Good evening. My name is Joanna, and I will be your conference cooperator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Amerigo Resources econd Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the formal remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star and then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by the number two. Thank you. Mr. Graham Farrell of North Star Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.
Thank you, operator. Good afternoon and welcome everyone to Amerigo 's quarterly conference call to discuss the company's financial results for the second quarter of 2025. We appreciate you joining us today. This call will cover Amerigo 's financial and operating results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2025. Following our prepared remarks, we will open the conference call to a question- and answer session. Our call today will be led by Amerigo 's President and Chief Executive Officer, Aurora Davidson, along with the company's Chief Financial Officer, Carmen Amezquita. Before we begin our formal remarks, we'd like to remind everyone that some of the statements on this conference call may be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements may include, but are not necessarily limited to, financial projections or other statements of the company's plans, objectives, expectations, or intentions. These matters involve certain risks and uncertainties.
The company's actual results may differ significantly from those projected or suggested by any forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors which are discussed in detail in our CRS. I will now hand the call over to Aurora Davidson. Please go ahead, Aurora.
Thank you, Graham. You have come to learn this earnings call for the second quarter of 2025. We are pleased to report positive operational and expense outflows. Amerigo Resources has again demonstrated its operational excellence and capital allocation agility. We achieved strong copper production, managed cost effectively, and reinforced our commitment to shareholder returns. Our Chilean operation, Minera Valle Central, continued to operate consistently in the second quarter with no lost time excellence among our employees and no environmental incidents. In both of these operational performance categories, Minera Valle Central continues to extend its multi-year company records. Copper production was 15.5 million lbs, and margin on production was also robust. Copper production in the first half of the year had a 4.4% of Amerigo 's annual guidance of 62.9 million lbs. Our yearly guidance takes into account our lower production in Q1, which was associated with the annual maintenance shutdown.
Therefore, our production guidance remains in place. We also maintain strict cost goals, and our cash cost per pound declined to $1.82 in the second quarter. Our annual cash cost guidance of $1.93 per pound is also expected to be met. This guided cash cost target excludes the impact of Minera Valle Central's collective bargaining costs which was scheduled for October of this year. Collective bargaining occurs separately every three years at Minera Valle Central for our two collective agreements. Amerigo 's annual performance in the second quarter included revenue of $50.9 million at an average Minera Valle Central copper price of $4.42 per pound. This price excludes positive price driven settlement of $700,000 on the first quarter sales. The quarter was $3.5 million with earnings per share of $0.05.
By the end of the year, in line with Amerigo 's capital return strategy, or CRS, a dividend of CA$0.06 per share was paid, corresponding to $3.5 million. Additionally, 3.1 million common shares were repurchased and canceled during the quarter at a weighted average price of CA$1.78 per share, representing $4 million. Year-to-date copper prices have been stronger than we budgeted, with Minera Valle Central receiving a copper price of $4.42 per pound compared to our revenue estimate of $4.15 per pound in 2025. We hope to see lower copper prices further shortly. The marginal price has been $20.22 per pound and is trending very close to our annual estimate of $21 per pound. The average exchange rate of the Chilean peso to the U.S. dollar in the first half of the year was CLP 955 , also very close to our estimate of CLP 940 .
Following the close of the second quarter, our operational results for July have been very positive, with the price has also remained in July atf $4.40 per pound. If these conditions persist during August and September, we would aim to close the third quarter. Moving on to the U.S. corporate landscape, I would like to provide a quick summary. The corporate market is tight by using story levels. The U.S. has significant bridge forecasts for financials here are a few examples. Global mine corporate production is expected to close next quarter than the 2020 flat estimate in 2023. Factors such as mining increasingly requires resource depletion, political uncertainty, and declining costs as headwinds begin. In the high corporate market, you can see refrigerants, spot treatments, and refinery charges, also known as TCRCs. Interest rates and difficulty of finance tools exist during corporate finance to replace diverse methods of finance.
