Lundin Gold Inc.

Lundin Gold Inc.

61.04
EUR
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(-1.29%)
3.34EPS
14.09P/E
11.42BMarket Cap
Nov 04Next Earn

Q2 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptAugust 7, 2026

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Lundin Gold's Q2 2026 earnings call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode.

Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press *0 for the operator.

This call is being recorded on August 7th, 2026. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jamie Beck, President and CEO.

Please go ahead.

Jamie Beck

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Thank you all for joining us today.

I'm joined by Terry Smith, our Chief Operating Officer, and Chester See, our Chief Financial Officer. We are going to take you through our results for the second quarter of 2026.

Please note Lundin Gold's disclaimers on this slide. This discussion includes forward-looking information, and actual future results may differ from expected results for a variety of reasons, as described in the Caution Regarding Forward-Looking Information and Statements section of our press release.

Lundin Gold is a US dollar reporting entity, and all amounts in this presentation refer to US dollars, unless otherwise indicated. The second quarter finished strong, with Fruta del Norte delivering another quarter of solid operating performance.

We expect Q2 to be the lowest production quarter of the year, and with the first half representing 48% of the midpoint of our guidance, we are well on track for the full year. Second quarter production of approximately 119,000 ounces of gold brings our year-to-date production to approximately 239,000 ounces of gold.

We processed just over 500,000 tonnes in the quarter and were able to maintain an average of nearly 5,500 tonnes per day through the mill for the quarter, despite 9 days of planned maintenance. Cash operating costs and all-in sustaining costs for the second quarter were aligned with our plans and reflect lower ounces sold.

Margins remain strong, with the business generating $125 million in operating cash flow, despite making annual tax and statutory profit-sharing payments of $221 million during the quarter. We finished the first half with a cash balance of $507 million.

The business generated free cash flow of $96 million in the second quarter after those annual payments while also returning $293 million to shareholders through cash dividends. We declared a second quarter dividend of $1.08 per share, bringing this year's total cash dividend to $2.29 per share and marking another quarter of returning 100% of normalized free cash flow to our shareholders.

In addition to the cash dividend, we completed the silver stream for equity transaction with Luna Royalties, which was announced in the first quarter. The proceeds of the stream sale were distributed to shareholders as a dividend-in-kind following closing.

Beyond operations and cash flow, we continued to advance our growth pipeline, including ongoing work on our mine-to-mill expansion study, evaluating opportunities to increase throughput beyond 5,500 tonnes per day and incorporate the FDNS deposit into our mine. We've advanced development outside of FDN, completing 370 metres of development at FDN South and commenced development towards FDN East in July.

Additionally, we made meaningful exploration progress across the district, discovering 2 new copper-gold porphyries and expanding the known limits of mineralization at FDNS, FDN East, and at FDN. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Terry to discuss our operations in more detail.

Terry Smith

Thanks, Jamie, and good morning, everybody. Before we turn to operation and financial results, I want to start where we always start: with our people.

Our highest priority is making sure that every employee and contractor at Fruta del Norte goes home safe at the end of every shift. During the quarter, we recorded 0 lost-time injuries and 2 medical treatment incidents.

It's great to see an uptick in some leading indicators like near misses reported by the workforce that help us become safer. Our focus continues to be in the field with leadership availability, visibility, hazard identification, and reinforcing the right and responsibility of every worker to stop a job that doesn't feel safe.

Turning to operations in the second quarter, we continued steady performance across the operation. Both the mine and mill tonnages and grades were aligned with the first quarter.

We processed just over 500,000 tonnes at an average head grade of 8.3 grams per tonne with recoveries of just over 89%. Despite 9 days of planned downtime, the plant averaged approximately 5,500 tonnes per day, our guided average throughput for the year.

June finished the quarter strong with higher grades and throughput heading into Q3, positioning us well for a stronger second half of the year, as expected since the beginning of 2026, and we are reaffirming full-year guidance of 475 to 525,000 ounces. Our mine-to-mill study remains on track for completion by year-end.

