ray, and welcome to today's Hochschild Mining PLC Q3 results 2025 conference call. My name is Sergei, and I'll be your coordinator for today's event. Throughout today's conference call, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session. You may register for questions at any time by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. I'd like to hand the call over to your host, Eduardo. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Hello and welcome to our conference call to discuss our third-quarter production results. I am here in Lima, and in New York is Eduardo Noriega, our CFO, and Charles Gordon, our Head of Investor Relations. First, I want to start saying that our new COO, Casio Dietrich, joined last month and is now working with us in Lima. We all look forward to his leadership and contribution to the organization. We have already been at Mara Rosa with him, and this Sunday, we are traveling to our flagship mine, Inmaculada. Group production in the quarter was just over 70,000 gold equivalent ounces, and of course, includes minimal production from Mara Rosa in Brazil, where I'm sure you remember, we stopped the processing plant for four weeks in July. Nevertheless, we remain on track to hit our revised production and cost forecast.
Our main focus during the period was, of course, at Mara Rosa, where I am pleased to say that our turnaround program has continued making very good progress. Many movement rates have ramped up during the quarter from 44,000 tons per day in August to its current rate exceeding 70,000 tons per day. We were also able to complete all the required plant maintenance during the stoppage in July. All four tailing filters are now up and running, and we expect the production rates from the operation to rise in the fourth quarter while we wait for the delivery of the purchased tailing thickener in the first half of next year. We have also largely completed our reorganization of the Brazil operations, with the appointment of the new Brazilian General Manager, Ediney Drummond, as well as new Operation Manager alongside, with a revamped management structure.
Group production for the quarter totaled almost 40,400 ounces, and this means that we are on track to hit the revised target of between 35,000 and 45,000 ounces gold equivalent. Inmaculada has continued its solid year, with close to 50,000 gold equivalent ounces produced in the quarter, which brings the total for the year so far at 156,000 ounces, and is well on track to meet our forecast between 199,000 and 209,000 ounces for the year as a whole. There were some lower grades in the quarter due to the adjustment to our mine sequence to address geomechanical challenges, with temporarily restricted access to a higher grade zone, but this now has been totally solved. In Argentina, production showed a small increase from the previous quarter, although weights were a little lower as we mine in the borders of the veins.
Output was 31,000 gold equivalent ounces, which makes almost 84,000 ounces for the first nine months, and we are on track to meet the annual forecast. On the exploration side, our brownfield exploration program has continued to deliver encouraging drilling results, which by the full year we expect will lead to further resource additions in all our mines, as well as in our two projects, Monte do Carmo and Royropata . Our balance sheet remains strong. We ended the quarter with a cash balance of $92 million, resulting in a net debt of $246 million, and a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 0.4 times.
It's worth highlighting that this figure reflects a few notable items, including a $40 million working capital increase, mainly in Argentina, to protect the balance sheet ahead of upcoming midterm elections, the $30 million purchase of the Monte do Carmo streaming agreement from Sprott, and the $5 million interim dividend paid to shareholders. Lower production at Mara Rosa and the costs associated with the ongoing turnaround program also played a role in the quarter results. Looking ahead, the record price we are seeing should drive strong cash flow generation in the fourth quarter. As we move into next year, these sustained higher prices will also influence how we think about cut-off grades in our mines, opening up opportunities to process previously marginal lower grade material that we will still deliver. This situation, even considering these lower grades, will deliver a very strong, healthy margin.
With that, I would like to open for questions. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Eduardo. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one. Please make sure the mute function on your phone is switched off to allow your signal to reach your equipment. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. Please press star one to ask a question. Our first question is from Marina Calero from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for the call. I have a couple of questions on your comment around the opportunity to reduce cut-off grades. Can you give us a bit more color on what sort of gold and silver prices you're expecting to use in your reserve calculations and what it means for production levels next year? It looks like Inmaculada you're running at maximum throughput capacity. Does that mean that production for next year will be below the 200,000 ounce level? Thank you.
Yes, Marina. We're in the middle of the discussion of the budgeting process, and we are analyzing this possibility. If we consider the current prices, really, we could have a reduction of 15% in production. We are not going to take that as the limit we would like to use. The only thing is that we are considering if we are in some areas where we have some marginal grades, then we will take the opportunity to pass it through the plant. I would not expect to have an impact that is more than, let's say, 10% or even lower. I would like to confirm a figure, because we are still discussing this issue. This only would affect San Jose and Inmaculada. In the case of Mara Rosa, as you know, we are trying to mine the higher grade material at the beginning of the operation in the first three years.
That will not affect the production of Mara Rosa.
Okay. Understood. Just to clarify, the production impact at Inmaculada will be less than 10%. Do you expect any implications for CAPEX?
