Hello and welcome to Hochschild Mining 's 2025 Interim Results Presentation. Following the presentation, there will be a Q and A session. If you would like to ask a question over the phone, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to ask a question via the webcast, you can type your question in by clicking on the question button at the bottom toolbar. I would now like to hand the call over to Eduardo Landin, Hochschild Mining 's CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning everyone and welcome to our conference to present the H1 results. Charlie Gordon is in London and myself are in Lima. I would like to start going to page number three please. Where is key H1? 25 takeaways during H1 we have been able to produce 161,000 ounces of gold which is 6% up compared with 2024. Our revenues have been $520 million. Our adjusted EBITDA went up 27% up to $225 million. Our sustained cash cost has been up also to $1,914 per ounce and we will explain why during this presentation. Our cash position on the 30th of June was $110 million and our net debt was $202 million. We have an interim dividend announced of $5.1 million. The good news about Mara Rosa is that the plan has restarted going into the H2 2025. Mara Rosa reorganization is progressing really well. Management transition is complete.
The new Head of Brazil is appointed. Is a very well qualified mining professional with a lot of experience especially in the area of Goiás. The role of ATAME is advancing. We are now preparing the papers to be presented to the government. Monte do Carmo we continue with engineering. We continue trying to monetize the non-core assets. Remember that we define between core assets and non-core assets. Our revised production guidance for 2025 is going to be between 291,000 and 319,000 ounces of gold equivalent. We continue with very strong ESG metrics that I will present during the presentation. If we go to page number four of the presentation we have our performance in ESG. I have to say that we are very pleased with the success safety results. As you can see, our frequency rate is 1.08 which is very close to 1. It's a very good rate.
We are the first mining company to achieve PMD level 2 in two of our operations in San Jose and Immaculada. Our environmental performance is close to record and you can see our Eco score. Our water consumption and the waste recycling rate has improved from the past year. We have also improved our total local workforce up to 66%, which is very good, creating jobs in the area where we have the influence. We have improved and increased the local procurement in order to make businesses around our communities. We have signed the U N Global Compact and we have been included on the FTSE4Good Index series. Now I pass the presentation to Eduardo Noriega, our CFO. We can go to page number six. Thank you.
Thank you, Eduardo. Good morning everybody. Our financial results in the first half of the year were very strong. With Stronger production and higher prices. Our revenue was at $520 million, higher than what we had in 2024. Actual net profit was $60 million, also better than the number recorded in 2024. Our adjusted EBITDA was also strong at $224.5 million. As I said, production was stronger mainly due to the incremental production from Mara Rosa. In 2025, gold prices were 28% higher and silver prices were 25% higher than last year. Our cost of sales increased mainly associated to the higher production volume. We also had net inflation in Argentina, and the higher gold and silver prices had an impact on royalties, workers' profit sharing, and other elements of the cost. That is another reason for our cost increase in 2025.
Sending expenses. Were higher, mainly due to the incremental cost of Mara Rosa. The incremental production from Mara Rosa under other expenses net, we recorded an adjustment to the mine closure provision mainly in two projects that are not producing, Ares and Sipan. That explained $11.5 million. Also, in Argentina, recorded in other expenses—sorry, in other income—the FX export benefit or the FX program that the Argentina government had for exporters was stopped in April as well. As a result of that, we had lower other income by $5.4 million. Net interest were also higher, mainly associated to lower gains in excess cash invested in Argentina, $3.4 million, lower capitalization of interest expenses, and these two effects were offset by lower average debt and lower interest rates.
In terms of FX losses, we recorded $1.5 million of a loss in H1 2025, but that number was lower than the loss recorded in 2024 by $3.1 million. In terms of income tax, our effective income tax rate was 39%. This number includes the special mining tax and royalties in Peru for $10.7 million. Excluding this effect, the effective income tax rate would be 29%. Finally, under exceptional items, we recorded a reversal of the impairment of Volcan and that represented $30.8 million of exceptional item in 2025. On the following page, page seven of the presentation balance sheet evolution, we can see here that the strong cash generation capacity of our assets within Immaculada $132 million, San Jose $25 million, Mara Rosa breakeven due to the operational challenges with $2 million. We used $17 million in exploration budget and $27 million of admin and corporate expenses.