Low TCRCs they now charge corporate miners indicates the desperation to secure an adequate supply. Estimating that 70% global smelter sources are currently unprofitable, this could lead to smelter shutdowns and cause a particular decrease in the growth of refined copper output. In 2023, refined copper supply grew by 4.2% and is now estimated to grow by only 1.3% in 2025. Refined product inventories in Germany and Shanghai have also fallen over this year. Concurrent with this stubborn supply scenario in the constantly increasing corporate market, demand has been a precipitation. The growth of AI data centers brings modernization and traditional demand. The events cause resources to go up. By putting together this planned demand outlook, a market deficit is expected by year-end and the International Energy Agency projects a market threat with resilient demand. This is bullish for corporate prices in Amerigo.
In addition, tariffs on Jewish market resources are undefined or have undefined market partners and have impacted short-term corporate prices. During our last earnings call, I discussed the high arbitrage seen in the jewelry and copper prices as the governing market at a COMEX. This trend continues to go high in June. Under that scale, we are aside from copper. And that's the forex copper. However, the higher COMEX prices had a positive impact on our E.U. prices, which in turn had a positive effect on Amerigo. Pricing on copper relative to LME prices, with the average reaching over $0.45 per pound. This price divergence led to a massive redirection of copper inventories from the European Union to the U.S., driven both by speculation and structural factors. U.S. buyers scrambled to secure essential copper before August.
On warrants, only under the suspicions from a few different triangles of the markets, footnotes, and extreme tightness. The cardiometry flows, the copper. Additional information was finally released by the U.S. government indicating the tariffs would only apply to copper that is now $2.43. The factor copper price was very short during and convert them into 10 points for my short. This was Friday. I will explain next. Amerigo's keeping with retail and capital different holders at a rapid pace. In the second quarter.
O perator, seems that Aurora is back to listening.
Am I not being correctly heard?
Yeah, we can hear you now, but you've been cutting in and out, Aurora.
Oh, I'm sorry about that. I'll continue. The script will be on the website, and we can go over any questions. Sorry about that.
Okay.
Cumulatively, the CRS has returned $90.2 million since its inception, with 66% of the amount returned via dividends and 34% through buybacks. In addition to these returns of capital, there is also the benefit of share price appreciation. During the second quarter, Amerigo 's share pricing increased from $1.91 to $2.12. Today, the share price is $2.17, representing a 36% year-to-date increase. I am often asked about whether Amerigo 's board of directors prioritizes dividends over share buybacks. The answer is that the CRS is flexible and multifaceted. There is no absolute preference for one over the other. Instead, we use these tools strategically to maximize shareholder value under varying market conditions. The CRS provides us with the flexibility to adapt to the inherent volatility of the corporate sector without being locked into a single method. The quarterly dividends are the foundation of the CRS.
They provide a stable and predictable return to shareholders. Performance dividends are a flexible tool. We use the dividends to exceed excess cash when copper prices are strong and the company's cash balance exceeds $25 million. Performance dividends enable us to quickly share the benefits of spikes in copper prices with shareholders. Share buybacks are used opportunistically to take advantage of periods of share price weakness and to reduce dilution. We have stated the board's intention to buy back enough so as to eliminate annual shareholder dilution at a minimum, but we have been doing more than that. To be clear, being active on share buybacks does not mean there will be no performance dividends. Both can occur under strong copper prices. Our preference is for a balanced and opportunistic approach to capital return.
The consistent forward dividends provide stability, performance dividends capture upside, and share buybacks manage dilution and capitalize on undervaluation. Our ultimate goal is to generate maximum value for shareholders and to utilize all the tools of the CRS to achieve this. Amerigo 's CFO, Carmen Amezquita, will now discuss the company's financial results. Carmen, please go ahead.
Thanks, Aurora. I'm pleased to present the financial report for the second quarter of 2025 from Amerigo Resources and its Minera Valle Central operation in Chile. During the three months ended June 30, 2025, the company posted a net income of $7.5 million, earnings per share of $0.05, or CHF 0.06, and EBITDA of $17.8 million. Net income was $2.2 million lower than in Q2 of 2024, primarily because during the second quarter of 2024, Amerigo Resources booked $6.9 million in positive fair value adjustments to copper revenue receivables, resulting from a sharp quarter-on-quarter increase in copper prices. For comparison, during Q2 2025, the total positive fair value adjustments amounted to $0.7 million. Revenue in Q2 2025 was $50.8 million compared to $51.6 million in Q2 2024. This included copper tolling revenue of $43.8 million and molybdenum revenue of $7 million.
