Q4 2024 Wheaton Precious Metals Corp Earnings Call

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Read and Precious Metals

All ends up in place on mute to prevent any backhoe noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question in the answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press start and the number one on your telephone kit pad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press start and the number two. Thank you.

Speaker Change: I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded on Friday, March 14, 2025. At 11 o'clock AM is turn time. I will not turn the conference over to Miss Emma Murray, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you, peace, go ahead.

Emma Murray: 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 Metal's President and Chief Executive Officer, Gary Brown, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Haytham Hodaly, Senior Vice President Corporate Development, and West Carson, Vice President Mining Operations. Please note, for those not currently on the webcast, a slide presentation accompanying this conference call is available in PDF format on the presentation page of our website. Thank you. Thank you.

Speaker Change: 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 from more details. It should be noted that all figures referred to on today's call are in US dollars, unless otherwise noted. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Randy Smallwood, our President and Chief Executive Officer.

Randy Smallwood: Thank you, Emma, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today as we review Wheaton's fourth quarter and full-year results for 2024.

Randy Smallwood: Driven by our diversified portfolio of high-quality and long-life assets, I am very pleased to report that Wheaton achieved record revenue, adjusted net earnings, and operating cash flows in 2024.

Randy Smallwood: We realized annual production of 635 Gold Equal Analysis exceeding the top end of our production guidance for the year.

Randy Smallwood: The strength of our fourth quarter results was underscored by record quarterly production from Salobo, resulting in record overall gold production for the year.

Randy Smallwood: In 2024, Wheaton remained focused on reinforcing our industry leading growth profile by acquiring four new investments.

Thank you for watching.

Randy Smallwood: Haytham will provide further details on these recent acquisitions, which include a gold stream on Montage Gold's Konae Project, the largest streaming transaction completed by a single streamer in the past decade.

Haytham Hodaly: Each of these investments further enhances and diversifies our portfolio by expanding our geographic presents and strengthening our strategic partnerships. Yes.

Haytham Hodaly: and we are excited to welcome our new mining partners and we look forward to supporting them advancing these projects.

Haytham Hodaly: Wheaton's estimated growth profile is unmatched in our sector. This impressive growth is readily apparent in our five-year production forecast, where we estimate annual production increasing by 40% to 870,000 gold equivalent announces by 2029.

Haytham Hodaly: Along with organic growth from her existing operations, we expect to see inaugural production from nine different assets in the next five years, all of which have received their key permits and are either nearing or already well into construction.

Haytham Hodaly: In 2025 alone, several development projects are currently expected to begin production, including Artemis Gold's Blackwater Project.

Haytham Hodaly: which has already made its first goldpour in late January , B2 Gold's Goose Project in Nunavut, Waterton's Mineral Park Project in Arizona, and Ivan Ho's Platt Reef Project in South Africa.

Thank you.

Haytham Hodaly: To further demonstrate our confidence in Wheaton's growth profile, we are pleased to announce a 6.5% increase to our quarterly dividend or a proud that Wheaton's payout ratio continues to be a leader in the precious metal sector.

Haytham Hodaly: We are also proud to be one of only two resource-focused companies to be recognized by corporate nights as one of the 2025 Global 100 most sustainable corporations.

Haytham Hodaly: and to be the only streaming company upgraded to Triple A, ESG Rating by MSCI.

Haytham Hodaly: These accolades reflect our commitment to support responsible operations across all area of our business and underscore the quality of the mining partners that we collaborate with.

Haytham Hodaly: I would also like to mention that last week we announced the winner of our inaugural Future of Mining Challenge.

Haytham Hodaly: Wheaton, with the assistance of foresight, launched this challenge in September of 2024 to support the mining industry's important goal of delivering essential commodities and materials in a more efficient, sustainable manner.

Haytham Hodaly: The 2025 winner is rethink milling whose innovative grinding technology demonstrates immense potential to significantly lower energy consumption leading to reduced emissions and operating costs and ultimately improve operational efficiencies. [inaudible]

Stay tuned for our 2026 Future of Mining Challenge.

Haytham Hodaly: Thanks. Thanks, Randy. Good morning. Overall production in fourth quarter came in higher than expected, driven by strong outperformances at Salobo, Constantia, and Penisquito, further highlighting the strength of these significant assets in our diversified high quality portfolio.

Haytham Hodaly: In the fourth quarter of 2024, Solobo produced 84,000 ounces of attributable gold, representing record quarterly production, an increase of approximately 17% relative to the fourth quarter of 2023. Driven by higher throughput as the ramp-up of the Solobo 3 expansion continued, as well as higher gold grades and recoveries. [inaudible]

Haytham Hodaly: On January 28th, 2025, Valley enough the completion of the Slobo-3 wrap-up and continuing improvements in performance at both Slobo-1 and 2.

Speaker Change: On March 4th, 2025, Valley and Foreign Wheaton, fitted to achieve the sustained 3-foot capacity of over 35 million tons per annum over a 90-day period, indicating the completion of the second phase of the Slowwood 3 expansion project.

Haytham Hodaly: Following a review of the final completion test, Wheaton anticipates advancing the remaining $144 million of the expansion payment.

Haytham Hodaly: In the fourth quarter of 2024, Constantia produced 970,000 ounces of attributable silver and 18,200 ounces of attributable gold [inaudible]

Haytham Hodaly: An increase of approximately 16% for solar production, and a decrease of approximately 18% for gold production relative to the fourth quarter of 2023. The increase in solar production, which represents a quarterly record, was primarily due to higher grades.

Haytham Hodaly: The reduced gold production was the result of lower gold grades, as more material was mined from the constancy of pit and reclaimed from stockpile compared with the previous year.

