Kinross Gold Corporation (KGC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone.

Good morning. My name is Jenny, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Kinross Gold First Quarter 2026 U.S. Projects Update Virtual Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. David Shaver, Senior Vice President of Kinross Gold. David, you may begin.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Before we begin, I'd like to state that we will be making forward-looking statements during this presentation. For a complete discussion of the risks and assumptions, which may affect actual results differing from estimates contained in our forward-looking information, please refer to Page 2 of this presentation and our news release published this morning. In terms of our plans for this morning, we'll have an introduction first by Paul Rollinson, CEO, and then we'll pass it over to Will Dunford, Senior Vice President and Chief Technical Officer, and the technical team to go through each of our individual project updates, including Round Mountain Phase X, Kettle River, Curlew, Bald Mountain Redbird 2, and then have Andrea Freeborough, CFO, comment on project funding and capital expenditures. From the technical team today, we have with us Nicos Pfeiffer, Vice President of Geology and Technical Evaluations; and Yves Breau, Vice President of Metallurgy and Engineering. I will now turn the call over to Paul Rollinson.

Thanks, David. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Today, we are announcing plans to reinvest in our business to generate additional value from internal projects that are underpinned by a low-cost structure and demonstrate excellent economics at a range of gold prices. We are excited to provide you with an update on our 3 new growth projects in the U.S. that we are now progressing to construction. Our decision comes on the back of positive exploration results and robust project studies with all projects demonstrating attractive all-in sustaining costs. As can be seen on this time line, our portfolio and grade enhancement journey intended to provide an organic offset to inflation pressures began with the completion of the Tasiast 21K and 24K mill expansions and the restart of La Coipa back in 2022. Following these projects, we continue to focus on grade enhancement opportunities in the U.S., which began with Manh Choh contributing high-grade ore to the Fort Knox mill in 2024. Today's update reflects the next phase of that journey, and we are pleased to advance 2 additional grade enhancement initiatives through higher-grade underground at Round Mountain Phase X in Nevada and Curlew in Washington State. Together with low-cost open pit mining at Bald Mountain Redbird 2, these are expected to benefit our long-term costs in the U.S. As we look forward, these new projects are well timed and are expected to start contributing in 2028. This coincides with our mine plan at Tasiast, which has us back to higher-grade mining also in 2028. Looking further out, we are targeting production at very low cost from Great Bear in 2029, followed by Lobo-Marte, which is also very low cost in the early 2030s. All of these projects where we will be mining higher grades continue to provide organic offsets to inflationary pressures. This slide highlights the projects that we have approved, which the team will be discussing in more detail. Together, they are contributors to maintaining our 2 million ounce production profile through the end of the decade and are expected to deliver up to 400,000 ounces per year. I also want to highlight that we see significant exploration potential to extend production beyond what's shown today at all 3 projects. Today's results demonstrate the strength of our extensive resource base, the success of our internal exploration programs and the strategic advantage of our strong in-house technical team. At today's gold prices, our substantial resource base provides excellent optionality. And beyond these projects, our technical team continues to study many other opportunities within the portfolio. We intend to fund this development with cash flow from our existing operations, which Andrea will speak more on later. We are delivering on all fronts through consistent operational execution and strong financial performance. The outlook for our overall business and our North American portfolio has never been stronger. So with that, I'll turn it over to Will and the technical team.

