Q3 2025 McEwen Inc Earnings Call
Speaker #3: Hello , ladies and gentlemen . Welcome to Macewen's third quarter 2025 . Operating and Financial Results conference call . Present from the company today are Rob McEwen , chairman and chief owner William Shaver chief operating officer , Perry Ing .
Speaker #3: Chief financial officer Jeff Chan , vice president , finance . Stefan Speirs , vice president , corporate development Michael Meding vice president and general manager of McEwen Copper Carmen Diaz , general counsel and secretary , Michael Swistun president , CEO of Canadian Gold Corp.
Speaker #3: . After the speakers presentation , there will be a question and answer session . If you would like to ask a question during this time , simply press star , followed by the number one on your telephone keypad .
Speaker #3: If you would like to withdraw your question again , press star one . I will now turn the call over to Mr. Rob McEwen , Chief Owner .
Speaker #3: Please go ahead, sir.
Speaker #4: Thank you . Operator . Good morning , fellow shareholders . Interested investors . We have been preparing McEwen mining to benefit from the stronger metal prices we are seeing today .
Speaker #4: Over the past year , gold at just below $4,000 an ounce , is up 45% . Silver up 47% . And copper is close to $5 , up 13% .
Speaker #4: And I believe the intermediate and long term prices will be considerably higher . This is an excellent environment for our portfolio mix of assets .
Speaker #4: I'd go as far to say that perhaps you could think of us as a mini Freeport , with growing gold production pipeline and large exposure to robust world class , long life copper story .
Speaker #4: The improved gold and silver prices have buffeted us from the inconvenient , unexpected events that can temporarily throw us off course and off guidance .
Speaker #4: Fortunately , these moments are temporary and can be resolved in relatively short period of time and have not seriously delayed our ambitious growth plans of delivering by 2030 , 250 to 300,000 gold equivalent ounces of annual production , plus watching losses become a copper mine .
Speaker #4: And in the first five years , we're looking at producing an annual at an annual rate of over £450 million of copper a year , which today copper prices would be about 2.2 billion .
Speaker #4: And it has a at least based on the feasibility study , we just put out and the current copper price would have a gross margin of 64% .
Speaker #4: So we've done a number of things in the quarter , and we've made some investments . And I'll start with those . And then I'll move to asking Michael Meding to talk about the excitement at Los Azules .
Speaker #4: And then we'll get into our finances and our operations on our gold operations . So I'll start with Ian Ball to talk about our investment in Canadian Gold Corp , and also .
Speaker #3: Ladies and gentlemen , we are experiencing technical difficulties . Please stay on the line . We will resume momentarily .
Speaker #5: I'm sorry . Operator , what are you talking about ?
Speaker #6: How long ago were we ?
Speaker #7: Thank you very much . Operator . So on the Canadian gold front , we're set to close at acquisition in January . Upon closing , we expect to issue an updated resource estimate for the end of February .
Speaker #7: That will come out with our year end financials . And that's going to of a preliminary economic assessment . Our shareholders will note we have not included tartan in any of our guidance going forward over the next five years , but we fully anticipate including that as we set to embark on our studies at that project .
Speaker #7: Expiration is ongoing and Canadian gold is putting out an exploration update over the next three weeks . The key there is we've been we've been drilling on the main zone , continuing to build out that resource .
Speaker #7: We've been doing a lot of work on the recently acquired ground to the West , which is option from hut Bay , where historically there was a lot of historical high grade drill intercepts and surface .
Speaker #7: We think there's a lot of synergies between tartan and and that ground . It really fits well with the McEwen Mining Inc. portfolio in terms of the underground style .
Speaker #7: The processing plant , and we feel there's a lot of ways that we can optimize this and we can accelerate the permitting on this project to get it back into production .
Speaker #7: Upon some of the completion of the test work that we're we're currently undertaking . So we're quite optimistic both on the time frame for permitting the exploration as well as the production profile that it can deliver .
