McEwen Inc. Q2 FY2025 Earnings Call

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to McEwen's Second Quarter 2025 Operating and Financial Results Conference Call. Present from the company today are Rob McEwen, Chairman and Chief Owner; William Shaver, Chief Operating Officer; Perry Ing, Chief Financial Officer; Jeff Chan, Vice President, Finance; Stefan Spears, Vice President, Corporate Development; Michael Meding, Vice President and General Manager of McEwen Copper; and Michael Swistun, President and CEO of Canadian Gold Corp. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Rob McEwen, Chief Owner. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome, fellow shareholders. Ladies and gentlemen, today, we're going to share with you our vision of the future for McEwen Inc. and how our achievements in the first half of this year and our outlook for the balance of this year will add momentum to reach our goal of doubling our annual gold and silver production to 250,000 to 300,000 gold equivalent ounces by 2030. As you know, we're big believers in exploration; it is the growth engine of the mining industry, and we believe in the potential of our properties that will be revealed by exploration. In the past 2.5 years, we've invested $51 million in exploration. Recent drill results have been quite exciting, building on a resource base and providing a solid foundation for increasing production, extending mine life, and lowering production costs. Just one example is the beautiful assay result from the discovery of high-grade at our Froome West zone of 36 grams over 10 meters—that's equivalent to more than 1 ounce over 32 feet. I should point out that the Froome mine is slated to close this year but now has a promise of a longer life and more potential. So let's talk about '25, the second quarter. Financially, we have a much better picture than it was a year ago. I have to say that was certainly helped by higher gold, silver, and copper prices. We have a healthier treasury currently at $54 million, up from $14 million a year ago. Our working capital is $62 million versus a negative $7 million at the end of last year. Our adjusted EBITDA of $17.3 million or $0.32 a share is more than double what it was in the comparable period a year ago. Looking at this, we have many catalysts to move us toward our production goal of 250,000 to 300,000 gold equivalent ounces by 2030. I would like to share those with you. We have resource updates coming from Nevada from the Timberline property we bought, and there's the Windfall and Lookout Mountain projects close to the Gold Bar mine, and we're looking at permitting that. The completion of the acquisition of Canadian Gold Corp. is anticipated, and today, we have a guest speaker, the President of Canadian Gold Corp, to speak about that company and the properties they possess, the exciting aspects of becoming part of McEwen Mining. A pre-feasibility study will come out in the first half of next year for Grey Fox, which will be enhancing our production in the Timmins district. We will now ask Bill Shaver, our Chief Operating Officer, to speak about our production. Our costs were a little high in the first half of this year, but are expected to decrease as production increases both at the Fox Complex and Gold Bar. Bill, could you jump in there?

Yes. Thank you very much, Rob, and welcome, everyone, to our call. I hope you all got back on the line. First of all, I would like to speak briefly about our safety record, which continues to be very good at McEwen. There have been no lost time accidents this year, and Mexico is now celebrating 1.5 years, Timmins 3.5 years, and Nevada has worked over 5 years now without a lost time injury, which is exemplary, and we're proud of that performance. Our sites are proud of their performance. As Rob mentioned, our production in Q2 was slightly behind our objectives for the quarter due to some reasons related to manpower issues and the impact of the stripping at Gold Bar. However, we are now positioned well to catch up on our production in the second half. We have also increased the number of ounces of material on our leach pad that are not yet under leach, which will help in the second half as well. The Froome mine will continue well into 2026, and we are continuing drilling there. We see the future of the Froome West deposit keeping Froome in production until the third quarter of 2026 for sure, and perhaps longer, because we are still diamond drilling there, looking for the final extensions of these ore zones. The development of the stock ramp is now progressing well and according to expectations. Right now, we are exceeding the rate of 6 meters a day as scheduled. This allows the ramp to access the fourth level of the stockpile by year-end 2025. We have access to the old part of the mine through the old stock mine shaft, which we have dewatered down to the fourth level, and we are in the midst of rehabilitating the development that is underground. When we break into the mine, we will be ready to start production as quickly as possible. The Grey Fox PEA study has great potential for attaining our long-term objective of being in the 200,000 to 250,000 ounces per year. That study, as Rob stated, will be completed in the second quarter. The project economics are robust with both underground and open pit components at this stage. We are looking forward to initiating the permitting process right after we finalize all components. Initially, the ore will go to the stock mill; however, longer term, we envision a mill to be established near the old Froome mine. We're very happy to have Michael Swistun from Canadian Gold Corp here this morning, and we look forward to closing that acquisition. It is a good fit for our organization and will be a relatively high-grade operation with the potential for employing local mining people. In summary, we see the future as very positive. We have ample opportunities for continued growth, and we're looking for more prospects as we move forward. We are particularly optimistic about a successful second half of this year. I will now turn it back to you, Rob.

