Hochschild Mining plc (HOC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, hello, and welcome to our conference call to discuss our fourth quarter production results. I am here in Lima, Peru with Eduardo Noriega, our CFO; and in London is Charlie Gordon, our Head of Investor Relations. Group production in the quarter was just under 80,000 gold equivalent ounces, which was 13% higher than the third quarter and include good contributions from Inmaculada and San Jose. And of course, there was a better level of output at Mara Rosa, which is in a steady ramp-up phase. Therefore, for the year as a whole, Hochild produced just over 311,000 gold equivalent ounces ounces, which is within our revised guidance. I can also point out that we expect all-in sustaining costs for 2025 to be at the higher end and marginally above our revised guidance of between $1,980 and $2,080 per gold equivalent ounces. The current record high prices are translated into a swift increase in cyclical costs such as royalties, workers profit sharing, selling expenses and export taxes in Argentina. We will provide more detail at the full year results in March. A key focus during the period was, of course, at Mara Rosa, where I am pleased to say that our turnaround program has continued making steady progress. We made good progress with the pushback developments, which improved access to the higher grade ore and have stabilized the plant with a stronger maintenance practice. This has delivered higher throughput and improved productivity. We have also focused on managing the rainy season and strengthening the filtration and detox capacity through a better maintenance spare parts availability and moisture control. Mining performance has also improved, boosted by the more reliable equipment and infrastructure. The key remaining challenges are managing the rainy season, completing the installation of the new tailing thickener and ensuring consistent filtration and detox availability at 7,000 tonnes per day. Gold production for the quarter totaled just over 7,000 ounces, which the full year result being 40,000 gold equivalent ounces. This means we hit our revised target of between 35,000 and 45,000 ounces. Inmaculada has another strong period with close to 54,000 gold equivalent ounces produced in the quarter, driven by stronger grades -- gold grades and increased tonnage. This brings the total for the year up to 210,000 ounces, which is just above the upper end of our guidance of between 199,000 to 209,000 ounces. As you remember, in the third quarter, we know that rapidly rising prices will influence how we think about the cutoff grades in our mine plans over the few quarters. This is now creating opportunities to process material that was previously considered marginal, but can now deliver extremely healthy margins, and we are seeing this most clearly at Inmaculada. In Argentina, production shows a 17% increase from previous quarter with a strong grade profile and solid tonnage. Output was almost 37,000 gold equivalent ounces, which makes 126,640 ounces for the year and well within our guidance range. On the exploration side, our brownfield program has continued to deliver encouraging drill results, which we expect to lead to further resources addition in all our mines as well as in our 2 projects, Monte do Carmo and Royropata. They will be reported at our full year results in March. Our business development team has also remained busy, and I was pleased to see the completion last month of our transaction to list Tiernan Gold at the Toronto Stock Exchange. This raised $12 million for Hochschild and will allow Tiernan team to advance with the Vulcan Gold project over the next few quarters. Our current stake is just under 70%, and it is valued approximately up to $158 million. Other non-core assets is our 20% stake in Aclara, which is currently valued at approximately $112 million. Turning to our balance sheet. We had a very strong quarter of cash flow generation. We ended the year with cash balance of $317 million, which has resulted in now very small net debt position of $23 million and a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 0.04x. This is due to the solid quarter at Inmaculada and San Jose and of course, the big increase in precious metals price. As usual, we also provide guidance for this year. In summary, we expect to produce between 300,000 and 328,000 gold equivalent ounces in 2026 at an all-in sustaining cash cost of $2,157 and $2,320. That's the range in gold equivalent ounces. You can see the speed of the forecast by mine in the release. I should also point out that the equivalent numbers are calculated using the average gold silver ratio of Q4 2025, which is 77x. Sustaining and development CapEx is set at between $210 million to $225 million, and the exploration budget will be around $45 million. With that, I would like to open up for questions. Thank you very much.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Felicity Robson from Bank of America.

It seems the ramp-up at Mara Rosa is going according to plan. Could you give some color on when to expect the completion of the installation of the thickener and maybe how we can think about the production profile between H1 and H2?

Of course. Well, I mean, we have finished the engineering for sure. We have finished all the purchasing. And today, we are doing all the earthwork in order to start the installation. We believe that we can have the thickener in place at the end of Q1 or maybe during April. And for sure, we will have the thickener in place working, connected to the plant and giving the results in H2 for sure. In terms of the split between H1 and H2, I would say that it could be between 35%, 40% up to, I mean, 60%, 65% on the second one.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from Marina Calero from RBC Capital Markets.

Just a couple of questions on my side. First, on Monte de Carmo, can you give us an update on the time line for [ final ] financial decision? And if you were to go ahead this year, how should we be thinking about CapEx for that project? And I'll ask my second question later.

Thank you, Marina. Well, our objective in 2026 is for sure to take the decision of construction. For that, we are doing all the engineering studies, trade-offs. We want to have at least an important percentage of detailed engineering done -- and we believe that, that could be the end of May or June. So our objective today is to start construction for sure at the end of H1. In terms of CapEx, at the moment, I mean, we have like between $5 million and $8 million for the year, but that could be modified if we start construction. And I believe that we'll be able to spend around $50 million for the first -- I mean, for the second half of the year with all the construction that we'll be able to do before the rainy season in 2027.

That's very helpful. And second question is on your all-in sustaining cost profile. Your guidance is based on a gold price of $3,200 and a silver price of $34, but current spot levels are much higher. How will your sustaining -- your all-in sustaining cost for 2026 look like at current gold and silver prices, please?

Thank you, Marina. As you know, our all-in sustaining cost is impacted by prices in royalties, [ corporate ] profit sharing and some commercial discounts and selling expenses. If spot prices remain -- if prices remain as they are at the spot prices, we're going to be closer to the upper part of our guidance. That's what we estimate currently.

It appears there are currently no further questions. With this, I'd like to hand the call back over to Eduardo Landin for any additional or closing remarks. Over to you, sir.

There is no more questions? Okay. Well, thank you very much. No, just to say that thank you for being in the conference call. Sorry about the time. I know that it's lunch time in England, but I mean, we have something today, which is very important. No, just to say that I believe that the fourth quarter was very strong in terms of cash generation, it has been reflected on our balance sheet. And of course, the capacity of the company of generating cash is incredible at these prices. So our main objective this year is for sure to be on our guidance. and try to make as much cash possible and of course, developed our 2 projects like Monte de Carmo and Royropata. I have to say that Royropata is going very well. I mean we just started writing the document to be presented to the authorities in July this year. And well, I mean, the company could be a huge cash generation machine if we are able to put all these projects together in production with current prices. Thank you very much. Nothing else from me.