Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's virtual non-deal roadshow. My name is Karina Tatarinova, Virtual Event Moderator, Renmark Financial Communications. On behalf of our team, we want to thank everyone in Toronto and surrounding areas for joining us today for the presentation of Wheaton Precious Metals Corp., trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange, and the London Stock Exchange under ticker symbol WPM. Presenting today is Randy Smallwood, CEO and President. The presentation will last approximately 25 minutes, which will then be followed by a formal Q&A session that we encourage you to participate in by clicking on the chat box at the top right corner of your screen and sending in questions.
Now, with that, I present to you, Randy.
Thank you, Karina, and thank you, everyone, for dialing in to hear our story. And I look forward to good questions, and I always enjoy the Q&A session. So, if you've got questions, please do get them in over the course of this and we'll get some good discussion going. But I'll go through the presentation here, f irst off, the Company, of course, Wheaton Precious Metals.
It's a company that I've been with since we created it way back in 2004 when we created the original streaming model. There will be some forward-looking statements. I urge everyone to understand the risks associated with those forward-looking statements during this presentation. So, who is Wheaton? What is Wheaton? What have we done? Where are we?
As I mentioned, we created the streaming business model back in 2004. The original focus was in the silver space, but in 2011- 2012, we expanded into precious metals, really because, you know, for the same reasons, we're just as bullish and optimistic on gold as we are on silver. It's something that was very, very important to us. Our vision, of course, is to be the best way for you to invest into precious metals. Profitable precious metals production is what we really put our focus on. And, o f course, we're gonna do that using our business model, the streaming model. What's really important is to reinforce the fact that we work for multiple stakeholders. It's not just our shareholders. They, of course, are very important to us. They're the ones that sign my paycheck.
But we have to recognize that in today's world, and to be successful, you can't just focus on individual shareholders. You have to look at the broader stakeholder impact, and it's part of what makes a business successful. So, one of the other groups, of course, is our partners. We have a real strong focus on providing support to our partners, not only with the capital that we supply at the start of a streaming transaction, but also with ongoing support in terms of co-funding ESG programs, technical ambassador programs, and always, you know, unlock the value program, where we're always looking for ways to see if we can improve our partnership.
And so, you know, of course, as I mentioned, that co-funding program, it's also important that we make sure that the other stakeholders in the area also do receive good, strong, sustainable benefits. So, we do have good, strong co-funding programs with our operating partners to strengthen their own social license. We also are very active in our own local communities around our operations, all of which is very important to run a successful business like Wheaton. The streaming advantage, really, it comes down to the fact that, you know, we can be selective about the assets we invest into with our portfolio, very high-quality assets. We really focus on making sure that there's high operating margins.
93% of our current production comes from assets in the first or second quartile of their respective cost curve. So, exploration expansion upside, that's one of the [beauties] of the streaming model, is that investors get access to that exploration expansion upside without the cost risk that's associated with delivering on that upside. And that predictable costs, you know, it's such an important differentiator in terms of reducing the risk, but still delivering the upside opportunity on a commodity investment. The other advantage that streaming has over even royalties is commodity price leverage. We do have a base production payment. That means that we outperform in a rising price environment. We outperform. We deliver better returns to our shareholders than anyone that owns that royalty.
We've got a good, strong dividend program that's gonna get stronger with time. Very, very cash flow rich right now, and I'm not sure that we'll be able to find ways to put it into the ground, and if we can't, it goes back to our shareholders in the dividend program. Then great optionality. Got a number of assets that aren't part of our current production profile, but will be at some time. So, all of this has built up to be, you know, the foundation of Wheaton, which I would say is, you know, at the strongest it's ever been right now.
Our advantage, as I said, 93% of our production comes from assets in the lowest half of the cost curve. That's to say that if we're getting by-product gold from a copper mine, where does that copper mine fit on the worldwide copper cost curve? And so for us to have over 20 assets delivering production to us and 93% of that production in the bottom half of the cost curve, I don't think there's a stronger, more profitable portfolio of precious metals assets anywhere in the mining space or the streaming space. 30 years of reserve life in front of that. Good, long reserve life in front of us and another 10 years of M&I resources and 20 years of inferred resources beyond that. So, when we build, we build for the long-term value.
