Pan American Silver (PAAS) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Pan American Silver (NYSE: PAAS)
Q4 2024 Earnings Call
Feb 20, 2025, 11:00 a.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Pan American Silver fourth quarter and year-end 2024 results conference call. [Operator instructions] The conference is being recorded.

[Operator instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Siren Fisekci, VP, investor relations. Please go ahead, Ms. Fisekci.

Siren Fisekci -- Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications

Thank you for joining us today for Pan American Silver's conference call and webcast to discuss our Q4 financial results, our audited financial results for the 2024 year and our outlook for 2025. This call includes forward-looking statements and information and makes reference to non-GAAP measures. Please see the cautionary statements in our MD&A, news release, and presentation slides for our 2024 audited results, all of which are available on our website. I'll now turn the call over to Michael Steinmann, Pan American's president and CEO.

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Michael Steinmann -- Director, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Siren, and hello, everyone. I'm glad you could join us to discuss Pan American's 2024 results and our outlook for 2025. We are very pleased with the company's performance over the past year. Revenue was a record of $815.1 million in Q4 and $2.8 billion in 2024, reflecting the contribution of a full-year production from the acquired Yamana mines and strong metal prices.

We achieved our production guidance for 2024. Silver production totaled 21.1 million ounces, and gold production was a company record of 892,000 ounces. All-in sustaining costs for the silver segment, excluding NRV inventory adjustments, were $18.98 per ounce in 2024, slightly above the guidance. Gold segment all-in sustaining costs, excluding NRV inventory adjustments in 2024, were $1,501 per ounce and were within the guidance.

In 2024, we completed several major projects, notably the new ventilation infrastructure at La Colorada. We are now seeing the benefits in terms of higher throughput at La Colorada, achieving our target 2,000 tonnes at the end of last year, and lower per-ounce operating costs. We finished construction of the new filtration plant and filter stack tailings storage facility at Huaron and the paste backfill plant at Timmins. These investments have set those assets up well for the future, while today our operations are generating record cash flows.

Cash flow generated from operations was a record $274.1 million in Q4 and also a record of $724.1 million for the full year, reflecting strong margins. We also achieved record free cash flow of $196.2 million in Q4 or $445.1 million for the full year. We recorded net earnings of $107.8 million or $0.30 per share in Q4. Full-year net earnings were $112.7 million or $0.31 per share in 2024.

Net earnings in Q4 reflect a gain from the sale of La Arena being almost entirely offset by adjustments at Dolores to the closure and decommissioning liability and to the net realizable view of the inventory. The adjustments at Dolores reflect the completion of mining and the transition to the residual leaching phase and active reclamation. Based on our most recent estimates for residual heap leaching in the post-mining phase, we expect economic production to continue at decreasing rates through mid- to late 2026. A gain from the La Arena sale and the adjustments at Dolores were adjusted from earnings.

This resulted in adjusted earnings of $126.9 million or $0.35 per share in Q4. Full-year adjusted earnings were $286.7 million or $0.79 per share. Pan American is entering 2025 in a strong financial position. We are now in a net cash position with $887 million cash and short-term investments against roughly $800 million of debt largely related to the two long-term bonds we acquired to the Yamana transaction.

Our credit facility remains undrawn, giving us $1.6 billion of total available liquidity. This is a great position to be able to pursue our growth objectives while returning capital to shareholders. Yesterday, we announced a $0.10 per share dividend with respect to Q4. In the first quarter of 2025, we also repurchased approximately $20 million or roughly 900,000 shares under the share buyback plan.

That brings total share repurchases since introducing the share buyback plan last March to roughly 2.6 million shares. Total dividends paid over 2024 were $145.4 million. I'm very proud that we have been able to return over $1 billion in dividends and share buybacks to investors since 2010 while investing in growth, maintaining a strong balance sheet, and not issuing any equity through public offerings. Moving on to our guidance for this year.

In 2025, we are expecting largely steady-state operations with the notable changes relative to 2024 being the sale of La Arena, Dolores entering the residual leach phase, and improved operations at La Colorada following the ventilation upgrade. We are expecting to produce between 20 million to 21 million ounces of silver and 735,000 to 800,000 ounces of gold in 2025. We expect both silver and gold production to be weighted to the second half of the year with corresponding effects of lower per unit costs over that period. Please see our Q4 news release and MD&A for quarterly production and cost estimates.

Average all-in sustained costs for the silver segment in 2025 are expected to be between $16.25 and $18.25 per ounce. For the gold segment, we expect all-in sustaining costs of between $1,525 to $1,625 per ounce in 2025. Sustaining capital is forecasted to be between $270 million to $285 million and project capital between $90 million to $100 million. Project capital includes investment at La Colorada and the current vein mine operation aimed at opening production access to 13 new veins.