Speaker #7: For a Q1 going forward .
Speaker #5: Okay , Mike , would you hop on the call ? Operator , are you there ?
Speaker #8: Is it is it . .
Speaker #3: Go ahead . Mike .
Speaker #8: Okay . Thank you . Rob . Thank you . Operator Q3 was an excellent and transformative quarter for McEwen . Copper . We successfully advanced from a world class deposit into a de-risked politically endorsed and bankable Taiwan assets at McEwen copper .
Speaker #8: We are committed to excellence in three key areas operations , ESG and exploration . The most significant strategic event of the quarter was the acceptance of loss into Argentina's Régimen de Incentivo para , or the large scale investment incentive program in Argentina .
Speaker #8: On September 26th . This is a fundamental game changer for the project . Through loss , Azul is now benefits from 30 years of legal , fiscal and customs stability , access to foreign exchange and a significantly lower internationally competitive tax rate .
Speaker #8: This provides a predictable framework and strong protection against future regulatory changes . The approval of the EEG is a powerful public endorsement , which was personally announced by Argentina's Minister of Economy , Luis Caputo , and reinforced by President Javier Millet on the official X accounts .
Speaker #8: We also finalized a collaboration agreement with the IFC , a member of the world Bank Group . This partnership will align the project with the IFC's rigorous ESG performance standards and establishes a framework for collaboration on future financing .
Speaker #8: Our most recent milestone was the publication of the NI 43 101 feasibility study results on October 7th . The study confirms robust project economics driven by a production process designed for low environmental impact .
Speaker #8: The CW process will produce 99.99% grade A copper cathodes and as already mentioned , in the first five years , 204,000 tons of pure copper per year .
Speaker #8: The highlights include 2.9 billion after tax MPV at 8% , 19.8% after tax IRR , a payback of 3.9 years , 3.2 billion initial CapEx C1 cash cost of $1.71 per pound of copper produced , all in sustaining cost of $2.11 per pound of copper .
Speaker #8: The financial model used . Used the copper price assumption of $4.35 per pound . The full national instrument , 43 101 Technical Report is scheduled for publication later this month .
Speaker #8: Looking forward , detailed engineering is set to commence and we are targeting construction for late 2026 . Beginning of 2027 , subject to project financing .
Speaker #8: Finally , let's talk about the upside . Our total mining rights cover approximately 32,000 hectares to date , we have explored less than 10% of our holdings .
Speaker #8: About 3000 hectares . We have already identified eight significant targets , four of which we will focus on in the upcoming season . We have strong reason to believe we can significantly increase the resource size of Los Solis and ultimately convert this project into major mining districts .
Speaker #8: Thank you so much . I hand back over to you , Rob .
Speaker #5: Thank you Mike .
Speaker #6: Thank you Rob . Good morning everyone . I'll just provide some brief highlights from our third quarter . Report . So in terms of headline numbers , we reported a net loss of half 1 million or $0.01 a share compared to a loss of 2.1 million or $0.04 a share in the corresponding period .
Speaker #6: I will note that this net loss included 4.3 million in terms of the loss from
Speaker #6: , as , very we've noted previously , now that the feasibility study for loss has been published , going going forward from the effective date of the feasibility study at the beginning of September , we will be able to report those associated costs on a capitalized basis .
Speaker #6: So any any loss attributable to loss of from prior periods will no longer will now be capitalized on a go forward basis in terms of adjusted EBITDA , we reported 11.8 million of positive EBITDA during the quarter , or $0.22 a share , compared to 10.5 million , or $0.20 a share , in the corresponding period .
Speaker #6: In terms of our Treasury , we quarter with 51 million in cash as well as 24 million in marketable securities . Our cash balance was relatively unchanged from the prior quarter at June 30th , so just looking ahead in terms of our release , we've outlined a number of significant projects ahead of us .
Speaker #6: So just looking into 2026 and our capital needs , obviously we expect to finish the stock ramp at by the end of next year ended the , complete a heap leach pad expansion at Gold Bar and as noted , we will undertake phase one with a capital cost of approximately $25 million .
