Coeur Mining, Inc. Q1 FY2026 Earnings Call

Good day, and welcome to the Core Mining's First Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star, then 2. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mitchell Krebs, Chairman, President, and CEO. Please go ahead.

Hello, everyone, and thanks for joining our call to discuss CORE's first quarter results. I'll kick off with some highlights from the quarter, followed by an update on several key strategic priorities in the wake of the recently completed new gold transaction. I'll then turn it over to Tom for a recap of our first quarter results before opening it up for questions with the team who's here with me. Before we start, please note our cautionary language regarding forward-looking statements and refer to our SEC filings on our website. The highlights on slide four showcase our strong start despite the first quarter being the softest quarter of the year. Our record results also reflect just 11 days of contributions from the recently acquired New Afton and Rainy River mines. First quarter silver and gold production increased 18% and 11% year-over-year respectively, driving quarterly revenue to a record $856 million. EBITDA increased 12% versus the fourth quarter and nearly four-fold year-over-year to a record $475 million, we generated a very strong $267 million of free cash flow, despite over $200 million of quarter-specific and one-time items that Tom will describe in more detail shortly. These accelerating cash flows continue to supercharge our balance sheet, with cash and equivalents increasing nearly 11-fold over the past year to $843 million and growing. A real shout out to the team for getting us out of the gates cleanly and safely in 2026. The production summary on slide 5 provides the clearest portrait of what we expect will be a truly watershed year for the company. Among many other positive catalysts on TAP, the remaining three quarters will reflect full contributions from New Afton and Rainy River, rising production and cash flow from Rochester and a strong rebound at Wharf now that its rebuilt crushing circuit is back up and running thanks to a tremendous effort by the team there following a fire in the Crusher building last November. Putting that all together along with consistent performance from our three other operations and taking the midpoint of our guidance ranges, we expect to produce approximately 750,000 ounces of gold, over 20 million ounces of silver, and nearly 60 million pounds of copper in 2026. The two new Canadian operations are the main drivers behind an expected 80% increase in our 2026 gold production compared to last year, while also introducing copper into our metals mix and driving down our overall cost profile. The plus 20 million ounces of silver production we expect to generate this year represents about a 13 percent increase over last year, driven by a full year of contribution from Las Chispas, which was added in mid-February last year through the Silvercrest acquisition, as well as a further expected step up in production at Rochester. This level of silver production should keep us in the top five of all silver producers globally and is expected to represent over 30% of our revenue this year based on recent prices. It's also important to highlight that 100% of our 2026 gold, silver, and copper production will come from North America, with about 70% of our revenues coming from the U.S. and Canada. A couple of other quick updates. You likely saw on March 23rd that we provided a corporate update following the closing of the new gold transaction that laid out an enhanced financial policy reflecting our priorities of establishing and maintaining a flexible balance sheet and reinvesting back into our assets, all while returning capital to shareholders through a substantially increased share repurchase program and an inaugural dividend, which Tom will talk more about shortly. On the integration front, we're very pleased with where we are after seven weeks since the closing. There's been an incredible amount of planning, effort, and collaboration throughout the combined organization, which deserves a big thank you. The teams are engaging in the work of integrating the two companies, and everyone is excited about the stronger and larger platform we've created and the tremendous potential that lies ahead. Before turning it over to Tom, one final note from me. We published our 2025 Responsibility Report on April 15th, which is summarized on slide 23. CORE's approach has always been grounded in driving sustainable growth and long-term value creation, and we focused this year's report on clearly tying our sustainability priorities to underlying business value. Tom, over to you.

