Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Octavio Alvídrez, and I'm the CEO of Fresnillo PLC. Here with me this morning, we have Mario Arreguín, our CFO. I'm joined also by our Chief Operating Officers, Tomás Iturriaga of the central region, and Daniel Diaz of the northern region, and our Vice President of Exploration, Guillermo Gastélum. I would like to welcome to our full year results presentation. Before we begin, and as always, I would like to point out to our disclaimer, but I will quickly move to set out what we will cover in our presentation. I will take you through the investment pro-proposition and some of the 2025 highlights, and also our key recent HSECR initiatives. Well, before Guillermo, Tomás and Daniel will provide an operational update from their respective regions.
Mario will provide a financial update. Guillermo will talk us about resources and reserves, and then I will come back to close the presentation with some final comments and the outlook. I'm pleased with the performance of our business. As we have already reported, gold exceeded guidance and silver was in line with guidance. I believe this shows how we have stabilized our operations and are now in a strong position to capitalize on future growth opportunities. We remain, and this is going to be a continuous effort, very focused on control of the cost and mitigate the first initial signs of inflation that we see in our operations. Let's remind that in 2025, we achieved cost savings for $46 million through a number of initiatives. Most of them, the majority of them, in the Herradura District, but they will continue to be our focus in 2026.
Of course, having the ounces and controlling the cost, even decreasing for two years, I would say, 2024-2025, having in the ounces, we are enjoying the record prices and turning that into a record financial performance. In 2025, we deliver also on our mergers and acquisition strategy with the acquisition of Probe Gold in Canada. This is an outstanding asset which added 10 million ounces of gold to our resource base, and we look forward to taking the right steps to develop this exciting project in due course. This goes along our strategy of acquiring quality assets, and in terms of exploration, we will see the Probe Gold acquisition to turn into a district for exploration for many years. Finally, we return $950 million to shareholders in dividend, a record amount.
Turning to our investment proposition, we are still the largest producer of silver in the world and Mexico's leading gold miner. We benefit from a large portfolio of high-quality assets with over 2 billion ounces of silver resources and 44 million ounces of gold resources. Let's comment that this does not include the most recent acquisition of our project in Canada as we close that transaction in January, I think, of this year. We have strong EBITDA margins and low costs and remain very focused on running our operations efficiently. This approach has seen us generate significant free cash flow of over $2 billion alongside very strong earnings per share, which has enabled us to reward our shareholders with strong returns in the form of dividends.
As you can see, we have distributed 69% of earnings in 2025, well above our stated dividend policy. I should be clear, our policy remains in place. Some highlights on the financial performance. This is a record performance as we are announcing it today. Revenue was up strongly, but as you can see, our overall profitability was up sharply with significant margin improvements as we continue to focus on costs across the business, so we can fully capitalize on the high precious metals price environment. We have delivered considerable value to our shareholders while retaining an extremely strong balance sheet. I should state here, we believe the strong balance sheet is a competitive advantage.
We have generated significantly cash flow, returning value to shareholders ahead of our stated dividend policy, but we also continue to look for opportunities which we believe will be value-enhancing in the long term. Our balance sheet give us the flexibility to be able to act quickly. If we feel our shareholders will be better served by other uses of capital, then of course, we will act on that accordingly. Some few comments on gold and silver markets. We continue to see strong fundamentals driving demand for both silver and gold. As we have seen, sadly this weekend, global economic instability, geopolitical tensions, and trade disputes have increased demand for safe haven assets like gold and silver. We are seeing growing interest in precious metals as an investment class which has boosted demand.
Gold has hit record highs in the period reflecting geopolitical tensions, while we're also seeing a strong underlying support from central banks. We expect these themes or aspects to continue for the foreseeable future. We have also seen increased demand not just from traditional drivers such as jewelry for silver, but in particular in use in various industries, including electronic solar panels and automobiles. Increasing industrialization has contributed to rising silver prices. As we can see on the silver graph, I mean, it is one trend from 2018 to 2020, but increasingly use and demand from 2020 till now. That is a quite a healthy market I would say. Increased because the scarcity of silver projects also increased the foundations for this market.
Finally, and most significantly, we are seeing supply constraints as I mentioned, not only in gold, but also in silver. In short, we remain very confident in the outlook for silver and gold prices. Moving quickly to HSECR highlights. Safety is at the heart of everything we do, and as we can see in the graph, I mean, the trend is quite positively decreasing the lost time injury frequency rate as well as total recordable injury frequency rate. But still, the two fatalities we had this last year is a strong reminder that we should continue putting across all of our operations our policy and protocols and our philosophy, "I Care, We Care," so we continue and finally achieve a year with no fatalities.
On the environment front, our work on improving our carbon emission performance is also ongoing as we work towards decarbonizing our operations, improving water recycling rates, and upgrading our mining fleets. We achieved 78% renewable energy consumption in the period ahead of our target. As I said before, we are not still increasing that target as we have some other mining projects that will increase our footprint. Therefore, that target remains at the same level that we that we have stated it at 75%. On community relations, in particular, I would like to highlight local health campaigns where we have provided nearly 7,000 medical consultations on our new water initiatives in San Julián in partnerships with Metals for Humanity.
As I highlighted before, our relationship with our communities is central to our license to operate, and we continue to make a huge contribution to our communities both in terms of investment, employment, and taxes we pay. I now would like to turn the presentation to Tomás Iturriaga, and then after to Daniel. Do you wanna present over there or?
Yeah. That's fine.
Yeah.
Is it open?
Yeah. It's Tomás.
I have one here. Thank you. Thank you, Octavio, good morning, everyone. Let's move to the following page here to start giving you some color on the operations performance. I would say that accounting for the different realities of the, and challenges of the three mines as a whole, the Fresnillo district had a solid year meeting production expectation and achieving relevant progress in the different projects across mines. Getting to the mine by mine details, at Fresnillo, we managed to stop the production decline that we have seen during the past two years, with the silver grade increasing 10% year-on-year.
That offset by a throughput decrease of the same magnitude due to lower vein width and/or shorter stop lengths at the San Alberto, Santa Elena, and Candelaria areas. I think we've made significant progress adjusting our mine operations to the new reality of the mine at depth, improved our dilution control discipline as seen in the silver grade increase year-on-year. During 2020, see is key that we advance development of and mine infrastructure at San Mateo and San Alberto areas, required to support great and throughput increases expected in 2027 and 2028.
