Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Colby, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome you to the Discovery T hird Quarter 2025 Conference Call and Webcast. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise, and after the speakers' remarks , there will be a question-and-answer session. If you'd like to ask a question at that time, please press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question at any time, please press star one again. I'd now like to turn the call over to Mark Utting, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much, Colby, and thanks everyone for joining us today for Discovery's third quarter 2025 conference call and webcast. Joining me today are many members of Discovery's management team. Speakers for today's presentation include Tony Makuch, our Chief Executive Officer; Alison White, our Chief Financial Officer; Pierre Rocque, our Chief Operating Officer; as well as Eric Kallio, our Senior Vice President, Exploration and Growth; and José Jabalera, our Vice President, Corporate Affairs and Sustainability for Mexico. Tony will have some concluding remarks. As you know, late yesterday, we issued our Q3 2025 results press release. This release, as well as the MD&A and financials, are available on our website at discoverysilver.com and have been filed on CDAR+ . Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that during today's call, we will be making forward-looking statements.
These statements are based on current expectations, assumptions, and projections about future events. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those included in the forward-looking information. For more information on our FLI, please refer to the information on slide 2 in the slide deck, as well as our disclosures on our website. In addition, we will be making references to a number of non-GAAP measures during the presentation. These measures are included to provide additional information and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute of measures of performance prepared in accordance with GAAP accounting standards. These measures do not have any standardized meaning prescribed under GAAP and therefore may not be comparable to other issuers.
Again, refer to slide 3 in the deck, as well as cautionary language on our website for more information about non-GAAP measures. Finally, all dollar amounts today will be in U.S. dollars unless otherwise indicated. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Tony Makuch, our CEO.
Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining. Thanks, Mark, for the intro here and setting this up. Maybe before I get into results, I can acknowledge people at Discovery. It's a lot of people working very hard to get the performance here that we get to talk about. Some of them, there are a lot of people on shift, a lot of people working today. There are some people at home resting to come on shift at night, and many other people at home with their families prepping for their next shift rotation. Thanks, everyone, for all of what you do. As we come forward, let's continue to work safely, especially now as we're coming into the holiday season.
It's a time to maintain awareness and diligence on your safety and the safety of others in the workplace so that we can all have a strong finish to the year. Anyway, looking at Q3, we turned in a very solid quarter. In particular, the company doubled its adjusted earnings per share from the second quarter. We generated substantial free cash flow, and we built our cash and capital strength. Before getting into the details, I'll turn to—sorry, I'll just turn to slide 5, where we had a very solid quarter in Q3. We see from here, production increased 25% to 63,000 ounces, while gold sales rose over 50% to 66,000 ounces. Unit costs improved this quarter, with all-in sustaining costs 16% lower than Q2. Going to slide 6, we achieved solid earnings performance. Alison will get into the details. I'll just review the high-level numbers.
Revenue totaled $237 million, a 67% increase from last quarter. Revenue in the quarter resulted from—or the increased revenue was brought from increased sales, 66,000 ounces of gold sales, and increased gold price average of gold price. Realizing that gold price for the quarter was $34.90 per ounce. EBITDA totaled $122 million, which is up more than 120% from the second quarter of this year. Earnings per share was $0.05 per share, while adjusted earnings per share was $0.08 per share. As mentioned, our adjusted earnings per share doubled from last quarter. I'll let Alison give you a little bit more color on that. Slide 7. Now, it shows our cash flow and what's happening with our cash position. As mentioned, we did generate a lot of cash flow in Q3 and really continued to strengthen our balance sheet. Operating cash flow totaled $154 million.
Free cash flow was $87 million. That $87 million was triple the level of free cash flow in the second quarter of this year. Our cash position rose 35%, then up to $342 million. Total liquidity rose to just under $600 million. That total liquidity includes cash on hand, as well as the $250 million from our new revolving credit facility we announced during the third quarter. There is also a $100 million accordion feature on the facility that should be required. Going to slide 8, this looks at our key investment programs in the quarter. Total capital expenditures were $65 million, $44 million of which were growth capital. Many of the key programs were a combination of projects in the advancement of Pamour, where about $15 million was related to pre-stripping.
We also continued with our tailings project to build out and buttress the number six dam. In addition, we were also commencing work to reconfigure the dam into multiple cells, which will benefit us in several ways as we operate that operator. Sustaining capital totaled $21 million in the quarter, and the majority of this was capital for ongoing development at Hoyle Pond and Borden, and it also included equipment, etc. Going to slide 9, we have an extensive exploration program that realized the really potential at Porcupine. I'll let Eric talk about this.
