Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to McEwen's Third Quarter 2025 Operating and Financial Results Conference Call. Present from the company today are Rob McEwen, Chairman and Chief Owner; William Shaver, Chief Operating Officer; Perry Ing, Chief Financial Officer; Jeff Chan, Vice President, Finance; Stephen Spears, Vice President, Corporate Development; Michael Meding, Vice President and General Manager of McEwen Copper; Carmen Diaz, General Counsel and Secretary; Michael Swiston, President and CEO of Canadian Gold Corp. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, again press star one. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Rob McEwen, Chief Owner. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, Operator. Good morning, fellow shareholders and interested investors. We have been preparing McEwen Mining to benefit from the stronger metal prices we are seeing today. Over the past year, gold at just below $4,000 an ounce is up 45%, silver up 47%, and copper is close to $5, up 13%. I believe the intermediate and long-term prices will be considerably higher. This is an excellent environment for our portfolio mix of assets. I would go as far to say that perhaps you could think of us as a mini Freeport, with growing gold production pipeline and large exposure to a robust, world-class, long-life copper story. The improved gold and silver prices have buffered us from the inconvenient, unexpected events that can temporarily throw us off course and off guidance.
Fortunately, these moments are temporary and can be resolved in a relatively short period of time and have not seriously delayed our ambitious growth plans of delivering by 2030 250,000-300,000 gold-equivalent ounces of annual production. Plus, watching Los Azules become a copper mine. In the first five years, we're looking at producing at an annual rate of over 450 million lbs of copper a year, which today, at copper prices, would be about $2.2 billion, and it has, at least based on the feasibility study we just put out and the current copper price, would have a gross margin of 64%. We've done a number of things in the quarter, and we've made some investments, and I'll start with those, and then I'll move to.
Asking Michael Meding to talk about the excitement at Los Azules, and then we'll get into our finances and our operations on our gold operations. I will start with Ian Ball to talk about our investment in Canadian Gold Corp and also.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are experiencing technical difficulties. Please stay on the line. We will resume momentarily.
I'm sorry, Operator. What are you talking about?
How long ago were we?
Thank you very much, Operator. On the Canadian Gold front, we're set to close that acquisition in January. Upon closing, we expect to issue an updated resource estimate for the end of February that will come out with our year-end financials, and that's going to be part of a preliminary economic assessment. Our shareholders will note we have not included Tartan in any of our guidance going forward over the next five years, but we fully anticipate including that as we set to embark on our studies of that project. Exploration is ongoing, and Canadian Gold is scheduled to be putting out an exploration update over the next three weeks. The key there is we've been drilling on the main zone, continuing to build out that resource.
We've been doing a lot of work on the recently acquired ground to the west, which is optioned from Hutt Bay, where historically there was a lot of high-grade drill intercepts and surface. We think there's a lot of synergies between Tartan and that ground. It really fits well with the McEwen Mining portfolio in terms of the underground style, the processing plant, and we feel there's a lot of ways that we can optimize this, and we can accelerate the permitting on this project to get it back into production upon some of the completion of the test work that we're currently undertaking. We are quite optimistic both on the timeframes for permitting, the exploration, as well as the production profile that it can deliver for McEwen going forward. Okay. Mike, would you hop on the call? Operator, are you there?
You mean? Tell me about.
Oh. Come on.
About the.
Go ahead, Mike.
Okay. Thank you, Rob. Thank you, Operator. Q3 was an excellent and transformative quarter for McEwen Copper. We successfully advanced Los Azules from a world-class deposit into a de-risked, politically endorsed, and bankable Tier 1 asset. At McEwen Copper, we are committed to excellence in three key areas: operations, ESG, and exploration. The most significant strategic event of the quarter was the acceptance of Los Azules into Argentina's Régimen de Incentivo para Grandes Inversiones, or the Large-Scale Investment Incentive Program in Argentina, on September 26th. This is a fundamental game changer for the project. Through REGI, Los Azules now benefits from 30 years of legal, fiscal, and customs stability, access to foreign exchange, and a significantly lower and internationally competitive tax rate. This provides a predictable framework and strong protection against future regulatory changes.