Good, strong organic growth. I know it says 40% there. When I do the math, it's actually up over 50% growth between now and 2027. So, good, strong production. We're gonna be getting very close to 1 million gold equivalent ounces by 2027.
As I mentioned, a good, strong balance sheet. We have the $800 million cash on hand at the end of March, and a $2 billion revolver that's available for us. A very low overhead operation, 41 employees in the entire company. So G&A is not a significant factor in how we move forward.
And, we've been very active. Ten new streams in the last 2 years, with over $1.9 billion of committed upfront payments, this has all been completed in the last 2 years or since 2020. So, we are being very effective at putting our money back into work. The other aspect that I think differentiates Wheaton is our commitment towards strong ESG performance, and that's reflected in the ratings that we get. We're the highest-ranked precious metals company by Sustainalytics, and we've got the strongest rating you can get from MSCI on the ESG side in the resource sector. So, good, strong results as [a result of our effort].
I mentioned the portfolio. You know, as you can see here, very America-centric. We did spend the first half of our life silver-focused, the Americas is very important to silver. We have expanded now into, definitely into gold, and we're now more of a gold company than we are a silver company. But still, you know, political risk is something that's very important to us. We like the Americas, we like Europe. We've looked in Africa, we've looked in Australia, we've looked in Asia, we just haven't seen anything that satisfies our own criteria with respect to long-term political risk. The other thing I always like to highlight is the list of partners down the side of this slide. Streaming works for everyone in the mining industry, from the Vales and Glencores of the world to the Alamos and Luminas of the world. Streaming is an effective, competitive, attractive source of capital for the mining industry.
I talked about the cost curves. As you can see here, 54% of our current production comes from the first quartile, another 39% from the second quartile. Those are our target assets. The reason we like the bottom half of the cost curve is that not only are these the mines that will operate through the ups and downs of a cyclical commodity price cycle or market, but they're also the first places that our partners reinvest into exploration dollars and expansion capital. If they're high-margin assets, that's where you want to maximize the returns you get from these things, and you want to extend the exploration.
So, we've had great success on that front in terms of replacing ounces and showing continued growth of these assets. It's a very important factor. Then I talked about mine life. As you can see, 30 years of proven and probable reserves, then 13 years of M&I, 24 years of inferred. You can do the math. This company is going to be a very profitable company for a very long time.
Our production profile, something that's very exciting. In fact, I would argue it puts us in probably the most exciting period that Wheaton has ever been in. This year, we expect to produce somewhere around 630,000 gold equivalent ounces. But t his is a year that kicks off significant growth, and by 2027, as I said, we'll be somewhere up very close to 1 million. I think we're about 970,000 gold equivalent ounces of production, so it's 50% growth from 2023 to 2027. For a company of our size and our scale to have 50% growth, you know, is just really highlights the strength. As I mentioned it at our last quarter end results, every quarter is going to be just a bit better than the last one for the next 5 years.
ou know, we've got the bulk of that growth is actually coming from existing operations. Brownfield development, Salobo, the phase III expansion is ramping up through the course of this year. Constancia, the Pampacancha zone, high grade, coming into that operation for the next 3 or 4 years. Stillwater, continued expansions. Voisey's Bay, going into higher grade underground materials, and Marmato, having great success getting the lower zone up and running. Excellent exploration results there and as they develop that lower zone. That's all existing operations, much higher confidence growth.
We also have a whole bunch of greenfield stuff, brand new projects coming into production over this period of time. Of course, Blackwater, with Artemis Gold here in British Columbia, advancing forward into construction rapidly. The Goose project, now owned by B2Gold, up in northern Canada. Again, a good, strong project that's got high margins and will deliver a good, strong growth. As you can see, a number of other assets that will deliver good, strong growth over the course of the next five years. A very exciting time for Wheaton.