These discoveries will expand high-grade zones in the eastern part of the mine and were highlighted in our December 9, 2024, annual exploration update news release. For the La Colorada Skarn project, we plan to invest $39 million to $42 million in exploration and infill drilling and to advance the technical studies to determine the optimum development scenario for the company. We're also investing project capital at Timmins for the construction of the stage 6 tailings storage facility and exploration of satellite deposits. At Jacobina, we are directing project capital to advance the comprehensive mine and plant optimization study, expecting to describe some initial value-enhancement projects by midyear.

At Huaron, we have some residual project capital related to the new tailings filtration plant and filter stack tailings storage, which have been successfully commissioned and ramping up to full operation. We plan to invest about $80 million on exploration in 2025, mostly for reserve replacement. We are forecasting cash taxes of $240 million to $260 million with approximately one-third to be paid in the first quarter of 2025. Care and maintenance costs are estimated to total between to $20.5 million to $24 million, mostly related to Escobal.

Working meetings among the participants in the consultation process for Escobal resumed in late January after the Christmas break. We will continue to work with the government of Guatemala and the Xinka representatives to advance the consultation process. The government has not yet published the timeline for completion of the consultation, and there is no date for restart of the operation. Heading into 2025, Pan American is well-positioned to benefit from the strong metal price environment we are in.

The mines we acquired to the Yamana transaction and the strong operating teams, managing them are now well integrated in our organization. We made significant strides in rationalizing the portfolio, and we will continue with a focus on safe, efficient, and sustainable mining operations. We will continue to build an even better and stronger company that offers investors unique upside to silver with expanding margins in a rising metal price environment. We're well on track with that goal, and I look forward to keeping you informed of our progress.

I will be happy now to take your questions.

Questions & Answers:

Operator

Thank you. [Operator instructions] The first question comes from Cosmos Chiu with CIBC. Please go ahead.

Cosmos Chiu -- Analyst

Thanks, Michael and team. Maybe my first question is on La Colorada. I see that your 2025 guidance is 5.5 million to 5.8 million ounces. I could have -- I would have thought that could have been slightly higher just given that you produced 1.6 million ounces in Q4.

But I guess now everything is in a straight line. So could you maybe comment on 2025 guidance for La Colorada?

Michael Steinmann -- Director, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Sure, Cosmos. I'll let Steve answer that question.

Steven L. Busby -- Chief Operating Officer

Cosmos, thank you for that question. If you recall in December, we put out a press release that highlighted some of the really significant exploration intercepts we're seeing off to the east side of that area on Candelaria. What we decided to do is -- there's a bit of a balancing going on. We're trying to reduce a little bit the burden.

We've got a capacity burden in the system on waste movement. And we want to develop out into this new area to bring long-term value to that operation. So we're balancing what kind of impacts do we want to see next year compared to trying to get that aggressively opening up that new area and understanding better the potential reserves out in that area. So it was kind of a happy median we chose for 2025, take a little bit of short-term pain for long-term gain there.

And I'll let Chris talk a little bit about what we're seeing out there and why we're doing it. But before that, I just also want to mention that along the way going out to that east, we do cross a section of concession that belongs to one of our neighbors. So we will be mining through a concession there. And there seems to be some more there, and we'll share some of the profits with that concession owner as we pass through there.

So that has a bit of an impact on the cost and the production as well. But it's really the waste constraint. We want to develop that area. We only have so much capacity to move ore and waste.

So something's got to give as we open up that area. And we think long term, it's going to bring substantial additional value to the company. And I'll let Chris kind of highlight on that.

Christopher Emerson -- Chief Legal and Human Resources Officer, General Counsel

This is Chris here. As Mike mentioned, 13 new structures, which was highlighted in the December exploration press release. Now we've been alluding to this over last year. We've put a lot of effort into sort of moving a lot of the exploration over to that east portion.

We have some of the major structures, the NC2, etc. But if you remember, the La Colorada mine has been deepening. And as we -- we know that through these systems, it becomes more polymetallic-rich. So finding new structures and finding new areas higher up in the system is obviously beneficial.

And that's why we're really concentrating on that eastern portion and southeast of the Skarn area, which is at depth as well. But we've had some great results, as you can see in that press release, and that's certainly something to look forwards to for the future of the company.

Cosmos Chiu -- Analyst

Great. And maybe same type of question for Jacobina as well. You're guiding to 185,000 to 195,000 ounces in 2025. I thought that could have gone higher potentially as well just given that you did a record 52.4 in Q4 2024.