We saw good results at Fresnillo in the reserves front with 20 million ore tonnes at almost 200 g per tonne of silver in reserve, and most of it in the proven category, replenishing mine tonnes during the year and adding some to the reserve inventory. Moving into Saucito, another solid year at Saucito in terms of production with a very slight decrease in silver production due to lower volume process, mainly driven by lower equipment availability and some delays on ventilation raises due to permitting. Development meters were also impacted during the year by these same factors. As we already have obtained the permits for these ventilation raises, and we have established a very rigorous availability program improvement with our mine equipment OEMs, we are expecting an improved 2026 performance.
Lead and zinc production were both strong at Saucito, helping a good financial result at the mine. Key for this year will be the interconnection of the dependent section of the Jarillas shaft, scheduled to be completed by Q3 this year. While we need to shut down the shaft in a couple of weeks with some impact to this year's production and cost, but very positive impact expected starting in 2027 and on. Once we have this project conclude, we should see improvements in our cost per tonne, due to decreased haulage. I think the team did a very good job keeping the operations stable and under control at Saucito, which is becoming a complex mine to manage.
We saw also good results in the reserve front at Saucito with almost 17.5 million tonnes of ore at above 200 g per tonne of silver and also most of it in the proven category. Finally, on to Juanicipio, where we had another very good year of operations with production of silver and the rest of the byproduct metals right or above expected levels and considering that silver grade decrease was expected and accounted for. There was not a surprise, good year at operations. For this year, the conclusion of and commissioning of our underground conveyor project is scheduled for mid-year. It's very key.
We will need to shut down the San José del Valle ramp main hauling ramp for an installation of this conveyor, which is gonna impact our cost this year. We'll see relevant cost benefits starting in 2027 and on. Good result also in the reserve front at Juanicipio. 10.3 million tonnes of ore in reserve at about 200 g per tonne of silver, pretty much all of it in the proven category. Efficiency and improvements and cost control initiatives will continue to be a focus in the district for this year, and just to counterbalance the, you know, inflationary pressures as well as exchange rate pressures.
We will keep a very disciplined approach to cost and efficiency. Just to reiterate that, I think we have a strong performance at the Fresnillo district all in all for the year. Thank you. On to my colleague, Daniel Diaz.
Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Happy to present the results of the operations in the northern district, starting with Herradura. This was a very solid year in terms of results, consolidating the efforts on optimizing our operation and stabilizing first. Starting the process of growth and to optimize the installed capacity that we have for the coming years. First of all, our annual gold production was significantly above expectations, both on target and the overall guidance. As you see, this was a strong support for surpassing the company guidance for 2025. A slight decrease compared to previous year, 1.2%, as mentioned, was above our internal expectations. All in all, a very solid year in Herradura.
The foundations of the results are the operational excellence and cost control initiatives that we started in 2023 and were consolidated in 2024. In particular, I'm highlighting this year together with the efforts of the last year, mostly around the mine side of the operation. This year in particular, we put a strong focus on optimizing the drilling patterns for increase the recovery that was becoming one of the issues in our heap leaching, and also some enhancements on the DLP plants for through-throughput increase, supporting the results that we have right now. In parallel, we are executing several structural projects to optimize our operation. The first one that we started, it's the construction of the new Carbon in Column plant. We are finalizing that during this month.
In parallel, we are working on the engineerings for the sulphide crushing circuit and for the ADR plant that we expect to have built and operating during somewhere next year. Some capital deployment, it's included, and then you see some increase in our overall capital profile. The structural projects that we are executing in Herradura together with the sustaining, we are totalizing around $170 million for this, for this 2026. These projects that I'm mentioning here, all of them have been strictly evaluated. All of them have between eight months and 1.5 years of payback period, so are very accretive in terms of returns for the company is what we're trying to do.
Continue a very strict capital allocation policy, trying to invest in smart investments to optimize our operations. In particular in 2026, we have a strong focus on the district optimization. We have been explaining and communicated the view that we have in Herradura as a new gold-producing district. In this year we are gonna finalize the integrated planning, including all the assets that we are putting into production that we'll mention later on, and maximization of the returns on the installed capacity that we have there. Moving to Ciénega. Ciénega we had a more difficult year this year. 2024 was very successful. In 2025 we experienced some specific issues around metallurgy that hit us mostly on silver production.
As you can see, we decreased from 4.8 million ounces on 2024 to 2.8 million during 2025. The good news is that that was specific to one zone of the mine that we expect to deplete during the first half of this year. After that specific problem will be solved. In exploration, we're very happy with the results that we're having. I think we mentioned this on the previous announcement during midyear. The new discovery on a new high-grade gold zone called Victoria Complex has been starting to deliver results starting in Q4 2025, and it's gonna be the base of production for 2026 and 2027 in Ciénega.
We also have some optionality through a few satellite deposits, in particular one that we are finalizing to engineer and going through the permitting process to hopefully being able to complement production from Ciénega. In terms of cost profile in Ciénega, it's higher than expected due to lower production. However, during this year and next, we expect to be below $2,000 all-in sustaining cost, where they're still very healthy in terms of margin and still accretive as part of our portfolio. Finally in San Julián, also a very positive year. If you recall, one of the main challenges in San Julián for us was to being able to transition successfully from the operation with two deposits and plants to only one.
That has been done with very positive results in terms of production. We have surpassed gold production and sustained silver production, which is very good. In terms of unit cost, as expected, it's slightly higher because operations in vein is slightly more costly than operating the DOB. However, it's within the range that we set as a target that was having an all-in sustaining cost below $20. We delivered $19.8 during 2025. We're very happy with the results. Also on the exploration side, some very good results on exploration and new discoveries. We expect to extend the mine life in San Julián. The current life of mine goes all the way up to 2030.
We expect to extend at least for two additional years. We continue to have new discoveries. We have an operation that is well controlled in terms of cost performance and also with possibilities to extend. It's also a good part of our portfolio. Handing over to Guillermo.