Speaker #6: Overall , we expect to accomplish these using our existing Treasury and cash flows from operations and specifically for the project in Mexico . We also expected utilize some form of gold prepay for approximately half of the anticipated CapEx .
Speaker #6: So with that, we'll turn it over to Bill for some comments on operations.
Speaker #5: And what we're going going forward .
Speaker #9: Yeah . Good morning . Shareholders . Yes . So from the operation perspective , as as we all know , we started off the year poorly .
Speaker #9: However , you know , we have a very good start to Q4 Q3 wasn't exactly as we anticipated due to some issues with the final few months of the from mine .
Speaker #9: And , you know , this is , I guess , to some extent , I guess one of the outcomes of , you know , the end of a mine life .
Speaker #9: However , the the firm West deposit has kicked in nicely in , in towards the end of Q3 and we see it producing gold at the at the rate in our guidance through Q4 .
Speaker #9: And well into 2026 . We now see from mining until Q3 of 2026 , by which time the stock deposit should be coming in into production , which we're now indicating as occurring in a later in the first half of of next year .
Speaker #9: Well , in terms of the development work that we are doing at stock , the ramp development is going along on schedule , you know , and I would have to say both the mining contractor and our own mining crews continue to have their safety record in , in , in very good shape with no lost time .
Speaker #9: Accidents by either our contractors or our own forces in terms of gold bar Q3 has been quite challenging because of the fact that there was one part of our ore that we intended to mine in Q3 , which .
Speaker #9: Basically did turned out not to be . Or when we got to the mining , but we pivoted there quite nicely to move into Q4 , Q4 is already looking very , very good , and we're back into the normal routine of our our mining and our stripping and our moving north of 1.5 million tonnes per month .
Speaker #9: So that's a very good outcome for operations from the perspective of exploration . We've had very , very good success in in both operations at Gold Bar and at stock and at our board meeting yesterday , we approved going ahead with the releasing of of the of of the assets in Mexico .
Speaker #9: So that will start early in the new year with construction . And then move on into leaching of of the El Gallo leach pad and then putting those tailings back into the pit .
Speaker #9: So we see a challenging fourth quarter . But we're in very good shape . I would say in the month of of October .
Speaker #9: And so, looking forward to the next two months, we're really looking forward to getting back to producing gold in Mexico. Thank you.
Speaker #5: Thank you . Bill . During the year , we've enjoyed exploration , success at . We discovered the from West deposit that allowed us to bridge our production during a time when we found permitting delays were backing up our production pipeline and our development plans , both at Gold Bar over at the the acquired Timberline properties .
Speaker #5: We're getting excellent grades and and continuity . There's one area that I don't know if everyone in the company shares my same optimism , but it's a property called Seven Troughs and historically it excites me because of its historic record as one of the highest grade mines in Nevada at averaging more than 1.2oz per ton .
Speaker #5: And there was a recent grab sample in an area that historically had shown a lot of plus one gram material , and that was it was better than 270g .
Speaker #5: So a very short intercept . But still exciting given the history of that location . Gold at in Timmins , our gray fox area is growing will have a preliminary economic assessment out in the first quarter of next year .
Speaker #5: We've got plans to expand in Mexico , as you heard from Perry and Bill , and we're we're bringing in some other properties and have some investments in areas and in companies that I think have a lot of growth potential .
Speaker #5: So with that , I do have to say that our myths year to date in our production is inexcusable . But we're taking steps to remedy that and get us back on track .
Speaker #5: So with that , I'll open it up for questions .
Speaker #3: Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad.
Speaker #3: To withdraw your question again , press star one . Your first question today comes from the line of Heiko ill . From H.C. Wainwright .
Speaker #3: Your line is open .
Speaker #5: Hello . Hi .
Speaker #10: Hey , there . Guys . Hey , Rob , can you hear me ? Okay .
