Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Magna Mining Inc. Second Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in a listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing the star key, then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Paul Fowler, Executive Vice President. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, operator. Thank you and good morning, everyone. Before getting started, I'd like to mention that we may make forward-looking statements or provide forward-looking information on this call in accordance with applicable securities laws. Please review our most recent corporate presentation available on our website for cautionary language regarding the use of and reliance on forward-looking statements, which may be materially different from the actual results obtained by the company, and for the risk factors applicable to such forward-looking statements that could cause actual results to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such statements. Any scientific or technical commentary on this call has been reviewed and approved by David King, our SVP , Exploration and Geoscience, who is a qualified person under NI 43-101.
With respect to non-IFRS performance measures that are referred to on this call, please refer to the reconciliation to measures of performance prepared in accordance with IFRS accounting standards in the company's most recently filed MD&A. All figures are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted. Our press release, MD&A and financial statements are available on SEDAR+ and on our corporate website. I would like to introduce Magna Mining management on the call with us today: myself, Paul Fowler, Executive Vice President, CEO Jason Jessup, COO Jeff Huffman, CFO Scott Gilbert, Senior Vice President, Exploration and Geoscience, David King, and Tim Bradburn, General Counsel. Following formal remarks from management, we will open the lines for further questions, as mentioned by the operator earlier, and I would now like to introduce Magna Mining CEO Jason Jessup to comment on the quarterly results. Go ahead, Jason.
Thank you, Paul. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. The second quarter of 2025 was the first full quarter that Magna operated as a producing mining company, and I am quite pleased with the achievements of the team. We continued to grow our workforce at the McCreedy West Mine, invested in equipment and the required infrastructure, as well as added key personnel to support our vision of becoming a multi-mine producer in the Sudbury Basin over the next three years. Underground capital and operating development were a focus during the quarter, and great improvements were made by the team. Magna's in-house development crews managed to increase development footage from under 7 ft per day in March to an average of 17 ft per day in June.
This work was done with safety and quality in mind, which supports the culture of operational excellence that we are fostering within our operation. Production was hampered in April due to the limited development completed by the previous owners in January and February, as well as the limited amount of development that was completed in our first month of ownership. As daily development footage increased throughout the quarter, so did our copper equivalent payable pounds, which is in line with our expectations. I would now hand it over to our CFO , Scott Gilbert, to present an overview of our financial performance in Q2.
Thanks, Jason. On February 28, 2025, Magna closed the acquisition of a portfolio of base metal assets from a subsidiary of KGHM. The preliminary purchase price allocation resulted in a bargain purchase gain of CAD 36.6 million. The allocation is preliminary, and the fair values are subject to change as there has not been sufficient time to complete the valuation process. The valuation work must be finalized within 12 months following the acquisition date. Mineral properties, plant and equipment, exploration and evaluation assets, reclamation obligations, deferred revenue, and deferred taxes are all subject to change. Any adjustments made will be recognized retrospectively, and comparative information will be revised. There were no adjustments to the preliminary purchase price allocation in Q2 2025.
The mine incurred a negative cash margin of $1.2 million during Q2 2025, with cash costs of CAD 6.47 Canadian per pound or $4.67 U.S., and all-in sustaining costs of $7.55 per pound or $5.45 U.S. For Q2 2025, the company had operating cash outflow of $11.6 million and free cash outflow of $10.7 million, which included $2.1 million of capital expenditures. The $3 million of cash collateral that was required to support the letter of credit facility in Q1 2025 was released in Q2 2025. Our cash balance at June 30, 2025, was $27 million. I will now hand the call over to our COO, Jeff Huffman, for an overview of our operations performance on the quarter.
Thank you, Scott, and good morning, everyone. Our goal in Q2 was to make meaningful improvements in the operations, which will support our broader plan of setting the mine up in 2025 for a successful 2026 and beyond. Increasing our development rates was one of the key improvements that we set out to accomplish. We were successful in increasing development rates each month during the quarter and ramping up from below 7 ft per day in March to around 17 ft per day in June. Operationally, the mine started out the quarter with limited development ahead of production, resulting in some ore being shipped in April from the Intermain Nickel Zone and a lower grade stope within the 700 Footwall Copper Zone . The previous owner had these two stoping areas in their mine plan and subsequently had begun developing to these mining areas.