Thanks, Paul. I'd like to start off by providing a high-level summary of the projects before myself and the team dive into details on each. Phase X at Round Mountain is a low-cost bulk tonnage underground opportunity that extends operations through 2038 with average annual production of approximately 140,000 ounces. Curlew is a high-grade underground opportunity that leverages existing infrastructure at the Kettle River mill and historic Curlew mine to bring online an additional high-margin mine in the U.S. that produces up to 100,000 ounces per year. The Redbird 2 project is a highly efficient extension of mining at Bald Mountain, providing both the next anchor pit alongside 5 satellite pits that combined to deliver 640,000 ounces. As Paul noted, we are progressing to construction across 3 of these projects on the back of strong margins with an average AISC of $1,650 per ounce, quick paybacks of less than 2 years combined NPV of $4.1 billion and IRR of 55% at $4,300 gold. The projects are also resilient at lower gold prices, aligned with our focus on capital discipline with a combined NPV of $2 billion and IRR of 32% at $3,200 gold. Together, they are expected to add over 3 million ounces of production just based on the initial resource and mine plan inventory drilled to date. Beyond that, they all have significant potential for mine life extension to further enhance our return and asset value through continued exploration success at Curlew and Phase X and through both exploration and the existing large resource base at Bald Mountain. Phase X and Curlew are the next steps in our grade enhancement strategy with grades of approximately 3 and 6 grams per tonne, respectively, bringing on 2 new underground mines in the U.S. that significantly increase our average grade, provide consistent production and long mine lives, lower our future cost profile and help to offset inflationary pressures. The addition of 2 higher-grade underground mines also has other benefits, including providing more mine plan flexibility, lowering our initial capital investment per ounce and reducing the incremental capital cost of further mine life extensions. Given the better-than-expected exploration results, initial resources and initial mine lives, which now go to 2038 at both Phase X and Curlew, we have increased our initial capital investments through the study phases to provide reliable long-term infrastructure. These capital investments are expected to derisk our projects and provide robust returns and enhanced asset values, and we are pleased to be proceeding to construction. Starting with Phase X, as a reminder, our Round Mountain mine in Nevada has a long production history of primarily large-scale open pit mining. The site has the benefit of strong infrastructure and an existing 10,000 tonne per day mill. In 2023, we established a dual decline from the bottom of the pit to progress underground exploration, following higher grade mineralization at depth below the Phase W pit. In 2023, we also announced the decision to proceed with mining of Phase S, where we are now getting into the heart of the ore body, providing open pit production for the next few years and long-term stockpiles to blend with the underground. And in 2025, we completed mining of the current layback at Phase W, which sits above the underground at Phase X. Since starting the exploration decline in 2023, we have progressed 6 kilometers of underground development and nearly 35 kilometers of exploration drilling. We now have sufficient drilling to define an impressive initial underground reserve of 1.2 million ounces at 3.2 grams per tonne with a further 200,000 ounces of M&I and 500,000 ounces of inferred. On the back of this initial underground resource, we have completed internal studies to support a construction decision with the results indicating robust economics and strong margins. The project delivers excellent returns on the $400 million initial capital with an AISC of $1,680 an ounce, an NPV of $1.9 billion and an IRR of 67% at $4,300 gold. And as Nicos will speak to later, there is significant potential for further mine life extension, which could amplify these returns. On this slide, you can see some of the key mine planning details that drive these strong margins and returns. Phase X has been designed as a bulk tonnage underground operation with a gradual ramp-up to nearly 5,000 tonnes per day. The primary mining method is transverse longhole open stoping with the mining cost and AISC benefiting from the wide consistent nature of the deposit with an average width of 120 meters driving an efficient underground design. The initial stope size is designed to be 12 meters by 25 meters high, which we see potential to optimize over time to improve mining costs. The mine plan includes early development of both the upper and lower zones to allow concurrent mining, improving the production rate, efficiency and cost of the mine. The efficiencies and costs of the mine will also benefit from a third portal access, short haul distances, pace backfill and a large-scale underground equipment, including 60-ton haul trucks and 17-tonne loaders. The resulting underground mining cost in our initial studies comes in at $72 per tonne, and we will be focused on optimizing this cost as we get into operations, expand the ore body down dip and open up more mining zones. I will now pass across to Yves to take you through the processing and capital investment plans.

Thanks, Will. On the milling side, the Phase X project benefits from strong economies of scale, blending the underground inventory with Phase S inventory and lower grade stockpiles to fill the 10,000 tonne per day facility, driving an estimated processing cost of $14 per tonne processed. The underground inventory at Phase X has the same geometallurgical properties as the open pit material that we have historically processed through our mill. The mill includes a gravity circuit, sulfide flotation followed by leaching in the flotation concentrate. Recoveries are estimated at 88% over the life of mine, following a robust test work program, which complemented many years of actual milling data. Although we have a strong history of processing this ore, we performed a 7,000 tonne bulk sample mill test in 2025, which confirmed the 88% recovery assumption. The bulk sample also showed a positive grade reconciliation from mill to short-term model of approximately 115%, which is something we have a long history of seeing at Round Mountain, given the nuggetty nature of the deposit. The total initial capital required for Phase X is estimated to be $400 million. You can see that the largest component of the CapEx is the underground mine development and infrastructure. The initial capital includes additional investment to drive higher production rates, improving the value of the mine, including optimization such as the development of both the upper and lower zones concurrently and the addition of a third portal. We have also included additional capital to use a mining contractor to complete 12 kilometers of development between 2026 and 2028, derisking our development CapEx and our critical path to first production. Given the mining contractor will be on place until 2028, we will have ample time to build up our internal underground operations team, further derisking execution. The cost and productivity for the critical path mining development that are included in our capital estimates are well understood since we have had the contractor on site for the last 3 years. The other meaningful component of our CapEx are the mining equipment and the construction of the cemented rock fill and paste backfill facilities, which are under design today with the CRF facility expected to be commissioned in 2027 and the paste backfill facility at the end of 2028. All infrastructure is now being designed with the longer life and bulk nature of the underground in mine, and we see the capital estimates as relatively low risk given the large portion of well-understood development mining and mining equipment costs. With federal permits for mining 3,000 tonnes per day at Phase X already in place, state permits expected this quarter, contract to perform capital development and a balanced ramp-up assumption for the underground, we consider the development time line for Phase X to be robust.

