Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Wheaton Precious Metals' 2026 first quarter 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. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad, or type your questions in the Q&A box of the webinar. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star one again. Thank you. I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded on Friday, May 8, 2026, at 11:00 A.M. Eastern Time. I will now turn the conference over to Emma Murray, 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 am joined today by Haytham Hodaly, Wheaton Precious Metals President and Chief Executive Officer, Vincent Lau, Chief Financial Officer, Wes Carson, Vice President, Mining Operations, and Neil Burns, Vice President, Corporate Development. Please note, for those not currently on the webcast, a slide presentation accompanying this conference call is available in PDF format on the Presentations page of our website. Some of the comments on today's call may include forward-looking statements. Please refer to slide 2 for important cautionary information and disclosures. It should be noted that all figures referred to on today's call are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Haytham Hodaly, Wheaton's President and Chief Executive Officer.
Thank you, Emma, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss Wheaton's 1st quarter results of 2026. I'm very pleased to be speaking with you today on my 1st quarterly conference call as President and Chief Executive Officer of Wheaton Precious Metals. Wheaton delivered a strong start to 2026, with Salobo and Penasquito outperforming expectations and contributing to record quarterly revenue, earnings, and cash flow. We continued to build on our track record of disciplined capital allocation, announcing several transactions that further enhance the quality, diversification, and long-term growth profile of our portfolio. Most notably, during the quarter, we announced the Antamina silver stream with BHP, the largest transaction in Wheaton's history and the largest precious metal streaming transaction ever completed.
Antamina is one of the world's premier base metal operations with a long track record of strong performance, significant exploration potential, and a demonstrated ability to replace reserves and extend mine life. The transaction meaningfully increases our exposure to high-quality silver production and reinforces Wheaton's position as one of the largest companies globally. Subsequent to the quarter, we were also pleased to announce the Jervois stream with KGL Resources, marking Wheaton's first stream in Australia. In addition, we announced a royalty on the Spanish Mountain project in British Columbia, which Neil will outline shortly. Collectively, these transactions further strengthen our portfolio, expand our geographic reach, and broaden our counterparty base while maintaining the disciplined approach to capital allocation that has underpinned Wheaton's success. Looking ahead, we continue to see strong interest in streaming as a financing solution across the mining industry.
Our corporate development team remains active in evaluating opportunities, and we will continue to focus on transactions that are accretive, well-structured, and aligned with Wheaton's long-term strategy. Importantly, Wheaton's growth is not dependent on additional transactions. Our existing portfolio already provides a strong organic growth profile of 50% by 2030, supported by multiple development assets advancing through construction, ramp up, and optimization. We believe that Wheaton is in a position of exceptional strength, supported by a high-quality portfolio of long-life assets, a robust pipeline of significantly de-risked growth projects, and a business model that is continuing to deliver strong margins and meaningful exposure to precious metals. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Wes Carson, our Vice President of Mining Operations, who will provide more detail on our operating results. Wes?
Thanks, Haytham. Good morning, everyone. Overall production in the first quarter was 212,000 GEOs, a 22% year-over-year increase, primarily driven by stronger performance from Salobo and Penasquito. Salobo delivered 69,000 ounces of attributable gold production in Q1, a decrease of approximately 3% year-over-year, primarily driven by lower grades and partially offset by higher throughput and recoveries. As highlighted in Vale Base Metals' recent public disclosure, coarse particle flotation is the main near-term growth driver at Salobo, supporting the expansion of Salobo three from 12 million to 18 million tons per annum, targeting a total throughput of 42 million tons per annum by 2029. Vale Base Metals noted that studies and permitting are underway, with construction expected to begin in 2027 and implementation by 2029.