Throughout April, Magna increased the development footage and started to move towards mining stope shapes in the 700 Footwall Copper Zone that were designed and developed by Magna. Emphasis was placed on grade control and incorporating more geology into the localized resource block model in these stoping areas. May and June were progressively better operational months. Ore grades and tonnages increased substantially, resulting in much higher copper equivalent payable pounds. In April, the copper equivalent payable grade was 2.54%, increasing to 3.34% in May and 3.56% copper equivalent in June. Likewise, the ore shipped increased month over month from 15,580 tons in April to almost 27,000 tons in May and to 27,560 tons in June. Overall, McCreedy West produced 3.05 million lbs of copper equivalent payable for the quarter and averaged a grade of 3.26% copper equivalent.
Total ore processed in Q2 was 59,100 tons from the 700 Footwall Copper Zone and 10,945 tons from the Intermain Nickel Zone. I would now like to hand over to Jason Jessup, our CEO, for some final comments.
Thanks, Jeff. I'll now give a brief overview of Q2 exploration and our current activities at our mines in Sudbury, followed by questions. I will start by talking about the McCreedy West Mine. As I said already, development is key to unlocking the potential at McCreedy West, but profitability will be driven in 2026 by managing costs through efficiency improvements at the mine and continued emphasis on grade control. We're starting to realize improved efficiencies by developing on multiple levels, having multiple ore mucking locations, and building flexibility into our plan. On August 6th, we announced drill results, which were highlighted by two copper intersections with high precious metals near the 500 ft level at McCreedy West. Please review our website for details on our news releases. This area has potential for selective mining methods that could provide a source of high-value ore within the coming months.
The ability to convert new diamond drilling intersections into near-term mining plans and production is something that makes us unique in Sudbury. As we continue to diamond drill and receive results at McCreedy West, we will look at ways to optimize our production plans to generate more revenue and grow the production profile at the mine. Moving on to Levack Mine. In Q2, we completed approximately 10,000 m of exploration and infill drilling at Levack. Most of these meters were testing areas near the surface, targeting our copper-rich Keel Zone and areas around the main ore body. This drilling provided information on the orientation of the veins in the Keel zone and expanded on the known zone. Some of the meters were focused on pure exploration drilling in an underexplored area in the footwall of the No. 3 Orebody.
Hole MLV-25-14A was started in late May, and the results were released in July. It intersected a 0.6 m zone grading 8.1% nickel, 2.5% copper, and 17.9 g of platinum plus palladium plus gold. This intersection reminded me of the upper part of the Morrison's footwall deposit at Levack Mine, an area we refer to as Rob Zone. Please visit our website for more details on that news release. We have followed up on this drilling, and I am pleased to announce that earlier today we released results from a wedge hole that tested 140 m below the MLV-25-14A intersection. This hole had multiple intersections of high-grade copper and precious metals, highlighted by 2.6 m at 12.8% copper, 0.6% nickel, and 31.8 g per ton of platinum plus palladium plus gold, including 1 m of 29.2% copper, 0.9% nickel, and 53 g of platinum plus palladium plus gold.
That 53 g contained 29.9 g of gold. This new target area is called the Rob's 2 or just the R2 Zone for short . Geophysics has been done on this hole, and another wedge hole is underway. Expect more news from this area in the coming weeks. We've initiated work on our internal Levack repair plan in Q2 and expect to have it completed by the end of the year. We've also commenced a mineral resource estimate for Levack Mine, which will be completed in late Q3 or early Q4. Levack is a priority project for our company and will continue to be a significant portion of our exploration budget.
At Crean Hill, we are advancing engineering work required for good power connections, as well as finalizing designs and purchasing long-lead tunnel items for a permanent dewatering system. At this time, there is no exploration work being done at Crean Hill as Levack is the current exploration focus. The Podolsky Mine is on current maintenance, and we have been evaluating the potential for an underground vault sample in the North Zone. There is currently a ramp from the surface that has been developed to within 150 m of this deposit, with all services and dewatering infrastructure in place to commence the vault sample. At this time, I'll now open up the line for questions and hand it over to Paul.
