Fortuna Mining Corp. Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Fortuna Mining Corp. Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Financial and Operational Results Call. It is now my pleasure to hand the floor over to your host, Carlos Baca, Vice President of Investor Relations. Sir, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Matthew. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Fortuna Mining's conference call to discuss our financial and operational results for the fourth quarter and full year 2025. Hosting today's call on behalf of Fortuna are Jorge Alberto Ganoza, President, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder; Luis Dario Ganoza, Chief Financial Officer; Cesar Velasco, Chief Operating Officer, Latin America; and David Whittle, Chief Operating Officer, West Africa. Today's earnings call presentation is available on our website at fortunamining.com. Statements made during this call are subject to the reader advisories included in yesterday's news release, in the webcast presentation or management discussion and analysis and the risk factors outlined in our annual information form. All financial figures discussed today are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated. Technical information presented has been reviewed and approved by Eric Chapman, Fortuna's Senior Vice President of Technical Services and a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. I will now turn the call over to Jorge Alberto Ganoza, President, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Fortuna Mining.

Thank you, Carlos. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. I'll start very briefly with the quarter before moving to our growth outlook. In the quarter, we delivered record adjusted net income of $0.23 per share, generally in line with analysts' consensus. Net cash from operations before working capital adjustments was a strong $0.48 per share, exceeding consensus estimates of $0.43. We also generated record free cash flow of $132 million for the quarter and again, a record $330 million for the full year, highlighting the strength of our operations and balance sheet, which ranks amongst the strongest in our peer group, with over $700 million in liquidity and a net cash position of approximately $380 million. With that context, let me turn to the more important part of the story now, which is growth and value creation. As we have stated, our objective is clear: to grow Fortuna to more than 0.5 million ounces of annual gold production from long-life assets, achieving this over the next 24 months. This will represent approximately 65% growth from current production levels. Importantly, this is growth that we control. The ounces are already contained within our mineral inventory across advanced projects in our portfolio. As this production comes online, we expect it to translate into meaningful growth in free cash flow per share, supported by scale, asset quality, good geographic distribution, and capital discipline. The delivery of this growth is driven by two core assets: Diamba Sud in Senegal and Seguela in the Ivory Coast. Starting with Diamba Sud, the project continues to advance on a fast track approach towards a formal construction decision in mid-year, aligned with the publication of the feasibility study. This morning, we released an updated mineral resource estimate, showing a 73% increase in indicated resources to 1.25 million ounces of gold, which will form the key foundation for the study. For 2026, we have approved a $100 million budget at Diamba Sud, with $67 million of that allocated to early works, which include the camp facilities, major excavations, and other enabling infrastructure. We began breaking ground this week and we filed our exploitation permit application earlier this month, marking important execution milestones. Mineralization at Diamba remains wide open, and we continue to carry out aggressive drilling in parallel with project development activities as we pursue further resource growth while growing, continuing, and derisking project timelines. Turning to Seguela. We're preparing for the next phase of growth through a plant upgrade study currently underway, evaluating throughput expansion options that could potentially take the mine to 200,000 ounces of annual production. This work builds on recent reserve growth and positions Seguela to deliver higher production and cash flow from an already high-quality long-life asset. In summary, Fortuna's growth to over 0.5 million ounces is visible, controlled, and executable, supported by a strong balance sheet, a sound base of mineral resources and reserves, and a clear focus on per share value creation. With that, I'll turn the call over to the operating team. David, do you want to share your update?