In addition, Vale Base Metals indicated that it continues to advance a series of growth-focused initiatives to enhance efficiency and support medium- to long-term production growth across the Salobo complex. In Q1, Antamina produced 1.6 million ounces of attributable silver, an increase of approximately 48% relative to Q1 of 2025, primarily due to higher grades and improved recoveries. Attributable production to Wheaton is expected to increase significantly starting in Q2 of 2026, reflecting the addition of the new BHP stream, which became effective on April 1st and supported by higher throughput and stable grades and recoveries. Penasquito produced 2.6 million ounces of attributable silver in Q1, representing a 46% increase year-over-year, supported by higher grades and improved recoveries.
After a strong Q1 performance from Penasquito, we anticipate attributable production to be lower in Q2, reflecting reduced grades and lower throughput due to plant maintenance. Blackwater produced 129,000 ounces of attributable silver and 5,000 ounces of attributable gold in Q1. During the quarter, Blackwater experienced a seven day unplanned mill shutdown due to a ball mill gearbox failure. Artemis noted that several development projects are in the process of ramping up production, including Mineral Park, Phoenix, Goose, and Platreef, all of which reached initial production in the last 8 months. Construction activities advanced on a number of development projects, including the Koné project, where Montage reported the project remains on track for first gold ore by the end of the year via the oxide circuit, with hard rock comminution circuit expected to be completed in Q2 of 2027.
Wheaton's production outlook for 2026 remains unchanged, with attributable production expected to fall between 860,000 and to 940,000 GEOs. Production is expected to be weighted to the second half of the year, with approximately 45% in the first half and 55% in the second half, driven by mine sequencing at Salobo and Penasquito, the start of the Antamina's BHP contract in Q2, as well as the ramp-up of the newly operating assets throughout 2026. Production at Salobo is expected to increase through the remainder of 2026 with improved grades as per the mine plan and consistent throughput and recoveries across Salobo I, II, and III. Looking ahead, we project annual production to grow at an industry-leading rate of approximately 50%, reaching 1.2 million GEOs by 2030.
From 2031 to 2035, attributable production is currently forecast to average approximately 1.2 million GEOs annually, supported by incremental contributions from additional pre-development assets. That concludes the operations overview, and with that, I'll turn the call over to Vincent.
Thank you. As detailed by Wes, production in Q1 was 212,000 GEOs, a 22% increase year-over-year. Sales volumes were 182,000 GEOs, a decrease of 3% from last year due to an increase in produced but not yet delivered, or PBND, due to timing differences between production and sales. On April 1, we closed the previously announced transaction on Antamina with BHP. We expect Q2 deliveries to include two of the typical three quarterly shipments with a full quarter contribution expected thereafter. At the end of Q1, the PBND balance was approximately 184,000 GEOs, representing 2.8 months of payable production.
We continue to expect PBND levels to remain between two and a half and three and a half months for the remainder of 2026, with a higher end of the range reflecting the potential impact of ramp-up activities at new mines throughout the year. Strong commodity prices coupled with solid production led to record quarterly revenue of $901 million, an increase of 92% compared to last year driven primarily by a 98% increase in the average realized gold equivalent price. 51% of this revenue came from gold, 47% from silver, the rest from palladium and cobalt. Net earnings increased by 129% from the prior year to a record $582 million, while adjusted net earnings increased by 132% to a record $583 million.
Operating cash flow increased to $766 million, representing another quarterly record and a 112% increase from last year. During the quarter, we made total upfront cash payments for streams of $90 million, including $50 million for Spring Valley and $40 million for Marmato as our portfolio of development assets continued to advance toward production. Partially offsetting these disbursements, we received a repayment of $30 million relative to the upfront payment for Santo Domingo, with the amount to be re-advanced at a later date. We strategically monetized a portion of our long-term investment portfolio, generating $323 million in proceeds and a $150 million gain, and redeployed the capital into our core streaming business to support funding of the Antamina BHP stream, which closed on April first.
Overall, net cash inflows amounted to a record $1 billion in the quarter, resulting in a cash balance of $2.2 billion at March 31st. On April 1st, following the quarter end, we funded the $4.3 billion upfront payment for BHP for their 33.75% portion of the silver produced at the Antamina mine. The upfront payment was funded through a combination of the cash on hand at closing, a draw on our previously undrawn $2 billion revolving credit facility, and a new $1.5 billion term loan. The term loan and the revolving credit facility provide flexible non-dilutive financing that may be repaid at any time without penalty.
