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📘 Marktkapitalisierung
📈 Was ist das?
Die Marktkapitalisierung zeigt, wie viel ein Unternehmen laut Börse aktuell wert ist.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Sie hilft Unternehmen in Größenklassen (Large, Mid, Small Cap) einzuordnen und gibt Hinweise auf Marktmacht und Stabilität.
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Große Unternehmen gelten als stabiler, zahlen oft Dividenden, wachsen aber langsamer.
- Kleine Firmen können stärker wachsen, sind aber schwankungsanfälliger.
- Die Marktkapitalisierung ist ein guter Indikator für Unternehmensgröße, aber kein Maß für Unter- oder Überbewertung.
📘 Enterprise Value (Unternehmenswert)
📈 Was ist das?
Der Enterprise Value (EV) zeigt, was ein Unternehmen tatsächlich kostet, wenn man es komplett übernehmen würde – inklusive Schulden und abzüglich Cash.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
(= Marktkapitalisierung + Nettoverschuldung)
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Der EV ist eine realistischere Bewertungsbasis als die Marktkapitalisierung, da er die Kapitalstruktur berücksichtigt. Er ist Grundlage für Kennzahlen wie EV/FCF oder EV/Sales.
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Der Enterprise Value zeigt, was ein Unternehmen tatsächlich wert ist – unabhängig davon, wie es finanziert ist.
- Er ist besonders wichtig für professionelle Investoren, da er eine objektivere Grundlage für Bewertungsvergleiche bietet als die Marktkapitalisierung allein.
- Ein Unternehmen mit hoher Verschuldung erscheint im EV teurer, eines mit viel Cash günstiger – auch wenn sie an der Börse gleich viel wert sind.
📘 Nettoverschuldung
📈 Was ist das?
Die Nettoverschuldung zeigt, wie viele Schulden nach Abzug des verfügbaren Cashs tatsächlich verbleiben.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Sie zeigt, wie stark ein Unternehmen von Fremdkapital abhängig ist – und wie gut es in der Lage ist, seine Schulden kurzfristig zu bedienen.
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Eine niedrige oder negative Nettoverschuldung bedeutet hohe finanzielle Stabilität.
- Unternehmen mit viel Cash und geringer Verschuldung sind besser gerüstet für Krisen.
- Eine hohe Nettoverschuldung erhöht das Risiko – besonders bei steigenden Zinsen oder konjunkturellen Schwächen.
📘 Cash
📈 Was ist das?
Der Cashbestand zeigt, wie viele liquide Mittel einem Unternehmen sofort zur Verfügung stehen.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Er gibt Auskunft über die finanzielle Flexibilität: Ein hoher Cashbestand ermöglicht Investitionen, Rückkäufe oder Krisenresistenz.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein hoher Cashbestand zeigt finanzielle Stärke und Handlungsspielraum.
- Cash kann für Investitionen, Schuldentilgung oder Aktienrückkäufe genutzt werden.
- Allerdings: Zu viel ungenutztes Kapital kann auch auf mangelnde Investitionsideen hinweisen.
📘 Anzahl ausstehender Aktien
📈 Was ist das?
Die Anzahl ausstehender Aktien gibt an, wie viele Aktien eines Unternehmens aktuell im Umlauf sind und von Investoren gehalten werden.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Sie ist die Grundlage für viele Kennzahlen wie Gewinn je Aktie (EPS), Marktkapitalisierung oder KGV.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Je weniger Aktien im Umlauf sind, desto höher fällt z. B. der Gewinn je Aktie aus – wichtig für Bewertung und Dividendenrendite.
- Aktienrückkäufe verringern die Anzahl ausstehender Aktien – und steigern den Wert je Aktie.
- Kapitalerhöhungen haben den gegenteiligen Effekt: mehr Aktien → Verwässerung der bestehenden Anteile.
📘 Kurs-Gewinn-Verhältnis (KGV)
📈 Was ist das?
Das KGV zeigt, wie oft der Gewinn pro Aktie im aktuellen Aktienkurs enthalten ist – also wie „teuer“ eine Aktie im Verhältnis zum Gewinn ist.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Das KGV gehört zu den bekanntesten Bewertungskennzahlen. Es hilft Anlegern einzuschätzen, ob eine Aktie im Vergleich zu ihrem Gewinn eher günstig oder teuer erscheint.
🧮 Berechnung
📊 KGV (TTM) = bezogen auf den Gewinn der letzten 12 Monate (Trailing Twelve Months):🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein niedriges KGV kann auf eine günstige Bewertung hindeuten – oder auf Probleme im Geschäftsmodell.
- Ein hohes KGV kann Wachstumserwartungen widerspiegeln – oder eine überbewertete Aktie.
📘 Kurs-Umsatz-Verhältnis (KUV)
📈 Was ist das?
Das KUV zeigt, wie viel Anleger für 1 € Umsatz eines Unternehmens zahlen – unabhängig vom Gewinn.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Das KUV ist besonders bei wachstumsstarken oder noch nicht profitablen Unternehmen hilfreich. Es zeigt, wie hoch der Umsatz an der Börse bewertet wird.
🧮 Berechnung
Marktkapitalisierung = 29,43 Mrd. C$ | Umsatz (TTM) = 6,03 Mrd. C$
Marktkapitalisierung = 29,43 Mrd. C$ | Umsatz erwartet = 6,76 Mrd. C$
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein niedriges KUV kann auf Unterbewertung hindeuten – oder auf schwache Margen.
- Ein hohes KUV kann hohe Erwartungen widerspiegeln – oder übermäßigen Optimismus.
- Besonders sinnvoll bei Wachstumsunternehmen, bei denen der Gewinn oder Free Cashflow (noch) keine Aussagekraft hat.
📘 Unternehmenswert zu Umsatz (EV/Sales)
📈 Was ist das?
EV/Sales zeigt, wie viel Anleger für 1 € Umsatz eines Unternehmens zahlen, wenn man auch Schulden und Cash berücksichtigt – es ist eine kapitalstrukturbereinigte Version des KUV.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Diese Kennzahl eignet sich besonders für den Vergleich von Unternehmen mit unterschiedlicher Verschuldung – sie zeigt, wie teuer ein Unternehmen tatsächlich im Verhältnis zum Umsatz ist.
🧮 Berechnung
Enterprise Value = 29,64 Mrd. C$ | Umsatz (TTM) = 6,03 Mrd. C$
Enterprise Value = 29,64 Mrd. C$ | Umsatz erwartet = 6,76 Mrd. C$
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- EV/Sales ist neutral gegenüber der Kapitalstruktur und eignet sich gut für Unternehmensvergleiche.
- Ein niedriges Verhältnis kann auf eine günstig bewertete Aktie hindeuten – ein hohes Verhältnis auf hohe Erwartungen oder Überbewertung.
- Besonders nützlich bei wachstumsstarken, noch nicht profitablen Firmen.
📘 Unternehmenswert zu Free Cashflow (EV/FCF)
📈 Was ist das?
EV/FCF zeigt, wie viele Jahre es dauern würde, bis ein Unternehmen seinen Unternehmenswert durch freien Cashflow „zurückverdient”.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Diese Kennzahl hilft, Unternehmen auf Basis ihrer tatsächlichen Cash-Erträge zu bewerten – unabhängig von Bilanzierungsregeln oder buchhalterischem Gewinn.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein niedriges EV/FCF deutet auf eine günstige Bewertung bei starker Cashgenerierung hin.
- Ein hohes EV/FCF kann entweder auf Optimismus oder auf temporär schwachen Cashflow hindeuten.
- Besonders hilfreich bei reifen, profitablen Unternehmen mit stabilen Cashflows.
📘 Kurs-Buchwert-Verhältnis (KBV)
📈 Was ist das?
Das KBV zeigt, wie hoch der Marktwert eines Unternehmens im Verhältnis zu seinem bilanziellen Eigenkapital ist.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Das KBV ist besonders bei Substanzwerten (z. B. Banken, Industrie) relevant. Es hilft Anlegern zu erkennen, ob ein Unternehmen unter oder über seinem buchhalterischen Vermögen bewertet ist.
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein KBV unter 1 kann auf Unterbewertung oder schwache Rentabilität hindeuten.
- Ein KBV über 1 zeigt, dass der Markt dem Unternehmen Mehrwert über den Buchwert hinaus zuschreibt (z. B. Marken, Patente, Wachstum).
- Das KBV eignet sich besonders gut für Unternehmen mit stabilen, materiellen Vermögenswerten.
📘 Dividende je Aktie
📈 Was ist das?
Die Dividende je Aktie zeigt, wie viel Geld ein Unternehmen pro Aktie an seine Aktionäre ausschüttet – typischerweise jährlich oder quartalsweise.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Sie ist die absolute Größe der Auszahlung je Aktie – wichtig für alle, die regelmäßige Erträge suchen oder Dividendenstrategien verfolgen.
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Eine stabile oder wachsende Dividende je Aktie ist oft ein Zeichen für ein solides Geschäftsmodell.
- Die Dividende je Aktie allein sagt aber nichts über die Rendite – dafür ist auch der Aktienkurs relevant (→ Dividendenrendite).
- Langfristig steigende Dividenden sind oft ein sehr gutes Merkmal (z. B. Dividenden-Aristokraten).
📘 Dividendenrendite
📈 Was ist das?
Die Dividendenrendite zeigt, wie hoch die Dividende eines Unternehmens im Verhältnis zum Aktienkurs ist.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Sie hilft dabei, Dividendenaktien vergleichbar zu machen – unabhängig vom absoluten Auszahlungsbetrag.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Eine stabile Dividendenrendite kann auf verlässliche Ausschüttungen hinweisen.
- Ein Vergleich der 1J- und 5J-Rendite hilft zu erkennen, ob das Dividendenwachstum mit dem Kurswachstum Schritt hält.
- Eine niedrige Rendite ist nicht zwingend negativ – sie kann auf starkes Kurswachstum hindeuten.
📘 Dividendenwachstum
📈 Was ist das?
Das Dividendenwachstum zeigt, wie stark ein Unternehmen seine Dividende je Aktie über die Zeit gesteigert hat.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
5J: durchschnittliche jährliche Wachstumsrate (CAGR)
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Stetig steigende Dividenden gelten als Zeichen für finanzielle Stärke und Aktionärsorientierung – besonders interessant für langfristige Investoren.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein stabiles Dividendenwachstum ist ein Zeichen nachhaltiger Ertragskraft.
- Ein hohes Dividendenwachstum kann ein erheblicher Hebel deiner Rendite sein:
- Wenn ein Unternehmen z. B. 1 € Dividende zahlt und diese über 5 Jahre jährlich um 15 % erhöht, bekommst du im 5. Jahr bereits 2 € je Aktie – doppelt so viel wie zu Beginn!
📘 Ausschüttungsquote (Payout)
📈 Was ist das?