Could you maybe comment on that? And also maybe comment on, I believe there's some optimization studies ongoing at Jacobina, how that's going so far as well.

Steven L. Busby -- Chief Operating Officer

Yes. Cosmos, Steve here again. Yes. We had a remarkable year and a remarkable Q4 at Jacobina.

We're very, very happy with the way that operation is debottlenecking -- continues to debottleneck. With that said, there are some projects that are underway during 2025 outside of the optimization study to try to firm up the plant and give us stability. We got some screens that are undersized. We're pushing them too hard.

So we're replacing some screens in the crushing plant, as well as the grinding circuit. We're doing some upgrades on our CIP, carbon-in-pulp, tanks to give us that sustainable run rate, but those projects won't be done until late in the year. So we didn't want to forecast the kind of production throughputs we had during Q4 for the whole first nine months given those projects. Once those projects are done, we're quite confident.

And as part of the optimization work that I'll talk about next, we're quite confident midyear, we'll be able to come out with some -- looking forward, beyond '25, as to how we can push that plant up a little bit. Relative to the optimization studies, that work is going really well. There's a few projects that are going to come out, and we're going to be announcing them later in '25 midyear that deals with handling of this concept of this paste plant that we've been talking about for the underground mine that allow us to get a better recovery of the reserve and resources that exist there. But also in the longer-term picture, we got to change the way we're handling some of the tailings.

So we're looking at a filter plant there, too. So the optimization studies is kind of starting to break up into different phases. The first phase will focus on getting those projects out, along with getting this mill sustained at the kind of throughput we saw in Q4. And then we see future potential.

It's really starting to get exciting there as well, too, as to what we can do during '26 and '27.

Cosmos Chiu -- Analyst

And maybe one last question, sort of bigger picture. Michael, I'm sure you've noticed that Newmont has now sold their Timmins assets. Does this now change how you view your Timmins asset? And then also, can you remind us of the book value you have for these assets?

Michael Steinmann -- Director, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Look, these assets are doing really, really well, as you can imagine. But I think we talked about that in the past that I'm a strong believer and we are strong believers that that district, the entire Timmins district, can generate way more value in maybe a bit of different form, looking at -- I don't know yet how that will look like, but working together on many fronts. There are lots of trucks and transportation going all different directions between Newmont or soon Discovery Silver and ourselves. So I think there's a lot to optimize.

It's probably a bit early to talk about that. But I think there's a lot we can do that helps our shareholders and probably helps Discovery shareholders as well. And that was obviously the reason why they did the deal with Newmont. I think that it's a great district in Canada, great producer of gold.

And don't forget, it's not only our two operations there, but I think we shared in the past some results from some of the more satellite exploration programs that Chris is doing at Whitney and Gold River we have as well. So there is some very, very interesting additional satellites. And I think everything will play in, in those decisions. So I think it's a very exciting time for Timmins.

Operator

[Operator instructions] The next question comes from Don DeMarco with National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.

Don DeMarco -- National Bank Financial -- Analyst

Thank you, operator, and good morning, Michael and team. Yeah, constructive guidance, really showed some stability in the ops. Thank you. So a few questions.

Can you hear me OK?

Michael Steinmann -- Director, President, and Chief Executive Officer

We do, yes. Go ahead.

Don DeMarco -- National Bank Financial -- Analyst

OK, great. So I jumped in a little bit late. You may have talked a bit about Jacobina, but what is the timing of the optimization study? And what details can you share now about the throughput increases or mine life extensions, things like that that have been talked about at one point?

Steven L. Busby -- Chief Operating Officer

Yeah. Don, Steve here. Yeah, we had a great Q4 at Jacobina. We were able to accomplish kind of a target we set ourselves in trying to get the throughput through the mine and the plant at 275,000 tonnes or just have 9,000 tonnes a day.

We accomplished that, we were very pleased with that, but we do have some projects that we have to complete in the plant. We're changing some screens in the crusher. We're changing some screens in the grinding circle. We're upgrading some of the tanks and some of the tailings pumping that will give us stability and sustainability of that kind of throughput is what we're seeing.

So a big part of the optimization study as those projects are done, it will capture those values and give us sustainability late into '25 and certainly into 2026. And we'll kind of disclose what those numbers are looking like midyear. Now midyear, the optimization study is starting to split off into different phases. And we're seeing Phase 1, where we're looking at this paste plant that we've talked about over the last year or so, bringing that in to allow us to recover more of the reserves.