After advancing the upfront payment, the company is now in a pro forma net debt position of $2.1 billion, which based on our annualized Q1 2026 EBITDA, represents a modest leverage ratio of approximately 0.7 times. With the strength of our production guidance outlined by Wes, we believe we are well-positioned to generate strong operating cash flow through 2028 under base case commodity price assumptions, supporting accelerated debt repayment over a relatively short period of time while continuing to build and grow our already strong capacity to fund existing commitments and potential future stream acquisitions. This concludes the financial summary. I'll now hand things over to Neil to walk through the details of our recent corporate development activities.
Thanks, Vincent. It's been a busy start to the year for the corporate development team, and I'm pleased to provide an overview of our two most recent deal announcements, which further reinforce Wheaton's already sector-leading growth profile. On April first, we entered into a definitive agreement with KGL Resources for a portion of the gold and silver production
Jervois project located in Australia. The Jervois project represents an important milestone for Wheaton as our first streaming transaction in Australia, one of the world's leading mining jurisdictions. This fully permitted copper project is positioned to commence construction imminently with a concentrator designed to process 2 million tons per year, producing a copper concentrate with silver and gold by-products. We believe the project holds significant exploration potential. Under the agreement, Wheaton will purchase 75% of the payable gold and silver until a total of 45,000 ounces of gold and 4.3 million ounces of silver have been delivered. At which point, Wheaton will purchase 37.5% of the payable gold and silver until an additional 15,000 ounces of gold and 1.7 million ounces of silver has been delivered.
After which Wheaton will purchase 25% of the payable gold and silver for the remaining life of mine. In return, Wheaton will make ongoing payments for the gold and silver ounces delivered equal to 20% spot price. Each of the dropdown thresholds will be subject to adjustment if there are any delays in deliveries relative to an agreed-upon schedule. This is a mechanism that aims to mitigate timing risk. The known resources at a Jervois Project are spread across multiple prospects that extend along a 12-kilometer strike length in the shape of a J- curve, which can be seen on this slide. The tenements are underexplored, and KGL is utilizing integrated 360 modeling to focus exploration on high-grade areas to expand the Jervois known resource and support extended mine life. Main deposits, Reward, Prospect and Delbert remain open along strike and at depth.
High priority targets include Reward North, Reward South, and Cochrane's Find, and there are more than 20 targets identified and ranked within our area of influence. We feel the project is very prospective, and we are impressed by KGL's approach to exploration. On April 20, we entered into a definitive agreement with Spanish Mountain Gold to acquire a 1.5% NSR on its Spanish Mountain project in exchange for consideration of $55 million in staged payments. The Spanish Mountain project is an attractive addition to our portfolio, located in a stable, low-risk jurisdiction with a PEA study projecting mine life over 20 years and a land package supporting significant exploration potential. Overall, the project's scale and long-term potential align with our disciplined approach to growth in established mining jurisdictions. We are pleased to partner with the team at Spanish Mountain to support its development.
With that, I'll hand the call back over to Haytham.
Thank you, Neil. In summary, the first quarter was a strong start to 2026 and highlighted the continued execution of Wheaton's strategy. We delivered solid revenue, earnings and cash flow, resulting in record quarterly performance. We completed the Antamina stream with BHP, the largest transaction in Wheaton's history, which adds meaningful additional exposure to one of the world's premier mining assets and significantly enhances our long-term silver production profile. Finally, our development pipeline continued to advance, with multiple assets progressing through construction, ramp up and optimization, supporting Wheaton's sector-leading organic growth profile. Wheaton's strategy remains clear: stay disciplined in pursuing high quality, low risk, long life, accretive precious metal streams and deliver sustainable long-term value for all stakeholders. With that, I would now like to open up the call for questions. Operator?