Thank you, Jorge. Seguela delivered another strong quarter and for the second consecutive year, exceeded the upper end of production guidance. This consistent outperformance reflects the strength of the operation and the quality of the asset. Encouragingly, recent exploration drilling results provide further momentum, presenting opportunities to increase production levels beyond the current mine plan assumptions. At Diamba Sud in Senegal, the project continues to advance on schedule; early works programs have been approved, key contracts have been tendered and awarded, and the project team is mobilizing in preparation for the next development phase. Importantly, during the fourth quarter, no significant incidents were recorded across our West African operations, underscoring our commitment to maintaining a safe and healthy workplace for all personnel. At Seguela, we produced 36,942 ounces of gold in the fourth quarter, consistent with prior quarters and ahead of the mine plan. For the full year, production totaled 152,420 ounces, exceeding the upper end of guidance by 4%. Mining during the quarter totaled 340,000 tonnes of ore, at an average grade of 3.71 grams per tonne gold, along with 3.92 million tonnes of waste, resulting in a strip ratio of 11.5:1. The processing plant created 410,000 tonnes of ore at an average grade of 3.01 grams per tonne gold, with throughput averaging 214 tons per hour. Ore was primarily sourced from the Antenna Ancien and Koula pits with waste mining also commencing for the Sunbird pit. The Sunbird underground project continues to advance strongly. Based on drilling completed through to the end of June 2025, we declared a reserve of just over 400,000 ounces. During the second half of 2025, five diamond drill rigs were allocated to Sunbird, delivering excellent results that support further resource growth. Given the strength of the Sunbird underground and the incorporation of the Kingfisher Open pit into the life of mine plan, we've identified an opportunity to increase plant capacity. Like a podium, the original plant builder has been engaged to evaluate expansion options, targeting throughput of between 2 million and 2.5 million tonnes per year. Early indications are positive and we expect to complete the study early this year. So again, a strong operational performance translated into a cash cost of $710 per ounce of gold for the quarter and $679 per ounce for the year. AISC was $1,576 per ounce of gold for the quarter and $1,560 per ounce for the year, at the midpoint of guidance, despite an $86 per ounce impact from higher royalties leading to increased gold prices. Cost discipline remains a clear strength of the operation. In 2026, exploration drilling will continue at pace, with increased focus on infill drilling and step-out testing along stopes and at depth at Kingfisher, as well as continued evaluation of additional targets across the 35 kilometers strike length from the Seguela land package. Drilling at Sunbird underground will also continue as we advance technical studies and progress permitting activities. Capital has already been allocated for long-lead underground mining equipment. Turning to Diamba Sud, exploration, environment permitting, and feasibility work advanced meaningfully during the quarter. Government approvals were received for early works programs; the ESIA is in its final stages of approval. Following the rainy season, drill rigs were remobilized at SEMARNAT and other deposits with continued positive results, further strengthening our confidence in this already robust package. Thank you. Back to you, Jorge.

Thank you, David. Now sure, Cesar will share the update on Lat Am operations. Cesar, please?

Thank you, Jorge, and good afternoon, everyone. Our Latin America operations showed strong performance in 2025, with no safety incidents reported, thanks to effective production during the first three quarters at Lindero and steady results at Caylloma for the entire year, where base metal production surpassed our guidance expectations. However, the fourth quarter results at Lindero were negatively affected by mechanical issues in the crushing circuit, which influenced the total production for the year. At Lindero, we achieved full-year gold production of 87,489 ounces, which is about 6% below the minimum guidance, entirely due to fourth quarter results of 19,201 ounces; this was caused by two separate mechanical failures during that time. An engineering assessment determined a risk of structural fatigue in the primary crusher foundations. To remedy this, we have approved a 35-day foundation replacement plan scheduled for late March 2026, with an estimated cost of $2.2 million. We are stockpiling ore in advance to ensure stacking continuity during the repair work. This plan has been factored into our production strategy and guidance for the upcoming year. Financially, Lindero generated $294.2 million in gold sales for the year, with a robust EBITDA margin of 57%. Our cash cost was $1,117 per ounce of gold for the fourth quarter and $1,132 for the entire year, well within our guidance. The all-in sustaining cost for the fourth quarter improved to $1,639 per ounce due to reduced sustaining capital and lower stripping, although this was counterbalanced by maintenance interventions and temporary solutions in crushing. The all-in sustaining cost for the full year stood at $1,716 per ounce, remaining within our guidance range. We are presently carrying out about 6,500 meters of diamond drilling below the pit bottom, where mineralization is still open at deeper levels. This drilling program aims to upgrade and estimate 40,000 ounces of inferred resources into indicated and measured categories. These resources lie beyond the current final pit design and the resources pit shell. Lindero continues to be a high-margin, long-life mine with solid fundamentals. Turning to Caylloma, the operation consistently performed well in 2025. In the fourth quarter, Caylloma produced 250,000 ounces of silver at an average head grade of 65 grams per tonne, maintaining production similar to the previous quarter. Zinc and lead output reached 12.1 million and 8.4 million, respectively, with average head grades of 4.32% zinc and 2.95% lead. Production levels remained steady from quarter to quarter as mining continued from the same levels and stopes, allowing for predictable milled feed and recovery results. For the full year production of...