Haytham Hodaly: The decrease in gold grade was partially offset by higher throughput.

Haytham Hodaly: HUD Bay announced the gold production in 2025 that expected to be lower than 2024 levels due to additional high grade gold benches in Papacansha, which remind the head of schedule in late 2024 instead of 2025 as originally planned.

Haytham Hodaly: The Pappacansha deposit, containing relatively higher gold grades is expected to be depleted in early December 2025.

Haytham Hodaly: In the fourth quarter of 2024, Benisquito produced over 2.4 million ounce of a trivial silver, an increase of approximately 138% relative to the fourth quarter of 2023, as prior operations were impacted by a four-month long labor strike.

Haytham Hodaly: Newmont has indicated that in 2025, co-product production is expected to decline as mining transitions from the Chilli Colorado pit back to the Paniasco Pit, which contains relatively lower silver grids.

Speaker Change: On January 22nd, 2025, Artemis announced the commissioning of the grinding circuit that the Blackwater Project had advanced, and milling of first-order commenced.

Speaker Change: with the first four of Golden Silver being announced on January 29th, 2025. Commercial production remains targeted for Q2 of 2025.

Speaker Change: also during the quarter-wartons origin mining continued to advance their mineral park project with the installation of new crushing and milling circuits nearing completion

Speaker Change: Project Construction continues to progress on track with first order to the mill expected in Q2 of 2025, followed by an anticipated ramp-up to commercial production during the second half of the year.

Speaker Change: Due to trial performance in the fourth quarter, we exceeded the upper limit of its annual production guidance in 2024, surpassing the midpoint of the guidance range by approximately 9%

The company anticipates the 2025 GEO production.

Speaker Change: We'll continue to grow from levels achieved in the previous year. This forecast growth is driven by expected stronger attributable production from Antimena, the anticipated start-up of several development projects including Blackwater, Juice, Middle Park, and Flat Reaves, and a stable forecast for a slow-bo production. [inaudible]

Speaker Change: Attribute of Ruction is projected to increase that to mean in 2025 due to expected higher silver grades caused by a higher ratio of copper zinc or versus copper only or in mind in 2025. Attribute of Ruction is forecast to be consisted of silver in 2025, with slightly lower grades as per the mine plan, offset by increasing throughput of silver 1, 2 and 3 continue to as we continue to see an improvement in plant availability and overall utilization.

Speaker Change: Complmented by a best-in-class preventative maintenance culture that has been implemented consistently across the entire site.

Speaker Change: Increased production from the aforementioned assets as anticipated to be partially offset by lower production from Penskeeto at Ancestance.

Speaker Change: Wheaton's attributable production in 2025 is forecast to be 350,000 to 390,000 ounces of gold, 20.5 to 22.5 million ounces of silver, 12.5 to 13.5,000 ounce, the Geos of other metals, resulting in total production of approximately 600,000 to 670,000 Geos.

Speaker Change: Production is forecast to increase at an industry leading rate of approximately 40% over the next five years to 870,000 GEOS by 2029. Primarily due to expected growth from operating assets, including Antimena and Maramato and development assets, including Blackwater, Platt Reef and the Coney Project.

Speaker Change: From 2030 to 2034, Tribute of Production is forecast at an average of over 950,000 GEOs in the five-year period and incorporates expected additional incremental production from pre-development assets including Side of the Mangle and Congraeos

Speaker Change: That concludes the Operations Review, and with that, I will turn the call over one last time to Gary. Thanks, Wes.

Gary Brown: As described by West, production in the fourth quarter amounted to 187,000 GEOs, a 14% increase relative to the fourth quarter of 2023, primarily the result of higher production from Salobo and Penisquito, with Salobo achieving record quarterly production.

Gary Brown: Sales volumes amounted to 143,000 GEOs, a decrease of 8% relative to the fourth quarter of 2023, with the higher production being offset by a 40% increase to the number of GEOs produced but not yet delivered or PBND.

Gary Brown: Strong commodity prices coupled with our solid production base resulted in record quarterly revenue of $381 million and gross margin of $247 million. An increase over the comparable period of the prior year of 21% and 40% respectively.

Gary Brown: Of this revenue, 62% with the attributable to gold, 35% to silver, 1% to palladium, and 2% to cobalt.

Gary Brown: As of December 31, 2024, approximately 164,000 Geos were in PBND, representing approximately 2.9 months of payable production, an increase from the preceding quarter and at the upper end of our expected range of 2-3 months.

Gary Brown: This was due to a significant increase in quarter over quarter production driven by increased production by Tenskito, coupled with record quarter production at Salobo, with this incremental production expected to be delivered in the first quarter of 2025.

Gary Brown: GNA expenses amounted to $10.5 million for the fourth quarter of 2024 and total GNA for the year amount of $40.7 million being at the lower end of the original forecasted range.

Gary Brown: For 2025, the company expects that G&A expenses will amount to $50 million to $55 million, with the increase largely resulting from cost associated with the inaugural future of mining challenge coupled with the expiring ATM program.

Gary Brown: In the fourth quarter, Wheaton recognized an impairment charge of $109 million relative to the Voices Bay, the MPA, due to the sustained decline in market cobalt prices.

Gary Brown: As we're reflecting the impairment charge, net earnings benefit $88 million, with a $35 million global minimum tax expense being reflected into quarter.

Gary Brown: Adjusted net earnings amounted to $199 million, representing a quarterly record for the company. With the $34 million increase from the prior year, you primarily to the higher gross margin.

Gary Brown: adjusted earnings per share amounted to 44 cents per share, an increase of 21% over the period of the prior years.