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now conduct the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. There will a brief pause while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Daniel Major from UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, hi there, Haytham. Thanks very much for the questions. Yeah, first one on Salobo. You mentioned the Vale commentary around the coarse particle flotation. Can you just give us some just clarification on the catalysts, in terms of permitting, expected incremental GEOs contribution from Wheaton's side and any incremental capital required from your side?
Yeah, thanks for the question. We're still working on kind of the capital. They're finalizing their studies right now on this project. The capital will kind of come out of that as we see. We are looking at an increase of about, well, it works out to a third increase on this level three. Increasing from 12 million to 18 million tons a year. Really, what's gonna be fed in there will be slightly lower grade material. We're not expecting a dramatic increase in mining, as they go through, but there is quite a bit of material being fed through. The increases that you'll see from that will really probably come out in our guidance next year. As we work through kind of, what the full impact of that is.
Also at the same time as they're working on that coarse particle flotation, there are a number of other upgrades that they're looking at for the overall project. On the permitting side, they're pretty much in line with permits for this size for the CPF. As they go further than that, there may be additional permits required to get up to a higher rate beyond the $42 million that they're talking about right now.
In terms of capital for Wheaton, there is no additional capital requirements from Wheaton on Wheaton's behalf.
Okay, thanks. That's clear. Thank you. The second one, that's interesting, you've got a position in Australia now. Can you just give us a sense, I mean, you know, relative to other regions, it's not a region where there is as much streaming exposure. Are you seeing other opportunities in the region?
Absolutely, Daniel. This actually, you know, when we actually first went into Australia with a small royalty, that opened up a lot of doors. Now that we're actually showing that we can do streams in Australia, and we can come up with a structure that makes sense for both parties, we are seeing a lot more interest in that continent, that's for sure. We do hope that we can get some more done. There is, you know, as always, we look at a lot of different opportunities, and some of them are in Australia, for sure.
Okay, thanks. Then just final, slightly model-oriented question. Could you give us any guidance on what you would expect the finance costs booked through the P&L in Q2 to be, whether there's any additional costs associated with, you know, the debt drawdown, et cetera. What should we be expecting in Q2?
Yeah. Daniel, it's Vince here. The bank loan and the RCF, the debt service costs would be about 5% interest rate on that. We're currently about, you know, a $2.1 billion net debt position. We see, you know, repayment of that relatively quickly. You know, Q2 is a somewhat heavy quarter in terms of cash outflow going out. You know, we did make the $4.3 billion Antamina payment, we do have two dividends that go out. Debt repayment wouldn't be as quick in Q2, but going forward, we see that rapidly coming down. In terms of setting up the term loan itself, all that cost was already incurred in Q1, there's no additional costs with that.
Okay. About 5% of, to roughly $2.5 billion for the P&L tax charge. Would that be reasonable? $30 million or so?
Yeah, that's about right.
Okay, cool. Thank you very much.
Our next question comes from Tanya Jakusconek from Scotiabank. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Great. Thank you. Just wanted to continue on the modeling questions, if I could. I also think you have the global minimum tax payment as well that goes out in Q2. Is that correct?
That's right. That will be going out in June. The amount there is about $150 million.
Yeah. Okay. The two dividends, you've got the Antamina and the global minimum tax. We should, as you mentioned, expect to have just, you know, you really start paying down your debt, let's say Q3, Q4?
Yeah. I think we do see some debt pay down in Q2. Not a very significant amount. Thereafter, you know, very material repayments going forward.
Okay. You mentioned a few mines that are going to be bringing up that production profile that I think you said was 45, 55 first half, second half. The mines that you mentioned that are going up, obviously Antamina with the acquisition. You said Salobo is going to do much better. That moves up in the rest of the year as well from a production standpoint. You've got your new mines that are coming on, so that's great. Maybe to flag the ones that are coming off, if any.
Thanks, Tanya. We're gonna see Mineral Park will be ramping up through the year here. We'll see Phoenix ramping up through the year. We'll also have Goose coming back on kind of up to full production there by the end of the year. I think those will be the main. Platreef section, we'll see ramping up through this year as well, so that would be four.
