Q2 2023 Wheaton Precious Metals Corp Earnings Call
Speaker 1: Good morning ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Leiden Precious Metals' 2023 Second Quarter Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.
Speaker 1: After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star, too.
Speaker 1: I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded on Friday, August 11, 2023 at 11 a.m. Eastern Time. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Patrick Jolin, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and Sustainability. Please go ahead, sir.
Speaker 2: Thank you, operator. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for participating in today's call. I'm joined today by Randy Smallwood, Wheaton Precious Metals President and Chief Executive Officer, Gary Brown, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Haytham Hoadley, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development, and Wes Carson, Vice President, Mining Operations.
Speaker 2: Please note that for those not currently on the webcast, the slide presentation accompanying this conference call is available in PDF format on the presentation page of Wheat and Precious Meadows' website.
Speaker 2: I'd like to bring to your attention that some of the commentary in today's call may contain forward-looking statements, and I would direct everyone to review slide two of the presentation, which contains important cautionary notes regarding forward-looking statements. It should be noted that all figures referred to on today's call are in U.S. dollars, unless otherwise noted. In addition, reference to Wheaton or Wheaton Precious Metals on this call include Wheaton Precious Metals Corp and or its wholly owned...
Speaker 3: And good morning, everyone.
Speaker 3: Thank you for joining us today to discuss Wheaton's second quarter results of 2023.
Speaker 3: I am pleased to announce that our portfolio of long-life, low-cost assets delivered another solid quarter, generating over $200 million of operating cash flow and over $140 million in net earnings.
Speaker 3: Our strong performance was underscored by significant progress at the recently commissioned expansion at our largest asset, Solobo, the ramp-up of which we expect to continue throughout 2023.
Speaker 3: And despite operations at Penasquito being suspended in early June due to a labor dispute, we achieved quarter-over-quarter gold equivalent production growth, highlighting the resilience of our high-quality, diversified portfolio.
Speaker 3: Our growth pipeline of development projects was further de-risked in the quarter when Eris Mining received approval of their environmental management plan, which now permits the development of the Murmato Lower Mine.
Speaker 3: In addition, the acquisition of Sabina was completed by B2Gold, an experienced senior gold producer with a proven track record of successful mine development.
Speaker 3: who will now be managing and building the GOOSE project.
Speaker 3: These projects are among the assets that are forecast to contribute to our impressive organic growth profile of over 40% production growth in the next five years.
Speaker 3: Looking into the remainder of 2023 and assuming the labor dispute at Penasquita was resolved by the end of the third quarter, we maintain our previously stated production guidance of 600 to 660,000 gold equivalent ounces.
Speaker 3: albeit with a slightly higher weighting towards gold.
Speaker 3: On the corporate development front, we continued to see good momentum with the addition of a new gold stream on Lumina Gold's Congrejos project and the expansion of her existing gold stream on Artemis Gold's Blackwater project, both of which are strong development projects that complement our portfolio of high quality assets.
Speaker 3: In this environment of high interest rates and increasing demand for metals, our team remains exceptionally busy.
Speaker 3: as we continue to see a healthy appetite for streaming as a source of capital for the mining industry, and we are actively pursuing several new, accretive opportunities.
Speaker 3: During the quarter, we released our annual sustainability report as well as our inaugural climate change report demonstrating our continued focus on transparency and delivering value to all of our stakeholders.
Speaker 3: I encourage you to take a look at these reports to learn more about Wheaton's approach to sustainability and the programs that we support globally.
Speaker 3: At our annual general meeting held this past May, we welcome Jean Hall to our Board of Directors, bringing her strong skill set to the board and increasing female board representation to over 40%.
Speaker 4: Thanks Randy, good morning. Overall production in the second quarter came in higher than expected, primarily driven by significant sequential improvement at Salobo. In the second quarter, Salobo produced 54,800 ounces of attributable gold, an increase of 61% relative to the second quarter of 2022. Valley reported production in the quarter was driven by better than expected ramp-up of Salobo 3, partially offset by planned maintenance activities and additional work on the crushers at Salobo 1 and 2.
