Gold, while building an organic growth engine in copper. Following my remarks today, Newmont's recently appointed Chief Technical Officer, Dave Thornton, here on the stage, will join me to answer some questions with Matt. Before we begin, please take a moment to review our cautionary statement shown here and refer to our SEC filings, which can be found on our website as well. Newmont today is a fundamentally stronger business, uniquely positioned at the intersection of three powerful investment themes, a constructive gold market, the leverage offered by a high-quality gold equity, and the ability to convert that leverage into sustainable per- share value. While we are the world's largest gold producer, our investment case is about far more than scale. It is built on the quality and longevity of our portfolio, the strength of our balance sheet, and a disciplined approach to capital allocation.
Over the past several years, we have deliberately reshaped our business through the integration and rationalization of our portfolio, the strengthening of our balance sheet, and embedding the operating discipline to perform consistently through the cycle. Equally important has been the strength and the continuity of the team. Many of the leaders who helped build today's portfolio and execute this transformation are the same leaders responsible for delivering the next phase of this value creation with clear ownership and a strong track record of execution. That progress is increasingly evident as our operational performance is driving record free cash flow, reliable delivery against guidance, and significant returns to our shareholders. Our path forward is grounded in a clear strategy and a focused set of priorities. First and always is safety and our commitment to making sure that everyone who walks through our gates on a daily basis goes home safely.
Second, we are continuously improving our operations by embedding efficiency across the business, improving consistency and productivity at site level, and maintaining a strong focus on cost. Third, we are investing in the future by prioritizing the highest- return opportunities in our portfolio, particularly those that extend mine lives, leveraging existing infrastructure, and strengthening our production profile for decades to come. Finally, we are focused on translating the strength of our portfolio into lasting value for shareholders by improving the underlying economics of our business, maintaining a world-class balance sheet, and returning excess cash through our consistent capital allocation framework. Over time, this disciplined approach increases the value generated by each share, allowing shareholders to benefit more fully from the cash flow, growth, and long-term potential of Newmont's portfolio.
Today, Newmont is the world's largest gold producer with an unrivaled portfolio of gold operations and gold copper projects located in many of the world's most favorable jurisdictions. What truly differentiates Newmont, however, is not simply the scale of this portfolio, but the combination of quality, longevity, and resilience that very few companies can match. Built on some of the world's best gold domains, our portfolio supports a stable and resilient multi-decade production profile, unlike anything seen in the gold industry. When that foundation is combined with greater operational consistency, improved productivity, and a continued focus on cost, it creates a powerful opportunity to generate value on a per share basis over time. This results in meaningful leverage to higher commodity prices, stronger margins, and a robust free cash flow generation, as reflected in the results we have already delivered through the first half of this year.
Through the first six months of 2026, our operational performance, combined with strong commodity prices and continued cost discipline, generated a record $5.3 billion of free cash flow. As of our second quarter earnings call, we have returned $4.6 billion to shareholders through quarterly dividends and ongoing share repurchases, translating the strength of our business into growing value on a per -share basis. Additionally, our first half performance positions us well to achieve our full year 2026 guidance while maintaining a continuous focus on safe, consistent execution. I want to spend a minute on our capital allocation framework that I believe is a key differentiator for Newmont. It establishes a clear and disciplined order of priorities. We want to reinvest in our world-class portfolio.
We want to maintain our resilient balance sheet and return excess cash to shareholders through ongoing share repurchases and a dividend designed to grow on a per- share basis. As of our most recent earning calls, those repurchases have reduced our share count by more than 100 million shares or approximately 9%. As a result, each remaining share today represents ownership of a larger portion of Newmont's earnings, free cash flow, and long-term growth opportunities than it did at the beginning of the year. Importantly, the lower share count also creates a pathway for dividend growth on a per- share basis while maintaining the same targeted annual cash commitment.