Die Ausschüttungsquote zeigt, wie viel Prozent des Unternehmensgewinns (pro Aktie) als Dividende an die Aktionäre ausgeschüttet wird.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Die Quote hilft einzuschätzen, ob eine Dividende auf Dauer tragfähig ist – besonders im Verhältnis zum erzielten Gewinn.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Eine niedrige Ausschüttungsquote bedeutet: Das Unternehmen behält einen größeren Teil des Gewinns für Investitionen – typisch für Wachstumsunternehmen.
- Eine moderate Quote (z. B. 25–50 %) steht oft für ein gesundes Gleichgewicht zwischen Ausschüttung und Zukunftsinvestitionen.
- Hohe Ausschüttungsquoten können attraktiv wirken, sind aber riskanter, wenn die Gewinne schwanken oder sinken.
📘 Dividendensteigerungen in Folge (Erhöhungen)
📈 Was ist das?
Diese Kennzahl zeigt, wie viele Jahre in Folge ein Unternehmen seine Dividende pro Aktie erhöht hat – ohne Kürzung oder Aussetzung.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Ein langer Track Record kontinuierlicher Erhöhungen spricht für Verlässlichkeit, solide Finanzen und aktionärsfreundliche Unternehmenspolitik.
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein langer Zeitraum mit Dividendensteigerungen stärkt das Vertrauen – besonders in Krisenzeiten.
- Solche Unternehmen gelten als verlässlich und planbar für Einkommensinvestoren.
- Je länger die Serie, desto stärker das Commitment gegenüber den Aktionären.
📘 Umsatz
📈 Was ist das?
Der Umsatz zeigt, wie viel ein Unternehmen insgesamt mit seinen Produkten und Dienstleistungen verdient – also den Bruttoerlös vor Abzug von Kosten.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Der Umsatz ist eine der zentralen Kennzahlen zur Einschätzung der Unternehmensgröße, Marktstellung und Wachstumskraft.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein wachsender Umsatz zeigt eine steigende Nachfrage und kann ein guter Frühindikator für Gewinnsteigerungen sein.
- Vergleiche von aktuellem und erwartetem Umsatz geben Hinweise auf das Marktumfeld und Analystenerwartungen.
- Wichtig: Starker Umsatz allein genügt nicht – auch Margen und Profitabilität zählen.
📘 EBITDA
📈 Was ist das?
EBITDA steht für „Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization“ – also Gewinn vor Zinsen, Steuern und Abschreibungen. Es zeigt das operative Ergebnis eines Unternehmens, bereinigt um bilanztechnische und finanzierungsbedingte Effekte.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
EBITDA ist eine verbreitete Kennzahl zur Beurteilung der operativen Leistungsfähigkeit – insbesondere bei kapitalintensiven Unternehmen oder im internationalen Vergleich.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein hohes oder wachsendes EBITDA spricht für starke operative Erträge – unabhängig von Bilanzierung oder Steuerlast.
- EBITDA ist besonders nützlich, um Unternehmen branchenübergreifend zu vergleichen.
- Wichtig: EBITDA ist keine offizielle Gewinnkennzahl – Abschreibungen und Finanzierungskosten werden ausgeklammert.
📘 EBIT
📈 Was ist das?
EBIT steht für „Earnings Before Interest and Taxes“ – also Gewinn vor Zinsen und Steuern. Es zeigt das operative Ergebnis eines Unternehmens nach Abschreibungen, aber vor Finanzierungs- und Steueraufwand.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
EBIT ist eine zentrale Kennzahl zur Beurteilung der Profitabilität aus dem Kerngeschäft – unabhängig von Kapitalstruktur oder Steuersystem.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein hohes EBIT deutet auf ein profitables Kerngeschäft hin – vor Zinslasten oder steuerlichen Effekten.
- Es erlaubt objektivere Vergleiche zwischen Unternehmen mit unterschiedlicher Finanzierung.
- Im Vergleich mit EBITDA zeigt EBIT bereits den Einfluss von Abschreibungen auf das operative Ergebnis.
📘 Nettogewinn
📈 Was ist das?
Der Nettogewinn ist der verbleibende Jahresüberschuss (oder -fehlbetrag) eines Unternehmens – nach Abzug aller Kosten, Steuern, Zinsen und Abschreibungen
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Der Nettogewinn ist die zentrale Erfolgskennzahl – er zeigt, wie profitabel ein Unternehmen nach allen Kosten tatsächlich arbeitet.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein steigender Nettogewinn zeigt, dass das Unternehmen effizient wirtschaftet – trotz aller Kosten.
- Die Entwicklung des Gewinns beeinflusst z. B. direkt das KGV und weitere Kennzahlen.
- Im Zeitverlauf lässt sich ablesen, wie stabil und profitabel ein Geschäftsmodell wirklich ist.
📘 Free Cashflow (FCF)
📈 Was ist das?
Der Free Cashflow gibt Aufschluss über die echte finanzielle Stärke eines Unternehmens – unabhängig von Bilanzierungsregeln. Er zeigt, wie viel Spielraum für Dividenden, Aktienrückkäufe oder Schuldenabbau besteht.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
FCF reflects a company’s real financial strength – regardless of accounting profits. It shows how much flexibility a company has for dividends, share buybacks, or debt reduction.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein hoher Free Cashflow bedeutet, dass ein Unternehmen echte Finanzkraft besitzt – unabhängig vom bilanzierten Gewinn.
- Er ist oft die solideste Grundlage für nachhaltige Dividenden und Aktienrückkäufe.
- Sinkender FCF kann ein Warnsignal sein – auch wenn der Gewinn stabil aussieht.
📘 Umsatzwachstum
📈 Was ist das?
Das Umsatzwachstum zeigt, wie stark sich die Erlöse eines Unternehmens im Vergleich zum Vorjahr verändert haben – tatsächlich (TTM) und auf Prognosebasis (erwartet).
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
Erwartet = (Umsatz erwartet ÷ Umsatz Vorjahr − 1) × 100
Erwartetes Wachstum basiert auf Analystenschätzungen für das laufende Geschäftsjahr.
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Ein wachsender Umsatz ist ein zentrales Signal für steigende Nachfrage, Geschäftsausweitung und Marktanteilsgewinne – besonders bei Wachstumsunternehmen.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Wachstum ist der Motor langfristiger Wertsteigerung – besonders bei Technologie- und Wachstumsaktien.
- Wichtig ist nicht nur das aktuelle Wachstum, sondern auch dessen Nachhaltigkeit.
- Prognosen zeigen, ob Analysten weiteres Potenzial erwarten – oder eine Verlangsamung.
📘 EBITDA-Wachstum
📈 Was ist das?
Das EBITDA-Wachstum zeigt, wie stark das operative Ergebnis eines Unternehmens vor Zinsen, Steuern und Abschreibungen im Vergleich zum Vorjahr gestiegen oder gesunken ist.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
Erwartet = (erwartetes EBITDA ÷ EBITDA Vorjahr − 1) × 100
Erwartetes Wachstum basiert auf Analystenschätzungen für das laufende Geschäftsjahr.
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Ein steigendes EBITDA ist ein Zeichen für verbesserte operative Ertragskraft – unabhängig von Finanzierungsstruktur oder Abschreibungen.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Starkes EBITDA-Wachstum signalisiert operative Effizienz und Skalierung – besonders relevant in Wachstumsphasen.
- EBITDA-Wachstum ist ein Frühindikator für Margen- und Gewinnentwicklung – sollte aber stets im Zusammenhang mit Umsatz und EBIT betrachtet werden.
📘 EBIT Wachstum
📈 Was ist das?
Das EBIT-Wachstum zeigt, wie stark das operative Ergebnis eines Unternehmens (nach Abschreibungen, aber vor Zinsen und Steuern) im Vergleich zum Vorjahr gewachsen ist.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
Erwartet = (erwartetes EBIT ÷ EBIT Vorjahr − 1) × 100
Erwartetes Wachstum basiert auf Analystenschätzungen für das laufende Geschäftsjahr.
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Das EBIT-Wachstum ist ein direkter Indikator für die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung des operativen Geschäfts – unter Berücksichtigung der Kapitalintensität (Abschreibungen).
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Steigendes EBIT signalisiert wachsende operative Rentabilität – auch unter Berücksichtigung von Abschreibungen.
- Das EBIT-Wachstum ist ein wichtiges Maß zur Beurteilung von Geschäftsmodellen mit hohen Investitionskosten.
- Im Zusammenspiel mit Umsatz- und EBITDA-Wachstum ergibt sich ein umfassendes Bild zur operativen Entwicklung.
📘 Nettogewinn-Wachstum
📈 Was ist das?
Das Nettogewinn-Wachstum zeigt, wie stark der Jahresüberschuss eines Unternehmens gegenüber dem Vorjahr gestiegen oder gesunken ist – sowohl tatsächlich (TTM) als auch auf Basis von Prognosen (erwartet).
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
Erwartet = (erwarteter Nettogewinn ÷ Nettogewinn Vorjahr − 1) × 100
Der erwartete Wert basiert auf Analystenschätzungen für das laufende Geschäftsjahr.
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Der Gewinn ist die entscheidende Ergebnisgröße für ein Unternehmen. Ein wachsender Nettogewinn deutet auf steigende Effizienz, stabile Kostenkontrolle und nachhaltige Ertragskraft hin.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Wachsender Nettogewinn stärkt die Bewertung, Dividendenfähigkeit und Kursfantasie.
- Stagnierender oder rückläufiger Gewinn trotz Umsatzwachstum kann auf Margendruck hinweisen.
📘 Free Cashflow-Wachstum
📈 Was ist das?
Das Free-Cashflow-Wachstum zeigt, wie sich der freie Mittelzufluss eines Unternehmens im Vergleich zum Vorjahr verändert hat – also der Betrag, der nach allen operativen Ausgaben und Investitionen übrig bleibt.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Free Cashflow ist der echte, verfügbare Geldzufluss. Wachstum in diesem Bereich ist ein Zeichen für finanzielle Stärke und steigende Flexibilität bei Dividenden, Rückkäufen oder Investitionen.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Sinkender Free Cashflow kann auf steigende Investitionen, höhere Kosten oder stagnierende operative Erträge hindeuten.
- Besonders bei Dividendenwerten ist das FCF-Wachstum wichtig – denn Dividenden werden letztlich aus dem verfügbaren Cash gezahlt.
- Ein negativer Trend sollte genauer analysiert werden – er ist nicht zwangsläufig schlecht, aber potenziell ein Warnsignal.
📘 Bruttomarge
📈 Was ist das?
Die Bruttomarge zeigt, wie viel vom Umsatz nach Abzug der direkten Herstellungskosten (Material, Produktion) als Bruttogewinn übrig bleibt – also der „Rohgewinn“ eines Unternehmens.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
Auch: Bruttomarge = Bruttogewinn ÷ Umsatz × 100
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Die Bruttomarge gibt Aufschluss über die Profitabilität eines Produkts oder Geschäftsmodells vor Fixkosten, Steuern und Zinsen. Sie zeigt, wie effizient ein Unternehmen produzieren oder einkaufen kann.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Eine hohe Bruttomarge deutet auf starke Preissetzungsmacht und effiziente Herstellung hin.
- Sinkende Bruttomargen können auf Kostensteigerungen oder Preisdruck hindeuten.