Thanks, Yves. As you can see in the profile at the top of the page, incremental production from Phase X is expected to extend the mine life to 2038 just based on the initial mine plan inventory with an expected average incremental production of 140,000 ounces per year once we are ramped up. Furthermore, Phase X should reduce Round Mountain's AISC from today's levels and improve the future cost profile, providing stable production and costs with strong margin given the economies of scale of the bulk underground mining. And this is before taking into account potential mine life extensions from continuation of the mineralization down dip. That extension of mineralization down dip and the potential to leverage our underground infrastructure to continue mining was a key strategic rationale for converting to underground mining at Round Mountain. Most of our mines are open at depth, and we routinely evaluate the option of transitioning to underground versus continuing with open pit laybacks where there is a higher-grade core of mineralization within the resource, there is usually a breakover point where even though you are dropping some lower-grade ounces from the open pit inventory, you increase value by converting to higher-grade underground mining. With these study results, we have confirmed that we have reached that point where we are maximizing value by transitioning to underground on the western portion of the pit at Round Mountain. As you can see in the figure on the right, a significant portion of this underground inventory was previously included in the open pit resource at Phase W. There was also a large inventory of lower grade, more marginal ounces within the open pit that we have chosen to remove through the conversion to higher-value underground mining, focusing on quality and value over quantity, resulting in a 1.9 million ounce change to the overall resource at Round Mountain and a significant increase in the grade. Accessing that lower-grade Phase W inventory from the open pit would have required mining approximately 1.4 billion tonnes of waste rock, and that would have been done in multiple laybacks with the strip ratio increasing with each phase, deteriorating economics and increasing costs over time. In converting to higher-grade underground mining, we see significantly higher IRR and NPV and a lower, more consistent cost structure. There are still remaining open pit resources at Round Mountain outside of Phase W that we will be studying to pull into the mine plan after Phase S, further benefiting economies of scale, increasing overall production and providing mill feed to blend with the underground beyond 2038. Importantly, we will have developed our primary underground infrastructure with a $400 million investment, and we will be well positioned to continue following the ore body down dip after 2038 with the only significant incremental CapEx to exploit this opportunity being extension of underground ramps and access levels. We see significant potential for this type of continuation of mining at Phase X, as Nicos will now outline.

Thanks, Will. Stepping back to the geology of the asset, the mineralization at Round Mountain is hosted in a large ring-shaped collapsed Caldera margin. And geologically, this mineralization is part of the same system we've been mining for over 47 years in the open pit, where over 17 million ounces have been extracted from a portion of the deposit. We see potential both for proximal and down-dip growth of the resource, including some intercepts already seen with similar grade and width outside of the initial resource, as shown here, intersecting 67 meters of 3.2 gram per tonne and 88 meters of 2.7 gram per tonne. In Q4 of 2025, we drilled a hole from surface to test the extension potential over 220 meters from our mine plan inventory and just received the results, which are in line with our resource grade, encountering 68 meters at 3.1 gram per tonne. The strike length of our current mine plan inventory is 610 meters, which gives an idea of the scale of the opportunity that remains wide open to further extension. As Will said, given the nature of the mineralization and the results outside the resource seen to date, we see significant potential to extend our mineralization through exploration as well as the potential to increase the scale of the operation by opening up additional mining zones.