Thanks, Mitch. I'll begin with a brief review of our first quarter financial results as presented on slide 9. Record quarterly performance in revenue, EBITDA, gap net income are just the latest signs of the emerging power and consistency of Coors' combined portfolio. Key headline financial results included a seventh consecutive quarter of free cash flow and an eighth consecutive quarter of positive earnings per share. This consistent track record of positive earnings and free cash flow, along with our new dividend policy, bodes well for future additional index inclusion. Our first quarter is always a little choppy, with our traditionally seasonally low first-quarter operating performance and significant working capital outflows. Add in the complexity of closing a transaction during the quarter, this led to a lot of moving parts in the quarterly results. We included a waterfall chart on slide 11, where we called out quarter-specific and one-time items totaling over $200 million. However, with the tailwinds of stronger realized prices and a focus on monetizing the opening inventory balances at our newly acquired Canadian operations, we managed to achieve our second highest free cash flow in company history at $267 million. Our day one integration efforts have paid off, leaving us set up for a memorable 2026 as we emerge as the new go-to North American-only precious metals company. Slide 8 highlights the incredible turnaround story of our balance sheet. With last 12-month adjusted EBITDA increasing by over $1 billion compared to the same point one year ago, an overall net cash position, along with the new, modernized, and materially upsized $1 billion revolving credit facility, the balance sheet and overall liquidity levels are in great shape. Of note, our cash balance increased by almost $300 million during the quarter, more than offsetting the $272 million of net debt that was assumed at the closing of the new gold acquisition. I would also highlight that we received multi-notch upgrades from our rating agencies as we completed the acquisition, which is external validation of the immense progress and stability we have built. A couple of final notes on the balance sheet. The obliger exchange related to New Gold's 2032 bonds that we launched on the transaction closing was completed on April 22nd. This innovative transaction has allowed us to novate over 96% of the outstanding New Gold notes to become core notes, which will provide significant benefits, including no restrictions on our ability to return capital, additional U.S. tax shield, and lower filing and compliance costs. And on April 30th, we repaid the bulk of our remaining $45 million of capital leases early to further reduce our overall interest expense going forward. With our 2026 guidance reaffirmed and using our 2026 budget prices, we expect to generate more than $3 billion of EBITDA and $2 billion of free cash flow, as shown on slide 7. even with only nine months and 11 days of contributions from New Afton and Rainy River. This overall confidence in the portfolio was the basis of the updated financial policy as outlined on slide 10 for the company, including our return of capital strategy that we announced on March 23rd. As a brief reminder, our board-authorized capital return strategy is comprised of a $750 million buyback program, which allows for the possibility of continuous activity even during blackout periods as well as a discretionary component to allow us to execute repurchases opportunistically based on our underlying share price and valuation. We look forward to executing on this program following several months of inactivity due to blackouts and Coors Board has also approved an inaugural dividend policy of $0.02 per share semi-annually, with payments expected in the second and fourth quarters. This amount was selected to make the dividend sustainable for the long run, even under extreme low-case pricing scenarios, and allows for potential dividend growth over time. Two final comments from me. Slide 12 includes our usual snapshot of inflationary pressures that we keep a close eye on every day as we manage the business. In the wake of the recent surge in oil prices, we wanted to highlight that diesel represents approximately 6% of Coors' total operating costs, and our 2026 cost guidance assumes a diesel price of $3.19 per gallon. A 10% increase in diesel prices would typically increase our costs by about $10 million, which equates to roughly 1% to 2% increase in our CAS per unit. So while we are not immune to this cost pressure, it is less acute than most people might think. And during the March 23rd call, I highlighted several accounting nuances that impact our CAS guidance with a special focus on the fair value uplifts of opening inventory that arise from the purchase price allocation from the new gold acquisition. With all of Rainy River and New Afton's Q1 2026 sales coming from opening inventory, the CAS for the quarter at those mines approached current spot prices as required under U.S. GAAP, as those inventories were recorded at their fair market value. As a reminder, the associated $85 million non-cash impact on CAS during the quarter from this pointy-headed accounting matter is the same concept that we saw at Las Chispas last year. Our overall company-wide adjusted gold CAS would have been $689 less per ounce to give everyone a sense of the significant accounting impact of this non-cash item, the champagne problems of having so much opening inventory. This nuance will carry throughout 2026 at Rainy River as we are fortunate to inherit an approximate 2 million ton short-term stockpile. We will likely have some tweaks to the final non-cash impact of this fair value uplift that we will clarify with our Q2 2026 interim results as we finalize the new gold purchase price allocation. With that, I will now pass the call back to Mitch.