Ladies and gentlemen, please remain on the line while we reconnect the speaker to the conference room. Thank you for your patience. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, please remain on the line while we reconnect the speaker to your conference.

Yes. We're back. Okay.

I think we can move on to the financial summary with the CFO. Luis, please go ahead.

Thank you. So attributable net income for the quarter was $68.1 million or $0.22 per share. On an adjusted basis, excluding noncash charges, net income was $71.3 million or $0.23 per share. This represents a significant increase over the $0.06 reported in Q4 of 2024 and the $0.17 in Q3 of 2025. Year-over-year, that increase was primarily driven by higher gold prices. We realized an average price of $4,166 per ounce, an increase of over $1,500 per ounce, while consolidated cash costs rose only marginally by 5% to $971 per ounce. This pricing benefit was partially offset by lower production volumes stemming from the HPGR downtime at Lindero in December, as referenced by Cesar. Compared to Q3 of 2025, the $0.06 increase in EPS was similarly driven by a $700 per ounce rise in realized gold prices. I will take a couple of minutes to make a few other comments pertaining to certain items of our annual results. We recorded $26 million in general and administration expenses for Q4, which includes $6.9 million in stock-based compensation. This total is $9.5 million higher than Q4 of 2024. This increase was driven by two main factors: $5.3 million related to higher stock-based compensation due to our year-over-year share price appreciation; and $3.5 million in higher site level G&A, primarily due to timing of expenses. A full breakdown is available on Page 10 of our MD&A. Looking ahead, we expect quarterly G&A, excluding stock-based compensation, to range between $14 million and $16 million across our corporate and site operations. Continuing with G&A, full-year expenses totaled $97.7 million, an increase of $29 million over 2024. About two-thirds of this variance, approximately $20 million stems from stock-based compensation, driven once again by the year-over-year appreciation of our share price. We recorded a foreign exchange loss of $2.9 million for the quarter and $7.8 million for the full year. The annual figure includes a $13.8 million realized foreign exchange loss, primarily driven by our operations in Argentina. Notably, over $6 million of this realized loss stemmed from cash balances held in-country during the first half of the year. However, this was fully offset by hedging strategies we implemented to protect the U.S. dollar value of our local currency. Interest and finance costs for the quarter were $2.6 million, which is $3 million lower than Q4 of 2024. And for the full year, interest costs totaled $12.3 million. This is a $12 million decrease from the previous year. This improvement was driven primarily by a significant increase in interest income which rose to $14.5 million in 2025 compared to $3.7 million in 2024, reflecting our growing cash balances. Finally, on the income statement, our effective tax rate for the fourth quarter was 33%, while the full-year 2025 rate was 26%. These figures reflect the statutory tax rates in our operating jurisdictions as well as withholding taxes associated with the repatriation of profits. Looking ahead to 2026, we expect our effective tax rates to average between 30% and 33%. Moving to cash flow and liquidity, our total capital expenditures was $44.5 million for the quarter and $178.1 million for the full year. Of the annual total, $109 million was dedicated to sustaining capital and $69 million to growth initiatives. This growth spend included $48 million for exploration across Diamba Sud, our operating sites and greenfield initiatives, along with $14 million to advance the Diamba Sud project. Free cash flow from ongoing operations, which accounts for sustaining capital reached $132 million for Q4 and $330 million for the full year. This represents an EBITDA conversion rate of 84% and 60%, respectively. We ended 2025 with $704 million in total liquidity, a $327 million increase over 2024, driven by our strong operating results and the sale of Yaramoko earlier this year. Back to you, Jorge.

Carlos, that's all for management, and we can open the floor for Q&A.

Your first question is coming from Mohamed Sidibe from National Bank.

Maybe my first question, I can start with Diamba Sud and the positive resource update that you provided this morning. How should we think about the upcoming technical report? Will the increased resource be geared towards extending the mine life there? Or should we think about an improvement of the production profile in the first 2 to 5 years with maybe a little bit tonnage than previously expected? Any color would be great there.

