OceanaGold Corporation (OGC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the OceanaGold Corporation Q2 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded on Thursday, August 6, 2026. I would now like to turn the conference over to Valerie Burns. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to OceanaGold's second quarter 2026 operating and financial results webcast and conference call. I'm Valerie Burns, Director of Investor Relations. Joining me today are Gerard Bond, President and Chief Executive Officer; Marius van Niekerk, Chief Financial Officer; and Bhuvanesh Malhotra, Chief Operating Officer. The presentation that we will be referencing during the conference call is available through the webcast and on our website. As we will be making forward-looking statements during the call, please refer to the cautionary notes included in the MD&A and annual information form. All dollar amounts discussed in this conference call are in U.S. dollars. I will now turn the call over to Gerard, for opening remarks.

Thank you, Val, and good morning, everyone. We had a really good second quarter. We safely and responsibly delivered 7% more gold than we did in the first quarter. We continue to generate strong free cash flow. We made great progress with our organic growth projects. We returned meaningful amounts of capital to shareholders, and we still added cash to the balance sheet. Our gold production of around 139,000 ounces and copper production of 2,700 tonnes was in line with plan, keeping us on-track to deliver on our full year guidance. Our margins remain strong. Even with the pullback from the record high gold prices of the first quarter, the second quarter delivered a record quarterly adjusted EBITDA margin of 61%. After investing in our growth projects, which include the Waihi North Project and the Palomino Underground Mine, we generated $130 million of free cash flow, taking us to $385 million of free cash flow year-to-date. In line with our capital allocation framework, we continue to actively provide capital returns to shareholders, returning $78 million through dividends and buybacks in the quarter. And we strengthened the balance sheet with cash up 6% to $655 million, and we remain debt-free. We made great progress at our flagship Waihi North Project, where the tunnel towards the high-grade Wharekirauponga orebody is well underway, and we have advanced numerous other aspects of this exciting project. Finally, we released more high-grade drill results from multiple targets at Haile. These demonstrate our ability to add value through exploration and highlight the significant upside potential that we have in our portfolio. We are on-track to deliver on our 2026 guidance. At the halfway mark of the year, we're around halfway towards the midpoint of full year guidance for both gold production and capital spend, and we expect stronger copper production in the second half that will achieve our copper production guidance. In terms of the shape of the rest of the year, we expect the company's third quarter gold production to be similar to the second quarter, and we expect fourth quarter gold production to be the highest of the year. This increase is driven by expected stronger production at Haile in the third quarter and then again in the fourth. This higher gold production in the second half, together with a lower rate of sustaining capital is expected to drive our all-in sustaining costs lower in the third quarter and again in the fourth. Our all-in sustaining cost for the year is anticipated to near the upper end of our 2026 guidance range. This reflects labor cost inflation, more investment in maintenance and reliability improvements that have really high payback, the impacts of higher diesel prices -- where we are unhedged, and lower silver byproduct credits due to a lower silver price than we expected. Total capital expenditure is expected to be in line with guidance. In the coming half, we expect an increase in growth capital for the Waihi North Project and Palomino Underground and more waste stripping at Haile, partially offset by lower sustaining CapEx across the company. Overall, we are very pleased with our performance in the first half of 2026 and remain focused on safely and responsibly delivering on our full year guidance in the second half. Our capital allocation framework allocates our operating cash flow in a very balanced way. And you can see how in the first half of this year, we're almost evenly distributing it to sustaining the business, growing the business, returning capital and adding cash to the balance sheet. So by component, the $165 million of sustaining capital include investments in site infrastructure, improving the integrity of plant and equipment, mobile fleet improvements, as well as deferred stripping and capitalized mining. Our growth capital of $118 million was mainly investment in the Waihi North Project and the Palomino Underground at Haile. And the $25 million -- $25 million of exploration expenditures reflects that big step-up in drilling across the portfolio where we think we can add enormous value through exploration. We remain very focused on shareholder returns and are pleased to have returned a total of $174 million of shareholders' money back to them in the first half of the year through our higher dividend and share buyback program. A reminder that we have an approved program of up to $350 million of buybacks for 2026, of which $134 million has been bought back to date. After all that, we were still able to add $178 million of cash to the balance sheet in the first half of the year, which is a 37% increase in cash from the year-end. So in summary, our capital allocation framework is working as intended, funding the business, investing in growth, strengthening the balance sheet, and delivering attractive returns to shareholders. I'll now turn the call over to Marius, to discuss our financial results in more detail.