Thanks, Nicos. So to close out on Phase X, you can see that we have robust initial incremental economics for the underground. Phase X improves the long-term cost profile at Round Mountain and provides a stable long-term base of operations, taking the mine life out to 2038. We view this initial resource as only the beginning of the story of underground mining at Round Mountain and see significant potential extending the mine plan beyond 2038 and improving the returns on the investment. Moving across to Curlew and Washington State, we have another exciting high-grade underground story as we look to restart operations at the Kettle River mill and the Curlew underground mine. As a reminder, the Kettle River mill and Curlew mine are located in the Eastern District of Washington State, and the Curlew mine is located approximately 40 kilometers from the mill. Kinross has a long successful history of production in this region as well as significant infrastructure in place. Kettle River mill has produced 2.8 million ounces historically, and we were in production until 2017 when we put the mill into care and maintenance while exploring for the next sizable deposit. Over the last few years, we have successfully drilled off that sizable deposit at the Curlew underground mine, which is an extension of the historic K2 mine utilizing the same portal with about 400,000 ounces of indicated and 800,000 ounces of inferred, giving us the quality and scale we were looking for to enable a restart of operations. For context, we stopped producing at the Curlew mine in 2005 when the gold price was approximately $450 an ounce. While expanding the Curlew resource over the last few years, we have also been progressing permitting and study work for a restart of the mill. The combination of our active presence, successful history and significant existing infrastructure in this region has positioned us well for restart of operations, adding a quality mine to our U.S. portfolio. We have now completed internal studies for the restart of mining at Curlew and are pleased to report that we will be progressing to construction. Given the strong grade and width of the underground resource and the ability to leverage the existing infrastructure, the project demonstrates excellent economics at strong margins. It delivers significant returns on the $485 million investment, driving a $1.2 billion NPV and 44% IRR at a gold price of $4,300. And just as at Phase X, we see significant potential down dip to extend resources, production and mine life at Curlew with low incremental CapEx. The mine plan for Curlew includes a combination of longitudinal and transverse long-hole open stoping using 45-tonne trucks and 14-tonne loaders, ramping up to a peak of 1,800 tonnes per day. Although it's a small underground mine relative to Phase X, the AISC benefits from a strong average grade of almost 6 grams per tonne and good mining widths with an average of 6 meters for the first 5 years and 4 meters over the life of mine. The underground leverages the existing portal and underground development from the historic K2 mine, providing access to multiple mining zones that will be mined concurrently to achieve the 1,800 tonnes per day. You can also see on the slide that the current mine plan is mining rate constrained in the latter years. So there is an opportunity to enhance the production profile versus what's shown today by drilling off extensions to the resource, allowing for a higher mining rate. The mine plan results in an expected average production of 100,000 ounces per year for the first 5 years, generating robust cash flow of approximately $250 million per year at $4,300 gold. Based on the current mine plan inventory, the mine is expected to produce approximately 940,000 ounces over an initial 11-year mine life. Initial production will target the widest, highest grade mineralization first. As Nicos will talk to later, our exploration results have already shown potential to extend the resource in areas with wide and high-grade intercepts. If successful, this mineralization will be prioritized over the lowest grade material in the latter half of the mine plan, providing potential to maintain the 100,000 ounces per year beyond 2034 and ultimately extend the mine life. I will now pass it across to Yves to speak about the plans for the Kettle River mill refurbishment.

Thanks, Will. The mill has a capacity of 1,800 tonnes per day, consisting of a conventional crushing, grinding and carbon and leach gold recovery circuit. The average recovery in the mill for the Curlew resource is anticipated to be 80% and that the operating cost is expecting to be $47 per tonne processed. We have decided to add a tailings dewatering plant to convert from conventional to dry stack tailings as part of the project. The mill and tailings facility ran well into 2017 when we decommissioned it and put it into active and care and maintenance. The initial project capital costs are expected to be approximately $485 million, primarily related to underground mine development, equipment procurement, refurbishment of the mill and addition of the tailings dewatering plant. Total direct capital comprises of approximately $360 million with $125 million of capital budget for indirects and contingencies. Although the mill has been well maintained, given the strong exploration results and the initial 11 years mine life that we already see and the overall age of the mill, we decided to do a fulsome review and refurbishment of the mill prior to the restart of the operation in 2028 to ensure reliable performance through the mine life. In addition to the long mine life, we have incorporated learnings from prior mill restarts and additional capital has been added through the recent study phases to replace significant quantity of processing equipment, including crushers, mills, pumps, cyclones and feeders. Similar to Round Mountain Phase X, the initial capital also includes additional costs for the use of mining contractor for the initial capital development to derisk the critical path to first production and provide more time to ramp up our internal resources. With respect to the project schedule and permitting, Curlew is on track for first production in 2028. With several early work items already completed in 2025, we have established a strong starting point for the project's execution and construction this year. All permits for the restart of the mine have been received. We are currently progressing an additional permit for the increase of the height of the dry stack tailings to accommodate the entire mine plan inventory, which is expected to be received later this year. I'll now pass it over to Nicos to discuss the resource and exploration at Curlew.

