Franco-Nevada Corporation (TSX:FNV)
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Sep 10, 2026, 4:00 PM EST
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Earnings Call: Q2 2021

Aug 12, 2021

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Franco-Nevada Corporation Q2 2021 results conference call. This call is being recorded today, August 12, 2021, and at this time, all lines are in a listen- only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session, and if any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Bonavie Tek . Please go ahead.

Bonavie Tek
VP of Finance and Investor Relations, Franco-Nevada

Thank you, Michelle. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss Franco-Nevada's second quarter 2021 results. Accompanying this call is a presentation available on our website at franco-nevada.com, where you will also find our full financial results. Paul Brink, President and CEO of Franco-Nevada, will provide some introductory remarks, followed by Sandip Rana, CFO of Franco-Nevada, who will provide a brief review of our results. This will be followed by a Q&A period. Our full executive team is available to answer any questions. We would like to remind participants that some of today's commentary may contain forward-looking information, and we refer you to a detailed cautionary note on slide two of this presentation. I will now turn the call over to Paul Brink, President and CEO of Franco-Nevada.

Paul Brink
President and CEO, Franco-Nevada

Thanks, Bonavie Good morning and thanks for joining our call. We're delighted to announce a record second quarter that builds on the momentum from our first quarter. Records for the quarter include GEOs sold, revenues, Adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted net income. We also continue to operate at near record margins. In Q2, we received our first payment under the newly acquired Vale Debentures. The ongoing ramp up at Cobre Panamá and higher deliveries from our Guadalupe stream were the other main drivers for the increase in GEOs sold. For the second half of 2021, we expect our portfolio to continue its strong performance, but expect lower deliveries and revenues from Tasiast as it recovers from the mill fire, and Hemlo with less production on our royalty ground.

We're raising the lower end of our GEO guidance for the year based on the strong performance of our mining assets here to date. With a recovery in oil and gas prices, energy revenues for the quarter were well again ahead of our guidance run rate, and as a result, we've made a meaningful increase to our energy revenue guidance for the year. A theme for this reporting season has been cost inflation, labor and materials, and energy. This is a stage in the cycle where our business model really distinguishes itself. Our revenue-based royalties and streams aren't impacted by cost inflation. We operate with small headcount and low G&A. Commodity price increases flow directly to our bottom line. In fact, we have leveraged inflation. As energy and steel prices increase, we benefit through our portfolio of energy and iron ore royalties.

Turning to our growth outlook, we expected 2021 to be a strong growth year, driven mostly by increasing contribution from Cobre Panamá. We've added to that growth with three new acquisitions totaling $850 million this year, Haynesville, Condestable, and Vale Debentures. The timing of the Haynesville addition is looking fortuitous, with strong natural gas prices. Condestable offers immediate precious metal cash flow and long term upside. The Vale interests add to our base of low risk, long life cash flow, and also increase our asset diversity. With the additions, the portfolio remains more than 80% precious metal focused. We're guiding to 25% growth in the business over five years from our 2020 level, with both organic mine expansions and new mines as the growth drivers. Cobre Panamá, Detour, Stillwater, and Tasiast are all being expanded over the period.

Kirkland Lake Gold graciously hosted our board to a visit to the Detour Lake mine this week. We came away very impressed with their team, the optimizations that are driving the output expansion, and the potential for the ore body to become far bigger over time. As a first step, we expect you'll see a meaningful increase to the resource based on the drilling that they're doing this year. In terms of new gold mines, Gold Fields reports that Salares Norte construction is on track, and we expect the development of Hardrock, Valentine Lake, and Stibnite Gold to follow. With an impressive PFS recently published, Skeena Resources' Eskay Creek is likely the next in the development timeline. Continued strong copper prices bode well for our pipeline of long term copper development projects, Alpala, Taca Taca, and NuevaUnión , amongst others.

One of the larger long term options in our portfolio are our royalties on the Ring of Fire chrome and Eagle Nickel deposits. The agreed acquisition by BHP of Noront Resources is a big step to making development of those deposits a reality. In summary, Franco-Nevada continues to deliver with record financial results, built-in growth, and tremendous long term optionality. We are cash positive, once again have no debt, have $1.4 billion in available capital, and are generating operating cash flow at a rate close to $1 billion per year. We're focused on precious metal acquisitions, and we see a good pipeline of opportunities. Sandip, over to you.

