Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Wheaton Precious Metals' 2020 Q3 Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded on Tuesday, November the 10th, 2020 at 11:00 A.M. Eastern Time. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Patrick Drouin, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for participating in today's call. I'm joined today by Randy Smallwood, Wheaton Precious Metals' Chief Executive Officer and President; Gary Brown, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Haytham Hodaly, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development. I'd like to bring to your attention that some of the commentary in today's call may contain forward-looking statements. There can be no assurances that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results in future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements.
In addition to our financial results cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements, please refer to the section entitled Description of the Business Risk Factors in Wheaton's annual information form and the risks identified under Risks and Uncertainties in Management's Discussion and Analysis, both available on SEDAR and in Wheaton's Form 40-F and Wheaton's Form 6-K, both available on EDGAR.
These documents, together with the Q1 2020 MD&A, the Q3 2020 MD&A, and the press release from last night, set out the material assumptions and risk factors that could cause actual results to differ, including, among others, fluctuation in the price of commodities, impacts on Wheaton or mining operations from the precious metals purchases as a result of the epidemic, including the COVID-19 pandemic, risks related to mining operations from which Wheaton purchases precious metals, the continued ability of Wheaton's counterparties to satisfy the obligations under precious metal purchase agreements, and the impact of any material changes in fact, law or jurisprudence on the CRA settlement. It should be noted that all figures referred to on today's call are in US dollars, unless otherwise noted. In addition, reference to Wheaton or Wheaton Precious Metals on this call include Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. and/or its wholly owned subsidiaries as applicable.
Now I'd like to turn the call over to Randy Smallwood, our President and Chief Executive Officer.
Thank you, Patrick. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us today to discuss Wheaton's Q3 results of 2020. I hope everyone has been keeping healthy and safe since our last quarterly conference call. At Wheaton, our top priority remains the health and safety of our employees and the communities in which we operate. Now, with regard to our Q3 results, I am very pleased to announce that Wheaton's high-quality portfolio of assets generated nearly $230 million in operating cash flow in the Q3 alone, resulting in a record of over $555 million for the first nine months of 2020. Given Wheaton's unique dividend policy, this strong cash flow has resulted in a 20% increase in our dividend to be paid in the Q4.
In addition, we recently announced a listing on the London Stock Exchange that we hope will provide another point of entry and make it easier for new internationally based shareholders to invest into Wheaton. We continue to focus on delivering value to all of our stakeholders. I will provide updates on Wheaton's response to COVID-19 after Gary discusses our Q3 results. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Gary Brown, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, who will provide more details on our results. Gary?
Thank you, Randy. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. The Company's precious metal interests produced 171,400 gold equivalent ounces in the Q3 of 2020, comprised of 91,800 ounces of gold, 6 million ounces of silver and 5,400 ounces of palladium. This represents a 22% increase in production relative to the prior quarter, with the mines that were temporarily suspended due to COVID-19 in Q2 having returned to operation. Relative to the Q3 of the prior year, production decreased by 7%, with gold production decreasing 11%, due primarily to the expected mining of lower grade material at Salobo, while silver and palladium production was virtually unchanged. Gold equivalent sales volumes increased by 2% relative to the Q3 of 2019, to 157,500 ounces, with sales volumes in the comparable quarter of the prior year reflecting a buildup in ounces produced but not delivered.
It is interesting to note that our GEO sales volume was 17% higher than that reported by any other streaming or royalty company in the quarter. As at September 30, 2020, ounces produced but not delivered, or PBND, amounted to approximately 124,000 gold equivalent payable ounces, representing approximately 2.2 months worth of payable production. This compares to an average PBND balance of approximately 140,000 gold equivalent ounces over the preceding four quarters. It is possible that a buildup of PBND could occur in the future. Revenue for the Q3 of 2020 amounted to a record-setting $307 million, representing a 37% increase relative to Q3 2019, primarily due to a 35% increase in the average realized gold equivalent price.