And also, we got a longer-term tailings disposal alternatives, which the paste plant helps us with, but also we are looking at a filter plant for tailings disposal, too. So that will kind of be the Phase 1 optimization. We'll announce kind of some projects around that and what the returns are and investments are. We're targeting midyear this year to do that.

And then beyond that, we'll move into Phase 2, which once we understand how those feed in, we got some really interesting optimizations that we're going to be continuing on that will bring value into '26, '27, '28 that will be a Phase 2 program later.

Don DeMarco -- National Bank Financial -- Analyst

OK. And Steve, while I have your ear here. On El Penon, we're seeing stable production year over year. Costs are stable and attractive AISC midpoint of $1,235, actually even slightly lower year over year.

It's -- does this mean that those sort of initial integration hiccups are really in the rearview mirror and you're feeling comfortable with this asset now?

Steven L. Busby -- Chief Operating Officer

Absolutely. Yeah, great question, Don. And yes, we're very pleased with the stability of that. We're focusing a lot of effort on exploration.

We want to extend that mine life. It's a great cash-flowing asset for us. Costs are stable. The operation is stable.

I'll remind you, it's at 130 kind of 1,000 ounces a year gold production levels. It was a little less than what we aggressively pursued in '23. But that -- kind of dialing that in, we feel very comfortable with that operation, and it's performing incredibly well.

Michael Steinmann -- Director, President, and Chief Executive Officer

It was -- Don, if you recall, it was really the spacing of some of the drilling in some of the stopes that we saw that impact at the beginning. And I wouldn't call it really an integration hiccup. I think the team at Penon is doing an unbelievable job and integrated very easily into our company and our system, so the other Yamana assets. So not really an issue on the integration, but really that space drilling.

And Chris and his team did a lot of work drilling that out, and I think we're seeing the result of that now.

Don DeMarco -- National Bank Financial -- Analyst

OK. Good to see. And so, Michael, last question on Escobal. So you mentioned that the government hasn't published a timeline for completion of the consultation process.

What is your sense here? It's been a stalemate for about a year now, but there's probably other meetings going on. Are there reasons to be optimistic for '25? Or what are your thoughts on Escobal?

Michael Steinmann -- Director, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. I wouldn't call it a stalemate. There's a lot of meetings going on. As you recall, with the new government coming in just about a year ago, there was kind of a slow start-up last year to get there, but there's a lot of work going on in the background between the actors.

So I wouldn't call it a stalemate. We had kind of some timings for meetings published years ago by the government. And I think that's really -- didn't really bring that much as it just put pressure on actors that's not necessary. So we'd rather just continue with as many meetings, as many discussions we can on the way to hopefully a positive solution here.

So yes, I wouldn't call it a stalemate. I think there's probably -- maybe let me have Sean give you an update -- a quick update here. There's quite a lot going on.

Sean McAleer -- Senior Vice President, Strategic Initiatives

Yes. Well, thank you, Michael. There was those changes in government last year, and so they did change out the vice minister of sustainable development, who leads the process. So that was key in some of the delays last year, but the meetings are ongoing into Q4.

We had several meetings with the government, as well as Xinka Parliament's meetings with the government. So those were good. And then things always slow down over the holidays and into early January. And then we've just started picking up again with some meetings with the government.

So I feel like there's going to be a lot more activity in the coming weeks and months. And hopefully, we're able to provide a more meaningful update on some of the developments after the Q1 results into May. So I'm looking forward to that.

Operator

This concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Michael Steinmann for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Michael Steinmann -- Director, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Sorry, operator, I just see that a question came in. Could we answer that, please?

Operator

Yes, of course. The next question comes from Ovais Habib with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Ovais Habib -- Analyst

Hi, Michael and team. Just a couple of questions from me. Sorry, if you've already touched upon some of these as I've been bouncing between a couple of calls. Michael, just first question in regards to the guidance.

I believe production and costs are second-half weighted. Any kind of color that you can provide in terms of what assets will drive the split between the first and second half?

Michael Steinmann -- Director, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. I will let Steve do that. But just in general, for the listener, this is obviously a recurring theme with Pan American, and it's largely driven -- partially driven by the weather, so by the seasons, rainy seasons, dry seasons, cold winters in the first half. As you remember, we are in whole different kind of climates.

You saw the same last year, obviously, in the year before and you saw the really strong production we had in Q4. Nothing obviously we can do with the climate there. That's just what it is for the assets that are distributed so widely over different climate zones, but I'll have Steve give you a bit more details.

Steven L. Busby -- Chief Operating Officer

Yeah. Thanks, Ovais. And one of the bigger drivers is Cerro Moro, and that's just mine sequencing. As we're opening up the Naty open pit, we're getting the higher grade later in the year.