Sandip Rana
CFO, Franco-Nevada

Thanks, Paul. Good morning, everyone. The financial results for Q2 2021 continue to showcase the strength of Franco-Nevada's portfolio. Our royalty and stream assets, both mining and energy, continue to perform well, either in line or ahead of expectations. As Paul mentioned, the company achieved many financial records for second quarter. With GEOs sold, revenue, Adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted net income all reaching new highs. As you turn to slide three of the presentation, we have highlighted the gold and gold equivalent ounces sold for the three and and months ended June 30th, 2021 and 2020. Overall, GEOs sold increased significantly over prior year, as operations that were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 are now back to normal operations. For the quarter, GEOs sold of 166,856 was 60% higher than prior year. For the quarter, we had strong performance from a number of key assets.

Main contributors were Cobre Panamá, Guadalupe, Antapaccay , and Antamina, all of which produced ahead of expectations. The company recorded its first GEOs sold from the recent Vale Royalty purchase. The company accrued $28 million in revenue or 15,493 GEOs sold. This represented six months of revenue from January 1st to June 30th, 2021. The actual royalty premium payment will be declared on September 30th, at which time we will true up the amount we have accrued. As a result of recording six months of revenue for the Vale Royalty, our precious metals revenue was 75% for the quarter. We do expect to be back above 80% in the third quarter. One asset which did underperform for the quarter was Hemlo. We recorded less GEOs sold as the NPI amount was lower than expected.

A combination of less mining on our royalty lands along with higher operating costs resulted in 70% less GEOs being recorded during the quarter compared to prior year. We did expect the NPI to decrease as the year progressed, but the Q2 payment is lower than expected. Slide four highlights our total revenue and Adjusted EBITDA amounts for the three and six months ended June 30th, 2020 and 2021. As you can see from the bar charts, revenue and Adjusted EBITDA has increased significantly year-over-year. The $347.1 million in revenue in the quarter is a record, as is the Adjusted EBITDA of $290 million. A margin of 83.5% was achieved. Gold and silver revenue increased from $156.8 million in Q2 2020 to $239.9 million in Q2 2021, a 53% increase.

The increase was due to an increase in gold and silver ounces sold, combined with an increase in commodity prices. The second quarter also saw a strong contribution from the energy assets as revenue increased from $14.6 million a year ago to $47.3 million this quarter. The increase was due to the recovery in energy prices as in Q2 2020, we saw record low WTI prices. We also benefited from the recent Haynesville acquisition, which contributed $7.2 million in revenue during the quarter. As you turn to slide five, you'll see the key financial results for the company. As mentioned, the increase in revenue and Adjusted EBITDA was due predominantly to the increase in GEOs sold and an increase in commodity prices, both precious metals and energy. On the cost side, cost of sales was higher at $47.3 million versus $28 million a year ago.

The increase was due to more stream ounces being delivered, 109,000 versus 64,000 in Q2 2020. Depreciation was also higher quarter-over-quarter due to the increase in GEOs sold, a large portion being from higher depletion stream assets. As well, the company recorded the first depletion associated with the Vale Royalty. Adjusted net income and adjusted net income per share increased significantly in second quarter 2021. Adjusted net income was $182.6 million, or $0.96 per share, increases of approximately 100% for both over prior year. Franco-Nevada is both a royalty and a streaming company. Slide six breaks down the mix between streams and a royalty revenue for second quarter of 2021. The streams that Franco-Nevada has added have been very successful for the company, adding significant top-line growth. They have become the largest component of our revenue, generating $199.5 million, or 57% of revenue during the quarter.

However, it is royalties, whether mining or energy, which generate higher margin and thus cash flow from operations. As you can see, the costs related to royalties are minimal, with a combined cost of $3.1 million related to the $147.6 million in revenue generated by royalties. We believe our diversified business model of both stream and royalty assets will allow us to continue to achieve peer-leading EBITDA margins. With respect to margins, the chart on slide seven illustrates how the margin for the company increases as the gold price increases. Our mining cost structure, which we reflect in our cash cost per ounce, includes our cost of sales, less costs associated with the energy business, which are minimal. Cash cost per ounce usually ranges between $250-$300 per GEO sold.