Thank you, Bill. We introduced Michael; now let's ask Michael Swistun how Canadian Gold Corp. looks and what he sees its future to be.

Thank you, Rob, yes. I'm excited to be on my first McEwen call. It's an exciting time for Canadian Gold Corp. We have a very interesting property in the Tartan property in Manitoba. The story of Tartan, just as a quick overview, is that it was a mine that operated for only 2 years, from 1987 to 1989, producing just over 40,000 ounces of gold. It shut down due to the economic conditions of gold at the time and the depth of the mine. It's remained dormant and was spun out of core resources. In 2017, there was a 43-101 done that showed 240,000 ounces with another 37,000 ounces inferred. The 240,000 ounces were at an average grade of 6.8 grams per tonne—my mistake, that's 6.3 grams per tonne. That 43-101 was based on a depth to 575 meters vertical from surface. Additionally, the South zone, a parallel zone separated laterally by 100 meters, was only explored down to just over 225 meters vertical depth. In the last 4 years, we've drilled 27,000 meters of new holes, extending the resource down to 1,000 meters while consistently finding mineable widths and high grades consistent with our initial estimates. We've identified significant intervals, such as 53 meters of width at 4.3 grams per tonne, with an intersect of over 12 grams per tonne over 8 meters. These zones are on what's called the Tartan Shear Zone, a geological structure stretching over 30 kilometers. The story of Tartan for us is that we are progressing with exploration, currently in our fourth phase of drilling, and will complete this by year-end and then move toward an updated 43-101 and PEA with the goal of accelerating a mine restart. The opportunity with McEwen is to step up the timeline for this project. We have an existing ramp down to 325 meters between the two primary zones. There is road access and power to the site, about 20 kilometers from Flin Flon, eliminating the need for a camp. The government of Manitoba is supportive, recently celebrating the Alamos project at Lynn Lake, set for production in 2028. They view our project at Tartan as a chance to revitalize Flin Flon, which has seen significant shutdowns. This year, we added two properties to the west, optioning one from Hudbay, adding 36.5 square kilometers. We're excited about McEwen joining us, as they can expedite our resources and support our restart. I don't want to take over the conference call; I'm excited, and I can go on, so I will end here and await questions.

Thank you, Mike. That's great. I'd now like to call on Michael Meding, the Vice President and General Manager of McEwen Copper, to provide us with an update on the feasibility on the RIGI application and the project, specifically the political environment in Argentina.

Thank you so much, Rob. Good day, everyone. I'm pleased to present the latest updates on McEwen Copper and our flagship Los Azules Project in Argentina. First, our commitment to safety remains our highest priority. I'm proud to report another quarter with zero incidents. We have now surpassed 1.8 million work hours without a lost time incident, a record we've maintained since July of last year. This achievement showcases the dedication of our entire team on the ground. Financially, we invested $15.6 million during the second quarter, driving significant progress toward publishing our definitive feasibility study, which we aim to deliver by the end of the third quarter of 2025. Our engineering teams are diligently advancing the study, focusing on optimizing the project economics. We are actively refining cost estimates to reflect current market conditions and implementing strategies to reduce upfront capital expenditures through enhancements to the mine plan, construction schedule, and infrastructure layout. Key priorities for the upcoming quarter include finalizing geotechnical inputs and completing an optimized mine schedule. We are collaborating with renowned Whittle Consulting on extended strategic mine planning. This work covers both our base case, utilizing conventional bioheap leaching, and scenarios incorporating Rio Tinto's innovative Nuton technology. The results will finalize our life of mine production profile, capital and operating cost estimates, and the heap leach design. On the regulatory front, we have taken major steps to secure long-term stability and benefits for the project. We submitted our initial application for Argentina's Regime for the Incentive of Large Investments, or RIGI, in February. As the project advanced, we submitted a revised application in July to streamline the approval process. Furthermore, we have seen a very positive development in Argentina's economic policy. The government today issued Decree 563, which eliminates the export duty for copper, reducing it from a potential 4.5% to 8% down to zero. While the RIGI framework already provides for zero export duties after three years, this decree offers immediate benefits and reinforces the government's commitment to improving project economics for the mining sector. In the field, our exploration and development teams had a productive quarter. We completed necessary geotechnical and hydrogeological drilling for the feasibility study and finalized our updated resource model. Excitingly, our exploration has identified three nearby copper targets, Mercedes, Tango, and Branca, which we plan to drill this fall. We look forward to sharing more details on our progress at several upcoming events.