The one that would come down, Tanya, in the back half of the year is really Constancia because they were pulling, they had some stockpiled material from Pampacancha in Q1 that pulled up gold grades. That's gone now, and it'll come back down.
Okay. All right. Noted. Thank you. I don't know, Haytham or team, maybe just again on this, the deal market again, in terms of the opportunities that you are seeing at our offices every quarter. Sometimes it changes. You know, like in the previous quarter, you had mentioned that most of your opportunities were in the $200 million-$300 million range and somewhere in the $500 million-$1 billion, all, you know, gold, silver. Is that still the sort of range I think about? Is it still focused with, you know, construction financing on these large scale copper projects and maybe gold projects as well? How should I be thinking?
Thanks, Tanya. I'll pass it over to Neil, who can give you a bit of a overview.
Sure. Yeah. The range is quite similar, Tanya. We, our pipeline remains very robust, you know, around the same levels that we've seen in Q4. You know, the opportunity mix is probably about 70% gold opportunities, 20% or 30% silver. The range, yeah, I would say is in the $200 million-$500 million range. We are seeing a few that are, you know, potentially in the $1 billion range, maybe a couple. But those do take a bit longer to incubate, and they also are paid out as construction advances. M&A opportunities, there's still a few out there. You know, we are hearing rumors that there's potentially a few more asset sales out there, companies selling non-core assets.
Financing companies for the sale of financing the purchasers, I guess, for the sale. Are you also seeing any changes to the structure of the deals that you're looking at, or are the sellers now looking for different, you know, items to be included that the structures? I'm just wondering if those are changing at all given the competition.
Yeah, no, we haven't really, I mean, we understand what our competitors are doing. We try to stick to what has worked for us and what has worked for our counterparties that we actually stream with because it ends up being the easiest way for them to understand streaming and be able to actually deliver into the streaming agreement. You know, we will continue to look at security, corporate parent company guarantees, come up with, you know, the lowest risk potential structures for our shareholders, that hasn't changed from our perspective.
Yeah, I was just wondering more if it's still the same sort of deal, Haytham, that we are gonna see, you know, a portion of a stream, and there's equity investment, and then there's debt financing. I'm wondering if there's another component on top of that.
Well, so far we've, you know, what we've done is we've provided, you're right, we've provided streaming, we've provided a little bit of equity. Keep in mind, equity really only happens when they want it to. They need a lead order or something to that effect. We're not in it specifically for the equity. We do offer lines of credit for cost over our facilities, et cetera. In terms of traditional debt, you know, it always makes more sense to do a stream than to expand the existing stream than to do debt. You know, we kinda stayed away from that front-end debt. I think those are the primary mechanisms that we look at at this point in time.
Besides Australia, Haytham, has any other jurisdiction opened for you?
There has been a couple and, hopefully you'll see something soon, smaller. You know, we're trying to dip our toe into various areas, but they are very low-risk jurisdictions. Nothing that's that's gonna increase our risk profile. Definitely things that, you know, historically have been very mining focused and may not be lately. You know, we're trying to get our foot in there again, so we'll see what happens.
Okay. I'm hoping that the postal codes are ones that we recognize.
Yeah, I hope so too.
Yeah.
Our next question comes from Brian MacArthur from Raymond James. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. It relates to the commitments going forward. A couple of questions. With Santo Domingo, obviously you got some money back, and you're gonna pay it out in the future. Are there other deals that I need to think about that potentially happening, or is that kind of a one-off in the portfolio?
Well, I mean, listen, we're always looking to be good partners, Brian. If, you know, things were delayed on their side and they had an advance and they didn't need the capital, we kinda may look at it as, you know, we're giving them an opportunity to defer some of that, those delayed payment mechanisms they would have otherwise had to pay. Our objective is to see this project advance as well. Not to collect delayed payments, delayed payment announcements. We haven't seen anybody else come to us right now looking for that. You know, I guess if somebody needed that's obviously something we would consider on a case-by-case basis.