Gary Brown: Revenue for 2024 increased 26% to approximately $1.3 billion, representing a record for the company, with the increase being primarily due to a 20% increase in realized commodity prices, coupled with the 5% increase in sales volumes.

Gary Brown: of this revenue, 99% was derived from precious metals, with 62% attributable to gold, 36% silver, 1% to platinum and 1% to cobalt, [inaudible]

Gross margin for 2024, increased by $229 million dollars. [inaudible]

to $803 million.

Gary Brown: After negating the items that are non-recurring in nature, including the effect of the $109 million of paramet charge on the voice's bake, Hobart Stream, adjusted net earnings increased by 20% to an annual record of $640 million.

Gary Brown: Despite the persistent inflationary environment, Wheaton continued to deliver robust cash operating margins in the fourth quarter, resulting in record quarterly cash flow from operations of $319 million, an increase of over 30% relative to the fourth quarter of 2023.

Gary Brown: and Paid a dividend of 15.5 cents per share, an increase of over 3% relative to the prior year.

Gary Brown: During the quarter, Wheaton made total upfront cash payments of approximately $115 million relative to mineral stream interest. [inaudible]

Gary Brown: including $44 million relative to Kermok, $40 million relative to Marmodo, $25 million relative to Mineral Park, and $6 million relative to Ken Graibos.

Gary Brown: Offsetting these outflows was the temporary repayment of the upfront cash payment of $13 million relative to El Domo. This repayment, which will be re-advanced in the future, was made by Silver Corp in order to stop the accrual of delay houses owed to Wheaton. This repayment, which will be re-advanced in the future, was made by Silver Corp in order to stop the accrual

Gary Brown: In addition, the company made dividend payments totaling $70 million. Overall, net cash inflows amounted to $124 million in the fourth quarter, resulting in cash and cash equivalence at December 31st of $818 million.

Liz Cash Balance,

Gary Brown: Combined with the fully undrawn $2 billion revolving credit facility and the strength of our forecasted operating cash flows, positions the company exceptionally well to satisfy its funding commitments and provides us with the financial flexibility to acquire additional creative mineral stream interests.

Gary Brown: Given the strength of Wheaton's balance sheet and forecast of cash flows, the company has elected to not renew its Add the Market Equity Program under which no shares have been issued.

Gary Brown: Record levels of dividends in 2024, the company has now returned over $2.3 billion in dividends to investors since inception, which notably represents over 60% of the amount of equity ever raised by the company.

Gary Brown: That concludes the financial summary and with that I will turn the call over to Haytham.

Gary Brown: and the rest of us. We'll be right back. We'll be right back.

Haytham Hodaly: Thank you, Gary. Following the record number of deals we announced in 2023, the corporate development teams saw yet another busy year in 2024, committing 910 million on four precious metals transactions, resulting in the addition of multiple top tier assets further adding to our already impressive development project pipeline.

Haytham Hodaly: I presented the deals of our stream with montage, gold relative to the Coney project on our last quarterly call, the largest streaming transaction by a single streamer in nearly a decade.

Haytham Hodaly: Since then, Montage has announced that construction had commenced and that significant progress is being made to rapidly advance and de-risk the project, which remains on track to meet the expected first goal for in mid-2027.

Haytham Hodaly: Once fully ramped up, Coney is forecast to become our second largest gold producing asset for its first five years of production and third largest producing asset overall.

Haytham Hodaly: Additionally, in December, we announced a transaction with Allied Gold Corporation in respect to the Kermuk Gold Project located in Ethiopia. Kermuk is a fully permitted, high-quality development project that we believe offers significant exploration potential.

Haytham Hodaly: Kermok is set to be the first commercial gold mine in Ethiopia and is supported by a team who has approved an operating track record. A attributable gold production is forecast average over 16,000 ounces of gold per year for the first 10 years of production and Wheaton anticipates receiving ounces in the second half of 2026.

Speaker Change: Only a few weeks ago, Allied announced a strategic partnership with UAE-based Ambrosia investment holding, to crystallize value on a portion of its satiola mine, in addition to participation in a private placement, which when combined, generated proceeds of over 500 million.

Speaker Change: Allen has indicated that these proceeds will be used in part for the further development of Kermuk, providing crucial financing and further de-risking the project.

Speaker Change: We are excited to partner with the Ally team who is a strong operational background and look forward to supporting them along Kermuk's path to production.

Speaker Change: Lastly, subsequent to the quarter, we announce an amendment to the Blackwater Precious Mel's purchase agreement, whereby the amount of payable silver received by Wheaton will now be determined based on a fixed ratio of silver to gold ounces rather than fixed recoveries

Speaker Change: This amendment presents a win-win solutions for both Wheaton and our partner, accelerating the receipt of payable ounces to Wheaton, while the additional 30 million payment is expected to fully fund Artemis as they enter the final stages of ramping up to commercial production.

Speaker Change: which is anticipated for the second quarter of 2025. With that, I will hand call back over to Randy.

Thank you, Haytham [inaudible]

and thank you, Gary.

Speaker Change: For the integral role that you have played in the last 17 years. The first.

Speaker Change: Many of you know already know that Gary will be stepping down as the CFO at the end of this month Gary's legacy will be marked by a strong financial foundation, a culture of excellence and a focus on sustainable growth [inaudible]

Speaker Change: I am immensely grateful for his contribution, and I think I speak for the entire Wheaton team and stakeholders in wishing him all the best in this next chapter of his life.

Thank you.

Speaker Change: In summary, 2024 was a very strong year for Wheaton, distinguished by several key highlights.