We paid $50 million in taxes. We executed our mine closure plans and paid for grant maintenance expenses by $12 million. Net interest paid were $9 million. We paid $12 million of dividends, $10 million to Hochschild holders and $2 million to our minority partners. In San Jose, our mining in Argentina, Matanza mining $2 million, and we had temporary change in working capitals mainly associated with trade payables and inventories of $29 million. Finally, on the last three pallets of this chart, we used $16 million on Monte do Carmo, $3 million in the Royropata project, and we made a capital—we participated in the equity raise of Aclara with $5 million. With that, our ending balance for the period was $110 million.
On the following page, page number eight on cost drivers, when comparing our cost to the 2025 cost versus the 2024 cost, we can see as expected in Immaculada our institution cost was $1,935. This cost as planned was higher than the H1 2024 number, mainly due to higher volumes produced and the impact of higher prices in workers profit sharing. In San Jose, the costs were also higher, mainly due to higher prices impacting royalties, selling expenses, the elimination of the FX export benefit that I explained before. We also saw net inflation in Argentina, particularly in the labor market. Finally, we're mining lower grades in 2024. In 2024, in Mara Rosa, our only sustaining cost reflects the challenges that we already explained and we are in the process of resolving.
We adjusted our guidance in Mara Rosa and also included these external impacts in Argentina to adjust the guarantees of San Jose as well. In Immaculada, when comparing the full year earnings pertaining cost, the impact from higher prices impacting workers profit sharing and inflation are being offset by efficiencies and savings. We're maintaining our guidance and the operation is performing very well. In San Jose, when looking at the revised guidance versus a previous one, our higher prices are impacting royalty selling expenses by $90 per ounce approximately. The elimination of the export tax of the FX export benefit represents $61 per ounce and also inflation represents $36 per ounce of incremental cost. These effects are being partially offset by cost efficiencies, especially at the mine level in Mara Rosa.
The all-in sustaining cost that we are providing as new guidance includes $18 million of incremental CapEx or initiatives to resolve the operational challenges, including the thickener, as well as there were $6 million of extra costs mainly in Q1 associated to the efforts of the operation at a time to resolve the filtering and maintennce issues resulting from the rainy season. Challenges and the rainy season.
If we go page nine where we have the capital expenditures, as I said before, we're maintaining our CapEx guidance for both Immaculada and San Jose. In the case of Mara Rosa, we are reflecting in the new guidance the $18 million, between $18 million and $20 million per CapEx to resolve the ETF Mara Rosa challenges. This includes the figure on the following page, page number 10 of the presentation. The balance sheet of the company remains very strong with cash of $110 million, net debt of $202 million, 3% an improvement versus the $216 million that we reported as of December 2024. Our net debt to EBITDA also improved to 0.43 versus 0.5 recorded in December 2024. We still have $180 million of undrawn debt from the $300 million facility that we have with very good terms as you can see in the presentation.
Another positive news from the company is that we restored our dividends with a full year 2024 results. Following the dividend policy that we communicated to the market, we're now announcing an interim dividend of $0.01 per share which represents $5.1 million total. I also would like to mention in this slide that we decided to roll forward 21,000 ounces of gold that we had, that we hedge, of production that was hedged in 2020, in the second half of 2025 and we roll it forward to 2028. With that I return the presentation to Eduardo Landin.
Thank you, Eduardo. Thank you for presenting themselves. Okay, in this part of the presentation I'm going to go through the strategy and also I'm going to present the operations this H1. If we can go to page 12, you can see there our strategy that we continue believing that delivering, I mean deliver, deliver growth and profitability. We have the first pillar which is brownfield. I mean brownfield is the way to generate long term value to discover new extending the life of mine of our existing assets and also extending the life of mine of our existing projects. Of course we are focused on mineable resources because we want to every single resource that we found.
We would like to go through the. Plants in terms of the operational efficiency. We have on-site leadership, we like to be at the sites. We have lean philosophy across the company. We try to find cost efficiencies and I will give you some samples. Of course, we have demonstrated that we have the capacity to develop projects on ESG. As I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation, we have a world-class safety performance. We are very focused on water management. We have a new community approach and we didn't have any blockages or any problem with the communities in Peru for the past two years. We are managing our talent the way that people be happy working with us. We have set the ESG KPIs for 2030 and of course we have very strong corporate values. In terms of the disciplined capital allocation to our balance sheet, we can follow our organic growth.