Of this revenue, 56% was attributable to gold sales, 40% to silver, and 4% to palladium. Again, it is worth noting that our revenue in Q3 2020 was 10% higher than any other streaming or royalty company. Gross margins for the Q3 of 2020 increased 85% to $177 million, highlighting the leverage our business model provides to increases in precious metal prices. Cash-based G&A expenses amounted to $20 million in the Q3 of 2020, representing an increase of $7 million from Q3 2019, with the increase being primarily related to higher accrued costs associated with the performance share units, or PSUs, and higher charitable donations, with the Company donating $1 million during Q3 2020 relative to the previously announced $5 million Community Support and Response Fund relative to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Interest costs for the Q3 of 2020 amounted to $2 million, resulting in an effective interest rate on outstanding debt of 1.24%, as compared to $11 million of interest costs at an effective interest rate of 4.02% incurred in Q3 2019, with the average outstanding debt balance decreasing by over 45%. Net earnings amounted to $150 million in the Q3 of 2020 compared to $76 million in Q3 2019. Basic adjusted earnings per share increased 113% to $0.34 compared to $0.16 per share in the prior year. Operating cash flow for the Q3 of 2020 amounted to $228 million, or $0.51 per share, compared to $142 million, or $0.32 per share in the prior year, representing a 59% increase on a per share basis.
Although this level of operating cash flow did not represent a record for the Company, it was 7% higher than any other streaming or royalty company generated in the quarter. Based on the Company's dividend policy, the Company's Board has declared a dividend of $0.12 a share payable to shareholders of record on November 25th, 2020. This represents a 20% increase relative to the dividend paid in the prior quarter and highlights how shareholders participate directly and efficiently in any precious metal pricing rally under our unique dividend policy. Under the dividend reinvestment plan, the Board has elected to offer shareholders the option of having their dividends reinvested in newly issued common shares of the Company at a 1% discount to market.
For 2020, the Company continues to estimate that non-stock-based G&A expenses, which exclude expenses relating to the value of stock options and PSUs, will amount to $40 million-$43 million for 2020. During the Q3 of 2020, the Company repaid $153 million on the revolving facility, dispersed $37 million in dividends, and invested $11 million in long-term investments, with these cash outflows being partially offset by proceeds from the sale of various equity instruments totaling $49 million and the exercise of stock options in the amount of $3 million. Overall, net cash increased by $78 million in Q3 2020, resulting in cash and cash equivalents at September 30th of $210 million. This, combined with the $488 million outstanding under the revolving facility, resulted in a net debt position as at September 30th of only $278 million.
As such, the Company is well-positioned to satisfy its funding commitments and sustain its dividend policy while at the same time having the flexibility to consummate additional accretive precious metal purchase agreements. In summary, our high-quality portfolio of streaming assets not only helped Wheaton set new records in Q3 2020, they generated the highest GEO sales volume, revenue, and operating cash flow of any streaming or royalty company in the world, leading to a 20% increase in its dividend and positioning the Company extremely well to reap the benefits of any continuation of the rally in precious metal prices, as well as to execute on its accretive growth strategy. With that, I will turn the call back over to Randy.
Thank you, Gary. The Company continues to keep up to date on developments surrounding COVID-19 and has taken steps to protect the health and safety of our employees and the community, as well as measures to minimize any impacts to our business. I will now provide a general update on our guidance, corporate development activities, and community initiatives. We are pleased that all of our mining partners' operations that were temporarily suspended due to COVID-19 have resumed operations. Production in the Q3 rebounded strongly following the temporary suspensions in the prior quarter, and the Company is on track to meet the higher end of our guidance. As a reminder, on a gold equivalent basis, we expect to produce between 655,000-685,000 gold equivalent ounces in 2020. Wheaton's long-term production forecast remains unchanged at 750,000 gold equivalent ounces per year on average between 2020 and 2024.
