at Macassar, record development rates at Meliadine, and record pit tonnage at Detour.
The company strengthened its financial position by distributing $375 million to shareholders, investing $400 million in growth projects, and increasing cash reserves by $250 million.
Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd plans to increase share repurchases, raising its normal course issuer bid to $2 billion.
Key strategic initiatives include aggressive reinvestment in high-quality projects, aiming for 20-30% production growth over the next decade, with significant progress in projects such as Detour and Malartic.
The company highlighted the importance of safety after two fatalities, emphasizing the need for improved safety measures and responsibility.
Notable exploration results were reported at Detour and Malartic, with further potential in Northern Europe following land consolidation.
Despite cost pressures, the company maintained strong financial performance with adjusted net income of $1.7 billion and adjusted EBITDA of over $3 billion in Q1.
Management remains focused on disciplined capital allocation, operational excellence, and delivering shareholder value through dividends and buybacks.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Good morning, My name is Vincent and I’ll be your conference operator today. At this time I would like to welcome everyone to the Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd Q1 2026 conference call. All lines have been placed on me to prevent any background noise. After the speaker’s remarks, there will be question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press Star then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press the number two. Thank you Mr. Amar Al Jundi. You may begin your conference.
Amar Al Jundi (Chief Executive Officer)
Thank you Vincent. Good morning and thank you for joining our Agnico Eagle first quarter 2026 conference call. I’d like to remind everyone that we’ll be making a number of forward looking statements, so please keep that in mind and refer to the disclaimers at the beginning of this presentation. Next slide, please. We’re pleased to announce a solid start to the year with production slightly above budget and with costs in line with our guidance. This solid operating performance coupled with exceptional gold prices has allowed Agnico Eagle to announce yet another quarter of record net income driven by record operating margins. We are reiterating 2026 production guidance with production expected to be weighted approximately 48%, 52% between the first and second halves of the year. We’re also pleased to reiterate our cost guidance for 2026. This is no small task given the uncertainties and pressures in the market over the past several weeks. As you will hear on this call, this has been a strong quarter across all of our businesses. Solid operations, strong progress on moving our growth pipeline forward, continued exceptional exploration results, and as mentioned, another quarter of record financial results. My team will go through all of this in more detail in a moment, but let me outline and summarize what I believe are the three key messages that are important to take away from this call. 1. As mentioned, we’re off to a good start to the year with solid operating performance, delivering record operational and financial results, Record mill throughput at Macassa, record development rates at Meliadin, record pit tonnage at Detour. We’re delivering these solid operating results while doing an excellent job controlling costs, leveraging off our relentless focus on cost control, while benefiting from certain structural cost advantages that derive from our business model, including, for example, in both Ontario and Quebec,, where we produce the majority of our gold, all of our electricity is either hydro or nuclear and really not exposed to changes in fuel and diesel prices. With regards to Nunavut,,, where we do generate our own power through diesel. We’ve got a lot of that diesel hedged both by necessity because we have to bring the diesel up in advance through a short barge season and we have it stored up there, but also by some very smart and proactive hedging by our Treasury Department with regards to diesel exposure. We’ve also got the benefit of lower employee turnover and the reliable supply chain that comes from being the best customer for decades in the safe regions in which we operate. 2. We continue to strengthen our financial position and to increase returns to shareholders. This quarter we paid a $1.3 billion 2025 tax catch up. We distributed $375 million to shareholders, we invested almost $400 million into our high quality growth projects, all while increasing our cash position by almost $250 million. At these gold prices we will increase our share repurchases and we are increasing our normal course issuer bid to $2 billion. And 3. And perhaps the most important takeaway, we continue to aggressively reinvest in our business into the best pipeline in the industry, into projects that deliver exceptional returns at relatively lower risk. And we are making steady progress, steady progress in many cases ahead of schedule. Dom and Natasha will spend some time talking about the projects. They’re moving forward to increase production at Agnico Eagle by up to 20 to 30% over the next decade, including Detour to a million ounces, Malartic to a million ounces, Hope Bay,, Upper Beaver and San Nicolás. In addition, with the expected consolidation of our finished platform, we now see a path to further growth that comes from building a 500,000 ounce a year multi decade platform in what we believe to be the most prospective land package in Northern Europe. He will spend some time going over some of the continued great exploration results he and his team have generated focusing on Detour and Malartic. But he’ll also spend a bit more time talking about this finished land consolidation and what he and his team see as a long term potential. Well beyond the ICARI project. Our strategy remains focused on safe, responsible mining, focused on operational excellence, delivering reliable low cost production. We have the best land packages in the most prospective and safest gold jurisdictions in the world. We have a path to industry leading production growth over the next decade. Our execution of delivering this growth remains on track and at these gold prices we think we can deliver this growth and reduce share count at the same time. Now before I turn the call over to Jamie, I need to spend a moment on safety. Tragically, we’ve had two fatalities over the past five months. This is not acceptable. I recognize and I accept that the responsibility for the safety of our people rests ultimately with myself and with my team. We’ve mobilized our teams to reinforce across our company and at all levels and to all employees our commitment to not only deliver on our guidance, but to do so safely and responsibly. There is nothing more important than the safety of our people and our communities, and we commit to do better. With that, I’ll turn the call over to our cfo Jamie Porter to review our first quarter operating and financial results.