This slide just really sort of highlights one of the benefits of the streaming business model, it doesn't really matter what the price is, the costs are relatively constant. As I say, we don't have a cost curve, w e have a cost line. It's a straight line, it's predictable, you can forecast it out, it gives good, strong strength. It also gives us leverage over owning bullion or owning royalties, where there is no base cost on a per-ounce basis. So, it's a good, strong business model, it's very resilient and gives us good high operating margins. As you can see, well over 70% operating margins consistently.
The balance sheet is strong. We've got a $2 billion revolver that's that we've used very wisely over the last 6 years- 7 years to fund our growth. Instead of issuing shares and diluting our existing shareholders, which is again, I reinforce, who we work for, we chose to use cheap debt through this revolving credit facility and financed all of our growth really from 2016 on, through effectively using debt, which has now been paid off. We paid it off early last year, and we're now net positive with $800 million cash in hand at the end of March, and generating good amounts of cash. Our cash flows this year should be in excess of $1 billion.
So, good, strong, portfolio. We spend most of our time trying to figure out how to put that money to work. If we can't find effective, accretive ways to invest it into the ground, then we're just gonna continue growing that dividend. A good, strong, very strong balance sheet, the strongest it's ever been. This slide sort of highlights, you know, one of the things that we're trying to set ourselves up for is that, you know, we obviously, have had good, strong commodity prices and good continued growth in terms of price of gold and such over the life of the company. What we really want to position ourselves for is for those big, bump cycles.
Back in 2011- 2012, we saw silver and gold prices reach record highs. At that time, you know, we generated in excess of $2 billion over and above what we expected during that nice bump. We're seeing the same thing now with current commodity prices and current commodity price trends. The advantage, of course, is that we actually have more than twice the production than we had back in 2011. So, you know, it really does set us up well for these nice bumps whenever we get good, strong bull markets in precious metals, which I still think we're in the midst of. This all goes even beyond the fact that we are seeing continuous higher prices in precious metals over a long time, and we don't think that that trend is changing in the near term.
This is an interesting one because, you know, the blue bars here represent the amount of money that we've put into the ground, and the gray represents the amount of money that we've returned. I'm pleased to report that right at the start of this year, we finally surpassed invested dollars. We've essentially reached payback, and which is amazing when you again, consider that we've got 30 years of reserves, another 10 years of M&I resources and 20 years of inferred resources to go from this portfolio.
All that's gonna do is continue reinvesting, and we're gonna continue putting that back into the ground. It's pretty amazing for us to within 20 years, get to the point where we've actually generated more capital than what we've invested, and to have that kind of a life in front of us, just again, highlights the strength of the Company right now. We have a good, strong dividend policy that is linked, where we basically lock it in at a price per share that is a function of the percentage of cash flow. Right now, we, you know, we have a minimum of 30% of the cash flow go back. We're actually right now, returning probably somewhere around 35%-36% of the cash flow to our shareholders.
It's interesting when you look at the broader database in the precious metal space, for every ounce that we produce, we, in our dividend, give $450 of that ounce back to our shareholders in the dividend, substantially higher than everyone else in the group. So, in terms of, you know, returning the production, the benefits of our production, back to our shareholders, you can see how much value [that] is there. Again, just think about the growth that we have over the next 5 years and how that's going to impact what we actually return to our shareholders. It's a good, strong dividend program that's just gonna get stronger and stronger as our company grows.
So, why do mining companies enter into streams? There's really a lot of reasons why, but probably the most important ones right now is the second one and the third one, the initial value creation and the internal rate of return, and that's really highlighted on this slide here. You know, developers, especially single asset developers, they're trading at anywhere between 0.2x-0.3x net asset value. You know, there's substantive discounts to the actual value of the assets underlying it. Issuing shares is incredibly dilutive, but doing a stream, which counts as equity capital, is a way of raising capital by selling off your asset, part of your asset base, not issuing shares, so you don't suffer the same excessive dilution that you would if you were issuing shares.