- Besonders im Vergleich zu Wettbewerbern liefert die Bruttomarge wertvolle Einblicke in die Geschäftsqualität.
📘 EBITDA-Marge
📈 Was ist das?
Die EBITDA-Marge zeigt, wie viel vom Umsatz als operativer Gewinn vor Zinsen, Steuern und Abschreibungen (EBITDA) übrig bleibt. Sie misst die operative Effizienz – ohne Verzerrungen durch Finanzierung oder Buchwerte.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Die EBITDA-Marge hilft zu verstehen, wie viel operativer Gewinn ein Unternehmen aus jedem Euro Umsatz erzielt – unabhängig von Kapitalstruktur oder steuerlichem Umfeld.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Eine hohe EBITDA-Marge zeigt starke operative Ertragskraft – unabhängig von Bilanzierungseffekten.
- Die Marge ermöglicht gute Vergleiche zwischen Unternehmen und Branchen.
- Ein stabiler oder wachsender Wert kann auf effiziente Kostenkontrolle und Skalierbarkeit hindeuten.
📘 EBIT-Marge
📈 Was ist das?
Die EBIT-Marge zeigt, wie viel Prozent des Umsatzes als operativer Gewinn nach Abschreibungen, aber vor Zinsen und Steuern übrig bleiben.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Die EBIT-Marge misst die operative Ertragskraft eines Unternehmens unter Berücksichtigung der Kapitalintensität (z. B. Maschinen, Anlagen). Sie eignet sich gut zum Vergleich von Geschäftsmodellen mit unterschiedlich hohen Abschreibungen.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Eine hohe EBIT-Marge zeigt, dass ein Unternehmen auch nach Abschreibungen effizient arbeitet.
- Sie ist besonders relevant in kapitalintensiven Branchen.
- Langfristig stabile oder steigende Margen sind ein Zeichen wirtschaftlicher Stärke und Preissetzungsmacht.
📘 Nettomarge
📈 Was ist das?
Die Nettomarge zeigt, wie viel vom Umsatz am Ende als „Reingewinn“ übrig bleibt – also nach Abzug aller Kosten, Zinsen, Steuern und Abschreibungen.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Die Nettomarge gibt an, wie effizient ein Unternehmen über alle Stufen hinweg wirtschaftet. Sie zeigt, wie viel Gewinn tatsächlich je Euro Umsatz übrig bleibt.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Eine hohe Nettomarge zeigt, dass ein Unternehmen nicht nur operativ stark ist, sondern auch seine Finanzierung und Steuerbelastung im Griff hat.
- Vergleiche mit Wettbewerbern geben Einblicke in die wirtschaftliche Qualität.
- Sinkende Nettomargen trotz Umsatzwachstum können ein Warnsignal sein – etwa für steigende Kosten oder sinkende Effizienz.
📘 Free Cashflow Marge
📈 Was ist das?
Die Free-Cashflow-Marge zeigt, wie viel vom Umsatz nach Abzug aller operativen Ausgaben und Investitionen tatsächlich als freier Mittelzufluss übrig bleibt.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Diese Marge misst die echte Liquidität, die ein Unternehmen erwirtschaftet – unabhängig von Bilanzierungsregeln oder Abschreibungen. Sie ist besonders relevant für Dividenden, Rückkäufe und Investitionen.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Eine hohe Free-Cashflow-Marge zeigt, dass ein Unternehmen nachhaltig liquide Mittel erwirtschaftet.
- Sie ist ein starkes Signal für finanzielle Stabilität und Ausschüttungspotenzial.
- Wichtig ist der langfristige Trend – sinkende Werte können auf steigende Investitionen oder rückläufige operative Effizienz hindeuten.
📘 Eigenkapitalquote
📈 Was ist das?
Die Eigenkapitalquote zeigt, wie hoch der Anteil des Eigenkapitals an der Bilanzsumme eines Unternehmens ist – also wie stark es sich aus eigenen Mitteln finanziert.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Eine hohe Eigenkapitalquote steht für finanzielle Stabilität, Krisenfestigkeit und gute Bonität. Sie ist besonders relevant bei der Beurteilung der Verschuldung.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Eine hohe Eigenkapitalquote signalisiert finanzielle Stabilität – besonders in Krisenzeiten.
- Ein niedriger Wert kann auf ein höheres Risiko oder eine aggressive Verschuldung hinweisen.
- Wichtig: Die Eigenkapitalquote sollte immer gemeinsam mit der Eigenkapitalrendite betrachtet werden. Nur so lässt sich beurteilen, ob ein Unternehmen nicht nur solide, sondern auch effizient wirtschaftet.
📘 Eigenkapitalrendite (ROE)
📈 Was ist das?
Die Eigenkapitalrendite zeigt, wie effizient ein Unternehmen mit dem Kapital seiner Aktionäre arbeitet – also wie viel Gewinn es pro Euro Eigenkapital erwirtschaftet.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Die Eigenkapitalrendite ist eine zentrale Rentabilitätskennzahl. Sie hilft Anlegern zu erkennen, ob das Unternehmen eine attraktive Verzinsung auf das eingesetzte Eigenkapital erwirtschaftet.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Eine hohe Eigenkapitalrendite spricht für ein starkes, effizientes Geschäftsmodell.
- Besonders interessant ist sie bei kapitalintensiven Firmen oder solchen mit hoher Eigenkapitalquote.
- Wichtig: Ein sehr hoher ROE kann auch auf hohe Schulden hinweisen – daher sollte sie immer im Kontext mit der Eigenkapitalquote betrachtet werden.
📘 Return on Capital Employed (ROCE)
📈 Was ist das?
ROCE misst die Gesamtrentabilität eines Unternehmens – also wie effizient es das eingesetzte Kapital (Eigen- und Fremdkapital) zur Gewinnerzielung nutzt.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
Das eingesetzte Kapital ist das gesamte betriebsnotwendige Kapital, unabhängig von der Finanzierungsquelle.
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
ROCE eignet sich besonders gut für den Vergleich unterschiedlich finanzierter Unternehmen. Es zeigt, wie effektiv ein Unternehmen Kapital investiert – unabhängig von der Kapitalstruktur.
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein hoher ROCE zeigt, dass ein Unternehmen sein Kapital effizient einsetzt – unabhängig davon, ob es durch Eigen- oder Fremdkapital finanziert ist.
- Je höher der ROCE im Vergleich zu ähnlichen Unternehmen, desto mehr Wert schafft das Unternehmen mit seinem investierten Kapital.
- Besonders wichtig ist der ROCE bei Firmen mit hohen Investitionen – z. B. in Industrie, Energie oder Infrastruktur.
📘 Return on Invested Capital (ROIC)
📈 Was ist das?
ROIC zeigt, wie effizient ein Unternehmen das Kapital investiert, das langfristig im operativen Geschäft gebunden ist – unabhängig davon, ob es aus Eigen- oder Fremdkapital stammt.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
- NOPAT = „Net Operating Profit After Taxes“
- Investiertes Kapital = operatives Vermögen abzüglich nicht-verzinster Schulden
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
ROIC ist eine der präzisesten Kennzahlen zur Bewertung der Kapitalrendite – besonders im Vergleich zur Eigenkapitalrendite, weil es Verzerrungen durch Schulden vermeidet. Er zeigt, ob ein Unternehmen Mehrwert für alle Kapitalgeber schafft.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein hoher ROIC zeigt, wie gut ein Unternehmen mit dem tatsächlich investierten (betriebsnotwendigen) Kapital wirtschaftet.
- Im Unterschied zu ROCE wird nur Kapital betrachtet, das wirklich zur Finanzierung operativer Aktivitäten dient – und verzinst werden muss.
- Besonders hilfreich, um die Kapitalrendite von Unternehmen mit viel „überschüssigem“ Kapital oder zinsfreien Verbindlichkeiten realistisch zu vergleichen.
📘 Verschuldungsgrad (Leverage Ratio)
📈 Was ist das?
Der Verschuldungsgrad zeigt, wie stark ein Unternehmen durch verzinsliche Schulden (z. B. Kredite und Anleihen) im Verhältnis zum Eigenkapital finanziert ist.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Die Kennzahl hilft, das finanzielle Risiko und die Abhängigkeit von Fremdkapital zu beurteilen. Ein hoher Verschuldungsgrad kann die Eigenkapitalrendite steigern – birgt aber auch erhöhte Risiken bei Zinsanstiegen oder Liquiditätsengpässen.
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein niedriger Verschuldungsgrad steht für finanzielle Stabilität und Unabhängigkeit.
- Ein hoher Wert kann auf erhöhte Risiken hinweisen – insbesondere bei schwankenden Zinsen oder konjunkturellen Schwächen.
- Wichtig: Immer im Kontext zur Branche und Kapitalintensität bewerten.
📘 Ergebnis je Aktie (EPS)
📈 Was ist das?
Das Ergebnis je Aktie (EPS) zeigt, wie viel Gewinn auf eine einzelne Aktie entfällt – und ist eine der wichtigsten Kennzahlen zur Bewertung von Unternehmen.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
Die verwässerte Aktienanzahl berücksichtigt auch potenzielle neue Aktien, etwa durch Optionen, Wandelanleihen oder andere Umtauschrechte.
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
EPS bildet die Basis für viele Bewertungskennzahlen wie KGV, PEG oder Payout Ratio. Es macht den Gewinn für Aktionäre vergleichbar – unabhängig von der Unternehmensgröße.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- EPS hilft, die Profitabilität pro Aktie zu erfassen – und ist besonders wichtig im Zeitvergleich oder im Vergleich mit Analystenschätzungen.
- Steigendes EPS kann ein Zeichen für stabiles Wachstum oder Aktienrückkäufe sein.
- Wichtig: Verwende verwässertes EPS für realistische Bewertungen – besonders bei stark aktienbasierten Vergütungssystemen.
📘 Free Cashflow je Aktie (FCF je Aktie)
📈 Was ist das?
Der Free Cashflow je Aktie zeigt, wie viel freier Mittelzufluss einem Unternehmen pro Aktie zur Verfügung steht – nach Investitionen, aber vor Dividenden oder Schuldentilgung.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Der FCF je Aktie zeigt, wie viel liquide Mittel pro Aktie tatsächlich im Unternehmen verbleiben – wichtig für Dividenden, Aktienrückkäufe oder Schuldentilgung. Im Gegensatz zum Gewinn ist er schwerer manipulierbar und daher besonders aussagekräftig.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein hoher Free Cashflow je Aktie ist ein Zeichen für hohe finanzielle Flexibilität.
- Er zeigt, wie viel Kapital ein Unternehmen effektiv einsetzen oder ausschütten kann.
- Besonders relevant für dividendenstarke Unternehmen oder solche mit starker Kapitalrendite.
📘 Short Interest
📈 Was ist das?
Short Interest zeigt, wie viele Aktien eines Unternehmens aktuell leerverkauft wurden – also von Investoren geliehen und verkauft, in der Erwartung fallender Kurse.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
Der Wert zeigt den Anteil der Aktien, der aktuell auf fallende Kurse spekuliert wird.