Yes, we do not expect this to change the throughput compared to what we outlined in the PEA that was released in October. This new update will have two effects, Mohamed. One will be an extension of the mine life, and the new resources will come in at a higher grade. The new deposit in inventory is Southern Arc, which is currently the largest and highest grade deposit at the Diamba Sud camp, with a grade of 1.9 grams. I anticipate that the annual production profile will benefit to some extent from this uplift.

That's clear on that front. And then so I guess a little bit more high grade in the front and then the lower grade material from the other assets can be used to extend the mine life there. If I can maybe ask yourself or David, maybe on the gold price assumption. So Diamba, you took it from about $2,600 to $3,300 per ounce. What were the key drivers behind that assumption? And if you can walk us through any reasoning behind that, using that price for the resource, please?

Yes. That is the resource that we have used. Right now, everybody is adjusting their price decks and we are using the methodology we use; the number we derived is $3,300 for the resource. So you should anticipate that for the reserve estimate, we use a lower gold price. Just as a reference, for our budgets and reserves for 2026, it's something we estimate with a cutoff date in the second half of the year. We use $2,600 gold for the resources and $2,300 gold for the reserve. So you should anticipate we use for reserves a lower number, a lower gold price compared to the $3,300 in the resource.

That's great. And then maybe my final question on just the broader portfolio. I know you already guided to 2026, but how should we think about the cadence of production in the first half versus second half, specifically as with shipping at Seguela and production at Lindero? Just any color there would be appreciated.

Production throughout the year should be, in general, steady. The only one is Lindero, where production in Q1 should be expected to be a bit on the softer side as that's part of our plans. As Cesar described, we are engaged in improvements, changes to the foundations of the primary crusher, and then gradually picking up a bit better in the second half of the year once all of those works are complete. Where we do see a bit more variation is in AISC throughout the year. We do expect a bit of a higher AISC in the beginning of the year, smoothing out, lowering throughout mid-year into the second half to be where we guided, right? And that is just a function of capital expenditures being a bit heavier in the first half of the year compared to the second half.

Your next question is coming from John Pereira.

Sorry, my line got disconnected. I'm not sure if there's any duplication from the previous caller. One of my questions is similar, particularly regarding your plan to reach 500,000 ounces. I'm curious to hear more details about that, especially considering Seguela's current running rate of about 160,000 ounces annually. If you can achieve a 40% increase through your studies, that would bring you to 225,000 ounces. Additionally, if Diamba Sud progresses, it would also contribute. I would like to understand more about how the various projects contribute to the goal of 500,000 ounces and your expectations for ramp-up in 2026, 2027, and 2028. I realize I'm asking a lot here. Also, regarding costs for the different projects, specifically for Seguela, if we aim to increase from 160 to 225 ounces, do you have an estimate of the capex costs involved? You've discussed capital costs in relation to previous news releases about Diamba Sud. Could you provide more detail on that, and let us know if there’s any expected production increase from Lindero as well?

Certainly. Let's begin with Seguela. This mine was initially designed to operate at a throughput of 1.25 million tonnes per year, which is the capacity we established and commissioned in mid-2023. Currently, the mine is operational. For 2026, we have budgeted for 1.75 million ounces of throughput. Our goal is to increase this to 2.2 million to 2.3 million tonnes per year through a brownfields expansion of the processing plant. We have made significant progress in the studies and are confident that this project is technically straightforward. Most of the work will focus on the wet section of the circuit, including thinners, pumping capacity, and leach tanks. We will also need to add a regrind ball mill, but the work required for the combination should be minimal. While the detailed study is not yet complete, we estimate that the expansion will necessitate around $50 million to $100 million, with more precise figures expected by mid-year. The increase in processing capacity is a small part of this project since it is fundamentally based on our resource and reserve data. We recently published an updated reserve and resource estimate for this mine, showing 1.5 million ounces of gold in reserves, along with 400,000 ounces in the indicated category and 700,000 ounces in the inferred category. Our ongoing drilling efforts have been fruitful, and we plan to provide another update on resources and reserves around April or May, as we are achieving substantial success with our drilling. This strong foundation supports our target of expanding to 2.2 million to 2.3 million tonnes per year. This target, combined with the grades in our reserves and resources, should allow us to reach production levels of approximately 200,000 ounces of gold annually. If we complete the study by mid-2026, we can move quickly on this project, as we do not have financial constraints. We expect to commence the project within 12 to 18 months, although delivery times for key equipment may impact the timeline, typically around 12 months currently. We might consider early purchases to help mitigate timeline risks, but we are still in the study phase. As for Diamba Sud, it also has a rich and robust resource, with a recently updated strong PEA indicating an internal rate of return of 72% at a gold price of $2,750, based on a smaller resource. The new resource estimate reveals 1.25 million ounces indicated, which will feed into the feasibility study we aim to publish around May or June. We believe it is crucial to de-risk the timeline for first gold, which is why we have committed $100 million to the Diamba Sud project this year, with $67 million allocated for early works. This includes building the camp, starting excavations for the water storage facility, and other infrastructure. We also plan to place early orders for critical equipment such as power generators and a SAG mill. Making these early investments will help manage our budget during construction and secure our timeline for first gold. Although gold prices are currently favorable, the demand for gold mines increases the risk of longer delivery times for essential equipment and resources. To mitigate this risk, we are putting our capital to work early, securing equipment and ensuring we have access to top teams from engineering firms.

