Conference Transcript - PAAS 2026-05-06

Operator

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Pan American Sober First Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. You'll hear a tone acknowledging your request. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star, then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Sirem Susecki, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Ms. Susecki.

Siren Fisekci, Head of Investor Relations

Thank you for joining us today for Pan American Silver's conference call and webcast to discuss our first quarter 2026 results. This call includes forward-looking statements and information and references non-GAAP measures. Please see the cautionary statements in our MD&A Q1 news release, shareholder return framework news release, and presentation slides for the period ended March 31, 2026, all of which are available on our website. I'll now turn the call over to Michael Steinman, Pan-American's President and CEO.

Michael Steinmann, CEO

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm pleased to report another solid quarter of operating performance delivering strong operating earnings. Attributable silver production of 6.4 million ounces and attributable gold production of 169,000 ounces were in line with our outlook. Silver segment oil in sustaining costs of $6.63 per ounce came in well below guidance while gold segment oil in sustaining costs of $1,851 per ounce were consistent with expectations. The performance on silver segment costs was driven by the contribution of low-cost ounces from Juan Isipio and the impact of higher gold prices. Revenue of $1.2 billion was impacted by the buildup of approximately 644,000 ounces of silver in inventory, primarily at La Colorado, due to the timing of concentrate shipments. Net earnings were $456 million, or $1.08 per share, and adjusted earnings were $1.09 per share. We continue to generate strong levels of free cash flow, reflecting both our operating performance and favorable metal prices. In the first quarter we generated 488 million of attributable free cash flow. This has further strengthened our balance sheet and we ended Q1 with a record cash and short-term investment balance of over 1.8 billion dollars including cash attributable to our interest in Quanticipio. The strength of our free cash flow generation and balance sheet has enabled us to introduce an enhanced shareholder return framework. The new framework targets the return of 35 to 40 percent of annual attributable free cash flow to shareholders through a combination of dividends and common share repurchases under our normal course issuer bid of up to one billion dollars. We expect to pay aggregate dividends of approximately 305 million dollars during 2026 equivalent to a quarterly dividend of 18 cents per common share based on the current share count and use approximately 700 million dollars for share repurchases by accelerating share repurchases we aim to enhance long-term per share value by increasing each shareholder's exposure to our high quality portfolio and supporting sustainable growth in dividends over time. This enhanced shareholder return framework reinforces our disciplined approach to capital allocation while maintaining sufficient cash for growth and M&A activities while providing resilient shareholder returns across commodity cycles. Focusing on growth, the release of the revised PEA of the La Clarada expansion in March provides greater clarity on the capital requirements and long-term potential of this important organic growth project. The expansion is expected to produce an average of 19.1 million ounces of silver annually during the peak five years following construction and ramp-up. The revised PA represents a huge improvement over the original study with higher grades, lower capital intensity, stronger overall returns, and reduced technical risk due to the use of a conventional long-haul open-stip stope mining method. The project improved as a result of continued exploration success, which identified new high-grade veins east of the current mining area. Exploration drilling continues to intersect mineralization beyond current resources, highlighting the potential to further expand the resource base and extend peak production. The Board approved $265 million in project capital over the next five years to support development of a ramp to access to SCARN mineralization. We now expect to spend between $92 to $95 million on the La Corada SCARN project in 2026, increasing consolidated 2026 project capital guidance to between $240 and $255 million. We're also making progress at our Jacobina Optimization Project. During Q1, we completed construction of two new carbon in pulp tanks and implemented improvements to the tailings pump system. One of the most significant opportunities we see at Jacobina is simplifying and optimizing the process plant flow sheet. Conceptual engineering is nearing completion, and we will transition to basic engineering in the coming month. We also expect detailed engineering for a filtration plant, filter tailing stack, and a temporary mine-based backfill plant within the coming month. At Escobar, the government of Guatemala is continuing the ILO 169 consultation process, process, and engagement has been ongoing, including recent site visits to review care maintenance activities and confirm compliance with the court-ordered suspension. At this time, there is no timeline for the conclusion of the Esquival ILO 169 consultation or for the restart of operations at the mine. Given our strong operating performance in the first quarter, we are maintaining our full-year outlook for production all in sustaining costs and sustaining capital we expect some gold production to shift into the fourth quarter of 2026. we are monitoring potential cost pressures particularly related to fuel prices due to most of our minds being underground our direct exposure to fuel is relatively limited approximately five percent of total operating costs higher fuel prices can have broader inflationary effects, including on labor and consumables. We remain focused on managing these pressures proactively. To recap, 2026 is off to an excellent start. We delivered another strong quarter. We are generating robust free cash flow production, and costs are in line with our guidance, and we have introduced an enhanced shareholder return framework that reflects this strong cash generation. And with that, I'll turn the call over for questions.