On the corporate development front, we continue to remain very active. Subsequent to the quarter, we announced that we had finalized the previously announced precious metal stream with Caldas Gold to purchase 6.5% of the gold production and 100% of the silver production from the Marmato Project located in Colombia. We are excited to partner with Caldas in advancing this project, and we are very encouraged by the continued strong exploration success. We remain unwavering in our focus on delivering the highest quality portfolio of precious metals production to our shareholders through our top-tier asset base, strong organic growth profile, and acquisition of accretive growth opportunities such as Marmato. At Wheaton, our success is not only measured in terms of financial results and accretive acquisitions, but also in our ability to make a positive difference.
In that regard, earlier in this year, we established a dedicated $5 million fund to help address the impacts of COVID-19, more than doubling our budget for community support. We have now deployed approximately $3 million of those dollars of our COVID-19 response fund to support various programs globally. The majority of these funds are dedicated to the communities around our mining partners' operations, Not only help to alleviate the near-term impacts of the pandemic, but also leave positive, sustainable benefits. In Brazil, in Mexico, and in Peru, the fund has helped to provide food security, medical services and supplies, such as an ambulance and ventilators, and economic opportunities for those in need. Specifically in Brazil, we have funded the production of face masks to help reduce the spread of COVID-19 while supporting local female entrepreneurs.
We continue to work with our partners to identify additional programs that support their COVID-19 relief efforts. Now more than ever, we must come together to help support our communities and make a positive impact. We continue to urge our peers in the streaming space to follow our lead in this regard. In summary, despite the temporary shutdowns of some operations, the first nine months of 2020 has resulted in record revenue and cash flow. The second increase to our dividend this year. Not only that, we remain optimistic that we will be able to continue growing the Company and add additional production from long-life assets producing in the lowest half of their respective cost curves. With our recent listing on the London Stock Exchange, we are excited that a new audience now has the opportunity to invest in Wheaton.
We believe our business model offers U.K. investors a new and appealing opportunity to gain exposure to precious metals through a streaming company of Wheaton's scale. Given the bullish precious metals markets, the strength of our business model, and our high-quality portfolio of assets, we remain confident that we can continue to create sustainable value for all of our stakeholders and continue to be leaders in the streaming and royalty space. With that, I would like to open up the call for questions. Operator?
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now conduct the question-and-answer session. Your first question here comes from the line of Ralph Profiti from Eight Capital. Please go ahead, your line is now open.
Hi there.
Hey, Ralph.
Good morning, everyone. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions, Randy. Randy, in your commentary and in the MD&A, you talked about the comfort with the higher end of guidance for 2020. Where are you feeling most confident in terms of the operations? I think it's been well telegraphed at Penasquito, strong quarter-over-quarter, and Q4 is going to be their strongest. Is that the primary source, or are you feeling greater comfort in some of the other operations? If so, which ones?
Well, Penasquito is definitely seeing the best grades and continues to surprise to that side. On top of that, Newmont's doing great work there with respect to recoveries and throughput. It's this combination of Penasquito probably is the strongest within the group itself. We are seeing strength in every asset. I think where the comfort is coming from is actually the fact that everyone rebounded from the suspension so rapidly. Good, strong production numbers. When we originally came up with the revised guidance, we had felt that the combination of the higher absenteeism and a restart of the operations that were suspended was going to slow things down a bit, but it really appears that our operators had put a lot of effort into making sure that when the restart happened, it happened strong and relatively well. Yeah.
I think across the board, it was Penasquito outperforming a bit on grades and recoveries. Overall, just all of the operations that the impacts from the pandemic, they've just rebounded in a stronger sense all the way across the board.
Great. Yeah. Good answer. I appreciate that. As an industry, we've seen a lot of dividend increases, right? It's becoming sort of a little bit more competitive in terms of one-upmanship. In the context of the London listing and the new source of capital, how are you feeling in particular about that 30% ratio, right? It's been in place for a couple of years. Could you go higher? Would you go higher? Your thoughts on that would be appreciated.