The approval of the REGI is a powerful public endorsement, which was personally announced by Argentine Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, and reinforced by President Javier Milei on their official X accounts. We also finalized a collaboration agreement with the IFC, a member of the World Bank Group. This partnership will align the project with the IFC's rigorous ESG performance standards and establishes a framework for collaboration on future financing. Our most recent milestone was the publication of the NI 43-101 feasibility study results on October 7th. The study confirms robust project economics driven by a production process designed for low environmental impact. The LEACH and SXEW process will produce 99.99% LME Grade A copper cathodes and, as Rob already mentioned, in the first five years, 204,000 tons of pure copper per year. The highlights include $2.9 billion after-tax NPV at 8%.
19.8% after-tax IRR, a payback of 3.9 years, $3.2 billion initial CapEx, C1 cash cost of $1.71 per pound of copper produced, all-in sustaining cost of $2.11 per pound of copper. The financial model used a copper price assumption of $4.35 per pound. The full National Instrument 43-101 technical report is scheduled for publication later this month. Looking forward, detailed engineering for Los Azules is set to commence, and we are targeting construction for late 2026, beginning of 2027, subject to project financing. Finally, let's talk about the upside. Our total mining rights cover approximately 32,000 hectares. To date, we have explored less than 10% of our holdings, about 3,000 hectares. We have already identified eight significant targets, four of which we will focus on in the upcoming season.
We have strong reason to believe we can significantly increase the resource size of Los Azules and ultimately convert this project into a major mining district. Thank you so much. I hand back over to you, Rob.
Thank you, Mike. Perry?
Thank you, Rob. Good morning, everyone. I'll just provide some brief highlights from our third-quarter report. In terms of headline numbers, we reported a net loss of $500,000, or $0.01 per share, compared to a loss of $2.1 million, or $0.04 a share, in the corresponding period. I will note that this net loss included $4.3 million in terms of the loss attributable to McEwen Copper. As we've noted previously, now that the feasibility study for Los Azules has been published, going forward from the effective date of the feasibility study at the beginning of September, we will be able to report those associated costs on a capitalized basis. Any loss attributable to Los Azules from prior periods will now be capitalized on a going forward basis. In terms of.
Adjusted EBITDA, we reported $11.8 million of positive EBITDA during the quarter, or $0.22 a share, compared to $10.5 million, or $0.20 a share, in the corresponding period. In terms of our treasury, we ended the quarter with $51 million in cash, as well as $24 million in marketable securities. Our cash balance was relatively unchanged from the prior quarter at June 30, 2025. Just looking ahead, in terms of our release, we've outlined a number of significant projects ahead of us. Just looking into 2026 and our capital needs, obviously, we expect to finish the stock ramp by the end of next year, complete a heap leach pad expansion at Gold Bar, and, as noted, we will undertake Algaio Phase One with a capital cost of approximately $25 million. Overall, we expect to accomplish these using our existing treasury and cash flows from operations.
Specifically for the El Gallo project in Mexico, we also expect to utilize some form of gold prepay for approximately 50% of the anticipated capital expenditure (CapEx). With that, we will turn it over to Bill for some comments on operations.
What we're going forward.
Yep. Good morning, shareholders. Yes. From the operation perspective, as we all know, we started off the year underperforming, but we had a strong start to Q4 2025. Q3 2025 was not exactly as we anticipated due to some issues with the final few months of the FROOM mine. This is, I guess, to some extent, one of the outcomes of the end of a mine life. However, the FROOM West deposit has kicked in nicely towards the end of Q3, and we see it producing gold at the rate in our guidance through Q4 2025 and well into 2026. We now see FROOM mining until Q3 2026, by which time the Stock deposit should be coming into production, which we are now projected for the first half of 2026 .