Thank you, Gerard, and good morning, everyone. Q2 delivered another strong set of financial results. Notably, we achieved a record adjusted EBITDA margin of 61%, driven by the lower cost of sales and a lower additional government share at Didipio, also reflecting our ability to translate strong operational performance and disciplined cost management bottom line. We place strong emphasis on our per share metrics, which pleasingly reflects step-ups across the board. On screen, we compare second quarter against the same period last year, and all financial metrics improved. EBITDA was up 84%. Operating cash flow was up 38% and earnings per share increased by 102% to $0.99, and we generated free cash flow of $130 million, resulting in a free cash flow per share of $0.58. So after the investment in organic growth and shareholder returns that Gerard spoke about, and after higher annual tax and government cash payments made this quarter, we were able to still add $35 million in cash to the balance sheet. We generated revenue in the quarter of $647 million at an average realized gold price of just over $4,400 an ounce, reflecting the timing of our gold sales. These are solid financial results and importantly, with increasing production and unit costs expected to come down, we remain well positioned to continue to generate significant free cash flow for the remainder of the year. As it relates to Iran conflict, to-date, there has been no disruption to our operations related to fuel or the supply network. We hedge approximately 80% of our diesel requirements at both Haile and Macraes. With those hedges in place, should oil prices of around $100 per barrel prevail for the remainder of 2026, then we continue to estimate an AISC impact of around $25 per ounce. We've extended 80% diesel hedges across all our operations from Q1 2027. I will now pass the call over to Bhuvanesh, to discuss our operating performance.

Thank you, Marius, and good morning, everyone. At Haile, we had a strong quarter, producing 60,000 ounces of gold, which was in line with our guidance, driven by increased access to open pit ore in Ledbetter 3 and high-grade ore from the Horseshoe Underground. We expect this trend to continue in the second half of the year with production to increase in the third quarter and then again in the fourth quarter and all-in sustaining cost is expected to decrease each quarter. Our continued mill optimization initiatives and the hard work of the team resulted in the outstanding achievement in June of record monthly mill throughput, the highest since the mill was commissioned in 2017. Development of the decline towards Palomino Underground progressed in the quarter, remaining in line with the plan to achieve first ore in 2028. We continue to drill targets at Horseshoe, Ledbetter Underground, Pisces, and Clydesdale in the second half of the year. It is performing to plan and is well positioned to continue delivering for the remainder of the year. Macraes had an exceptional first half of the year, producing 64% of the midpoint of its guidance already driven by higher grades mined and processed from the Innes Mills open pit. In line with plan, production is expected to step down in the second half of the year with full year production and costs still expected to be within the guidance. At Coronation North, waste stripping continued to progress during the quarter, in preparation for ore access later this year. We accelerated exploration programs across several areas at Macraes during the quarter with focus on resource conversion and expansion, and we are expecting to submit the Macraes Phase 4 fast-track application for our ongoing mine life extension plans in the third quarter of this year. We are continuing to evaluate further extension opportunities that could potentially extend mine life into the 2040s, given the leverage of these assets to the gold price and the inherent optionality at the site. We look forward to sharing more about these developments later this year. A real highlight in July, Macraes produced its 6 millionth ounce of gold, a tremendous milestone that demonstrates how innovation, resilience, and disciplined operational execution can drive real value creation and is a great credit to the team there past and present. At Waihi, we maintained consistent production with just under 17,000 ounces of gold produced in the second quarter, remaining on-track to deliver its full year production guidance. All-in sustaining cost in the quarter was impacted by the processing of lower-grade stockpile material. With access to higher-grade underground stopes now available, we expect all-in sustaining cost to decrease in the second half of the year. Pleasingly, Waihi achieved a record quarterly mill throughput since becoming an underground-only operation in 2016, a great result for the team there. I'd like to spend a moment on the Waihi North Project, where we reached a significant milestone this quarter with the opening of the portal and the commencement of decline development towards the Wharekirauponga Underground in May. Since then, the decline development has progressed in line with the plan, nearing 200 meters as we speak. Additionally, the service trench was completed in July, and the commissioning of the expanded water treatment plant is expected by the end of the third quarter. The next key milestone for the project will be the addition of the second jumbo underground to begin the twin tunnels towards the Wharekirauponga orebody. We expect growth capital to continue to increase in the second half of the year as development activities across the project ramps up. On exploration at Wharekirauponga, drilling is set to accelerate in the second half of the year. We have now added 2 new drill rigs, bringing the total number of active drill rigs to 5. We look forward to increase drilling as it continues to grow and define this exciting orebody that will anchor what we believe will be a flagship asset for many years to come. At Didipio, we produced over 21,000 ounces of gold and around 2,700 tonnes of copper in the second quarter, an improvement in gold production from the prior quarter despite some mill downtime. Underground mining rates improved and excitingly, during the quarter, the decline development resumed as well. With underground mining rates planned to continue ramping up, we expect production to increase in the second half of the year. All-in sustaining cost is expected to decrease as a result of a higher gold and copper production, and lower sustaining capital expenditures in the second half of the year. Exploration at Didipio is accelerating. We now have 3 drills operating underground and have an additional rig testing the extent of the Didipio mineralization at depth. At True Blue, an area of known mineralization 800 meters northeast of Didipio, we continue to drill, targeting the addition of new mineral resources by year-end. I'll now turn the call back to Gerard.