Thanks, Yves. As can be seen on the slide, Curlew has demonstrated clear exploration success over the past 4 years with strong additions to the resource inventory each year, establishing the scale we wanted to see to motivate a restart of operations. Drilling to date has successfully delineated a substantial 1.2 million ounce high-grade mining inventory, supporting an average life of mine mill grade of 5.8 gram per tonne, driving a low-cost, high-margin operation. Beyond the established resource, we continue to see significant upside potential at Curlew as we advance development along the basin-shaped productive horizon shown here in blue between the historic K1 and K2 mines. Drilling campaigns have consistently grown the resource at depth with more recent intercepts confirming higher grades and improved mineability in the lower zones. As you can see on the image, in Q4, we intersected 10.4 meters of 11.7 gram per tonne and 12.5 meters of 10.9 gram per tonne at the North Stealth Zone. Ongoing exploration continues at priority targets, Roadrunner and the Stealth Zone with the goal of adding higher grade, higher productivity material to 2034 through '38 and extending the production profile past 2038. To conclude on Curlew, we are excited to advance this project to construction and add a high-grade underground mine in a great mining jurisdiction, continuing our grade enhancement journey and adding consistent long-life, strong margin production. Curlew demonstrates robust economics and an attractive AISC profile with significant upside driven by the strong exploration potential. Now moving back to Nevada, as can be seen on this slide, the Redbird 2 project includes the second phase of the existing large-scale Redbird pit, along with 5 additional smaller quick payback satellite pits to be mined concurrently, offsetting some of the initial stripping costs. The strategy of mining both an anchor pit and concurrent satellite pits is aligned with the historic mining strategy at Bald Mountain and provides significant economies of scale to support high-margin production. Redbird is optimally located with short hauls to the heap leach and waste dump while also being very close to the maintenance and admin facilities. This is expected to lead to high productivity and low-cost mining. Processing for Redbird 2 will take place on the expanded Bald heap leach pad and processing for the satellite pits will take place on the expanded Mooney heap leach pad. The Redbird 2 project builds off Redbird Phase 1, which we approved in Q4 of 2024, extending high productivity mining through to 2032. The project leverages existing infrastructure, equipment and the workforce at Bald Mountain, continuing the long history of successful open pit heap leach operations on the prolific Bald Mountain land package. Based on current gold prices, the project demonstrates excellent economics with an NPV of approximately $1 billion and a 58% IRR at $4,300 gold. Production is planned to start in 2028 and add a combined 640,000 ounces with approximately 155,000 ounces per year between 2028 and 2031. The high productivity, low-cost mining is expected to drive an attractive life of mine AISC of $1,465. I'll hand it to Yves to discuss capital for the project.

The Redbird 2 project continues operations at Bald Mountain, with most of the capital being mining and heap leach pad expansions, which is core business for us in Nevada. Initial project capital costs are expected to be $490 million, primarily related to pre-stripping and procurement of additional mining equipment, expansion of leach pads and associated infrastructure in addition of a SART plant to process high copper mineralization at Redbird. The CapEx has been increased through the last year of studies to add additional fleet and pre-stripping for the satellite pits, which increases production and leverages economies of scale at the site. An addition of the SART plant, which adds greater optionality for processing higher copper mineralization across the entire Bald property. Permitting for the project is well advanced with the Redbird pit, 3 of the 5 satellites and 2 heap leach permits already in hand, allowing for the start of the project ramp-up this year. I will now pass it to Nicos to talk about the longer-term upside potential at Bald Mountain.

Thanks, Yves. With the production at Bald now established into the next decade, the team will continue to evaluate the exploration potential across the large prolific land package, which hosts more than 40 pits. Exploration over the past 2 years was successful in defining the satellite pit inventories to complement the Redbird 2 mining profile. And going forward, exploration will continue to focus on both satellite pit additions and finding new anchor pits at the operation. As of today, Bald still has a substantial resource with 2.5 million ounces of measured and indicated and 800,000 ounces of inferred. The next expected anchor pit, Top, with more than 1 million ounces is already contained within the existing resource. Top is already permitted for production and will be the next focus of project study to extend operations beyond 2032 at Bald Mountain.