Jamie Porter (Chief Financial Officer)
Thank you, Omar as highlighted earlier, we delivered another strong financial quarter driven by solid operational performance and continued leverage to higher gold prices. We had several record financial results during the quarter, including adjusted net income of approximately 1.7 billion or $3.41 per share, and adjusted EBITDA of just over 3 billion. We generated about 730 million of free cash flow in the first quarter. This is particularly impressive given that we paid roughly 50% of our expected 2026 cash taxes totaling 1.8 billion in the quarter, of which 1.3 billion had been previously disclosed as related to our 2025 tax liability. First quarter gold production of approximately 825,000 ounces was actually slightly better than planned with the lower production year over year reflecting mine sequencing at La Ronde, Macassa and Fosterville. With the first quarter representing about 24% of the midpoint of our annual guidance in production weighted to the second half of the year were well positioned to meet our full year production targets. Total cash costs were $1,093 per ounce and all in sustaining costs were $1,483 per ounce, reflecting higher royalty costs associated with a significantly higher realized gold price, lower production volumes as expected and a stronger Canadian dollar compared to the first quarter of 2025. Importantly, costs continue to trend within our full year guidance ranges of $1,020 to $1,120 per ounce for total cash cost and $1,400 to $1,550 per ounce for all in sustaining costs. While we continue to monitor cost volatility, including diesel prices and foreign exchange movements, we believe our regional operating model, local procurement strategies and disciplined hedging program provide meaningful mitigation against potential cost pressures.
Jamie Porter (Chief Financial Officer)
With respect to diesel prices, our 2026 cost guidance assumes an average diesel price of $0.78 per liter. Direct diesel consumption covering mobile equipment and on site power generation in Nunavut is estimated at approximately 108 liters per ounce of gold produced, representing roughly 7% of our total operating cost base. We believe that our exposure to diesel price volatility is below industry average, reflecting the fact that the majority of our gold production comes from underground mines which are generally less diesel intensive than open pit mines. Further, the majority of our gold production is from mines located in Ontario and Quebec, which benefit from access to non oil based grid power. Overall, our sensitivity to diesel prices is estimated such that a 10% change in diesel prices results in roughly A$6 per ounce impact on annual total cash costs. After taking into account our hedge position, we do not currently anticipate any disruption to our procurement strategy for fuel or other key consumables and we remain comfortable with our full year cost guidance
Jamie Porter (Chief Financial Officer)
we turn to slide 5 we are in the strongest financial position in the company’s history. We continue to deliver meaningful returns to our shareholders alongside further balance sheet strengthening and disciplined reinvestment in the business. During the quarter we returned approximately $375 million to shareholders through dividends and share repurch representing roughly half of free cash flow. As previously announced, we intend to renew the normal course issuer bid in May on substantially the same terms with an increased limit of up to 2 billion.
Jamie Porter (Chief Financial Officer)
And at current gold prices we are still targeting returning approximately 40% of annual free cash flow through dividends and buybacks. We will also look for opportunities to offset dilution from the proposed Rupert Resources acquisition, including potentially returning proceeds from portfolio investment sales through additional share repurchases. In parallel, the balance sheet keeps getting stronger. The end of the first quarter our net cash position increased to approximately 2.9 billion, giving us one of the strongest balance sheets in the sector.
Jamie Porter (Chief Financial Officer)
This strength was recognized recently by Fitch which upgraded Agnico Eagle’s long term issuer rating to A with a stable outlook. At the same time we continue to reinvest in the business, advancing our five key pipeline projects that are expected to underpin long term production growth of 20 to 30% over the next decade. We are exceptionally well positioned in the current gold price environment with a continued focus on disciplined capital allocation and long term shareholder value creation.
Jamie Porter (Chief Financial Officer)
With that I’ll turn the call over to Doc.
Doc
Thank you Jimmy Good morning everyone. In my section I’m going to talk about the update on operation and project for Quebec, Nunavut and Finland for the first quarter. A good start led by Malartic, and Meadowbank, on the production and we are in good position for the full year cost and production. An important milestone in the first quarter at Malartic, where we took the first stope at East Gouldie via the ramp, approximately 1 km underground. Why it’s important.
Doc
Based on the 2023 study, we’re going to mine there up to 2042. But based on what we know now, we’re going to be mining there up to 2060. Most probably. Most probably I will not be the COO at that time, but we have good bench that’s going to take this,
Doc
is going to take it from there. So it’s very positive. And on the shaft sinking, I’m going to talk a bit about that next slide. Shaft sinking and also production hoist. It’s also going well. The plan is to bring that ore to the surfaces. The other shaft, mid-2027, everything is aligned on the continuous improvement. An important milestone achieved at La Ronde. They were working on that since a couple of years to do autonomous hauling. So it’s a good example of leveraging the synergy into the region using the LZ5 expertise.
Doc
So what is that autonomous hauling? We are taking the ore from the 3.2km underground up to 2.9km without drivers. So this is a real example of a positive impact using technology instead of operating, let’s say using four trucks and eight operators, four day shift, four night shift. Those guys in the current situation, they are able to operate effectively 10 to 12 hours per shift just by the time to go underground. Using the technology. We’re able to use two trucks operating by one person, one night shift, one day shift. So a total of two. And we’re able to operate on a 20 hour basis. So it’s a clear example of using technology to improve productivity. And very good job done at Larond on that. Also in Finland, what we did, we took three and four people, key people from each site from mainly Canadian operation. I mean the GMs, the key guys in the continuous improvement, the VP, we bring them to Finland to see what they did there. It was the first time for most of the people not just to see the reindeers, but also the Finland site.
Doc
And it was about how they did it in Finland, the mindset on continuous improvement, their leadership and the tools they were using. And it was also a very good opportunity to build relationships and sharing best practices through our key people into the company guy is going to talk about that, but very happy also about the icari. What’s going on is very positive for the Finland team. Next slide on the growth project Small Arctic. The ramp and shaft as mentioned, going well.
Doc
The pilot hole for the first for the second shaft is done down to 1.8km underground. No issue related to that. And the study continue on the shaft two and Marban, in the Wasamac study. It’s progressing well and we’re looking to give you an update in September later
Doc
this year at Hope Bay. Look to the picture. So we are in good position. That was our goal. We are in good position to potentially announce the construction in May with the board. So the camp is ready, the fab shops are ready to welcome the construction team. The mill is empty, ready to go and we are in good position for the engineering. That was one of an important goal. So we’re going to to be over 50% that guarantee and give us confidence into the cost, into the schedule. We’re going to give you more detail at the visit at site for the lucky one that are coming because we’re going to have muskox on barbecue, charcoal barbecue. So this is. The team is working on that. That’s going to be a good thing. Before giving the mic to Natasha. The visit at Hope, you’re going to see the picture over the first 10 years, but we’re going to most probably be there for many 10 years and that’s what Guy is going to show you into the car shop.