Actually, I'm just going to hand it over to the operator to open up the line for questions. Please go ahead, operator.
Yes, sir. We will now begin the question- and- answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. We'll pause for a moment as callers join the queue. The first question will come from Bryce Adams with Desjardins. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Jason and Magna. Appreciate the update and well done with the results. It's great to see the monthly improvements at McCreedy. On that note, you provided the monthly tons produced. For the month of June, can you split it out and highlight how many tons were from 700 versus the Intermain Zone ? Could you do the same for July?
I will hand that question over to Jeff and Scott to answer.
Yeah, I'll just pull that up here, Jason. I don't have it right in front of me. Which month, Bryce, were you?
I was going to ask for June and then July if you're willing to add that. Just wondering if the tonnage rates are reducing at Intermain and increasing at 700 is what I'm trying to get at.
Yeah, our last shipments of Intermain Nickel would have been in May.
Okay, nothing in June.
That's correct. June and July would have been all 700. Actually, right at the beginning of June, we would have had about 3,600 tons. Right at the beginning of June, about 3,600 tons, and that was the last nickel for the [ETA site], Bryce.
Okay, thank you.
From the Intermain.
Yeah, the Levack drill result this morning, that one is pretty eye-catching. We look forward to extra results that you talk to, Jason. At the R2, can you add more drills to that zone, or is the plan to keep drilling wedges? What's the potential of getting a drill underground to test the R2?
Bryce, I'm going to hand that question over to Dave King, who's here with us.
Yeah, good morning, Bryce. Currently, we have the one surface drill drilling there. The other is finishing up a couple of holes on the near surface nickel zone. We should have the first underground drill mobilizing in about a week and a half, and look to get a second one mobilizing as soon as you have platforms ready. There are a couple of levels that we can access and start drilling from underground. It will avoid the wedging and the belows associated with that.
Okay, so it's not just moving drills underground, it's also increasing the drill count?
Yes, we're going to keep one surface drill going on that target for now and have at least two. If we have the platforms and things are successful, we'll get a third underground rig as well.
Okay, that's great. Sorry, keep going.
I was just going to say, obviously, it depends on success and available platform.
Okay, thanks for that. I had a maintenance question from the income statement. The $3.7 million for site maintenance, is that a good quarterly run rate that we can use for future periods?
Yes, it is. That's including a fairly large amount of depreciation for the Levack property. That will be adjusted once we get to the final purchase price allocation.
Okay, we'll hold it at that level. The last question for me is on potential government grants/ funding. Are there any updates that you can provide on that front, or what should we be looking for in the next months or quarters?
What I can say at this time is there's still a regular dialogue with both provincial and federal governments. I can't give any kind of timeframe on where there may be a decision made or not, but what I can tell you is quite active, and we will keep people updated as it progresses.
Okay, perfect. That's all for me. Thanks again, and look forward to your future updates.
Thank you, Bryce. [Crosstalk]
The next question will come from Dalton Baretto with Canaccord. Please go ahead.
Thanks, operator. Good morning, guys. I want to start with McCreedy West. You've provided guidance for the back half of this year. Jason, I'm just wondering what your initial thoughts are on 2026 and what that's going to potentially look like, even at a high level. Thanks.
Yeah, sure. Of course, it's a high-level sort of vision of where we're going. I would expect us to have a 700 complex or bulk mining program, averaging in and around 30,000 tons of ore per month. At somewhere in our Q4 guidance range, there is potential to add in a couple hundred tons a day of more selective mining also from the 700 zone and potentially even from this area around the 500 ft level that we announced back on August 6, as drilling will start in that area in September to hopefully define a zone up there that would be mineable. 1,000 tons- 1,200 tons a day, I think, is good. Our focus will be on quality tons and grade control. There's a huge advantage to us when you have fixed cost per ton for milling, crushing, trucking, sampling.
The more metal we can put in every ton has a huge advantage to our bottom line. That's a pretty high-level answer, I think, but it's the best I can give you at this time.