Speaker Change: With production of 635,000 gold equivalent ounces, we exceeded our annual guidance generating record cash flows of over $1 billion in distributing record dividends of over $280 million in dollars.

Speaker Change: Our pipeline of development projects was further de-risked by construction advancements in the receipt of various key permits by our partners. Further strengthening our impressive organic growth profile of over 40% in the next five years.

Speaker Change: We continue to grow our asset base with the addition of four new acquisitions this year, adding further diversification by commodity, operator, region, and development stage.

Speaker Change: Arfala Sheet Remains, one of the strongest in the industry, providing ample capacity to continue adding a creative high quality streams into our portfolio. Thank you very much.

Speaker Change: We declared a record level of dividends in 2024, and after raising our 2025 annual dividend we'll continue to provide one of the highest dividend payout ratios in the sector

Speaker Change: And lastly, we continue to demonstrate leadership in sustainability with sectored eating ESG ratings and external recognition .

Speaker Change: So with that, I would like to open up the call for questions. Operator?

Speaker Change: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-in-answer session. Should you have a question? These can start off by the one on your telephone keyboard. You should wish to cancel the request. These can start off by the two. If you're using your speakerphone, please leave the handset before pressing any keys. This is the question-in-answer session.

One moment please for your first question.

Speaker Change: Thank you, and your first question, Consonant Line of Lawson Winder from Back of America Securities, please go ahead

Lawson Winder: Thank you very much operator and hello Randy and team. Congratulations on a fantastic 2024 and and then also Gary to you. Congratulations on a fantastic career Wheaton and all the best going forward.

Speaker Change: First of all, I wanted to start off on the dividend. I think the market has been pretty impressed with the increase that you guys have demonstrated with the announcement last night.

Speaker Change: I mean, the payout based on your operating free cash flow in 2024 is a little bit lower than the sort of 20 to 30% range that you talked about in the past.

Speaker Change: is there a thought to maybe push that a little bit higher going forward? Go forward.

Lawson, it's Randy, thanks Colin.

Speaker Change: You know, I mean it really comes down to the opportunity set that we see in front of us, right? We want to maintain a healthy balance sheet.

Speaker Change: How strong that balance he is and how much we've got in terms of commitments coming down the pipe and finding that right balance? [inaudible]

Speaker Change: So if you see us with an even stronger cash balance and factoring in of course commitments that we have we do have quite a bit of construction going on over the next while so we'll be co-funding with the operators to get these assets up and running.

Speaker Change: It really comes down to just making sure that we have that capacity to take advantage of the opportunities but at the same time knowing that

Speaker Change: that we want to keep committing to that progressive dividend. So, I think moving it up at the rate that we did this year allows us to do that. We have some commitments coming up this year. I know Haytham's got a long list of opportunities out there in terms of helping fund projects coming in and adding to our growth profile even more.

Speaker Change: and so it's really coming down to that balance and you know I would I would say that

Speaker Change: The best way to sort of estimate that is look at how much cash we have on hand during third or fourth quarter and that's going to be a real good indicator of what we're going to do the following year. And at this time we felt we had that extra capacity this year.

Speaker Change: Okay, yeah, that's really helpful context. And just, you know, thinking about that capital deployment.

Speaker Change: Yeah, so thinking about that way, and then thinking about that in terms of the contractual obligation. So you guys have disclosed about $882 million contractual obligations. Does that, to what extent does that influence how much you feel you could deploy in 2025? [inaudible]

Lawson Winder: Sure, maybe I'll take that question, Lawson. Good morning. Just with regards to how much we could potentially deploy in 2025. Let me just go back and give you a little bit of history. Over the last, I'd say, you know, 10 plus years. On average, we've deployed over $800 million a year. And that's not that's on a creative high quality transactions.

Lawson Winder: We continue to see in our current profile opportunities that range anywhere from $100 or up to as much as $400 million. There is the odd one that is somewhere between $500 and $1 billion. So we do see an opportunity to continue to deploy a lot of capital. That being said, we're only going to do it in a very creative manner and very, I would say...

Lawson Winder: Man are similar to what we've actually done in the past. We're not trying to do every deal, we're trying to do the best deals and we're trying to do it with the best price.

Lawson, I would add...

Lawson Winder: You know, currently what we're seeing is a lot of investment in the gold space, you know, clearly having gold break through $3,000 earlier today, you know, it's a very strong gold market and we're seeing a lot of investments in that. So most of the transactions we're looking at right now is gold streams on gold assets.

Lawson Winder: The copper market will wake up at some time. When you start looking at long-term demand and what we've typically seen is that copper is a much more capital intensive space and there's a much higher need for copper. [inaudible]

Lawson Winder: So, you know, in the gold space, we tend to see, you know, three, five, maybe $700 million deals as we've shown.

Lawson Winder: But boy, you know, when you start getting into the copper space, that's when you start seeing the billion dollar plus and so you know, we have to make sure that we're prepared for that when that when that copper market does when we start seeing some reinvestment into the copper space [inaudible]

Okay, that's helpful, and then just...

Speaker Change: Maybe just a bit of a modeling detail question on the on the total contractual obligations for 2025. How much of that eight hundred and eighty two do you expect to deploy in this this quarter?

Lawson Winder: Oh, and what are the kind of moving parts driving that? [inaudible]

Lawson Winder: Well, this quarter is just about done, so in terms of the first quarter itself. I mean, you know, clearly, the Slobo Valle's been successful in terms of satisfying the second phase, so that, that payable we made shortly.

Lawson Winder: I'm not sure the actual day whether it falls into this quarter or not, but we're going through the process of getting that done. They've definitely satisfied that. So, that's going to be the first one. We've got active construction on all the other projects and stuff. I don't know if we've got a quarterly breakdown. But, um...