For me, one of the exciting parts about, besides the operating performance and what we can do from an operations improvement at Porcupine and how we can advance some new projects at Porcupine, I think needless to say, some of the work—and I'm sure Eric and Pierre and the team will actually be driving this—but in a 100-year-old mining camp, there's a lot of potential to come up with a lot of new discoveries. Anyway, you can see that we had excellent results from resource conversion expansion during Hoyle Pond, Borden, and Pamour. We are very encouraged with building results at Al Creek. This is a high-priority target. It's about 3 km west of Hoyle Pond. You might call it somewhat of a new discovery or an unloved deposit that really comes to the forefront. You see that this is a new discovery and potential new operation.
We also gave an update on our work programs at Dome Mine in terms of looking at what is required in terms of work on the resource as well as on TBZ. These are two high-priority targets that we can continue to add or add significant value into future growth for the company. Going to slide 10, this is showing a couple of our key priorities moving forward. A lot of the drilling we are doing is supporting an updated technical report for Hoyle Pond, Borden, and Pamour. We expect this to be released sometime in the second half of 2026. The ramp-up with Pamour is continuing and making very good progress. This is at Pamour where we are building a new open pit mine. As we talked about, we are advancing three key studies.
One on the Dome Mine, what we do, what the Dome resource potential can be, whether it's a pit, an underground, or a combination thereof. The Dome mill itself, how we can make some improvements at the mill both from operating performance and reliability and reduce the cost reduction as well as for expansion of the Dome mill. And we've got the TBZ zone. All these studies will be ongoing into next year. Finally, going to slide 11, I'll touch briefly on Cordero. José Jabalera was here. He'll give you more details later in the presentation. I'll just say that this is an extremely exciting project, and we continue to have positive developments. I've seen positive developments from Mexico. We continue to be optimistic that Cordero will receive its approval very soon.
We look forward to a lot of exciting times in terms of what this can add in terms of value creation for the shareholders of Discovery. Anyway, with that, I'll turn the call over to our CFO, Alison White.
Thank you, Tony, and good afternoon, everyone. Let's start with slide 12, where I'll provide an overview of our operating and financial performance during the quarter. After I complete my commentary on the financial performance, Pierre will talk about our operational performance. During the quarter, we had robust revenues of $237 million, an increase of 67% quarter over quarter driven by higher gold sales to 66,200 ounces from 42,550 ounces the previous quarter, and an increase of over $150 an ounce in the average realized gold price to $3,489 per ounce sold, which was bolstered by the increased gold prices throughout the quarter in the market. As mentioned, a key highlight of the third quarter was cash flow. The net cash from operating activities of $153.5 million and free cash flow totaling $86.8 million. Our cash position increased by 35% to $341.5 million during Q3.
With our current cash position, as well as the new revolving credit facilities for $250 million and an additional $100 million accordion feature, we remain well-capitalized to execute on growing production, improving operations, and maximizing value creation at Porcupine. If we move to look at adjusted net earnings on the next slide, Discovery delivered adjusted net earnings and adjusted net earnings per share in Q3 of $61.1 million or $0.08 per basic share, which compared to adjusted net loss of $2.3 million or $0.01 per share in Q3 2024 and adjusted net earnings of $28 million or $0.04 per basic share in the prior quarter.
Adjusted net earnings included the exclusion of the after-tax impact of the $18.5 million of purchase price allocation adjustment during the quarter, $9.2 million of the foreign exchange gains, $3.3 million of the TSA costs or transaction costs paid to Newmont, and $1.6 million of transaction-specific business development costs. Let's take a look at EBITDA on slide 14. Q3 EBITDA is $122 million, which increased 121% quarter over quarter driven by higher revenue, reduction in corporate G&A costs, largely due to one-time transaction-specific expenses related to the Porcupine acquisition during Q2. Q3 EBITDA also represented earnings prior to the impact of $35.8 million of depreciation and amortization expense, with $15.2 million of net financing costs and $28.7 million of income tax expenses in the third quarter.
Strong revenues in the current gold price environment helped our EBITDA quarter over quarter and the impact of a full quarter in Q3 versus the shortened ownership period of 76 days in Q2. Slide 15 shows our cash costs and our all-in sustaining costs. Operating cash costs remained steady, averaging $1,339 per ounce sold versus $1,341 per ounce sold in Q2 2025. All-in sustaining costs averaged $1,734 per ounce sold compared to $2,074 per ounce sold the previous quarter. Site-level AISC in Q3 2025 averaged $1,699 per ounce sold versus $1,849 per ounce sold in Q2. To clarify, site-level AISC includes corporate G&A allocation and excludes remaining corporate G&A, share-based compensation costs, and corporate-level sustaining capital expenditures.