Good morning, everyone. A few comments about our resources and reserves, most of it is all good news. I would like to remind you that the numbers that you're looking at are current as of April of 2025, so those numbers have not benefited yet from the current higher precious metal prices. We took a hit though of - 8.5% in our silver resources due to the application of the RPEEE principle, which is being required. We formalize later on this year as a requirement for the disclosure of resources that the reasonable prospectus of eventual economic extraction. We lost some silver resources.
On the other hand, the remaining silver resources have a much higher probability to be converted into reserves in the future. The rest of the numbers are very positive. The resources in gold grew 14%, mostly due to good exploration results at the Herradura district and at Lucerito and other projects in Mexico. On the reserve side, the silver reserves grew 9.4%, as you can see. Most of the reserves were replenished at the Fresnillo district. Also, gold reserves grew 7.4%, mostly coming out from the Herradura district. Those are good numbers. As Octavio mentioned before, these numbers do not include any of the new resources that we came to Fresnillo with the acquisition of Probe Gold.
Highlight for 2025 was, of course, the acquisition of the Canadian junior company Probe Gold, which has a very significant asset in one of the premium locations of the Val-d'Or mining camp in Québec, along one of these major structural breaks that host millions of ounces of several other mines around. The Novador project, that's a flagship asset of now of Fresnillo in Canada. It's located about a 25- minutes drive east from the Val-d'Or town site. It's a excellent location. Overall, this acquisition is adding around 10 million ounces of gold resources, and most of them are located in the Novador, in the Novador project, which has a good potential to, yeah.
We're going to turn it into a producing asset, expecting to deliver in 2030-2032, if I'm correct. Very important thing, we have continued the work that was being carried out by Probe Gold. We are drilling right now, we have good plans for additional geological and geophysical studies in the rest of the properties. I would like to highlight a couple of issues here that this acquisition didn't come only with Novador, but with the significant land position in two major mineralized gold belts in Québec. It's very important to say as well that after the transaction, the key personnel of Probe Gold was retained. Basically all of the professionals and technicians working at Val-d'Or are now working for Fresnillo.
We haven't had any issue in continue the operations and the exploration plans at Val-d'Or. A few comments about some highlights of what we did in 2025. We spent $175 million drilling slightly over 800,000 m overall in all of our projects in Mexico, Peru, and in Chile. As usual, we have a very strong focus on brownfields exploration. We allocated about 80% of the budget to brownfields, which is coming out of the normal exploration programs by the mine exploration teams following their targets of converting resources, adding new resources to the mine operations, and also infill drilling in the reserves to increase the certainty of the reserve for medium to long-term planning.
The remaining 20% was allocated mostly in the advanced exploration projects such as Guanajuato, Orisyvo, Rodeo, Tajitos, and the emerging Lucerito project which is delivering good results in the latest exploration. All of this work is supported by a significant land that we owned in land concessions that we own in all the countries where we operate. We can see the numbers to the left of the triangle there. Our focus for 2026 will be an increase of the exploration budget up to $308 million.
Now we're seeing a shift of, more investment being put in the advanced exploration project. 35% of this total budget will be devoted to the advanced exploration projects that you see in the upper levels of the triangle, like places like Valles and Noche Buena at the Herradura district and also the Herradura Underground, also in Herradura, and the other advanced projects I just mentioned. Also some investment will continue to be made on the earlier stage projects to keep our portfolio alive and dynamic, with the still the brownfields around San Julián and Fresnillo and some of the projects that we have in Peru and Chile and now in Canada. We'll finalize this.
This slide just by mentioning that we continue to have the deployment of regional prospecting teams in the four countries where we operate, trying to advance new project to show some progress or to make decisions as to optimizing the land that we control. Okay. Having said that, now we will turn into a more detailed description of our project pipeline, and we will start talking about the brownfields projects. Of course, you all know that the advanced exploration projects are now being sponsored and championed by our COOs. We will start out of Valles. I will hand this over to Daniel.
Thank you, Guillermo.
As mentioned before, part of the efforts of optimizing our portfolio, in particular on the Herradura district, is about capturing short-term opportunities and increased value where possible. What you see here, I think this is the first time in some time that we present what we're doing in the different projects, it's exactly that. What opportunities we can capture in the short term while we remain optimizing our portfolio and our production profile in the district moving forward. To begin with, we have Valles. Valles is an underground operation that will run in parallel with Herradura. We are pretty much starting production next year. We completed the detail engineering during the last year and the beginning of this one. The operational model, well, is completed.
The section that will be operated by contractors, we have selected our main contractor in there as well. The rehabilitation works in the underground mine will start on Q3 this year. We expect production to commence by mid-2027, the expected average production will be in the range of 60,000-80,000 ounces per year that will be processed through the same processing facilities in Herradura. It's gonna be an increase in gold ounces through higher grades by using the same capacity, the capital it's very limited. Very accretive project that we expect to have running for seven years with a possibility to extend the mine life through exploration that at depth is still open. We're very excited about Valles coming online. On the right-hand side, Noche Buena.
Noche Buena, as you probably know, it's an open pit that operated up to 2022, where the reserves were depleted at that point in time. Some potential remained. We kept analyzing opportunities. Together with some good exploration results and the new price scenarios, we rerun an evaluation and we are actually restarting operations, we expect early next year. We have completed the studies for that. We expect an average production of between 40,000 and 50,000 ounces additional for the next eight years in Noche Buena. Another very good news for the district and for the production profile of the company. This is not included in our forecast so far. That is in the short term and b y the end of the presentation, Octavio will show a general timeline of our project pipeline.
In the longer run, as we mentioned before as well, we have Herradura underground that is the main portion of the deposit, at depth. We completed conceptual studies. This is on earlier stages. We expect a production between 120,000 and 160,000 ounces per year. This is a longer implementation project. It requires some development in the open pit in order to be able to start. We expect to start by 2031. We have scheduled the definitive PEA during 2026 as part of the exercise that I mentioned before around the optimization of the district. With this new long-term view of prices, what is the right transition between open pit and underground, and how they coexist in the long run.
We expect to comment on that by mid-year this year. Finally, it's a greenfield, but also part of the Herradura district, the Tajitos. I will leave to Guillermo to comment a little bit on that one.