We are committed to debt repayment. We are committed also with investors on capital return, the reason why we have this new dividend policy. Of course, if we decide to go and acquire an M&A asset, it should be value accretive to make sure that it's profitable at low prices, basically. If we're going to page 13, our Immaculada, you know that it's in Ayacucho, a very high 4,700 m above sea level. It's an operation that has been operating very well for 10 years. During H1 2025, produced 106,000 ounces of gold equivalent, which is above the market guidance and is on track to meet the guidance between, I mean around 200,000 to 210,000 ounces. As you also know, we have a very large regional land package. We believe that as well as we did in 2024, we'll be able to increase the inferred resources in 2025.
If we go to page number 14, you can see there the evolution of the brownfield strategy in 2024. As I said, we add 1 million ounces of gold equivalent. We believe that this year with the 35,000 m drill, we will be able to add something around half a million ounces of gold equivalent. If we go to the next page, we have our Royropata project. Probably this is the most important project that we have today in Hochschild. It's also located very close to Immaculada in Ayacucho. It's our old underground operation that operates between 2007 and 2023 today. What happened in the past two years is that we have had a very important amount of resources in the Royropata zone. I mean, this project is going to use the CIL plant which is ready to start production.
Very good news is that we were able to close the easements with the communities in 2024, which is probably the most difficult and the main step towards getting the permits. Today we are working with our consultants, with Stanstede and Alsenco, in order to create the documents based on all the studies that we have done during 2024. At the beginning of 2025, we will file the modification of environmental application in August 2026. We believe that in a year from August 2026 until July 2027, we should get the permit, the environmental permit. As you can see, Kayankata has increased their resources big time. Yeah. Today, since we have those grades and the width of the veins, we believe that we have a very, very powerful operation that will start producing between 2028 and 2029.
On the next page, page 16, you can see the evolution of the brownfield exploration. In 2024, as I said, we add 1.3 million ounces of equivalent in different veins. In 2025, we have continued doing some infill drilling to make sure that we convert the inferred resources into measured and indicated. Also, we are discovering new possible veins around Marco Bay. Going to page 17, we have Mara Rosa. Mara Rosa is an open pit mine in Goiás state. It has produced close to 10,000 ounces in H1 2025. As you know, we found important issues together with the heavy rainy season at Mara Rosa in May 2025. Immediately, we took control of the situation. We reorganized the country, the management, everything. I am very proud to say that in three months we have been able to turn around the situation.
Of course, results are going to be slower than we would like, but we believe that we are on the right track to make sure that 2026 is going to be a good year for Mara Rosa going forward. The filtration issues that were the main issue in terms of mechanical problems have been resolved in two of the filters. Based on this situation, we have reduced our production guidance to between 35,000 and 45,000 ounces for a full year. We know that it's low, but we are sure that this is the way to make sure that we solve all the problems and we turn around this asset that we believe is still a very good asset for the company that can bring a lot of value at current prices. We know that we have now the right people and the right things to do from now on.
Let me explain what we have done in three months. I would like to congratulate the team because they have done a fantastic job in three months. If we go into the main improvements in the mine, we have improved the mine movement, the haulage distance, the haulage speed, the loading fluid availability at the plant. We review all the maintenance, I mean preventive maintenance for the crushing and the green area. Now it's totally ready to reach this area of the plan: 7,000, between 7,000 and 8,000 tons per day. In terms of the organization, we have a new Head of Brazil, we have a new Line Manager, we have a new governance structure which is the principles to make sure that everything is going to be run correctly.
In terms of the filtering, which is the issue, I have to say that it's an issue in every single mine operation that has dry stack. We have been able to repair two of the main filters. We have four filters in total. These two filters are working steadily. They are reaching the humidity that we need in order to do dry stack. We brought the manufacturer experts at the site to assist with the filtering operations. As I said, we restart two of the four filters. The second two are going to be started in October while we finish the repairs. Also, we have been able to solve the situation of the space that we need in order to put details in place, compacted and ready to receive the next rainy season.