Speaker 4: Additionally, Valier reports that planned maintenance activities will continue in the second half of 2023 and that the ramp-up of SLOBO 3 is expected to be fully completed in 2024. During the quarter, Constanciia produced 400,000 ounces of attributable silver and 7,400 ounces of attributable gold. The ramp-up will continue in the second half of 2023 and that the ramp-up will continue in the second half of 2023.
Speaker 4: reported that full mining activities resumed in Popocantra Pit in February and the period of higher planned stripping activities in the Popocantra Pit was completed in June , with higher than expected production forecasts for the second half of the year. In the second quarter of 2023, Penasquito produced 1.7 million ounces of attributable silver, a decrease of approximately 17% relative to the second quarter of 2022 due to lower throughput. On June 8, 2023, Newmont Corporation reported that it had suspended operations at the Penasquito mine due to a labor dispute.
Speaker 4: To date, Newmont has indicated that it is in ongoing discussions with the leadership of the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers of the Mexican Republic and remains focused on finding a sustainable resolution to the dispute.
Speaker 4: Due to the delay between production and sales, we expect the impact of Penasquito suspended operations will be reflected in our sales results in the third quarter of 2023, resulting in a significant quarter-over-quarter decrease to our reported Penasquito sales volumes.
Speaker 4: These two permits represent significant milestones in the development of Blackwater and allow the Artemis team to continue their focus on completing Phase 1 construction on schedule and to pour first gold in the second half of 2024. As Haytham will discuss later in the call, we expanded our gold stream on Blackwater in the quarter and have been impressed with Artemis' progress in developing the mine. Further de-risking our growth portfolio, on July 12, 2023, Aris Mining announced that they have received approval from the Regional Environmental Authority in Columbia for their Environmental Management Plan, which now permits the development of the Maramata Lower Mine.
Speaker 4: This is a major milestone for ARIS as construction of the lower mine allows for application of bulk mining methods and improved processing, which is estimated to grow Maramata's gold production fivefold once construction is completed in the second half of 2025.
Speaker 4: Ween's estimated attributable production in 2023 is forecast to be approximately 600,000 to 660,000 gold equivalent ounces unchanged from previous guidance, but predicated on penasquito is restarting production in the end of the third quarter.
Speaker 4: For the five-year period ending in 2027, the company estimates that average annual production will amount to 810,000 gold equivalent ounces. And for the 10-year period ending in 2032, the company estimates the average annual production will amount to 850,000 gold equivalent ounces.
Speaker 4: period ending in 2027, the company estimates that average annual production will amount to 810,000 gold equivalent ounces. And for the 10-year period ending in 2032, the company estimates the average annual production will amount to 850,000 gold equivalent ounces. This includes interest in bubbly peculi29az on a grade-based production.
Speaker 4: sector leading organic growth of over 40% with an estimated total production for our current portfolio increasing to over 900,000 GCL by 2027.
Speaker 4: That concludes the operations overview and with that I will turn the call over to Gary. Thank you Wes. As described by Wes, production in the second quarter amounted to 148,000 gold equivalent ounces or GEOs, a 3% increase relative to the first quarter of 2023 and a 5% decrease relative to the comparable period of the prior year.
Speaker 4: without performance at Salobo being offset by a 32% decrease in silver production, primarily due to the divestment of the Ialiaku and Kino Hill.
Speaker 4: precious metal purchase agreements combined with the ongoing labour dispute at Penasquito.
Speaker 4: Sales volumes amounted to over 139,000 GEOs, an 18% increase relative to the first quarter of 2023, and a decrease of 16% relative to the comparable period of the prior year with the year over year variance being primarily due to the 6,000 ounce build-up of ounces produced but not yet delivered or PBND.