It's incredibly attractive for the developers and for the producers to sit there and take advantage of the arbitrage that we have, because we definitely trade at higher multiples, and it gives us capacity in terms of being able to take advantage of this arbitrage and deliver a win-win situation where we share that arbitrage with the developer or with the producer itself. The bottom half of this slide talks about how it improved, you know, how a stream improves the internal rate of return on a project itself. Salobo is a great example where, you know, Vale spent close to $4 billion building the first two phases of Salobo. We contributed $3.1 billion of that. We contributed close to 80% of the upfront capital, and yet we take away only about 23% of the EBITDA.
And so, the return on the invested capital from Vale's shareholders perspective is incredible. In fact, they generate more money every year in EBITDA than the total CapEx that they put into that mine. The net CapEx that they put in, net of our upfront payments. That Salobo mine is an incredible asset for Vale, and it's an incredible asset for Wheaton.
Benefits to the community. This is something that is very, very important for us, truly a core value. I come from the mining industry. I'm a geological engineer that had a long history of exploration, development, and operating mines. I understand how important it is. I have firsthand experience about how important it is to maintain good, strong relationships and deliver sustainable benefits to all stakeholders.
So, we have a multi-pronged approach, but we focus on, of course, strong governance. ESG is important to us. Helping deliver sustainable benefits to communities and also reporting, and external and voluntary commitments. It's just a real strong program for us that we're very proud of. One and a half % of our average net income get reinvested back into our neighbors every year. We average it over the previous four years. This budget is growing as we grow. You know, 1/3 of that goes to neighbors around our offices and where our employees work and live. The bulk of it, 2/3 of it, actually goes to communities around the mines that we get our metal from.
We work in concert, in partnership with our operating partners, in terms of trying to maximize benefit and improve overall performance and benefits to these communities. It's something that quite proud of. We were the first of the streaming/royalty companies to actually initiate this program. It is still by far the strongest program in the space. And, it is being recognized. As I mentioned earlier on, we get top ratings amongst a number of the different rating agencies. It's something that we've really put a lot of focus to.
You know, the last year has also been important for us in terms of how we continue to grow in this space with the commitment towards net zero by 2050. We came up with a science-based, transparent disclosure of our Scope 3 financed emissions and a target to how we're gonna move our way down there. We've got all sorts of other programs that really, you know, underscore why we've been top ranked and top rated in so many different rating agencies of this. It is something that we continue to focus on and strive towards.
So, why invest into Wheaton Precious Metals? Well, there's the number of ways to invest into precious metals. You can go out and buy bullion or the ETFs. Very, very low risk, but the only optionality, the only upside you've got is commodity price exposure. In fact, with the fees that you pay for holding that bullion, you know, it winds up being net negative unless you see that strong price movement. With precious metal mining companies, you know, the challenge is there, of course, is costs. You know, the mining industry has a long history of overpromising and under delivering, and cost's usually one of the biggest risks with respect to that.
With respect to the other streamers, I mean, we are focused on precious metals. Over, well, 98% of our revenue currently comes from precious metals. None of the other streaming companies can argue a number anywhere close to that. We have no oil, we have no gas, we have no iron ore. We have a little bit of cobalt from the Voisey's Bay Mine, and that's the only non-precious metal that we have in our portfolio. We are focused on precious metals. So, the advantages are huge in terms of what we deliver, and I truly do think that we have produced and created here the best way to invest into precious metals.
As I mentioned, you know, in terms of percentage of revenue, 97% of our revenue in 2022 came from precious metals, with a very small amount from cobalt. No oil and gas in our portfolio, no other base metals and iron ore in our portfolio. So, i t's a good, strong way of investing into precious metals that, you know, makes us one of the largest producers in the, in the space itself.
What we've delivered, you know, we've invested close to $10 billion into streams to date. Of course, we've also received about $10 billion in cash flow from those streams. So, we've reached our capital payback point. All those assets are still delivering metal to us. Delivered close to $2 billion in dividends. We'll surpass that sometime later on this year. Good, strong annual cash flow should be over $1 billion at these commodity prices. 40 years of reserve and M&I resource life, meaning and another 20 years of inferred resource life after that.