As we've mentioned previously, this study will integrate FDNS into our mine plan and evaluate sustained higher throughput rates in the future. While we are completing our mine-to-mill study, we are making great progress on our underground development efforts at FDNS.

As Jamie mentioned, we completed 370 metres of development during the quarter from both the south portal and from the 1170 level at FDN. We also advanced headings into some FDNS veins for geological mapping and sampling and processed the ore that we generated.

These are important milestones to improve our understanding of this new zone and advance FDNS towards future production. Using the same approach that led to our success at FDNS, we are now advancing development towards the FDN East orebody, which started in July.

This development will give us better access for drilling in support of conversion and exploration programs at FDN East. Now I'll turn to Chester to speak to the financials.

Chester See

Thanks, Terry, and good morning, everyone. The second quarter delivered strong financial results, reflecting another quarter of solid operational performance.

Net revenues were $478 million, and income from mining operations totaled $337 million. Cash operating costs averaged $1,016 per ounce, and ASIC averaged $1,176 per ounce, giving us a robust ASIC margin of approximately 73%.

Before discussing earnings, I'd like to briefly address the accounting impacts associated with the Lunar transaction. During the quarter, we recognized a one-time non-cash fair value loss of approximately $75 million on the Lunar shares that were received and subsequently distributed to shareholders as a dividend-in-kind.

This was then more than offset by a non-cash fair value gain of approximately $127 million related to the revaluation of the silver stream obligation, resulting in a net positive impact to reported earnings during the quarter. Excluding these non-cash fair value impacts, adjusted earnings were $202 million or 84 cents per share, and adjusted EBITDA was $347 million.

Going forward, investors should expect some quarter-to-quarter volatility in reported earnings as the silver stream obligation is revalued each reporting period. Those revaluations will be driven primarily by changes in silver prices and updates to long-term production and mine plan assumptions.

Importantly, these are non-cash accounting adjustments and do not reflect the underlying operating performance of Fruta del Norte, our cash flow generation, or our capital allocation strategy. Free cash flow in Q2 totaled $96 million or 40 cents per share, even after annual tax and profit-sharing payments totaling $221 million.

These annual payments were materially higher than the prior year as a result of the company's strong financial performance in 2025. Cash generated by operating activities was $495 million in the first half of the year, reinforcing the underlying strength of our business.

From a balance sheet perspective, we ended the first half of 2026 with $507 million in cash and $445 million in working capital. During the first 6 months of the year, we generated $495 million in operating cash flow, made our annual tax and profit-sharing payments of $221 million, and returned $571 million to shareholders through cash dividends, demonstrating the strength of our business and our continued commitment to capital returns.

Consistent with our capital allocation framework, the board declared a quarterly dividend of $1.08 per share for the second quarter, consisting of a 30-cent fixed dividend and a 78-cent variable dividend, representing 100% of normalized free cash flow for the quarter, which is consistent with the payout levels we have made over the last several quarters and above our policy minimum of 50%. The dividend will be paid on September 25th to shareholders on record on September 10th, 2026.

For additional details, please refer to the August 6th dividend announcement. In addition, we intend to use our cash resources to enhance shareholder returns by commencing purchases under our normal course issuer bid in the near term, reflecting our confidence in the long-term value of the business.

With that, I'll turn the call back to Jamie.

Jamie Beck

Thanks, Chester. I'll finish with a brief update on exploration and our priorities for the remainder of 2026.

Starting with FDNS, conversion drilling is demonstrating the continuity of high-grade zones within the known orebody. These intercepts are important as they support potential reserve and resource growth at FDNS.

Highlights include 6.9 metres at 199.9 grams per tonne gold and 4.5 metres at 196.8 grams per tonne. On the exploration side, drilling outside the current mineral resource envelope has again confirmed continuity along the downdip extension of FDNS, highlighting additional growth potential beyond the defined resource.

