Earnings Call Transcript - BVN Q1 2025

Operator, Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Compania de Minas Buenaventura First Quarter 2025 Earnings Results Conference Call. Please note that this call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's call, Mr. Sebastian Valencia, Head of Investor Relations. Mr. Valencia, you may begin.

Sebastian Valencia, Head of Investor Relations

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today to discuss our first quarter 2025 results. Today's discussion will be led by Mr. Leandro Garcia, Chief Executive Officer. Also joining our call today and available for your questions are Mr. Daniel Dominguez, Chief Financial Officer; Mr. Juan Carlos Ortiz, Vice President of Operations; Mr. Aldo Massa, Vice President of Business Development and Commercial; Mr. Alejandro Hermoza, Vice President of Sustainability; Mr. Renzo Macher, Vice President of Projects; Mr. Juan Carlos Salazar, Vice President of Geology and Exploration; and Mr. Roque Benavides, Chairman; and Mr. Raul Benavides, Director. Before I hand the call over, let me first touch on a few items. On Buenaventura's website, you will find our press release that was posted yesterday after market close. Please note that today's remarks include forward-looking statements that are based on management's current views and assumptions. While management believes that these assumptions, expectations, and projections are reasonable in view of the currently available information, you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. I encourage you to read the full disclosure concerning forward-looking statements within the earnings results press release issued on April 30, 2025. Let me now turn the call to Mr. Leandro Garcia.

Leandro Garcia, CEO

Thank you, Sebastian. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today to discuss the quarterly results of the company. On Slide 2 is our cautionary statement, important information that I encourage you to read. Today, we will be discussing our performance for the first quarter of 2025, highlighting key achievements and strategies moving forward. After the presentation, we will be available for a Q&A session, where our team will be happy to answer your questions. Next slide, please. I would like to highlight a few key areas that contribute to our strong first quarter 2025 results. Our first quarter 2025 EBITDA from direct operations was $126 million compared to $95 million reported in the first quarter of 2024. This performance is also reflected in a higher EBITDA margin of 41% compared to 38% in the previous year. First quarter 2025 net income was $140 million compared to $61 million in net income for the first quarter of last year. The year ended with a cash position of $648 million and a total debt of $862 million, resulting in a net leverage ratio of 0.46x. This debt level increased against the previous quarter as it includes Buenaventura 2032 notes. It also considers only the outstanding amount of our 2026 notes. The total CapEx for the quarter amounted to $36 million, with $22 million allocated to the San Gabriel project. On April 23, 2025, Buenaventura received $49 million in dividends related to its stake in Cerro Verde. In the first quarter of 2025, silver production reached 3.7 million ounces, 20% higher compared to the 3.1 million ounces produced during the same period of last year. Of this total, 2.2 million ounces came from Yumpag due to full-scale operation. Copper production decreased 21% year-over-year, primarily due to the remaining El Brocal open pit inventories, which were processed in the first quarter of 2024. Gold production was 27,980 ounces compared to 36,593 ounces produced in the first quarter of 2024, primarily due to the decreased production at Tambomayo and Orcopampa, partially offset by increased production at La Zanja. Finally, consolidated reserves have been updated as of the end of 2024. Gold reserves have increased by 482,000 ounces. Silver reserves have increased by 61 million ounces and copper reserves have increased by 253,000 tonnes. Moving on to our cost structure in Slide 4. The all-in sustaining cost for the first quarter of 2025 decreased by 83% compared to the same period in the previous year. It is important to highlight that the year-over-year decrease in all-in sustaining cost was primarily driven by lower commercial deductions and higher byproduct credits. Moving on to the cost applicable to sales trend. As you can see, copper cash cost applicable to sales increased year-over-year, mainly due to lower byproduct credit contributions at El Brocal. Silver cash has increased year-over-year, but was consistent with the expectations for this quarter. Gold cash has increased year-over-year, primarily driven by lower volumes and grades at Tambomayo and Orcopampa. On the next slide, we will present free cash flow generation. The first quarter 2025 cash position increased during the quarter, mainly driven by net cash inflows from financial activities. An additional $100 million was raised through the bond issued in February 2025 and the remaining amount of the 2026 bond. In addition to these drivers, the EBITDA to free cash flow reconciliation reflects Buenaventura's significant CapEx investment related to San Gabriel. Moving on to Slide 6. This slide shows San Gabriel's cumulative progress, reaching 79% overall completion by the first quarter of 2025, primarily driven by finishing the engineering and procurement as well as the construction 75% advance. At March 2025, San Gabriel's total CapEx has reached $505 million. The guidance for the full year 2025 has been revised to the range of $220 million-$250 million. The construction timeline remains on schedule. We anticipate commencing the ramp-up phase in the third quarter of 2025, followed by the production of the first gold bar in the fourth quarter of 2025. However, this milestone remains subject to the timely approval of the necessary permits. On the next slide, we are showing the processing plants' progress that will operate at 3,000 tonnes per day. Currently, the primary crusher mechanical works are at 100%. The SAG and Ball mechanical works are at 98%. And finally, the CIL tanks mechanical works are at 97%. Moving on, we can see the progress of the main components of the plant. Moving on Slide 9, we are showing the progress at the filtered tailings plant that currently is at 74%. To conclude the presentation, I would like to share a few final thoughts. San Gabriel continues to advance steadily with 79% overall progress and on track to produce its first gold bar in the fourth quarter of 2025. Yumpag is proving to be a key growth driver, delivering 2.3 million ounces of silver in the first quarter and generating a strong cash flow. We are also driving growth by increasing our gold, silver, and copper reserves, led by the strength of our flagship operations. And finally, our focused strategy remains unchanged. We are committed to our corporate guidelines, prioritizing reserve growth, EBITDA maximization, and cost efficiency at our flagship mines and in our strong pipeline of projects. Thank you for your attention. I will hand the call back to the operator to open the line for questions.