In a rising gold price environment, we expect to benefit fully as the cost per ounce should not increase significantly. In fact, back in Q2 2019, the gold price averaged $1,310 per ounce, and our cash cost per ounce was $238. The average gold price is now $1,816 per ounce, having increased almost 40%, while the cash cost per ounce increased marginally. Strong margins is one of the strengths of our diverse portfolio. The other cash component of the company besides the cost of sales is our corporate administration costs. Our board and management are very proud of our focus on cost management. We like to stress the strength of our business model and the scalability.

The chart on slide eight clearly illustrates our focus on being as cost efficient as possible in managing this business. Here we have highlighted our quarterly revenues and our quarterly general and administrative expenses since our IPO. Since 2008, our revenues have grown from approximately $25 million to almost $350 million this quarter. This while our G&A has remained fairly stable over this time period. Q2 2021 corporate administration, including stock compensation expense, was 3% of revenue. Management believes we can continue to add to our portfolio and grow our business without adding significant overhead to the company. Slide nine highlights the diversification of the portfolio, which we consider one of the strengths and differentiators of Franco-Nevada. As shown, 86% of our Q2 2021 revenue was generated by mining assets. The geographic revenue profile has revenue being sourced 92% from the Americas, with South America being the largest at 34%.

With respect to asset diversification, Cobre Panamá was our largest revenue generator at 19% of total revenue for the quarter, followed by Candelaria at 10%. No other single asset generated more than 10% of revenue. The last chart highlights our operator diversity, our largest exposure to revenue being generated by any one operator is again 19%, which is First Quantum, who operates Cobre Panamá. On slide 10, we have provided updated guidance for 2021. As you will recall, we had previously raised our GEOs sold guidance to 580,000-615,000 with the acquisition of the Vale Royalty. With the strong performance for the first six months of 2021, we are increasing the bottom end of that range to 590,000. The new GEOs sold guidance range is 590,000-650,000.

For the second half of 2021, we expect to continue to benefit from the ramp-up at Cobre Panamá and strong production from Antamina. Also, with continued strong iron ore prices, the Vale Royalty should perform well. However, we do expect lower revenue for the Hemlo NPI as the operator mines less on our NPI lands. As you saw, the Q2 2021 Hemlo revenue was significantly lower than prior periods. For Musselwhite, one of our other NPIs, we do not expect to record any revenue until 2022, as the calculation is still in a deficit position, and we do not forecast any revenue from Tasiast in the second half as it recovers from the mill fire that occurred during Q2. For Gold Quarry and Gold strike, we did record revenue in the first six months of 2021 that related to prior periods.

Revenue from both is forecast to be slightly lower in the second half of 2021. For the energy business, we're pleased to raise our revenue guidance significantly to $155 million-$170 million from the previous $115 million-$135 million. This increase in guidance is due to strong rebound in energy prices we've seen this year. We've assumed $60 a barrel WTI and $2.75 mcf natural gas for the remainder of 2021. As of today, as seen on slide 11, with respect to available capital on hand, the company has liquidity of $1.4 billion. We did fund the Vale Royalty acquisition of $538 million with a combination of cash on hand and $150 million draw on our credit facility during second quarter. That drawdown has been fully repaid and the company is again debt-free. With that, I will turn it over to Michelle. Happy to take any questions.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question- and- answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press the star followed by the one on your touch-tone phone. If you wish to withdraw your question, please press the star followed by the two. If you are using a speaker phone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment please for your first question. Your first question comes from Greg Barnes, TD Securities. Please go ahead.

Greg Barnes
Analyst, TD Securities

Thank you. It's Greg Barnes. Sandip, just on the Vale accrual of $24 million, I think it was, or $28 million. That's a bit lower than I was expecting. We were closer to $40 million. Are there some lags or pricing adjustments that go into this, and how should we model it going forward?