Speaker #5: Not unclear . Can you hear us ?
Speaker #10: Perfect . Just making sure . First of all , congratulations to Ian Ball on his appointment . There . Rob , you actually , earlier on this call preempted a bit of what I was going to ask you , but , I mean , your deal for Britannia or Paragon geochemical Labs .
Speaker #10: Interesting move there . Few follow ups to that . Do you think that you will engage in more vertical integration like this ? And building on that last part , do you think we'll see a bit of a arms race for lack of a better word , or other guys want to get involved , you know , suppliers , distributors in order to guarantee supply and fast processing ?
Speaker #10: I mean , like one example would be an assay lab . Obviously you can't do it for independent assays , but would that be like the potential target , just maybe elaborate a bit on what you're describing earlier on the call and what you did .
Speaker #5: To Heiko Paragon holds a technology . Called photo assay , and it's an x ray process that is faster , cheaper , more comprehensive in terms of the data being provided .
Speaker #5: I first saw this technology five years ago comes out of Australia . Paragon stepped in and got in line to secure 12 units , and that's about the annual production .
Speaker #5: Some of the majors have bought units for their sole use . I think as more money comes into the mining space and that's surely going to happen with everybody .
Speaker #5: All the sovereign nations and corporations around the world looking for new sources of mineral . The being able to compress time and get more information for your dollar out of your assays is going to grow increasingly more important .
Speaker #5: And the old suppliers of assays , I mean , you could see backups of three , four weeks or more . And here you can get it in two weeks or less .
Speaker #5: And sometimes almost daily. So I think that's important. I mean, the whole industry is under a lot of strain right now.
Speaker #5: Their labor problems . So there's going to be competition there . There's equipment supplies . When someone comes along , we're going to have all these projects coming on .
Speaker #5: Who's going to will they be able to deliver the trucks , the shovels , the drills and that you're already in Argentina ? We looked at that problem with drills .
Speaker #5: We ended up buying eight drills because there weren't drills down there readily available . And so , I mean , you know , you look at the world and say mining investments in in a mix of global portfolios is very small today .
Speaker #5: It might be 1 or 2% , ten years ago it was up around 12% . We get back to that . As you said , there's going to be a real battle for a lot of the inputs that are required to define an ore body .
Speaker #5: And at the same time , we have to compress time in this industry . It's taking far too long to reach certain decision points .
Speaker #5: And so you're going to see a lot more technology . I view what Paragon's technology , the crisis crisis rather is a disruptive technology that will advance the industry .
Speaker #5: And we . Will be looking for other opportunities to accelerate and improve the knowledge and of the industry first for us , but then for the industry .
Speaker #10: Yeah , yeah . No good . Good answer . Obviously . Interesting move . I've seen this machine in operation . I was trying to dig up where it was , but I've seen it on a site visit before somewhere .
Speaker #10: It was one of your assets . It was somewhere else . It might . It might have been a go to so many sites at Gold Bar .
Speaker #10: You did obviously 8200oz , quite a bit lower , frankly , a bit lower than what we had in our model as well .
Speaker #10: You were talking about the the reinterpretations of geological data and changes to your mind plans . What should we be looking at for next year ?
Speaker #10: I mean , this , this sure sounds like a temporary issue , but is it ?
Speaker #9: I would say absolutely that the particular zone of of the mining operation that we were in , in the last quarter , we we ended up with a part of the where we were mining that we anticipated would be our it turned out to be to , in fact , be unmineralized material and , and as a result that that part of the pit basically turned into stripping material .
Speaker #9: So and for for some reason , the historical drilling that was done , you know , many years ago didn't identify that horse of Unmineralized material .
Speaker #9: So we're , we've , we've mined through that with our stripping part and we're , we're now back into , you know , what we would call our normal or and you know , what we're seeing in the rest of the mining that we're doing is that the reconciliation to the block model is standing up .
Speaker #9: And , you know , it was just , I guess , something that we missed in our confirmation drilling or something that we missed in the mine planning at the time .