Based on the repurchases completed to date, the formula under our framework would support a quarterly dividend of $0.27 per share at the next annual review, which would present an 8% increase since we introduced the enhanced framework only back in February this year. Ultimately, our capital allocation framework allows us to invest in the longevity and growth of our business, preserve balance sheet strength, and provide shareholders with growing per- share exposure to the value generated by our portfolio. In closing, Newmont has the portfolio, we have the team, we have the discipline to convert a constructive gold market into enduring shareholder value. Our focus remains on safe, reliable execution, continuous improvement, and disciplined investment in the highest- return opportunities. We are accountable for making the most of the resources entrusted to us and for unearthing value sustainably to advance lives.
By executing with transparency, discipline, and integrity, we will continue to earn our position as the gold equity of choice. With that, I will now join Dave and Matt on stage, and we'll hand over to some questions and answers.
Great. Thank you. That was a great overview.
Just grab.
Sure. Maybe first question for you, Natascha. You formally started as CEO at the start of this year, but had a very good run up to it. Were executing on quite a bit late last year. We heard about some of those efforts at the Mining Forum Americas last year. You've got your executive team in place now. Dave, congratulations on your—
Thank you, Matt.
—appointment to Chief Technical Officer. Busy year of change, and I am wondering how you view Newmont right now. Is there still a transition, a transformation underway at Newmont, or has your focus evolved into running the current portfolio?
I think, Matt, it is such a good question. If we consider the journey that we have had up to today, we have really been able to transform the portfolio. The next level of transformation is going to be in ensuring that we execute on the underlying value in that portfolio. I think very pleased with where we are with the 12 assets in our portfolio. Really pleased with the progress that we have made recently with our joint venture partners in Nevada, with shared objectives clearly cleaning the slate for us to, in each and every one of our operations that we manage ourselves or through our joint venture partners, to really optimize the value. I think the next transformation with a clean sheet is going to be absolutely the focus on delivering.
I think technical capabilities will play a role in that. Dave, maybe you can tell us a bit about your background and what are you most excited about in this position?
Yeah, thanks, Matt. So bit of background around me. I have been in the mining industry now for a bit over 25 years. I had a range of different experiences, both in open- pit and in underground mining. Joined Newmont a little over 10 years ago in our Nevada operations when Newmont had the Nevada operations. Then moved into roles looking after our African business unit, spent some time in Latin America and the Caribbean business unit, and then more recently, looking after the Americas. What that has really enabled me to do is have a good understanding of the portfolio and, really importantly, our important resource of our people and our teams and the capabilities we have got there.
What I'm really excited about is thinking about how do we integrate the technical capability that's really strong in Newmont into our operations and projects to continue to improve the growth journey and the performance and value that we drive out of those assets. A really exciting time for Newmont.
You mentioned the Nevada background, so maybe we'll jump into Nevada Gold Mines, a very important part of the Newmont portfolio. You recently reached an agreement with Barrick to modernize the joint venture. There's several significant development properties brought in. Can you take us through what the agreement means at a high level for Newmont shareholders? How does it position NGM to perform, realize its full potential?
Thanks, Matt. Nevada is a big portion of our portfolio and a really important asset in our portfolio. I think this modernized agreement that we have reached allows, for the first time in the history of this district, an unconstrained optimization of an integrated portfolio of assets in that district. I think it allows us to really leverage on the strength of Barrick, the strength that we have in Newmont, to identify all of the near-, medium-, and long-term options for, and taking that portfolio or that district to its full potential. We've heard the Barrick team talk about it earlier, and we're truly excited to be part of that district and that partnership.
I consider Newmont fairly blessed geologically, so I also want to pay attention to many of the other assets where you've been exploring and looking to add value. Can you go through parts of your business today where you see some of the more exciting exploration opportunities, how that can contribute to mine lives or future value?
Yeah, perfect, Matt. When we think about our exploration pipeline, it is really, really exciting, and I will touch on three specific areas. This year we are going to invest about $240 million into our exploration pipeline, and 80% of that is focused on brownfields growth, which is really important to our scaling story. When we think about our Brucejack asset, which is up in British Columbia, previous to Newcrest or post Newcrest acquisition, we identified a new area called the Dozer Zone, which is about 700 m from existing infrastructure. We are really excited that that has the potential to be equivalent to Valley of the Kings, which is the basis of what Brucejack was built on. Similarly, in Merian, we took a step back a couple of years ago and thought about what is the district potential within Merian. That is continuing to grow. More holes are put in the ground.