Thank you, Daniel. Well, Tajitos is a disseminated gold deposit, very similar to Noche Buena. It's located in the Herradura district, as already mentioned, and it has a resource around 1.1 million ounces, most of it in the indicated category. That's the Tajitos as we know it now, but in 2025, we discovered additional mineralization west of it, so the district is much larger. We have, we are in an exploring vein system, which is a outcropping that has very good gold grades and is amenable to underground mining. Also we have defined additional exploration targets for disseminated mineralization west of the known resource, so t hat's a good news.
We will be advancing studies at the PEA level in the first half of this year at Tajitos. Moving forward, in this slide, you are seeing of the advanced greenfield projects. Starting off with Rodeo, I'll just mention a few words before letting Daniel go into the details. Rodeo is also a disseminated deposit. It's not Noche Buena type. It's a different style of mineralization hosted in volcanic rocks, which are thoroughly oxidized through depths in excess of 300 m, which allows for very good metallurgical recovery and also has good exploration potential. We have four rigs that's spinning right now at Rodeo, looking for additional mineralization at this project. Daniel, would you like to continue on the plans?
Yeah, quickly, around. As you can see, we have been making significant efforts in order to optimize and put more focus on the development of our project portfolio. Rodeo is one example. It's an open pit as Guillermo commented. During 2025, the focus of what we call an advanced PEA was on two fronts. The first one was extension and metallurgical drilling. We successfully completed a campaign with 25,000 m with good results. The second objective was the metallurgical test work. That is the key for a heap leaching operation. We completed that very detailed test work for our PEA. The results are quite promising. We're very confident on what's coming for Rodeo. That just was completed in December last year.
We are starting by the end of this month the, t he PEA study for the optimization, we expect to have that completed before the end of Q2 this year, and hopefully start the PFS phase moving forward. What we expect out of Rodeo, it's a production for what we know now. We think we have a possibility to slightly increase, but what we know now is between 75,000 and 90,000 ounces of gold per year, potentially starting in 2029 with a life of mine of between eight and nine years.
Moving on to the next project, which is Guanajuato Sur. Remember that Guanajuato is a historical mining district located in central Mexico. Now we're exploring in new parts, new portions of this district where significant silver and gold veins have been discovere d. Brand-new structures which were discovered by the use of, a epithermal methodology for going about exploring this type of deposits. We had a very successful 2025 exploration results. Tomás, would you like to comment on the progress work?
Thank you, Guillermo. During 2025, we concluded conceptual level studies with excellent results. You know, this is a high-grade silver gold project, very strong on the financial side at the conceptual level. Very well located, you know, rather accessible land, flat land at a very mine-friendly state as Guanajuato. We're very excited with the results of the conceptual studies. We have selected already the ramp development and shaft sinking technology. Those are the critical path items in the project. We have already selected the technology, and we are proceeding with detailed engineering of those two pieces of infrastructure. We'll immediately continue to pre-feasibility level studies this year. Like I said, very, very interesting project.
Potential is still open. The geological potential is still open at length and at depth. That's why Guillermo and his team are focusing very heavily on exploring the site. The expected start of the production is by 2033 at this point. Wanna comment, Orisyvo? Let me tackle that.
Yeah. Just let me mention about Orisyvo.
Yeah.
That is also significant that you've seen this name around for some time, is the significant disseminated gold deposit, the largest of its type ever discovered in Mexico. Fortunately, this system, which hosts around 10 million ounces of gold, has a core of higher grade, and that's been that we are targeting now, and that's what is about these studies that Tomás will continue on expanding.
Yeah. Orisyvo. This is a gold project up in the mountains in Chihuahua. As you know, during the year, we concluded the pre-feasibility A studies. Given the capital intensity of the project and some OpEx requirements, we decided to do a third-party review of that pre-feasibility A with very good results. We were able to, during this review, to improve the project economics. We will continue to pre-feasibility B during the year, and advance permitting engineering, which at this point is a critical part of the project, the permits. We are already on it. The expected average production of Orisyvo is between 180,000 and 220,000 ounces of gold a year. Also with the start projected for 2033 at this point. Thank you.
Okay. I will finalize this section just by adding a few words on Novador. One of the targets when we get up to Val-d'Or and after the acquisition was not to disrupt the activities that were in progress. We were able to continue the exploration drilling. As I said, we have four, six rigs now in operation and also a very strong focus, of course, on the development of Novador. For that reason, we have a number of consultants which are supported by Fresnillo's technical services team to continue to advance the pre-feasibility level studies. We are expecting results of the pre-feasibility by mid-year, around July. I made a little mistake there. Production is scheduled to commence in 2032. I think with this, I will hand the microphone over to Mario Arreguín.
Thank you, Guillermo, and good morning to all of you. It's always a pleasure to be back here in London and to have the opportunity to share with you our financial numbers, especially when those numbers are record high numbers. It's easier. As you can see in the lines which are highlighted in yellow, gross profit was above last year by 114%.
Operating profit was 142% above last year. Profit for the period was almost 600% above last year, and EBITDA was above 81% last year's. Very, very good numbers. Let me start with gross profit. Again, as you can see, we were up by $1.4 billion. Here what I would like to touch on are basically two line items. One has to do with adjusted revenues, which grew up by $1 billion. That combined with the fact that we have a lower adjusted production cost compared to last year of almost 11%, well, that resulted in great margins for us. Let me start again with adjusted revenues. Okay.
As you can see from this slide, in terms of sales volumes, as expected, this was included in our guidance, volumes sold were lower compared to last year. In the case of silver, we sold 11% less, which had a negative effect of $293 million. We sold less gold by 4.5% compared to last year, which had a negative effect of $94 million. In general terms, in terms of sales volume, the total effect was a - $429 million. Fortunately, that was more than compensated by the higher average prices that we saw both in gold and silver. In the case of silver went up by 44%, the average price, which had a very positive effect of almost $651 million.
Silver went up by 51.5%. As a matter of fact, the average price of silver last year was $43.6, and currently the spot price is almost twice that for this year, things are looking good. Like I said, that had a positive effect of $781 million. Let me share with you the main reasons behind the decrease in the adjusted production cost. Let me start first with the factors that are outside of our control. For example, in column number five, you will see the favorable impact that the evaluation of the Mexican peso had. We're talking here about the average exchange rate for both years.