Speaker #9: And , you know , again , this is a part of the ore body that we decided more than a year ago to to start stripping because of the increase in gold price .
Speaker #9: And , you know , that's what brought that whole zone into in , into ore , you know , at the gold price that we had a year and a half ago .
Speaker #9: You know , that that stripping wouldn't and that mining would not have been done . So so in answer to your question , with regard to next year , you know , we see the mine plan being pretty consistent through the year .
Speaker #9: And we'll be announcing the production guidance for next year shortly.
Speaker #10: Perfect . Thank you so much . I'll get back in queue . Thanks , Rob .
Speaker #5: Thanks , Heiko .
Speaker #3: Again if you if you'd like to ask a question , press star one in your telephone keypad . Your next question comes from the line of Joseph Reger from Roth Capital Partners .
Speaker #3: Your line is open .
Speaker #5: Hi , Joe .
Speaker #11: Hey , Rob . And team , thanks for taking my questions . I think Heiko asked the the two big ones there , but just kind of following up on on gold bar in the comments .
Speaker #11: You guys said that you're going to you doing some more work to review this . What degree of risk do you see to an overall resource change , if any ?
Speaker #11: Or is this just a matter of sequencing ?
Speaker #5: It appears to be a matter of sequencing and not a large risk.
Speaker #11: Okay , that's that's good to hear . And then you mentioned with Phoenix mid next year , how comfortable are you guys with that timeline to have all your permits .
Speaker #11: And you know , where do you see like the kind of the potential for it to get started earlier or on that front .
Speaker #11: And then do you expect to publish an updated financial study once you have permits in hand ?
Speaker #5: Yes . The last question and the permitting is somewhat unknown . We have a permit to do some of the work , and it needs to be amended .
Speaker #5: And we're hoping that the timing will coincide with what we gave you .
Speaker #9: And we've had a number of meetings with the government authorities on permitting , and we're fairly optimistic that we'll have those permits in time .
Speaker #9: And the construction of the plant will will start in Q1 .
Speaker #11: Okay . And then part of your comments on on the Canadian gold thing , I think got cut in the beginning . What is the timeline to to complete that merger ?
Speaker #11: And then how what's kind of the timeline after that ? You know , by quarter as far as expectations , granules .
Speaker #5: The the processes , the shareholder vote in December and then it has to be ratified by the courts and that set for the 6th of January , I believe , or mid January six .
Speaker #11: Okay . Early .
Speaker #5: Early January . And in terms then we'll go in there and do a resource estimate and a preliminary economic assessment on that .
Speaker #11: Okay , okay . And when do you think the what's the rough estimate assuming a Q1 close . What's the rough estimate on PE being released .
Speaker #11: Like how many months or quarters ?
Speaker #5: Oh , you'd probably be looking into the fourth quarter next year okay .
Speaker #11: All right . That's helpful .
Speaker #5: All right . Thank you .
Speaker #12: Joe .
Speaker #3: Your next question comes from the line of Gord Webber from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Speaker #13: Thank you very much . Hi . Hi , Rob . With respect to resource estimates , how would McEwen mining now calibrate or estimate their proven resources .
Speaker #5: The same way everyone else does ?
Speaker #13: And how many ounces or equivalent ounces would McEwan claim to have today ?
Speaker #5: It's all set out in our statement , we're looking at about 3,000,000oz at Fox and it's about 4.2 million . I think , between all of the operations .
Speaker #5: And then we have development going on at drilling at Grey Fox right now , we're drilling down in Nevada at Gold Bar over at Eureka , starting at seven troughs .
Speaker #13: The reason I ask is , it seems to me a little inequitable that we're being asked as Gold Corp. stockholders to tender 50 shares for one of those shares , when in fact we have a proven resource .
Speaker #13: .
Speaker #5: Who who are you representing ? Sorry ? Who are you , a shareholder ?