Thanks, Nicos. So in summary, we continue to see a strong future at Bald Mountain and are excited to proceed with the next phase of mining at Redbird 2, which demonstrates compelling economics through a strong incremental NPV and IRR, supported by a low AISC profile. As indicated, we see further upside potential at Bald Mountain, given the current significant resource and exploration targets across the prolific land package, which we will continue to evaluate as we execute the next phase of Redbird. With that, I will now pass it over to Andrea to discuss project funding and capital expenditures.

Thanks, Will. The decision to advance the 3 projects presented today aligns with our disciplined capital allocation framework, as shown on the right of the slide. In particular, we are reinvesting back into our business, allocating capital to projects that are expected to generate very attractive returns and grow value for shareholders. As outlined by the team, these 3 projects all demonstrate a strong case for invested capital, underpinned by excellent economics and the ability to leverage existing infrastructure, regional experience and technical expertise. We plan to fund the capital required to advance these projects from our robust operating cash flows, while also continuing to strengthen our balance sheet and return capital to shareholders. As we develop these projects, we continue to follow a balanced approach on all of our capital allocation priorities. Looking back to 2025, after funding our capital expenditures for the year, we returned over $750 million to shareholders, including repurchasing $600 million in shares and increasing our dividend. And we repaid $700 million in debt, all while increasing our cash position. As we look ahead to capital expenditures for 2026, we are forecasting total capital to be approximately $1.5 billion. Capital expenditures for 2027 and 2028 are expected to be approximately in line with 2026, subject to ongoing inflation and potential other project opportunities for the 2030s currently under study. We will provide further information on our capital and other guidance with our year-end results release next month. I'll now hand it over to Paul for closing remarks.

Thanks, Andrea, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. We are excited to be moving ahead with 3 high-quality projects as we continue to execute our portfolio and grade enhancement strategy. As the team has highlighted, these projects are expected to benefit long-term costs in the U.S., deliver strong returns, extend our mine life within attractive regions and enhance the overall value of our business. We look forward to sharing future updates on our progress with respect to these projects as well as our broader portfolio as we continue to unlock value. With that, operator, we are now ready to take questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question is from Anita Soni from CIBC World Markets.

Really good results with this exploration and development project update. Just a question on the capital. I think you've given us a good breakout of pretty much every other parameter on a time scale basis. But could you give us a breakout of the CapEx spend for these 3 projects over the next 3 years? I know you gave it for 2026, but I was just looking for pretty much just $100 million a year for Redbird or whatever, just to try to understand the -- what CapEx we should be modeling annually for each project.

Sure. Anita, it's Andrea. So we noted the $425 million for 2026, which is part of that $1.5 billion total CapEx. You should think about 2027 as being maybe a couple of hundred million higher than that and then most of the rest of it in 2028, and maybe a little bit of a tail in 2029.

Okay. And I think the total capital is about $1.4 billion, right, between the 3 projects?

Yes, close to that.

And just to equal 1/3 as we're breaking them out for each asset or, like each...

Given the total for each.

Your next question is from [indiscernible] from Canaccord Genuity.

Thanks for the detailed presentation, a lot to digest there. But just wondering if you could give us the life of mine cash costs you're assuming for the 3 projects. I know you gave us AISC, but if you can help us in the modeling.

Yes. I think for Phase X, it's around $1,600, $1,575 for the life of mine there. And then for Curlew, I think it's in the range of about $1,400 -- sorry, that's for Redbird. And then for Curlew, for that, a little bit higher. I think life of mine, it's about $1,500 depending on gold price, a little bit under.

Okay. Great. And then I see for the Phase X reserve, you're using $2,000 reserve price, $2,500 resource. Is that what we should be expecting for the broader portfolio when that comes out later?

Yes, that will be -- we'll use consistent. That's the resource pricing we'll be using this year, resource and reserve.

Okay. And then maybe one last one. Obviously, capital going to $1.5 billion. Still by my numbers, you generate a lot of free cash flow. And I know you're done with the share buyback program, but are share buybacks going to be part of 2026 still? Or how are you thinking about buybacks now?

We'll give you an update, it's Paul here, with the year-end. But our consistent message is all things being equal, we'd like to continue in the same -- with the same approach, which is looking at the buyback, looking at the dividend, strengthening the balance sheet and, of course, reinvesting in our business. So that certainly would be our intention.

[Operator Instructions] And your next question is from Daniel Major from UBS.