Doc
What is our vision onto the region? And also the last two years we focused on infilling the patch, the new deposit and to be ready for that study. But Guy is also gearing up to restart treasure hunting into the Hope Bay, site eventually more next year, in the years after. So on that I will pass the mic to my great colleague Natasha.
Natasha
Thanks Tom and good morning everyone. I’ll cover the operational highlights for Ontario, Australia and Mexico. So the regions delivered good performance to start the year. At Detour, they hit a quarterly record in tonnes mined but they also had a record mill throughput for our first quarter with the lowest turnover, quarterly turnover that we have seen since the mine began open pit operations over at Macassar. The mill here also delivered record quarterly throughput as a result of the ongoing optimization initiatives as we ramp up that mill towards over 2000 tons per day by the end of the year. Now, despite this progress, total mill tonnage was below plan this quarter and this was mainly a function of challenges we faced with our old PACE plant while commissioning the new one which we expect to be fully operational in Q2 at Fosterville. They also performed very well this quarter. There was a significant step change in productivity and that’s really due to ongoing mine optimization efforts. Improvements this quarter were seen in both development and stope cycling and it was the same with Pinos Altos.
Natasha
The team there continues to work very hard on initiatives to safely extract the most value from their assets. Now in terms of initiatives, this past quarter, DOM spoke about our knowledge sharing trip to Finland to help other sites understand their continuous improvement journey and really inspire them to do the same. And of course it was really great to network to gain alignment to collaborate with other sites. And another good example of collaboration between sites and really maximizing the value of our assets and of our infrastructure was between Macassa and La Ronde. I just want to take a quick second to recognize both teams here. They worked very closely together over the last few months and with a coordinated effort they were successful in receiving the approval to allow ore from the AK deposit to be transported and processed at the LZ5 facility at Macassa. We also successfully completed the installation of the LTE network underground. The connectivity is expected to support a range of optimization initiatives including including the implementation of a dispatch system and enabling the site to obtain short interval control. And this can enable us to make decisions quicker, to become more agile, to become more productive and as a result further optimize our costs. So these are just a few examples of our ongoing productivity focus and our operational improvement initiatives. Moving to the next slide, I’ll give you an update on the projects in Ontario and Mexico. The Detour Underground project that plays a very big role in the plan for the complex to be a 1 million ounce producer annually. We’re still in the early days of this project, but we’re making very good progress and we’re advancing on schedule. We continue to advance the exploration ramp and and have achieved just over 820 meters of development, reaching a depth of about 147 meters. We also began excavating the overburden for the conveyor portal which is near the mill, and progressed work on the camp extension. And to complement the planned bulk sample, we initiated a high intensity drill program in an area being considered for mining as early as 2028 and Guy will speak to this program shortly. Over at Upper Beaver there have been a lot of progress made this quarter with both the ramp and the shaft advancing ahead of schedule. The ramp has advanced over 500 meters in the quarter and has reached a depth of 108 meters. The shaft sinking, which commenced in the fourth quarter of last year, has already reached a depth of 382 meters. And similar to Detour to complement the planned Bulk sample at 760 level, the high intensity drill program continued during the quarter. Now with respect to San Nicolas, we’re waiting on the regulatory decision for key permits. But in the meantime we’re continuing to advance the engineering of the critical infrastructures which will help further de risk and build confidence in our execution strategy. We’re also continuing to continue with the drilling activities focused on condemnation drilling and geological evaluation near the planned mined area. Finally, I’d like to close by just recognizing the teams at our operations and our projects for their very discipline execution in the first quarter and for the continued focus on advancing our optimization initiatives and our key projects as we move through the year. And so with that I’ll turn the call over to my friend Guy.
Guy
Thank you Natasha and good morning everyone. Pleasure again to be able to report on progress we’re making in exploration as obviously it is one of the key components to be able to deliver that 20 to 30% growth that we are promoting. We had an excellent quarter in terms of diamond drilling, completing 25% or nearly 360 kilometers of drilling of our overall budget of 1.4 million meter for the year. Having 127 rig in operation on mine site and key value driver project. We continue to advance in our journey in exploration to make drilling safer and more productive while maintaining a unit cost in the same order than the last couple of years, aiming to offset inflation with gain in productivity. Going to specific project on Slide 10 in Malartic, 35 drill rigs are in operation completing 75,000 meters in Q1, 16 on the ground, 13 on surface in proximity to Idiotis Infrastructure and six other regional targets including Marban deposits across the street at Odyssey. As mentioned by Dominic, the shaft and the Ram development are progressing ahead of schedule and the first stope is currently being mined at East Goldie, which is quite exciting considering the discovery hole in East Goldie was made just a couple of years ago in 2018 and that we are already there with the ramp and the shaft because of the great collaboration between the various team to turn it from a discovery into a mine in such a short period of time. This is impressive. We continue to get strong exploration result at East Goldie with 6.7 gram over 36 meter on level 105 in the center of the ore body and also in the internal zone between Odyssey North and Odyssey South with the new structure that returned 9 gram over 53 meter core land. Although we do not have a full understanding yet of the true thickness of that structure, it continues to show the additional upside. We see both in the internal zone at Odyssey North and south and in East Goldie that keeps growing laterally and on the adjacent Maravan project lateral exploration drilling continue to the west and and to the north of the proposed open pit while we are at the same time advancing with the condensation drilling program to confirm the potential location of surface infrastructure now on slide 11 at Detour Lake, Pine Rigs completed close to 40,000 meter of drilling in the first quarter in line with our budget. Drilling was continued to focus on the western extension of the ore body to the west of the Open pit where we are contemplating to initiate mining on the ground early on utilizing the exploration ramp. Some strong Results such as 8.9 grams over 14 meter at 190 meter depth and 10.7 gram over 10 meter at 500 meter depth shows a strong potential for high grade underground mineralization over a large area that extend over more than a kilometer an hour. Adjacent in to the