Also, in order to prevent the effect of the rainy season, we are planning to install a roof area around the filtering plant to make sure that we have the space, the dry space, to make sure that we manage the tails during the next rainy season. I believe that we have done a very good job. We are making sure that we do everything that is needed to make sure that the site is going to be producing the way we designed at the beginning when we acquired this asset. Something additional is that we decided to install a new thickener, a tail thickener. It's already purchased. The engineering related to this thickener, the integration with the plant is ongoing today with HausenCo. We believe that we will be able to install this thickener and be part of the production in H1 2026.
We're aiming to do it in Q1 2026, but of course we depend on the return of the equipment. That's the reason we state that it will be during H1. I have to say that our aim is to improve and to increase production during 2026 as much as possible. Because it's the way to get the best possible cost. That's our main objective for Mara Rosa: to get the maximum production and also to get the best possible cost. On the next page, on page 19, you can see the open pit that today is organized as dry. We have been pushing back the pit. On the next photograph, you can see the filtering plant already working. You can see on the next picture the dry stack, the material totally dry and ready to be compacted.
You can see the tailing after filtering process, totally dry with that light gray color that represents that the humidity is very low. You have a picture there of the thickener that we're going to install; it's a 37 m thickener to make sure that we have the percentage of solid that it's needed to be, I mean for the tails to be filtered and reach between 7,000 and 8,000 tons per day. You have on the last picture the filtration area roofs that we are going to install before the rainy season starting, let's say in October, November 2025. In terms of exploration, if we go into page number 28, you can see that the potential of Mara Rosa is huge. We believe that from now until 2030 we can add another million ounces of gold equivalent.
We have a lot of, I mean, we have been doing and we have very good intercepts on the extension of the deposit. You know, we have some drills in Speti that show that the mineralization is there. We will continue working on this plan to make sure that adding resources extends the life of mine of Mara Rosa and makes this project much more appropriate. Going to Argentina, I have to say that production-wise is doing quite well. It's an old mine, it's been producing from 2007. Today we are carrying mining on the bank borders, and as you probably know, the uncertainty is there for grades. Sometimes we get lower grades than we expect, but we continue working on trying to discover new resources to make sure that we bring life of mine to these assets. In 2025 we have implemented some efficiency projects.
Let me say that in the month of July, the mine has been able to reach nearly 2,000 tons of mining output. Remember that we expanded the plant last year and the plant is running at 2,100 tons per day. We are trying to increase the mine throughput in order to dilute the fixed cost. That of course is affected by what Eduardo Noriega explained by these external factors that we are trying to compensate with efficiencies. We believe that we have a good chance that from October onwards, since we had the elections in Argentina, the Milei government could evaluate the currency because at the end of the day, the country needs to be much more competitive in terms of salaries in dollars going to San Jose. Exploration potential, we continue trying to bring, as I said, resources to the mine area.
We have extended our exploration activities to the region. From now until December, we will try to drill two new projects called Celestina and Martes Tresse to try to see if we could bring new potential and new opportunities in Argentina for us. We believe that Argentina is on the right track. I mean, with the measures that the government has taken in the past months, we are trying to bet for creating new businesses in Argentina. For now, in terms of the valuation opportunity, it is the normal market reaction. Since we have the Mara Rosa issues, as I said, we are already on the right path to solve them. That has affected our valuation. We believe that today, if we compare our valuation with our peers, we are still low and we are still a very good opportunity for investors.
As a conclusion, we continue being a company that is totally focused on our core business and delivering profitable growth. As I presented, we have a world-class ESG performance. We took control of the Mara Rosa situation and we have done many, many. Things.
In three months. We're in the right way, in the right path. The management transition is complete. Immaculada is outperforming as has been doing for the past 10 years. Monte do Carmo will continue believing that this is a very important project for us. It's going to be our second operation in Brazil and we want to make sure that through engineering, doing all the engineering by the book, we make sure that we develop a project that will be very powerful for the company. Our brownfield program continues and as I said at the beginning of the presentation, is one of our pillars to grow, to extend life of mine of our existing sites. Royropata continues to be the best possible mine that Hochschild could wish in the future. We have many good resources with very good widths, very good grades with a silver content which is very high.
Probably one of the highest today in the world. It's a project that can deliver more than 100,000 ounces from 2028, 2029. We have in place a very disciplined capital allocation strategy. We have demonstrated that with the balance that Eduardo has presented. Also, the interim dividend has been announced with that $5.1 million. That's the summary of our H1 results. What I want to say finally is that we are on the right track. We would like you as an investor to give us some time, you know, to make sure that we finish this job and we bring Mara Rosa on track, as we defined at the beginning, when we acquired this asset. Thank you very much.