In terms of the development work that we are doing at Stock, the ramp development is going along on schedule. B oth the mining contractor and McEwen Mining crews continue to maintain anexcellent have safety record , with no lost-time accidents by either our contractors or our own forces. In terms of Gold Bar, Q3 2025 has been quite challenging because of the fact that there was one part of our ore that we intended to mine in Q3, which basically did turn out not to be ore when we got to the mining. We pivoted there quite nicely to move into Q4 2025. Q4 is already looking very good, and we're back into the normal routine of our mining and our stripping and are moving north of 1.5 million tons per month. That's a very good outcome for operations.
From an exploration perspective, we've had very, very good success in both operations at Gold Bar and at Stock. At our board meeting yesterday, we approved going ahead with the re-leaching of the assets in Mexico. That will start early in 2026 with construction and then move on into leaching of the El Gallo leach pad and then putting those tailings back into the pit. We see a challenging Q4 2025 , but we're in very good shape, I would say, in the month of October 2025. Looking forward to the next two months, we're really looking forward to getting back to producing gold in Mexico. Thank you.
Thank you, Bill. During 2025 , McEwen Mining has acieved strong exploration results. W e discovered the FROOM West deposit, which allowed us to maintain production during permitting delays. We're backing up our production pipeline and our development plans. Both at Gold Bar, over at the acquired Timberline properties, we're getting excellent grades and continuity. There's one area that I don't know if everyone in the company shares my same optimism, but it's a property called Seven Troughs. Historically, it excites me because of its historic record. It is one of the highest-grade mines in Nevada, averaging > 1.2 ounces per ton. There was a recent grab sample in an area that historically had shown a lot of plus 1 gram material. That was better > 270 grams over a very short intercept, but still exciting given the history of that location. Gold.
At our Grey Fox area, it is growing. We will have a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) is expected in Q1 2026 . We have plans to expand in Mexico, as you heard from Perry and Bill. We are bringing in some other properties and have some investments in areas and in companies that I think have a lot of growth potential. With that, I do have to say that our missed year-to-date in our production is inexcusable, but we are taking steps to remedy that and get us back on track. With that, I will open it up for questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press Star +1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press Star +1 again. Your first question today comes from the line of Heiko Ehl from HC Wainwright. Your line is open.
Hello, Heiko.
Hello, Rob. Can you hear me clearly ?
Loud and clear. Can you hear us clearly?
Perfect. Just making sure. First of all, congratulations to Ian Ball on his appointment there. Rob, you actually, early on this call, preempted a bit of what I was going to ask you. I mean, your deal for Britannia/ Paragon Geochemical Labs, interesting move there. A few follow-ups to that. Do you think that you will engage in more vertical integration like this? Building on that last part, do you think we'll see a bit of an arms race, for lack of a better word, where other guys want to get involved with suppliers, distributors, in order to guarantee supply and fast processing? I mean, one example would be an assay laboratory. Obviously, you can't do it for independent assays, but would that be a potential target? Just maybe elaborate a bit on what you were describing earlier on the call and what you did.
Happy to answer, Heiko. Paragon holds a technology called photo assay, and it's an X-ray process that is faster, cheaper, more comprehensive in terms of the data being provided. I first saw this technology five years ago. It comes out of Australia. Paragon stepped in and got in line to secure 12 units, and that's about the annual production. Some of the majors have bought units for their sole use. I think as more money comes into the mining space, and that's surely going to happen with everybody, all the sovereign nations and corporations around the world looking for new sources of mineral, being able to compress time and get more information for your dollar out of your assays is going to grow increasingly more important. I mean, you could see backups of three-to four- weeks or more from the old suppliers of assays.