Operator, Operator

Today's first question comes from Carlos De Alba with Morgan Stanley.

Carlos De Alba, Analyst

Regarding San Gabriel, can you clarify whether the increase in CapEx for 2025 reflects a rise in the overall project expenses or if it is merely a reallocation of funds originally planned for 2026? Additionally, what is the anticipated return on this investment as we approach completion, and which permits are still pending that could delay production this year? If those permits are obtained, what production levels do you expect for 2025 and possibly 2026 at San Gabriel? Lastly, could you provide an overview of the exploration budget and expenses reflected in your P&L for both operating and non-operating units in 2025? Also, please address the higher administrative expenses noted in the first quarter and your outlook for that line, including SG&A for the rest of the year.

Leandro Garcia, CEO

Thank you, Carlos, for your question. Regarding San Gabriel, the capital expenditure planned for 2025 indicates an increase. There are some geotechnical and hydraulic challenges that Renzo will explain further. As for the return, please keep in mind that the decision to proceed with this project was based on prices of $1,600, ensuring it will maintain the same level of profitability for the company. Concerning the permits, we are discussing the operational authorization that will be issued once construction is completed. Renzo, would you like to add anything?

Carlos De Alba, Analyst

Maybe Leandro, can you remind us what exactly is the return on the profitability that you are seeing for San Gabriel? And just to clarify, what is now the total CapEx for the project that you see after the increase in 2025?

Leandro Garcia, CEO

The total CapEx should be between $720 million and $750 million.

Carlos De Alba, Analyst

Okay. And the IRR of the project or the net present value of the project?

Leandro Garcia, CEO

It's around 12%, 13%.

Operator, Operator

I apologize.

Leandro Garcia, CEO

Yes, there are a couple of questions, and the answer is from Renzo. Additionally, there are some questions regarding exploration expenses and general and administrative costs. We can start with Renzo.

Renzo Macher, Vice President of Projects

Yes. Regarding the issues we faced with geotech and hydrogeology, along with some excess inadequate material that exceeded our confidence level, those issues have been addressed. However, we need to carry out additional work, including slope reinforcement, adding more layers of grouting in the water dam, finding a temporary location for this excess inadequate inventory, and increasing quarry production to make up for it. All these actions have either been completed or are currently underway. This funding, along with the excess works, includes about $45 million for completing the electrical and mechanical systems and commissioning the plant, an additional $25 million for the tailings storage facility, $35 million for mine development, and $50 million for the power line. We are on track to meet our commitment for the first gold bar in the fourth quarter.

Leandro Garcia, CEO

We can continue with the exploration expenses and investment.

Daniel Dominguez, CFO

Yes, Leandro. This is Daniel. Thank you, Carlos, for your question. In terms of exploration, we can divide it into two kinds of explorations. The first one is the explorations in the operating units. This is basically for infill drilling to convert the resources into reserves. The normalized amount for the quarters, the next quarters is in the order of $10 million to $12 million. For the overall year 2025, we are in the order of $40 million to $45 million. In addition to this, we have the nonoperating areas of explorations, which will be in the order of $4 million to $5 million each quarter. For the entire 2025, we should be in the order of $20 million. One of the most important activities here is the exploration in El Brocal within the areas of Unish and Bohorquez. Regarding the administrative expenses, yes, as you mentioned, they are a little bit higher than we were expecting. But this is basically due to the higher workers’ participation that we are registering because of the higher profits that we report from our direct operations. The amount of administrative expenses for each quarter this year will be in the order of $15 million to $17 million. For the entire year, we expect around $60 million to $65 million.