No, that's good, Jason. Do you have a sense for where the cash costs will settle next year?
At this time, I wouldn't be in a position to estimate that. We do think there's lots of opportunities for efficiency improvements and improving on cash costs, but I can't give that direction at this time.
No, that's fine. Maybe switching gears to the assay results this morning, the Morrison analog is really interesting here. You know, your July drill hole had a very narrow intercept, nickel rich. These ones are slightly wider, they're more copper and PGM rich. As you continue to hit downstrike, if you continue to use the Morrison analogy, what are you expecting to see?
That's a great question that I will hand over to Dave King.
Yeah, the experience in the Morrison deposit started off with, like Jason said, the Rob zone of Ni-rich, pentlandite and pyrrhotite veins . They transitioned fairly quickly into narrower calcified rate veins, kind of like I think what we're seeing in our first hole and the FNX6083-W1 hole. It's just a matter of following that using geology and geophysics until you can find the thicker portions of the vein. The central portion of the Morrison deposit veins were typically sort of 3 m-6 m range. That's the kind of area that can really add a lot of value to the vertical meter. That's essentially what we're looking for. I guess the other point at Morrison was as you went deeper into the system, the PG grade continually increased as well. That's a positive.
Is that what you'd want to see? You'd want to see sort of a 5 m-6 m , well, a much wider intercept before you're willing to confirm this as a new discovery?
That's kind of what Jason and I talked about internally, right? You know, we've really got two holes into it. There's a lot of geologic interpretation in our sort of exploration model right now. I'd like to get a couple more holes, and I'd really like to get one that's a few meters there.
That's great. All the best, guys. We'll be watching for it.
Yeah.
The next question will come from Brandon Gaspar with SCP Resource Finance. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Trying not to be too redundant here, just to come back to McCreedy on the grade increase that's guided and the cash cost improvements. Could you provide just like a little bit more color on the specifics that's going to drive the grade improvement and cost over the coming quarters? Is it stope design, optimization, drill patterns? I'm just curious.
Yeah, I can take that question, Jason. Thanks for the question, Brandon. Really, I think both, you know, grade increase and cash costs are sort of related to the same sort of directive that, you know, we're trying to get ourselves developed to some sort of higher grade, more prospective mining areas a little further away from where we are mining currently at McCreedy West. It gives us a couple of advantages. You could say a lot of the mining areas we're currently or actively mining are sort of very close together. Logistically, it adds a lot of complexity, and we're around a lot of mining voids currently where we are.
Getting out to some areas that are a little further away from that sort of centroid of where we're mining now gives us the advantage of getting outside of some of those mining voids, but also where we see this increase in grade as well, Brandon. We're trying to get developed out on multiple levels to some more prospective higher grade mining areas. I think your cash cost and your grade increase are, you know, both of those things will be affected by getting out to those areas sometime in Q4.
Right. Just on the development, it seemed like, you know, despite the stope availability constraints in April, development rates are increasing quite strongly into this quarter. When did you guys implement the contractors? Did that start in sort of Q2, or is it really just kind of starting this quarter? We should expect these to head in a similar trend here?
Yeah, good question. I'd say there was a small effect to the contractor addition towards the end of the quarter, Brandon. Into this quarter, you'll see hopefully slightly increasing development rates. We're also adjusting the plan, I guess, is another thing, Brandon. There are some areas that we're going after that require a little more rehabilitation, but using some existing development. Utilizing some of those resources in some rehabilitation areas is ongoing as well. It's taking advantage of what's in front of us as we learn more about the mine and its current condition. Yeah, a little bit of that influence at the end of Q2 cutting into Q3.
Okay. Lastly, I definitely can't gloss over this exploration result today. It's pretty spectacular. I know this is something that you guys have been working on for a while. It seems to me like this, correct me if I'm wrong, this is completely wide open, right, at this point. I know it's a single hole here, but that footwall environment that you're testing, it's 650 m away from infrastructure in one direction and less in another direction. In terms of drill holes, how open are we looking at?