Eaun Gray
Chief Investment Officer, Franco-Nevada

Hi, Greg, it's Eaun here. Yes. I guess a couple things. First to keep in mind is the payments are originating from the northern system, which has a fair bit of seasonality in the first half. Historically, it's been somewhere around 45% of sales occur in the first half versus 55% in the second half, just looking at historical numbers. This year, that's probably exacerbated a little bit by the fire at the northern system port. We've made a conservative estimate there in terms of what actually got sold in the first half. That's probably the most salient point there. Secondarily, there are some deductions for transportation. With the rising oil price, we've made a provision for that as well. Finally, yes, given the volatility and run-up in prices, Vale uses a number of different pricing conventions.

We've made a provision for that as well to account for the likely lag. We'll get the actual determination at the end of September. From there, should be able to make any true-up that is necessary to the $28 million. Hopefully that's helpful. If you have any specific questions, we can follow up directly on those.

Greg Barnes
Analyst, TD Securities

Okay. No, that is helpful. In terms of the pricing, you said there was some lags. How does that work?

Eaun Gray
Chief Investment Officer, Franco-Nevada

It's just the contracting for the sales of iron ore. I think they're contracted not just spot, but both with provisional pricing and historical or earlier pricing determining sales. Prior periods pricing will apply to some of the sales that occurred in the first half, which will bring down the realized price.

Greg Barnes
Analyst, TD Securities

Is there any rule of thumb we can use on that, Eaun?

Eaun Gray
Chief Investment Officer, Franco-Nevada

Vale does provide some disclosure as to the various pricing systems that it's using. I don't have an exact number for you, but we can follow up on that.

Greg Barnes
Analyst, TD Securities

Okay. That's great. That's it for me. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from Josh Wolfson of RBC. Please go ahead.

Josh Wolfson
Managing Director and Head of Global Mining Research, RBC Capital Markets

Thank you. Just another question on the guidance for the energy division. Just wanted to confirm it does not include any potential top-up payments. Is that correct?

Jason O'Connell
SVP, Franco-Nevada

Thanks, Josh. It's Jason here. What exactly are you referring to when you mentioned top-up payments? Maybe you can just clarify the question.

Josh Wolfson
Managing Director and Head of Global Mining Research, RBC Capital Markets

The catch-up payments you historically have reported that I think historically have not been included in your guidance. I'm not sure what the terminology is you guys historically, if you've heard about that?

Jason O'Connell
SVP, Franco-Nevada

Yeah, I guess, I think probably what you're referring to is sort of prior period adjustments, which sometimes impact our financials. For the forecast we've provided, what we've done is we've taken the actual revenue on our financial statements for the first half of the year, which does include some prior period adjustments. But the back half of the year, that forecast is based just on the production that we expect to receive for the next six months and the commodity prices that we've provided. There aren't any sort of one-time catch-up payments in the rest of the forecast.

Josh Wolfson
Managing Director and Head of Global Mining Research, RBC Capital Markets

Okay. Is it fair to say that the prior period adjustments tend to increase in a rising price environment?

Jason O'Connell
SVP, Franco-Nevada

Somewhat, yes. If we've accrued a lower revenue than we actually received due to higher commodity prices, you can see some prior period adjustments. Oftentimes, though, those prior period adjustments are related to new wells that come online that we haven't budgeted for. We have very little visibility into future wells that are drilled on our lands because there are many operators drilling those wells. When they come on unexpectedly, what happens is we get an adjustment that we have to make retroactively. Those are hard to know when they're going to come through, but that is the major driver behind those prior period adjustments. Although you're right, in a rising commodity price environment, if we've accrued a lower revenue, you can see an adjustment or a true-up.

Josh Wolfson
Managing Director and Head of Global Mining Research, RBC Capital Markets

Okay, thank you. On the gold side of the business for guidance on Hemlo, I guess the prior guidance earlier this year was that we were expected to see this transition, I think, more so in the second half of the year. Ignoring, I guess, the impact of the margin component for the NPI, should we assume that the portion of the mine that I guess Barrick is on now is going to reflect what the second quarter type of volumes would be attributable to Franco would be going forward?

Sandip Rana
CFO, Franco-Nevada

Yeah, Josh, that's our best estimate. We're looking at second quarter, it was lower than we expected and sooner with the lower amount. Going forward, I think it's safe to say that's what we're expecting. As we know with the NPI, it can change quarter by quarter depending on how costs go and where they mine. They've publicly stated that they're trying to find other areas to mine at Hemlo. I think to be conservative, that's what I would estimate.