No, I mean, there will not be implication on CapEx because, as I said, we are not going to do an additional development to reach lower grade areas. The only thing is that we are going to keep the CapEx level as planned. If there is the opportunity in the area to extract low-grade material, of course, we will take that opportunity. Otherwise, if we don't take that opportunity now that we have the gold at $4,000, it's a material that is going to stay there forever.
Understood. That makes sense. Thank you very much.
Welcome.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one. Our next question is Will Dalby from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, team. Thank you very much for the call. Just a few questions from me. I guess starting on Inmaculada, you mentioned the release, those geomechanical challenges, which you say were a one-off. I just wonder if you could maybe give a little bit more color around what happened there, provide a little bit more confidence that that is, in fact, a one-off occurrence. I guess following on, how has that impacted your expectations for Inmaculada this year, for 2025 volumes? I know you maintain guidance for the year, but I just wonder whether there could be some latent impact in Q4. It'd be good to have your thoughts. That's the first question.
Thank you. Thank you for the question. Basically, to give you more color, there were these high-grade areas where we were doing some developments, and we saw that there were some fractures on the support. We decided to stop production from that area and do a bypass, a small bypass to reach that area without crossing this area where there were some faults. That is already done, and of course, we are going to be able to reach that high-grade area during the fourth quarter. I don't expect any effect at all on the production guidance of Inmaculada. We will recover that material in the next month, for sure.
Okay, that's very helpful. Maybe the next one, just on San Jose in Argentina and this inventory build. I wonder if you could, again, just kind of expand on that a little bit as to logic there, and then more specifically, kind of how you're expecting that to unwind, and actually, if you're able to sort of give a bit of a steer as to the working capital move in H2 as a whole, that would be quite helpful as well.
Let me explain. We keep some inventory of concentrates in Argentina, not to convert those dollars, those payments in dollars, into pesos. As you know, once we sell them, we receive the dollars, and we need to convert it into pesos. We kept this inventory for around $37 million or $40 million, but now it's already shipped. It's something that is going to be received in the next week or so. As you know, the elections are next Sunday. We expect that any effect on the exchange rate is going to be happening on Monday, next Monday, yeah? The objective of keeping this material has been achieved. To give you more color, I don't expect to see any effect on H2 working capital. Once we recover these $40 million, the working capital level will remain as it used to be during the first H1.
Thank you. Just the last one is actually around Volcan. Obviously, you saw the announcements recently about that process, getting listed in Toronto. I've sort of seen reference to Hochschild owning 80% of that pro forma business once TNN is listed. It'd just be helpful if you had an idea of the kind of indicative market cap of that business, you know, based on the placement and the number of shares. If you have that number to hand, that would be quite helpful.
Let me pass this question to Eduardo Noriega, as he is much more involved than myself.
Thank you, Will, for your question. Yes, that process is moving along well. We have not executed or completed a transaction yet. It's in progress. Certainly, in terms of valuation, that is being defined these days when we are talking to the different accounts to try to complete the financing solution. Certainly, the strategy is to raise fresh funds for the project, for the Volcan project, which, as you know, is an around 11 million gold ounces project in resources. Raising these funds will allow the project to advance to close to feasibility and permitting stage.
Okay. Got it. That's all for me. Thank you very much for your time, guys. Much appreciated.
Thank you, Will.
Thank you.
Thank you. We're on the move to our next question from Robert Bonte- Friedheim from SMC . Please go ahead.
Oh, hi. It's Robert Bonte from Scarlet Macaw Capital. Thanks for taking the question. I just wanted to follow up on San Jose. If I run the numbers correctly, I think you had just under 5,000 ounces of gold, kilo ounces of gold, you know, 5,000 ounces of gold and 220 kilo ounces of silver, I think, in terms of the difference between production and sales. If I ran the numbers, at September average prices, that's $27.7 million. At spot, that's already $31.5 million. I guess, am I thinking about that correctly, that that's the big part of your working capital build that you're selling later? It's just that as greedy shareholders, we get an extra $4 or $5 million just because the prices have gone up since September. Is that fair thinking about it that way?
Thank you, Robert. You are partially right, correct? Most of the $40 million have to do with the inventories that we have temporarily kept for us to collect the dollars after the election this weekend. The other portion also in San Jose has to do with accounts receivable, that you always have the chance to collect part of it upfront or just wait until the material gets to the refinery. Part is inventories, the majority of it, as you pointed out, and the remaining part is receivables that we have for sales that we have executed, but that we have not received the anticipated payment. It will be received later on.
Okay, understood. Good, thank you very much. It's a windfall. It hurts pro forma your debt numbers at the end of 3Q and your working capital. It will improve once you sell it, improve both your net debt and the working capital and the revenues and the profits in fourth quarter.