Exploration highlights this quarter include 11.75 metres at 108.6 grams per tonne gold, including 0.4 metres at 2 kilograms gold, and 5.8 metres at 67.2 grams per tonne. As development progresses at FDNS, we're getting a good sense of what the orebody looks like, and we're gaining confidence in both the scale and continuity of the deposit.

Turning to FDN East, exploration drilling in the quarter focused on extending the deposit footprint and testing newly identified vein sets. Drilling confirmed that the deposit remains open to the east beyond the inaugural mineral resource envelope and intersected the best interval ever at FDN East.

Highlights included 4 metres at 236.6 grams per tonne gold, including a 1-metre section at 933 grams per tonne. Additionally, 6.3 metres at 23.2 grams per tonne gold.

Given that the FDN East footprint now extends approximately 500 metres east-west by 800 metres north-south and remains open in all directions, we've chosen to begin development into the orebody to accelerate our conversion and exploration drilling programs, which Terry mentioned started in July. At FDN, near-mine exploration drilling continued to target areas close to existing underground infrastructure with a clear potential for near-term mine plan flexibility.

Drilling continues to intersect the upper extension of the FDN mineralized envelope and supports potential expansion above the current mining horizon. Importantly, mineralization continues to be encountered along the Suárez Conglomerate contact, confirming continuity above that existing mining envelope.

Key intercepts this quarter included 20.9 metres at 9.3 grams per tonne and 8.1 metres at 15.1 grams per tonne. These results reinforce the opportunity for incremental near-mine additions that could be integrated efficiently into future mine plans.

Finally, our porphyry exploration program delivered the discovery of 2 new porphyry centres during the quarter, bringing the total to 7 across the property. We've also expanded the footprint at Sandia in all directions, with the deposit now measuring approximately 1.6 kilometres in strike, 700 metres in width, and a kilometre in vertical extent.

We've successfully extended the high-grade portion of Sandia to the north, with highlight intercepts including 551 metres at 0.5% copper equivalent and 909 metres at 0.46% copper equivalent. The development of a maiden mineral resource at Sandia is currently underway, and we plan to release the results of that work in early 2027.

I'll close with a brief review of our 2026 objectives. We continue to focus on health, safety, and environmental performance.

Operationally, we remain on track to achieve our 2026 production and cost guidance, with higher production planned for the second half of the year. We are nearly halfway through a record 133,000 metres of planned drilling in 2026, with approximately 54,000 metres completed to date and our regional program set to ramp up in the second half.

The mine-to-mill expansion study advances with an integrated investment decision targeted for late 2026, and FDNS underground development is well underway. Finally, we remain committed to returning capital to shareholders as demonstrated and announced by the additional quarterly dividend of 100% of free cash flow.

Overall, we enter the second half in a strong position, and our operations, growth, and exploration programs and addition to capital returns all remain firmly on track. Operator, with that, I'll turn it over for any questions.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session.

Should you have a question, please press the * followed by the 1 on your touch-tone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised.

Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press the * followed by the 2. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any key.

One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from Martin Pradier with Veritas Investments.

Please go ahead.

Martin Pradier

Thank you. I wonder at what throughput has the mill been operating in the last month?

How should we think about the throughput of the mill in the second half?

Jamie Beck

Sure. Terry, do you want to field that?

Terry Smith

Sure, Jamie. Hi, Martin.

Good question. We averaged closer to 6,000 tonnes a day through June.

That nets out against all of the downtime that we were talking about earlier in the quarter with mill liner changes and the things that drove that.

Martin Pradier

Right. It's possible that you will be able to continue operate it at that kind of rate in the second half and that will allow better production?

Terry Smith

Correct. We're going to push the mill as much as we can, and that's sort of a continuation of what we've been doing for a while now.

I think, net of maintenance, we can push the mill to the rates that I'm describing.

Martin Pradier

Great. When you're looking at the mill expansion, and if I understand correctly, we will see 2 operations going on simultaneously, like Fruta del Norte and Fruta del Norte South, all taking it to the same mill, will eventually this mean that you will be able to push over the 500,000 ounces or is this just offsetting lower grade?