In Q2 2025, the gross value of copper tolled on behalf of DEP was $66.9 million. From this gross revenue, we deducted notional items, including DEP royalties of $19.9 million, smelting and refining of $3.6 million, and transportation of $0.4 million, and then added positive fair value adjustments to settlement receivables of $0.7 million, which, as I mentioned, were significantly lower than the positive fair value adjustments in the second quarter of 2024. Revenue also included molybdenum revenue of $7 million. We reported a provisional copper price of $4.42 per pound on our Q2 2025 sales, which coincidentally was the same provisional price we had for the first quarter of 2025. The final settlement prices for April, May, and June 2025 sales will be based on the average London Metal Exchange prices for July, August, and September of 2025, respectively.
We now know July's average provisional price, or average price, which is $4.44. A 10% increase or decrease from the $4.42 per pound provisional price used on June 30, 2025, would result in a $6.9 million change in revenue in Q3 2025 regarding Q2 2025 production. Tolling and production costs increased 10% from $35.1 million in Q2 2024 to $38.7 million in Q2 2025, which can be mainly attributed to an 11% increase in production between both quarters due to the timing differences of Minera Valle Central's annual maintenance shutdown, which in 2024 took place in the second quarter, but this year took place during the first quarter. The most significant cost variances between the two quarters were consumption-driven. They included higher power costs of $1.2 million, line costs of $0.6 million, and other direct tolling costs, such as copper reagents, of $0.8 million.
Moly production costs increased by $0.3 million due to higher production associated with more processing of historic tailings in Q2 2025. The gross profit after revenue and production costs was $12.1 million compared to $16.5 million in Q2 2024. General and administration expenses were $1 million compared to $1.1 million in Q2 2024. These expenses included salaries, management, and professional fees of $0.6 million, office and general expenses of $0.2 million, and share-based payments of $0.2 million. Other gains were $0.1 million compared to $0.6 million in the second quarter of 2024, driven mainly by foreign exchange gains in both periods. Finance expense was $0.4 million, consistent with Q2 2024, and consisted entirely of interest on loans and bank charges. Income tax expense was $2.6 million compared to $5.6 million in Q2 2024.
Beginning this quarter, we've included a breakdown of the company's tax expense in the P&L, separating current taxes from deferred income taxes. The current tax represents both actual income tax for Minera Valle Central and repatriation taxes to bring funds from Chile to Canada. Deferred income tax is an accounting figure used to reconcile timing differences, in Amerigo ' case, primarily arising from the differences in the timings of financial and tax depreciation. Current tax expense in Q2 2025 was $4.4 million compared to $6.3 million in Q2 2024. Before moving on to the statement of financial decisions, I will mention some non-IFRS measures used by the company: cash cost, total cost, and all-in sustaining costs. Amerigo 's cash cost in Q2 2025 was $1.82 per pound, decreasing from $1.96 per pound in Q2 2024.
The $0.14 per pound reduction in cash cost was primarily due to a $0.19 per pound decrease in smelting and refining charges in response to the current annual benchmark, offset by increases of $0.03 per pound in line costs and other direct costs. Total costs decreased to $3.55 per pound, a decrease of $0.23 per pound from Q2 2024's $3.78 per pound. This was the result of a $0.14 reduction in cash cost, a $0.04 decrease in DEP royalties, and a $0.05 decrease in depreciation. All-in sustaining costs, which include total costs, sustaining capex, and corporate tier name, were $3.69 per pound in Q2 2025 compared to $4.20 in Q2 2024. This is the result of per pound decreases of $0.23 in total cost, $0.27 in sustaining CapEx, and $0.01 in corporate to your name expenses.
Moving on to the statement of financial position, on June 30, 2025, the company had cash equivalents of $23.3 million, restricted cash of $0.9 million, and had a working capital deficiency of $5.4 million, down from a working capital deficiency of $6.5 million on December 31, 2024. Trade and accounts payable decreased from $24.6 million as of December 31, 2024, to $19.7 million at the end of June 2025. Current income tax liabilities also decreased from $8.5 million on December 31, 2024 to $0.1 million. Most of the tax balance due at the end of 2024 related to income tax owing by MVC in respect of 2024 earnings, which exceeded the monthly tax installments made. This tax was paid in April 2025 when MVC's annual tax declaration was filed in Chile.