west of the Open pit where the exploration ramp is currently being developed briefly at Oak Bay as mentioned by Dominic We’ve had a great quarter in terms of drilling on ice thanks to the team Great winter drilling program we started early. We’ve completed north of 33,000 meters of drilling as of the end of March and a full update will be provided on the May 19 press release along with the project announcement which been talking and finally on slide 13 in Finland, I would like to provide some color on the recent announcement we made with an offer to acquire all of the outstanding share of Rupert and Orion resources along with the 70% interest of B2 Gold and the Fingold GV. It was a great job by our corporate development team and legal team. With these three combined transactions adding to our current landholding, we will be consolidating close to 2,500 square kilometers consistent with our corporate strategy of focusing on regional leveraging. Our 20 years of experience in exploration, permitting, mine construction and operation with a strong social license to operate in the most fertile greenstone belt in Europe. By combining the Finnish workforce of Agnico along with the workforce of Rupert and Orion and removing property boundaries, we will aggressively explore in the near term the immediate lateral and lateral extension of the E carry deposit as well as the multiple occurrences that were identified on the Fingol GEV and the large land position owned by Rupert and Orion. Personally it reminds me a lot about quite mine acquisition into 2005. At the time of the acquisition there was approximately 2 million ounces down to less than a kilometer and 20 years later at Kittila it grows down to and still open at depth below 2km with a global endowment of 10 million ounces. Considering past production reserves and resources known so far. I see a similar potential on the structure that Oatney carry deposit as these mineral systems are similar to our Canadian greenstone belt that have demonstrated extended vertical geological fertility. By these transactions we are aiming to deliver in Finland a platform for multiple mines over multiple decades, similar to the three region in Canada that are Quebec, Ontario and Nunavut where we will be leveraging our regional expertise. And on that I will return the microphone to Amar for some closing remarks.
Amar Al Jundi (Chief Executive Officer)
Thank you Guy and thank you Jamie and Dominic and Natasha and everyone else on our team. Really exceptional work. Really tremendous results. Well done. As you can see, we continue to work hard for all of our stakeholders and we’ll continue to build off the same foundational pillars that have defined our strategy and that have served us very well over the past almost 70 years. We will focus on the best mining jurisdictions based on geologic potential and political stability. We’ll be disciplined with our owners money making investments, making investment decisions based on technical and regional knowledge, creating value through the drill bit and through smart acquisitions where and when it makes sense. We are uniquely well positioned with a quality project pipeline, leveraging existing assets in the best regions in the world where we believe we have a competitive advantage. And we will continue to be focused on creating value on a per share basis and on being leaders in our industry in returning capital to shareholders as evidenced by over 43 years of consecutive dividend payments and increased share buybacks. We have a clear and executable strategy to create tremendous additional value per share for our owners well into the foreseeable future with manageable risk leveraging off existing infrastructure and regional competitive advantages. We have the assets, we have the projects, we have the resources and we have the people. We are making it happen right now. We will stay focused and we will not be distracted. Thank you again for joining us on this call and for many of you, thank you for decades of trust and support. We will always work hard to maintain that trust and we will never take it for granted. Operator May I ask that we now open up the call for questions?
OPERATOR
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the Q&A session Again, if you’d like to ask a question, just press Star one on your telephone keypad. First question comes from the line of Lawson Winder from Bank of America securities. Please go ahead.
Lawson Winder (Equity Analyst)
Thank you very much. Operator Good morning, Amar team. Great to hear from you all and thank you for the update. I would like to start off with the finished acquisition and we haven’t had a chance to ask you guys about this in this type of forum since the announcement. And Guy, thank you very much for the picture you’ve painted and for the color on getting to 500,000 ounces. But can you help us understand what are the sort of value creation steps over the next 12 to 40, 12 to 24 months to get to a better understanding of what that ultimately looks like? So, you know, resource update study, when do you expect permitting to start and just any other considerations along that sort of timeline thinking? I appreciate it.
Amar Al Jundi (Chief Executive Officer)
I can start, but maybe Dom and Guy can jump in on more details. The first thing, Lawson, and by the way, nice to hear your voice. The first thing, Lawson, really was to consolidate all of this property. There’s a lot of potential. They’re good properties, but they were individually constrained. And so that’s why it was very important for us. And as mentioned, our entire team, but in particular the corporate development team and the legal team, did a really good job in allowing us to consolidate all of this at the same time. And it’s really first and foremost and then I’ll pass it over to my colleagues about consolidating what we think is the best land position in Europe.
Dominic (Chief Operating Officer)
Thanks, Amar. Lawson, Dominic speaking. Maybe. I think what on my side I need to do is to free the scope of that one, let’s say without the boundaries, where we should put the mill, the tailings and revamp the schedule the study based on the the new acquisition and the exploration guys are all excited to add, but we’re going to need to kind of try to kick that project for a first start, but also to get some flexibility maybe for example, at the mill to make sure it’s always a challenge to get enough detail into the studies to push that into the permitting. And that’s what we’re going to focus by staffing the study team and eventually the construction team.
Guy
So maybe in Compliment Larson, Guy is speaking now, as we discussed in the press release, our plan by removing the property boundaries to have sort of an updated view with the current information by the end of 2027, where we’re going to have sort of a better picture of what the optionality that removing the property boundary offer on both, you know, the optimal pit design and location of information infrastructure. And while we’re going to right away, as a matter of fact, start drilling once the acquisition is completed, because we know as well that property boundary was also constraining the drilling close to the property boundary. So. But that’s our intent. By the end of 2027, we should have an idea of the kind of a Revised concept based on the current information. While we going to continue to drill and maybe look at other iterations. So maybe like you can refer to what we did in Monarchic, you know, we’re going to be providing most likely, you know, a first version of what it could be and then keep drilling and adjust based on what we’re going to discover.