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Short Interest dient als Stimmungsindikator: Ein hoher Wert deutet auf Skepsis oder negative Erwartungen gegenüber dem Unternehmen hin – kann aber auch zu einem „Short Squeeze“ führen, wenn der Kurs plötzlich steigt.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein niedriger Short Interest deutet auf Vertrauen in das Unternehmen hin.
- Ein hoher Wert kann ein Warnsignal sein – oder eine Chance, wenn sich die Stimmung dreht.
- Besonders spannend in volatilen Märkten oder vor wichtigen Quartalszahlen.
📘 Employees
📈 Was ist das?
Die Mitarbeiteranzahl zeigt, wie viele Personen ein Unternehmen weltweit beschäftigt – ein Indikator für Größe, Struktur und Geschäftsmodell.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Sie hilft bei der Einschätzung von Skaleneffekten, Effizienz und Personalkosten. Zusammen mit Umsatz und Gewinn lassen sich Kennzahlen wie Produktivität je Mitarbeiter ableiten.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Viele Mitarbeiter bedeuten große operative Komplexität – aber auch hohes Umsatzpotenzial.
- Produktivität je Mitarbeiter ist ein wichtiger Indikator für Effizienz.
- Besonders spannend bei stark wachsenden Tech- oder Industrieunternehmen.
📘 Umsatz je Mitarbeiter
📈 Was ist das?
Der Umsatz je Mitarbeiter zeigt, wie viel Erlös ein Unternehmen durchschnittlich pro Beschäftigtem erwirtschaftet – eine Kennzahl für Effizienz und Produktivität.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
Die Mitarbeiterzahl stammt in der Regel aus dem letzten verfügbaren Jahresbericht.
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Diese Kennzahl hilft, Geschäftsmodelle zu vergleichen – insbesondere zwischen arbeitsintensiven und technologiegetriebenen Unternehmen. Ein hoher Wert deutet auf Automatisierung, Effizienz oder hohen Wertschöpfungsanteil hin.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein hoher Umsatz je Mitarbeiter spricht für ein skalierbares und margenstarkes Geschäftsmodell.
- Ein niedriger Wert kann auf arbeitsintensive Prozesse oder geringere Wertschöpfung hinweisen.
- Besonders hilfreich beim Vergleich von Tech- vs. Industrieunternehmen.
Lundin Mining Aktie Analyse
Analystenmeinungen
29 Analysten haben eine Lundin Mining Prognose abgegeben:
Analystenmeinungen
29 Analysten haben eine Lundin Mining Prognose abgegeben:
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Lundin Mining — Analyst/Investor Day - Lundin Mining Corporation
1. Management Discussion
Perfect. Well, good afternoon, everyone. It's great to be here. See a lot of familiar faces. Thanks for taking the time out of your day to join us here in person, and thanks to everyone online. And thanks to the team; the slides are very well done. A lot of hard work has gone into it. And there's a lot to cover today, and the company remains in good shape, but I'll leave it to management to tell the story and hand it off to Jack, the CEO of Lundin Mining.
Okay. Okay. Well, first off, Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you to the those that made the trip out here to Lundin for our second annual Capital Markets Day event. It's a pleasure to be here to represent Lundin Mining and to present the very exciting trajectory and history of the company. So over the next few hours, we're going to be walking through a comprehensive overview of the business. And I hope that you get -- all that you need out of the slides. But as Stephen was saying, we'll be open for Q&A in this session and also later at dinner after the event. And for those online, thank you so much for your continued interest in Lundin Mining, and we look forward to following up with you after this event.
I will be making cautionary forward-looking statements. So we always encourage the audience and those that will be looking through this presentation to read the statements, and these will be posted online and also all of the documents that we'll be presenting that have public information or 43-101 compliant are uploaded on SEDAR.
So today's speakers, first with myself doing the introduction, Jack Lundin, President and CEO. We've also got a great cast of characters here in the audience with us. Juan Andres Morel, our Chief Operating Officer, will walk us through operations. We've got Teitur Poulsen, our CFO. We've got Tim Walmsley, our VP of Exploration; Eduardo Cortes, VP of Mining and Resources as well. And Ron Hochstein from Vicuña Corp is here to walk through the great Vicuña District and all of the exciting updates that we have there. Also in the audience and in attendance today that will be here for the presentation and for later on we've got Vlada, Robert, Leo, Jennifer, Itamar, Marcelo, Nathan and Stephen. So a big group and will be here to enjoy a session and hopefully answer any questions that you may have.
So as I was mentioning a comprehensive overview here, we've got introductions followed by operations that will take us into the break, and then we'll get into our growth opportunities really centered in the Vicuña District and Ron will go through Vicuña Corp and all the exciting updates we have for the -- for those of you that have been following the story for a number of years. And Teitur will kind of, wrap it up with the financial overview. What's different between last year and this year is last year, we were providing 5-year projections for our financial forecast. But this year, we're going to have 10-year financial projections to really capture the long-term growth opportunities that we see with all of our mid- and longer-term growth through our existing operations, through Vicuña and through some new opportunities that are presenting themselves to the company.
We also, as Stephen was saying, we issued a press release that kind of accompanies this presentation that has all of the key details, and we encourage those that have not read that press release to kind of refer to that as well as the presentation that we'll be sharing. And at the end, there's going to be time for Q&A. So rest assured, if you have a question, write it down, and we'll be able to answer that at the end.
So it's been an exciting journey for Lundin Mining. I think we classify this company as an organization that has three decades of strategic growth. We've been building a company into what it is today. That's really focused on copper. But I think what we represent today is a series of deliberate decisions that have reshaped the business over multiple cycles. All of you would be aware, we're in a very cyclical business. The commodity prices tend to go up and down. And I think Lundin Mining has demonstrated that we have the ability to adapt and reimagine the business and take advantage of opportunities that we see before our competitors.
So on this slide, we're highlighting both relevant but not all of the historic transactions. But really, I think ultimately what we want to show here is that Lundin Mining has consistently created value by identifying strategic opportunities and transforming its portfolio ahead of the market. Our journey began in the early '90s with the entrepreneurial vision of my grandfather Adolf, and father, Lucas Lundin, and through discoveries such as [store] [Lundin] in Sweden. The foundation of the Lundin model was established, and that is creating value through exploration, disciplined risk-taking and execution. The next phase was built through this European operating platform through acquisitions such as Zinkgruvan and Neves-Corvo. These transactions transformed the company from an exploration and small-scale mining business into a growing producer with high-quality operating assets. From there, Lundin Mining expanded globally. We entered the Democratic Republic of the Congo to develop the world-class Tenke Fungurume mine with our then partners, [Freeport]. The acquisition as well of the Eagle mine in Michigan helped build a diversified base metals company with a broader geographic footprint and increasing scale. And this period demonstrated the company's ability to allocate capital effectively and grow through both acquisitions and organic development.
As the industry landscape evolved, Lundin Mining began an intentional pivot towards copper. The acquisitions of Candelaria, Chapada and later, Josemaria reflected a conviction that copper would become increasingly important in the decades ahead. These were strategic investments, and these were made before the current focus on future copper supply shortages became widely recognized. And now this most recent chapter between 2022 and 2026, it's the bridge of the discussions that we're going to be having today is the portfolio transformation that has taken place here and really what we're defining as the Vicuña era. So if we hone in on kind of the last 3 to 4 years of the company, and it's been a very busy and transformational 3 to 4 years that we've had, starting with the acquisition of Josemaria Resources in 2022. That really got us interested and into the Vicuña District as Lundin Mining and really showed that there was more potential than just a great development stage project. And that was through 2023 when we acquired the first 51% ownership in the Caserones mine. Since then, we've incrementally increased our ownership to now 75% and a mine that we've seen about 60% of return on capital invested since that acquisition in 2023. So -- this mine continues to generate strong cash flows, continues to demonstrate a lot of upside and gives us that ability to gain institutional knowledge in a district that we've grown our presence and are very excited to continue advancing on both the Chilean and Argentinian side. And we'll present -- a large portion of today will be focused in this area.
The partnership that we formed first announced in 2024 and the transaction was closed in January 2025 was the joint acquisition with our partners, BHP, to acquire Filo Corp for about USD 3 billion. And that vending in Josemaria formed a cornerstone growth project for us that sets us apart from our competitors and that we're very proud to be able to report that we've had some recent news. We continue to build momentum, and we've now got a RIGI application approved on that, which Ron will walk us through in his section. And then following these large transactions in the Vicuña District, we divested our non-South American assets. So we sold Zinkgruvan and Neves-Corvo in 2025. And most recently in Eagle, we divested out of that mine, still retaining a 20% ownership in Talon Metals, where Juan Andres is Chairman, and I'm on the Board. So we're continuing to follow that investment and see exciting opportunities there, but it's essentially out of the Lundin Mining portfolio. And also, as part of the incremental 5% increase in Caserones ownership, we were able to acquire 31% of Los Helados, another project in this emerging Vicuña district, which really solidifies our holding in this area and gives us further optionality and opportunity to grow.
So I think these actions that we took were not isolated. They are part of a deliberate strategy to concentrate capital and focus on long-life, high-quality copper assets. And this is really what we can see, the evolution of Lundin Mining and how our business model has changed and how we really believe these decisions that we have made have transformed the business and set us up for a remarkable run. What you're seeing here is a comparison between 2022 and 2025. So really when we started to embark on these transformative deals. You can see in the first pie chart, our copper production for 2022 was 250,000 tonnes of copper, generated $3 billion in revenue. And you can see the weighting of copper, around 63% was weighted to copper production for our revenues.
When you look at 2025, of course, with the tailwinds of commodity prices going higher, mainly copper and gold and the copper production that we had growing to 330,000 tonnes, revenue being generated of $4.1 billion and these longer life assets that also have scale and optionality to look at capitalizing on synergies, particularly between mines like Caserones and Candelaria, you can see that stronger EBITDA margins in the center of the slide here have meant that we're generating in absolute terms, higher EBITDA and also at a higher margin. So I think that these transformative steps really have set the landscape and the framework for what Lundin Mining is today. You can see on the right here that the market cap at the end of 2022 was USD 5.7 billion, and we've more than tripled that value as at the end of 2025.
I think what we see not only commodity price environment, but also the ability to deliver quarter after quarter, year after year in Lundin Mining. And you can see that, that has been reflected in the market capitalization of our business. You can see on the bottom right, copper price, the rise in copper price over that period. Our peers have had a tremendous run as well, but Lundin Mining has had a tremendous run from 2022 to 2025. And we're continuing that trend in 2026. We have, this year, nearly added USD 7 billion in market cap. We're up 40% year-to-date. And we continue to hit our operational targets and exceed our financial targets, thanks to the performance of our assets, but really anchored to the great team that we have in the audience and those team members that are currently at site and working in the field.
But it's not all about absolute numbers. It's about per share performance, showing that as a shareholder of Lundin Mining, what you're seeing is that the resource is growing, the reserves are growing and the copper production per share is growing as well. For Josemaria Resources and for Filo Corp, we issued about 140 million shares. And in 2022, we've been -- since 2022, we've bought back about 31 million shares. And so in absolute terms, we've seen our share count go up. However, because the business has grown and because we've added these resources, we've added this production to our portfolio on a per share basis, we're continuing to demonstrate that Lundin Mining is growing and growing the right way.