I love you.

Randy Smallwood: Yeah, I, you know, I'd have to say it's, I mean, I would, I would say it's pretty evenly spread over the entire year. And so if you're looking at that, it's probably a couple of a hundred million, maybe a little bit more heavily weighted to the front end to shoot that 144 million dollar payment towards the valley. I mean, the big, the big one's going to be Cone, which I think is going to be more back and weighted. But, you know, at the end of the day, you know, with 144 going out, you know, over the next 30 days, you know, it's, it as Randy,

Randy Smallwood: He said it's probably going to be pretty stratified across the board quarters. [inaudible]

Fantastic. Again, great quarter, guys. Thanks for taking the questions.

Thank you, you're welcome.

Speaker Change: Thank you and your next question. Transfer the line of Tanya Jakusconek from Scotia Bank. Please go ahead.

Speaker Change: Oh great, thank you very much for your questions and Gary, good luck, your next adventure.

Thanks, Anya.

I'm uh...

Speaker Change: Yeah, just wanted to turn back to some modeling questions if I could. Thank you for the color on the outflows of the commitment. Maybe just as I think about the year and assuming.

Speaker Change: Obviously Commodate, Pat, which they don't, but you do your production based on that pricing anyways. I know that we have the new minds contributing about that 20 to 25,000 Geos towards the latter part of the year. How should we think about the first half?

Speaker Change: The second half is at 47.48. Who, like, how should I... I would think it's about 45.55. 45 in the front half, 55 in the back half.

Speaker Change: You know, again, you know, my start up is challenging in terms of picking production levels and how fast you can ramp up, you know, you're going to...

Speaker Change: Test the system and if it works you test it a little bit more and if it works you test a little bit more or you have to step back a bit right so it's always a tricky tricky process and so it's always tough to sort of pick off that so

Speaker Change: I would definitely say we will definitely see a bias towards the latter half of the year in terms of production but I would characterize it about 45% up front and 55% in the second half.

Speaker Change: Andy, what other operations within your portfolio have a seasonality to it that I should be aware of, or any downtime?

Speaker Change: Let Wes talk to that on the operations side.

Wes: Sure, the main one, Tanya, is Solobo, and Solobo does have a rainy season generally in the first quarter, so we do see slightly lower production from Solobo, and then that wraps up through the year. That being said over the last couple of years, they've done quite well. They installed a new pumping system in the bottom of the pit a couple years ago, and that really has mitigated a lot of the challenges they had previously around that rainy season. Most of our other operations are not really seasonally affected, though Solobo would be the largest single one for sure.

Speaker Change: and then west to have any great differential in the second half or any maintenance downtime for the second half.

Wes: Nothing out of the ordinary. It's pretty standard across the year and everything. We don't have the major... In the last couple of years, we've had some fluctuations on, say, Constantia with Papa Contra coming in and out. That's reasonably flat across the year. And really, Pensacito will be the same there in Pinyasco for most of the year. So no significant change is kind of over the year. It really is those operations coming on in the latter part of the year that makes a difference. [inaudible]

Wes: Okay, that's very helpful, and I guess I should add, the D-D-N-A, but-

Is that a hopeful ask? [inaudible]

Wes: Sorry, your line is kind of, can you just repeat that question? Sorry, I was hoping to get an idea for your depreciation or is that a hopeful ask for guidance for now?

You know I

Depletion, we forecast mine by mine, you know, I think

Wes: You know, I wouldn't expect it to deviate significantly from, you know, what Q4's depletion was, but you know, we're forecasting roughly, you know, $300 million in depletion over the year.

Speaker Change: Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you. And then I just wanted to turn if I could to just the deal space and thank you for sharing us on the deal side and

Speaker Change: The opportunities that you're seeing on the gold space, and I think that Randy you mentioned a lot of them is in helping finance development stage projects. I just wanted to clarify that's what I heard. [inaudible]

Speaker Change: Number one, and number two, that's what it is, okay, perfect. Number two, I do understand there are some royalties for sale as well and some in sort of bigger size. Wonder that that was something you will also looking at separate from the streams.

Speaker Change: We look at everything, Tanya, definitely. I mean, we have to understand what's going on out there and we weigh every opportunity against the other opportunities we have in the five points.

Speaker Change: Our preference is streams, Tanya, but we feel that there are a much stronger business model than the royalties, but existing royalties that are auctioned off will always have a look at and try and get a sense.

Speaker Change: You know, sometimes we scratch our heads of values being paid for these royalties, but, you know, especially on, on, you know, different projects and such, but...

Speaker Change: You know, we'll look at them and see if there's a space for them in our portfolio.

Speaker Change: All in all, it's still about trying to find good quality precious metals production for our shareholders.

Speaker Change: And I'll just add to a comment Randy made earlier, for the last little while, a lot of the opportunities given the strong commodity price and the precious metals that is...

Speaker Change: have resulted in Wheaton looking at streams on these high margin press mills assets. We are starting to see some polymetallic assets with a good byproduct,

Speaker Change: Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. And then how do you think of the opportunities from a geographical standpoint? I only say that because the couple of your last ones were based in Africa. And I'm just thinking of how do you see your exposure? Do you feel that that's enough Africa or you know, you bought to know it's in South America? I just wondering geography wise. [inaudible]

Speaker Change: So I can tell you this. I can tell you one of the last few transactions that we did. Yeah, you're right. There was a couple two or three that were in Africa. It wasn't because we had a focus on Africa. It was because that is where the highest quality opportunities lay at that given point in time. I'm looking at my list of opportunities for the next, let's say, 12 months.