Yeah. This, again, speaks to our kind of de-risk structure. These upfront payments that we have paid relate to early deposit payments. They're typically paid before permitting, and it's a very small portion of the ultimate upfront payment. What happened here was, you know, the permitting process got a bit delayed. We wanted to make sure we got our cost of capital. You know, Capstone had other means to satisfy that, and that's why they repaid it temporarily. It's a good outcome for both parties.
Yeah. I mean, listen, we're looking to be good partners and, you know, we wanna see the project go ahead, and we don't wanna disadvantage any of the, our partners as they're trying to move it forward, so.
Great. Thanks. My second one just relates to Salobo, and obviously, you were talking about potential going forward. You have an $8 million ongoing payment for 10 years, which I believe is if you're in high grade. Originally, you sort of didn't think you were gonna pay it till 2027, but in the 4th quarter, you moved it in. Is that kind of fixed now, that $8 million starting 2027, 2028, or could that still change going forward as a result of this new stuff that's happening?
Thanks, Brian. I would say that will still change most likely. I mean, we're constantly talking to Vale about different ways to do it. The thoughts around how that project is going to progress have really moved in a significant direction more towards the increasing the throughput and that, rather than that kind of high-grade plan that we'd originally viewed. I would say that there's still likely to be movement on what those payments could be and then when they would come out.
Great. Thanks. My last question just relates to a little bit of accounting. With the second Antamina transaction, are you gonna report it as two separate streams going forward, or is it all gonna get put together, so we'll just have a lot higher depreciation? Secondly, is there any different in tax structures for any of that going forward when we start to look at the second quarter results? Thanks.
Hey, Brian, it's Vince here. We're gonna treat it as one segment, so you'll see just one Antamina in our financial statements. The depletion rate will be a bit higher. I think it'll be around $26-$27 per ounce going forward on a combined basis. In terms of tax, it's the same just the GMT tax. you know, we get to obviously deplete the asset, from an accounting perspective, and the tax is 15% on the accounting income, from our Cayman sub. Pretty straightforward.
Perfect. Thanks. Last question, just updated depreciation rates. Are we gonna get those next quarter for all the assets?
Yes, that's right.
Thank you very much for answering all my questions.
Thanks for having on board.
Our next question comes from Cosmos Chiu from CIBC. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thanks, Haytham and team, and congrats again on the appointment and a solid start to 2026.
Thanks, Cosmos.
Thanks. Maybe my first question is on produce but not yet delivered. as you mentioned, it increased again, in Q1. It's actually the 5th consecutive quarter where it's increased. I understand there's a lot of new startups. I guess my question is, potentially when could it reverse? When could it, when could you potentially see a drawdown in that balance, the produce and not yet delivered? More specifically, I guess, I've seen it, Phoenix, you're seeing production for the first time in Q1. Platreef, you're seeing production for the first time in Q1. For those two, when could we potentially see sales come through? Would it be sometime in 2026?
Thanks, Cosmos. Yeah, I'd say, I mean, the PP&E moves in a reasonably predictable manner in that it does kind of build up in the first quarter at the end of the year, and then we see that drawdown in Q4 as usual. As you say, with those new streams kind of coming online, we will see that build up, and we'll see some more build up with Antamina coming on. As Vincent mentioned, we're gonna see two months of sales rather than the regular three in this next quarter. That will go up a bit with Antamina. On Phoenix, that one has a relatively short, so it'll be on the shorter end of assets there.
For Platreef, it is quite a long period before we see sales on that one. That one's more at the kind of upper end of kind of the five to six months, whereas, yeah, Phoenix will be on the lower end of, like, one to two months.
Great. Thanks, Wes. Maybe my other question, I was gonna ask about Australia again, but I think we have all the answers to it. Maybe I'll ask about the other new royalty stream that you acquired, Spanish Mountain. I see that it's a 1.5% NSR. It is a royalty. You know, historically, I believe Wheaton Precious Metals have preferred streams over royalties. Is that still the case? You know, Indiana is just really a unique situation here in terms of Spanish Mountain being a NSR.