Speaker 4: at Salobo during the most recent quarter compared to a 16,000 ounce release of PB&D in Q2 2022, resulting in a 22,000 ounce swing in sales volumes that is simply driven by the timing of shipments. Strong commodity prices coupled with our solid production of GM national
Speaker 2: $52 million. Of this revenue, 56% was attributable to gold, 41% to silver, 2% to palladium, and 1% to cobalt.
Speaker 2: As of June 30, 2023, approximately 103,000 GEOs were in PB&E and Cobalt inventory, representing approximately 2.1 months of payable production, which is a level that is consistent with the preceding four quarters.
Speaker 2: G&A expenses amounted to $10 million for the second quarter and the company anticipates that G&A will amount to $40 to $43 million for the year.
Speaker 2: Adjusted net earnings amounted to $143 million, a $7 million decrease relative to the second quarter of 2022. It is worth noting though that when comparing the results to the prior year, the estimated impact to net earnings associated with the relative changes in PB&D was $18 million.
Speaker 5: Meaning, we would have exceeded prior years net earnings if not for the timing of deliveries.
Speaker 5: Despite the persistent inflationary environment, Wheaton continued to deliver robust cash operating margins in the second quarter, resulting in cash flow from operations of over $200 million and a quarterly dividend of $0.15 per share, consistent with the second quarter of 2022.
Speaker 5: In the quarter, Wheaton made total upfront cash payments of $89 million, consisting of a $31 million payment relative to the Goose Project, $45 million relative to the Blackwater Project, and $12 million relative to the Ken Grayhose Project.
Speaker 5: Weeden also made dividend payments relative to the prior two quarters totaling $131 million.
Speaker 5: As mentioned by Randy, during the second quarter B2Gold completed its previously announced acquisition of Sabina and in conjunction with this acquisition exercised the option to acquire 33% of the stream under the goose Pimpa.
Speaker 5: in exchange for $46 million, resulting in a gain on the partial disposal of the pimp in the amount of $5 million and generating an IRR of 48%.
Overall, net cash inflows amounted to $29 million in Q2 2023, resulting in cash and cash equivalents at June 30 of $829 million. This significant cash balance, combined with the fully undrawn $2 billion revolving credit facility and the strength of our forecasted operating cash flows, positions the company exceptionally well.
accretive mineral stream interest. That concludes the financial summary, and with that, I will turn the call over to Hatham.
Thank you, Gary, and good morning everyone. The corporate development team remains exceptionally busy valuing opportunities and we're excited to have announced two deals in the quarter, both adding strong accretive growth to our development project pipeline.
Starting with the Cangreos project on slide 11, which is the largest primary gold deposit in Ecuador and owned and operated by Lumina Gold. This is a project which currently has more than 20 million ounces of gold in resources and 2.5 billion pounds of copper, not to mention moly and silver, and just recently completed a PFS in April this year.
Per the agreement entered into in May 2023, Wheaton will receive 6.6% of the payable gold, dropping to 4.4% after 700,000 ounces have been delivered for the life of the mine.
In exchange, Wheaton will make an upfront payment of $300 million, the majority going in during construction, and ongoing delivery payments equal to 18% of the spot price.
Attributable production is forecast to average over 24,500 gold ounces per year for the life of the mine, contributing to our long-term growth profile, which, when coupled with significant exploration potential, makes this a very attractive addition to our portfolio.
It is important to note that Lumina Gold has strong community support for the project and no indigenous groups in the area as well. As with any transaction that Wheaton enters into, responsible and sustainable mining practices are paramount and Wheaton looks forward to supporting Lumina both financially as they construct congrijos and with their ongoing comprehensive community engagement efforts.
On to slide 12, on June 14th, Wheaton amended our existing Blackwater Gold precious metals purchase agreement with Artemis Gold to help them arrive at a fully financed transaction.
By expanding the threshold, we created a win-win situation where Artemis continues to get strong cash flows in the early days that allows them to service their debt while Wheaton gets a stronger-for-longer profile in a high-quality asset with a strong operating and management team. This revision now entitles us to purchase 8% of the payable gold production until 464,000 ounces have been delivered, an increase from the previous 280,000 ounces dropping to 4% for the life of the month.