Note that in line with Chilean tax requirements, MVC placed monthly tax installments based on a percentage of revenue, which may or may not be close to the final corporate tax for a given year. In April of the following year, when the tax declaration is filed for the previous year, any difference in the amount owing exceeding the monthly tax installments is paid. You will notice that the company's debt, which is shown as $7 million net of transaction fees, is now shown fully as current debt. As guided to the market, we intend to make the remaining scheduled payment of $4 million in the second half of the year and prepay the remaining $3.5 million, which is formally due on June 30, 2026. In this way, Amerigo will be in a zero-debt position by the end of 2025.
Regarding cash flows during the quarter, Amerigo generated $11.9 million in cash flows from operations. Net operating cash flow, which includes changes in non-cash working capital, was $6.3 million. Included in the changes in non-cash working capital are payments related to current income taxes, income tax liabilities, rather, of $9.5 million, which includes the 2024 income tax payments we previously discussed. These decreases in accounts payable and income tax result in an outlay of cash, thereby decreasing the cash flow from operations net of these non-cash working capital changes. In terms of uses of cash during the quarter, $1.4 million was used for investing activities, in other words, for CapEx payments, and $9.4 million was used in financing activities.
These financing activities included Amerigo Resources returning $7.6 million to shareholders, $3.5 million through Amerigo 's regular quarterly dividend of $0.03 Canadian per share, and $4 million from the purchase and cancellation of 3.1 million common shares through a normal course issuer bid. The company also paid $4 million on borrowings, including $2.3 million paid with restricted cash. Briefly touching on the results for the first half of the year compared to guidance, our cash cost for the six months ended June 30, 2025, was $2 per pound, and our forecast indicates that we are on track to meet the company's 2025 guidance of an annual normalized cash cost of $1.93 per pound. Our normalized cash cost guidance excludes any signing bonus associated with a three-year collective labor agreement with Minera Valle Central's operator's union that will occur later this year.
In 2025, Minera Valle Central is expected to incur CapEx of $13 million, of which $4.4 million is optimization CapEx, $4.4 million is sustained CapEx, and $4.2 million is CapEx associated with the annual plant maintenance shutdown and strategic spares. Year-to-date 2025, CapEx additions were $6 million and CapEx payments were $8.2 million. We remain on track with our annual CapEx guidance. We will report Amerigo ' Q3 2025 financial results in October 2025 and want to thank you for your continued interest in the company. We will now take questions from call participants.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question- and- answer session. Should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on the telephone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. If you wish to decline from the polling process, please press the star followed by the two. If you're using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. The first question comes from Terry Sumpto at CIBC Markets. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon, everybody. I believe it's already been flagged that there was really a lot of problems with the connection while Aurora was speaking, particularly about the outlook for copper and copper markets. I think you said that the text of the speech will be available on the website, so I don't expect you to repeat it here. I did want to ask, though, about the likelihood, because I think you mentioned it, but I didn't get it because the phone broke up, of a positive share value adjustment in the third quarter, given where copper prices are and have been. Is that a reasonable expectation?
Terry, first of all, sorry about that. We did a sound check before we had the call, and we didn't have any problems. It's unfortunate that I didn't come through. Yes, the text of the earnings call will be available on the website as soon as we get it from the supplier. I did speak about the fact that July has been a good month, both in terms of production, and we also saw, because now we have the average prices for the month of July, $4.44 per pound. We marked to market on average at $4.42 at the end of June 30, as Carmen was mentioning. Right now, as we speak, there is a small positive adjustment on a pricing basis for the first month that has settled, which is, essentially, we have settled now April after July average prices. The outlook remains positive from our perspective.
I did speak about, and hopefully that wasn't broken, what happened yesterday with the clarification of what the U.S. tariff is going to be looking like, essentially exempting copper concentrates and unrefined copper from the tariffs. That caused a sharp correction of that arbitrage that we have been seeing between COMEX and the LME markets for most of the year. If you look at copper COMEX price today and the LME, there's a $0.03 difference, which rises back to normal in terms of what you normally have in those markets. Does that answer your question?
Yes, that's fine. I'll read the text. My second question is sort of a left field, but I'm wondering if you've heard of a company called Stillbright.
No, I haven't heard about them.