Lawson Winder (Equity Analyst)
Okay, thank you, that’s helpful. And then just a follow up from me with respect to the Detour Lake underground drill results. There were some really, really substantial intercepts. Of course, you know, with the drilling you’ve done today, has your understanding of what the Detour like underground can be, has it evolved and changed in any way in the past, let’s say 12 months? I mean is it starting to look like it could be a much bigger system? And are you possibly reconsidering what the ultimate development plan might look like for Detour Underground?
Guy
Well, I would like to me the area west of the pit is very similar to what was historically mined on the ground Detour. You know that we are now mining with the pit closer to surface. So obviously we are showcasing a couple of great results. On average we think that that area will be anywhere between maybe two and a half and three and a half gram, something like that. And obviously when you put those, you know, some spectacular result along with some other that are in a 2, 3 gram or a 20, 30 meter. So it’s in line with our expectation, it’s in line with the. But we’re actually just firming up the model of that zone. As you know, we are mindful of the historical Detour. In order to selectively mine the high grade core, you need a ton of drilling, you need the right drill spacing. When we are getting there with the ramp, we’re going to be soon being able to drill it more aggressively from underground as well from the exploration ramp. So it is shaping up as we thought. It’s always an area that I personally liked a lot with it a bit.
Natasha
Hi Lawson. Just to add to that, it’s Natasha by the way. Just because of the. We do have a study team looking at this and looking at different iterations as we proceed with the exploration program. But with the combination of the exploration success and the high gold price environment, there is definitely optionality here at Detour. So it’s fairly early stages I would say. But the team is looking at different trade offs for potentially a higher milling capacity, a larger underground, potentially another pushback at the Pit. But again, very early days.
Lawson Winder (Equity Analyst)
Fantastic. Thank you all very much.
OPERATOR
Your next question Comes from the line of Fahad Tareet from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Fahad Tareet (Equity Analyst)
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. In the quarter, there was an announcement about a Nunavut collaboration agreement with B2Gold. Can you maybe just talk about the thinking behind that and what you hope to learn from their operations at Goose? Thanks. Well, it’s Amar here. I’ll start, and then maybe Dominic or John can comment. In general, we always like to try to work with our colleagues and our peers. We have a lot of experience in the areas we operate. We think we have some competitive advantages, but we’re not so naive to think that we know everything. So anytime we get an opportunity to work with our peers to see what they’re doing, we take advantage of that. I think our owners would want us to do that. And also from B2’s perspective, they’re good people. We know them well, and they think that we do a good job where we operate, and they want to see if they can learn a little from our operations as well. So it’s just the kind of stuff that we want to do in the industry. I think that’s probably enough on that. Okay. And then maybe just one for Jamie. I noticed the buyback pace slowed down quarter over quarter in the first quarter. Is that just a function of the pretty significant cash tax payment? And can you just remind us of the minimum cash you’d like to keep on the balance sheet going forward? Thanks.
Jamie Porter (Chief Financial Officer)
Yeah, no, that’s exactly right. I mean, we said we put out our guidance in February that we’d be targeting returning about 40% of our free cash flow through a combination of the dividend, the share buyback. Our free cash flow was lower in Q1 as a result of the cash tax payments. So I think our the percentage worked out to closer to 50%. It was 150 million of shares repurchased in the quarter, which was half of what we did in Q4. That will ramp up certainly in Q2 and through the rest of the year as our free cash flow is expected to be higher in terms of minimum cash balance. I mean, I think we’re comfortable where we’re at now with $3.1 billion of cash, 2.9 billion of net cash, between 3 and 5 billion. I think that’s a good position to be in in terms of just giving us financial flexibility to be able to execute on our strategy. But, yeah, definitely higher share buyback activity expected to through the remainder of the year.
Fahad Tareet (Equity Analyst)
Okay, great. Thank you very much.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of Josh Wolfson. From RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Josh Wolfson (Equity Analyst)
Yeah, thank you very much. Appreciate the additional disclosure. On the energy sensitivity side of things, I had a question in Terms of the Hope 8 project update later this month. You know, looking at the current market for prices, there’s obviously been a high degree of inflation. You know, how are you thinking about incorporating some of those input prices for that project update and thinking about maybe the near term impact versus what, you know, otherwise would a long term, much more reasonable price be? Thank you.
Amar Al Jundi (Chief Executive Officer)
Hi Josh, it’s Amar here. I’ll start and then Dom will jump in. You know, in my experience the most important thing in building projects is to get the engineering done and to have the execution plan well laid out. You know, we have seen some inflationary pressure, but actually it hasn’t been that bad. You know, and the team, as Dom said, I mean, you know, you looked at the picture, you know, the camp is going to be there, the back of power is there, the mill building, half the, the mill building is there, water treatment is there. So we’re coming to this with an advantage of infrastructure in place which allows us to execute. I mean it’s all about execution. But also exceedingly important is the amount of engineering the team has done which allows them to get a much better control overall on execution and therefore on cost. Don?
Dominic (Chief Operating Officer)
Yeah, Josh, we in May we’re going to give more detail on the economic. That’s going to be obviously a positive economics and our assumptions are all based on the long term view. We’re going to give you some sensitivity to understand how that could impact. And we don’t know the future. But as Amar mentioned, I’m very comfortable where we are right now. Now we’ve been mining in Nunavut over 17 years and we’ve built already three projects with Meliadin, Meadowbank and Amarok. So it’s a good time for Nunavut to add another. It’s going to be over 400,000 ounces per year and that’s going to bring us to potentially 1 million ounces per year into the Nuneput platform.