Overall, the improvement in AISC to $1,734 per ounce reflected a 56% increase in ounces of gold sold, lower corporate G&A costs, the adjustment to the amortization of site closure provisions as a result of the purchase price accounting that was booked during Q3. If we move on to slide 16, Discovery's cash balance at September 30th totaled $341.5 million, an increase of 35% from $252 million at June 30th, 2025. The increase of $89 million primarily resulted from net cash from operating activities of $153.5 million, partially offset by additions to mineral interests, plants, and equipment of $66.7 million. The net cash from operating activities resulted from proceeds generated from gold sales at the Porcupine operation. Net cash used in operating activities and additions to mineral interests, plants, and equipment in the quarter totaled $1.2 million and $2.3 million, respectively.
As I mentioned earlier, with our current cash as well as our new revolving credit facility for $250 million and the additional $100 million accordion feature, Discovery's liquidity position is substantial, placing the company in a well-capitalized position as it moves forward to execute against its strategic priorities. I will now turn the call over to Pierre Rocque, our Chief Operating Officer.
Thank you, Alison. It is a pleasure to be presenting today. I will be speaking to slide 17. During Q3, we recovered over 63,000 ounces of gold, with total gold poured just shy of 66,000 ounces. These results compare favorably to the over 50,000 and almost 47,000 ounces produced and poured, respectively, in the previous quarter. Higher production in Q3 2025 mainly reflected the favorable impact of increased mining rates and higher average rates at both Borden and Pamour. This was partially offset by a reduction in mining rates and average rates at Hoyle Pond. During Q3 2025, production at Hoyle Pond continued to be impacted by ventilation constraints during the period of high temperatures, which limited access to higher-grade areas of the SOD. At Dome Mill, we processed a total of 809,000 tons at an average grade of 2.7 grams per ton and average recoveries of 90%.
Based on operating days, we average around 9,300 tons per day. Mill operating costs during Q3 2025 totaled $17 million for an average of $21 per ton, which compared to $13 million and an average of $25 per ton, respectively, the previous quarter. The improvement primarily resulted from the 59% increase in tons processed. You have already heard many of the other cost numbers. Briefly, production costs were $107 million versus $55 million in the previous quarter. Operating cash costs per ounce sold were similar to the last quarter. All-in sustaining costs per ounce sold at the site level averaged $16.99 per ounce sold compared to $18.49 in Q2 2025.
Included in Q3 2025, all-in sustaining costs was $22 million of sustaining capital expenditure at the site level, mainly related to capital development activities and capital expenditures related to the savings management area number six, which increased from $15 million in Q2 2025. I'll now turn the call to Eric Kallio, our Senior Vice President for Exploration.
Okay, thank you, Pierre, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm on slide 18. As people may have noticed, we have a lot going on in exploration. In my view, making some very good progress, including some excellent assays from all our key projects. I'll be touching on all of these, but my first slide relates to geology and projects in the Hoyle Pond/Al Creek area, which includes lower F, TBZ, and Al Creek deep projects. One of the first things to note here is we're looking at a relatively small area on the east extension of the Hoyle Pond volcanic belt. The Hoyle Pond mine is on the far east side. Mineralization is on a distinct flexure, which plunges to the northeast.
The lower F zone, which we'll be talking about very shortly, is on the northeast side of the mine, just east of the 1060 fault, and the TBZ zone and sedimentary rocks about 800 meters to the south. In terms of Al Creek, the project is about 3 km west of Hoyle Pond and centered on an easterly plunging wedge of volcanics just east of the Al Creek fault, and with mineralization mostly in swarms of veins near the tip of the wedge. Next, going to slide number 19, we see a long section for lower F, where as noted earlier, we added another 13 drill intercepts to the lower and west sides of the resource between the 2100 and 2300 levels, with very positive results in both cases.
As indicated here, our drilling to depth added five new pierce points, including several highlights, such as 23.95 over 7.1 meters near the 2,300 meter level, giving us strong evidence that the system is still open to depth. Drilling to the west, we added another eight points with some additional high grades, and in this case, showing good potential for new lenses for a drill long strike. At this point, drilling is continuing with four drills, with the pace of drilling steadily increasing. Next, going to slide number 20, we see an image for Al Creek, where we recently added 11 new holes testing strike and depth extensions of mineralization from the historic pit, which was mined by Falconbridge in the 1980s. Again, these holes came up with some very positive results. Details for the open pit, geology, and new holes are shown on the current slide.
As indicated, the pit is centered on the wedge of volcanics just east of the fault. All the new holes were drilled just a little bit to the east of this and designed to hit the projected downplunge extension of the mineralization in this area. As indicated in our release, the results were very favorable, with several high-grade values over very good width, as well as indicating the zone is still open to depth. At this point, the program is continuing with three drills and still focused at depth, but we're also planning for more holes, which will be at slightly shallower levels, and then on new targets such as the 750 zone, which is about 750 meters to the east. At this point, the program. [crosstalk] Yeah, okay. Turn to my next slide, 21.