Okay. I'll leave that with you to research. Stillbright, I just saw an interview today on television. I'd never heard of it before. It's a startup, kind of a technology company that has received some seed financing. What they have is a new process for essentially smelting copper, but it's through flotation cells, and they use vanadium as a catalyst, and they're able to recover the copper without producing the waste products that many smelters do, lead and arsenic. They can do it at a much lower cost and quicker startup to build these things. From what the person said, I think it's unlikely that it would be targeted towards processing tailings. I think it's more an alternative to shipping ore to China to be smelted and doing it domestically in the U.S. and other countries. Anyway, worth researching. I'll leave that with you.
The only other question I had actually is for a Carmen question. It'd be exciting for Carmen. It's a two-part question. One is that with all the depreciation we're taking at over $22 million a year, which I know helps with cash conservation by deferring taxes, because it's tax depreciation. I don't know what CCA is versus depreciation rates in Chile. In any event, it seems to me that the fixed assets now are being considerably undervalued in the balance sheet. Related to that balance sheet, we also have $24 million of other assets, and I forget what those are. The question is, are the assets undervalued in the balance sheet, and what are the $24 million of other assets?
I think you have to remember when you look at depreciation, tax depreciation and accounting depreciation are different. What we're taking on the P&L, that's just our standard depreciation rate over the life of the asset, whereas the tax depreciation is completely different. It's not, you know, not in a, we don't do it in a way to save taxes on the accounting side.
Okay. Sorry. I phrased the question improperly. Forget about the tax depreciation. It just seems to me that even with the depreciation rates the company uses, relative to the age and the value of the assets, the assets on the balance sheet are probably understated, which is a good thing for us. I guess it doesn't matter a lot given that there's no fixed debt on the balance sheet as well. There's no leverage for that. Still, book value matters to some people.
I wouldn't say the assets are understated.
Okay. Can you answer the other question? What are the other assets, $24 million?
Sure. That relates to all the plant, plant and equipment that's on site, mostly the plant.
Other assets are plants, not fixed assets.
Machinery and equipment would relate to all of the other assets that are coming.
All right. Okay. That's part of the whole plant and equipment then. Okay, that's a good thing.
Exactly. Yeah.
All right.
That's the majority of what we have in fixed assets on the balance sheet. There's also the machinery and equipment that we use as well.
Okay. If I could add just one final question for Aurora. It seems to me that in the quarter we've had, obviously, the U.S. copper price up because of the Trump tariffs and that's now gone away, still, I would have thought there would have been a greater arbitrage effect on the LME price than we actually saw. Can you explain why that didn't happen?
Terry, what we basically do is we mark to market, as real as these close based on the progression of the copper prices at month end. We sell those prices at the actual average price for the LME of the month in question. For example, when you're looking at the average prices that we had in 2023 for the second quarter, I'll tell you what they were, although this is available online. The average LME copper price for April was $4.17. There was a significant decline from $4.42- $4.17 in April. That was the final price for January sales, which was the April LME price, $4.17. The final settlement price for the February sales, which was the May price, was $4.32. The final settlement price for the March sales was the June average price of $4.46. If you're looking at what happened there, I didn't see that huge pickup.
April wasn't a defining moment or a defining month of negative adjustments from $4.42- $4.17. For May, it was also settled at a lower price of $4.32 compared to the $4.42 that we had marked to market. The only month in the second quarter where there were positive settlement adjustments compared to our marked to market at March 31 was the month of June, $4.46. I'm sorry if this all sounds so confusing. We try to simplify all of that information in the notes to our actual news release. All of that information is there, but there certainly was a negative final settlement when you looked at the April realized prices of $4.17.
Right. I get that. I actually do understand it because I've been following the company a long time. I didn't phrase the question very well, I guess. I was just thinking about the LME price versus the spot price and the U.S. copper price and why there wasn't a greater pull on the LME price. Nothing to do with Amerigo. Maybe that's a question that can't be answered, but it just surprised me that there wouldn't have been a greater effect on the LME.
A greater positive or a greater negative effect?
If the U.S., if the price of copper is higher in the U.S. because Americans are buying it to front run the tariffs, you would expect that would increase demand for copper even globally, which would reflect on the LME settlement prices.
I think it did. I mentioned that, Curt, that was one of the things that I mentioned on the script. The run-up that we saw on COMEX prices during the quarter and basically during the first semester of the year had a positive effect on the LME. I think it did pull it up, and now.