Josh Wolfson (Equity Analyst)
Great, thank you. And then another, I guess two part question from Malartic. I mean first question there is, you know, what drove the grade improvements this quarter And I guess we saw something similar last year. Should we expect to see it going forward? And then second part is just on this September update that you referenced. Given that we had expected, I guess the shaft project completion, not really until year end and then a larger update the second half of next year. How should we Be thinking about what information is disclosed, you know, ahead of that completion in September. Thank you.
Dominic (Chief Operating Officer)
Yeah, just for the grade, it’s a question of sequencing mainly into the barnet pit that the. That’s the only thing that changed that. And I will let Jean Marie enter on the second part.
Jean Marie
Hi Josh. Yes, in September, like the plan would be to provide an update. So the last update we did for Kemal Arctic was in June 2023. What we want to reflect in September is the update in the reserves resources that we’ve seen over the last few years. And also start giving a better idea in terms of how the second shaft, Marban and Westamac start to fit together. Start giving ranges around what we think it will cost and operating. But you’re right, the studies will be later in the year, but we should be able to provide a very good picture of what Camel Arctic will look like to get to the million ounce per year.
Josh Wolfson (Equity Analyst)
Great, thank you. Looking forward to that update.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of Daniel Major from ubs. Please go ahead.
Daniel Major (Equity Analyst)
Hi Marin team and thanks for the questions. First question on the Finland acquisition and then around the kind of balance sheet and capital returns. First question is was there a reason for using Agnico shares rather than cash specifically? And then I guess the second part, you alluded to exceeding the 40% cash flow payout potentially in order to reduce the share count following the acquisition. Can you give us a sense of kind of quantum. You could be at 3 to 5 billion of net cash quite quickly through the year. Should we expect that as a limit to the cash balance you’d want to hold and how that would flow through to the buyback?
Amar Al Jundi (Chief Executive Officer)
Well, thank you for the question, Amar here. I’ll answer the first one and maybe Jamie, you can answer the second question with regard. It’s a very good question on the, on why we used shares instead of cash. And the answer is we wanted to use cash and they wanted 100% shares. I think their view, and rightfully so, is, you know, Agnico shares are good shares to have and they wanted 100% shares. We used full cash on the other deals and I think Jamie is part of his answer to the second. Can also incorporate how we hope to offset a little bit of the share issuance through the rest of the year?
Jamie Porter (Chief Financial Officer)
Yes, absolutely. So I think in our disclosure, Daniel, we referred to potentially increasing repurchase activity based on the sale of some of our portfolio investments. So if there’s opportunities for us to do a little bit more based on our views on valuation We. We will do so with respect to kind of minimum cash balance. Where we are now, I’d say is we’re very comfortable. And as the cash balance increases, we’ll look at even more activity under the share buyback. But I’d say the minimum target is 40%. We may be able to exceed that based on either our free cash flow performance or the proceeds of the sale of some of our investments.
Daniel Major (Equity Analyst)
Okay, thanks. And then my next question on San Nicolas. She saw Tech and Anglo American yesterday and discussed the project a little bit. But I mean, it feels like it’s somewhat subscale at 50% for either yourselves or the other partner. Have you had any discussions around the ownership of the project and would you be keen to consolidate if the opportunity arose?
Amar Al Jundi (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, I think we would look at it. We still think it’s a good project. You know, I don’t want to forecast what our colleagues and our partners are thinking, but obviously if they said, hey, would you want to look at it? We’d look at it.
Daniel Major (Equity Analyst)
Okay, great. And then just one quick one, if I could. On Finland, I noticed some Berleden deferred a pushback at Khivica because of the change in the taxation for the mining sector in Finland. Can you just give us any color about how you’re seeing that landscape with respect to Katala and the new acquisitions?
Dominic (Chief Operating Officer)
Yeah. Yes, there’s tax change in Finland and this is include into our evaluations as well as our life of mine at Kittila.
Jamie Porter (Chief Financial Officer)
Yeah, I was just going to add, the industry is lobbying the government to look at potentially changing the structure of those taxes to make certain additional things deductible to offset the impact. But all that was factored into our modeling.
Daniel Major (Equity Analyst)
Okay, great. Thanks a lot.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of Bennett Moore from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Bennett Moore (Equity Analyst)
Good morning, Amar and team. Congrats on the record quarter. Thank you for taking my questions. I guess following the land consolidation in Finland and as you continue to think about the company’s next leg of growth beyond the early 2000-30s where Australia fit in this picture, do you see similar opportunities around Fosterville?
Amar Al Jundi (Chief Executive Officer)
Well, thank you for the question. Actually, you know, I was just out in Fosterville, about a month ago and I mean, it’s such fantastic people, but we spent a lot of time on some recent, I would say, very good exploration results in and around Foster Fosterville,. I think, as some of you know, we’ve consolidated some land. You know, that part of Australia was the original gold rush and nobody’s really focused on it. For decades and you know, it’s still very early. But I was quite pleasantly surprised with some of the results they were getting and the enthusiasm they had. Now, you know, we get questions all the time about, you know, the rest of Australia. We think Australia is a great place to mine, not just for gold, but I mean, you know us, we are very careful about what we do. We’re very disciplined and right now we are, you know, we continue to be focused in Australia at Fosterville, and the team we have there and the opportunities around that.
Bennett Moore (Equity Analyst)
Thanks for that, Lynn. I think it’s been about six months since you launched the Avenir business. So just wondering how this is progressing. What short of new opportunities the team may be evaluating and then maybe if you could also comment on what sort of critical manure opportunities they may or they may be around the Lapland Greenstone belt as well.