Copper and gold, these resources are done on an attributable basis. So that would include our 50% ownership in Vicuña Corp. And when you look at the most recent PEA or the most recent study that we published on Vicuña, you can see that this is an immense resource, 47 million tonnes of copper, 96 million ounces of gold and 1.8 billion ounces of silver. For a company of Lundin Mining's size to have 50% ownership in that, it's a tremendous opportunity for us to continue to grow and to continue to demonstrate to our shareholders that we're going to be growing this portfolio. And the team here will be walking us through just how we plan to achieve that.
I think it's also important to talk to the audience a little bit about what we're seeing and what we understand in this dynamic environment in the copper sector that we're in. In 2025, we participated in an industry study led by S&P Global, examining the global outlook for copper supply and demand through year 2040. And the study is projecting that approximately 14 million tonnes or 50% growth in copper demand will be growing by 2040, highlighting copper's critical role in 4 key areas, which you can see on the slide here. So economic development, electrification, artificial intelligence infrastructure, including data centers and defense applications.
The construction industry will continue. Construction and industrial machinery expected to remain the largest contributors to underlying economic demand for copper going from 18 million tonnes in 2025 to projected 23 million tonnes in 2040. But the adoption of electric vehicles structural shift in transportation-related copper consumption. And of course, the AI trend that we're seeing taking shape is really contributing to a massive growth in demand for copper. These findings, I think, reinforce copper's position as a strategic material underpinning both global economic growth and the energy transition.
And this is another slide showing that basically what this study has proven or has shown is that there's going to be about a 10 million tonne shortfall expected in copper. So copper basically today stands at a pivotal moment. Global demand is accelerating along the 4 key areas, as I mentioned in the last slide, yet the current supply is on course to actually decline as existing resources and existing mining operations are aging. So those of you in the audience, I'm sure, would be well aware that declining ore grades, rising costs, complex extraction conditions are contributing to this. The study projects that under current conditions, primary mine supply is actually set to peak by 2030. And there's going to be a potential, as I mentioned, 10 million tonne shortfall in copper by 2040.
Increasing secondary supply from recycling scrap copper will only partially close that gap. If you take a look at Vicuña, 800,000 tonnes of copper equivalent during its peak production years, you're essentially going to need 17.5 [Vicuñas] coming online by 2040 to meet this growing gap. But the reality is the reverse is happening. Growth in supply is looking to decline. If we look back in time, 2010 to 2025, global mined copper production increased by roughly 7 million tonnes since 2010, but output from existing operations is expected to decline by a similar amount by 2040 as major mines are depleted. So in order to meet this growing demand, the study concluded that the industry must both sustain production from current mines and develop new projects, a process that typically takes 15 to 20 years from discovery to when you're in production, there's going to be a significant requirement for capital to meet this crisis that we're potentially facing. And this is why we're focusing our attention on operational performance and the need to grow our production base.
So enter Lundin Mining in 2026. Pleasingly, Q1, we've had a very solid safety performance, first and foremost. I think what we'll see through Juan Andres' section is industry-leading over the last several quarters, and we continue to see strong safety performance at our operations, which really underpins the overall, I think, operations and how we're able to operate at the standard and at the level we are. So it's fundamental to us, and it's very proud to stand here and say that we've got industry-leading safety performance at our operations. Q1, as I mentioned, and as you can see the production numbers here on the screen, we generated nearly $630 million in EBITDA, just shy of $500 million in operating cash flow and $315 million in free cash flow. So we're forecasting, which you'll see on a later slide that we should generate around USD 700 million in free cash flow for the year, which includes our expansionary capital, which includes our 50% capital that we're putting towards the $800 million budget of Vicuña.
So significant spending year, but overall, still going to be generating a significant amount of free cash flow, which highlights the financial strength of our business. And in addition to the financial strength of our business being in a net cash position with a USD 4.5 billion revolving credit facility to fund our growth ambitions, we couldn't be better suited to capitalize on the opportunities that we have going forward.
Also, Los Helados is an exciting growth opportunity that we're exploring to develop with our partners in NGEx, and Tim and Eduardo will kind of talk about the opportunities later on in the slide. So our existing portfolio gives us the opportunity to grow at a substantial pace, far exceeding any of the competitors in our sector of our size. We've got -- what you can see on this slide here is line of sight to going from midpoint of our guidance, 323,000 tonnes of copper and 142,000 ounces of gold, up to over 500,000 tonnes of copper and 550,000 ounces of gold production through our near-term organic growth opportunities, so our brownfield expansions at Chapada, Candelaria and Caserones and then through the stage development of Vicuña. So we basically are demonstrating that we have a decade of growth ahead and really anchored to a very solid operating base.
And -- as Ron will get into, and as I mentioned, established in 2025, January 2025, significant progress continues to be made in derisking and advancing this once-in-a-generation project. The project is Vicuña, multistaged so that we can be cash generating to fund the future expansions. We've got good line of sight to continuing to unlock value. And just last night, as I mentioned, we were able to announce the receipt of our RIGI application under the long-term strategic export designation. I think this is a significant milestone. It continues to build on the momentum that we've been growing at Vicuña. And compared to the standard RIGI framework, this RIGI PEELP application, it offers extended benefits 40 years versus 30, along with accelerated access to things like revenue repatriation and export duty exemptions. And this further strengthens the project's investment profile. So overall, I think to summarize the introduction here on our business before going into more details, I think what we can classify Lundin Mining is that we've got stability and growth to create lasting value for our organization. We continue to have a relentless focus on cost discipline and a relentless focus on best-in-class safety standards.
We continue to have our sustainability focus, and I'm happy to confirm that we source all of our -- source 100% renewable power across all of our three operations. And to support the broader sustainability efforts, the Lundin Foundation remains one of our most important partners. We additionally this year, submitted and published our first CSRD compliant report, representing an important step forward in how we're reporting our business. And we continue to be performance focused and show that we're a company that has truly unrivaled growth. So with that, I would now invite Juan Andres up on stage so that he can walk us through operations. Thank you very much.
Good afternoon, everyone. As well, thank you, Jack, for that great introduction and for setting the stage for the rest of the presentation. I will be walking you through the main progress that we have made in our three operations in South America. And I'm also going to be -- I want to highlight that we're joined by our three general managers, Managing Directors: Marcelo from Caserones, Leonardo from Candelaria and Itamar from Chapada. So if you have any questions after the meeting, they're here also to answer some of the toughest questions. I will also be joined by Tim and Eduardo to walk you through some details of each of our operations.
So last year, we set the stage of the operational strategy among these three main pillars. The first one being the operational discipline. That is the center of our strategy, and we have been improving our managing systems and all our routines to make sure that the operational discipline keeps improving year after year. We have increased our focus on safety. We have increased our -- or improved our planning cycle system, and those are the main drivers for our operational consistency and the discipline that we have been able to reach. Full potential is something that we started -- initially that we started in 2023, and that has been front and center of our operational strategy to bring the sites to the level of competitiveness and efficiency that we see today, and I'm going to walk you through that process as well. And finally, the focus on low-intensity near-term low capital intensity near-term opportunities, and we're going to speak about Saúva and the Caserones Cathodes plant. Let's start with safety. We have seen some incredible results in our safety performance. What you can see on the screen on the right is the band of the performance of all the companies in the ICMM database.
So you can see at the bottom of that band, the performance that Lundin Mining has had over the years between 2015 and 2026. In the last 3, 4 years since we launched what we call the FRM, our Fatal Risk Management system, we have seen an incredible improvement in our performance in safety. We launched the FRM in late 2023. And since then, we have seen incredible results. We have a record industry record safety performance on our TRIF that you can see there at 0.15. And as of now, this system is fully embedded across all our operations. And the next steps is continue working on strengthening our critical controls and sustaining stronger safety performance as we move forward.
In terms of our operational performance, we have reached or achieved or beat guidance in the last 3 consecutive years. As you can see on the screen, 2023, '24, '25, we met guidance for both copper and gold. And this year, we also aim to meet the guidance for 2026. That is a great demonstration of the consistency and the increased operational discipline that we have achieved in these last few years. Full potential, as I said before, is front and center in our strategy. What we aim is to unlock the maximum value from our ore body. And this is a very rigorous system where we look at opportunities to improve our processes all across our sites, and we take them into a much more rigorous process to come up with a business case, and then we move into implementation.
We have separated the this approach in two. First, what you see on the left is what we call the asset operational excellence, which is basically aiming to use the installed capacity and increase our efficiencies based on the capabilities that we have at each site. On the right, you can see the asset strategy. Those are opportunities with marginal investment or low capital intensity opportunities that aim to increase our production levels. So on the left, on full potential, so far, we have been able to optimize existing processes based on cost optimization and increase in revenue.
Now we're -- since we almost finished that first phase, that first wave of projects, we're now moving into full potential 2.0. This is going to be a little bit harder. Maybe we picked the low-hanging fruits in that first wave. And now we need to look a little deeper and look at the data to help us identify those opportunities. That's why we're implementing some digitalization across our processes, adding more data analytics and, of course, looking for opportunities to apply artificial intelligence. On the right side, on the asset strategy, we are moving forward with our Saúva project and the CPU, which is the Chapada plant upgrade that Eduardo will be telling us more details on that, which aims to increase our recoveries through the addition of the second ball mill. So low intensity, again, low capital intensity initiatives to increase production. Also, the Caserones improvement in the utilization of our cathode plant is related to these low capital intensity initiatives.
On the next phase, we will be looking at new opportunities. There's an opportunity to continue with the Saúva project to keep adding more efficiencies or more -- some additional equipment to our mill to increase productivity as well. We're looking at the same opportunities in Caserones. So we will continue looking at some low capital intensity near-term growth opportunities. Some results that we have achieved so far, as you can see on the screen, starting with Chapada on the left. These are some -- a very good metric to show the progress that we have made with the full potential initiative. Total operating costs divided by tonnes milled is a good indication of how we have been able to improve the efficiency in all our assets.
These are nominal terms. So despite the effect of inflationary pressures and cost increase in some of our main cost drivers, we have been able to reduce our cost per tonne mill. You can see in Chapada from previous -- before the implementation of our full potential in 2022, the cost was $11.8 per tonne mill. And now post the full potential implementation, we have taken it down to $10.6 per tonne mill, 11% decrease. Once we saw the success of this initiative in Chapada, we quickly moved into Caserones and implemented full potential in Caserones as well. And if you look at the dollars per tonne mill before the implementation of full potential, we took this metric down from $20 per tonne mill down to $17.9 per tonne mill, 10% reduction in this very short period of time.
