Good morning. I'm David Londono and was named CEO of Mineros S.A. a month ago. I'm a mining engineer by background, originally from Colombia. I've been working in the United States for the last 30 plus years, all of them in mining, open pit mining, and underground mining, mostly gold for the last 15 years. But previous to that, I worked in coal and industrial minerals and copper. I took the head position on Mineros because, first, I'm originally from Colombia. I'm a mining engineer, and Mineros is a great company with two great assets both in Colombia and Nicaragua that have been successful for the last 50 years. And I want to make sure that the company keeps on going and actually grow the company to not only be in Colombia and Nicaragua but also in some other countries and some other jurisdictions in North and South America.
David, lovely to have you here in London. You've come to the one-to-one conference. What are you hoping to do here?
What I'm hoping to do is meet some of the investors that people know who I am, that they know about my experience, and also kind of get more recognition on the Mineros name. And what a great company we have right now in hand.
That's the first thing you've got to do. You've been here four weeks, right?
Four weeks. I've been with the company for four weeks.
Well done. Well done. That's great. So I think, what do you think the challenges for a new CEO are? When they sort of come in, they're picking up where someone left off. You've got to, I guess, talk to people, right? Is that the first thing you've got to do?
There's a couple of things. Because of the gold environment, the gold prices have been so good now. People start forgetting about performance and costs. Gold companies are making a lot of money right now. So we need to make sure that we look into we don't control the price, but we control the costs and we control the performance. So make sure that when these gold prices start kind of settling or going down, eventually it's going to go down, is that we have our costs under control.
Look after those margins.
Look after the margins. Make sure that we're still making money when the gold price stabilizes or costs down.
You had quite a good quarter. I was saying numbers came out recently. Do you want to give us the top-line numbers?
Yeah. So we got $160 million in revenue. We have $81 million in the bank right now. And we're paying good dividends, the $0.10 per quarter, $0.10 per year. So it's great. The company is doing great at this moment.
Right. So the challenge is, okay, you've got to look after those margins. You say you can't control the gold price, but it's doing a lot of heavy lifting for you at the moment. Very nice for producers, at least. Looking at the balance sheet, you've got a bit of debt on there. You want to sort of get rid of that, keep that? I mean, what's your view on debt?
I think the idea is for us to keep a little bit of debt because that way we get the cash, and that's going to give us leverage to go and look for opportunities that will present themselves in the area, in South America, Central America, North America.
Okay. Well, I'll definitely come back to M&A because that's always the question that producers get. What are you going to do with your money? Dividends, 10% dividends is good, but acquisitions can be great too. With regards to the projects, you've got Colombia and you've got Nicaragua, right? Colombia, maybe just describe to people who've not heard the story before, what you do there and how you extract gold.
I'm sorry, can you repeat that?
In Colombia, you've got different operations in Colombia and Nicaragua. So tell us about the operations in Colombia.
I think the operation is a great operation. It's a low-year operation. There's a few operations like that in Colombia, but for us, we want to be known not only in Antioquia or Medellín, which the company is very well known to, but it's across the country. When you go outside Medellín, not many people know Mineros, and there is a lot of gold mining in Colombia, so if we can get more opportunities like that in other areas, that's what we should do.
Maybe explain the system. You've got these very large dredgers that go down rivers and sometimes ponds, etc. Can you explain that for people new to the story?
You get the gold, that is, you have these gold deposits probably up in the mountains. And with time, Mineros S.A., rain, the gold starts coming down through creeks and into the rivers. And in the rivers, particularly when you have big storms, they deposit on the sides of the rivers, on the flanks. And that's what we're doing. We're taking advantage of all that material that came down through the years. And usually, it's free gold. You don't have to go through a big process to get the gold out. It's just gravity. You don't have to use any reagents to get the gold out. It's just gravity recovery. And then you get, as the gold comes down, also waste, or dirt will come on top of it. So we have the big dredges to get the stripping, not the waste stripping.
And then once you get the big dredges to go through that stripping, then you get smaller dredges to go through the old.
Oh, okay. The fall behind.
Correct.
But you're sort of remediating as you go.
As we go, obviously, we're not working in the river per se. We build a pond on the side of the river. The water that is in the pond is not in contact with the river. It's an enclosed environment. Sedimentation happens in the pond, not in the river. Then you start, you get the material that you're getting from the pond, it goes in the back, backfilling the areas that we've disturbed. Then we just get the ore out. We recover only the gold. Then pretty much 95% of the material goes back into the ground. We recover or reclaim that ground as we go.