Amar Al Jundi (Chief Executive Officer)
Well, I mean it’s a good, it’s. I’ll ask Guy to talk about sort of base metal and critical metals in the Lapland belt because there are some just with regards to Avenir, you know, it’s a really enthusiastic team. They are looking at a lot of things. What I would say is that they are naturally narrowing down what they’re looking at and becoming more focused. You know, it’s an exciting business to be in. It is a separate entity. We are supportive of it. And just to repeat, you know, we’re not obliged to, to do anything but it does give us an opportunity to see things that are well considered and maybe Guy, you can talk about non precious opportunities in Finland.
Guy
Yeah, so. Yeah. So in addition obviously of what triggers our primary interest which is the structure around the Circle line and the main break, we also know that it’s the same to the north of that. That’s the same rock package that basically the kivitza in the Sakati deposit that are nearby that are nickel, copper, PG and even at the for the old mine it was evidences of mast cell sulfide that are potentially kind of a sign. So we have all of the ingredients but for us we see that potentially an add on and our primary focus remains to fully explore for gold. And if there’s something else because there’s the fertility of the rock is there. We’ll see.
Bennett Moore (Equity Analyst)
Great, thank you. Best of luck. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of Anita Soni from CIBC World Markets. Go ahead.
Anita Soni (Equity Analyst)
Hi, good morning everyone. Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to ask a little bit about the cadence of the production ramp over the course of the year. So I think you said that in Q2 it’ll be similar to Q1 production. And in Q1 there were, I guess, a couple of challenges with Qutila coming off of the shutdown and then the weather just impacting the restart there. So what are the things that are kind of offsetting in Q2 if Cotilla is going to ramp back up and I would assume it’s the, the caribou migration that I should be modeling and then going into the back half of the year, what are the things that are ramping up? It’s the AK project right at Macassar.
Amar Al Jundi (Chief Executive Officer)
Hi, Anita, it’s Amar here. Honestly, it’s more just mind sequencing and where we are on the plan. There’s, you know, you’ve got a good point on specific items that were in the first quarter. You know, there are always. And we try to spread it out through the year. You know, when we have maintenance, when we have shutdowns, we try to, as you mentioned. Exactly right. You know, there’s always the uncertainty of the caribou season. But I think our team is really quite exceptionally good at taking all of that into account and projecting through the year. We don’t typically give, you know, 48%, 52%. We decided we wanted to do it because we just wanted people to know that actually everything’s going quite well. And as mentioned, you know, the first quarter was actually a little bit above budget. So there’s nothing in particular. It’s mostly just mind sequencing and various other elements that come into it.
Anita Soni (Equity Analyst)
And then just from a longer term capital allocation question, a lot of those questions have been asked and answered. But I just wanted to get an idea of as you think about the cash balance increasing, where do your priorities lie in terms of capital? Just rank them again in terms of capital return to shareholders. And I mean, the balance sheet’s pretty strong at this point and they’re accumulating a lot of cash. So, you know, where does reinvestment into the business now fall into the. Has it moved up over the capital return to shareholders?
Jamie Porter (Chief Financial Officer)
Yeah, thanks, sunit. I’d say, I mean, reinvestment in the business is always, you know, a very high priority. Right. The five key value driver projects that we’re advancing, our 30 to 60% IRR projects in the current gold price environment. So we want to invest as much as quickly as we can in those and we’re doing that. I mean, our capital spending has increased from 2.3 billion last year to probably 3 billion this year, all in. And we’ll look to continue to find opportunities to accelerate that, to bring that production forward. Beyond that, I’d say right now, this gold price environment, we’re fortunate in that we can do it all. We can afford to reinvest aggressively in the business. We can afford to deliver very strong returns to shareholders. I mean, 40% is kind of the floor for this year of our free cash flow being returned, I think is quite attractive. And we can continue to strengthen the balance sheet. Having that $3 to $5 billion net cash position just gives us the again, the financial strength and flexibility to be able to execute on our business strategy even in a much lower gold price environment. So I don’t think our priorities have really changed. We’ll continue to look for opportunities to accelerate reinvestment in the business while strengthening our financial position and delivering strong, strong returns to shareholders.
Amar Al Jundi (Chief Executive Officer)
It’s a. We understand the questions. You know, the exact position of cash on the balance sheet is as much an art as it is a science. You know, it’s $100 billion company, whether it’s $3 billion or 4 billion or 2 billion, really, that’s up to the discretion primarily of the CFO and Treasury. But, you know, I just want to make the point. Having been a CFO myself, it’s not like there is an exact perfect number. What you want to do is look at all the circumstances at the time, you know, make sure you have the most important thing a CFO has on his table is liquidity for the company. And so I think Jamie and the team are doing a great job balancing everything.
Anita Soni (Equity Analyst)
Agreed. Thanks for answering the question.
OPERATOR
Next question comes from the line of John Tomazos, from John Tomazo’s very independent research. Please go ahead.
John Tomazos
Thank you very much for your service to the company. I’m trying to make a back of the envelope concept of the Ikari mine or central Lapland new mine coming in 2034 is a fair guess. 15,000 tons a day times two and a quarter grams, times 95% recovery to get to the 500,000 ounces. And that, that might cost 1.2 billion when we get to 2034 all those years out.
Amar Al Jundi (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah. John, first of all, I’d like to thank you for your service to the industry. That’s a very nice introduction. We’re still early in looking at that. It’s, you know, maybe we can go through some of the details offline. I don’t know. Jean, did you want to step in first? I mean, we got to be careful because these are very, very early and we’re working on it.
Dominic (Chief Operating Officer)
First of all John, I’m very surprised with your question because I was expecting that you were asking how we’re able to put all of this together at once. So a bit disappointed with the question but on this listen 10,000, 15,000 we will have to define it and function of the throughput we will arrive with the minimum of let’s say 200,000 plus we’ll be careful before we’ll provide any number but I’m more focused on looking what it will be one day and as Guy described it’s a high potential and I think this is where I would like that we bring most of the attention what it can be eventually. So we are excited with the consolidation and stay tuned because I think moving forward toward the end of 2027 we’ll have more to say. So John, what we are referring to in our press release is a platform of 500,000 ounces when combining Quetela and ICARI together that’s currently and so we need to work if we can make it bigger than that and we cannot work on the but just to make it clear the 500,000 is just solely for Ecari. It’s our vision of the platform for the time being.