Weeden will make an additional upfront payment of $40 million, bringing total upfront consideration to the Blackwater Project to $481 million.
Since our acquisition of the gold and silver streams on Blackwater in 2021, we have been very impressed with the progress made by the Artem's team in de-risking the project and advancing construction activities, and Wheaton is excited to continue to contribute to the success at Blackwater.
That concludes the Corporate Development overview and with that, I will turn the call back over to Randy.
Thank you, Haytham.
In summary, Wheaton's second quarter was distinguished by several key highlights.
We achieved solid three-month revenue, earnings and cash flow and declared a 15-cent quarterly dividend.
We believe our significant quarter-over-quarter production growth positions us to achieve our previously announced annual guidance of 600 to 660.
gold equivalent ounces. Our pipeline of development projects was further de-risked, supporting our impressive organic growth profile of over 40% in the next five years.
Our commitment to accretive growth was emphasized by the addition of a gold stream on Lumina's Congrejos project and an expansion of our existing gold stream on Artemis Gold's Blackwater project.
Our balance sheet remains one of the strongest in the industry, providing ample capacity to add accretive, high-quality streams into our portfolio.
And lastly, we continue to demonstrate leadership and sustainability with the release of our annual sustainability report in addition to our inaugural climate change report, demonstrating our continued focus on transparency and delivering value to all stakeholders.
So with that, I would like to open up the call to questions. Operator?!
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now conduct a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star, too.
Thank you.
Your first question is from Brian MacArthur from Raymond James. Please ask your question.
Good morning. I have a couple of questions.
My first question relates to Salobo. It looks like the ramp up is going fairly well there. And I know they need a 90-day period to hit their targets. Do you think that you'll have to make the payment this year? Because I guess January 21st is a date where if they hit $35 million...
you make your payment or is that still something that's more likely to happen next year? Well, Brian , good to talk to you. We did revise that agreement earlier this year and so there is two phases to the agreement and so their first step in this is a 32 million tons per year.
throughput rate. And Vale has been very, very clear about their intent to satisfy that first phase this year. And so I hope we actually make it. I mean, it's a reflection of the success that they've had in terms of ramping up the third line there. And so things are going a bit better than what we expected. And so we're...
We're hopeful that we get to make that payment this year. Great, thanks. My second question relates to another large option you have. It's not in your guidance at Pascua. Another company made a fairly significant royalty purchase on that asset on the Chilean side recently.
Do you have any update on that or any read through for that from your perspective, giving your investment there? Yeah, I was pleased to see someone else you know agreeing with us in the sense that, and I've said this for a long time, it's the best half-built mine in the world.
It is one of the best gold deposits in the world. It's a deposit that also produces substantial silver. So, as a refresher, we get 25% of whatever silver is produced from both the Chilean side of that deposit and the Argentinian side of that deposit.
but also to see some of our peers also investing into the opportunity. So I haven't heard PASQA for a while, so I was pleasantly surprised to hear that it was being brought back into the markets. Great, thanks. Just to remind me, if I remember correctly, because you did get some of your original money back, it's about 250 million is sort of what you put into this so far. Is that the book's value on it now? Well, we put in 625 million back in the early, well over 10 years ago, but we did receive silver from a number of other Barix operations, and so our net investment into this is just over 250 million.
Great, thanks very much Randy. Thank you Brian . Thank you ladies and gentlemen. Once again, please press star 1 should you wish to ask a question.
Your next question is from Ralph from 8 Capital. Please ask your question. Hi there, good morning. Randy and Hatham, I'd like to get your thoughts on Ecuador. With Kengrejos, it's not your first venture into the country, but just wondering how you were factoring in country risk and country factors into the United States.