The average exchange rate in 2024 was MXN 18.3 per dollar, and in 2024, it was MXN 19.22 . That translated into a 5.1% evaluation, again, in terms of average exchange rate, because I'm sure you've all seen that the peso has been coming down quite substantially throughout the year. However, what we take into consideration is the average exchange rate. That had a positive effect of reducing our cost by almost $52 million. Now, when you combine that with the other factor, which is outside of our control, which is basically shown in graph number one, cost inflation, excluding the effect of the exchange rate, was 3.2%. That had a negative effect of $45.8 million, which pretty much offset the benefit of the evaluation.
Still, you know, net, we had a positive effect. Let me just go back to the previous slide. This is what we call our consolidated cost inflation, which basically takes into consideration our own consolidated basket of goods and services. When you combine the two effects, the exchange rate effect together with inflation, this is what we obtained for 2025, a 0.24% deflation, if you will. Fortunately for us, in 2025, inflation was not an issue when you look at it in dollar terms. To sum it up, when you look at the increase in gross profit of approximately $1.4 billion, there are two, you know, bars that stand out here.
Clearly, prices, the higher prices shown on the number one column had the most important impact, which was estimated at $1.4 billion. Again, if you look at bar number nine, that was a bit offset by the lower sales volume that I just mentioned. Other favorable, you know, aspects were the lower depreciation that had a benefit of $129 million, the lower treatment in refining charges, which are worth mentioning because, you know, it's been a very favorable market for us. That had a positive effect of $60 million. The devaluation, which I already mentioned, $52 million. The rest, you know, are smaller numbers, but you can see them in the graph there.
Let me just go back to the income statement to comment on a couple of line items. I'm not going to go through each one of them, but worth mentioning here perhaps is the exploration expenses line, which was $174 million, I would say invested in exploration, which was 6% higher compared to last year, and that was again expected. Actually, we were below what we had budgeted of close to $187 million. One additional line item that I would like to comment on is the income tax expense. I guess maybe some of you may be wondering, you know, why income tax expense decreased by 19% when profit before income tax increased by almost 180%. That's a bit strange for some.
The answer to that is, and I'm sure you're familiar with this now because this has been happening for some years now, is the effect of the exchange rate on the different taxes. For example, in 2024, if you look at the $390 million tax expense that we recognized in that year, this is equivalent to an effective tax rate of 52.5%, which is way above the 30% statutory tax rate. What happened there? Well, we had an initial exchange rate back then in 2024 at the beginning of the year of 16.9 pesos per dollar, and a year-end exchange rate of MXN 20.8 per dollar.
We had an important devaluation which resulted in this effect, you know, in recognizing a 52.5% effective tax rate. Whereas in 2025, we had exactly the opposite effect. The beginning exchange rate was MXN 20.8, and the year-end exchange rate was close to MXN 18. That's the reason why you see this effect. You know, the exchange rate is generating a lot of volatility in this line item. I guess it's a bit difficult for my friends analysts to, you know, to be able to predict this. You would need to have a lot of information in order to model this. I just wanted you to be aware of this. Moving now to the cash flow statement. Yep. Okay.
What I would like to point out here is basically in the first column at the bottom, a record high cash balance at the end of the year of almost $2.8 billion, which compared to our initial cash balance of almost $1.3 billion, that resulted in a net increase of almost $1.46 billion. Main source of cash, of course, is the top line, the operations, which generated $2.8 billion, almost 80% higher compared to last year. I think it's worthwhile commenting on some of the main uses of cash. Of course, one that I believe you would be interested in getting a little bit more detail would be the third line, which is income tax, Special mining rights.
As you can see, we had a very important increase from $97 million in 2024 to $369.5 million this year. Let me just remind you that in this particular line, we have three items that make most of this. One has to do with the provisional tax payments that are done on a monthly basis from January to December, and which is basically an advanced payment of taxes related to 2025. That alone was $250 million compared to the previous year, which was only $98 million. The other item which is important is the year-end tax return that we do in March and which is related to the previous year. What you do is you calculate your taxes and net the previous year provisional tax payments, and you only pay the net amount.
In March 2025, we paid $72 million corresponding to the 2024 fiscal year compared to only $5.4 in 2024. Last but not least is the Special mining right corresponding to 2024 again, but it's paid in March 2025. Here we're talking about $63 million. Those are the three main items which conform this number here. I do want to make you aware that in 2026, provisional tax payments will be higher. Remember, provisional tax payments is a factor that you apply to your revenues. With higher prices, higher revenues, and a higher factor because it will be based on the 2025 tax payments, you can expect to see higher Provisional tax payments.
In March, when we conclude our tax return for 2025, you know, the provisional tax payments that we made in 2025 will not be sufficient to cover, you know, the year-end final calculations. You can expect that in March we will have a very important cash out to pay for taxes, just to make you aware of that. Of course, another important use of cash was CapEx, $400 million. Dividends paid to our friends at Pan American in December, $105 million, minority shareholders of our Juanicipio project. Of course, dividends paid to our majority shareholders of $654 million. Lastly, to close, I never make, you know, many or any comments on our balance sheet.
I thought it would be worth the while pointing out the line that you see in yellow there, which is basically short-term liabilities, which grew quite substantially from $339 million to $903 million, almost, you know, $400 million, $500 million and so. That's precisely related to tax payments that we will make next year. Again, just to make you aware of that, so you can include that in your cash flow projections. Other than that, very sound balance sheet, of course. Now moving on to something that I think is more of your interest, which is capital allocation. Let me start by saying that our dividend policy remains unchanged.
You know our dividend policy has been historically since we did the IPO to pay out between 33%- 50% of our profit after tax, after making certain adjustments, of course. Even though we have that range, we should point out that we have always paid a dividend of at least 50% or more. That range is really, you know, just conceptual because we have paid at least 50%. In 2025, we have just announced a total dividend of $950 million, which is above our traditional dividend policy. In other words, it's above our 50% policy. This is made up of $797 million final dividend that we just announced, together with the $153 million interim dividend that was paid back in September last year.
You know, as I just mentioned, we closed the year with $2.76 billion. Just bear in mind that some of the important uses of funds that we see, of course, payment of the final dividend, which will be made in May of approximately $800 million. Our CapEx budget for this year is $765 million. The acquisition of Probe Gold, which was paid in January this year, required $550 million. Our exploration budget for this year is $308 million. That adds up to an important amount of money. Just to continue with capital allocation. Over the next five years, we are prepared to invest around $3 billion in growth projects to align with our project timeline.