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. You'll hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, press star then 2. Our first question is from Fahad Tariq with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Fahad Tariq, Analyst — Jefferies

Hi, thanks for taking my question. You mentioned just now the impact of higher diesel potentially on consumables and labour. Can you maybe just mention, have you started to see any consumable prices started to go up or anything that you're hearing from your suppliers?

Michael Steinmann, CEO

Yes, Scott, can you take that please?

Scott Campbell, Analyst — Other

Yes, good morning. And not significantly, no. We've seen some increases in the costs of geosynthetics and very minor ones and costs of staff transportation where the increase to fuel costs has been passed on to us, but nothing significant in any of our operations.

Fahad Tariq, Analyst — Jefferies

And then maybe just one more from me. On the silver segment ASIC, which was very low this quarter, in part because of the byproduct credits at Cerro Moro, Can you maybe just talk about – it would have to trend quite a bit higher to get to the full-year guidance. Maybe just talk about how that's going to happen and whether it's possible for ASIC to come in lower than the guidance range.

Michael Steinmann, CEO

Yeah, thanks. Yeah, great quarter on the silver cost, as you say. Mostly driven, I think. You know, it's pretty clear with one ECPO, strong production there. As you recall, that was one of the attractions of that mine, that we have a strong silver production at 20 CPL paired with very low cost. And then, as you mentioned, the byproduct credits at Terramoto have been very strong this quarter. Look, this is one quarter. After a year, we'll obviously reassess mid-year if we're going to re-guide our cost. But after one quarter, we just decided to leave it where it is. But a great start for the year on the cost side, for sure. Thank you.

Operator

The next question is from Ovez Habib with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Ovez Habib, Analyst — Scotiabank

Thank you, Operator. Hi, Michael and Pan-American team. Really congrats on a good quarter, again, especially on the silver segment cost. Also, the shareholders return program was a nice positive surprise as well, so that was great to see. A couple of questions from me, maybe starting off with OneSipio. You know, Wana CPO consistently has been, you know, showing some, you know, positive grade reconciliation over the last, you know, couple of quarters. You know, how do you guys see this kind of grade kind of shaping up throughout the year? And then how should we look at things kind of moving on more in the future?

Michael Steinmann, CEO

Yeah, I will start, and I really have the technical team giving a little bit more detail on that. Absolutely. Look, we have seen this great outperformance at Guanicipio for many quarters, even before we purchased the asset. It's a great mine, as you know. And, you know, I think one of the main reasons is that we find some more towns higher up with higher grades. But just to remind me, these are very similar systems than what we see at La Colorado. So very high-grade silver, some gold, high-grade gold, higher up to surface. The deeper down you go in the mine, the deeper and higher-grade you get into base metals. And that's why, like at La Colorado, the same will be valid for one is sepia. When you do exploration, you discover additional veins that you blend in and you start mining higher up again. you bring in higher silver grades. So that's kind of the system, that's the geology of all these systems in that silver belt of Mexico, same for municipios. So, as I said, the main structure, the grade will go into more base metals, more zinc and leather age when you go deeper down. But, as you see, very strong outperformance on the silver side up to now. And, you know, I think we'll see that decrease coming at one point, obviously, or decrease just on silver, and as I said, very strong increase on base metals. But, you know, at the moment, we are enjoying these high grades, and I think that that slight decrease will be quite a bit slower than we probably anticipated.

Ovez Habib, Analyst — Scotiabank

Thanks for that, Michael. And just maybe quickly moving on to La Corada. You know, in regards to the PEA that you announced, obviously a lot of drilling was left out on that PEA, and there were some very high-grade results and good structures that you guys had delineated. Are you expecting to release some sort of an updated study incorporating these results or any sort of optimization work that you've been doing in the background in the next couple of quarters?