We will go higher. It's just a matter of timing. We of course, have very strong cash flows and good strong organic growth in the portfolio, we have a choice. We fund our dividend, but the rest of it goes back into the ground. If we don't make any further investments, our debt should disappear by the Q1 of next year, and we start building up a war chest to put back into the ground. If that war chest gets too big, we will be increasing the dividend to feed it back.
As I like to say, our first objective is to pay a good, strong, healthy dividend like we are right now, but continue growing the Company. If we don't see the right opportunity to put the money back into the ground, then we return it to our shareholders, and the dividend will grow. I think it's a matter of time as our company grows, as the organic growth that we've got scheduled over the next five to 10 years comes into fruition. It's going to get tougher and tougher for us to invest all of that cash flow back into the ground, which means that the dividend will grow.
The real advantage of our dividend mechanism is the fact that it is directly linked to our cash flows, and of course, our cash flows are directly linked to commodity prices, the shareholders are actually reaping a benefit beyond the increase in share price with these higher precious metal prices that we see. It's a good, strong system. We do average it over the previous four quarters, so it doesn't take much to understand that there's still upward pressure on this dividend, even for the next quarter, and the quarter after that. As long as prices stay up where we are right now, it's going to continue growing it on a per share basis.
Great. Well said, Randy. Thank you.
Thank you, Ralph.
Your next question comes from the line of Cosmos Chiu with CIBC. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks, Randy, Gary, Haytham, and Patrick. A nd thanks for taking my questions here.
Cosmos, always a pleasure.
Thanks, Randy. Maybe my first question here is on the ounces produced and not yet delivered. Clearly, 2020 was an unusual year with COVID-19, but in the past, in Q4, there would usually be a big drawdown in terms of inventory. Then it would result in higher sales than production for Q4 for Wheaton Precious Metals. Maybe it's too early to tell at this point in time. Should we expect that once again in year 2020?
Hi, Cosmos, it's Gary.
Hi, Gary.
It's very difficult to predict. We had, I think, expected that the PBND balance would have been higher at the end of Q3 than it ended up being. Our partners were doing a very good job of keeping concentrate and doré flowing. We generally do anticipate that mining companies in general will try to minimize the amount of unsold concentrate and doré that they have at year end. We're not anticipating a significant buildup in Q4. If you look over the past few years, there have been surprises in that regard. It's hard to anticipate. I would highlight that if there was a buildup, that translates into sales the next quarter. It's not like a long term issue. It's a very short term issue. It's just very difficult to predict.
Of course. Maybe switching gears a little bit, I was reading your MD&A, and I guess as you mentioned, Barrick at Pascua-Lama in Q3, they elected not to exercise the option to cancel the stream, the PMPA. Could you remind us, is this their last sort of opportunity to cancel that? On that, is this the outcome that you had expected and preferred? Could you maybe comment on that?
Cosmos, you had that backwards. It was us that had the opportunity to cancel the stream.
Oh, okay.
Yeah. I think they would have canceled it a long time ago, actually. No, it was us. We had the opportunity. The way that the deal was structured was up to a certain point, we could ask for the remainder of our money back. That point was essentially the end of September. We're still believers in the project. We think that we did receive a substantial amount of compensation silver back from Barrick already. Although we invested $625 million into the project originally, I think we're only about $255 million into it right now because of the compensation silver from the other mines in South America. That has ended, and for $255 million, we feel that Pascua-Lama, the 25% of the silver on Pascua-Lama, we think it's worth more than that. We're still a believer in the project.
It definitely has its challenges, but we know that Barrick is working on it to try and find a way around the challenges and work with the community, and we do think it's a project that will deliver strong, sustainable benefits to both Chile and Argentina at some time in the future, and to Barrick shareholders sometime in the future. We're going to be patient and wait for that. It was our choice to do that, and we chose not to take the refund and to stay invested into Pascua-Lama.