Jamie Beck

Martin, maybe it's Jamie here, maybe I'll jump back in. I think what's important for us, of course, is that we continue to reconfirm our guidance, and despite various movements in mill throughput as we plan for ongoing expansions, we still anticipate being between that 475,000 to 525,000 of ounces this year.

As you think towards the future, you're exactly right. We're not necessarily sort of targeting a production profile here.

We're taking a look at the equipment sizing and what makes sense. As we start to see grades decline and move closer towards reserve grade later in the mine life, then as those mill throughput increases happen, it's not ultimately going to lead to a significant bump in production.

We'll continue to hang around that half-a-million-ounce production profile.

Martin Pradier

Right. The difference is you can do it a lot longer than initial.

Jamie Beck

Yes.

Martin Pradier

In terms of recoveries, you reported 89%. I think you want to get to 90 or 91.

Are you seeing higher recoveries in the last month or in the last days or whatever period you can talk about?

Jamie Beck

We're working really hard at it. June in particular was a very, very strong month for recovery.

We've been working through classifying the orebody into slightly different and more ore types than we have in the past, and by blending materials, we're finding improvements in recovery and are hopeful that we're going to be able to continue that. We've also got a few projects that we'll be talking about later in the year that are going to be integrated into the mine-to-mill expansion, those should help with future recoveries once that project is delivered.

It's a clear point of focus for us.

Terry Smith

Just to add to what Jamie's describing and circling back to your first question, Martin, we're still guiding 5,500 tonnes a day is our average for the rest of the year. I didn't want to steer you in a wrong direction there.

That 6,000 tonnes a day is some upside, and as we always do, we work to try to unlock as much value as we can. I just wanted to clarify that a bit.

Martin Pradier

No, I understand, but if you're able to get the 6,000, then you could be closer to the upper end of the guidance or something like that. Just one last question, more strategic.

Right now you're giving back to shareholders most of the cash, either through share buybacks or through dividends. At some point, if you go ahead with a copper mine, this requires huge investments.

What is the thinking? Are you still thinking that you will have copper mine development within Fruta del Norte or would you consider doing a different investment vehicle for shareholders that takes care of the copper investment?

Jamie Beck

Thanks for that. At this point in time, the focus is really on understanding the scale of the opportunity of the copper projects and what that's going to entail.

Our focus at the moment has been on defining the size of the orebody, and we'll look towards putting out that maiden resource in early 2027. I think a bit early to start talking about sort of strategic options, but I'm convinced that sort of through the robustness of the cash flows at Fruta del Norte from the gold profile that we'll be able to tweak our capital return policy as required over the years to ultimately build up a cash balance if that's what's going to be needed to help support the ongoing development work that we have planned, whether that's additional epithermal gold-silver work or the copper-gold porphyries.

Of course, there's all sorts of creative options in terms of how we might want to finance a big project, whether or not we looked towards taking on a bit of leverage there as well. As you can imagine, the company is completely debt-free, lots of opportunities for us to explore on that side.

Too early to say, but we've got time in front of us to tweak our strategy around cash management and shareholder returns.

Martin Pradier

Focus

Jamie Beck

is in front of us. Yeah.

Martin Pradier

Thank you. That's all for me.

Operator

As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press *1. There are no further questions at this time.

I will now turn the call over to Jamie Beck for closing remarks. Please continue.

Jamie Beck

Thank you, operator. I'll just reiterate another great quarter at Fruta del Norte.

We anticipated this weaker of the year, and expect the back half to be even stronger. The operation continues to surprise to the upside both in terms of our ability to push some tonnes through the mill and we look forward to coming back with that mine-to-mill expansion study later this year, as well as exciting exploration results.

The district is growing both in terms of epithermal gold-silver discoveries to the north and south of the known or bodies in and around FDN. We're excited about some of the regional work that we're starting to kick off, of course, as well as the much bigger copper-gold porphyry mineralized deposits that we're seeing in and around FDN.

Stay tuned for an exciting second half of the year.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation.

You may now disconnect.