Okay.
If you look at the prices today, $4.39 COMEX, LME spot price $4.36, we're back to normal. I think that trading run opened up a lot of eyes into what's going on with the copper fundamental structure, not just a trading story, which is a benefit for the industry in general, for all of us, for sure.
Right. Okay. That's good. I'll read, I'll read, Carmen. I don't want to take up more time now, but thanks for everything. That's great.
Thank you. The next question comes from Ben Pirie at Atrium Research . Please go ahead.
Hi, Aurora, Graham, and Carmen. It's Ben from Atrium Research again. First, Atrium dropped on a strong quarter, and it's good to see the shareholders are rewarding you guys for all the hard work. Just a couple of questions here. I think Terry covered a couple of them around the LME prices there. In terms of capex, obviously, you know, the main inch fell down in Q1, so it was elevated in Q2, it was quite low. What can we expect in Q3 and Q4 from a capex perspective?
You couldn't expect any changes from the original guidance, which was $13 million. I think Carmen spoke about that. What is in those $13 million? We have essentially five process optimization projects, which have a price tag of $12.4 million. This includes finalizing some projects that we initiated in 2024, basically to expand and optimize the control of flotation cells and improve water evacuation in Coconus. We also have a project to optimize flotation in the Cascades. We have the addition of a second thickener for the NIPS concentrate. What has transpired in terms of Q1 and Q2? We had a front-loading of a lot of the capex as associated with two things: the timing of the plant maintenance shutdown and the workload of those optimization projects. We're on track to not have more than that $13 million of total capital for the year.
I did mention $4.4 million for optimization. The other categories are $4.2 million for a plant shutdown and $4 million just for sustaining capex, growing sustaining capex.
Okay. Understood. Thank you. In terms of share buybacks, we did hear you were cutting in and out a little bit, but on the buybacks in particular in Q2, there was obviously quite a jump from Q1. I think it was a 4 or 5X in terms of shares bought back. Why such a big change? In terms of consistency going into Q3 and Q4, I know you mentioned you're sort of going to be opportunistic with the buybacks, but can you just touch on this jump from Q1- Q2?
Yes. I think what was happening was basically strong cash generation and the recognition that there was, especially in the second quarter, an opportunity of buying back those shares at a really good price. I did mention that our average buyback price in the quarter was $1.78. I think that was for the first semester. I think that we were just watching how much cash is coming in as free cash flow and what is the best way of allocating that cash to ensure that we kept up with essentially that distribution commitment. Share buybacks was an obvious opportunity for us in the second quarter.
Right. Okay. Maybe you can touch on that sort of strategy in terms of how you're prioritizing shareholder returns. I think it did cut out a little bit, but it sounds like when the share price is higher, you'll probably scale back the buybacks, but it's just to operate as high as performance dividends.
It's basically a more holistic answer. I wouldn't like to just provide a very linear response saying if copper price is here, we do this or we do that, or if the share price is here, we take this route. I think that the answer is that our CRS has to be flexible. We have no absolute preference other than ensuring that we live up to our word of return and gas tax to shareholders. We use the tools strategically. You know quite well that for us, the foundation of the CRS is the quarterly dividend. We want to provide that very stable, very predictable return to shareholders. Under this copper price condition, where that $0.03 Canadian dividend is absolutely safe, the question becomes, what do we do next? Performance dividends or the share buybacks? The performance dividends are a great tool.
For example, when you have a spike in copper prices, we saw that happening in the second quarter of 2024. The obvious answer was, we've realized the benefits of this strong settlement in the quarters for our prior quarter sales, and we have to return this. The best way of doing it quickly is through the performance dividend. Share buybacks, you know, if we see a period of share price weakness, we act on that. If we want to reduce dilution, we act on that. We have stated at the very minimum, we want to end each year with no dilution. In fact, we've done more than that this year. Certainly, you saw the activity that we had in the second quarter. Literally, what was happening is we had the free cash flow.
We were looking at our share price movement, and we thought this is a great opportunity to go out in the market and buy back those shares at a bargain price. We did that.
Understood. Yeah, that makes sense. I guess just the last question would be, obviously, you've been paying down the debt quite aggressively over the last year and a half. What are the plans to do with the excess cash flow once this debt is paid off at the end of the year? Is there a chance that the fixed dividend portion could increase?