You can get it in two weeks or less. Sometimes almost daily. I think that's important. I mean, the whole industry is under a lot of strain right now. There are labor problems, so there's going to be competition there. There are equipment supplies. When someone comes along, we're going to have all these projects coming on. Will they be able to deliver the trucks, the shovels, the drills, and that? You're already in Argentina. We looked at that problem with drills. We ended up buying eight drills because there were not drills down there readily available. I mean, you look at the world and say mining investments in a mix of global portfolios is very small today, around 1- 2%. Ten years ago, it was up around 12%. We get back to that.
As you said, there's going to be a real battle for a lot of the inputs that are required to define an ore body. At the same time, we have to compress time in this industry. It's taking far too long to reach certain decision points. You're going to see a lot more technology. Technologies like Paragon's Crisis system, represent disruptive innovation that will advance the industry. We will be looking for other opportunities to accelerate and improve the knowledge of the industry. First for us, but then for the industry.
Yeah. Acknowledged the response and noted that he had observed the technology in operation during a prior site visit at a different location.
It's kind of a store.
It might have been. I go to so many sites. At Gold Bar production of 8,200 ounces, quite a bit lower, frankly, a bit lower than what we had in our model as well. You were talking about the reinterpretations of geological data. And changes to your mine plans. What should we be looking at for next year? I mean. This sure sounds like a temporary issue, but is it?
I would say absolutely. That particular zone of the mining operation that we were in in the last quarter, we ended up with a part of the where we were mining that we anticipated would be ore, it turned out to be, to in fact, be unmineralized material. As a result, that part of the pit basically turned into stripping material. For some reason, the historical drilling that was done many years ago didn't identify that course of unmineralized material. We've mined through that with our stripping part, and we're now back into what we would call our normal ore. What we're seeing in the rest of the mining that we're doing is that the reconciliation to the block model is standing up. It was just, I guess.
Something that we missed in our confirmation drilling or something that we missed in the mine planning at the time. This is a part of the ore body that we decided more than a year ago to start stripping because of the increase in the gold price. That is what brought that whole zone into ore. At the gold price that we had a year and a half ago, that stripping and that mining would not have been done. In answer to your question with regard to next year, we see the mine plan being pretty consistent through the year, and we'll be announcing the production guidance for next year shortly.
Perfect. Thank you so much. I'll get back in queue. Thanks, Rob.
Thanks, Heiko.
Again, if you'd like to ask a question, press Star one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Joseph Reager from Roth Capital Partners. Your line is open.
Hi, Jeff.
Hey, Rob and team. Thanks for taking my questions. I think Heiko asked the two big ones there, but just kind of following up on Gold Bar. In the comments, you guys said that you're going to be doing more work to review this. What degree of risk do you see to an overall resource change, if any? Or is this just a matter of sequencing?
It appears to be a matter of sequencing and does not represent a significant risk.
Thank you. Regarding Phoenix mid next year, how confident are you with that timeline to have all your permits? Where do you see the kind of the potential for it to get started earlier or later on the front? Do you expect to publish an updated financial study once you have permits in hand?
Regarding your last question. The permitting are somewhat uncertein. We have a permit to do some of the work, and it needs to be amended. We expect the timing to align with the previously provided schedule.
We have conducted several meetings with the government authorities regarding permitting. W e're fairly optimistic that we'll have those permits in time, and the construction of the plant will start in Q1.
Regarding your comment on the Canadian Gold marger, I think got cut in the beginning. What is the timeline to complete that merger? What is kind of the timeline after that by quarter as far as expectations and granules?
The process, there's a shareholder vote in December, and then it has to be ratified by the courts, and that's set for the 6th of January, I believe. Mid-January? 6th?
Early January.
Early January. In terms then we'll go in there and do a resource estimate and a preliminary economic assessment on that.
Okay. Okay. And when do you think the, what's the rough estimate? Assuming a Q1 close, what's the rough estimate on PEA being released? How many months or quarters?
Oh, you'd probably be looking into the fourth quarter next year.