Just maybe a follow-up on the CapEx profile for the whole business after the inclusion of the additional projects that you detailed in the presentation. Would it be fair to assume, yes, including the ramp-up of the spend, I guess, at other projects, including Great Bear, would it be fair to assume sort of medium-term CapEx 2027 to 2028 would be in the kind of north of 1.5 billion range, yes, $1.5 billion to $1.8 billion, that sort of level? Where would you see that '27, '28 numbers, including these projects?

We'll provide some more detail next month. But I would think about as we sit here today as $1.5 billion as sort of the new flat CapEx guidance for the next 3 years, of course, subject to inflation along the way. And then also subject to other project advancement if we see opportunities to add for production for the 2030s. But that $1.5 billion includes our estimates for what we'll spend on Great Bear and on Lobo-Marte through the next couple of years based on today's estimates. So we don't have a significant spike for those projects.

So that kind of implies the capital spend at Great Bear and Lobo-Marte is probably more ramping in 2029, '30 to prevent you going materially over the $1.5 billion. Is that the right way of thinking about it with a 3-year spend of the existing projects?

We do have CapEx for Great Bear. It actually ramps up in '28. But while that comes on, there's other capital that comes off. So 2028, we're into a lower stripping year at Tasiast, for example. So there's kind of puts and takes that allow us to stay around that $1.5 billion level.

And then maybe a follow-up on the previous question around the buyback versus dividend and how you're going to sort of frame that? Is there a balance sheet target that you have in mind above which you'd commit to returning the bulk of the free cash flow? And should we expect a combination of a kind of bump to the regular dividend as well as the buyback commitment?

Yes. Look, as I said, we're looking at all of the above. I would remind, though, as we say every year, Q1 is our seasonal cash out quarter. We pay taxes in Brazil. We pay taxes in Mauritania and other parts of the world. So we like to think about our return of capital from a position of strength. So again, as we go, and I think we've got a pretty good track record of sort of guiding what we think we will do under certain scenarios and then following through on it. Recall, we chose to increase the dividend late last year. We chose to increase the buyback. So I think if the conditions are right with the gold price, yes, we would want to continue with all of the above. I don't -- we don't have a magic sort of line, if you will, on the balance sheet, but we would like to continue to strengthen our balance sheet while providing returns to shareholders. But we're going to kind of -- we don't want to get into a formula, and we're going to just kind of see how we go here. And as I said, if everything continues, I expect we will do all of the above, strengthen the balance sheet, return capital with both buybacks and dividends.

That's clear. And then just one more, and you touched on it on the cash flow statement with respect to tax, but maybe you could give us a little bit of firming of guidance now the year end. I would assume you're going to continue to accrue an increase in tax payables in Q4 and then that will reverse in Q1. I think you guided sort of $300 million to $400 million kind of catch-up tax payment in Q1. Is that still the right kind of number to be thinking about? And what would you expect to be the positive working capital adjustment in Q4?

That is all true. So yes, taxes payable continue to accrue in Q4. And then the Q1 cash out, you're right, around $400 million. In terms of the buildup, we can take that offline. But your numbers are pretty accurate in terms of continuing to build that payable and then paying out around $400 million in the first quarter.

Your next question is from Matthew Murphy from BMO.

Just some questions around execution risks. So it feels like you're in pretty good shape on permitting. Are there any permits we should be focused on that are trickier to get at this point?

No. I think we kind of outlined it in the release a fair bit. There's only 2 of the smaller satellite pits at Redbird that still require further permitting, and we're anticipating getting that this year. So we don't see it as a risk. We're not going to be mining those 2 particular satellite pits until later in 2028. So we've got lots of buffer on that permitting initiative. In Round Mountain, we're in a really good spot just given the federal permitting. There is that minor action that we mentioned, which is just taking federal permit from 3,000 tonnes per day. We're taking it up to a much higher number, higher than the 5,000 tonnes per day just because it's a minor action, and we don't expect an issue there. So longer term, as we open up more mining horizons, we want the flexibility to be able to go above the 5,000 tonnes per day, but we expect that imminently. And then as we said in the release, the state permitting there, we expect imminently as well. And lastly, on Curlew, really the only remaining major permit, of course, there's always operational permits, as you know. But the major permit action is just for the increase in the height of the tailings stack, and we don't actually need that right away. We've got flexibility. But certainly, our goal is to get that this year as well.

Okay. And then how about workforce?