That is certainly a possibility. Depending on where share price performance is, additional activity on the buyback is also a possibility, or a heftier or more frequent performance dividend. It's A, B, or C. That's the easy answer, because basically, there's going to be a substantial catalyst in terms of additional free cash flow to equity. I think Carmen mentioned that. On average, if you look at our scheduled debt repayments for the debt worth $7 million, add to that $2 million of finance costs. That's $9 million that are becoming available as of 2026.
Understood. I guess it's good to keep that flexibility and see how things go. That's all I had for today. Again, congrats and thanks.
Thanks, Ben.
Thank you. The next question comes from John Polcari at Mutual of America . Please go ahead.
Thank you. Another well-managed quarter. Thank you. Two questions, and I will not repeat or bother you with the question regarding dividends or increases. In addition to eliminating dilutions, is there a minimum number of shares that you think might be retained as far as reducing the flow to, was it aggressive repurchase of shares in the second quarter? That obviously will vary from quarter to quarter. Again, is there a minimum amount to, in order to maintain liquidity that you think would be appropriate, that you would not want to drop below in terms of the number of shares outstanding, or?
No. The commitment is basically driven towards dilution, and I don't think that we have reached a situation where we think that buying back any more shares or buying back a big block of shares would represent a detrimental decision for the company to take on.
As we speak, if there was an appropriate decision and there was adequate cash.
As we speak, share buybacks are absolutely on the table, as are performance dividends and possibly in 2026 an increase to the quarterly dividend. The three tools remain fully valid and executable depending on circumstances.
Thank you. The other question I had was just, if you could take just a moment out to refresh me on, if you will, retain the custody for copper delivery. After you've extracted the copper from the tailings, it goes to the port, and at what point do you turn over, say, title to the, to the copper? At what point do you receive?
It's easier. It is easier than that in terms of when is title transferred. Our copper concentrate, it's a copper concentrate. It's not a cathode. It's not a finished product. It's a dark powder called copper concentrate. It is shipped out on a daily basis. As soon as it's put on the El Teniente trucks, it passes title. We bill for those deliveries on a weekly basis. We get a provisional price on a weekly basis, and we settle that final provisional price sooner or later when the known price of the third month following delivery takes place.
I understand. That provisional price.
Yes, that provisional price is, it's always, yeah, go ahead.
Always based on the LME?
It's always LME. It's always LME. We actually look at the provisional weekly price, which is based on the provisional price that is used until things are settled, sooner or later. Always LME.
Great. All right. That's all I had. Thank you again for managing us through another volatile quarter.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from William Gower, an investor. Please go ahead.
All right. I just want to echo the congratulations to everybody on the call, but also to the teams in Chile doing the work. This is incredible operational performance and managerial performance. I just have a quick follow-up on the settlement. It sounds like the fair value adjustment is made three months later. I mean, we're marking the market, but when is the cash actually hitting our account? Along the same lines, are we waiting to make decisions on cash flow such as buybacks or dividends until we know what the provisional adjustment is? That way, essentially, there's going to be a quarterly delay in the effect of the cash flows and then the decisions we make based on the cash flows?
Thank you for recognizing the team in Chile. They are the real people that make all of this happen. We just coordinate them. There are two parts to the question regarding the marked to market, but I think that we marked to market every month. Carmen prepares consolidated financial statements on a monthly basis, not on a quarterly basis. We take the LME spot price and the LME M plus 3 price, and we create a progression for the M plus 1, M plus 2 based on those two data points. We do the marked to market on a monthly basis. I think the most important part of your question is what happens with the cash, and what happens with the decision-making around that cash. The payment terms from Codelco to Minera Valle Central can be summarized in three steps.
We issue weekly invoices each Monday for 75% of the prior week's copper production, which is provisionally priced as I was speaking in my prior question at the week's average LME price. Once the month is completed, we issue one monthly invoice to true the amount up to 90% of the month's production, which is provisionally priced at the monthly average price less the weekly interim payment. Basically, at each month end, we are caught up with 90% of the deliveries that were done during the prior month, priced at the most recent LME price for 90% of those deliveries. When the final terms are known three months later, we issue one final either credit note or debit note at the final price, which is the M plus 3 price. Cash flow is coming in on a weekly basis of 75% of our production rate.