It is a factor that we always bring into our own valuations in terms of looking at country risk. Ecuador has obviously, even just recently, some challenges. However, it is a factor that we always bring into our own valuations in terms of looking at country risk.
it does actually have a relatively strong history on the mining side. More recently, there's successful operations ongoing right now. Lundin Gold has had great success in the country. And so, I think it really comes down to, as in a lot of places around the world, country risk is important, but also community risk is important. That's one of the things that we saw with the...
ensuring that you're going to get strong support at the federal government or national government level in places like that. And so it is a factor that we feed into our own valuations to, you know, to adjust that. You know, if you look at our portfolio of assets, you can tell that it's a factor that feeds into it because we don't have a lot of...
Ralph, I would just add to that, you know, I think it's really important to recognize that we don't advance the vast majority of our upfront payments until there's a construction decision made. And, you know, we would expect that that would only be made in, you know, a stable political environment. Yeah, well said. I appreciate that color. We are going to get a HUD-Bae Copper World Pre-Feasibility Study in Q3, and this obviously follows on the PEA, and it's looking like a very different project from the original deal that we had.
Well look, you know, Hutt Bay is an important relationship with us. You know, Peter and the team, we do a lot with them. Constanci of course is doing very well for us right now. We've had good history with Hutt Bay and we intend to continue having a good strong partnership there.
The original stream was of course focused on the Rosemont deposit and it had a vision in terms of production rates and stuff like that. The copper world is definitely, I think it looks like it's probably going to wind up being slightly less, probably around two-thirds of the level of production.
But one has to remember that those ounces weren't even in the original forecast. And so Rosemont is still in the background waiting to move forward. And I think once Hudd Bay proves that CopperWorld can be operated in a safe and sound, environmentally and socially responsible manner, which we know they have the capability of, we're talking aboutpredator.ix, the
is a very low risk, very high value project for that community, for the country as a whole. And so, once we see that pre-feasibility come in, we'll have a good look at it and then we'll sit down and talk about how we continue to grow our partnership with the community.
but we're still waiting for those details too. I think there's still, you know, HUD-based got several different options as Crop World comes into play, and I think they're still sort of fine-tuning that. That's why they haven't released it yet.
Yeah.
Thank you. Your next question is from Martin from Veritas Investment Research. Please ask your question. Thank you. My question is about the second half for Salobo. How are we seeing it? Do you think it can maintain or increase the production that they had in Q2? I will let Wes take that one. Sure. Yeah, no, thanks for the question. Really, I mean, we are definitely encouraged by what we saw in Q2 here. And then, certainly, Salobo 3 moving ahead and then Salobo 1 and 2 seem to come kind of back in line with expectations.
It was running at about 70%. Three lines. Three lines at about 70%. So in order to achieve the 32 million tons per annum, they would have to be running at closer to 90%. Still a ways to go to get to that completion test. Perfect, thank you. Certainly moving in the right direction. Worth noting as well, we were down there in April , this past April , and really things are moving along extremely well.
that relationship with Vale continues to improve and really a great group down there that is moving things in the right direction. Yeah, I was going to highlight that 70% is an average over the Q2. It was definitely higher towards the end of that, so it doesn't seem like that far of a stretch for them. They're pretty comfortable that they're going to be able to satisfy this.
to improve and really a great group down there that is moving things in the right direction. Yeah, I was going to highlight that 70% is an average over the Q2. It was definitely higher towards the end of that, so it doesn't seem like that far of a stretch for them. They're pretty comfortable that they're going to be able to satisfy this.
And on Cancrijos, is that fully permitted and will be impacted by the claim that the presidential decree that regulates environmental consultation which is impacting your other mind that seems to be, well, there is a claim that is unconstitutional.
presidential degree. So, con grios, the exploration permits have been received, the EIA is obtained for the exploration phase and the environmental baseline studies have been compiled. The exploration investment protection agreement has been signed but they still need to enter into a construction and production agreement.
congressional changes that we've seen there. I think at this point in time, it doesn't really apply to something like Angrejos because it's so far out into the future. I think when we look at our profiles, we've got anywhere between near term is one to three years.