Yes. Look, I think we tried to allude to it in the release a bit as well, but we've made that part of where we've taken our CapEx up a bit for these projects, just given the quality that we're seeing in them, we really wanted to derisk our initial ramp-up plans at both Curlew and Phase X, just given we're transitioning to the underground workforce. So one of the things we've done, as an example, to derisk that ramp-up is we're using a contractor for the next 2.5 years well into 2028 to do all the development and really the critical path development to ensure we have enough stopes open to hit the ground running in 2028 with our production plans. So we see that as money we've spent to derisk the project rather than trying to ramp up right away. That gives us quite a bit of time, and we are also making the investment during those projects to start to ramp up the internal labor force in parallel with those contractors, but we're not assuming work output from them. So it's a little bit of conservativeness in the project plans. So for example, at Round Mountain today, we've got a variety of our open pit people who've been interested in going underground. They're just shadowing our contractors' employees to get up the curve on underground transition. And then at the same time, we're recruiting experienced operators to join our in-house team. So it gives us a lot of time for that overlap. That would probably be the biggest risk, and that's what we've done to really mitigate that risk in terms of that transition. The other thing that we've done to try and make sure that we're in a good position to get the best miners in the region. At Phase X, we're going to go to a week on, week off schedule for the operations teams. We think that's going to be really attractive relative to other underground mines in the region, and it's a good way for us to make sure we get the best workforce that we can.

And I would just going to jump in and add. You asked about the workforce, but -- which is a good question. But I'd just remind that while we're not currently underground mining, we've got lots of underground expertise in our company. Will worked underground. Our COO worked underground. We've operated several underground mines. So we're actually looking forward to getting back underground.

Fair point. That all makes sense. Okay. And then last thing I was going to ask about just at the firm production level, the goal of extending the duration of 2 million ounces a year, does any of this expansion plan allow you to exceed 2 million ounces any of the years out in your view?

Look, again, when you look out further, it's sort of pick your gold price and other things may come on or continue. But for today, in terms of managing expectations, we're sticking with the 2 million.

And I would say one positive of these projects, you can see the long mine lives at Curlew and Phase X. That extension of mine life out to 2038 in the U.S. is very helpful. I mean they're not massive mines. But when you look at them in aggregate, the combination of those things and if you just keep doing what we've been doing at Bald Mountain, that really puts a pretty sizable chunk well into the 30s in your production profile to help support that 2 million ounces for the longer term.

Your next question is from [indiscernible] from Canaccord Genuity.

Just a couple of follow-ups. Just wondering if you have any sort of material and maintenance spending at Curlew right now? Or is it pretty negligible?

Yes. I mean we've had care and maintenance spending. We've actually -- I would say we've been on the more conservative end with that mill over the years in terms of making sure like it's been heated since it went into care and maintenance in 2017. We've had maintenance teams there who are taking care of things. We start the motors routinely. So we've put a lot of work into making sure that, that is in a good condition. So yes, we are spending today. We have been spending. All of that has been with a view that we believe we were going to start -- restart operations here one day when we got the resource inventory ready for it, and we're there today.

And then maybe just a high-level question. With these 3 projects in Great Bear, and I know you're working on Lobo-Marte, like from a technical bandwidth perspective, are you pretty full now for the next couple of years? Or if there was an opportunity to do something else, you'd have some room to do it?

Yes. Look, in terms of technical bandwidth, look, we're really just adding one new site with Curlew as it relates to the projects we're talking about today. And we've got a great team already in place there. So we feel very good about that. The greenfield projects, which is further out, Lobo-Marte and Great Bear, again, we're well ahead of that in terms of our thinking about the ramp-up and staffing. And so again, I don't -- we're not concerned about technical bandwidth in terms of execution on what we have in front of us.

No, I think it's -- Paul has alluded to the strength of our technical teams in some of our discussions. I mean we've got more than 70 people here in Toronto in our core technical disciplines between mine engineering, geology, metallurgy. And we've got a good setup in terms of how we interact between those teams and site and project teams to make sure we get the right skills on the ground. It's a pretty fungible barrier, as I call it. So we're routinely sending our guys out and dedicating them to projects or operations. And then we're having people come back in the other way to supplement the Toronto team. So it's a really well set up organizational structure to support all these projects and make sure we've got the same key leads, guys like Yves and Nicos, who we have on the call today, overseeing all of this and ensuring the quality and discipline in all of these project studies.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. Please proceed with the closing remarks.

Great. Thank you, operator. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today. We'll be back on the call mid-February with the year-end results, and we look forward to maybe seeing you in person between now and then. Thanks, everyone, for joining.

Gentlemen. The conference has now ended. Thank you all for joining. You may all disconnect your lines.