That's really driving the big part of it. Shahuindo, as Michael mentioned, is very, very weather dependent. So we generally see better production going in late in the year there as well. I think those are probably the two bigger drivers.

There's a bit of that at El Penon, but it's -- again, it's just mine sequencing.

Ovais Habib -- Analyst

Perfect. Thanks for that, Steven and Michael, as well. And my just -- my next question and -- is more the fact that, again, you had a great Q4, generated a lot of free cash flow in Q4 that based on operations, kind of it looks like they are stabilizing going into 2025 as well. So that's really good to see.

Now that kind of you've integrated all those Yamana assets, you've done a great job on the noncore as well, is it time now to start focusing on more on exploration side? Or how should we look at 2025 in terms of exploration?

Michael Steinmann -- Director, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Well, we never really slowed down on exploration. You see there's a substantial budget for exploration. We tend to even increase that budget during the year. It really depends on the results.

As you know, I'm a geologist by trade and strong exploration results always will be rewarded with more investments. This is really the bread-and-butter of our business. And obviously, you have the plant already built and the mine is already developed largely. So in each place, replacing that reserve is incredibly important.

It really generates a lot of value. So exploration, always a very big focus. But our exploration, as you know, is really focused on brownfields, so close to our sites, reserve addition, maybe some truckable distance where we're looking at some truckable satellites in some places. I think Cerro Moro comes to mind where we are actually mining at one zone right now, and we just discovered another one that Chris and his team are drilling out.

So exploration is always really core to us. If you look back, we have been incredibly successful replacing hundreds of millions of ounces of silver over the last, I would say, 15 years with brownfield exploration, and on-site exploration. And don't forget our exploration program discovered the Skarn deposit. So there will always be a big focus on that.

Ovais Habib -- Analyst

Thank you. See you then.

Operator

The next question comes from Adrian Day with Adrian Day Asset Management. Please go ahead.

Adrian Day -- Adrian Day Asset Management -- Analyst

Yeah, good morning. Just a follow-up, if I may, on Escobal but taking a different direction. Once you get the approval to reopen, and of course, you'll obviously get an indication that's coming probably before it actually happens, but how soon before you're producing again? And how soon before it's fully ramped back up?

Michael Steinmann -- Director, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. Adrian, look, I think it would take probably a good quarter to two to start up the first stope. As you know or probably remember from the time with Veta, when the asset was in production, those stopes are very sizable, produce a lot of silver. So that would start, I guess, one stope at Escobal should be equivalent to about 5 million to 6 million ounces of silver per year.

So that's already a strong start-up. I think thereafter, probably about the better part of a year to bring it -- would it take to bring it back to the full production, which was somewhere in the range of 20 million to 22 million ounces a year.

Adrian Day -- Adrian Day Asset Management -- Analyst

OK, OK. That's helpful. And just once the approval is granted, are you -- as a company, are you ready to start? Or would you say, "Well, we've got other things going on. We'll leave it a few months now?"

Michael Steinmann -- Director, President, and Chief Executive Officer

It's obviously an incredible mine and project. So of course, all our focus are on this. There's always a lot going on. We have a very accomplished team that can handle many assets at the same time.

I think that we have shown that year over year over year. So -- but of course, that will be a #1 focus. You probably noticed over the past years that we normally spend as probably as much as $24 million in the past, maybe now more between $18 million and $20 million in care and maintenance at that asset to make sure that everything is in top shape and the restart can happen or could happen as quickly as possible.

Adrian Day -- Adrian Day Asset Management -- Analyst

OK. I appreciate that. Thank you.

Michael Steinmann -- Director, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

This concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Michael Steinmann for any closing remarks, please.

Michael Steinmann -- Director, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, operator, and thanks for everyone calling in today. Yeah, these are exciting times for Pan American Silver, very high metal prices, very strong cash flow generation, and great returns to our shareholders. So we will really, really focus and maintain a rigorous control on our costs to maintain those great margins that we are enjoying right now. And I'm really looking forward to update you in our Q1 call in May.

Until then, have a good day. Thank you, everyone.

Operator

[Operator signoff]

Duration: 0 minutes

Call participants:

Siren Fisekci -- Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications

Michael Steinmann -- Director, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Cosmos Chiu -- Analyst

Steven L. Busby -- Chief Operating Officer

Christopher Emerson -- Chief Legal and Human Resources Officer, General Counsel

Steve Busby -- Chief Operating Officer

Don DeMarco -- National Bank Financial -- Analyst

Sean McAleer -- Senior Vice President, Strategic Initiatives

Ovais Habib -- Analyst

Adrian Day -- Adrian Day Asset Management -- Analyst

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