These are basically all the projects that you know are familiar with in our pipeline. Just in the next five years, if everything goes as planned, we would be requiring around $3 billion. Of course, we will continue to analyze opportunistic acquisition targets with a long-term view and in accordance with our very strict returns criteria. We will follow a criteria similar to the one that we applied when we purchased Probe Gold, right? In line with market expectations, you know, we remain bullish on precious metal prices, although our balance sheet strength and cash generation ensure we are prepared for the cyclical nature of prices. You never know when those prices may come down, and we need to be prepared just in case.
Lastly, we maintain our disciplined approach to capital allocation, and if the strong price environment persists by year-end, you know, we are committed to shareholder returns. With that, I will pass it on to, I believe, Octavio.
Thank you, Mario. Just a few words on our outlook before turning to your questions. As we see here, I mean, 2026, we see it as a transition year. Very specific aspects that have affected our guidance for silver in 2026, as Tomás mentioned, in the Fresnillo district. Fresnillo, we are preparing a zone of the area in the mine, this year we are not bringing those higher grade grades from that area. Also the connection of the Saucito shaft, in addition to what Daniel mentioned also in Ciénega. Ciénega is turning into more of a gold mine than silver. A lower production there.
After having that or be better prepared in Fresnillo and with the connection of the Saucito shaft, we are expecting to increase the silver production 2027 and 2028. Gold as well, another transition year, I would say, in Herradura district. The good thing is that in 2027 and 2028, we are expecting to bring brownfield project production that has the best returns, lower investment, and those ounces will be there through Valles and Noche Buena as well, as well as higher production in Herradura. As you can see on the base metal side, I mean, higher zinc production coming out of the Fresnillo district as we go to deeper areas as well.
On the CapEx side, Mario mentioned part of that, I mean, we are preparing or making additional investments across of our mines, as well, timely, so that we continue to have a strong position and a strong production outlooks at each one of the mines. As we mentioned, we are also increasing in 2027 and 2028. In the following years, 2027 and 2028, lower CapEx expected. As you can see here, I mean, we have adjusted our timetable for the different projects described by Tomás, Daniel, and Guillermo. This is a more sensible table or timetable according to a longer permitting process in Mexico.
As we stated that two years ago, our focus was going to bring initially brownfield production, and you see reflected production from Valles, Noche Buena, and whenever we are at a deeper area in Herradura pit as well, and bringing stronger projects in Rodeo, Tajitos by 2030. Novador is reflected there, as Guillermo mentioned, the outlook to bring that into production, or El Cubo in Guanajuato. I would like to finalize this chart by saying that one more of our very important strategies is to operate in districts in which we can be operating for many years. We have, as you know, the Fresnillo district, Fresnillo, Saucito, and Juanicipio for many years. The Herradura cluster or the Herradura district as well has proven to be the case, a strong gold production.
In the future, we have Guanajuato, in which we have identified, as Guillermo mentioned, not only the project Guanajuato Sur, but also several targets from the historic areas of Guanajuato into the south to our project. One more is Novador. Novador is coming not only with 10 million ounces in resources, 8 million ounces of those in the Novador project, but also a large exploration package that has identified already some exploration targets for many years to be explored as well. Just to conclude, I mean, we have record financial performance for Fresnillo this year. We have been able to capitalize on a higher precious metals price environment with a stable production performance combined with a strong cost control for two years despite inflationary pressures.
As a result, we have delivered considerable shareholder returns, including a record dividend payout in 2026 of $950 million. We are also making good progress on our brownfield development pipeline with the ounces that provide a better return. We are also advancing the greenfields as we mentioned. With that, I would like to turn to your questions. Yes, Jason.
Jason Fairclough, Bank of America. Couple questions, one for Mario and then one for Tomás. Mario, I mean, strong numbers, then on top of that, it was a big beat versus consensus. It just seems to be in the revenue line, I think maybe part of that is TC/RCs. Maybe we didn't, you know, realize how much better they were getting for you. Is there something else going on in the revenue line there? Did you sell more metal than you produced?
No, we did not. If you look at the variation in inventories, actually, it increased, so we didn't sell.
Than what?
Than what.
Was it provisional pricing then or?
It's purely pricing.
Okay.
Purely pricing. As you saw, actually, we produced less, sold less volume. The real reason behind our revenue increase is prices.
In terms of the TC/RCs, is this the new normal or could they go down further?
Well, you know, it's hard to predict how treatment charges are going to behave, but during the last three years, we've seen a downward trend, which pushed a lot by the Chinese.
Mm-hmm.
It's putting a lot of pressure. You know, one of the things that we are concerned about, now that you mention it, is the possibility, you know, of discontinuing and the Chinese getting more market participation. If some of these smelting and refining, companies go out of business, and with the Chinese gather all the, basically all the volume, that might have a very, very unfavorable and sudden change. We have to watch this very carefully.
Okay. Just a quick one—
That is correct, Jason. I would say, I mean, that trend, as Mario mentioned, continues. We operate on a long-term agreement with Met-Mex. When you compare, I mean, those long-term agreement at treatment charges and refining charges for silver continue to trend lower. It's still a difference to the spot treatment charges that are quite, very different.
Okay. Just, Tomás, quick one. Quite a different trend in cost per tonne between Saucito and Fresnillo. I think Fresnillo was up 17% year-on-year, and then Saucito down 10% year-on-year. again, is this the new normal or is there some one-off effects in here?
I would say Saucito is a one-off and we're gonna see probably a bit of an increase this year because of the cost related to hauling while we interconnect the shaft. Fresnillo tends to be normalizing at those levels.
We should think about it being normalized at these new higher levels—
Yes.
—cost per tonne?
Yep.
Okay. Thank you.
By volume. The volume is impacting, and that's normal now.
Daniel. Yeah.
Hi. Dan Major from UBS. First question, just looking at the project pipeline and your outlook for CapEx. It seems like, again, we appreciate the more details on the projects. If I look at page 38 and 39, those of us that have been following the company for some time, these charts look fairly familiar. Most years, the one on page 39 moves a little bit further to the right. Really the Canadian projects, the only new one in there. I guess the first part of the question, what is included in your CapEx guidance, production guidance in terms of the pipeline of projects? Is it just the two brownfields that are entering production or what else have you factored in? I guess to add to that, you've identified $3 billion of potential spend.