It's very green. In this environment, it's very green. And you've been doing it for 50 years. So you're good at it. How long can you keep going doing this?
This might take forever. It's a big area in the Nechí area. So you have all these big mountains, and there's some very good deposits in the area. And so we went pretty much through the very high grade back in the early years. And as you move down the river, the grade is going to come down. The size of the grains are going to be smaller. But still, as long as we keep good gold prices, you can still go through for that lower grade.
So how does conventional mining people say, "Oh, what the cut-off grade is, life of mine," and all these other variables that kind of allow you to forecast what you're going to be able to make. So how does it work with dredging?
It's actually very similar to open pit mining. With the big difference is that it's just full of water. So you still have to do your stripping. You get the waste out. And it's like going in layers. It's actually very similar to coal mining. Coal mining, you have a waste layer, and then you have your coals. And you're saying in this area, so you have about 12 meters, 12-18 meters of waste.
Is that right?
And then you get into your layer of ore, mineralized waste, let's say mineralized ore. And then you go through that. And that's where you go through the process.
Tell me about this. I'm intrigued the process. I know tin mining from when I was a kid, but here, with that kind of, again, conventional versus the slightly unconventional for most people, there's overburden. Most mines don't like water. You love water because it makes it easier to kind of process in a way. Well, it's been processed for you. It's free mining, free digging in a way. So does it get harder, heavier, the different types of sedimentary deposits on top of the gold?
It does. And once you get into kind of hard rock, that's when you know that the ore is gone. So that's it. You came to the bottom of the mine, let's say, and then you move into the next place.
12-ish meters minus one.
You get about, I would say, somewhere between. And again, this is something that I'm just learning along the way too. So you get between 20-30 meters of soft material before you get into that hard rock.
Got it. Okay.
And then that's why these dredges are so large.
Okay, so you're a mining engineer.
I'm a mining engineer, yeah.
So you've done a lot in coal and a few other things. And this must be very, very different for you. Are there transferable skills or is this about running and building a business for you now?
Exactly. And like I said a bit before, is that this is pretty much open pit mining with lots of water. And managing water is not easy. But in here, and the people that we have in there, they're so knowledgeable and so experienced in doing this through water. Because usually, you don't know where you are when you have a pit full of water and mining through it.
So talk to me about, just sticking with the dredging at the moment, talk to me about the kind of cost space. You talk about making sure you're managing your costs. You can't control gold price, but you can manage your costs. So for dredging, what are the kind of key costs?
Making sure that you're efficient. This is kind of bucket-wheel mining. Make sure that you're filling the buckets when you're advancing through the waste. Also, that you have very good control of the contact, that you're not processing, let's say, sending the gravity recovery, that you're not sending waste, you're just sending the ore. You're going to get a little bit of dilution, but you can control that because you still do some drilling, grade control drilling, and then you pretty much know where that contact is, then you get the waste out, get the ore, and then process the ore through.
What about energy?
This is very efficient, and that's where it's a very green operation because we have our own hydroelectrics. We produce our own electricity with water. So it's green. So we actually don't spend. We spend a little bit of diesel on mobile equipment, but it's not much. So it's a green, green operation.
Okay, so Colombia is that can keep running and running and running.
Yes.
There are many rivers, there are many mountains, and a lot of level opportunity for you. Can we jump down to Nicaragua, please?
Yes.
If I tell people about the operations there.
So we have, yeah. I say we've been in Nicaragua since 2013, and mining in the area has been way before that. There are small underground operations, very efficient. It was before miners came in, there were very manual operations. We mechanized our operations a little bit. So mining is not a problem. And we have a couple of processing plants. They're very, very old plants, and we've been kind of renovating them as we go.
Is it two or three?
We have three plants. We have the Hemco plant right in the town of Bonanza. We have Vesmiza plant. It's pretty close to the town of Bonanza too. And then we have La Curva plant, which is about, I would say, 10 kilometers from the Bonanza town.
It's about 2,000 tons per day between them.
It's about, yeah, it's a little bit over 2,000 tons combined, and so we have some very good grades. We get some three and a half more grams per ton from our own operations, and then we get a little bit higher grade from the artisanal miners.