A good, strong commitment towards leading the charge on delivering good, sustainable benefits to society. If you could go back and look at what we've done to date, the average annualized after-tax return has been 18%. A good, strong portfolio. In fact, if you sit and look at it, if you look at rolling multi-year return comparisons, you can see how we've outperformed relative to bullion or to the mining companies. Wheaton has been a good, strong investment vehicle for many years and will continue.
This is my last slide. Please get some questions ready. Good, strong organic growth. It's incredible to be at a point where we have 50% growth over the next five years. For a mature company that's the size and scale of ours, I think, you know, we've never been this strong. Good expansion potential, good high-quality asset base, predictable costs, of course. The streaming model does give us leverage, and a good, strong, innovative dividend. I always like to finish this off by saying, this is a really good time to own more Wheaton.
With that, I will open up the floor to questions. Karina?
[Great], Randy. Thank you very much for your presentation, and as you mentioned, with that, we'll move on to the Q&A now. Your first question here is: Would you say your average mine life is much higher than peers?
Yes, definitely. You know, the advantage of the streaming model is that most of our production actually comes as a by-product from base metal mine, mainly copper mines, actually. I think more than half, I think about 60% of our production is a by-product of copper mines. The issue with copper, with base metal assets is they're very, very capital intensive. They typically require much greater reserve lives in order to justify the original investment decision to build those mines on a forward basis. You know, I look at Salobo with, you know, close to 50 years of reserves and resources. I look at Antamina with, you know, they just haven't found the bottom of that.
I look at Stillwater, they found the bottom, you know, just like everywhere I look. We're actually sort of plucking those nice, long reserve lives that base metal mines typically have and bringing that into the precious metal space. precious metal mines typically only have, you know, they're nowhere near as capital intensive. They don't take as much money to build in the first place, so they don't need as extensive reserve life in front of them. Most gold mines and precious metal mines typically have 10-20 years of mine life when they're built, versus base metal mines, which are 20 years-30 years- 40 years of reserves in front.
And so, you know, we get the benefit of that long reserve life from the base metal space, but we're pulling it in to precious metal investors, and that, it sets us up very well for a good, long reserve life.
Great, thank you for the answer. The following question is: What jurisdictions do you see the most growth?
Well, Americas, the Americas have been important for us. you know, they've had some challenges, some of the countries in South America, of course. you know, I mean, I hate to say it, you know, I think it's just almost a bit of natural effect. We see, you know, some jurisdictions swing a little bit more to the left, and then they'll go back and swing to the right. It's almost like a pendulum that just swings back and forth. So, you know, we've obviously just announced [two weeks ago], a deal into Ecuador. We like the way Ecuador looks right now from an investing perspective. Again, so much of it does come down to the local communities and making sure that you've got good, strong relations.
An important part of our due diligence is understanding how much support there is in the local communities and meeting with local stakeholders to ensure that you're not gonna have challenges there. That's irrespective of whatever country you're dealing with. We are really focused on jurisdictions. Because we have such long mine lives, we wanna make sure that they're good political -- politically stable jurisdictions, where we feel confident in terms of our rights in those locations. We've looked in Africa, but there's only a few countries in Africa that we'd consider investing into. We've looked, obviously, in Asia, again, a few countries that we'd seriously consider investing into.
Australia is a bit perplexing for us because we put a lot of bids in there, but we just haven't been successful. We continue to look in [Australia], because it is a jurisdiction that I think is very friendly to the mining industry, clearly. You know, I would predict that that will change over time. Yeah, it is something that's very important for us.
On this topic as well, a viewer asking you: Is the Lumina Gold Stream your first in Ecuador, and what are your thoughts on the local side of the country?
It's not our first. We've got a deal with Adventus on the El Domo project, a stream there, and we were a long time equity investor to help support them as they advance that project on a go-forward basis. You know, again, referencing, you know, what I've seen in times past, there are challenges right now. What we have seen is good support from both the leading parties in Ecuador. [inaudible] That project might work. You know, [inaudible] it's just an asset that truly does excite us in terms of what the potential is there. And we think it's a relatively easy one to move forward into production and so we're comfortable with that with Ecuador. Like I said, both and communities seem to be very, very supportive of the deal, so we're comfortable there.