No, that's absolutely the case. We still prefer streams over royalties. This is a royalty that comes with a ROFR on future financings for stream financing, Cosmos. This is our way of locking in our position when they come, go to finance the larger project.
Great. Maybe one last question. You know, you've disclosed this in the past, but now it seems like Bill C-15 of the budget 2025 has now been enacted as of March 26, 2026. Sounds like there's some amendments to existing transfer pricing regime under the Income Tax Act. I guess for someone that has covered Wheaton Precious Metals for a long time and have seen transfer pricing as a point of contention in the past, is this something that we need to worry about?
No, not at all. You know, we are set up in a way that's well understood now. And the settlement we did have with the CRA is applicable all the way up to 2025. You know, going forward with this new legislation, you know, we're going to operate the exact same way. If you look at the Antamina transaction, for example, that was all funded by our Cayman subsidiary. They borrowed the money at that level, and they have all the cash flows, and they have their own, you know, management team and board to make the decision. It's very well-defined structure. You know, from a tax perspective, we're going to maintain that structure going forward and don't expect anything to change.
I guess, Vince, you know, high level, what changed with Bill C-15?
I think the government just wants to, you know, more specifically define how transfer pricing works.
You know, specifically with respect to other companies that may structure their affairs differently than ours. With respect to us, it really has no impact.
Understood. Maybe one last question. In your table of cash outlays for 2026, excluding Antamina, I believe I work it out to a number of $496 million for 2026, of which you actually have paid a lot in Q1. You did Marmato, $40 million, Koné after the quarter. The two big ones that are still sort of outstanding in terms of potential commitment for cash outlays is the rest of Spring Valley and El Domo. Can you maybe just remind us what might be the trigger for these payments?
Sure. El Domo is really as they're achieving completion status, we would then fund. We do expect to fund El Domo, you know, potentially Q2 or latter half of 2026. Spring Valley, that one is based on achievement of obtaining key permits. We're hopeful they.
With the near term here. We would look to fund that, you know, in 2026 as well. Yeah, just to be clear on the upfront payments, you know, Q2 is, was a heavy, or will be a heavy quarter. We're gonna disburse about $4.6 billion, including the Antamina acquisition. The remainder of the year is a lot lighter at about $200 million.
Great. Thanks again, Haytham, Vince, and Wes for answering all my questions. Have a great weekend.
Thanks, Cosmos.
Our next question comes from Richard Hatch from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thanks a lot. Yeah, hey, Haytham and team. Just a question. The Middle East conflict and the impact that's had on global markets, is that impacting your ability to write new business at all or not? Thanks.
No, not at all, Richard.
Okay. Very clear. Easy. Thanks.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Martin Pradier from Veritas Investment Research. Please go ahead. Your line's open.
Thank you. My question is how are you changing the number for Salobo for the year? What is expectation now with all these new things that are happening?
No, there won't be any changes on Salobo for the year. All of the upgrades that they're doing are over the next several years. As mentioned earlier, we'll see that baked into guidance kind of next year as these things come online, kind of in the Vale's plan. Right now, we don't expect anything different in 2026.
Perfect. There was a big difference between sales and production this quarter, especially in Salobo. Salobo, the production was down 3%, but the sales were down 30%. What should we think about that going forward?
That's a pretty standard one on in Q1. As entertaining as it is, the Carnival in Brazil actually has a fairly significant impact on the sales and the logistics of moving that material around. We usually do see that lower sales in Q1, and there is kind of that drawdown in Q4 that you normally see. We do expect to see that build up in PBND, particularly at Salobo in Q1, and then this year is no different than that.
Great. Thank you.
Our next question comes from John Tumazos from John Tumazos Very Independent Research. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you for taking my question. Looking back at the February Antamina transaction, $4.3 billion outlay, should we think of that as a unique once in a generation sort of deal where you were already in the asset from the Glencore transaction a decade ago, you were intimately familiar, and it's a big lump of silver available right now, as opposed to, you know, a developmental property? Or do you think there could be more transactions like this?