The potential for that asset to significantly grow and potentially grow production to double what we are currently seeing now is another example. I will finish off with Ahafo South, where we have been operating in Ghana for a long period of time. We have got Subika that continues to be open at depth. We have got Apensu underground. So they are just some examples of brownfield targets that we have got across the exploration pipeline, which are very exciting.
Great. Question on capital allocation. You had the slide on the capital returns, and it has been a very meaningful part of the Newmont story, significant share count reduction. How are you thinking about future share repurchases? How can we think about the pace in the coming quarters?
Share repurchases is a strong aspect of our returns to our shareholders. As a reminder, it is important that we continue to invest in the sustainability of our business. We continuously and in a very disciplined approach, think about opportunities to reinvest in development capital, and our disciplined process that we follow in reviewing every dollar that we spend against the value created by share buybacks. So it is a very disciplined trade-off process in ensuring that where we allocate that dollar does develop or does create the best value for our shareholders. As we continue to see strong gold prices, we continue to see strong delivery from Newmont. We will continue to support within the context of our capital allocation framework, our share buybacks. We have seen the additional $6 billion that has been approved at the beginning of the year for additional share buybacks, and we are making some really good progress.
We continuously having an opportunity to go back to our board, and they have consistently given us approval to extend our share buybacks. I think just important to say, we'll continue to leverage and do the trade-offs between the value created through share buybacks and development or investment in the long-term potential of our business.
In terms of the long-term potential of the business, maybe a question just on the growth outlook beyond 2026. There's been discussion about a production trough this year. Do you feel like that's an accurate description of the business and that you're poised to grow?
Yeah, Matt, as you flagged, we've always talked about 2026 as being a trough year. We've got some projects in the pipeline that are in execution and coming through to completion to deliver on the growth story or the scalability of the story. The pre-strip at Boddington is coming to an end. TE2 expansion is coming into commissioning. We're doing ops readiness currently right at the moment and getting ready to bring that in next year. We've got the cave additions, two cave additions at Cadia, which are both exciting as well. In Argentina, we're doing CNE1, which is the Cerro Negro Expansion, the next portal for the next part of Cerro Negro's life. Then finishing with Lihir and the Nearshore Barrier. So we've got really good examples of growth stories of current projects and investments underway to deliver on that growth story.
That's great. Another thematic out there in the market is around cost, macroeconomic cost pressures, inflation concerns. Can you provide any color on what you're experiencing so far this year on the cost side and what levers you can pull to minimize impact?
Matt, I think part of our shareholders' biggest frustration over the years has been that we haven't seen the shareholders' ability to capture margin or high gold price through margins. Making sure that we protect those margins to improve our ability to create value is important. We set out last year to fundamentally reset the cost base of Newmont. We've delivered on that. We have delivered on a material reduction in our overall cost, including G&A, and we will continue to showcase how we will deliver against that this year.
Both the reset of our cost base, the productivity improvements that we have been making has seen us and how we've developed the ability to offset quite a bit of the cost pressures that we have seen through gold headwinds that translates into additional royalties and workers participation, but certainly also through the impact and uncertainty due to energy prices. We absolutely have built that discipline now in our culture. It's an ongoing piece of work. We see that flow right through our front line. You'll see and feel the level of ownership when you go to sites, and you can talk to frontline leaders and operators and maintainers, and there's a deep level of cost- consciousness.
We will continue to build on that culture to be cost- conscious, protecting the margins that we see coming through from increasing gold price and use that to allocate capital in meaningful ways.
Great. Well, I think that brings us to our allotted time. Really appreciate the insights today. Thank you, Natascha.
Thank you.
Thanks, Dave.
Thank you, Matt.