Operator, Operator

Our next question today comes from Tanya Jakusconek with Scotiabank.

Tanya Jakusconek, Analyst

Maybe, Daniel, I'm just going to finish off with you just on some of the forecasting. Can you remind me now what your capital expenditure is going to be for this year? Previously, we had $330 million to $355 million. I'm just wondering if that is still valid with this movement in the San Gabriel capital.

Daniel Dominguez, CFO

Tanya, we expect an increase in the CapEx, as Renzo mentioned, San Gabriel will add some additional CapEx for the construction of San Gabriel. We expect for this year in total around $400 million to $420 million. From this, we have already spent more than $80 million.

Tanya Jakusconek, Analyst

Okay. And maybe just so I understand the delta, I think it's come in $50 million more than Gabriel, $50 million or thereabout more than we expected from the original budget of Q4. Can you just remind me that $50 million, what was the overrun?

Renzo Macher, Vice President of Projects

Okay. So the overrun was based on this inadequate material and the hydrogeological underneath the water dam basically. So we have to move a lot more inadequate material to the new storage area. We need to do several additional layers of grouting. And obviously, this scrambled a little bit the coordination between the contractors. So we are in that process of accelerating certain activities to maintain the date of the first gold bar. That's kind of what was out of the scope.

Tanya Jakusconek, Analyst

Okay. So maybe just for myself to understand, when you talk about inadequate material, are you talking about waste rock?

Renzo Macher, Vice President of Projects

No. I'm talking about quarries, quarries that were supposed to have good building material; we found some layers of inadequate material.

Tanya Jakusconek, Analyst

Okay. And so you have to move the facility to another place. Is that a correct understanding?

Renzo Macher, Vice President of Projects

No. We need to remove all that inadequate material in order to reach the foundation level, and we need to expand our existing inadequate material deposit to hold these additional quantities.

Tanya Jakusconek, Analyst

Okay. And is this a water storage facility? I'm just trying to understand what's going to be placed on top of that.

Renzo Macher, Vice President of Projects

No. This is where the filtration plant is located. The water storage facility has different issues. Yes. The water storage facility experienced some infiltration problems. Initially, we anticipated needing to apply a couple of layers of grouting, but we ended up applying around seven layers. That process took some time, and we will also be reinforcing the size of the water dam. Currently, the dam is about 35% of its total height. We have finished the rainy season, so we are starting to see some increased progress.

Tanya Jakusconek, Analyst

Okay. So there are two separate items: the filtration plant and the water dam. Understood. Can I ask about the developments at San Gabriel? We've discussed the mill extensively. Let's shift our focus to the underground operations. What is the current status regarding the training of the underground miners? Also, how far along are we in stop development to prepare for production? Lastly, what is the status of the stockpile on the surface? Are we still on track to reach 300,000 tonnes by October? I'm looking for updates on those three items at San Gabriel.

Leandro Garcia, CEO

Thank you. Maybe Juan Carlos can help us with the answers.

Juan Carlos Ortiz, Vice President of Operations

Of course, Leandro. Regarding training, we are hiring new teams for Buenaventura to be prepared by the end of July for our first equipment delivery, specifically underground equipment. Epiroc will deliver our first crew on schedule in July, August, and September, with the last fleet arriving in October. We’ve already hired the first crew, and the second one is in the hiring process and undergoing training. Currently, the Tambomayo mine is utilizing these mining methods. We are bringing the executives, engineers, and supervisors to Tambomayo for training to familiarize them with the details of the current mining methods in the field. This is part of our process, and we are on track. As for stop development, we are opening the galleries across the ore body as planned. We currently have about 60,000 tonnes of ore material on the surface, which is also on schedule. Our contractor has three fleets on-site capable of developing between 600 to 800 meters per month, depending on the ground conditions we encounter. If we need to implement steel reinforcement, we may be closer to the 600-meter mark per month. Conversely, if we can only advance using shotcrete, we might reach around 800 meters in a month. So, depending on the conditions each month, we are working within that range with the contractor. By July, our first crew from Buenaventura will be on-site.

Tanya Jakusconek, Analyst

Okay. So it looks like everything is going to plan. And I know we talked about the ground conditions in your previous conference call that you were requiring concrete cement required and obviously, reinforcement is little water, so you didn't have water underground. Are you still seeing similar ground conditions, nothing worse?