Perry Ing will now speak; he is our Chief Financial Officer and will provide some additional points.

Thanks, Rob. Good morning, everyone. I think we had a very successful second quarter. As Rob highlighted, we had growth in profitability and adjusted EBITDA. Just a couple of points regarding our confidence in our overall plan and cash generation for 2025. We noted $13 million of inventory build in the first half, primarily due to additions to the heap leach pad at Gold Bar in Nevada, as well as substantial increases in circuit inventory. If you look at a realized gold basis, we're looking to release over $20 million between the primarily third and fourth quarters of this year. In addition to the $54 million in cash, we also have $16 million in marketable securities, with significant unrealized gains. The total balance of cash and marketable securities is approximately $70 million. Despite significant spending on the stock grant, we expect to continue adding to our treasury between the third and fourth quarters of this year. Overall, we are in a sound financial position. Our bonds from the convertible notes are trading well above par, positioning us to execute on the growth plans Rob outlined.

Thank you, Perry. I would like to conclude with a statement on our performance. Since September of '22 when we closed our first financing on the Q1 copper until today, we are up 263%, compared to the GDX index of seniors at just under 150%, GDXJ at just over 150%, the NASDAQ at 80%, gold at just under 100%, silver at 112%, copper at 29%, and the Dow at 40%. The performance we're seeing, I believe, is due to our diversified asset base composed of gold and silver production, laying a foundation for wealth preservation in my mind, and of copper, a critical metal for modern civilization and energy transition. As Goldman Sachs states, it's the new oil. Our project is strong, with excellent exploration potential on our properties, and our production growth profile has only just begun. With that, I’d like to open the session for questions. Hopefully, our internet connection holds up for the first question.

Your first question today comes from the line of Heiko Ihle from H.C. Wainwright.

This is Case on behalf of Heiko here today. Two questions. First, at San José, production was down a bit due to lower grades and recovery rates. Next week, we'll be halfway through Q3. Can you give us a bit of color about what you're seeing at site? Production growth in the second half is a theme, so presumably, this is just a blip, and we can leave our models as is.

Perry will address that question.

Yes. Thanks, Case. We have been working with the team on site, who have experienced lower recovery rates than they planned. Recoveries are currently in the low to mid-80s rather than the high 80s. They attribute some of those costs to the ore blend, which they are trying to resolve at site. Throughput is slightly above budget, but the grade has been below plan. So far, July has been promising, and we expect the mine will achieve full-year guidance. However, we will update that with our third-quarter results.

Okay. Awesome. Second question: First, congrats on the Canadian Gold deal. You have a lot of strong working capital right now, but still a decent amount of debt. A philosophical question on my end: Have your thoughts on your balance sheet changed at all compared to the start of the year for M&A versus debt repayment?

Perry?

Yes. First, we need to execute on our growth plan. We expect to undertake a lot of that through organic growth from free cash flow generated from existing operations. As production increases, operating cash flow should meet our capital needs. We are structuring our growth plan to avoid undertaking large capital expenditures in any given year. Grey Fox is a project we can start initially with underground mining before progressing to an open pit later. The Tartan project underlines this; there's already a substantial underground development. We don’t see this as requiring a $100 million CapEx. We see it as a small high-grade 500 tonne/day operation that can scale up. Regarding our treasury, we will utilize it wisely and continue looking for M&A opportunities. However, we believe Canadian Gold is a prime project alongside Grey Fox and the Timberline project. Overall, we're very satisfied with our asset base, but we always keep our eyes open for further prospects.

Your next question comes from the line of Mike Kozak from Cantor Fitzgerald.

Two questions from me. First, you're now guiding the feasibility study at Los Azules for late Q3. Is that still contingent upon a capital raise within the copper subsidiary? If so, how much are we talking about?

No, we are fine for the feasibility. That's not an issue. We guided towards the end of Q3 due to additional optimization work we’re undertaking. We’ve seen some cost increases compared to the PEA we published in June 2023. To offset these increases, we need to fine-tune our package negotiations with potential suppliers. Additionally, we are considering a slightly different production profile that should be more engaging for investors. On your initial question, we are financed for the feasibility; that is not a concern.

Okay. That's fantastic. Thank you, Michael. My second question addresses the revised RIGI application submitted in July. Did you receive any feedback leading to this revision, or was it simply a change in scope?