What do you consider long life? So you took a long life mine. You talked about 8 to 10 years is what you may be comfortable with?

The target for us is a decade. We need to see not solely on reserves, but also considering at least our resources, we need to see a decade, a decade plus. Yes.

So that tells me that we say within the next 2 or 3 years, you want to ramp to 500,000, 0.5 million ounces per year, then you are obviously in aggregate going to target a resource of close to 5 million ounces through the various projects. So I guess you're well underway, certainly with Seguela, right? And Diamba Sud at 1.5 million ounces already, right?

Let me help you with that. Currently, if you look at our website, we have 3 million ounces in reserves on a consolidated basis, 2.2 million ounces in indicated resources, which are of good quality, and it's just a matter of timing until we start converting a significant portion of that into reserves. Additionally, we have 2 million ounces of gold in inferred categories and are spending $50 million this year on exploration, which includes not just drilling but also other exploration efforts. If I were to add these figures together, which the regulators don't prefer, the total comes to over 7 million ounces. We are confident that we have the resource and reserve base to meet our ambitions.

Do you still have any exploration activities happening in Mexico?

Yes. We do have some early-stage exploration at two projects. One is currently being drilled. We don't talk much about those because those are early-stage exploration. But yes, we still do some work. It's not a significant portion of the overall budget, but we're still there.

Okay. Great. And then just lastly on Lindero. Where do you see that the production for Lindero going? Is there any growth or expansion plans planned for Lindero?

Today, Lindero has about a decade of reserves. We are comfortable with our current estimate of 19 years of reserves and resources. As Cesar mentioned earlier, we have a drilling program underway because there is open mineralization at the bottom of the pit, aiming for a target of 400,000 ounces of gold. I will provide updates on how much of that we will capture once the drilling is complete. We plan to start drilling in March, and the program should be finished by mid-year. I expect that a significant portion of those ounces will be added to our inventory in the second half of the year. Our exploration budget for this endeavor is around $5 million for the year.

Your next question is coming from Mohamed Sidibe from National Bank.

Just Seguela, maybe as you relate to the underground, could you share some color on the underground development plans you have there for Sunbird and when we could start to see ore from the underground within your plan? I'm not sure if you can give any color on that front.

Yes. We have, Mohamed, a budget this year of around $14 million that will likely grow some. This year, we want to start the box cut and some purchases of underground equipment. The idea is that we are doing excavations in 2027, so probably late 2027, early 2028 is when we can start seeing production. Remember that we're still permitting. We're still permitting underground. So we expect we can achieve our permits late this year. I was at Indaba with the team, David and the team; we had a good meeting with the Director of Mines for Ivory Coast, and he was very keen to advance with the permitting with the aim of having it permitted this year. So if we take his word, if we're permitted this year, we can initiate mining next, right? This will require ramps and crosscuts and ancillary infrastructure that will likely be developed throughout 2027, and first production in 2028.

That wraps up our Q&A session. I will now pass the conference back to Carlos Baca, Vice President of Investor Relations, for his closing remarks. Please proceed.

Thank you, Matthew. If there are no further questions, I'd like to thank everyone for joining us today. We appreciate your continued support and interest in Fortuna Mining. Have a great day.

Thank you, everyone. This concludes today's event. You may disconnect at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.