Michael Steinmann, CEO

Definitely, we'll put that exploration update and then we'll include, obviously, this data in our mid-year reserve and resource update that we normally publish somewhere in August. So there you will get a new idea how it looks like. You said left out. We didn't really leave them out. It's just a lot of work to obviously come up with an updated PA and the whole mine plan and everything, while our geologists are very excited on that project and keep drilling a lot and create a lot of data. So there's always quite a long, I wouldn't call it lag, but backup of data that comes in a bit later on. So that will continue as we have many drill rigs working at La Colorado, and there will be constantly new data coming in. So, again, we will come out with updated exploration results and then include that in our updated reserve resource estimation.

Steve Busby, COO

Okay, time to it.

Michael Steinmann, CEO

Thank you very much. As always, Steve has some more additional comments to that.

Steve Busby, COO

Yeah, sorry, I hope it's Steve Busby here. I just wanted to add, so we won't delay the next report in terms of like a PFS update. Because we have such a long schedule for this initial development of the ramp and eventually the shaft, those are kind of taking precedence of the development schedule. So we want to get those early work projects going and get those moving along, and then we'll go back and start doing additional engineering and such for the plant and surface infrastructure. So as Michael says, we'll update resources along the way, but we won't come out with a new mine plan right now for a couple more years at least.

Michael Steinmann, CEO

Just to add to that, you probably saw in the press release, The board approved the first front of capital for the La Colorado Scarn. That's a great milestone for this really, really important and large project for us. La Colorado is going to be one of the biggest and lowest cost silver mines in the world. And we approved the first $265 million to advance a ramp down from the existing mine to the Scarn. That's a long, it's about a five-year project to build that ramp. So you can imagine that, you know, in ground and conditions that we are very familiar with, we drive many ramps, but this ramp will be very special for us as it will access the shaft. It's the first important part of capital spent on the La Clarada SCARN project. And it was important to get that started because that's really kind of one of the slowest piece of the puzzle, if you want to say so. to put it all together as steve said building the new plant and surface infrastructure there

Ovez Habib, Analyst — Scotiabank

is a plenty of time later on excellent thanks thanks for the color of both uh michael and steve on that um and that's it from me um and uh looking forward to attending the site trip uh in early

Operator

june thanks thank you the next question is from cosmos shoe with cibc please go ahead thanks michael

Cosmos Chiu, Analyst — CIBC

and team and congrats on a strong start to 2026 maybe um on scarring again good to see that you've committed 265 million dollars for the initial internal ramp could you remind us in terms of the dimensions of the internal ramp is it going to be sufficient for production will it you know eventually be used for production or most of the hoisting is going to be coming from the east hoisting shaft could you maybe you know help us picture it in terms of how this is going to

Martin Wafforn, Analyst — Other

eventually work sure hi it's uh it's marvin weapon here um yes the decline we're driving at 5.5 meters by six meters so a big decline with the intention of putting uh big size trucks in there you know in the order of 50 ton capacity trucks and we use those to haul up to the 588 level and then we'll use other trucks to take the waste that we're generating from this it's actually 12.4 kilometers of development that we're going to do over the next five years That will all go up the surface via the other deep line. Our long-term production will go up the east production shaft. That's the plan. But we will have this ramp that's available as well. But the long-term plan, as I said, is to use the shaft for hoisting the order's surface.

Cosmos Chiu, Analyst — CIBC

Great. And then the other part of capital return, Michael, as you mentioned, Great to see the new enhanced shareholder return framework now in place. I guess my question is, is it as simple, you know, when we try to figure out how many shares you might buy in each quarter, should I, for example, in Q1, you generated $488 million in pre-cash flow. As an estimate, can I multiply that by like 35% or 40%? subtract out what you would normally kind of divvy out in each quarter to figure out, you know, how many shares you could buy. Of course, it's going to be dependent on the levels of Pan-American silver shares. But is that kind of like the sort of how we would execute on that framework?

Michael Steinmann, CEO

Yeah, look, I mean, what we announced is up to a billion dollars of return. One part is dividend. The dividend is kind of fixed at a total amount of $305 million for the year. So while we're buying back shares, the return on the dividend per share will slightly and slowly increase with more buybacks in place. So that's another additional interesting addition here to our capital return framework. You know, we looked at the past returns we had. Of course, we increased the dividend three times over the last quarter. But our cash flow generation is so strong right now, and the big projects that we are building, there is enough capital for our growth as well. And you probably saw we are already at about $1.8 billion between cash and short-term investments. So, you know, the board believes that we can return up to a billion dollars. I believe that, obviously, too. We are right on track for that. And that's kind of the plan. So how many shares we can buy? Well, that, as you said, will depend on the share price for that. But, you know, we'll really try to aim for that billion dollar return this year.