The $4.3 billion Antamina deal, that is quite unique. You don't see a lot of streams that can provide that much production in any given year under a stream. You know, do we think that that is opening new doors up for, you know, billion-dollar-plus streams over the next few years? Absolutely. I think the with BHP coming in, and again, not unlike what we've seen with some of our other partners, validating the streaming model as a source of funding, I think a lot of diversifies are considering their portfolios and trying to determine whether it's time to unlock value in their portfolios or whether there's additional deleveraging required, et cetera, and streaming will be considered. We are seeing a lot of that. Do I think there's another $4 billion deal around the corner? No.
You know, as Neil had mentioned earlier, would not be surprised to see billion-dollar deals over the next few years.
Following up, a few weeks ago, I was doodling, and I tried to compile a list of 18 or 20 silver producers and 50 developmental companies. I googled every company that had silver in their name. The producers average in enterprise value, excuse me, market value of $8 an ounce reserve and resource, including inferred. Considering the valuation of the producers, and I converted gold at 60 to 1. Relative to the price you paid for Antamina, would it be cheaper just to buy a producing silver mining company? I know it's not your model, but the valuation differential is pretty large. It just struck me that it could be as good a deal, and, you know, at least they're in production and they're out there.
That's a good observation, John. I can tell you from our perspective, one of the reasons or some of the reasons that shareholders actually like Silver Wheaton because we don't provide that additional operating risk, capital risk, oversight that's required for these larger operations, the volatility that you see, the growth capital. From our perspective, it does not make sense to do that. We're gonna continue looking at streaming opportunities with good high-quality partners that can actually manage their portfolios. That's really the focus, and that's not gonna change.
Why do you think producers trade for $8 an ounce when the price is $80? Is the market only expecting $35 long term?
Well, because there's still costs to mine that ounce, the CapEx to develop the asset and the actual costs. Whereas we are paying 20% of spot, or in some cases, $4. That's why we have such a impressive margin compared to the producers. I think that's the biggest missing piece in that analysis.
Yeah, it's a great point. Like on the silver side, we're close to 84% margins. On the gold side, we're close to 86% margins. You don't see that with producers, John.
Thank you.
Our last question comes from Josh Wolfson from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Morning, Josh.
Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Just wanted to follow up on some of these Salobo questions. I think earlier in the remarks, there was a comment about Salobo grades expected to increase through the year. You know, 1st quarter results were very strong from the asset. I'm wondering if you can disclose what the grade was that was processed or, I mean, what any factors were that drove the outperformance there. Thank you.
Thanks, Josh. I'd say that the grade will improve through the year. It's, like again, pretty standard for what we see in Q1 with Salobo. They usually try to stay out of the bottom of the pit in Q1 just due to the rainy season. That is kind of they stay up in that kind of phase five, phase six that they're in, and we'll see them moving back into phase four, which is stronger grade through the rest of the year. That's really what drives that increase over the rest of the year.
Okay. Thank you. You know, further to extend that thought, you know, would it be reasonable to assume that production would increase over the course of the year, if grade is gonna be increasing?
Yeah, absolutely.
All right. Congrats on your upcoming quarterly results then. Thank you.
Thanks, Josh. Thank you everyone for your time today. The first quarter represented a very strong start to 2026 as we continue to execute on our strategy while entering this new chapter of growth for the company. With continued geopolitical uncertainty driving increased demand for precious metals, we believe Wheaton offers one of the most attractive low-risk ways to gain exposure to gold and silver. As the purest precious metal streaming company, our pipeline continues to advance, and the strength of our cash flows provides the capacity to pursue new opportunities while maintaining our commitment to disciplined capital allocation. I'm incredibly proud to be leading Wheaton into this next phase of growth and look forward to continuing to build on the strong foundation that has made Wheaton a leader in the streaming and royalty sector and the foundational stock in any portfolio.
Thank you again, and we look forward to speaking with you all soon.
This concludes this conference call for today. Thank you for participating. Please disconnect your lines.