On slide 21, we see an image for the TBZ, where we very recently started drilling to prepare for the maiden resource in 2026. As mentioned, the TBZ is a significant zone of mineralization on the south side of the mine, with mineralization being contained in a northeasterly plunging shear zone. It was discovered and advanced by Goldcorp between 2008 and 2014, but then put on pause mainly due to low gold prices and additional work that was required. Before pausing, however, the company developed several excellent drill platforms and added about 400 holes to allow definition of the broad targets that we see here shown in green. This provides an excellent starting point for work going ahead.
Considering all this, our near-term plan is basically just to do a lot more drilling to infill and extend as much of this as possible while we do the resource update, with some of this being from historic platforms that we can see here on the slide and some from new deeper ones on 1680 and the 1810 levels. Drilling is just underway, and we have one drill on the 1680 level, but we have two additional starting very shortly on the 1210 level. We expect to see a lot of new results coming from here very soon. Turning to slide number 22, we see a planned view of the Borden mine, where we completed 19 more holes targeting the northeast portion of the main zone, which is the host for most of the gold here.
As indicated, all drilling is being done from a series of cutouts in the 585 drift, which sits about 200-300 meters in the hanging wall to the target, with most recent holes being from cutouts 5, 6, and 7. Looking at results, we believe they are all very positive, with many of the holes indicating similar or better grades in width than current resources, including several highlights such as 9.41 over 12.6, 19.29 over 5.2, 13.88 over 6.9. Given all this and the limited surface drilling for at least 1 kilometer to the northeast, we believe Borden is in very good position for future growth. Programs continue with three drills working from the same cutouts, as well as development is now in progress to extend the drift even further.
Planning is also in progress to add a surface rig to start testing the area northeast of the mine and along strike of the underground drift. Turning to slide number 23, we have the Pamour, where we received assays from another 32 holes testing within and surrounding the new open pit resource. To give you some perspective here, the Pamour is about 20 kilometers east of Timmins, was a major gold producer from the 1930s until the late 1980s. The key infrastructure for the project included the small pit and shaft, which you can see in the central part of the slide shown with the black outline, as well as the Bruelane pit to the west and then the Holt shaft to the east.
Geologically, the mine is on the north side of the Destor Porcupine Fault, which straddles a major unconformity between volcanic and sedimentary rocks, with mineralization in vein swarms and stock roots, both on the unconformity and in the volcanic rocks that sit to the north. The new drilling was designed mainly to upgrade and expand resources within the new pit shells adjacent to the historic Pamour workings. It easily met our expectations with multiple highlights from several areas, including some standouts such as 1.44 over 104.6 and 1.07 over 54.5. The drill program is continuing here with three drills focused on the east, west, and central parts of the current pit, with planning in progress to expand the scope to areas even further along strike and depth. We hope to be able to report more on these in the future.
Turning to my last slide, which is number 24, we have the Dome, which is another great project where it just started drilling to support new resource studies in 2026. As you can see, this is a slide with a lot going on here. The key things that I'd like to get to are really the geology setting and the current drilling. To start, I'll just point out that the entire project is actually centered on the historic pit, which is in the middle of the slide and marked here in cyan. The overall project is actually just an expansion of this to the depth, so that the current resource pit and the smaller alternatives in red are just really envelopes to mine the same water body to depth.
If you look at in terms of geology, what we're looking at is the bright colors here overlapping everything. If you're able to see all this, you'll see that the pit is centered in actually a prime geological environment at the junction of two major structures, with one being a major contact between volcanics and sediments, which is called the Greenstone Nose, and the other being the Dome Fault. The Greenstone Nose is mainly on the west part of the pit, marked with green, and the Dome Fault is the orange-brown line kind of going through the center of the pit in a northeasterly direction. Important to note is that almost all mineralization in the pit area lies along these two structures, and that both of these and the mineralization plunges at a shallow angle to the northeast.
In terms of the current drill program, we're aiming for 7,500 meters in 2025, and then a much larger program in 2026, with most of the focus being on upgrading the pit model, but also looking at underground potential below. Drilling at present is in progress with one drill and working to test the two areas marked with yellow stars, which are on the Dome Fault, with planning in progress for more northern areas on the Greenstone Nose. In summary, a lot of projects in progress, a lot of good results. With that, I'll pass over to José Jabalera, our VP Corporate Affairs and Sustainability Flex Point.
Thank you, Eric. I will continue progress on the Cordero project in Mexico. We are still in evaluation on our main permit, there is a MIA on SEMARNAT , but we are increasing dialogue with the senior-level officials in the government. A couple more meetings with them will be very positive. We are seeing recently an approval of a new open pit in Mexico, so that gives us a sign, a very positive sign to maybe we are on the line. The things are changing in Mexico, making progress on the permitting side. Also, additional work that we are doing around there is some studies and evaluations around our options around the power and also around the water that will be taking care of the sustainability of the project. We will be working with drinking water around the break.
That's around Cordero, so I'll pass the word to Tony Makuch, our CEO.