Cosmos Chiu, Analyst — CIBC

It's great to hear, Michael. And then I guess on that, I noticed that in Q1, you utilized not a lot of it. You bought back about 460,000 common shares in Q1, which is not a lot, given that if you want to, you know, hit those some of those numbers that you just mentioned you might need to uh kind of buy back 10 million shares uh for the rest of uh 2026 so i guess my question is in q1 why were there not more shares being bought back was it due to a level in terms of where you were trading at as you mentioned in the press release uh the share buybacks were 54.04 a share in q1 or was it just due to the fact that in q1 you did not have this enhanced shareholder returned framework put in

Michael Steinmann, CEO

place just yet. Yeah, really a combination of the framework wasn't in place and very important to remember we put out the updated PA and there was quite a while we were in a blackout and couldn't really repurchase shares for a while. So until we had all that information out, as soon as that happened, we started repurchasing shares. So that was the reason for that kind of delay. But as you can imagine, we will step up that repurchase pretty strongly to get to that total billion

Cosmos Chiu, Analyst — CIBC

return for the year of course maybe one last question in the same press release you talked about other projects including the Timmins project the extension of the Bell Creek shaft not didn't really get a lot of air time but I think it could be important so maybe you know if you can touch on that a little bit as well as some of the exploration opportunities that you

Michael Steinmann, CEO

have mentioned for that area yeah definitely important and you know there's only so much room in the press release we will of course give a lot of details on that during our investor day but very exciting to lower the shaft and and that many many years of future production to tim and so maybe martin you want to give us some more color on the shaft extension

Martin Wafforn, Analyst — Other

yeah absolutely yeah it's a great project uh delighted that it's announced actually it's the idea is that we're going to extend the shaft by another 625 meters from the current 1080 level down to 1705. It's actually going to be developed using Alamac raises. So we'll come and Alamac up from two levels as we go. It's a $131 million total investment, and it allows extension of Bell Creek well into 2040, actually. We think right now around about, depending on how the reserves go, but well beyond 2040. 2046 is what we used in the economics of the shaft extension. So, exciting project. It definitely helped as well with the voyage costs because we're manning right now quite a bit below the ramp, so that's going to help us with the costs there as well. That's great to hear

Cosmos Chiu, Analyst — CIBC

and I agree, Michael. Not enough room in the press release. That's why I have people like me asking questions. Congrats again, Michael, Martin, and team for answering all my questions and I'll pass it on.

Michael Steinmann, CEO

Thank you, Carl.

Operator

The next question is from Jeffrey Hume with Ingalls and Snyder. Please go ahead.

Jeffrey Hume, Analyst — Ingalls and Snyder

Oh, I apologize. I don't have a question at this time.

Operator

Once again, if you have a question, please press star, then one. The next question is from Don DeMarco with National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.

Don DeMarco, Analyst — National Bank Financial

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, Michael and team. Thanks for taking my question. And maybe just continuing on the discussion on the SCARN, of course, we saw the board approve the 12-kilometer decline over five years. Does this represent a formal go-forward on the project, or would that be something that we might expect, you know, after the PFS update that was mentioned, you know, maybe in a couple years from now?

Michael Steinmann, CEO

Yeah, look, this is a very, you know, it's a project that needs quite a few years, but this is definitely the start of our SCARN development. And this is not just an exploration ramp down to see how the SCARN looks like. We obviously have a lot of information we drilled on this SCARN since 2018 when we did the discovery. And you just heard Martin saying that we're driving down a ramp of 5.5 by 6.5 meters, which will fit 50-ton trucks. So this is definitely the first span of a great project and a great big mine that we're going to build here for Pan American.

Don DeMarco, Analyst — National Bank Financial

Okay. And of course, like the revised PEA came out a couple months ago and showed CAPEX of $1.9 billion. Can you remind us, I think at this point you were talking about funding this within Pan American exclusively. Is that right?