This is the interesting bit. We'll come to this as well. I promise. I promise. But obviously, I think I just noticed you've got a permit through for, I think, just for a mining permit, but not necessarily for operating or some of the other permits that you need. So it's a good kind of step forward. It's obviously saying that the ability to do business in country, you're managing that. And it seems to be going, okay, you've been there a long time, so you're well known. So tell me about how you operate in country.
Yeah, so that's one of the things that great about Nicaragua. The gold mining in Nicaragua is the highest exporting material that they have in there, so it's been good for the country. In Nicaragua, you're talking about we have a couple of mines, and we just got a permit for the Porvenir mine, which we talked about in the call last week, so when you look at the deposits, you have the Panamá project, the Panamá Mine that we've been operating for a few years. We have the Pioneer Mine also that we've been operating for a few years, and then about four kilometers from there, we have this Porvenir deposit that we've been exploring also for the last few years. We applied for the mining permits a couple of years ago. We just got the environmental, the EIA approval last year.
And then, Jesus, we applied for the removal, let's say.
The forestry.
Forestry removal last year too. And we got a permit for that last week. And what that allowed us is to open the mine. Now, we're still going to apply for the EIA for the process plant and to build a new plant for Porvenir. But let's just say that we don't have that. We still provide our ore to the other plants. Now, because this operation has copper and zinc, recovery is more difficult, we'll say, in the Vesmisa and the Hemco plants. But still, you can process and get the gold out from there. But that's why we want to build that new Porvenir plant to make sure that we get the zinc and the silver and the copper out.
And potentially, because you've done a feasibility on it, but potentially, what will that do in terms of your production profile?
It's going to pretty much double the production. Not double, but we can get about 50,000 to 60,000 ounces additional from Nicaragua. So it's going to take us with the current operations, it's going to take us very close to 200,000 ounces in Nicaragua.
And what does the, I know, feasibility and the economics changes as some inflationary pressures and whatever gold price thing? But broadly, what does that do to the bottom line in terms of the dollar contribution for the business? It's obviously going to increase it, but any sense from the feasibility of what that could look like?
I think, and again, I'm going to Medellín, it's always something that I'm just getting to know our own operations. And my plan is to go through that study in the next couple of weeks.
Okay. We'll come back to that in the next line, but the bottom line is you're looking at a significant contribution to gold equivalent ounces, and obviously, they'll continue to drive hopefully the margin and dollars in the bank, so which leads us on nicely too. Oh, no, in fact, before we do M&A, let's talk about the artisanal component. You still want to continue to do this. It's an important part of your revenue model.
There's two things. It's part of our social license. So the government requires mining companies to give 1% of concessions to artisanal miners. But they also require the artisanal miners to sell the ore to the mining company. And so the mining at the top of the deposit where we have some of the best grades. So what we're doing is we actually want to keep the artisanal miners in there because.
Yeah. They're finding things, aren't they?
They're finding your gold, and we're getting that. We're keeping the local social license in the area, and then it's keeping also our processing plants.
It's interesting. They are very good findings. Because I looked, there's a picture in your PowerPoint which has these piles of different colored ore, small piles, not so big. It means they've been all over the property and doing that hunting for that kind of ground truthing, I think Gerald just called.
So what we're getting in there is like you get all the oxide material. It's kind of the easy stuff, the easy to dig, pretty digging, as you mentioned before. We're also helping them with blasting once they get into that transition ore. And we pay for that blasting. And that's why they're trying to sell to us. But because it's pretty much hand mining, when we buy the ore from them, it's a little bit more expensive than our own mining. And that's one of the things that you mentioned before about what is going to happen in Porvenir. Because we're going to do our own mining, we'd like to mine a little bit cheaper than the artisanal miners, more efficient and more volume. But again, going back to the artisanal miners, because we're getting a lot higher grade.
And obviously, the more ore that we process from them, the more gold we can plant. Exactly. And so it's to our advantage to get more of that.
I like that kind of social licensing because you do that with both in Colombia and also in Nicaragua, and it's so important for mining companies. That's why I think you guys are quite different in a way from conventional. I know you do conventional mining too, but conventional mining companies, so let's bounce on to the M&A because that's really, really important. Because there's a question you guys get asked all the time is, right, you're building a big cash reserve, and you're paying dividends as well, but in terms of blending the risk appetite, giving the growth profile that companies need to talk about, is M&A for a company like yours just that little bit harder than for other companies? Because you've got to be on brand in a way, haven't you?