Thanks, Tom. Before opening it up for Q&A, as shown on slide 20, our key strategic priorities for the year ahead remain unchanged. I'm very proud to report that CORE finished 2025 as the safest mining company among our peers in the United States for the fourth consecutive year based on MSHA data. Congratulations to the entire team for having the courage to care and for always pursuing a higher standard when it comes to our commitment to keeping everyone safe. I'm also extremely pleased to announce that both New Afton and Rainy River received the John T. Ryan Regional Safety Trophy for lowest reportable injury frequency earlier this week at the annual CIM conference. New Afton has received this award 11 out of the past 12 years, while Rainy River is a first-time recipient. Our leadership in the safety and environmental areas are two great examples of how we at CORE set the bar high and then strive to exceed our expectations. As we look out over the remainder of the year, we will continue working tirelessly to complete a smooth integration of new gold and to deliver consistent and predictable performance across our expanded and strengthened platform of seven North American operations. Another key priority will be to continue bolstering our liquidity while making the transition to returning capital to shareholders through our new share repurchase program and initial dividend policy. Carrying out the largest exploration investment in the company's history and delivering impactful results from these programs will remain a top focus over the remaining nine months of the year. This includes continued drilling at the Silver Tip Project in British Columbia, where the higher silver price, Canada's strong support for critical minerals projects, and our own ability to advance this one-of-a-kind silver asset are all coming together to create a potential window of opportunity. Much work remains to be done, and we look forward to sharing our progress there later in the year after the busy summer drilling season. Starting with this current quarter, we're excited to begin delivering the tremendous potential of the company that we've built through our recent investments in exploration and expansions and two well-timed high-impact M&A transactions. I can't think of a better positioned company in our sector given our production and cash flow profile, metals mix, growth, geographic footprint, trading liquidity, balance sheet, and most importantly, the team to deliver it. With that, let's go ahead and open it up for questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then 2. At this time we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. First question comes from Cosmos Chiu with CIBC.

Please go ahead. Great. Thanks, Mitch and Tom and team for a very good presentation. Maybe my first question is on free cash flow. You kind of touched on it, you know, some Q1 specific items, $200 million, and it's in slide 11. But could you maybe elaborate on it? Just want to make sure that these are non-recurring. Like, it won't come up again in Q2. Maybe it'll come up maybe in Q1, the Mexican taxes, but, you know, certainly won't be recurring for Q2,

Q3, and Q4. Yeah. Hi, Cosmos. It's Mitch. Thanks for the question. Oh, hey, Mitch. Yeah, that's Mitch. I'll ask Tom to say something here in a second. Just on a high level, and you referenced slide 11, which is a great, great place to talk about this. Yeah, each first quarter, you're really not going to get away from the Mexican tax payments, the interest, and the Rochester property tax. The others were one-time, I mean the incentive payment is variable year-to-year. Strong performance last year led to a larger annual incentive payment in the first quarter of this year and obviously the tax payments were higher than they've been in recent years due to the Las Chispas addition last year and and just overall strong performance from both Paul Moreo and Las Chispas but Tom anything else you want to add to that?

Yeah the only thing I would I would add is just the way we time the the interest on the notes that those will happen in Q1 and Q3 but the rest are only going to happen in in Q1 and and obviously transaction costs that was the one time.

Perfect thank you and then maybe if I can ask about the capital return program and Mitch you know great to see the dividend now in place and now the 750 million dollar uh repurchase program now in place um i went through the mvna it doesn't seem like you've utilized the share buyback program just yet uh is there something is that something that you look forward to doing uh you know sometime in 2026 is it dependent on free cash flow coming in dependent on kind of like you know core mining share price levels and and uh i guess number one confirm that hasn't been used at number two, but will it get used sometime in 2026?