Thank you for the answer, Andy. The following question here is: What was compelling about your recent streaming deal with Panoro, outside of your precious metals wheelhouse and Peruvian politics, possibly?
The recent streaming deal with Panoro. We have the Panoro transaction was quite a while ago. We, I think we did that 4 years-5 years ago. In fact, it might even been more than that. It's an early deposit model, and it is a unique model that helps. One of the things that we've seen is that, one of the opportunities we have is to provide support to development companies like Panoro, you know, at the stage before they're committing towards construction. That's when capital is the most expensive, because at that stage, they still don't have access to operating cash flows.
Because they don't have a bankable feasibility study and permits, they can't access bank debt. Now it's a matter of issuing shares or, and that's where the stream comes in. The stream is an investment into it. It's a project that we're excited about not only from a, you know, a production perspective, but we think it's got great exploration potential. The team at Panoro continues to advance that project going forward. you know, we think that, w e look forward to helping them build a mine ultimately. When they get to that stage, we'll be able to supply even some more cash to help them on a going forward basis.
Perfect. Thank you for the answer. Moving on to the following question, a viewer is wondering: Has your interest on green metals and/or battery metals changed over the last couple of years?
You know, our approach is to stay focused on precious metals. That's the promise that we've made to our shareholders. That's one of the reasons why we hope that's the reason that they invested into us in the first place. We think that individually, our shareholders have the capacity to invest into alternatives, in terms of green metals, battery metals, what may be. There's a number of options out there. If I do that, then I'm forcing all of my shareholders to do that at the same time.
My commitment, my promise to our shareholders -- our promise to our shareholders is that we're going to deliver profitable precious metals production. We don't like oil and gas, we don't like iron ore, we don't like base metals. C obalt's a little bit unique in the sense that we were, the Voisey's Bay deal was a bit of a unique opportunity, owned and operated by Vale, one of our important partners. It's a very top-quality mine, especially in the cobalt world. The nickel mine, obviously, Voisey's Bay in Canada. I would call it the cleanest, greenest cobalt out there in the world. it's. We're not pursuing cobalt.
Our focus is precious metals. We think that if any of our shareholders are interested in diversity, it's probably better left in the shareholders' hands to control that diversity than for me to dictate it by making those investments. I stick to my promise: profitable precious metals production.
Thanks for that answer. On a different topic as well, do you see artificial intelligence playing a role in your due diligence for potential new deals?
Wow! That's an interesting one. ChatGPT or GPT has sure opened up. You know, I haven't yet written a speech or done anything using it, but I've had some fun with it. It is interesting in terms of the capabilities. There's no doubt it's gonna have a huge impact across society, period, and, in all aspects. I mean, really, what it is a compilation of experience and knowledge that is unfortunately beyond a lot of what humans can manage. You know, it's dangerous. It has to be used very, very carefully and always sort of measured with I don't want to say fear, but with respect, definitely.
You know, it's not part of our near-term plans. I can assure you there. I will say, you know, through COVID, we had to resort to virtual mine tours, and I will tell you that they suck. Pardon the language. You know, there's nothing like being there and actually seeing the operation, seeing the -- I hope we never do a virtual mine tour again. So, you know, there's certain aspects of the resource industry that I think will always be measured or always should be measured based on getting some real dirt underneath your fingernails. So AI will definitely help in terms of making decisions, but it'll be something that we approach very cautiously.
Thank you, Randy. We have one more question here before we move on to the financial questions. A viewer is asking: Which end development projects in Wheaton's portfolio is the Company most excited about?
Well, both, well, I've got 2 development projects that I like. Steven Dean at Artemis and Clive Johnson at B2. Both the Goose and the Blackwater projects. These are both very high-grade gold projects here in, and low cost, like high-margin assets here in Canada. One's in B.C., one's up in Northwest Territories and -- s orry, Nunavut. And, you know, both of those assets are going to be very profitable gold operations, and within the next year and a half, they expect to be producing by the end of 2024.