Thanks, José. I'll conclude on slide 26. You can really see, and from our presentation, we have a very solid quarter in Q3. I'm not sure how much we highlight, but we feel very confident we're positioned to finish the year with a very solid good quarter and a good quarter in Q4. As I have said many times, we have a lot of work to do because we have a lot of opportunity here. There's a lot more. Maybe as we progress into next year, we'll be able to talk to you about a lot of the exciting things that we're seeing. We're advancing a number of studies. We talk about Dome, TBZ, and a lot of opportunity for value creation upside. You can see from the exploration, we have a lot of upside in exploration. Again, I don't take it lightly.
I think the opportunity for new discoveries in a 100-year-old mining camp is phenomenal. We should also recognize that we're in a pretty good gold price environment, a lot more better so than maybe people in the past. There's a lot of showings and a lot of past drill results that we can follow up on. We really, really do a lot of great things within inner turning into water bodies. At Cordero, as you heard from José, there have been a number of positive developments. We're looking forward to receiving the RMI approval and advancing that project in due course. Underlying everything we do, it's very important to see that from a balance sheet perspective, we're in a very strong financial position.
We have over $600 million of total liquidity on the balance sheet, and we are well placed to finance all of our growth plans. Before closing, maybe I want to acknowledge and say how honored we are and value how we value our strong relationship with our First Nation partners in the region, in the Turquoise Region. In October, we announced the resource development agreement with Taykwa Tagamou Nation. Through this agreement, we established framework for a cooperative mutually beneficial relationship moving forward. We value very much our agreements with our other First Nation partners in Porcupine, including Abitibi, Anishinabek, the Teme-Augama, the Mattagami, Flying Post, and the Chapleau, including Missanabie Cree, Brunswick House, the Chapleau Ojibwe, and Chapleau Cree. We look forward to building further relationships and growing our businesses with them. Thank you for the trust that you've given to us.
Anyway, with that, I'll thank you all again for participating in the call, and we'll be happy to take any questions.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and enter the queue. If you'd like to withdraw your question at any time, simply press star one again. Thank you. Your first question comes from the line of Cosmos Chiu with CIBC. Your line is open.
Hi. Thanks, Tony and team. And congrats on a very strong Q3. Maybe my first question is on your reporting. I noticed that in Q3, the reporting is a bit more high level. I think in the past, you had given us more granularity in terms of how much tonnage was coming from, say, Hoyle Pond and Pamour individually, but I did not see that for Q3. I guess my question, Tony, is number one, is this a permanent change, or are we going to get some of that detail later on in future quarters? Number two, why that change? Number three, you kind of talked about it, or Pierre kind of talked about the fact that Hoyle Pond was not as good, but Pamour and Borden were good, so it offset it. Overall, the grade still came down from 3.39 last quarter to 2.69.
How should we look at it? How should we evaluate it in terms of how each of these assets are performing? Or better question is, how do you evaluate how each of these components are performing?
Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Cosmos. Good question. I mean, just to make sure we understand, we intend to mind these businesses in a very granular form. We do want to offer managing each one of our businesses and really know what's going on. I guess maybe the thing we realized from last quarter to this quarter, in terms of the way the business is currently informed and as we're transitioning through some of the legacy systems we have, we're still running through legacy accounting systems and processes that are in place, a lot of processes we're working on. That's on the financial side, how we're tracking costs, et cetera, how we're tracking material movement from mines and stockpiles and how things are getting processed through the plant, how we're tracking metallurgical recoveries, a lot of areas. There's a lot of things we need to manage.
We feel like maybe at this point in time, until we have all of our systems in place, I think we're going to have to work towards reporting more of it in a consolidated form in order to give really truly accurate information. We have a general sense on what's happening. Maybe more than a general sense of what's happening in each operation, but there's still a lot of question marks on things. I think we're choosing to do the report and consolidate at this point in time. I can tell you that our goal, we're coming into next year, our accounting system probably being placed by June of next year, our SAP. Alison can give you more comments on that. We have a lot of work to do in our asset lab and met lab.
We have a lot of work to do in processes in terms of what's coming from underground, understanding our resource models, reestablishing things so we have a better handle on grade and grade delivery. There was a lot of stockpiles, a lot of things happening there. We just felt that it's probably better to give a consolidated number because that is the one true number that can really tell you what's going on. In terms of your second question, maybe I'll get Pierre. You want to give some color there? Hopefully, that's a good enough answer.
Yeah. Thanks, Tony. That's great. Yeah. Hi, Pierre.
Hi. So you want an answer about the grade or about the different?
Yeah. How should we look at it? I know the reason why it came down, maybe Hoyle Pond is higher grade, but how can we use these numbers in the meantime as you kind of ramp up on the accounting?