Yeah, yeah, thanks for the question. Absolutely, we look forward to enacting that enhanced repurchase program. We've been constrained with blackouts from the new gold transaction, from first quarter. Those now will lift after today, so we look forward to becoming more active here starting in the in the second quarter and beyond on uh on that repurchase program

understood um you know sorry to you know come back to this uh ppa you know in terms of a purchase price accounting to inventory um but uh i'm just trying to wrap my head around it uh i understand you know it's been marked up to market and uh but the new afton number over 4 000 uh in cas Cass, again, Rainy River, over $4,000 in Cass, that seemed fairly high. So is it going to be, you know, as we go into Q2, Q3, and Q4, is it going to be dependent on sort of how much is being drawn out of inventory versus how much fresh ore you are going to be kind of, you know, supplementing the inventory production with? That's going to be a determinant in terms of what Cass is going to look like each and every quarter. And the, I guess, 11 days of over 4,000-an-ounce CAS was just a function of it being all inventory and maybe just anomaly over 11 days.

Yeah, you got it. And no need to apologize for the question. You made Tom's day. Tom, do you want to cover up?

So, let's go asset by asset. So, new Afton, you know, think of that as pretty much we've flushed everything out there. from the opening whip and finished goods through that those first 11 days so that 20 million dollar impact which was 2560 uh on the cas and 310 on copper because it's co-product that should kind of be in the rear view mirror but again as i reference at rainy it's a champagne problem uh you know we inherited just to give you a sense like 30 000 ounces of gold in finished goods and Doré balances at the end of the quarter are on acquisition and as well as reference a 2 million ton stockpile so that's you know we're that's well over 400 million dollars of fair value of gold and so as I mentioned we're finalizing that that purchase price allocation exercise here in the second quarter as we're allowed to so 65 million dollars of that flow through so So there'll be a continuing impact through Q2 and Q3. And as we get a little bit more visibility on exactly how quickly we'll draw that down and chew through that stockpile, we'll be able to give you a little bit more guidance. But I just want to keep going back to you. This is just pointy-headed accounting. It definitely impacts our earnings, but doesn't impact free cash flow.

Great. Thanks, Tom. And maybe one last question in terms of operations. Q1, you know, Rochester and Wharf were impacted by certain issues. Maintenance sort of at Rochester and, of course, the fire at Wharf. Just to confirm, it sounds like, you know, the issues are behind you. It sounds like everything's, you know, all the fixes have now been put in place. And so for Q2, Q3, and Q4, should we expect sort of a more normalized level in terms of tonnage, in terms of throughput at Rochester and Wharf?

Yeah, I'll start, Cosmos, and then, Mick, you can clean up anything that needs to be cleaned up. If you go back, Cosmos, to the guidance that we put out in February in that investor deck, we laid out the production profile by quarter by mine. And like for WARF, you could see the first quarter was by far the weakest and then continuing strength throughout the rest of the year And then looking at our results here from the first quarter, you can see WARF was actually just a little ahead of that profile that we laid out back in February. And so the team's done an amazing job there of getting back up and going. And so we feel good about that continued progression through the remaining three quarters of the year to land within that full-year guidance range that we put out back in February. Similar story at Rochester. You know, it was a little ahead of plan. When you look at expected first quarter versus actual, when you think about some of the things going on on the ground there from the crushing standpoint, of course, the first quarter has fewer days in it than any other quarter. There was some scheduled downtime for maintenance. There was a lot of overliner being crushed in the first quarter to go out onto the phase two, stage six leach pad. So a few of those things were going on in the first quarter, but we expect to see things continue to build there as well through the year to land within the guidance ranges that we put out last in February. Make anything I failed to mention?