Medium term is three to five and longer term is five to ten. This definitely falls into the five to ten year profile. So there's going to be a lot of changes in Ecuador between now and then and we expect a lot of the issues that are now in the limelight to have been resolved by then.
three to five and longer term is five to ten. This definitely falls into the five to ten year profile. So there is going to be a lot of changes in Ecuador between now and then and we expect a lot of the issues that are now in the limelight to have been resolved by then. Thank you very much.
Thanks Martin. Thank you. Your next question is from Jean Tomazos from Jean Tomazos. A very independent research. Please ask your question.
Thank you for taking my question. Following up on Martin.
How many years out is Contreras of Lumina Gold?
Did you say 5 to 10 or could you be precise 5678?
Yeah, it falls into our......and more broadly.
Are you going to target?
projects that are more than several
For the emerging companies, given 5.5% short-term interest rates, tough market for gold stocks, etc., it's a great opportunity.
Thanks for the question John . To answer your question, Cancrijos falls into the latter part of this decade. It's probably somewhere around 28-29 is when it would actually kick in based on the current profile. The way we structure our transactions is we actually make stage payments along with the rest of the capital that's being infused into the project.
and for, like what we call those early deposit structures. So we commit very little at this point in time and that gives the company a lot of time to actually go back and actually raise the capital, whether it's debt equity, private equity, stream, et cetera. So we work with our partners to try and help them get across the line and I think the longer term project.
really are a view on where we think commodity prices are going longer term. And we do think assets that contain both gold and copper, not only congrios, which is primarily a gold asset, with about 20% of the revenues coming from copper, will start to be a lot more attractive, not just to the diversified base metal companies, but to a lot of the fresh metal companies.
you've seen them go into base metals of late. And you know I think it's important to just have a cross-section of investments, newer term and longer term. You know this isn't an industry where we we make acquisitions all the time, right? You know that you have to be sensitive to where you think you are in the marketplace but right now we do see
good opportunities in that space and good value. Congrejos is a project that we've admired for quite a while as it's been advanced and moved forward. We think it's going to be a good core producer to us. But just to reiterate what Hashem just said, we tend to look at things in sort of near term and then one to five years and then five to ten. That's how we give out our production guide.
Thank you very much and congratulations on accessing such a fabulous asset.
Yes, thank you, John .
Thanks for the call.
Thank you and your last question is from Tanya from Deutsche Bank. Please ask your question.
Morning. I think it's me from Scotiabank. But anyways, yeah. We were chuckling. We missed that news release. Yeah, I was like, okay. I think that's me. Anyway, nice chatting with everyone.
Thank you for taking my questions. I have about three that I wanted to review and I'm going to start with Gary if I could first. Two for you Gary. I just wanted to ask and I asked on the Franco call as well because the Canadian government has come back with initial commentary on this global minimum tax and the framework.
Have you had a chance to look at it and anything that you could add there that you think we should be aware of?
prior guidance, which is that we think that once implemented, assuming that it does get implemented, that it would have application to the income generated by our non-Canadian subsidiaries. And that would, from a NAV perspective, we estimate that that has about an 8 to 10% impact on our NAV. If we were to have it applied, if it had applied this year, I'd estimate that the implication would have been that...
was there anything in there that you saw or read that's anything different from what we have all been led to believe? No. There wasn't a lot of details on what could be deductibles etc. so I don't know if there was anything in that but you had some
Yeah, so far it doesn't look like there's any difference from the principles. So, you know, I don't think there's anything that you would need to adjust.
Okay, well thanks for that. And then just on panesquito, you know, with the
Gary, what if Penasquito is down for the entire quarter, so down all of Q3, what do you think we should be thinking about in terms of sales for the quarter?
from silver just from panasquito.
it would continue to impact through into Q4 if it were down for the entire quarter. So there is a delay of about six weeks, six weeks to two months between that kind of production and the actual sales. So specifically in Q3 we would see a sniff of sales because with that six to eight week delay and sort of the connection between production and sales.