That Pascua-Lama number, that's not included in your 750,000 ounces that you're projecting in terms of GEO ounces, right?
Yeah. Definitely not. That's 750,000 ounces is for the next five years, including 2020. I think it's important to highlight that if we're going to maintain that, and if you look at our 2020 production, that means that the next four years will average about 770,000 gold equivalent ounces. There is no Pascua-Lama in there. There is no Rosemont in there. There is no Navidad in there. It's only projects that are on schedule. In fact, I would say we've taken a pretty conservative approach on Salobo in that forecast also. We're waiting for the updated mining plan from Vale, expected sometime next year. We think there's definitely some upside in that 770,000 over the next four years.
For sure. Maybe quickly on Constancia, as you mentioned, Pampacancha was delayed in 2020 as a result. You were able to receive additional about 8,000 ounces in a year. Now, it seems like they're on track for startup early 2021. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but could you remind us if there's further delays, is there any kind of other ounces that you'll receive in compensation, or was the 8,000 ounces pretty much it?
We did give them an extension because of they've had pandemic impacts down in Peru with respect to government agencies in terms of giving approval on a go-forward basis. We did give them an extension through to the end of June next year. At that point, we get to refresh and look at the stream itself. Whether we decide to adjust the stream or go forward, Hudbay has been doing a great job in this thing, moving it forward, and we're a supportive partner of theirs. We will work with them to make sure that it comes to a satisfactory arrangement. I'm very confident that they'll have it up and running before the end of June.
Great. Thanks a lot. Once again, those are all the questions I have. Thanks for answering my questions.
Thank you, Cosmos.
Your next question comes from the line of John Tumazos from John Tumazos Very Independent Research. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Thank you for taking my question.
Always a pleasure, John.
I noticed some of the mine operating companies that have a lot more operating risk have raised their dividend many times by large percentages. Could you tell us a little bit more about the philosophy and the 20% dividend hike? You're financially strong enough to raise the dividend a little more. Are you going slow and gradual because you don't want to raise it too quickly or cut it too quickly? Or are you just putting a priority on repaying your debt and accumulating money for the Rosemont payment, to third Salobo payment, and your other reinvestments?
I would actually say we're still confident that we have some new opportunities we'll be able to bring into the portfolio. We're very active on the corporate development front, John. We've got lots. In fact, I would almost argue that we're as busy as we've ever been on that front. We're hopeful that we can actually add a few new assets to the portfolio over the next few months. It's basically building up that capital. I have no doubt we will eventually grow into a more yield focused company. That dividend as a % overall will grow. I think it's important to again highlight the fact that 30% was scheduled as per our formula, and so it was predictable. The 20% increase that we've just had, it was scheduled.
You could sit and look at it and you know that we average it on our cash flows over the previous four quarters. I'm pretty confident that, of course, depending on how precious metal prices do over the next three months or the remainder of this quarter, there's going to be upward pressure the next quarter too for the next round of dividends. We establish a basement or a floor price every year that we won't drop below for the course of the year, and then we use 30% as a reference. Now, I can tell you that if we don't put money back into the ground, then the dividend will grow. As of right now, we still have a bit of net debt t hat will disappear in the Q1.
We'll probably build up a little bit of a war chest if we don't put it back in the ground, and then we won't let it get to be too big of a war chest because we're not really believers in money. We'd rather have it in ounces in the ground than cash in the bank. That's the point that we'll turn it around and put it back into a dividend if the war chest gets too big.
Randy, naturally, we as outsiders can't see the evaluation project flow that you have. Do you think that the likelihood is that there's a $500 million or $1 billion large project on the horizon in the next year or two?
You know what? Haytham's on the line here. I'm going to let him answer that one. He leads our Corporate Development.
Tell us about the pretty girls you're romancing, Haytham?
Good morning, John. How are you?
Good, thanks.