No, perfect. I'd both say it's building momentum throughout the year as per that quarterly breakdown in the plan. And particularly at Wharf, the team did a fantastic job at that recovery curve and got really a couple of weeks ahead. and we're already right on plan for the year. Rochester, we knew that was going to be a shorter quarter, a little bit less grade, and we'll see that picking up throughout the year. And, yeah, right on plan, super happy.

Great. Thanks again, Mitch, Tom, and Mick for answering all my questions. Congrats on getting the deal done and a strong start to 2026.

No, thanks a lot, Cosmos. Appreciate it.

The next question is from Joseph Rieger with Roth. Please go ahead.

Hey, Mitch and team. Thanks for taking my questions. Some of them were just answered, but I did have one question, which is probably for Tom. On the balance sheet, the deferred income tax, you know, jumped from $300 million to $3.15 billion. And I'm assuming it's all related to deferred income tax that New Gold had on their balance sheet previously, but is there anything we should think about there? And then with the accounting around the change in the notes, is there any impact on deferred income tax as accounting?

Well, I'm blushing with all the accounting questions. It's exciting. So on the debt, a good astute observation, it's carried on the books at $425 million, but the face value is only 400. Again, the rules require you to estimate the fair value. And so just given that higher coupon that those notes bear at six and seven-eighths versus sort of what our market rate would be, you record that a little higher value. But the bigger impact is what you talked about, that deferred tax liability. So, again, this is all driven by the accounting rules. So, for the mineral interest that we've acquired and all the various equipment, etc., etc., that's been recorded at a very high value, obviously, as we went through our valuation exercise. But the tax basis of those assets remains at whatever New Gold's tax basis was. So that creates a difference between the accounting value and the book value. And you just take that difference in those values, multiply it by the Canadian tax rate, and there you have it. So that liability is going to reverse over time, similar to what we saw out at Las Chispas last year where we had a large tax liability. And that's just going to reverse slowly but surely as the accounting values and the book values get closer and closer. But that will take literally, you know, 10 years to reverse out. But thanks for the question. I hope I gave you a good explanation. This isn't like additional hidden taxes in New Gold's books or anything like that. It's just driven by the accounting for the purchase price.

So that was very helpful. And then kind of, you know, big picture, you guys do have a plan of how to redeploy capital. But, you know, if you look at the balance sheet, you know, slightly net cash as of the end of the quarter. How aggressive do you guys want to be on reducing the rest of the debt?

Yeah, I think both of the notes, the new gold notes, and then our five and an eighth, you know, pretty low interest, pretty patient, pretty flexible. You know, as you think about allocating capital to the highest returns, you know, those aren't going to be anywhere near the top of the list. So, for now, we're fine, you know, and comfortable leaving them alone. Letting cash build up a bit, getting to probably a more appropriate level of overall liquidity, and then keep looking for ways to reinvest the excess cash back into the business. You know, we talked about our largest exploration program in company history, so we're being aggressive on that front. You know, we'll look at things like Silver Tip, of course, the K-Zone out there in the future. But as far as those outstanding notes, we're comfortable leaving those alone for now, at least.

Okay. Thanks. I'll turn it over.

Okay. All right. Thanks, Joe.

The next question is from Josh Wolfson with RBC. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. I guess my questions are on the new gold assets. I know there's not a huge amount of data here to go through given the short period between closing in the end of the quarter first question just on rainy you know within the data that was reported production looked you know relatively good grade was lighter relative to what I guess the recent tech report would have would have discussed I think it was something like 1.2 1.3 grams and the process materials only 0.9 how should we think about the quarters going forward or is there some change maybe on stockpile processing versus what the tech report says thank you yeah

sure Josh thanks for the question I'll start and you guys can can fill in but I think on Rainy River specifically yet late second half of last year Rainy River had some some really high grade open pit material that drove some exceptional performance in the third quarter and the fourth quarter. You know, our grade profile this year reflects a lower grade open pit profile, but increasing over the year. And then, of course, the other big theme there is seeing the underground mining rates step up over time and transition to more of a balance in the second part of the year between open pit and underground so as far as those open pit grades in particular yeah a little bit lower I think according to plan to start the year like you said Josh very small data set there with just the 11 days but that should build a bit over the remainder of the year. Anything that you guys want?