Thanks very much, Eduardo. I'm just going to start the questions that we have on the webcast. The first question. Grades at Immaculada declined significantly in the first half. It was highlighted in the release that this was planned, but production was still 106,000. You expect grades to improve, but maintaining the guidance at a maximum 209,000 ounces. Please explain why the output in the second half will be lower when grades are expected to increase. Is there some sort of closures or something?
Basically, what we want from Immaculada is to produce 200,000 ounces at a very good all-in sustaining cash cost. We have different veins around Immaculada, and we can decide what level of grades we can pass through the plant. Today, the plant is operating at 4,100 tons per day with very good recoveries. We don't want to go higher than our reserve grade. That's the way we are going to manage Immaculada, to make sure that we accomplish the guidance and to make sure that the costs are extremely competitive based on the fact that we have the colors, you know, that is 30,000 ounces. We have all the other ounces, you know, that will be affected by the higher prices of gold and silver. The way we want to do it is the way I just explained.
Okay, thank you very much. The next question is Volcan carrying value has been uplifted to $72 million. What is the basis for this valuation and how far are we from the monetization of this asset?
I would like to pass that question to Eduardo Noriega.
Thank you. Fali and Helaro.
The market conditions for gold assets, especially. Large assets like Volcan have improved materially. That is a fundamental. For that decision.
Volcan, as you know, is a very large gold project in the Maricunga Belt in Chile where there is a renewed interest from investors. I think the results that we're seeing from the technical studies that we're performing in the project are also very, very strong and promising. The fundamentals for the project together with a very constructive market.
Are helping. This will help us go through our strategy to continue to add value to Hochschild shareholders through OCan. How far are we from monetization? We're working on that. We're making very good progress. I will not make any specific comment on when, but it's progressing very well.
Thank you very much. This next question is relatively long. In 2026, are we going to see a benefit in all-in sustaining cost from higher ore mined versus gold produced in 2025? I think this refers to Mara Rosa. Are stockpiles higher than originally planned, and have you been able to access the higher grade ore? I think that's the first part of the question which maybe you could answer.
Yeah, I mean in terms of the grades, what we would like to do in Mara Rosa is to mine the average grade of the reserves. Of course, the initial plan was to pass through the plant, I mean the most higher grade of the deposit. That depends on the pushback that we are able to do on the plan, on the mine. Sorry. As I said, Charlie, for us it's very important to maximize production in 2026 and of course to try to get the least possible cost at this time. What we are doing is the reserves based on our June results, and the reserves are the input for our budgeting process. We are just studying that.
The Brazilian team and also the corporate team is focused, of course, to continue solving the problems and to make sure that we are delivering on the filtering plan and also to install the thickener and to make sure that everything is as planned at the beginning. The second objective for the Brazilian team is to make sure that we tailored a very good budget for 2026, to make sure that we come back to the figures that we put on the table at the beginning. You have to know that the thickener, which is a very important component for the filtering plant to perform, let's say, 7,000, 8,000 tons per day, we depend on the delivery time of the manufacturer. Today what we know is that there is the possibility to be able to finish that in Q1 2026.
We are going to have the rainy season, depends on how heavy is the rainy season because we have to do civil work and we have to do a lot of work to install a thickener. It's a big thickener. We believe that is the right way to act to make sure that we will have a very stable operation from H2 2026.
Thank you, Eduardo. Just as a follow up, because I think a few people have asked this, what kind of AISC levels do you envisage for Mara Rosa going forward?
I mean, it's a difficult question. I would like to come back to the original. All these sustaining cash cost that we declared between $1,100 and $1,300. Yeah, but it's hard to say today because, I mean, there has been a lot of inflation in the market, in the mining market with these current prices. Everyone wants to participate in this party, you know, especially suppliers, contractors. There is a huge demand on contractors in Brazil. We are thinking to have our own operation because, I mean, it's difficult, it's difficult to manage this situation. Of course, we are totally focused on trying to reduce costs. Yeah. It's too early for me to give a guidance because I want to make sure that we go through the reserves, we go through the budgeting process.