What is how much of that is included in your CapEx projections for 2026-2028 already, and how much is incremental upside, assuming the projects move forward?
Yeah, you're right. I mean, as I mentioned it, I mean, this is a more sensible and think in terms of timing, how to develop the next project. But as we stressed, and we are achieving that, initially, as we were realizing the greenfield projects were going to be take a bit longer to be developed, we prioritize the brownfield production, Valles and Noche Buena, which is a good surprise. A more sensible approach to the rest of the greenfields. On the CapEx side in 2026, we have the shaft connection in Saucito. We have leaching pads in Herradura and the carbon project, the carbon recovery gold project in Herradura and also the conveyor belt in Juanicipio.
Also we continue to put some studies and in Orisyvo and also in Guanajuato Sur as well, as Daniel mentioned. That is included there. The only one CapEx investment reflected in 2026 that will provide additional production is what we are investing in Valles in 2026. Yeah.
Sorry, just to follow up on that. If Valles is the only one out of the $3 billion bucket, is it fair to say that if the projects progress as you suggest, you've got sort of $600 million-$800 million per annum upside to what you're guiding in CapEx out to 2030? Is that the right way we should be thinking about it?
The right way to see it is with the timeline of projects, for example, Rodeo, which is pointing to the start of production in 2029. Two years or a year and a half, you will start to see the deployment of the CapEx that we will provide at some other time. That's Tajitos as well. I mean, the large majority of that CapEx that Mario Arreguín mentioned would go with the higher CapEx projects such as Orisyvo, Guanajuato, Novador at that time. Yeah. In some four or five years to come.
Okay. All right, thank you. Just next question, one for Mario on the tax side, quite complicated. Could you just provide us some more basic guidance? What would you expect cash tax and P&L effective tax rate to be in 2026 if current prices stayed the same?
I would expect in terms of income tax recognized in our income statement. Again, it depends on the exchange rate, and, you know, I've been very much surprised by the strength of the Mexican peso. As you can see, currently it's around MXN 17.4, MXN 17.3 per dollar. If that continues to be the case and it remains strong, then you will see again another revaluation of the Mexican peso this year. That might have as a consequence, again, a lower effective tax rate compared to the 30% statutory tax rate. Having said that, you never know. We've seen some volatility.
If the peso at the end of the year, because what you take into consideration is basically the end of the year, spot exchange rate, it's, you know, it depends on that. Assuming no exchange rate effect, zero, which is a very, you know, important assumption, we would expect to see something close to 30%, effective tax rate.
The cash tax, I noticed that the increase in provisional tax payments increased by $565 million.
The cash tax. Okay. As I mentioned, we will be finalizing our tax return in March this year for the 2025 fiscal year. There, just for that, we are expecting something close to $500 million just to add to the provisional tax payments that were paid in 2025. That's related to that year. Now, during 2026, from January to December, we will be paying the provisional tax payments as an advanced tax for the 2026 fiscal year, and those are going to go up quite substantially.
Why? Because of the higher prices. I said this is a factor or a percent that you apply on revenue. If we foresee, you know, these current spot prices being maintained throughout the year, that will translate into higher revenue with a higher factor, so higher provisional tax payments. That will have an effect on the cas h flow, not in the income statement, though.
Okay. Somewhere in the region, $500 million cash tax more than the P&L tax. Is that the simple way of thinking about it?
$500 million more?
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
More.
Yeah. Additional cash—
Additional, yes
—to the P&L tax
Yes.
Okay. Thank you.
Marina. Yeah.
Good morning. Thanks for the presentation. Marina Calero from RBC. A couple of questions on my side. Can you give us a bit more color on the trends that you're seeing in your sustaining CapEx? Is it fair to assume that $600 million is the new normal you need to sustain production at your operations?
For 2026?
Yeah, going forward as well.
Going forward. For 2026, I mean, as you know, I mean, the majority is mining works. That has not varied because the development rates at our mines, underground mines keep at the similar level, approximately $180 million. Sustaining, $250 million-$280 million, more or less. Tailings dams, I mean, that's a large part of our investments every year. In 2026, we continue to do tailings at Saucito, at Fresnillo, Herradura as well. That's a large investment, approximately $150 million or so.
The project that I mentioned at Saucito, Herradura, and Juanicipio, very much, I mean, you —the investment for brownfields and greenfields, as I mentioned, is Valles, Somin Orisyvo, and Somin Guanajuato. Yeah. After, I mean, as we have already in 2026 invested in tailings dams, that will CapEx will decrease in 2027 and 2028. The connection of the shafts and the other conveyor belts and everything, I mean, we will not have that, and that's why the CapEx goes a bit lower and also a sustaining part as well.
Just one follow-up on that. If I recall correctly, your old guidance was roughly $500 million for this year. How do you explain the difference to the $760 million that you're guiding today?
Yeah. What we used to mention before, was for the set of operating mines, sustaining and mining works and everything should be around $400 million or $ 500 million, $ 550 million per year. Yeah.
Okay.
If I may.
Yes.
Only the addition of Valles to the portfolio that is already included in these numbers. It requires around $40 million per year in mine development, just in Valles. That tops off on the $500 million guidance that we provided before.
Okay. That's very helpful. Just one final question. On M&A, you commented that you keep looking for opportunities. In which jurisdictions are you finding more compelling opportunities? Is it Mexico more attractive relative to the rest of the world? How are you thinking about that?
Yes, we continue to see the projects in Mexico. There are some good discoveries in silver. We continue to see mostly in countries with geological potential, of course, and the mining culture. You know that we've been exploring in Peru and Chile for quite some time. This year we are starting drilling in Peru in some of our very interesting projects there. For M&A, we continue, and we've looked in Canada. As we mentioned, I mean, we had a very good acquisition there. Canada is one of those countries with good exploration potential, mining culture.
In the U.S., we've seen some in the past, I mean, but given... Novador is a very good example of what we try to do. It has to be value accretive, of course. It has to have some exploration potential. We have looked in this recent two to three years, some operating mines. However, given the expectation and the current record metal prices, I mean, the prices paid for those assets have been out of our expectation for value creation. We continue to look. We will continue to look, but under a very disciplined approach as well.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. This is Ferdinand Huber, Morgan Stanley. A question on the portfolio mix. We see a very high gold focus in your pipeline, and also we have the Probe Gold acquisition. Are these things reflective of a broader strategy to increase the exposure to gold in your portfolio going forward?