Always exciting to see, you know, years and years of exploration and development, and engineering, and feasibility studies, and permitting reviews, environmental impact assessments, and all that, you know, finally get to deliver in fruition in terms of moving forward. Both, you know, the Blackwater and the Goose projects, Goose is going to be a mining camp, a district, and B2 has it controlled. The limited exploration and the exploration hit ratio up there is incredible. There's just lots of opportunities in that whole district, and B2's got a head start over everyone else in that space. So, you know, I do think that Clive's gonna have a great experience up there. And Artemis, the, again, exploration potential, they've got a great ore body already defined, but, lots of good upside potential there.
Thank you, Randy. With that, move on to a few financial questions.
Great.
What will be the strategic focus when it comes to deploying your cash or revolving credit?
Sorry, can you repeat that question? I missed part of it.
Yes, of course. Excuse me. What will your strategic focus when it comes to deploying your cash or revolving credit?
I see. Okay, yeah. It's always on trying to find accretive acquisitions, but we're not going to chase. We, you know, we have to resist believing that we should always be making acquisitions. It has to be accretive with reasonable price assumption go-forward basis. Our whole focus has always been making sure we have confidence that we will deliver reasonable returns, assuming, you know, relatively constant commodity prices, and then deliver the upside of higher commodity prices on a go-forward basis, along with exploration, success, and expansion potential. So, you know, it's always on trying to get money back into the ground, and so that's priority number one, but not at any cost.
As I say, it has to be accretive, and if we can't, if the cash balance builds up, then we increase the dividend. So our whole focus is really about, you know, trying to put money back into the ground. If we can't, we grow the dividend, and the dividend will grow. I can see as we get up over 1 million gold equivalent ounces, the cash flow that we're generating is gonna be strong enough that we won't be able to put it back into the ground consistently enough. That 30% minimum that we have right now will climb to 35%, 40%, 50%.
I can see it theoretically getting as high as 60% of our cash going back in the form of a dividend and turning Wheaton into a bit of a yield monster. So, you know, it's something that we see in the future. We've still got a lot of growth in front of us right now, but once that growth gets delivered, that's when the [yield] will start climbing.
Thank you for the answer. Your next question is: Has management considered selling the cobalt and palladium streams to keep a gold and silver-only portfolio?
No, because those are two incredible assets. Stillwater, and we've also got platinum coming from the Marathon project in Ontario, so we will have a bit of platinum coming into the portfolio. The Stillwater deposit, that is going to be around for hundreds of years. It's the lowest quartile of a cost with respect to platinum, palladium production. You know, it's an ore body that is measured in tens of kilometers of length. You know, they're mining it in two centers, the Stillwater mine and the East Boulder mine. There's literally 20 kilometers of continuous ore body between these two mining sites. It's the high margin, low-cost operation that will deliver profitable production.
And even, you know, you can talk about platinum and palladium and where you see pricing going, especially with as we move away from internal combustion engines, do we still need catalysts? Well, there's still a lot of other high-tech applications for platinum and palladium in environmental campaigns and, you know, different movements and such. So, we don't [get will deliver to... ] [inaudible] and we just see great exploration potential. you know, [inaudible] when it comes to energy storage, [inaudible] just a little bit of cobalt makes [inaudible] looking at. So, you know, cobalt is a metal that's going to see continued demand. What's interesting about cobalt is that most of it is produced as a by-product. It's not, you know, it's not a lot of cobalt mines out there, so to speak.
So, you know, that in itself also gives us some comfort about, you know, demand, high demand, balances on that. So it is something that's we're comfortable with. We like both those assets, and we're quite happy with that.
With that, we have about three questions left.
Great.
I'll be asking you, curious as to why you feel it is necessary to have an at-the-market equity program in place?
Yeah, we don't need it. You know, literally, you know, about 2 years-3 years ago, there was a number of large opportunities that we thought might be coming to market, a billion-dollar-plus-sized streams, and so we wanted to put in some extra capacity. I'm proud of the fact that we have an ATM in place, and we are the only company, I think, in the entire resource sector, that has had an ATM in place and never issued a share into it. I'm proud of that fact. It shows that, you know, it'd be easy for us to, but that's how defensive we are, and I think it's a good example of how defensive we are about putting our existing shareholders through any unnecessary dilution.