I'm going to be very, very involved myself in every single meeting to make sure that we revise all the budgeting figures to try to make the organization have the best possible budget. As you know, I am playing two roles, the CEO and the COO for the past three months. Today we have a very strong candidate to fulfill the COO role. I cannot say yet who is the person because we have some confidentiality agreements with him, but he's joining on the 15th of September. On top of that, we have been able to fulfill all the management positions in Brazil today. We believe that we have a very good COO to join the company on the 15th of September. It's going to help a lot during this process to make sure that we bring know-how to the company, especially on planning.
That's our aim, that's our main objective, to make sure that we maximize production in Mara Rosa that will present the lowest possible cost and that with every single site, you know. Of course, we don't want to mine higher grades in order to give production. What we want is to continue mining with average reserve grades and make sure that we extend our life of mine and that we can mine our mines for a long term even if we have a lower price. That's what we think.
Thanks very much, Eduardo. I think it might be an idea now just to go over to the phone lines. Sergey, do we have any questions on the phone lines?
Yes, sure. Just a reminder to ask a question over the phone, please signal by pressing star one. Our first question is from Marina Calero from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Marina, it looks like your line is muted. You have a second line. I will open your second line. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Yes, we can. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thanks for the call. I just have a couple of questions. The first one on Mara Rosa, a follow up on the discussion on grades. I think the original DFS had grades in excess of 1.4 grams per ton for the first three years. Do you still think this is achievable? The second question is on Monte do Carmo, how has this experience at Mara Rosa changed? How is that changing your approach to this project? Do you still see potential for the investment decision to be made next year?
Yes. Marina, let me answer your first question related to the grid. I mean the grid, we have been doing for the past four months, Suntrine drilling. We have confirmed that the resource grade is there, which is very important. I mean, to be able to mine 1.4 grams for the first few years, that is possible, but that is difficult. You need to mine the high grade area and send that to the plant and defer the low grade area and pass it to the stockpiles. Stockpiles that you are going to pass through the plant in year four, five, six, seven. That's how we design the project. What we are planning to do is that, but we need to make sure that we have the know-how to do that. That's the reason we have brought very highly experienced and competent professionals on the mine area.
The combination of having that know-how plus having good contractors that execute that strategy, that is possible. Our aim is to do that because we believe that in terms of the net present value of the project, that's the way it should be. Later, when you have low grades, you have moved a lot of waste from the mine and you have a lot of ore with lower grades, but your cost is going to be lower because you don't have to push back the open pit. The answer to you is we will try to do that. The good news is that the grades are there. In terms of Monte do Carmo, Monte do Carmo was also managed by our own management.
What I have done, because I took control also of the project, is to make sure that everything is done by the book and we don't make any mistakes. The detailed engineering of the plant continues. What we are doing at the moment is some geomechanical studies to make sure that the pit is well designed and some hydrological studies. Those studies are going to be finished at the end of the year. We will be able, after the rainy season, which is March, April 2026, to be in the position to make a decision to go ahead and build Monte. Those studies I decided to do parallel to the development of the detailed engineering of the plant. They are parallel, as I said. Of course, it will lead us to take a decision in 2026.
In 2023, we will have something like six, seven months in order to start the project. We can do a fast track strategy to have the civil engineering, detailed engineering to be able to start the project during that no rain season.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
We will take our next question from Will Dalby from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Thanks very much for the call. Just a couple from me more on Mara Rosa. The first one, can you maybe just give a bit more detail around the mining, the contractor side? Obviously, there were a few challenges flagged there, some of them rainy season induced. It seems kind of more intrinsic issues on the contractor side. Is that something that the downtime in the plant has given you buffers so that you've been able to address, or do you think there's still work that needs to be done on the actual kind of mining productivity side? That's the first question.
I believe that there is something to do. I mean continue improving the mining operation. I have to say that has improved a lot. We have launched a tender to increase our capacity by 30% because we want to make sure that we move as much as possible waste to make sure that we make Dior available for the rest of the year and also for 2026. We will have two contractors soon. It will give us additional capacity. Of course, we will continue with the improvements that I already mentioned, like the haulage distance, the haulage speed, the loading. We are doing some drilling and blasting improvement with consultants. We are taking the mine as a whole, you know, and we have a lot of productivity projects in place to make sure that we take that mine to the best level possible.