Yeah, so obviously, this kind of cycle of M&As is pretty much right at the coming to an end. Most companies that are looking into the U.S., Canada, and some areas like Central America, South America is being left for small miners, so I think it's a big opportunity for us to be looking into some of those areas, and it's a great time to be kind of getting into become a little bit bigger company.
Let's look at that. Because I don't want to sort of be clichéd about it, but you are very good operators. I think the areas, geographies, jurisdictions where perhaps North American miners would struggle, I think they maybe are fearful to tread, certainly when times are different, when the politics is difficult, the ability to mine in country is difficult. Do you think you have a local advantage? I know Colombia is not Nicaragua, and Nicaragua is not Mexico or whatever. These are different places. You are different people, but you seem to not be concerned about Nicaragua. You went in there at a time when people were fearful of going in there. How do you view geopolitical risk when it comes to maybe M&A opportunities?
I think you have to be open, but as you mentioned, we know how to operate in Nicaragua. We know how to operate in Colombia and we have a very good relationship with the government in Nicaragua. Again, permits are not, you still have to follow the process, but it's a little bit easier to, let's say, get the permits, and you see companies that have been successful in Nicaragua, like Calibre, and some other companies we've been successful in Nicaragua. Like I said, we know how to operate out there, so we're very open to opportunities that present in the area. Colombia's permits are a little bit more difficult, but we still work and get them, so again, we know how to operate. We know how the mentality of the Colombian people are, so we're also open to get things going in Colombia.
But also, when you look at the area, there are countries in there that are still. Brazil is a great country to go and work in there. Mexico, there are a lot of opportunities in the areas in Mexico. And some of the countries also in Central America, which have not been. They're not big in mining, but there are opportunities in there that we can actually look at.
Right. Okay. And in terms of the types of projects that you currently have in the portfolio, because I think M&A can be a very dilutive exercise for some companies. They go in there and they buy the peak of the market, and you sometimes wonder why. And sometimes it's because they're very bad at exploration. They can't find things themselves. And others, it's just almost like you're coming at the beginning. Just because we're making money, it doesn't mean you can be casual with money. And I think sometimes mining companies are casual with the money for M&A. Is there a certain type of profile of asset that you guys would like to see? And again, kind of like, are those sorts of projects readily available to companies like you now? So you're not overpaying.
You know, we're going to be looking, we're looking into some assets that are somewhere between 70,000-120,000 ounces that can get us to somewhere between 350,000-400,000 ounces a year. That's the type of companies that we're looking, but as you said, companies became too easy, they're far too easy with their money and make some really bad acquisitions. I think it's as important to say yes as to say no to an acquisition or to a project, and we're going to be smart. There's something that we need to say that we're going to be looking to options that are coming now to the market. We need to make sure that we look at those smartly.
Like I said, it is just as important to say yes as to say no because you don't want to get into a really bad situation as back in the day when some companies made some big acquisitions. We're not looking at the active cost.
Because the good news for you is because you're producing cash, the money that you may choose to borrow will be cheap.
Correct, and that's one of the advantages that we need to take in there is we can go to the banks and get some. I won't say cheap, but lower interest money. Cheaper money, and getting to, we have that opportunity right now.
Right. Okay, well, exciting times for producers and obviously driving the growth story of this, well, do you know what last year's problem for you guys was? Awareness? People were like, who is this company? Right? Who are they, and we've seen a great response in the market in 2024 and continues into 2025, and now it's that kind of saying, well, not only do you now know us, but you know us as a growth story. So.
Yeah. When you look at the mine, a couple of years ago, the share price in Canada was less than CAD 1. And you look at the share price last week, and it's CAD 2.40. I think it's a great story to tell. People are getting to know us. People know that this company that paid dividends and is efficient. Definitely one of the things that I'm looking at is to become more efficient, more cost-disciplined.
Yeah. Yeah. No, I think it's been really interesting. So not only a dividend-paying company and meaningful dividends, double-digit dividends, but also this growth component you're focusing on, from what I can see, the operation. And now, obviously, the mining engineering in there, the margins will improve again going forward. So David, very nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
Welcome to London. I hope it's a very successful few days for you here. Because I know you're then traveling throughout Europe as well. So enjoy the travel.
Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
Okay.