Juan Carlos Ortiz, Vice President of Operations

Yes, it aligns with our expectations. We are encountering rock mass Category 4, which requires support with steel arches. In some instances, we have encountered slightly better rock, referred to as Category 3B, which can be developed using only shotcrete and bolts.

Tanya Jakusconek, Analyst

Okay. For my final question regarding Coimolache, we were anticipating permits in Q1 so we could begin construction in Q2 and resume fresh ore leaching in Q3. Do we know if we have received the permits? Have we started construction?

Juan Carlos Ortiz, Vice President of Operations

Leandro, you allow me?

Leandro Garcia, CEO

Yes.

Juan Carlos Ortiz, Vice President of Operations

Yes. We were granted the construction permit in March. We started construction in April. We are starting construction right now of the expansion of the pad. While at the same time, we are asking for stockpiling fresh ore on top of the existing stock on the existing pad. So we have 2 permits running in parallel, one for the lateral expansion of the pad and one for piling more ore on top of the existing one. So we are according to plan. We expect to pile fresh ore on top of the pad by August this year. So after we put the ore in there, you probably need to wait 60 days in order to allow the solution to come all the way down to the human brain and report to the extraction facility. So we start placing ore in August, which will be September, October, late October, early November that we will start seeing an increase in gold production in Coimolache.

Operator, Operator

Our next question today comes from Alex Hacking with Citi.

Alex Hacking, Analyst

I just wanted to clarify on San Gabriel. When you talk about the water dam, is that the TSF? Is that where the tailings are being deposited?

Renzo Macher, Vice President of Projects

No. So the water dam is where we're going to be storing fresh water to use in the plant. The tailings storage facility is a different component, and it's going to be dry stacking.

Alex Hacking, Analyst

I want to clarify whether the geotechnical and hydraulic issues, as well as the CapEx overrun, are solely related to the water dam or if there are additional issues involved.

Renzo Macher, Vice President of Projects

Yes. The water dam had some infiltration that we found underneath the foundation that was not according to what our original study had. So we have to do a lot more grouting, yes. We thought that 2 to 3 layers of grouting would be enough. We ended up with 7 layers of grouting. And we reached the design infiltration rates. That's one problem. The other problem, it's a quarry that was supposed to have enough material for filling, but it didn't have enough material. It was inadequate material. So we need to move it to reach the foundation level of that quarry and then replace it with another quarry. So that causes some scrambling of the construction sequence that we are currently aligning again.

Alex Hacking, Analyst

Okay. That's helpful. And then I guess the follow-up question, I guess, around the transition to operating yourself at Uchucchacua, Yumpag, Brocal, any update on how that process is going?

Juan Carlos Ortiz, Vice President of Operations

Leandro, allow me to answer that part of the question.

Leandro Garcia, CEO

Yes, sure.

Juan Carlos Ortiz, Vice President of Operations

Yes. We already assigned the contract, the purchase order for Uchucchacua, Yumpag, and Brocal to Sandvik. We have a schedule for bringing all the equipment on board. In the case of Uchucchacua and Yumpag, because our midsized equipment, they are going to be delivered earlier basically in the third and fourth quarter of this year. Only a small fraction of the equipment will be delivered early in 2026. We will replace all equipment, we will return any rental equipment that we have on the ground. So to give a more continuity of operations underground. We will also have full service from Sandvik on site from day 0. In the case of El Brocal, most of the equipment will be delivered in 2026 because this is a very large size of equipment, large loaders, and large production drills. So most of the equipment will be delivered by early 2026 in the first and second quarter. Again, the strategy there is to save costs by doing the work by ourselves at a larger size. We have right now with the contractor loaders that are only 10 tonnes capacity, and we are moving into different sizes of equipment more close to between 14 for development, 14 tonnes loader for development and 17 tonnes for production to extract the ore from the stopes. So that’s the reason we are doing that in El Brocal, and again, it’s going to be with Sandvik with the same strategy with full maintenance from day 0 on site.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. That concludes the question-and-answer session of today's conference call. I would now like to turn it back over to Leandro Garcia for closing remarks.

Leandro Garcia, CEO

Thank you, operator. Before we conclude today’s conference call, I would like to thank you for the time and effort dedicated to joining us. Your participation and input are greatly appreciated. Thank you very much, and have a wonderful day.

Operator, Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes Buenaventura's First Quarter 2025 Earnings Results Conference Call. We would like to thank you again for your participation. You may now disconnect.