Okay, thank you, that's helpful. Maybe just a second. Can you maybe say the percentage of throughput you think you can achieve at Mara Rosa without that thickener that's coming in H1 next year? You know, after the additional filters are brought on from October.
I mean, it's a difficult one, that one. Let me say that each filter, we believe that it could go up to 1,500 tons per day. If we are able to bring the four filters to work together and that's the end, in October, we could go up to 6,000 tons per day. Saying that, our projections, the 35,000 to 45,000 ounces, are a little bit more conservative because that could be the maximum rate that the filters could reach without the thickener. Of course, as I said, our aim will be to try to maximize production not only in 2026, but also in 2025 to do the best possible management and continue working with Andritz. I would say that the good news is that we have proved that the filters, the press filters, work for dry stack.
That was one of the uncertainties that I had when I took control of the situation because the management that we used to have before believed that the filter did not work. Working with Andritz, close with them, giving them a management contract, working together with them in a very good relationship, we have demonstrated the filters work. That's very good news.
Okay, understood. Thank you very much. That's all for me. Thanks a lot.
You're welcome. Thank you for your questions.
We will take now our last question in the phone queue from Felicity Robson from Bank of America.
Thank you for closing my question. Do you expect any technical difficulties from tying the cyanide into the process? Secondly, will you need to make any changes to the dry stack tailings facility?
Could you repeat the second part?
Do you expect to make any changes to the dry stack tailing facility?
Let me first answer the question. I mean, we have a huge experience operating thickeners. Yeah. Because we have thickeners everywhere. In Immaculada, in San Jose, we have a thickener working in a pre-leaching thickener in Mara Rosa. Of course, the time that we have put in place considers decommissioning of the filters and the startup of the thickener. I don't believe that we'll have technical difficulties in order to start up a new thickener in the process. What we are doing at the moment is detailed engineering. We have done a basic engineering to make sure that the thickener could be part of the process.
What we are doing now is a detailed engineering with Ausenco to make sure that the integration of that thickener is the way it should be, with the pumps, with the piping, with everything to integrate the way it should be in our flow sheet. In terms of the dry stack area, we have a plan to make sure that we continue giving availability, surface available to have the area to deposit these dry tails and compact them. The plan today considers area that could give us capacity until December 2026. Initially, at the beginning of the project, it was considered that it will have some CapEx in order to extend the tailing area, to extend this tailing area. At the end of the day, every single square meter of tailing area has some lifts. Once you reach the maximum lift for stability, you need to increase the area.
That's the original plan. Today, we continue preparing the area with geomembrane and to make sure that it has the channels and everything in order to have a normal dry stack operation. Let me say that we manage a dry stack operation in San Jose and it has been managed for the past seven years and we never had any problem whatsoever in order to manage a dry stack operation. We have the know-how and Brazil has very good technical people that we need to bring. Today, we have brought in the past month a manager just for the filtering plant and for the tailing area. He's an expert that has been working on this kind of deposits for the past 20 years. We believe that we have the right talent.
We have the area, we need to bring the contractors to make sure that we continue expanding the area to have the capacity.
Okay, thank you.
Welcome.
Thank you. With this, I'd like to hand the call back over to Eduardo for any additional remarks or closing remarks.
Thank you very much for attending this call. I'm totally aware that the situation in Mara Rosa has been a problem, but I feel very proud of the Hochschild team that took a very quick response on the situation. The corporate team went to Mara Rosa, took control of everything. We put in place all the solutions to the technical problems. Today I believe that we are on the right path to make sure that together with the extension of resources in Mara Rosa, we could have a very profitable project. I would like to ask for some patience because I know that it's something that makes a noise to our performance. I believe that we have Immaculada, that it's outperforming. We have San Jose, that out of the external factors is an operation that is running really well.
We believe that there is space for improvements in San Jose. Mara Rosa will come back much stronger, you know, much, much better. It's a matter of time. I believe that in 2026, we will give them. I mean, we'll give you such surprises. Also, in terms of ESG, as you see, safety is our first priority. We continue doing great things on the environment, part on the communities, and we believe that we are a very good option for investors because our valuation today is lower than our peers. We believe that we can perform in order to increase that value. Thank you so much for being here and of course, some of you. I will see you next week in London. Thank you.