It is trued up to 90% of our production rate by a week after the end of the month. The final settlement, positive or negative, takes place three weeks before. There is always a continuum of cash flow coming in on a weekly basis. We update all of this information in our model. We basically are working with real-time data that allows us to know how much, for example, can be allocated to share buybacks on a weekly basis when we're active on the buyback program. Or, when copper prices are close or down, slower prices, how safe is our CapEx payment or weekly payment as quarterly dividends? We are monitoring all of that information essentially, I would say, daily. We have that. We just plug in the copper price that we think is going to apply for each week, and we have all the data right in front of us.
Perfect. Thank you so much. I have another two follow-ups, not to that specific area, but with regards to cost guidance. It's, you know, it's around $2 per pound. Obviously, it's been beaten in Q1 and Q2, and really.
In Q2.
In Q2, okay, largely because of smelting and refining charges being lower. Is that something? I know you've maintained the cost. Go ahead.
No. Yeah, we guide it. If you're interested in the guidance, I would say the best source of information and probably the news release you should keep close to you year-round is our guidance news release, which is usually our first news release of the year. We provide there not only what the cash flow guidance is going to be, but also to search for experiences in terms of what happens to those copper prices moving up or down, moly prices moving up or down, and even forward sales. When we provided our guidance for the year in terms of cash cost, we knew already what the spot prices, oh, sorry, what the TCRCs, the treatment and refining charges, were going to be for the year. Any variations that you've seen from guidance to actual are not driven by lower smelt and refinery charges.
I guess I'm probably just ignorant and don't understand it, and maybe you can better explain it. Are these decreases at least the lower numbers than the cash cost guidance expected from smelting and refining? I guess what I'm getting at is, is this something that's going to be long-term, or is this kind of one-off?
The variances that we're seeing right now are coming in from higher moly productions. They're coming in from a better, or from a lower, from at least a strong Chilean peso compared to U.S. dollar. Those are the significant variances that are coming from. They're not coming by lower smelter and refinery charges. In our case, as is also the case for most copper concentrate producers, we work not on the basis of spot treatment and refining charges, but on what's called an annual benchmark treatment and refining charge that is known at the end of the prior year. You work with those figures and with those charges for the rest of the year, irrespective of what happens with the spot TCRCs. There are long-term or annually set rates that don't change through the year.
Okay. Thank you. The last subject, and I'll preempt this question by thanking you for doing the interviews that you do, the kind of long form, hour, hour and a half long videos. Those are incredibly helpful and answer a lot of my questions. Part of that, when you're questioned about the overall DEP contracts, both for historic and fresh tailings, you know, obviously, you provide guidance in the management discussion and analysis saying, basically, there's very little chance of DEP canceling our contract in the short term. With regards to the current extension contract deadlines, obviously, it's been renewed and renewed. When can you provide us any guidance on when we might hear about talks of an additional extension or just kind of when we could start thinking about hearing that or, I don't know, some sort of guidance on that?
We are 12 years away from the contract expiring. Can I share you one thing? If I'm Codelco, in 12 years, you will not hear from it on year 11. You probably will hear from it around year 6, 6 years before. This is critical to us. It is a genesis of what the company is. This is not a discussion or a negotiation that we're going to leave to the end of, or closer to 2037. We're still 12 years away from that.
Yeah, I know. It's very important. I think it's very important. That's why I figured I'd ask. I appreciate it, and your confidence is one of the main reasons I'm an investor. You are one of the main reasons I'm an investor in Amerigo Resources. I appreciate you and the entire team there. Thank you for all of the work that you do.
You're very kind.
Thank you. If we have no further questions, I will turn the call back over to Aurora Davidson for closing comments.
Thank you very much. Again, my apologies for any communication disruptions through the call. We try to avoid them as much as we can. Thank you for attending today's call, and thank you to Carmen and Graham for being on the call as well. The recording and the script will be available on Amerigo's website in the next few days. We will hold our next earnings call on Thursday, October 30, to report our third quarter results. Please visit our website regularly for updates, and feel free to contact us with any questions at your convenience. Thank you for your continued interest in Amerigo.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our conference call for today. We thank you for participating, and we ask that you please disconnect now.