I'd say, you know, very open. There are some drill holes down at those elevations, kind of in and around the area. I think what's key is we're looking at it more at what seems to be more of a structurally controlled area with sort of north sub-striking veins. That's key. The historic drilling in the area wasn't targeting that style of mineralization. Essentially, we would have missed anything like that. Fairly open, but beneath us at depth, you know, and below the 3,600 level, like we're drilling now up around the 2,900 ft level. Below 3,600, it's wide open. Out towards Morrison to the south, which was about 600 m away, it's fairly open as well.
Wow. Okay. Just a reminder here, this would be outside the Franco-Nevada precious metal stream, right? This is entirely unencumbered by any royalties?
That's right. This area is completely outside. The Franco royalty at Levack is fairly tight to the known Morrison deposit and then a small area in the [Crean Hill] via intermediate ore zones.
Okay, great. Congrats on that, guys, and thanks for taking my questions.
I would now like to pass the call over to Mr. Fowler for any possible webcast questions.
Thank you. Yeah, we've had a few questions online, some of which are duplicates, but I'll try and ask a couple here that would hopefully cover a few topics. There's been a couple of questions about remaining capital investments at McCreedy and any updates to projections on anything we can say about cash flow, free cash flow next year. A lot of this has already been covered in some of our guidance, but I'll just hand that over to Jeff or Jason quickly to comment, perhaps.
I'll take that one. Remaining capital, obviously, this year we are increasing capital to catch up on development as well as replace a couple prime movers, a couple scoop primes. I would expect that next year we'll probably spend at least $2 million on replacement of capital equipment as well, which is, I think, quite reasonable. We do not expect to have mining contractors on site to do our primary development next year. We'll be doing that in-house. That will have an improvement. There isn't, beyond this year, a large amount of capital required at McCreedy West, I think. Now, looking at what kind of cash flows will be next year, again, it's quite early to kind of predict that. I'm going to leave that question, I guess, unanswered for now.
Again, I think we're moving in the right direction, and I think there's a lot of efficiencies to be realized, which will result in lower costs.
Thank you, Jason. I'll just ask this one last question as well that relates to the challenges or opportunities with building a potential new discovery here in R2 into a future mine plan at Levack. I've got this for Jeff or Jason. Do you want to answer that one as well, or even Dave?
I'll start that one and maybe hand it over then to Jeff to just comment on. Obviously, you know, this is a very new realization. We just received the assay results for this hole in the last 24, 36 hours. Very, very new. That being said, we had seen visually that we had intersected massive sulfides, which I cannot help myself but start thinking about how we would mine that. You know, having been a big part of the development of the Morrison deposit at Levack Mine, and along with Jeff, it brought back good memories and fun times. It is actually, we're set up quite well. Where this hole was intersected is actually between the 2650 level, which is our active shaft station at Levack Mine, and the historic 36 level, which has not been activated since the time that Inco was mined.
We are in the process of reestablishing that level as secondary egress for a neighboring mine. This intersection is sort of in between those two levels, so in relative close proximity to, you know, infrastructure and ramp. If we were to drift directly to the east off of the Morrison ramp, there would be between 600 m and 700 m of development to get out to it, and then we'd be connected right to the ramp, which would be, could truck material right to the 2650 station. It is a great infrastructure-wise, I think a great part of the mine that's wide open. Obviously, there would be, you know, work to be done to get all the services and power and everything out to that area.
It is a, I would say, a very reasonable expectation that a new discovery and a deposit in this area could be mined and extracted in fairly short order.
Yeah, I don't think I have much to add there. Jason, obviously, very exciting, and as you said, the infrastructure is fairly close. I guess the only other thing I'd add is, you know, Levack Mine has remained on care and maintenance. We have people going underground every day at Levack Mine. As Jason just alluded to, we have some work that is commencing down on the 3,600 level. We have people going up and down the shaft every day. It's, you know, we're ready to access the work areas, get the diamond drills underground in the positions that they need to be. Yeah, we've got access. Very, very exciting.
Thanks, Jason. Thanks, Jeff. Operator, that concludes the online questions that we're able to answer today. Thank you.
Yes, sir. This will bring a close to today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation and have a pleasant day.