Just to give you a bit of an idea, John, as Randy mentioned earlier, we've been incredibly and pleasantly busy. I guess we've got lots of new opportunities we're looking at. The majority of them fall into the sub-$500 million category, and those are primarily development stage opportunities that fit into our early deposit structure as well as expansion opportunities. We are seeing still some large $1 billion deals out there. There's at least a couple out there that they take time to come to fruition, but they're there. There's also been some royalty packages which really don't make sense from a Wheaton perspective, mostly because they come with a significant amount of non-precious metals. John, as Randy mentioned earlier, I don't think we've been this busy in a long time. I've been saying that for probably the last three quarters, pleasantly, it keeps going.
How much capacity does the project team have to go to sites and rigorously evaluate in the COVID-19 world, as long as it lasts? Can you physically do due diligence on one project a week or one project a month, or how tough is it?
Sure, actually, a great question. The pandemic has not really affected our ability to advance streaming due diligence and consummate transactions. We're constantly looking at and evaluating new opportunities. We've completed four site visits in the last month alone. Two of those were with external consultants, two of those were with our team specifically. One of the reasons I'm actually doing this via telephone rather than in the office is I'm actually in a two-week quarantine period because I just got back from one of those site visits myself. We're still very active. We've probably got at least another three site visits in the next month and a half scheduled alone, they may be using Wheaton employees, they may be using consultants we can rely on. We're definitely still very active.
John, every jurisdiction is different in terms of how we manage that. It all comes down to minimizing the risk and being confident in terms of what we're investing into or what we're looking at. There's a balancing act with respect to every asset that we look at.
Thank you.
Thank you, John.
Your next question comes from the line of Jackie Przybylowski from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead, your line is now open.
Oh, sure. Thanks very much. Good morning, everyone. I guess just to follow up on John's question. He's asking about the pipeline of deals you're seeing, c an you maybe give us an indication, are these deals of meaningful size? Are you talking about deals that would be sort of $300 million, $500 million in an upfront payment, or has that changed to deals that are smaller? Is there any color you can give in terms of that distinction?
Haytham, I'll hand it over to you again.
Yeah, you bet. Hey, Jackie, how are you? Listen, Jackie, there's a whole array of deals. They range anywhere from $1 million-$200 million, all the way up to $700 million-$1 billion. There's quite a few. The majority of them are, I would say, between the $300 million and $400 million range, or $200 million and $400 million, that's probably a better range. We're definitely still looking at a lot of opportunities out there.
Thanks very much. Just switching gears to your MD&A, you talked about Voisey's Bay. You're scheduled to start receiving cobalt from that mine, I guess, in a couple of months now. It's hard to believe 2021 is almost here. In the MD&A, you talked about the pace of implementation at the underground project is being slowed because of COVID. Does that affect the deliveries of cobalt that you are expecting? Is there any potential for delays to that delivery? Thanks.
No. The beauty of the mine is essentially it's transitioning from open pit to underground, but they still have several years of open pit reserves in front of them, and it was always going to be a gradual transition. If anything, they did suspend operations in 2020, a year that I think we're all going to be very happy to see behind us. They did suspend production up at Voisey's Bay during 2020, which in fact pushed some of the stuff that would have been mined in 2020 into our streaming period, which starts in 2021.
As a slight advantage, we've had probably a bit more open pit reserves that'll keep the mill full and processing. We don't expect any change in the production profile. It's just they'll be sourcing from the open pit as they get the underground up. It was always planned as being a very phased transition over a number of years. They've always got the backup of some of the open pit mineable material available to make sure that the mill stays full.
Okay. That's really helpful. Thanks very much. That's all my questions. Thanks.
Thank you, Jackie.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Charles Gibson from Edison. Please go ahead, your line is now open.
Hello, good morning. If I may, congratulations on an excellent quarter, Randy. I wonder if I could ask—
Thank you, Charles.