Similarly, we moved into Candelaria and implemented the same initiative. And we were able to take down -- in this case, we're only considering the open pit to make it an apples-to-apples comparison, but we took the total cost divided by tonnes milled from $19.9 to $19.03, a 4% reduction. So we know that we need to keep working in Candelaria to make further improvements. Moving into each of our -- we are going to go deeper into one of -- each of our assets. So starting with our Brazilian operation. Chapada in the state of Goiás. In the first quarter of 2016 (sic) [ 2026 ], it contributed to 17% of the total revenue. It's 100% owned by Lundin Mining. It's an open pit, very low grade, 16,000 tonnes per day mill capacity. You can see there the head grade, 0.22% copper, 0.12 grams per tonne gold. More than 25 years of mine life and an incredible history or incredible story of improving the efficiency. You can see there the drop in the C1 over the last 3 years.
We have been able to maintain almost the same copper production and same with the gold production at the order of 45,000 tonnes of copper per year. This year, we're aiming to meet our guidance, which is between 45,000 and 50,000 tonnes of copper for the year. Gold 57,000 to 62,000 ounces in the year. We have adjusted our C1 guidance. Previously, our guidance was between $1 and $1.2 per pound. We have reduced the guidance for the year to $0.75 to $0.95 per pound. So an incredible C1 for such a low-grade operation. So recognition to the team for all the efforts done around the full potential and helping us get to this level of efficiency in Chapada.
Some of the examples of full potential initiatives, you can see there on the screen. In the case of the mine, we were able to reduce our fuel consumption by 11%. We increased our cycle times by 6%. So -- and that is basically by making all the speeds of the -- our whole fleet much more consistent and much more standardized. We also increased the payload of our trucks by 2%. In the mill, we were able to increase our throughput, meaning our tonnes per hour by 9% and the total additional ore milled per year went up by 4%. We have also put a particular focus on our sustaining capital. In the case of Chapada, we were able to reduce our sustaining capital divided by tonnes milled by 40%. And also a key initiative in the case of the full potential in Chapada was look at the long-term mine plan and reduce the strip ratio by postponing some waste movement, and we were able to come up with a much more balanced long-term mine plan. That resulted in a 29% reduction of our strip ratio. I will now hand it over to Eduardo to walk us through the Saúva and CPU project.
Thanks, Juan Andres. Can you hear me? Perfect. Okay. So I'll walk you through the Saúva project. This is one of our best growth projects in the company. Saúva is split in two parts. The first part is the construction of a second ball mill, which will help us to reach higher recoveries for both copper and gold. This is -- on the right side, you can see the rendering of the second ball mill is in green, close to the actual ball mill. And on the left, you can see the CapEx that we're spending this year is $35 million. And the total CapEx for this project is $70 million, and this year, we're spending half of it. We're accelerating this project, and we're starting next month with earthworks expecting to finalize the commissioning by end of next year.
So this project is key, the CPU, the spare parts that I was talking about is key to unlock the Saúva deposit because we don't want to be sending those higher grades from Saúva to recover 5% less. So we want to finish this ball mill construction, then we can mine Saúva. And then Saúva, as you can see there, we're expecting to start production by Q1 2029. So as a quick refresher, Saúva is a project that is a deposit that is located 15 kilometers north of Chapada. And we're expecting to increase production by 15,000 tonnes of copper and 45,000 ounces of gold for -- during 4 years. In the table, you can see the key highlights of the project. So it's a 33 million tonnes total mine, that's including ore and waste, average strip ratio of 1.6:1. Ore to mill is around 28 million tonnes or it is under 30 million tonnes during this initial portion that we're mining from Saúva at a head grade of 0.4% copper and 0.3 grams per tonne gold. So this is for us for Chapada is high grade. Ron, maybe it's low grade for you, but for us, it's very, very high grade.
The initial capital is $110 million comparing to what we showed last year, $150 million. We have been able to decrease significantly that initial capital to give us a capital intensity under $7,500 per tonne of copper. So yes, this is a great project for Chapada, increasing 30% copper production and 75% gold production. And we are -- it's important to mention that we're only mining a small portion of Saúva. The deposit disclosed and published in our website is much larger than that is 250 million tonnes of ore at a 30% higher copper and gold grade than the Chapada deposit.
So we're still studying that second portion, and we're doing some engineering studies to try to keep start production there as well. So it's also important to mention that this is not growth anymore for Chapada. This is part of our base case integrated in the life of mine plan for 2027. Here, you can see the schedule. We are starting from the top, expecting to finalize the engineering, permitting and electrification approval by Q4 this year, following with the ball mill fabrication that started actually last month and construction and installation of this ball mill by Q4 2027 and the commissioning a couple of quarters there to start increasing the recoveries by Q1 2028. So -- after that, we are developing the Saúva deposit and feasibility study, environmental baseline data and permitting to be finalized by Q4 2028.
In parallel, we're developing the early works activities, infrastructure and water management to start in late 2027 and finalize in Q4 2028. And then we are expecting to start the pre-stripping by Q4 2028. It's a small volume of pre-stripping luckily is no more than 3 months. So we're expecting to start production, as I said before, Q1 2029 from Saúva to the expanded ball mill or to the expanded Chapada plant. Okay. So here, we have a layout of Chapada. On the right side, we don't -- we're not showing Saúva here. It's only Chapada. But as you can see, we have several pits that we're mining. The most important pits for us for the following years are the South pit and also Baru and the North pit. Those are the areas that we're mining currently.
On the left side, you can see our production plan outlook for the 10 years. So orange line, you see what we showed last year in the CMD. And then the blue solid is the base life of mine and the light blue is the growth potential that we have. So the production profile is very similar from what we showed last year. We're only able to accelerate or move forward this high peak production that it was Saúva. So we'll move it forward to 2029 as we accelerated our Saúva project. We're also expecting a mineral resource and mineral reserves update by Q4 2026 or hopefully no more than Q1 2027. Now I'll hand it over to Tim.
Thanks. Just very briefly here, just looking beyond the initial exploitation option at Saúva, there's much more continued growth to come at Saúva. You can see here the conceptual open pit resource pit in lighter gray above is much larger than the initial Phase 1 Saúva pit and mineralization of a high-grade nature continues beyond that pit for at least a kilometer. And this last hole that came in with results today show that, that zone maintains open and continues at depth to date. So most of our exploration work since the last time we met a year ago has been focused extending the Saúva at depth to see how far this higher-grade core will continue as well as rilling some additional holes along the Saúva trend looking for another Saúva in the district. And given the size of the exploration potential, we're quite optimistic. There's a huge footprint of underdrilled and underexplored opportunity within the Saúva trend. Hand it back to Andres or to [indiscernible].
Thank you, Tim. We're now going to fly to Chile to the Atacama region and start with Candelaria. We're going to start moving slowly up into the up into the Vicuña District and starting in the lower part of the Atacama region. Candelaria, in the first quarter of 2026 contributed with 39% of our revenue. It's 80% owned by Lundin Mining. It's a combination of an open pit and underground operation, 75,000 tonnes per day in the Candelaria mill and 3,800 tonnes per day in the PAC plant. The grades, you can see there, 0.44 for the open pit and 0.8 for the underground. More than 20 years of mine life, and we continue to make progress. The production profile, as you can see on the right chart, it varies depending on the mining sequence. We hit some high-grade zones and production, of course, goes up to like 1620 in 2024, then it comes down again and then it goes back again.
This year, we're aiming to meet, of course, our guidance, which is between 135,000 and 145,000 tonnes of copper and meet our C1 guidance as well, which is between 2.05 and 2.25. You have to remember that C1 includes the streaming costs. So this is -- probably if we remove the streaming costs will be, of course, lower than that. In Candelaria, we have also moved forward with the full potential, as I explained before. And here are a few examples of the initiatives that we have implemented so far. We have seen an incredible improvement in our tire life. We increased that by 27%, which the tires are the main cost components or one of the main cost components in the mining cost. We have improved our shovel utilization up by more than 10%, and we have also increased the payload of our haulage fleet by 6%. In the case of the mill, we have increased our grinding throughput by 11%, and we have reduced consumable while improving plant availability by more than 1%. We have also looked at reducing the sustaining CapEx divided by tonnes milled by 65%. And we continue to optimize our G&A cost and the nonproductive infrastructure, what we call the NPI by 17%.
One of the key initiatives in Candelaria, you have heard us from some time ago that we've been discussing the idea of expand the underground mine. We were ready to do that in 2025, but we looked at the way the process was being executed, and we realized that the entire mine was basically outsourced. And given the challenge to take the mine from 14,000 tonnes per day to 22,000 tonnes per day is a significant challenge. We decided that we want to have more control over the operation of the underground. So before expanding the mine, we decided to take a step back and in-source all the operation of the underground mine. So in 2025, we started that process. And as of now, we're 97% complete. We have in-sourced drilling and blasting, loading and hauling and all of the support functions in the underground mine.
We only left 2/3 of the underground development in a new contract that we just awarded to a new company. And we're keeping also as part of the in-sourcing initiative, 1/3 of the underground development in our hands. In May, we reached already our target of 400 meters month, and we have seen incredibly lower cost than what we expected initially. So we continue moving forward with that. And in the future, we'll probably be analyzing the possibility to fully in-source all the underground development. We should reach the full target of the underground development in the second half of this year. The target is 1,200 meters per month. So we should be in that level in the second half of this year. That will help us to stabilize the underground mine at 14,000 tonnes per day by the second half of 2027. And from that point forward, we should start slowly increasing the extraction of the underground to take it to 22,000 tonnes per day.
As you can see there on the graph on the right, we aim to increase our copper production at about 12,000 to 14,000 tonnes of copper per year from this expansion of the underground mine in Candelaria. Another interesting boost to our EBITDA or free cash flow in the case of Candelaria is the step down of our streaming agreement. As you know, we have a streaming agreement with Franco-Nevada. And this agreement will step down from 68% to 40% once we reach 720,000 tonnes -- sorry, 720,000 ounces produced since the agreement was signed. And this and that will happen sometime in the first half of 2027. So from that point forward, an amount in the order of 15,000 to 20,000 ounces will be attributable to Lundin Mining. And that will add between $56 million to $90 million per year of free cash flow at current gold prices. Back to Eduardo with the growth opportunities in Candelaria.
Thank you. So similar to the slide I showed before, we have on the right side, the Candelaria main pit. There is also another future pit that is to the south that is not shown here. It's called Española, but that is part of 2035 production. So this pit, we're focusing on Phase 11 and Phase 12 in red and orange, respectively. So that's the -- where is the production coming from for the following couple of years. Also, we're going through pre-stripping of Phase 13, which is one of the most important phases for the -- from year 2030 onwards. On the left side, you can see the solid area in blue is the LOM base case, life of mine base case and in light blue is the growth that we have considered for Candelaria. So we have two main growth opportunities here, as Juan Andres was mentioning, is the expansion of the underground mine from 14,000 to 22,000 tonnes per day. And also recently, this year, we added to the growth opportunities this Phase 14 to the north of the pit that we were not considering before, and now we're actually considering it, and it would be coming online at least in this growth scenario in year 2033 or so. Tim?