Josh Wolfson
Managing Director and Head of Global Mining Research, RBC Capital Markets

Okay, thanks. Then maybe final question, if the team or members are able to comment on this, going back to the Detour Lake visit, I'm curious to know any thoughts on what the potential opportunity would be to volumes to Franco with the new mine plan there upcoming and new resources, if there's anything that can be kind of commented on?

Paul Brink
President and CEO, Franco-Nevada

Josh, I think I just reiterate some of the stuff that Kirkland Lake has been saying. As you know, they had put out a new mine plan. There are a couple of things there. The next step is with the drilling this year, they expect to put out a new resource on the back of that. They are also doing work once they know what that new resource looks like on how they can improve on that expanded mine plan. A few years out, there is a dip in the production. One of the main aims is how do they fill in that dip in the production, and it sounds like they have some good ideas of how they can do that.

Josh Wolfson
Managing Director and Head of Global Mining Research, RBC Capital Markets

Great. Those are all my questions. Thank you very much.

Operator

Your next question comes from Brian MacArthur of Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Brian MacArthur
Managing Director, Raymond James

Good morning. Sorry, my question goes back to the Vale true-up as well. Are we trueing up all six months going forward? I get it, there's lags of three to six, three to four, five months in contracts. As we have a rise in price here, have we, in a sort of way you book, you know what Q1 is, and we're just trueing up Q2 volumes? Is it a total true-up over the six months? My second part of the question then is, on that part, if the iron ore price rolls over, have we provisionally priced stuff at potentially the peak at six months? We'll actually have lower prices going forward because we'll have the original contract stuff which is moving forward, but then we'll have provisional pricing stuff on the Q2 end quarters going down. Can you give any guidance?

Like Greg said, I'm surprised that it was only $28 million this quarter.

Sandip Rana
CFO, Franco-Nevada

Yeah. Brian, as Eaun highlighted, we were a little conservative on that. In terms of the true-up, they're going to declare what that dividend premium payment is on September 30th. That'll be the royalty rate times the revenue that they achieved for that six-month period. Depending upon what that is, we will then adjust accordingly. As for the iron ore price rolling over, at the end of the day, we'll look at what their volumes are for Q3 and make our best estimate on what we think their average price sales will be, and book that amount. I think the reality here is there's going to be adjustments every quarter. It's not exactly an NPI, just because of the way the calculation works with all the various components that are used to calculate the amount.

Having true-ups every quarter, whether positive or negative, I think is going to be the norm.

Brian MacArthur
Managing Director, Raymond James

Even though you only get paid every six months, you'll true it up every quarter going forward.

Sandip Rana
CFO, Franco-Nevada

Yeah.

Brian MacArthur
Managing Director, Raymond James

Is that right? We just kind of do it every six months when you actually know what you actually got?

Sandip Rana
CFO, Franco-Nevada

No, we'll do it every quarter.

Brian MacArthur
Managing Director, Raymond James

Perfect. Thank you very much. My second question, I noticed you changed the Sudbury stream payment, so it's 60% as opposed to $800 above a certain price. I think it was $1,333. To be clear, though, if the gold price were to go back down below $1,333, does it go back to a hard floor of $800, or is that 60% a function all the way down as well?

Sandip Rana
CFO, Franco-Nevada

Yeah. If the gold price is between $800-$13.33, we're paying $800 an ounce. If it's above $13.33, we pay 60% of the average spot price, up to a maximum of $1,200. If the gold price is below $800, we just pay what the gold price is.

Brian MacArthur
Managing Director, Raymond James

Great. Thank you very much, Sandip. That's very clear.

Operator

Your next question comes from Cosmo Chiu, CIBC. Please go ahead.

Cosmo Chiu
Executive Director of Institutional Equity Research, CIBC World Markets

Good morning, Paul, Sandip, and team, and thanks for taking my questions here. Maybe my first question's back to the energy guidance for revenue. Good to see that you've increased it. I also noticed that you only increased the WTI assumption by a little bit, $55 up to $60 a barrel. To confirm, I guess the increase in your revenue guidance is based on more than just a commodity price increase. I would imagine there's some increase in drilling activity that's been factored in as well.