Yeah I would again just I would point back to the guidance in February where we give it by quarter you'll see actually rainy should have a bit stronger second quarter than third quarter and then a pretty solid fourth quarter based on the mine plan as as it stands but uh yeah it's going to be a very significant free cash flow generator um and uh really excited and and just

from a tech report perspective and clearly the tech report grades are on an annual basis and we try and break that out into that quarterly profile to help show how we're going to perform from one quarter to the next. So certainly after we closed the deal for Q2 to Q4, we're expected to be around

the grid profile that was planned. Got it. Okay. Good to hear. And then on New Afton, with the C-Zone, I guess final drawbell blast done, how should we be thinking about the ramp up there? Is there anything you can walk us through in terms of expectations? I know we have the production volumes, but just maybe more at a high level, just understanding execution risks and how the company's managing that. Thank you. Yeah. Also, a back half year expected there at

New Afton on the back of that C-Zone ramp up with B-Zone now behind them as of the end of last year. The target there is to be approaching that 16,000 ton per day throughput as we end the second quarter. I think we started at the end there of March and early April more around 11,000 tons per day. So we'll be targeting that 16,000 tons a day here in coming months. and that will drive a much stronger back half of the year there to land within the gold and copper guidance ranges that we issued. But Mick, anything else there?

Yeah, Mitch nailed it. But since the close, it actually trended up a little bit, so it's definitely gaining momentum. We've got around that 13,000 average post-close alone. So it's getting stronger, but we certainly want to get it up towards that 16,000 ton per day. Expect that to be in and around the end of Q2, the way it's trending at the moment.

Those are all my questions. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, Josh.

The next question is from Brian MacArthur with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. Can I just go back to the – I hate to do this – the accounting again. You talked about how everything at New Athens flushed, which is good, but then you made a comment, too, that you had 30,000 ounces on the books of gold, as well as, you know, material on the pads at March 31st. Those 30,000 ounces, is that going to be additional cash flow that you liberate out of working capital over the next few quarters, i.e. it's over and above the guidance of production that you've given this year for Rainy River, just so I'm clear on this?

I'll go ahead no that the guidance includes the monetization of this stockpile and the work and the work in process so so no that stick with the guidance that's that's that's in there that the key of course is that those ounces that come out of the inventory are going to be at the higher CAS rate but it's not obviously going to impact the free cash flow right so you're just

going to bring them out so they're there it's just um there's no extra cash being liberated is what i'm really getting at here correct yeah yeah yeah correct perfect thank you um second thing you also made a comment about with restructuring the new gold deck it helped your tax structures um sorry i didn't quite hear that clearly is that u.s tax structure or by doing

that does that help you on your Canadian side as well again so this obliger exchange that closed on the 22nd of April what that does is it will novate the 2032 new gold bonds out of the Canadian entity and into the U.S. entity so we'll get that tax shelter in the U against our U.S. income

Not the Canadian assets, just additional U.S. Okay, that's what I was trying to figure out.

And again, this is going to make, you know, it's going to make the rating agencies lives easier because they're not going to have to rate two bonds. And most importantly, it's removed, we've got full financial flexibility around return of capital, because if not, it was going to be a little cumbersome to deal with those with those two different indentures. And so, you know, great work by our treasury team to have uh and our legal team who executed that uh extremely swiftly and we're really pleased to have seen such a large uptick on on the on the amount of folks who uh

who uh took advantage of it great thanks very much tom that's very clear again if you have a question

please press star then one next question is from wayne lamb with td securities please go ahead

Yeah, thanks, guys. Just a couple of follow-up questions. First one, some really good color that you guys did provide on the overall diesel exposure, but just more specifically at Rochester, that would seem to be where you'd have the most exposure, just given the scale of the mine. So just wondering what kind of cost pressures you might be seeing there specifically on the energy front, and then just wondering if you had any more detail on the timing of planned maintenance activities on the Crusher through the year?