This is just -- this slide will be familiar to those who were here a year ago. It's more or less the same slide, but it shows the longevity of this project. Candelaria is now over 30 years producing and the deposit still remains open in many, many directions. It continues open to the north, as you can see on the right-hand side of the slide. It continues open to the south where we have very high-grade breccias that we continue to hit without end. There's still a little bit of potential underneath in deeper parts of Candelaria North where there's still higher-grade veins below original underground mining that we still have room to test for. And then further south at surface, we have potential to expand the Española deposit on strike to the south.
And a year ago, we acquired a neighboring property called Resguardo that had a small -- or small-ish, small compared to Candelaria, but not so small resource potential in -- at surface, very similar in nature to Española. During this year, we will be drilling and trying to expand that initial body and join it to Española. And it looks during very promising that we can join those two deposits and thereby continue to increase the size of Española. And last but not least, I think you'll recall last year, we mentioned that above Candelaria at the time of the Candelaria discovery, they were smaller deposits in this higher lithologic horizon, similar to Española.
So that leaves open the opportunity for testing for larger deposits beneath the Española deposit, and we will continue to do that in the second half of this year. At surface to the south, this is just a plan view showing you the Española resource in green in measured and indicated and then the growth potential around the margins of this deposit in orange, classified here as mineral inventory. So the resource shown there in measured and indicated only, there's an additional 44 million tonnes of inferred on top of that is now built into the Candelaria LOM, but we -- we are currently drilling the edges of Española trying to grow it larger. And beyond Española, you can see the outline of the Resguardo system that we are now trying to confirm historic drill holes and find the edges and see if we can connect these bodies and eventually connect them to Española. Once that's done, of course, there is also good exploration and geophysical evidence that this sort of mineralization will continue further south as well.
We're now going to move east up in the [Andes] and reach the entrance of the Vicuña District with our Caserones operation. Caserones in the first quarter of 2026 contributed with 44% of our revenue. It's now 75% owned by Lundin Mining. It's also an open pit operation, similarly to Candelaria. Our average throughput is in the order of 100,000 tonnes per day, 0.3% copper grade and more than 15 years of mine life. Caserones has shown a very consistent copper production in the last 4 years. Last year, 133,000. This year, we're aiming to meet guidance between 130,000 and 140,000 tonnes per year. Our C1 guidance for this year is between 205 and 2.25 similarly to the one we have in Candelaria. Some examples of the full potential initiatives that the team has implemented so far. You see a pattern. We basically take what we have learned in Chapada, transferred that to Candelaria, and we're doing similarly initiatives Caserones. We also aim to increase our payload of our haulage fleet, and we achieved a 5% increase -- we have also looked at reducing our cycle times, and we achieved a 20% improvement.
We also increased the use of our haulage fleet by 21% and the maintenance contract was optimized and renegotiated, and we have also in-sourced a part of our maintenance contract. In the mill, we have seen improvements by 1.2% improvement in our tonnes per hour. It may not look that much, but at the end of the year, it translates into a significant improvement. We have also improved our availability by 5%. And in 2025, we achieved a record in terms of we material process reaching 33 million tonnes of ore per year, which is a 5% increase compared to our baseline that we use for our full potential initiatives.
One of the most iconic initiatives has been the improvement in the utilization of the installed capacity of our SX-EW or our Cathode plant in Caserones. And we continue testing new technologies to potentially leach our primary sulfides that we have in Caserones. So this is a sample of the initiatives that are behind the full potential in Caserones. As I mentioned before, the increased utilization in our copper in the cathode plant is one of the most significant initiatives in our full potential program. We have been able to increase the utilization from 55% from the previous time before the acquisition to 80% currently. In the Phase 1,-- what is behind that increase in the utilization is that we added 5 million tonnes more per year of material that was placed in the dump leach.
Together with that, we increased our irrigation area by more than 100,000 square meters. And we also increased the dosage of sulfuric acid in the irrigation. With that, we were able to take the cathode production from 15 in ' 22, 19 in '23, roughly 24 in '24 to almost 26 last year. And this year, we're aiming to produce 30,000 tonnes of cathodes. We are moving now into a second phase, also within the scope of the full potential. And we have identified the opportunity to debottle the electrowinning plant. And in order to do that, we will be repowering the cooling system of our existing rectifiers by 10% to 15%, which will allow us to increase the nameplate capacity from 35% to almost 40% -- sorry, from 35,000 tonnes of copper to 40,000 tonnes of cathodes per year.
This is with a very low capital investment, less than $1 million in the year. So this will be a very, again, low capital intensity near-term growth opportunity that we have in Caserones. In Caserones, we have been historically producing gold. Although we have not reported or guided the market on the gold production, there has been some gold production and gold revenues being obtained in Caserones. In 2025, we produced 15,000 ounces of gold, which translated in $46 million of revenue in that year. Our current block model doesn't have yet the precision to guide on gold, but we are working on improving the grade modeling so we can start guiding gold in Caserones in 2027. But this is a significant boost on our free cash flow, and we continue monitoring the gold production in Caserones, of course, together with the [moly] as the other byproduct. Back to you, Eduardo.
Thank you, Juan Andres. So on the right side, you see the main Caserones, we have 2 phases in production, Phase 7 and Phase 6B. There is another phase that is being developed in pre-stripping, right? But it's not shown here or highlighted here at least. To the bottom of the picture, we see the plant in green, the processing plant and to the right of the picture, we see the SX-EW plant and the dump leach. As Juan Andres was mentioning, we have improved significantly our cathode production. Also, we have worked on ore reclassification that has allowed us to increase the feed to the cathode plant. And in our base LOM life of mine now, we're considering up to 35,000 tonnes of copper coming from cathodes, which is much higher than what we considered last year. And also, we're keeping up to 40,000, so 5 extra 1,000 tonnes of copper as a growth opportunity following what Juan Andres was mentioning on his slide. As you can see, the dark blue and the dark and the light blue are very similar to the profile we show on the previous CMD. So we are keeping a steady production for 10 years between 130,000 and 140,000 tonnes of copper.
Thanks. This is just an update to show you what we've been doing in exploration for the last year. When we met last year, we were exploring aggressively looking for higher-grade breccias underneath the existing -- within the lower parts and underneath the existing resource at Caserones. Historically, the sulfide or hypogene part of the Caserones deposit was quite underdrilled. Most of the drilling was focused on the shallow enrichment blanket, and we saw an opportunity to find more of these unrecognized higher-grade breccias within the system itself.
That went extremely well towards the end of the year. To date, we've found at least 4 or 5 new higher-grade breccia bodies that were unrecognized within the existing resource. and we continue to drill, although we have handed it off this year from exploration to the mine team, the mine resource team, they continue to drill looking for more of these, and they continue to find more, which should have a positive impact on the average resource grade in the system. In addition, last year, the Angelica prospect last year, we were starting to drill underneath the known oxide body. There was a small oxide body known previously prior to purchase. No drilling had been done prior to Lundin to look for the sulfide source of that oxide body. And a year ago, we were drilling the first 1 or 2 holes underneath the oxide body looking for the sulfide body. Since that time, we've completed now 20 kilometers of drilling in 2025, most of which was focused on Angelica. And we're about 1/3 of the way through an additional 27 kilometers of drilling planned drilling planned for this year. And we continue to try and define the limits of the sulfide body. There's still a couple of areas where it's growing. We're focusing on looking at, again, similar high-grade breccias within Angelica, similar to Caserones, and we're trying to find just how large those could be.
If all goes well and we find and can limit the system, we are hoping to move towards an initial resource early next year. At the same time, within the broader district, you'll recall we have a huge number of targets on the property. This property was never really explored since the early '90s. So there's a lot of work for us to do here. We started by drilling -- by exploring aggressively the most obvious targets, the ones closest to the plant that could have the most immediate economic impact at Angelica. In parallel to that, we started testing a nearby target called Centauro, where we saw oxide potential.
We've drilled most of that now, and there is a small oxide opportunity there. And also, we started in the later part of Q2, testing the western edge of Caserones where there's evidence of additional breccias that could extend the footprint of that body and enlarge the future open pit. And during all of that period, we've been pushing the road access from the plant area through Centauro and down into the Cordillera target. And we won't be able to drill that before the winter season, which just commenced, but we have 2 drill pads already and waiting. So as soon as the winter stops, we'll be in there as soon as possible to get the first drill holes into Cordillera, which you can see is quite a large target.
In parallel, we'll be hoping in H2 to drill the first couple of holes on the northern extension of Los Helados, which spills into the Caserones property. And in parallel, while we're doing this drilling, we're sending out recce teams to start taking first samples and reconnaissance mapping on all these other targets in the district on a priority basis. There's probably at least 2 or 3 years of aggressive exploration before we can say how many of these targets represent additional deposit opportunities.
Thank you, Tim and Eduardo. So just to close our section in operations, I want to emphasize that we keep executing our strategy based on these 3 main focuses: safety, putting safety as one priority. Safety performance and operational performance go hand in hand, and they are the good reflection of the discipline of an operation. So we're very proud to see the results that we have been able to achieve. And of course, this is a result of strong leadership, and I want to recognize the job that our managing directors do on an everyday basis in our operations. We're changing the culture. We're moving the culture forward with our new values in the company. And we're turning our FRM, our fatal risk management system and our full potential as part of our Lundin way, so the core of our culture. So we will continue delivering results and optimizing our operations, and we will continue looking at opportunities with low capital intensity to improve our copper production in the near term. So thank you for your attention.
We're now moving to a break.
Los Helados? Okay. So we will continue with the agenda and what we have next is a presentation from Eduardo and team on Los Helados.
Now after going through operations and the near-term growth that we see there, we move to, I know Adam's favorite part of every presentation, the future growth opportunities in the district. But before going through the district, I just wanted to give credit to the exceptional discovery team at NGEx Minerals, a sister company within the Lundin Group. These next two slides have been borrowed from them, and they summarize really well just how significant Vicuña as a major porphyry copper district. To produce a major or giant porphyry copper district, a lot of things have to go right. You have to start with the right rocks, magmas capable of bringing lots of metal to the surface, major structures with deep plumbing, able to channel and focus those metals into concentrated areas, multiple events, multiple mineralizing events. Every large district has these by pumping the system, pumping district many times, you end up with clusters of deposits.
But even if -- those first 3 elements go very well. The fourth of these different elements can make or break a deposit. The preservation, it's really, really key. If the deposit is placed too deep, it can't -- it's too deep to exploit from surface. If it's placed too shallow over millions of years, it gets eroded and what might have been a nice deposit gets washed to the sea. Within the Vicuña district, there's different examples of how important this preservation aspect is. The Los Helados deposit in the center of the district represents a wholly preserved porphyry copper system.
The 2 older deposits, Caserones and Josemaria, because they're older, they've seen a little bit more erosion and the top margin or portion of that deposit of those deposits has been oxidized through thousands of years of interaction with the water table. And some of that copper from the top part of the system gets leached and then reconcentrated in enriched layer at the top of the system. But there's a very, very special example in the district here, and that's Filo. In the Filo example, everything has gone right to produce this super giant of a deposit. The mountain forming uplift is perfectly balanced with the erosion of the Andes in such manner that the early-stage large tonnage copper and gold porphyry system in place in the early formation of the deposit was then overprinted and upgraded by later-stage alteration events through high sulfidation and epithermal processes, superimposing higher grade gold and silver mineralization on the deposit, resulting in the exceptional 1 or plus 1% copper equivalent high-grade core that we see at Los Helados (sic) [ Filo ] , which is extremely unique within the district and within the world.