Jason O'Connell
SVP, Franco-Nevada

Hi, Cosmo. It's Jason here.

Cosmo Chiu
Executive Director of Institutional Equity Research, CIBC World Markets

Hi, Jason.

Jason O'Connell
SVP, Franco-Nevada

The bulk of that increase really is commodity price related. As you mentioned, we did the forecast at $60 WTI and $2.75 for gas. We're currently sitting above that for both commodities. In terms of production, what we're assuming for the back end of the year is reasonably flat production across most of the assets. We do, in our longer term forecast that we provided earlier in the year, we do assume that there will be an increase in drilling over time over the course of the next several years. For the balance of 2021, we're assuming sustained rates at reasonably current levels, which would deliver basically a flat or reasonably flat volume production profile.

Cosmo Chiu
Executive Director of Institutional Equity Research, CIBC World Markets

Great. I guess my follow-up question on that, Jason, is, as you mentioned, assumption right now is $60 a barrel. We're sitting higher than that now. Could you remind us then, what's the sensitivity in terms of your revenue to potentially higher commodity prices compared to what you've assumed?

Jason O'Connell
SVP, Franco-Nevada

Yeah, Cosmo. I don't have the numbers in front of me. I believe that we provided that earlier on in the year. I think, off memory, that if we have a 10% increase across both oil and gas, that would result in somewhere around a 13% increase in energy revenue.

Cosmo Chiu
Executive Director of Institutional Equity Research, CIBC World Markets

Great. Jason, I think you and I have talked about this in the past as well. In terms of drilling activity, in terms of CapEx budgets for the energy companies, it gets updated, I guess maybe once a year. From what you're seeing right now, are you expecting CapEx or drilling activity, as you mentioned, to increase? Are you seeing some of those green shoots coming out?

Jason O'Connell
SVP, Franco-Nevada

So far, I guess if you rewind back to early 2020, when prices collapsed, at that point in time, we actually took an impairment on some of our U.S. assets. For the valuation around that impairment testing, what we did is we assumed a rebound in drilling activity from what was at the time a very, very low level. That rebound, we assumed, would take place over four or five years.

We assumed it would rebound to around 70%-80% of the 2019 levels. What we've seen so far is that drilling rates have been rebounding along the trajectory that we'd assumed at the time. So far we haven't had to make any significant adjustments to our forecast. The jury is still out on go-forward drilling rates. U.S. oil companies, and shale companies in particular, have been very disciplined in their capital budgets, and they are signaling to shareholders that the focus is going to be on dividends and returns to shareholders. We'll see over the next couple of years what amount of capital gets put towards drilling programs, and we'll have to update, I guess, our activity rate assumptions based on how it plays out over the next couple of years.

Cosmo Chiu
Executive Director of Institutional Equity Research, CIBC World Markets

Of course. Maybe one last question on the energy patch here. With the increase in energy prices, oil prices, are you seeing opportunities in the oil patch running dry? No pun intended.

Jason O'Connell
SVP, Franco-Nevada

No, Cosmo, there's plenty of opportunities in the oil and gas space, both in oil and in gas. The pace of opportunities have slowed down after prices collapsed in early 2020, but there are a good amount of opportunities that are available and actionable at this point. Given the amount of investment that we've done recently into energy and iron ore, our focus, though, is on precious metals. Despite the fact that there are opportunities available, we'll be very selective about pursuing those oil and gas opportunities.

Cosmo Chiu
Executive Director of Institutional Equity Research, CIBC World Markets

On that front, with the recent pressure on gold and precious metals prices, are you seeing better opportunities in terms of potential acquisitions in precious metals? Maybe that's a question for Eaun or Paul.

Eaun Gray
Chief Investment Officer, Franco-Nevada

Sure. Hi, Cosmos. On the gold side, I would say yes, we're seeing a pretty healthy pipeline of primary gold projects kind of moving towards the development phase. In that kind of medium size deal bracket, there are more opportunities of that type, I would say, overall, versus past quarters.

Cosmo Chiu
Executive Director of Institutional Equity Research, CIBC World Markets

Great. Then maybe one last question on the financial front. In terms of your dividend, as I work it out, right now, and I'm sure you know better than I do, the share price of Franco-Nevada has done really well year- to- date. So now you're sitting at about a dividend yield of 0.78%. I thought in the past you had always had a sort of unwritten target to have at least a 1% dividend yield. Paul, could you maybe comment on that? Is that something that you still sort of target right now?