Michael Steinmann, CEO

That's correct. As I said, our cash and short-term investment balance right now is $1.8 billion. And, of course, it's, you know, there will be a lot of cash flow coming in over the coming quarters and years while we build this asset. There's plenty of funds available for us to fund this project and continue with our return to our shareholders at the same time.

Don DeMarco, Analyst — National Bank Financial

Yeah, and I guess that's a good segue into my next question. I mean, you know, the shareholder return program is very timely. I mean, it's a real step up in the share buybacks and coincides with the discounted valuation. But I see it is weighted to buybacks. That's pretty common in the sector. Can you share your thoughts on how you decided on the allocation between shares and dividend amounts?

Michael Steinmann, CEO

Yeah, I mean, when we look at the historic returns we have between share buybacks and dividends, we returned somewhere around mid-30% of our free cash flow to shareholder. historically probably higher weighted to do dividends now we achieve such a high level of cash flow and as I said increased our dividend already three times every last past three quarters so we all believe that at this point the strong share the share repurchase is a better and stronger use of our cash and return to our shareholders than just continuously increasing the dividend. So it's a great mix, I think. I think it was a great day when we approved the billion return to our shareholder yesterday.

Don DeMarco, Analyst — National Bank Financial

Okay, that's all for me. Thanks again, Michael, and good luck with the rest of the quarter. Thank you.

Operator

The next question is from John Tomasos with John Tomasos' very independent research. Please go ahead.

John Tomasos, Analyst — John Tumazos Very Independent Research

Thank you very much, and congratulations on all the cash and good things. In the updated SCARN PEA, the CapEx fell by about a billion dollars, the upfront capital. Could you describe the subzones of SCARN where I'm presuming that the updated PEA accesses a higher grade, perhaps less deep part of the SCARN that needs less capital, has more revenue? new, maybe it's lower temperature, maybe it needs a little less ventilation, that my sense is that some parts of the SCARN are richer and easier than other parts of the SCARN.

Michael Steinmann, CEO

Yes, thanks for the question, John. Absolutely, you're right there. The big decrease in capital between the two PAs was really that initially it was a way, way bigger sublevel caving project. Remember at the beginning, we envisioned up to 50,000 ton a day. During the years, following years, we discovered more and more high-grade material, not only in the SCARN, but also closer to surface in some additional veins. And I would like to refer everybody to a number of press releases that we put out over the last two years on those high-grade wide intersects that we encountered within the SCAR-NOR bodies and these really high-grade structures that we discovered close to surface. So when you put all that high-grade together that we discovered over the last few years, we had the chance to build a smaller, higher-grade starter, if you want to call it. I'm not sure starter managed the right word because the project we put out is at least 37 years long, but we'll definitely mine first those higher silver grades, and that's why the tonnage decreased from that kind of initially around 50,000 tons to about 15,000 tons a day, and just uses conventional long-haul open stoping. So with that change, obviously, it's a smaller mine to build, smaller plant to build, and less development for the underground, much simpler, straightforward mining method that we apply in most of our underground operations, that combination brought the capital requirement down by a billion dollars.

John Tomasos, Analyst — John Tumazos Very Independent Research

Thank you.

Operator

This concludes the question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Michael Steinman for any closing remarks.

Michael Steinmann, CEO

Thank you, operator, and thanks, everyone, for calling in. Another great quarter, strong production, low cost, especially in our silver mines, a great combination, obviously combined with very high metal prices as well, and as a result, very high cash flows. So in light of those strong free cash flows, as you saw in the press release, we adopted a new shareholder return framework, targeting to return up to a billion dollars between dividends and share repurchases for 2026. We also approved some really important capital spending, as we just discussed here with the people on the call, for Jacobina, Timmons, and, of course, most importantly, for La Colorado, which really marks the first large approved capital spending to develop our great current deposit at La Coverada with the first $265 million approved to sink or lower that large access ramp to the deposit. We will be hosting our Investor Day in Toronto on June 1st, So there will be ample time there with lots of maps and cross-actions to explain and dive really deep into all these projects, La Clarada, Jacobina, and Timmons, together with many other exciting projects that Pan American has on the development and exploration side. I'm really looking forward. If you could join us for that event, again, it's on June 1st in Toronto. that will be available obviously in person if you're in Toronto or via webcast. Looking forward to talking to everyone at that event. Have a great time until June 1st. Thank you very much.

Operator

This brings to a close today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.