Yeah. Thanks, Wayne. I appreciate the questions. Tom and Mick, I'll throw it over to you on the Rochester-specific diesel question, and then maybe you can also hit Wayne's second question around maintenance timing relating to the crusher out there.

Yeah. Yeah. So on the diesel front, yeah, we've got, of course, the biggest exposures are the open pits, so Rochester, Wharf, and Rainy River. But the overall impact around the total cost, Tom can weigh in on the percentages here, but it's not too significant. We're not seeing too much from Q1 flowing through into Q2, but clearly we're watching that very carefully. on rochester's maintenance program uh the the the bigger shutdown is really towards the early part of q4 of this year where we're going to do some work around their feeders on the secondary of the crusher after that which is also built into the the profile and the plan so you'll see that in the quarterly profile so that that q4 projection is accurate and the rest of them are really just short routine maintenance shutdowns uh one two three days to change cones and other bits and pieces that are um all planned and will continue each year and wayne the only thing i'd add is

absolutely rochester uh and and rainy river are the two assets where we we spend the most money to produce all the all the amazing amounts of gold and silver that we're forecasting so but But we've got a team that are laser focused on monitoring this, robust monthly reviews, cost reviews, kind of looking out ahead, understanding when contracts are expiring to keep a really close eye on that. So, I feel really comfortable that we're monitoring it as best we can, and so far, so good.

Okay, perfect. Maybe just to follow up on that one, sorry, you said there was maintenance planned in Q4, and that is already baked into the quarterly guidance where you have a pretty big step change in production in the last quarter of the year? Okay, perfect. And then I guess my only question was just on the labor cost front. Again, a lot of good detail on the inflation that you guys are seeing, but just wondering what kind of exposure or maybe a breakout on the labor cost pressures that you're seeing between the U.S. operations versus Mexico.

Yeah. I'll start, Wayne. It's Mitch. Just that inflationary cost pressure slide that we have in the deck, slide 12, that bottom left bar chart that shows the year-over-year increase of something like 15 percent, a decent amount of that is incentive comp higher year-over-year. I just wanted to flag that. As far as labor pressures in Mexico versus the U.S., I think where we're We're seeing it more is in the U.S. context versus Mexico. But, Tom, do you want to provide any more detail or context?

Yeah, I mean, general levels of turnover, we're going to recruit who we need to recruit. We haven't got any shortfalls in labor availability, just that general mining turnover rate and recruitment performance is normal. So, yeah, not feeling too much pressure there at the moment. And from a cost perspective, as Mitch said, we're focused on that and we're seeing a little bit of increase in cost, but not unusual for Mexico.

And this is the first quarters, the quarter where you implement annual incentive, not annual incentive, base increases. And so those have happened. and uh you know typically if you've really under egg the pudding in terms of salary increases people get their bonus and then um head off the other way so I think we're feeling really comfortable uh for now and and for what it's worth we do do a sort of a mid-year review just to make sure that we're keeping an eye on on labor rates um because as we all know uh you need you need the bodies to deliver uh all this production safely and uh and profitably no good point Tom

and make on the turnover rates we haven't seen an uptick at all in fact we've seen

things go the other other way yeah yeah okay perfect well hopefully we see the same year over year share price performance so you'll be paying out those incentive bonuses again next year

uh congrats yeah thanks wayne this concludes our question and answer session i would like to turn the conference back over to mr krebs for any closing remarks Okay.

Well, thank you for your time and all the great questions today. We look forward to getting back together again this summer to talk about our second quarter results, which should really start to reflect the power of the platform, and we can share our progress on what should be a record-breaking 2026. Thanks again for your time. Have a good day.

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.