You are correct.
It's about $30 million, $40 million. Net debt would be $40 million better, actually, on apples to apples, okay? The other question I had, can you just give us a bit more? I said three questions. The second one is a little bit on Brazil, Mara Rosa. Can you give us a bit more color now about how you want us to think about, again, you've done third quarter now, how fourth quarter is looking?
The good news is that a week ago, we have been able to put the fourth filter up and running. We still need a couple of weeks to finalize the commission and to make sure that everything is correct. I don't want to give a figure for Q4, because what I can say is that we are going to be for sure on the guidance. We are going to meet the guidance on cost and production between 35 and 45. To give you an idea, with the four filters, we could go up to 4,000 tons per day, between 4,000 and 5,000 tons per day. That's the figures that we are considering for next year, at the beginning of next year until we get the thickener in place. That will give us the opportunity to have better production than Q3, for sure.
We continue opening the mine and trying to make sure that we have all the material ready for 2026. As you can see, we have improved from 40,000 tons per day up to 70,000 tons per day on moving waste to open the mine as much as possible and to be ready for 2026.
Okay. Understood. That's helpful. My third question, I want to follow up on Volcan. In Volcan, I think there's the one thing I wanted to get clarity on. Can you remind us just in outlines what is the range of CapEx required for this project and what is the range of ounces that there might be, even, you know, inferred, you know, M&I inferred, and what's the next catalyst there?
Thank you very much, Robert. Thank you. Thank you, Robert. The estimated CapEx for the project, the construction CapEx, would be around $1 billion. There is a sustaining CapEx over the life of the mine of around $300 million. In terms of total resources, the ones that are being used for the pre-economic assessment that is published in the German website, German is a subsidiary of Hochschild Mining owning the Volcan project, are 11 million gold ounces. That is the total ounces that we have in the project.
What is the grade and what is the water situation?
The grade considered is at around 0.62, 0.64 grams per ton. In terms of water, we currently have, the company has water rights over a couple of water wells in the region. We know that other companies are starting to request authorization to use them. That is a base assumption. There are other alternatives that not only Hochschild Mining and Volcan, but also other players in the region are considering, mainly desalinated projects. Projects to desalinate seawater and to be pumped in the Maricunga Belt region to source water, not only Volcan, but others. Those are the two plans being, in this pre-economic assessment, the base case, with the support that we have of using the water from the wells that we have.
Gotcha. In terms of, I know there's Maricunga, you know, Kinross has Maricunga, Lobo- Marte, Barrick Newmont also. What is the, do we have a rough CapEx? I mean, how much would a desalination plant add? What's the range to the overall CapEx bill?
We are not showing that calculation, no, but certainly it will be taken into account in the estimates of the project evaluation. I have to say that the project is highly profitable with long-term prices of $2,700 per ounce of gold per year. Any additional cost, I'm sure, would be able to be absorbed by efficiencies, but also with a more robust gold price that we're seeing today.
Understood. Thank you very much for taking the questions, and thanks for the quarter.
Thank you. Thank you, Robert.
Our next question is from Alfredo Schmutzer from Equinox Partners. Please go ahead.
Okay. Hi, Eduardo. I just wanted to follow up on the cut-off grade reduction. You mentioned at the beginning that it's not going to be more than 10%, but are there any ways to mitigate that reduction in production? Any way to maybe increase throughput or just trying to see what to expect for next year?
I mean, as I said, Alfredo, we are in the middle of the calculations, and we have not decided yet how much of those resources, something that we are putting in the consideration, I mean, throughput production at Imaculada. As you know, the nameplate for Imaculada is 3,500. We are at the moment about the budgeting process to see cost, to see everything, and go to the market with a proposal, with a budgeting proposal that I'm sure is going to maximize the net present value of the company.
Because at the end of the day, we're not trying to pass through low grades. What we want is to find the equilibrium between passing through some of those grades through the plants in order to maximize life of mine and net present value.
Okay. Thank you.
Let's wait until Q4, yeah? We'll be presenting production figures and for sure, all the guidance, and you will see that we are trying to find this sweet spot, you know, between grades, production, margins, and capacities, and everything.
Okay. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.
Okay. Welcome.
Thank you. It appears there are currently no further questions at this time. With this, I'd like to hand the call back over to Eduardo for any additional or closing remarks. Over to you, sir.
Thank you very much. Just to say that we have a strong Q3. We have progressed with the turnaround situation of Mara Rosa. I am extremely happy with the performance of our team. Having all the management in place, we are having a very positive feeling for 2026. Thank you very much for being here, and see you next time.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, ladies and gentlemen. You may now disconnect.