Well, that has happened through times. If we look back at what we did in from 2008 to 2018, initially, we grew faster on the gold side, bringing into production Noche Buena and then Soledad-Dipolos at that time. After we've had Saucito, that took longer to be developed, vein system there, the expansion of Saucito. It depends on the portfolio we have. From what we have reflected in the chart, yes, you're right. The brownfields will come first, Valles and Noche Buena. After Rodeo and Tajitos, because those are not complex projects to be developed. The larger investments in terms of silver will come with Guanajuato.
That's because we, the veins and the values start what? 600 m, 700 m below.
Around 500 m below the surface.
Yeah. It takes time.
Between 500 m-540 m.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thanks. This is Amos Fletcher from Barclays. I just wanted to ask a couple of questions. The first one was just on cost inflation guidance. Mario, what would you be guiding us to in terms of dollar per tonne milled for 2026 inflation, excluding the impact of the peso?
You know, typically, when you have, such huge increases in the price of gold and silver, following that, you see some sort of inflationary pressure. For budgeting purpose, what we have considered for 2026 is approximately a 6% increase in cost inflation. Again, we are in a very, you know, volatile environment. If you're asking me, you know, what we're expecting, it would be somewhere close to 6%.
Okay, thanks. I just wanted to ask also, you've obviously given the list of potential projects on page 39. Could you give us sort of indicative CapEx numbers for each of those projects to the extent they're available?
Yes. Yes, I can give you a bit more flavor on that. B ear with me for a second. You have to realize before, Mario, that these projects are at different stages, of course. According to that stage, we have the ± percentage in terms of CapEx and everything. Go ahead, Mario, please.
Yes. Thank you. Here, I'm going to talk only about Orisyvo, Rodeo, Guanajuato Sur, Novador, and the possibility of bringing back Soledad and Dipolos to operation. Considering, you know, those projects, for example, in 2027, in total, we're expecting there something around $250 million just on those projects alone. In 2028, around $560 million. In 2029, somewhere around $800 million just for those projects, excluding sustaining CapEx.
Okay. Then one final follow-up, I guess, was just to ask from the CapEx guidance you've given on page 38, just to clarify, I guess, what projects are included in that guidance?
This is only CapEx for the current operations. There is no CapEx for the projects there, with exception of 2027 for budgets that I mentioned and a bit for Orisyvo on Guanajuato.
Okay. Got it. Thank you very much.
Yep. Jason.
Just a slightly bigger picture question. We're starting to see people increase the metal prices that they're using to calculate reserves and resources and also, you know, increase the metal prices they're using for mine planning. Can you just remind us what you're using to calculate your reserves for gold and silver? How do you think about potential changes to your operating philosophy at some of the mines? Is it time to allow for more dilution?
Do you wanna mention the prices? The answer is no. What is the question, Jason? For the resources and reserves that are being reflected in this statement, we use for reserves, $2,100 gold and $26.50 silver and for resources, $2,300 gold and $30 silver. Those are the ones in the statement. We are starting that process again, we are increasing those to $2,800 gold for resources and $33 for silver for reserves, and $3,000 gold and $35 silver for resources. To your question, I mean, dilution is always a killer. I mean, when you dilute, of course, that tonne does not come with any value.
Despite the fact that, the higher prices will give us a possibility to mine profitably what used to be marginal blocks now are economic, but reducing dilution as much as possible. Yeah.
Are you able to give us any color on the sensitivity of the reserves and resources to change in the prices? For example, if you raise your long-term gold price from $3,000 to $4,000 there, how much do reserves increase by?
If you wanna comment, also, Memo. In the Fresnillo district, the value per tonne of four is above, well above the cost that we have right now. It will not bring a huge increase whenever we use a higher prices. When we will see sensible ore will be probably in Ciénega, a bit more help there. San Julián, probably.
Some marginal. I would say the main impact, it's around the Herradura when you increase the prices.
The Herradura.
The size of the pit.
Yeah.
As mentioned during the presentation, the exercise of finding the right transition moment between underground and open pit is exactly that. Now, the pit grows significantly. However, those are answers that would come online in 2050 or beyond that. We are in that trade-off of when is the better timing to bring production forward from the underground with higher rates.
Yeah. I will just reinforce with what Daniel said, is the resources and reserves will be more sensitive for the open-pit, the disseminated deposit that we just described for you. However, we're reaching, it doesn't matter how much higher you go, there's a limit to the geology. I mean, and to the rate. There's nothing further to add once we get to extremely high prices. Also in the underground operation, some of the narrow veins or lower vein material may be back into resources. I don't know if in reserves because a more deeper analysis is required as to what sort of infrastructure and services are required to reach some sections of the mine that were left for some reason.
It all comes to the detailed engineering work for the reserves, no matter how the prices may go high because it will give you less margin if we force things to be mined out just because at any given scenario, it turn economic, but the margin will decrease significantly.
Hi, Dan from UBS again. Just to kind of follow up on Jason's question, what is the projected cost of production in the restart at Noche Buena?
We expect between $2,100 and $2,200 all in.
Yeah. Okay. Sorry, I could probably take it offline, but I didn't actually catch. The first set of numbers are $2,100 and $2,300 for gold reserves and resources. Is that what you used for your 2025 calculation? The second set of numbers are what you're considering for your 2026?
That's correct.
Yes.
Okay. Thanks. Just a final one on the balance sheet and capital returns. You obviously healthy payout this year. You've outlined the Probe Gold acquisition, more capital, more projects. Is there a threshold of net debt or cash on the balance sheet above which you'd pay out a 100% of free cash flow?
Mario?
That's a decision for the board to make, but, you know, we want to make sure that we have sufficient funds to be able to fund all of our... the $3 billion, you know, pipeline that we have defined. What I can tell you is that definitely by year-end, if prices do remain where they are, we will definitely have a much bigger cash balance, and we will reevaluate again the possibility of paying an extraordinary special dividend. That I can tell you. How much? You know, that's for the board to decide.
Okay. Thanks a lot.
All right. Thank you very much for joining us today. Thank you, guys.