John Tomazos
Let me ask another one if I may and thank you for the clarification. I was assuming we were only talking about the new property I was guessing the capex and then the consideration for the three purchases and on the 4.22 million ounces of current resources slightly larger than the 3 1/2 million ounces of reserves. At a billion two development capital it works out to twelve sixty eight dollars an ounce acquisition and capex to develop. Should we be assuming that the resources are going to double or triple and that that’s not the new normal for how much we’re going to pay for developing mines?
Amar Al Jundi (Chief Executive Officer)
John, it’s. It’s Amar here and I think this is probably the way that we look at it. The acquisition cost worked out by our internal assessment and remember we know this project quite well. We’ve been there for six plus years looking at it. We acquired it effectively by our own internal models at a quite a good discount to NAV just based on what we felt on our own, what we thought were fairly conservative. So we’ve acquired an asset in a region we know well that we have been looking at for six plus years at a considerable discount to NAV and we got the rest of the land package for free. So you know we’re excited about it. We Think it makes a lot of sense. I can’t get into all of the numbers except to say in our usual fashion we did an awful lot of homework before we decided to proceed.
John Tomazos
Thank you.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of Tanya Jakoskonik from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
Tanya Jakoskonik (Equity Analyst)
Oh, thank you very much for taking my questions. So my first is for Dominic. Dominic. I hope that snow will be gone from Hope Bay when we’re up there. That picture showed quite a lot of our barbecue. I just wanted to ask because we capital increases lately at some of the projects out there, should we still be thinking that $2 billion for Hope Bay would be a reasonable capital and your mine plan that you’ve been talking about.
Dominic (Chief Operating Officer)
Hi Tanya. Yeah, we see a bit of inflation but it’s going to be below 2.5 for sure. And the thing we need to finalize, we have a very good now level of engineering but there’s decision that we’re taking for example to fast track patch 7 and to do more answers earlier. For example to start the mill right up at 6,000 tonnes per day. Well it’s going to be a ramp up but the mill is going to be designed right up front at 6,000 tons per day. Compare what we did with Myliadine. And also for example we’re looking to add one more wing to keep the drilling ongoing and to get to let Guy doing treasure hunting onto the property. So there’s decision that we’re taking internally that at the end of the day affecting the initial capex but it won’t be a big surprise. It’s going to be slightly over 2
Amar Al Jundi (Chief Executive Officer)
billion and the changes are not so much inflation, they’re more, you know, instead of ramping up the mill in two stages just because of the economics you just do it all at once. And as Guy said, do you invest in some peripheral infrastructures so that we can continue to accelerate exploration?
Tanya Jakoskonik (Equity Analyst)
Okay, that’s awful. You know over 2 billion slightly because of planned rather than inflation.
Dominic (Chief Operating Officer)
Yeah, yeah, sure.
Tanya Jakoskonik (Equity Analyst)
Okay, now that I have you, I have just two quick questions for you. You mentioned the strategy in our which was to focus around Fosterville and drilling that platform to see what you have there in Mexico besides San Nicolas is that do you have anything else that you’re looking at to expand that platform
Amar Al Jundi (Chief Executive Officer)
at San Nicolas Mexico itself besides. So we are looking at opportunities to expand San Nicolas but beyond that Tanya, there’s really nothing substantial that we’re seeing as an opportunity in Mexico.
Tanya Jakoskonik (Equity Analyst)
Okay, thank you. And then my final question, Amar for you. It’s always tragic to hear about fatalities for everybody in the mining industry. And so my question to you is from your tragic incident that you had at your mine sites, what have you learned and what changes to procedures and processes have you put in place from these learning?
Amar Al Jundi (Chief Executive Officer)
Well, thank you for asking because it is very important, Tania, I think that we’ve learned what we already know, which is never ever slow down in emphasizing the importance of safety. And sometimes it’s really disappointing. It’s the routine things, the things that people do every day that they get too comfortable with. You know, that’s human nature and it is our job to really just push it. You know what we did was we mandated a stand-down where we took every employee in at all of our sites, every single one, and re emphasized it. We have a very sophisticated and comprehensive safety program like most of our peers. And you know, frankly it’s really devastating to have had those fatalities.
Tanya Jakoskonik (Equity Analyst)
Okay, so it seems that it was just, you know, so nothing that you would have changed I guess is what you’re saying from procedures and processes.
Amar Al Jundi (Chief Executive Officer)
Well, I mean I think that I don’t want to get into detail. There’s a lot of work still ongoing. These weren’t things that. Oh actually Carol, why don’t you jump in?
Carol
Hi Tanya. As you can understand, any loss of life is a tragic loss of life. In both of these instances, the in depth investigations are still ongoing. The authorities are involved, the regulatory authorities and so on are involved in these investigations as well. So we can’t share the results of these investigations yet. But certainly there are learnings around this. We’re sharing to the degree possible, not just internally but industry to industry peers where there has been something that we can start sharing immediately to make sure that these types of accidents couldn’t happen elsewhere. And really for us we’re really, as Amar said, re emphasizing just the importance of safe production and making sure that we’re following our procedures and always looking for the risks in the workplace and how we can mitigate those risks. So to that end we’ve been looking at major hazards which are, which are the hazards of things that could actually be a life changing accident and putting in place critical controls. So we’re continuing down that road and I think that’s a really important step for us as we continue on that journey towards zero accidents.
Tanya Jakoskonik (Equity Analyst)
Thank you Carol. For sure, all sharing for the mining industry are all beneficial. Thank you.
OPERATOR
There are no further questions. I’ll turn the call back over to Amar.
Amar Al Jundi (Chief Executive Officer)
Thank you everyone for joining us. And everyone have a nice weekend. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
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