Right. In terms of the average grade, what happened at Hoyle is, as you know, during summertime, we had some very, very hot days, and that translated into a very hot work environment, especially in the stopes at depth. As a coincidence, maybe that's where our high-grade stopes are located. We had to basically slow down or sometimes stop the extraction of those stopes. That was during Q3. Now, of course, with winter being upon us, that's not an issue anymore. We have restarted those stopes. We're planning ventilation upgrades, for example, twinning vent raises. If that's not sufficient, we're going to shift the focus on the upper areas. We are looking at various alternatives here to improve situations such as cooling and refrigeration. We're also improving practices that we have for sampling in the stopes.
As Tony just mentioned, we inherited some procedures and standards from the previous owner that are different from our own procedures and standards. We are putting that in place. We expect improvements in the run-of-mine grade from Hoyle Pond in Q4.
Great. Maybe if I can switch gears a little bit on the mill. I noticed that there was a five-day shutdown, planned maintenance shutdown in Q3. There was also a two-week shutdown in the previous quarter. I'm just trying to figure out some of these items that you did seem to be kind of not as recurring, like replacing the discharge head of the rod mill and rebuilding the tertiary crusher and things like that. I guess my question is, number one, what should we expect in terms of maintenance schedule on a go-forward basis and the impact on availability? Number two, the cost per ton, it's great. I saw that it went down quite a bit here. As you mentioned, $2,540 to $2,115 on the basis of the increase in throughput by about over 50%. Your nameplate is still 12,000.
Can we see a further decrease in the cost per ton in terms of milling as you reach that higher availability and also reach potentially that 12,000 tons per day?
Maybe I'll let Gord answer the question, but there's a lot of these projects that there's a number of things we're working on throughout the group process. Go ahead, Gord.
We replaced the thickener rake drive. That's a one-time fix. We replaced the shell and the discharge head on B rod mill. It's another one-time shell. We have tanks in the leach circuit that need replacement that we're working on. We also have CIP tanks that we're working on. There's a lot of one-time costs that are going in. While we're doing that, we're making process changes as well to improve the throughput. We're also working on recovery. We are working towards a 12,000-ton-per-day mill with a 93% recovery. We're just not there yet.
Great. Could you share with us, are we expecting any kind of maintenance shutdown in Q4? If you do reach 12,000 tons per day, Gord, we should see a further decrease in the cost per ton mill, right?
Yeah. I think you'll see we're slowly increasing as we go with these improvements. There will be a shutdown in Q4. That's one of the reasons the plant's in the condition it is. There was no maintenance done prior.
Okay. Maybe one last question. I'm trying to decide on either Mexico or exploration, but I'll stick with Mexico. I guess you kind of touched on Cordero. In Mexico, we've actually seen permits being granted recently. Any kind of read-through to Cordero, your project? On top of that as well, Tony, maybe bigger picture, is Cordero something that if you do get the permits or when you do get your permits, is it something that you want to build, or is it something that you might want to find a strategic partner for? Maybe it's too early to answer the question, but how should we look at it?
You want to start, José? Or you want me to start? First off and foremost, Cordero is a very viable project and definitely something that will be a cornerstone asset in the silver space. In terms of building it, we are well set up to build it. Our goal here is to do what we can to maximize value for our shareholders. We see the opportunities in what we do. We are going to have a lot of options once we get our permit. That might be a time to talk about. I can sit there and say, within our DNA, the first thing we do normally is create value for shareholders as we build it ourselves. On the permitting side, José, and.
Yeah. On the permitting side, we've seen recently new permits being granted for a new open pit and expansions around that. That is it. The authority is progressing on the backlog that they added on permits around mining and things like that. We're pretty sure that this thing moving will be a positive thing for us and for the mining industry in Mexico to see progress in the next months.
Great. Thanks. I don't want to hog the mic. Those are the other questions I have. I'll talk to you next time, Eric. Congrats again on a very good Q3.
Yeah. Thanks, Cosmos.
Your next question comes from the line of Phil Kerr with Ventum Financial. Your line is open.
Thanks, operator. Congrats, Tony and team. Two questions today. I guess I'll follow up on the Mexican theme here. I'm just curious, since you submitted your MIA back in 2023, you've noted that dialogue has increased recently. I'm curious, have you had any on-site technical reviews with the SEMARNAT groups at all?
Go ahead.
Okay. Yeah. We had a visit from officials from the Ministry of Economy because they had a working group together, Ministry of Economy and SEMARNAT and things like that. They designated a group, and we got a visit from Luz Laguna from the Ministry of Economy. It was a visit to the project to see stakeholders, see the status of the project, and how they mainly focus also in the acceptance or how the perception around the project. It was a very good visit. We see our neighbors, our heroes, the mayor of the city, people around there. It was very positive feedback from all the people around there. Also, again, they were asking when will be the permit granted because the people want to have more opportunities for jobs, for development of the city and things around that. It was a very positive visit.