Paul Brink
President and CEO, Franco-Nevada

Cosmos, thanks for the question. The most fundamental things, as we've always said, when our board looks at dividends is, number one, they want to make sure that Franco, they never have to reduce the dividend. That payout is always going to be conservative. Second is, they're tremendously proud of the record they have of increasing the dividend every year and so making it sustainable. Any discussion, those are the two main points. We do look at that yield as well and factor into that decision.

Typically, it's been at the start of each year that the board will consider the dividend level for the year. Those are all the factors that'll go into it when they think about the dividends at the start of next year. In the current environment, with the strong cash flow that the company is generating, I think there's lots of room to move on the dividend.

Cosmo Chiu
Executive Director of Institutional Equity Research, CIBC World Markets

Of course. Paul, since I have you here, maybe I'll ask you another question. Certainly as you brought it up, I'm excited as well, BHP potentially going to the Ring of Fire. I'm not as close to it. I think the royalty ranges from 1% - 3%. Could you remind us, I think overall most of it is 2%, but certain parts are 3%. Could you just remind us the percentages and the different areas? Paul, I always like to ask you this question. Is this one royalty that will make the next Franco CEO look good, or is it one that will make you look good?

Paul Brink
President and CEO, Franco-Nevada

I don't know the answer to that question, Cosmo. So, yeah. I hope it's going to make both of us look good.

Cosmo Chiu
Executive Director of Institutional Equity Research, CIBC World Markets

Alright, that's good.

Paul Brink
President and CEO, Franco-Nevada

In terms of the various deposits up there, as you know, there are a number of chrome deposits. Between them, we're at 3% on some and at 2% on others. I'd need to pull out the asset handbook to give you the names of which are which, but we do give the detail in there. Then also a 2% royalty on the, sorry 1% royalty on Eagle Nickel Deposit, which I think is the first deposit that'll be developed.

Cosmo Chiu
Executive Director of Institutional Equity Research, CIBC World Markets

Great. Thanks again, Paul, Sandip, Eaun, and Jason. Those are all the questions I have. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from Mike Jalonen, Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Mike Jalonen
Analyst, Bank of America

Oh. Morning, Paul , Sandip, Eaun, and whoever else is in the Franco-Nevada room. Cosmos stole some of my thunder. I was going to ask about the Ring of Fire, but maybe I'll ask it in a different way. Maybe the next year or two, Paul, what would be the plans for BHP? If you talk to them, what are they planning to do? I'm aware of this with, I just saw some news. Trudeau's going to call a snap election for September 20th. It's a... This is from Reuters. A formal announcement to come Sunday. Do you think Ring of Fire will be something that will be discussed in the election? Thanks.

Paul Brink
President and CEO, Franco-Nevada

Mike, I don't have a view directly from BHP yet. I suspect in the shorter term, no change from the current plans. As you're probably well aware, the first step is getting the road built up there, and Noront has already been working with the First Nations on the permitting of that road, and the work has been getting the First Nations to be the proponents to do the environmental assessment so that the road can get permitted. That work is in progress. I think once those permits in place, I think that's the time then that you'll see more political activity around the funding of that road. Mike, I don't know, but my guess is it's probably a bit premature for this election.

Mike Jalonen
Analyst, Bank of America

Okay. I guess Franco needs a bulldozer to help that road along, I guess. All right. Well, thank you, and good luck.

Operator

Your next question comes from Tyler Langton, J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Tyler Langton
VP of Equity Research, J.P. Morgan

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I guess just to start on the guidance, the GEOs guidance for the year, the 590,000-615,000. I know you talked about sort of being on the higher end of that range. I guess, through the first half, you're I think around 316. I guess you kind of mentioned Hemlo. Are there any other just sort of assets to look at in terms of which is causing a slightly sort of weaker second half especially, I guess, iron ore with the lag should probably be sort of better in the second half?