Absolutely. Generally speaking, our interaction with the regulatory body has been seamless. We have answered many technical questions that arose in the meantime. We filed our initial application in February for $227 million, with a phased expansion on CapEx. We consolidated those two elements in the revised application to simplify the regulator's understanding of the applicable law. This change should streamline the approval process, and we expect a relatively swift approval.

Your next question comes from the line of Don DeMarco from National Bank.

Rob, congratulations on the quarter and the acquisition of Canadian Gold Corp. Maybe Mike, if I could continue on Los Azules. Can you confirm you expect approval soon? If so, when?

It's difficult to predict. The regulations indicate 45 days for regulatory approval or rejection. However, any information request halts the clock. We respond quickly to these requests. The timeline could range from one to three months, depending on potential questions from agencies and our response times. Historically, we've responded swiftly, and there's a comprehensive understanding of our project nationally, so we are cautiously optimistic.

Are there time pressures from your side? Can you accommodate potential decision timelines?

Yes, but it's beneficial to have the RIGI approval before our planned IPO. While it's not mandatory, it would enhance investor interest. Thus, we prefer to wait for the RIGI approval prior to pursuing the IPO.

The two applications you've referenced: Has there been an issue with the review process potentially leading to any backlog?

We are the only copper project applying for RIGI currently. While others like Vicuña are expected to file soon, I don't foresee a backlog. The national government is keen to expedite processes. It's a new regulatory framework, so ministries are conducting due diligence, yet they want to establish guidelines efficiently.

On Canadian Gold Corp: You mentioned the Tartan mine operated for 2 years. Can you comment on the infrastructure condition needed for a restart?

Sure. Yes, the ramp is flooded, and we estimate dewatering will cost about $3 million. The ramp was built in the 1980s and is relatively modern technology. Based on feedback, it was well constructed. We expect once we start that process, it will perform well. The road infrastructure and the power line are intact. Although forest fires damaged some wooden poles for the hydro line, Manitoba Hydro promptly addressed it. There was a mill and crushing circuit from the original operations, but they are now obsolete. We will need a new crushing circuit and mill. The tailings containment is in very good condition and has substantial capacity because the mine operated only for 2 years. Importantly, we can restart this project within the existing surface footprint, minimizing environmental disturbances in the surrounding area. Moreover, we are situated close to Flin Flon, allowing our workforce to return home each night.

What do you predict the timing of a potential restart will be? Will you implement a drilling program first or aim for a PEA before determining a restart timeline?

As an independent, prior to negotiations with McEwen, we planned to finalize our Phase 4 drill program by year-end, followed by an updated 43-101 for resources and nearly simultaneous PEA. We believe we are still on track. Regarding restarting the mine, we have discussed with the province and have an existing mine permit for a 500 tonne per day operation. We intend to amend that permit, aiming to return the mine into production swiftly. This is more of a restart than starting from scratch. We plan to incorporate superior technology and environmentally friendly practices for improved operations. Realistically, we envision being back in production within 2 to 3 years.

Your next question comes from the line of Jake Sekelsky from Alliance Global Partners.

Just building on the last question concerning the restart plans. Where do you see this acquisition fitting into the broader portfolio development queue and from a capital allocation standpoint relative to growth plans at Fox?

We're looking at a feasibility or PEA for Fox midyear. I would say Tartan is probably ahead of Fox right now in terms of timing.

Got it. Okay. That's very helpful. Just a quick one on permitting in Nevada. Can you provide any color on the timeline for permitting Windfall and Lookout Mountain once the resource is out later this year?

Bill, would you...

Thank you. Yes, thanks for your question. The permitting in Nevada will take approximately 2 to 3 years, but we're committed to getting those projects up and running as quickly as we can. We are well on our way to establishing resources at both Windfall and the surrounding area. We've had discussions with i-80, as there are two types of property. Some property is wholly owned by McEwen Mining while others are still BLM land. The privately held portions can be developed relatively quickly. We will determine how best to proceed; whether that means placing a leach pad near the ore body or processing at Gold Bar. That will guide our next steps. The good news is we're currently confirming the data from previous owners via our drilling, which is falling into place nicely. The next step involves preparing for a study to address the economics. Presently, no plans exist to build a large plant on these properties; rather, a leach pad will be established, allowing us to quickly move forward after obtaining a permit.

And there are no further questions at this time. Mr. Rob McEwen, I turn the call back over to you.

Thank you for your interest, and I look forward to sharing our advancements as we progress. Thank you.

This concludes today's call. You may now disconnect.