We got very good notes and reviews around that. We are pretty sure that will help for our permit.
Okay. I guess I was just curious if there was a follow-up technical review required as part of the kind of final stamp of approval for the MIA.
We pretty much passed most of it, I think.
No, we're already on the tramites that we'll need to follow around the MIA. It's done. No visits, more visits. It's already done. We also submitted a little bit more information, additional information to our tramite. So the status is on evaluation. So it's.
It's pretty much passed legal and technical review. It's really been maybe some additional things and just discussions and trading information back and forth in terms of sustainability, other issues, right?
Yeah.
Sorry, go ahead.
Some issues around in Mexico, you apologize and things like that. There are concerns around water and community existence and things like that. We already addressed all of those things to go in the evaluation of the permit.
Yeah. The feedback basically is they're not asking us for any more questions, any more clarifications. It's just right now, it's just timing, right?
Yeah.
Okay. Just one more for me, and then I'll get back in queue. Back to Hoyle Pond. Tony, I think this is something you implemented over at Macassa, and just given the ventilation challenges here, are you evaluating purchasing electric scoops at all? If so, how soon could you implement those here at site?
You want to answer that, Pierre?
Sure. So actually, we have received the electric scoop there. So it will be a mixed fleet, same as we have at Gord in.
You also have an electric truck.
That battery-powered truck is, if you did, this being commissioned now.
Okay.
I mean, that helps. That's definitely something that's part of the goal going forward, but we still have to include ventilation and get more air. Similar to Macassa, if you go back to Macassa for 2018, 2019, 2020, it was a combination of battery-powered equipment, new vent raises, and new shafts at some point in time.
Great. Okay. Perfect. Congratulations on everything. Hope it continues. Thanks, operator.
Your next question comes from John Tumazos with John Tumazos Very Independent Research. Your line is open.
Thank you for your services to the company. I have a few questions on development project magnitudes. For Al Creek, would a target be maybe 500 tons a day of output in several years, 3.75 grams a ton, or might it be bigger?
I'll be a little bit early to say. I mean, you know what? That's not stretching the, those numbers there are really not stretching the envelope at all, right? I don't know where it puts your thoughts in.
Yeah, some of these still evaluated. I mean, we've seen a number of different types of zones, some narrower and higher grades, and some that are like large and small. Large and large to the end, and then maybe bulk mine. So it's maybe some combination of that. I mean, we see a lot of their additions directly under the pits as well. It's just defined by historic drilling, but I mean, that definitely could be looked at as a bulk. We don't know how it all comes together. We need a lot more drilling to just divide things.
Yeah. So in a nutshell, John, it could be 500 tons a day or 3.75 grams per ton. That's probably pretty straightforward. You do have potential for another pit, the extended pit in Monta More. You do have potential for it is some, we put, there's multiple zones and with base forms that you might be able to do some large bulk mining, like that's an 8-meter wide slope, so you can even. There's a lot of things to work at there. I think what you're talking about there would be probably the smaller end of the, how do you want to put that, smaller end of the prize. There's good opportunity here in terms of that. We have to drill and we have to figure it out, right? We have mineralization in both volcanics and sediments there, Eric?
Yeah. Both of those new intersections are in the volcanics. Also, the pit was a little bit more in the sediments, but we're mostly in the volcanics.
Yeah. You got a lot of it's the fact that it crosses stratigraphy and it ties into a lot of what you see in the camp. It's a lot of structural things to figure out and really understand what's happening. It could be very deep-seated. Who knows how deep it goes, right?
Second, could you refresh us as to the infrastructure for the Dome Underground Mine restart potential? Is it a 1,000- or 2,000-ton-a-day project? Is it close to 3 grams or 6 grams per stope grades, etc.?
Sorry, you mean could we reestablish the infrastructure of underground?
If you restarted the Dome Underground, what might the magnitudes be?
I mean, that's an assessment I think that we have to look at. You do have this resource near the top, right, that's been identified down to about, I think, what, 700 meters, right, Eric?
Yeah, 2,000 ft.
Yeah. The deposit, I mean, the mine itself has gone down 5,000 feet. There are bulk slopes below that that were taken in the past. There is real results, and they understand what could be there. You'd have to assess what could happen. It would need some newer kind of infrastructure development. It could be a combination of pit and underground. We don't know yet.
Yeah. With the mining industry, the added combination of narrow-vein, high-grade, and medium volatile, and they even had large creek cave slopes here. The bigger slopes were already, with the lower gold price, were already in the 2 gram per ton kind of range.
They were mining themselves, right? They were mining themselves pretty much, right?
Right. Yeah. So they were possible to put in the mill at that time.
It could be somewhat of a maybe there's a potential sublevel crate mine here, John, or [crosstalk] there's definitely some bulk. We have to assess it. We do know that there's 11 million ounces near surface. We figured that there's a way to access a substantial portion of that without affecting the mill itself at all. There is the opportunity to look at it underground. It's maybe there's just as many, well, there's as many or more ounces there still than what's been mined historically in the past at Dome.