Speaker Change: and it is there are none in Africa at this point so we are looking globally but you know I think generally speaking we've exhausted probably some of the highest quality assets in Africa from a stream perspective and looking elsewhere at this point.

Speaker Change: You know, it's not so much the continent itself, Tanya, it's a country by country basis. I mean, some of the most stable jurisdictions in the world are at Africa in terms of...

Longevity and security around mining, and so it's...

Speaker Change: It's something that you have to really assess that. And I would add that the one other aspect that we really focus on isn't so much even country risk, it's community risk.

Haytham Hodaly: It looks like a new area for us. Haytham and I and the rest of the team have been looking in Africa for many years now. I would almost suggest that perhaps some of our peers have learned some lessons and are factoring in a bit more political risk in their own valuations and now it's a more competitive market. We always have...

Haytham Hodaly: Packard in, Political Risk is part of our evaluation process and so I do think that that might be a bit of a reflection is it might not be so much a change in our approach but a change in some of our peers approach from a political risk perspective and I think that has opened up some opportunities for us.

Speaker Change: Now, I appreciate that. I was just looking at it from a portfolio basis overall. And so, Haytham, I think you said most of what you're looking is outside of Africa, because it's dangerous too. Most of it is North South America.

Ah yes, safe to assume that.

Tanya: Thank you so much for taking my questions. Really appreciate it. And again, Gary, good luck on the next chapter. Thank you. Thanks again, Tanya. Nice, thank you.

Speaker Change: Thank you, and your next question comes in the line of Brian MacArthur from Raymond James, please go ahead Thank you very much.

Speaker Change: Good morning and thank you for taking my question and again best wishes Gary on your next chapter going forward

Speaker Change: Um, my question is maybe philosophical, but I'm interested. We've had a couple of amendments to

Speaker Change: and some of the PPMAs over the last six months both Phoenix and

Speaker Change: Blackwater, which is, I guess, as I look at them effectively, you're putting in more capital, but you're getting more answers upfront into a pretty good. [inaudible]

Speaker Change: Precious Metal Market, but I'm curious whether a genesis of the transactions is more as a company to develop these projects and need more.

Speaker Change: Capital, so you put it in and get a get a get a return or is it more that you both see a pretty good. Good.

Thank you. Bye.

Speaker Change: Metal Market, and there's an opportunity for both of you to improve the projects up front for what you really thought they were to begin with. [inaudible] I'm sorry, I'm sorry,

and therefore get a better return.

Speaker Change: for both of you, or maybe those are just one-offs. And I guess if it's the situation where you can advance projects by putting more capital in the benefit of both of you, is that something I should think about you could be doing on some of your other PPMAs and it's an additional. So, let's move on.

Avenue of Growth going forward.

Speaker Change: Expensive debt that's out there, we've actually been looking for ways to continue to expand on our high quality streams, Brian .

Speaker Change: That is something we'll continue to do, and yeah, there are some...

Some, I would say, [inaudible]

Speaker Change: Methodologies that we've incorporated, that not only give us additional exposure to a stream, but give us additional protections on the streams, and ensuring that we continue to get the streams in the manner that we've actually valued them. So by doing a lot of these...

Speaker Change: Revisions that we've done over the last couple of years. We have protected ourselves and ensured that we have a solid profile continuing on regardless of whether there's delays by our partners or not.

Speaker Change: Sorry, because I just follow up because I thought there was a great point you made Haytham, but in all of this I can assume the security of the additional stuff is as good as the original. . . .

Speaker Change: Or batter, is that a fair assumption from your perspective? Absolutely, and I would say given what we've seen in the industry not within Wheaton, but elsewhere, that is even more important than ever.

Speaker Change: Great, thanks very much for the call on that, that's very helpful.

Good pleasure, Brian .

Speaker Change: Thank you, and your next question comes on the line of Daniel Major from UBS. Please go ahead.

Hi, can you hear me, okay? [inaudible]

You bet, Haytham.

Great, thanks. Yeah, a few questions. The first one...

Thinking about the structure of the montage.

Conzaction, it's quite from... [inaudible]

Speaker Change: Daniel, you know, this was a unique opportunity to supply.

Speaker Change: The bulk of the financing to get this project built, you know, one of the other major equity investors in Montage, the gin also stepped in and supplied it a bit of capital but...

Speaker Change: But we supplied by far the bulk of the capital towards this. And so what this has allowed Montage to do is move this project forward without any project debt, so to speak. I mean, there's a couple of...

Speaker Change: Small Cost Overrun Facilities that are both being supplied, Visigen and Wheaton, but...

Speaker Change: But, you know, that's only in the event of. And so, so to be able to move this project forward, you know, based fully on on stream funding is unique.

Speaker Change: We haven't seen a lot of that in the industry and I think it's really an indication. Thank you very much.

Speaker Change: of some of the opportunities that we see out there to continue to grow our own business.

Speaker Change: but also being a supportive partner. The flexibility of a stream relative to bank debt is very attractive. And so, see, you're right, when you look at this one, it's very front-end lowered, it's starting off at, you know, just around 20% of the gold production, but dropping down long term to a number closer to 5% of the gold production.

and that is a very similar from montage's perspective. Let's move.

Speaker Change: It looks like project that, it's got a lumpy at the front end while the project gets up and running and then it gets paid off in those early years and then they have a bit of a residual tale around the stream that the Carey's on. So we think it's a great...

Speaker Change: Unique Approach, you know we've definitely had some interest from other companies looking at this because the appeal of this versus dealing with...