Speaker #13: Yeah , I'm a stockholder . I've been a long term stockholder of Canadian Gold Corp .
Speaker #5: Okay .
Speaker #13: No, we have proven resources, and we also know that we have a lot of drilling that hasn't been analyzed to date.
Speaker #13: So I assume we have greater resources than has been booked . And it just seems to me 50 to 1 isn't . Well , it just seems to me very opportunistic .
Speaker #5: We put a bid on the table . It was accepted by management and it's going to shareholders in December . We thought it was fair at the time and I believe management thought it was fair .
Speaker #13: Yeah . And will there be a resource estimate for we the stockholders before it goes to vote ?
Speaker #5: We don't have any control . We don't have any control over that .
Speaker #13: Okay . So I think that's a .
Speaker #5: I don't I don't have an answer to that question . But we're not driving the resource estimate .
Speaker #13: But as the majority shareholder , don't you want to know what that number is before you conclude the transaction ? Or do .
Speaker #5: You I .
Speaker #13: Do already have some inside information that leads you to believe it should be concluded .
Speaker #5: No , the drilling's going . It's exciting . It's in an area that's had passed production . Although the Tartan Lake mine wasn't run very well and that's why it went into bankruptcy .
Speaker #5: But no , it's it's in a favorite a favorite area of the country in terms of energy costs . And that and mineral deposits .
Speaker #13: Yeah . No , you don't have to sell me on the merits of the tartan mine . My concern is that is that the majority shareholders may have insight or information that the minority shareholders haven't been provided with .
Speaker #5: That isn't the case .
Speaker #13: Well , that's refreshing to hear that .
Speaker #5: Any other comments ? Questions ?
Speaker #13: Well , perhaps we can follow that up later .
Speaker #5: Fair enough . Thank you . Gord . Next question .
Speaker #3: Your next question comes from Terry DeVries , a private investor . Your line is open .
Speaker #14: Hello , Mr. McEwen , how are you doing today ?
Speaker #5: Hi , Terry . Well .
Speaker #14: How about yourself ? You you know what I'm . I'm good . I'm . I'm actually really good . You know , I I've had a great couple of months watching you stock double congratulations for losses .
Speaker #14: Really exciting . What's happening there ? And , you know , the gold market goes up . The gold market goes down . And we just got a fantastic buying opportunity .
Speaker #14: And so I stepped up to the plate again . The one question I have I didn't really hear it from Michael Meding . The IPO for losses .
Speaker #14: Do you have any further information that you can give us when you think that might be happening ? How much money you'd be willing to or looking to raise in the first , first issue ?
Speaker #5: Well , we were hoping to do it earlier , but the feasibility we got that out in October and didn't feel the market we'd have enough time to do an IPO in the fourth quarter of this year .
Speaker #5: Now we're looking at going to sometime next year , doing taking the company public .
Speaker #14: First quarter . .
Speaker #5: And in terms of raising money , our last financing was at $30 a share . And I would expect that we're in accepted in the region .
Speaker #5: We've got the feasibility study , the project looks very attractive relative to a number of other development projects in copper that we'd see a higher price than that when we go public .
Speaker #14: Any other market moving news that you can expect in the next quarter or two .
Speaker #5: I don't know . I'm going to go meet with the president of Argentina tomorrow in New York . I don't think that'll move the market .
Speaker #14: Yeah , well , your drill bits success has been rather encouraging . So I wish you all the luck in pursuing that . And look forward to some good news .
Speaker #14: And thanks for taking my call .
Speaker #5: You're welcome . Terry . Thank you .
Speaker #3: And there are no further questions at this time , Mr. Robert McEwen . I turn the call back over to you .
Speaker #5: Thank you very much . Operator . Thank you , everyone . We've set our course where we're going . We think by planning , by 2030 to have substantially more production coming out of our gold mines .
Speaker #5: There are a couple of other projects we'd like to see brought into production , and we hope to have the copper mine up and running by in 2030 .
Speaker #5: So all good news in the long term . Thank you .