A lot of our peers were continually issuing shares into that space, and we just didn't understand why we've got such strong cash flows going forward. With the $2 billion revolver, the extra $300 million in the ATM is, you know, it's -- n ow, it doesn't cost us a lot to hold that in place, and it gives us a bit of extra capacity.
But, you know, I will be honest, the opportunities that we're looking at right now, there's not a lot of stuff over $1 billion. It's generally in the $200 million-$400 million range, is what we're looking at. I don't see a need for that, and I'm not sure how long the ATM will stay in our portfolio. It doesn't cost us a lot. It's a little bit of extra insurance. It lets my CFO sleep better at night. I don't think he's having that many problems sleeping right now.
Thank you for the answer. Your second to last question: What do you attribute, what is your share price outperformance since the 2022 lows?
I still think we're undervalued. I think you sit and look at our portfolio, look at the growth, and then start comparing the growth that Wheaton has. [inaudible] Quite simply, the company has never been this strong. When we continue to add assets, as we showed with the Lumina transaction, we're very busy on this front. We're not having a problem. We're not having to dive into oil and gas and iron ore and base metals. We have been able to continuously deliver good quality, accretive acquisitions over the last 2 years- 3 years, and we've been by far the most active in the space. I really do think that shareholders are recognizing that, but I think there's still some recognition required.
We're undervalued right now on a relative basis. Like, you know, the Salobo mine, in terms of what it can deliver for us, is being undervalued quite a bit by a lot of the analysts out there. We think it's gonna continue to outperform, and it's had a couple of tough years, but it had seven years of outperformance. Vale is very focused on trying to get it back to where it once was, and there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to. I just, you know, I think that all of that is leading into share performance, but we've got so much more.
All it takes really is to look at the growth profiles. Look at our profile, in terms of production compared to our peers, you'll understand why we've only started outperforming with respect to share price.
Thank you for the answer. And finally, your last question is: What catalyst do you see that will lead to a higher silver to gold ratio?
Higher silver to gold ratio. Well, you know, silver is, it's interesting. I'm the Chair of the World Gold Council, but if you ask me what my favorite metal is, it's silver. Just because silver's got all the attributes that gold does, but it's got a few extra ones. It's actually dramatically reduces electrical consumption, you know, reduces resistivity, highest conductivity. It makes things more efficient. That's why solar needs [competitive interest] producing energy. Silver makes the difference. And so, when you sit and think about what today's world is focused on, as it properly should be focused on, is getting rid of weight and more often mixing a little bit of silver in and, you know, things get better. So that increasing demand on silver, I'm a bit surprised that it hasn't kickstarted the price.
I'm surprised where we are. But when you go back and look, silver always lags gold and then outperforms. I, you know, I do think that that's probably what we're running to, that retail side to wake up and recognize silver for what it is. So, you know, as a, you know, precious metals-focused company, that the bulk of our revenue is in gold right now. I think it's 55% gold, about 40% silver. You know, but that 40% silver, one of the best ways to get exposure in silver in the space. I think we deliver both of those metals in good value to our shareholders.
Great, Randy. And with that [inaudible]
Yeah, it's been a pleasure. Thank you, Karina.
Thank you. With that, this concludes the Q&A portion for today's presentation. Also thank you to the viewers who sent some questions. If you have any more, you can always contact your account manager here at Renmark. Before we go, Randy, I'll turn the floor back over to you for your final remarks.
Well, I'm just gonna keep it simple. We've been on the phone now for pretty close to about 45 minutes or so on the screen. It's a good time to own more Wheaton. Simple as that. Thank you for the opportunity and, as I said, if you've got any further questions, don't hesitate to reach out.
Once again, this was Wheaton Precious Metals Corporation, trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange, and London Stock Exchange under ticker symbol WPM. Thank you again to everyone to and surrounding areas for joining us today. Stay tuned, -- excuse me, and stay tuned for future presentations in your area, and we'll see you next time.