Okay. All right. That's helpful. All right. Turn it over.
Thank you, Joe.
Your next question comes from a line of Gord Weber from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Thank you very much.
With respect to resource estimates, how does McEwen Mining currently calibrate or estimate it's proven resources?
The same way everyone else does.
How many ounces or equivalent ounces would McEwen claim to have today?
It's all set out in our statements. We're looking at about 3 million ounces at Fox. It's about 4.2 million, I think, between all of the operations. We have development going on at Gray Fox right now. We're drilling down in Nevada at Gold Bar, Eureka, and Seven Troughs.
I ask because it seems to inequitable for Canadian Gold Corp stockholders to tender 50 shares for one share , in fact, we have a proven resource.
Who are you representing? Sorry. Who are you a shareholder of?
Yeah. I'm a stockholder. I've been a long-term stockholder of Canadian Gold Corp. We know we have proven resources, and we also know that we have a lot of drilling that hasn't been analyzed to date. So I assume we have greater resources than has been booked. The 50-to-1 ratio appears opportunistic.
We put a bid on the table. It was accepted by management, and it's going to shareholders in December. We thought it was fair at the time, and I believe management thought it was fair.
Yeah. Will there be a resource estimate for we, the stockholders, before it goes to vote?
McEwen Mining does not have control over that process.
Okay. I think that's another one.
I don't have an answer to that question, but we're not driving a resource estimate.
As the majority shareholder, do not you want to know what that number is before you conclude the transaction? Or do you already have some inside information that leads you to believe it should be concluded?
Drilling is ongoing. It's exciting. It's in an area that's had past production, although the Tartan Lake mine wasn't run very well, and that's why it went into bankruptcy. No, it's in a favorite area of the country in terms of energy costs and that, and mineral deposits.
Yeah. No, you don't have to sell me on the merits of the Tartan mine. My concern is that the majority shareholders may have insight or information that the minority shareholders haven't been provided with.
That isn't the case.
That's reassuring to hear .
Are there any additional comments or q uestions?
Perhaps we can follow that up later.
Thank you, Gord. Next question, please.
Your next question comes from Terry DeVries, a private investor. Your line is open.
Hello, Mr. McEwen. How are you doing today?
Hi, Terry. I'm well. How about yourself?
How about yourself? You know what? I'm good. I'm actually really good. I've had a great couple of months watching your stock double. Congratulations for Los Azules. Really exciting what's happening there. The gold market goes up, the gold market goes down, and we just got a fantastic buying opportunity. I stepped up to the plate again. The one question I have. I didn't really hear it from Michael Meding. The IPO for Los Azules, do you have any further information that you can give us when you think that might be happening, how much money you'd be willing to or looking to raise in the first issue?
We were hoping to do it earlier, but the feasibility, we got that out in October. We did not feel the market would have enough time to do an IPO in the fourth quarter of this year. Now we are looking at going to sometime next year, taking the company public.
First quarter?
In terms of raising money, our last financing was at $30 per share. I would expect that we've been accepted in the REGI. We've got the feasibility study. The project looks very attractive relative to a number of other development projects in copper. We'd see a higher price than that when we go public.
Any other market-moving news that you can expect in the next quarter or two?
I don't know. I'm going to go meet with the president of Argentina tomorrow in New York. I don't think that'll move the market.
Your drill bits success has been rather encouraging, so I wish you all the luck in pursuing that. I look forward to some good news, and thanks for taking my call.
You're welcome, Terry. Thank you.
There are no further questions at this time. Mr. Rob McEwen, I turn the call back over to you.
Thank you very much, operator. Thank you, everyone. We've set our course where we're going. We think by planning by 2030 to have substantially more production coming out of our gold mines. There are a couple of other projects we'd like to see brought into production. We hope to have the copper mine up and running in 2030. All good news in the long term. Thank you.
This concludes today's call. You may now disconnect.