Speaker Change: with Project Dat, and the flexibility and inherent flexibility comes with it.

Haytham Hodaly: Just so much more attractive, and so I don't know, Haytham, you got anything to add to that? No, I think that was a great snob to stare, I would see.

Haytham Hodaly: In any project, obviously a company as they're building a mine, they want to get their payback as fast as possible. And as you can see from the way we structured it, we are also getting payback during that same upfront end. And so, you know, that we're going into a high quality asset that can give us that payback quickly. That's always positive. And I would also say this position is as well from a security ranking perspective. So everything we've done with that specific asset has been has been to protect us and to provide as much capital

Littleback as possible, so we're very excited about that opportunity. Thank you.

Speaker Change: Okay, thanks. Maybe just follow on that. When you look at the risk profile against the valuation, do you feel like this is an approach of...

Haytham Hodaly: being a much larger proportion of the funding is a higher risk from your side.

Speaker Change: It absolutely is higher risk, but that being said, I would also say that that's where the opportunity lies. We've got the Capitol to do it, and we're getting much higher returns to reflect that higher risk as well. So definitely from a risk return perspective, it makes sense. And Gary, would you want to add something to that?

Gary Brown: Yeah, you have to remember that like, you know, we're pretty much the only creditor at the table with this type of structure. So, you know, that gives us control, you know, if...

Gary Brown: and, you know, a downside kind of scenario manifest. It gives us a lot more control of, you know, how we navigate that process. And we, you know, we're a very patient, capital provider. So, you know, we're going to be...

Gary Brown: Aligned with our partner to get them through that situation and get the operation up and running again. Whereas, you know...

Gary Brown: That providers may not have that same intent. So, we actually think that it's in some ways it's less risky.

Speaker Change: Okay, thank you. Then the next question, again, to follow up on the question, the answer you get around the list of opportunities going forward and then not.

Speaker Change: Being in Africa, first quantum has spoke about potential stream financing in Zambia, should I take that common as you're not in that process?

Speaker Change: I would say that process hasn't officially started yet. I think they've been talking about it for a while and there's obviously interest to look at all high quality assets on our part.

Okay, thanks, and we'll...

Speaker Change: One more if I could just on the profile through the year you mentioned about produce but not delivered volumes being high and then principally unwinding in the first quarter. Can you give us any guide on that? Should we just assume that they normalize in Q1 or is it going to be over the first half or any sensor? Yeah.

Speaker Change: I would think that it's going to come back down to kind of the… [inaudible]

Speaker Change: Midpoint, you know, over two to three months, estimate in Q1 and then kind of hover there for the rest of the year. But, you know, we can never predict that with pinpoint accuracy.

Buh-bye.

Speaker Change: So 20,000 hours, 25,000 hours, Delta on the quarter, is a reasonable assumption.

Yeah.

Suta, thank you very much.

Speaker Change: Thank you, and your next question, cancel the line of fill and dump Dalby from Barrenburg, please go ahead.

Speaker Change: Hi, good morning, Randy and team, thanks a lot for the call. Yeah, just one question really for me is Ram Salover, obviously phenomenal court of there, you know, really demonstrating what's achievable from that asset.

Speaker Change: But, you know, given, you know, still firmly cornerstone asset for Wheaton, but there's been sort of a bit of uncertainty around the sort of longer term production profile there, obviously finally, last release of Technical Report in 2022.

Speaker Change: Yeah, really my question is, you know, could you possibly map out what your sort of internal expectations are for the production profile, that's a logo out to say 2030 and then that sort of a general long term be there, that would be very helpful, thank you.

Speaker Change: Yeah, that's a question. I mean, really the way we're seeing it with Salobo is is fairly static over the next while we do see grades.

Speaker Change: He's starting to trend down a little bit, but same as most open fits as you go through different phases when you get to the lower part of a phase, the traits go up, and then really they go back down as you get up to the other parts. It's fairly static as you go across. I think one of the exciting things, though, is if you look at some of the announcements that Valley-based metals has had over the past while, there is significant potential for further expansion, absolutely. And I think we will see a lot of that. I mean, many of the announcements on additional questions. Okay. Okay.

Speaker Change: Michael Lee and put into the Carejust region, and that global will see benefits of that going forward. So for right now, we've modeled it as reasonably flat, but I think you could potentially see some upside as those capital investments coming. All right.

Speaker Change: Okay, thanks for that. So yeah, so we needed about two hundred and seventy thousand ounces in 2024. So if I'm really correctly there, you sort of think fairly static around that level, say to sort of 20, 27, 20, 28 before maybe starting coming off of it.

Yeah, yeah, that's a reasonable one. [inaudible]

Speaker Change: Okay, and then yeah, sorry, just following up on the conversation around expansion, and obviously the talk of the central fourth line there. Do you continue to have those conversations? Has there been any sort of progress there in the last sort of six months that you can talk to?

Speaker Change: It's still in steady phase with Valle, I would say, I mean, we continue to be engaged on with them. That's really our most significant partner on all those discussions. But as they go through those studies, we'll continue to have those discussions with them. [inaudible]

Speaker Change: The other thing will that's notable is they've been talking about it more and more publicly. This whole idea is to low both 3.5 and adding another 6.0 intense random capacity is something they're referencing often. But like Wes said in the study phase, it is not in our profile at all, so that would all be upside to us.

Speaker Change: Okay, understood. Thanks very much Emma, thanks Wes and the team and all the best to Gary for your next chapter. Thanks a lot.

Thanks, one.

Speaker Change: Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Larry Lee from the ABC, please go ahead.

Speaker Change: Hi, Randy Haytham, Wes, and Congrats on a successful career, Gary. I would like to circle back to talk a little bit about transactions.