Not at all. I wonder if I could ask just about Marmato quickly. Congratulations again on closing that deal. I saw it was backdated to the 1st of July. There's no sign of it having contributed in the Q3, and I just wonder what that means in terms of the accounting, if you like. I suppose this might be a question for Gary going forwards. When it comes to the Q4 results, are you going to have two quarters of Marmato in the Q4, or are you going to restate the Q3, or just how are you going to treat that?
Yeah, good question, Charles. There are still some conditions that need to be satisfied here in order to cross the barrel head with silver, so to speak. Assuming that those conditions are satisfied in Q4, we would report the production from July in Q4, and any sales that would result would be attributed to Q4 as well.
Okay, that makes perfect sense. Thank you. Could I ask just a follow-up question, which is nothing to do with that, of course, but I just noticed the last couple of quarters, Minto has been contributing to production but not to sales, and I just wonder if you could give us an idea of when you think Minto might start contributing to sales?
Yeah. We would expect that production will be converted to sales in Q4. It was a recent startup, and they're moving materials out, and it's new operators that are in there. We're working our way through that process, but we'll have it all cleaned up by the Q4.
Excellent. All right. Look forward to that. Thank you very much indeed. That's everything from me, and congratulations again.
Thanks, Charles.
One more call, please, operator.
Certainly. Your next question comes from the line of Brian MacArthur from Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. The other thing you mentioned in the MD&A is just the delay at Blitz. Can you just go through how you see that sort of evolving with the feed the mill, and then how that looks in your five-year versus what it looked before?
Well, originally, it was scheduled out to be coming into. It is a gradual gain. It's not like they're turning on a switch or something like that. They're just increasing the number of working faces in both Blitz and in the East Boulder operations. It's going on at both sites. Blitz is sort of the more headline project. One of the challenges, and we've actually seen this, I'm surprised it actually doesn't get talked about a bit more in the industry, but the biggest impact in terms of the new measures that we have to sort of minimize risk on pandemic seems to be the underground operations and the time it takes to safely move everyone to the face to get the work done and at the end of their shift, back away from the face.
Productivity in underground mines has definitely been impacted by the pandemic response and by the efforts to minimize risk. I think that's what's catching Stillwater as a whole, is that they're seeing higher absenteeism rates like a lot of mines, but they're also, because they're entirely underground, also dealing with lower productivity on a per-man shift basis because of the extra efforts that are required to minimize risk. It's not just a Stillwater problem; w e've seen it in all of our underground operations. It seems to be an impact it's having, an impact on productivity. All of that sort of spills over into challenges on the Blitz because the Blitz being an expansion project and their efforts are to, first priority is to maintain current levels of production, and the expansion is what's required after that.
Their new guidance came out to, I believe it's two years now, before they expect to be up to that full level. Of course, they had already delayed that expected completion date, but the original date would've been in 2021 was when they were first expecting it to be up and running at the full levels. It'll be a gradual increase over time. They continue to work on that, and I'm hopeful that the industry does find ways to address these productivity issues that we're seeing, because it's a broader industry impact as a result of this pandemic. We have to find some way to get to work around that, at the same time minimizing risk, of course.
Great. Thanks very much, Randy.
Thank you, Brian, and thank you everyone for dialing in today. In closing, we believe Wheaton is well positioned to continue delivering value to our shareholders for a number of different reasons. Firstly, by having low and predictable costs that result in some of the highest margins in the entire precious metal space and sector-leading operating cash flows. Secondly, through our steady organic growth profile and proven track record of accretive quality acquisitions. Thirdly, by offering our shareholders exposure to some of the highest quality mines in the world through our portfolio of long life, low-cost assets. Lastly, by being a leader amongst precious metal streamers in sustainability through initiatives such as the CSR fund and supporting our partners and the communities in which we live and operate. I do look forward to speaking with you all again soon. Stay healthy, stay safe. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes this conference call for today. Thank you for participating. Please disconnect your lines.