Thank you, Bhuvanesh. In summary, this was another strong quarter in what we expect to be another strong year for OceanaGold. So to wrap it all up, we achieved record mill throughput rates at Haile and Waihi. Mine performance was very good at Didipio, where we're also back into decline development. Macraes delivered strongly and is creating attractive options for its future, whilst recently celebrating production of its 6 million ounce. Tremendous progress has been made at the Waihi North Project and driving towards the new Palomino Underground Mine. And we had some stellar exploration results at Haile. We safely and responsibly delivered the plan, remaining on-track to meet guidance while generating record adjusted EBITDA margins and strong free cash flow. We also strengthened the balance sheet and returned meaningful capital to shareholders. And we had some excellent drill results. I'm excited about continuing to share some of these drill results over the year as we deploy our record investment in exploration. In closing, I want to recognize the OceanaGold team. This quarter's strong results reflects their hard work and operating discipline, and I'd like to extend my thanks to everyone throughout OceanaGold for their efforts. I'll now return the call to the operator and open up the line to take any questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Ovais Habib from Scotiabank.

Congrats on a good quarter. I've been bouncing between 2 conference calls, so I apologize if you've already touched on the questions I may ask. Starting off with Haile. The accelerated stripping at the Snake pit that we're doing at the beginning of the year, and I think you may be continuing that right now as well. Can you please remind us why you pulled that stripping forward? And should this translate into any sort of lower stripping costs going into 2027?

Ovais, I don't think we pulled it forward so much. We just changed the sequence, but I'll hand that one over to Marius.

Yes, we had that winter storm in Q1. So we took the opportunity to review the mine sequence with a focus on staying productive and efficient for that long-term plan. So we -- in the first half, we did about 1.6 million tonnes of stripping, which we reported as growth given consideration to its growth potential and value, and we intend to strip another 2 million tonnes in the second half. So probably another $8 million of spend from a stripping perspective.

Got it. Sounds good. And then just staying at Haile, it looks like the Palomino decline is progressing well. Are you planning to set up drill stations along the way to test the area between Horseshoe Underground and Palomino? Is that in the plan? Any color on that would be appreciated.

Yes, absolutely. We are -- that's the intention, Ovais. We can get much better access, different angles, shorter drill lengths, increase in density into Pisces from there and also getting good angles back into the Horseshoe Underground. So that is absolutely the intention.

And has that been happening already? Or is that going to -- are you going to be setting up the drill stations in kind of the second half?

We've put some drill holes into Pisces from there. And again, as we get greater length or close to Palomino, we're going to have greater access points to get into Pisces from there as well. So we're underway.

Okay. And moving on to Waihi North and then similar kind of question there as well. I mean, the decline development seems to be progressing well. Is there a target you have in mind in terms of meters to reach by the end of the year? And also, have you started to kind of drill test any sort of areas between Waihi and Wharekirauponga?

Well, we certainly have a target to drill every month actually. So yes, we're definitely on plan as it stands at the moment. I mean, we're still heading down, and then we've got to get to the point where we start to twin decline. And it's about 200 meters into that, which we expect will be in at around this time next year that we are going past some known mineralization where we're certainly going to be having the rigs off to the side drilling, looking for gold. So we're still heading down. But absolutely, along that 4.5 kilometers of twin decline, we're going to have numerous exploration cuts off to the left and right to -- looking for mineralization. But the first time we expect to be able to do that having regard to where we see or have known mineralization is around this time next year. So you have to hold your breath, Ovais.

Sounds good. And just maybe a question for Bhuvanesh then. In terms of the ground conditions experienced so far at -- of the portal and kind of the decline, that all kind of according to plan, looks all good on that end?