Speaker Change: So, Wheaton has a really strong focus in gold streaming transactions in the past, but as you know, silver is also a precious metal, and silver is definitely a Wheaton CNA. So, I guess long story short, with gold already reaching all time highs, should we expect Wheaton to start taking advantage and be more active in its silver space? [inaudible]

Speaker Change: Thanks for the question, Larry. I would love to find opportunities where we could add additional silver. Unfortunately silver comes as a bribe product typically of

Drouin,

Pauline Metallic Assets,

Speaker Change: So, it's, you know, although the focus is precious metals, I wish we could say that we'd be, we have a way of actually diving more into silver, into high quality assets. I can tell you that, you know, when we look at these things, we look and transact in the current environment. It does not necessarily mean [inaudible]

Speaker Change: just because commodity prices have risen that we're paying spot prices on our precious metal strength whether it be gold or silver. So we will always transact so that we're getting a solid return in the context of the environment that we're in. [inaudible]

Speaker Change: Absolutely, that's fair, thanks Haytham. Next question kind of focuses a little bit on the black water, the recent amendment to the stream agreement. I'm just wondering how much of the expansion for black waters in fact are into long-term guidance, now that the silver streaming is based on the throughput.

John Tumazos,

Speaker Change: Well, the reason we've done that whole transaction is to simplify the overall process. And at the same time, it accelerates the production of silver that we get in our portfolio. So you get a lot more catmore silver up front, you get a lot more

Speaker Change: Capital Up Front in a strong commodity price environment. But, you know, if you look at where we're actually headed with that asset, we're pretty optimistic that they're going to outperform what they're originally saying as well. So I'll leave it with that.

Speaker Change: I'm West, you want to? Yeah, maybe just add that they are obviously continuing to look at the expansions there and what that looks like. I mean, they're looking to move into those reasonably quickly. I think I mean it

Speaker Change: and I think overall what we've got modeled in our long-term is the same thing that you would have seen publicly right now, but there is discussion on hoping to move those things forward sooner rather than later. It's definitely the benefit of that asset to get those expansions in sooner.

Speaker Change: Perfect, sounds good. Thanks so much, Haytham and Wes. I have just one last question, and it's focusing on the Voices Bay impairment that was mentioned in the press release. So, I'm just wondering how much of the impairment, what's the result of the weakening cobalt price versus a change in your production estimates or a change in discount rate that's being applied to the valuation process? Yeah, that's right.

It's virtually all cobalt press.

Thank you.

Speaker Change: Awesome, sounds good. Great, thanks for my production profile point. I mean, they announced that they're fully into the undergrounds now and we're actually seeing that production side very positively at the moment.

Speaker Change: Yeah, perfect, that's what I thought too, so I was thinking you would slightly offset. But thanks for much team for taking my questions, and of course, best wishes, Gary.

Speaker Change: Thank you, and your next question, Consonant of Martin Pradier, from Ragata, Spiesgullahead.

Martin Pradier: Thank you very much for taking my question. I want a little bit more details on what we expect for 20, 25 and 20, 26 for Goose, Miner Park, Blackwater and Clark Reef.

in terms of production.

Martin Pradier: So in 2025, the four together, we would suggest 20 to 25,000 Geos, so that's accounting for, you know, a half year startup and of course a ramp up after that. The following year, we wouldn't it won't be quite into full production in 2026, but I mean 2026 we should be hitting our stride. I mean a full year production at Blackwater is about 30,000 Geos to our cat, so we'll have about that in our 2026 profile. Thank you so much.

Okay, and how big is Miller Park in 2026?

about 10 to 12,000 Geos would be a reasonable assumption.

Great, thank you.

Speaker Change: Thank you, and your next question, concerned line of Florida Archbord from Addison, please go ahead.

Florida Ashbourne: Thank you, and if I could proper my congratulations as well on an excellent year and an excellent call from my best wishes to Gary of course.

Speaker Change: I know that counterfactuals can be difficult but I was interested by your answer to the cobalt question and I just wonder I'm sure you've seen the cobalt price in the last few days which is suddenly 50% higher and it was a few days before that.

Florida Ashbourne: and I wonder if the cobalt price on the 31st of December have been what it is today. Would you have impaired the asset?

Florida Ashbourne: Yeah, it's always difficult to pick the price that you're going to be using and especially in these follows all times. You know, I think the, we view that.

Florida Ashbourne: 16 months and you know I think the recent rally that we've seen is being driven by the DRC kind of stemming production so you know we're just not sure that we can rely upon that to continue. Thank you.

Florida Ashbourne: That wasn't really your question. If the prices were to remain at these levels, would we have compared it? Probably not. But you know, I think it's unlikely that

Florida Ashbourne: You know, we'll be talking about impairments or impairment reversals on voices moving forward and we just wanted to take that noise out of out of the equation.

Speaker Change: No, I'm just it, now I understand. Thank you, but I appreciate it nonetheless. Thank you, Gary, thank you, team very much and Gary, we will miss you very much in London.

Charlie has been a pleasure.

Speaker Change: Thank you everyone for your time today. In closing, we're pleased to have reported a record setting quarter to close 2024. Wheaton's high quality, long life portfolio of assets, sector leading growth profile and commitment to sustainability, provide their shareholders with a solid outlook for the future.

Speaker Change: as one of the best vehicles for investing into the gold and fresh smell space. I'm sincerely thankful to all of our stakeholders for being part of Wheaton's success and I look forward to another strong year ahead. I have never been more excited about the future of the company as I am today. Thank you

Speaker Change: Thank you, and this concludes today's call. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.