Obviously, they shut down on June 8th, which is three weeks before the end of the quarter. So that does leave some residual sales revenue that we should see in Q3, but not a lot, as you'd imagine. And definitely, sales will be impacted on that side.
So we should thank, you know, Randy, minimal sales coming in in Q3. Should it be down for the entire quarter? That's right. Okay. Now that's helpful. Thank you. And Randy, can I ask you, does this have an impact? Obviously, you look at your dividend. We've seen obviously a free cash flow growing.
you know you have that 15 cent payout, does this push out your thoughts on you
Well, I think what is more has an impact is the fact that Haytham keeps on finding good projects to invest into. We've just committed now to Congrejos and I can tell you we're very busy on that front on the corporate development side. I'm fully expecting that Haytham is going to deliver a few more ways to invest capital.
You know, we've always been about, you know, the money, if it's not going into accretive new acquisitions, it's going to go back to the shareholders and we've got good strong cash flows. You know, we're seeing outperformance in a number of other assets and so we're falling into our guidance range. We're comfortable with our year guidance, the 2023.
side. And so, you know, the dividend is a good strong dividend. I believe it pays the highest yield in the space, at least amongst the senior streamers. And so it's a good strong dividend policy, but we've got plenty of capacity. We can see that in the balance sheet in terms of what we've done. And so I don't think it's, it hasn't had an impact on that front.
I think it's probably, if we don't bump it, it's probably because Haytham keeps on finding great ways to spend it.
I think it's important to recognize, you know, we set dividend policy based upon long-term, you know, forecasts and this is really just a short-term issue in our eyes.
And I was just thinking, you know, whether, you know, should I be thinking about, you know, for 2023 or has it been pushed out sort of into 2024?
just because I panacea, you know, short-term blip.
I wouldn't expect a change in our dividend policy until 2024 at the earliest. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. And if I could just squeeze one more in for Haytham because he's a money spender. I wanted to circle back Haytham with you. I just wanted to just read the notes.
to the size of your company, but are we still looking at that 150 to 350 million?
dollar range for precious metals
Good morning Tanya and thank you for the questions money spender I like that. I can tell you that we're looking at all ranges so you know the majority of the stuff probably is still sub 300 there's some that are much smaller than that we've got a couple that are actually 500 million plus as well so you know we're aggressively trying to move things forward we're probably trying to move forward on 15 different opportunities at any given time we'll see how many of those actually get done.
private equity is very expensive and Wheaton treats our counterparties very fairly, try to give them, come up with win-win transactions. So you know we're very excited here over the next little while to try to get some more transactions done. Well the plus 500 million dollar ones, I hate them that you have that you said you've got a couple there.
Are they gold focused or are they silver? They are precious metals focused. I would say they are a combination of gold and silver. Gold and silver, not platinum or palladium.
No, no, no. I mean our 90 plus percent, probably 95 percent of our focus is on gold and silver these days.
Okay, alright. And still looking at the same development and operating assets, still both categories.
Yeah, and the nice thing is we've got some that are closer to the operating stage, near-term operating stage as well, that will contribute to our overall earnings and cash flows in the near-term.
Okay, okay great. Thank you so much for answering my questions.
Thank you, Tanya, and thank you everyone for dialing in today. In closing, we believe Wheaton is well positioned to continue delivering value to all of our stakeholders for a number of different reasons. Firstly, by offering our shareholders exposure to our diversified portfolio of long-life, low-cost assets that we believe has one of the best organic growth profiles in the mining industry.
Secondly, by having low and predictable costs which are resilient to inflationary pressures, resulting in some of the highest margins in the entire precious metal space, has allowed us to consistently return good value to our shareholders.
And lastly, by being a leader amongst precious metal streamers in sustainability, and by supporting our partners and our neighbors in the communities in which we live and which we operate.
So with that, I would like to finish off by saying that after nearly 20 years at this company, I have never been more excited about our future prospects. We believe that now is a great time to own more Wheaton.
I do look forward to speaking with all of you again soon. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the conference call for today. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect your lines.