If you started at a low rate, go ahead, please.
Sorry. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead.
If you restarted a low rate at the Dome open pit late next year or 2027, how many tons a day might that be?
We have a phase one pit shell or something like that. Anywhere, I don't know. I mean, part of it is our mill capacity and where we are in grade in terms of who's above. That's why we are looking at improving our mill capacity and mill availability, right? I don't think that the productivity is not going to be somewhat the limitation is not going to be mine productivity, more mill productivity at this point in time over the next two or three years.
With all the drilling.
If we were to put something in place, I mean, you look at it. I mean, it operated at 8,000 or 10,000 tons a day in the past. We're developing power to run at those type of levels, and you can go up to about 12,000 tons a day. Over time, you can think of those levels are even doubled out. It's a lot of work to do. It's early stage, John, but you can see based on the geography and the size of the pit and the volume there, it's not unrealistic to mine this thing at, think about a 6, 7 to 1 strip ratio. We're doing 60,000 and 65,000 tons per day at Pamour on ore and waste. You can do that and then double that, and it gives you a sense of what your productivity is going to be.
With all the drilling at Hoyle Pond, does the likelihood increase that the Hoyle Pond output will be higher than the technical study back in January?
Eric.
Drilling that we're doing right now probably doesn't affect the production rate so much because we're drilling near the lower limit of the deeper. We're probably about 2-300 meters below.
A lot of the initial drilling at Hoyle Pond, some of the work that first off, you're trying to do work to support what's in the current technical report, right? To upgrade the resource and so you can have more measured and indicated, right? So that's part of it. There is work looking for new zones and extensions. We are investigating even going up higher into the mine in terms of finding new areas that we could that have either been left behind because it's too narrow or not quite the same grade as what had been in the past for cut-off rate. There is some opportunity there. The other opportunity is we're talking about towards Al Creek, and there are some other zones up higher that were potentially bulk minable, etc., that we can assess for Hoyle Pond.
It could be a combination of, I think, we are drilling right now. A big part of the drilling program is really to support within the technical report. That is number one. Then you do have, we do have a program for assessing the upper levels and some trying to bring some old historic areas back into production. There is the program to look for new deposits so that we can use it to bring, say, Hoyle Pond back up to the productivity that it used to be. That is fair, Pierre? Something?
Yeah. I would say, John, the upside is going to come from the upper area in the short term. This is something that previous operators never really looked at. We have started a program this year to look at that, do some development, do additional drilling like Eric is talking about so that we are confident that this will bear fruit for our 2026 budget year and beyond.
Maybe with the current resource that we do have at Hoyle Pond, the limitation is not necessarily the size of the resource. The limitation right now is ventilation and backfill, which are programs that Pierre and Duncan and everybody is working towards. That is part of our investment back into Hoyle Pond. You had more air, Eric?
I could. There's more shaft productivity. There's more trucking productivity that can be unlocked if we had more air. The shaft's not full. It's not the shaft that the hoist capacity is being used. Maybe it's 30% or 50% max.
If I could look ahead to 2028, after Pamour has been dewatered, what was the past mining rate at the Pamour Underground, and what were the grades?
Historically, Pamour ran about. It doesn't do work there, right? 3,000 tons a day, about 3 grams per ton was historic Pamour? [crosstalk] 3 grams per ton. Yeah. That was historic Pamour. That was the Pamour mill, right?
Yeah. 3,000 tons a day.
3,000 tons a day and about 3 grams per ton. Down to about 2,600 feet, 2,900 feet below surface.
2,800.
2,800.
That's something to look forward to when it's dewatered. Thank you for your patience. I apologize for asking questions where you don't have the data yet.
No, those are good questions, John, and they're good. How do you want to put leading questions? In terms of recognizing the value, unlockable value in these assets, right? There's lots of opportunity. We just have to move forward. We got to prioritize what we can do, right? Because we want to do them all, but we recognize that we have to do them in a particular order to get us in the right spot. Every one of these are opportunities and things that are going to happen over the next few years.
I want to get season tickets for the new arena when you get it built.
Sounds good. Maybe by then, we'll get the Maple Leafs to play there, and maybe they'll win again.
With no further questions in queue, I'd like to turn the conference back over to Mark Utting for closing remarks.
Thank you very much, operator. Again, thanks everyone for taking part in the call today. As you heard, we had a very solid quarter both from an operating and financial standpoint. Key theme being affiliated company to generate cash flow as a gold cash position. We significantly built our balance sheet strength during the quarter, which put us in a very good position entering Q4. As you heard, we certainly expect to finish the year strong. We look forward to [audio distortion] updating you again on our year-end call early in 2026. Again, thank you for joining.
This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.