Sandip Rana
CFO, Franco-Nevada

Two in particular. One was Gold Quarry, where we accrued, or we booked about 4,500 GEOs in the first quarter that were related to 2020. We won't have that in the second half of the year. Gold strike, we booked about $7 million in revenue related to prior periods in the first half of the year as well, which we won't have in the second half of the year. Those are two mines where we had prior period adjustments that were booked in 2021 relating to 2020. And in Tasiast, we don't expect any GEOs or revenue booked for Tasiast as they recover from the fire in Mauritania there with Kinross. Those are sort of the adjustments that we've reflected in the guidance for the next six months.

Tyler Langton
VP of Equity Research, J.P. Morgan

Okay. No, that's helpful. Then just with energy, I think the 2025 guidance for energy was sort of $150 million-$170 million. You're kind of there already this year with even in the, I guess, potentially higher this year with the sort of current commodity prices. When we think about 2025, if current prices hold, could that number be higher? Any color on how to think about sort of that 2025 number versus this year's guide?

Sandip Rana
CFO, Franco-Nevada

Yeah. In all likelihood, if you did run higher prices, that range will likely be higher. We put out our five-year guidance when we do our annual guidance in March, so at that time, we'll be putting out five-year guidance for 2026.

Tyler Langton
VP of Equity Research, J.P. Morgan

Got it. All right. That's it for me. Thanks so much.

Operator

Your next question comes from Tanya Jakusconek, Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Tanya Jakusconek
Managing Director of Gold and Precious Minerals Equity Research, Scotiabank

Great. Good morning, everyone, and thank you very much for taking my questions. Just wanted to follow up, and thank you, Sandip, for some of the clarity on the guidance for second half of the year. Can I just get a bit more guidance on Gold Quarry? You mentioned that there was a little bit of a top-up of 4,000 oz in, I think, Q1. Are we expecting any contribution from Gold Quarry in the second half of the year?

Sandip Rana
CFO, Franco-Nevada

It'll be about 1,000 oz, Tanya. Our projection for the full year is just over 5,000 oz. It's based on a minimum. It's a calculation. In previous years, we were booking 11,250 GEOs per year. It's dropped to half of that this year. Next year, we're expecting 1,350 going forward.

Tanya Jakusconek
Managing Director of Gold and Precious Minerals Equity Research, Scotiabank

That 1,350, that's what we had. Okay. That makes sense. Thank you very much for that. Maybe just coming back to, I know we talked a bit about the M&A and transactions that are out there and project financing on, I think you said medium-size deal bracket. Maybe can we just define the medium-size deal bracket? Is it still within that $200 million-$500 million range that we're talking about?

Eaun Gray
Chief Investment Officer, Franco-Nevada

Hi, Tanya. It's Eaun here. I would say, yeah, $100 million-$300 million is more what I would define as mid-size transactions at this stage. That's more the kind of deal size that we're looking at in the pipeline at the moment, although there certainly are opportunities on either side of that.

Tanya Jakusconek
Managing Director of Gold and Precious Minerals Equity Research, Scotiabank

Maybe Sandip, just if I could come back to you, and I know we've talked about this, but I just want to come back to if you can share your views on the global minimum tax proposal that's out there, whether and when you're expecting it, and how this would impact you?

Sandip Rana
CFO, Franco-Nevada

Sure. As you know, it's gaining momentum. I think there's 130 of the 139 OECD countries that have signed onto it. It's a question of when it does get implemented. How it's going to work, I think it's still too early to determine. There's a lot of work that has to be done with treaties and in terms of the calculation. We're watching it closely. I think the one thing for Franco is that we do have a diversified corporate structure, so that global minimum tax would impact our international stream business, which is through Barbados. It's not the majority of our business. We've got royalties within Canada, United States, Australia, where we pay taxes above the amount that they're talking about for the global minimum tax. It's just something that we will watch and adjust for when the time comes.

Tanya Jakusconek
Managing Director of Gold and Precious Minerals Equity Research, Scotiabank

Thank you.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one now. There are no further questions, so I will turn the conference back over to Bonavie Tek. Please go ahead.

Bonavie Tek
VP of Finance and Investor Relations, Franco-Nevada

Thank you, Michelle. We expect to release our Q3 2021 results after market close on November 3rd with a conference call held the following morning. Thank you for your interest in Franco-Nevada.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes your conference for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.