Once you have a giant metal district, there are usually four key characteristics that all of them seem to demonstrate. The first being scale. Usually, giant metal districts exhibit deposits that are exceptional in their deposit class. And here, we have a case where all the deposits are either giant, super giant or in the case of Filo beyond super giant size. Again, the second aspect is always key is clusters because the system has been pulsed and pumped multiple times, it tends to produce these clusters of deposits. And of course, all large metal districts have important long-lived deep-rooted structures to channel.
And lastly grade. As the deposits and the metal district that hosts them get bigger, the grades also get bigger. And we see that in most of the deposits here and especially in Filo. But one of the most significant aspects of being part of a giant metal district is that most companies in history that have been able and had the foresight to get aggressively involved in a giant metal district early on have benefited from being catapulted to be one of the largest mining companies in the world.
And here at Vicuña, Lundin Mining is hoping and planning to benefit and follow in the footsteps of these large mining companies and hopefully join the ranks of the world's largest copper producing companies in the world. And rather than me continuing to talk about words here, and I think it's best shown through a video with some pictures. So there's a video coming up that's going to give you a bird's eye view of the district and the multiple deposits that this district holds.
[Presentation]
As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, and I think that was a good overview of the system. Just coming back to two dimensions here. Just wanted to highlight one of the latest additions to the Lundin portfolio. In Q2, we acquired, as Jack said, 31% of the Los Helados project on the Chilean side of the border. This project is located 17 kilometers due south of the Caserones infrastructure and plant and offers an opportunity for exceptional synergies with our operation at Caserones as we continue to evaluate these sort of options with our partner, NGEx. Los Helados is a large porphyry system. And again, it has higher grade cores. You can see here the areas in red, 3 areas in red, the main Condor zone, which represents the majority of the highest grade in the system, over 0.8% copper equivalent is exceptional grade for porphyries these days.
But it also in the last few years or half decade, the NGEx team located a couple of additional breccias, higher-grade breccia bodies within the system. And the Northern one Alicanto goes right up to the border with Caserones and their last high-grade drill hole was only meters from the property boundary of Caserones. So as I mentioned, in the second half of this year, we hope to be drilling on Caserones land, looking for the extension of the system into our mineral rights as well. And by acquiring 31% of Los Helados project, we effectively increased the mineral concession footprint of the Caserones property by 30%. So between our share of the Los Helados project and the Caserones land holdings, we now have over 80,000 hectares in the Chilean side of the district. And I'll pass it on now to Eduardo, who's going to speak more on the resource and development options.
Thanks, Tim. So on the left -- sorry, on the right side, as Tim was mentioning, we have the 3 main domains, Alicanto, Condor and Phoenix. Those are the high-grade zones of Los Helados. Its extension is 1.3 kilometers long and 1.3 kilometers vertical and it's open at depth still. We don't know the limit of the deposit by now. On the left, you can see the resource, but they indicated only, we're not showing inferred, 8.4 million tonnes of copper and 10.2 million ounces of gold. In the video was mentioned actually 12 million tonnes of copper, but that is including inferred resources. But it has a high-grade core of 2.9 million tonnes of copper and 3.5 million ounces of gold at 0.72 copper equivalent, which is pretty high grade.
And this adds 12% to total attributable M&A copper resource of Lundin Mining. One thing to mention here is that this resource is estimated with a significantly lower metal prices that we're using today to estimate our resources. So this is from 2023 and also is using mining costs associated to a block caving because this project has historically been looked as a block caving. And now we are exploring other options or mining methods, including an open pit, which comes with lower mining costs. So you put that into perspective, like higher metal prices and lower mining costs, we see room for growth for this project as well.
So we are studying three main options. You can see here starting from the top, extension and then expansion and stand-alone. So on the extension opportunity here, we want to leverage the existing Caserones infrastructure. So you see that we're planning to -- this option, we're planning to mine the ore from Los Helados and transfer it to the Caserones plant, leveraging the infrastructure that we have there. And this will mostly extend the life of mine for Caserones. However, not only that because as you saw in the previous slide, Los Helados has significantly higher grades than Caserones. So depending on when we start production, it will likely displace ore from Caserones and therefore, increase production. And this option, although is a low CapEx opportunity and then obviously associated to a lower exploring growth opportunity. However, it's still worth. The second option we're looking into is expansion. So we're thinking to increase the production or the capacity of the current Caserones plant. There is not a lot of room in Caserones to do that. But after carefully looking into this, we actually think we can do it.
So we are including this added capacity at Caserones as an option. And then similar to the previous scenario, we're going to consider mining ore from Los Helados, transfer it to the expanded Caserones plant and therefore, getting higher throughput. This is obviously requiring more CapEx, but it's giving us more growth and sharing the infrastructure that we currently have.
And the last option that we are evaluating is the highest requirement for capital. But it's a stand-alone plant at Los Helados. So it wouldn't require any material handling from Los Helados to Caserones. So in that regard, CapEx will be lower and OpEx as well. but this definitely will -- we would be able to evaluate bigger plants. This is a 3 billion tonnes resource. So any plant like similar to Caserones now, we will have like an 80 years life of mine. So we likely explore bigger plants than that. So therefore, the capital is higher and the growth is higher as well the upside.
All of these scenarios have common enablers, being power, tailings and water. And we are studying all of these scenarios plus these enablers as part of a scoping study that we're launching this month, and we're hoping to finalize by Q1 next year or at least internally, we're going to have those results to see and determine what are we moving forward with a pre-feasibility study.
With that, we're going to the break right now.
We'll take a 15-minute break. We'll come back here at 3:40, but I'll wrangle you guys out, if you want to go and grab...
[Break]
Okay. We had that great video of Tim that talked about what we've got here. And it's very exciting for me to be here. And really, for the first time, other than the analyst trip to be able to talk to a group of investors about Vicuña.
Many of you may know me from Lundin Gold. So if I say ounces a few times up here, please forgive me. I still have gold in my veins. But when Jack and Adam asked me about this opportunity, it didn't take long for me to say, yes, because as you've seen, this is a world-class -- not project, it's a world-class district. And to take the experiences that we, the Lundin Group had from Lundin Gold to Vicuña was an exciting opportunity.
In addition, some people may look at it as an issue having a 50-50 joint venture with BHP and Lundin. But I've really quickly noticed that it's a great opportunity. It's a great opportunity to be able to take the learnings and what we can do best from BHP and the Lundin Group and Lundin Mining. That's something that a lot of projects have that opportunity.
But at the same time, what we want to create is Vicuña Corp. Vicuña Corp with its own culture and its own pride in developing the Vicuña district.
As I say, it's the next major copper district to be developed. The best thing we can do, as you've seen that great video that Tim showed is this is a video that was put together after we published the PEA in March of earlier this year. And it gives you a good overview, really the first picture of what not just Josemaria, both Josemaria, Filo and the district will look like. Go ahead.
[Presentation]
Not quite as dramatic ending to that. But as was stated, this will be one of the top five producers in the world, not only in terms of copper, but gold and silver. This porphyry district is actually quite unique in terms of the amount of precious metals relative to the copper here. You put that together with current prices and the production levels that we'll be producing at, you'll see here that our projected cash cost -- average cash cost for the first 25 years is negative. And as a result, again, you combine that low cash cost with that production level, and we're going to be generating significant annual free cash flow in excess of $2.2 billion. And that's on prices, again, that were as of a few months ago, not current consensus.
The current CapEx is $7.1 billion. That was based on the PEA. Our team right now is very much focused on a new bottoms-up CapEx estimate. The one thing, though, that I want everyone to remember, we talked about it being a PEA, but there was a heck of a lot of work done on Josemaria. I've had the benefit of being on the board of Jose being on the Board of Filo. So being exposed to this, and I saw the amount of work that was put in. The amount of work that Dave Dicaire, when he joined Lundin Mining from Lundin Gold, spend a lot of time to put what is a very solid foundation for Josemaria. So when you think of PEA, don't think of Josemaria like a PEA. It's actually much further developed.
The other part is we talk about Filo. We talked about the Filo sulfides, which is really the crown jewel what we're really focused on. You can see from this graphic, and this now has been updated to more current metal prices, that this project can essentially finance all that growth and still be generating excess cash flows. This is what's really unique about Filo. We have to focus, and that's what our team is doing right now is on building Josemaria because that's the foundation for the crown jewel of the Filo sulfides.
As I think Jack mentioned, this is not an old venture. Yes, the area is old. It's been -- I remember when Lukas staked it back 20-plus years ago. But Vicuña was only formed just over 18 months ago, January 2025. We got the initial resource estimate out.
Then there was a big push to get the PEA out, because, again, it was that first time that there was going to be this vision for investors, for both BHP and Lundin Mining, what did this project look like? We got our amendment to our EIA, EIA approved. So we're ready to do work.
And -- oh, I see you changed that. We had RIGI expected approval. So Stephen has updated that. And if we were to say that was immaculate timing, yes. But we did it. I was in Buenos Aires, I hit the button to submit it December 14. So we got it in just a little over 6 months. This is a huge step forward.
What's next? Pathway to sanction. Our whole team right now is focusing on preparing the information that's going to be necessary for the Board of Lundin Mining and the Board of BHP to make a sanctioning decision before the end of this year. We're progressing engineering -- we projected engineering by the time sanction decision comes around will be about 50%. Don't get too concerned that, that seems low. The areas where the risk is such as civils, mechanical, other areas will be closer to 70%, 80% by the time they get done. We're not focusing on instrumentation and bathroom design at this point. We're focusing on the things that are key.
We got the RIGI. Point one, check. I was just in San Juan on Friday for meetings. We're moving forward aggressively on the provincial agreements, and I've just talked about the detailed engineering and design.
What does RIGI mean? It's significant. I can remember very early on in meetings we had, where we said -- actually was a meeting with Jack and Carlos from BHP and myself, my first meeting with Milei. And we told them that without RIGI, this project wouldn't be happening. That's how important this is. This gives us the stability, 40-plus years of stability. It's a very solid program and to the point where they're now looking at a super RIGI for further expansion. But the other point, don't forget PEELP. This is the first copper project to have been signed or applied for and received RIGI PEELP. This gives us even further stability.
Engineering and procurement. We have over 400 suppliers already engaged. Local procurement is underway with high-voltage equipment and heavy mining equipment, and I'll talk a little bit about that later. These photos here, all our SAG mill and ball mills are bought. The shells are sitting in San Juan, as are the motors all in climate-controlled warehouses, ready to be moved up. That's significant. As many of you know, are exposed to projects, those are your long lead items that you really make -- got to make sure you're getting line for. We've got that. We're focusing on the other one, high-voltage equipment where we're very close to putting those purchase orders in. And the bulk earthworks is not only being engineered, it's also well underway.
One of the big successes we had at Fruta del Norte was local hiring and local procurement. We know that's important. We also know San Juan is actually much more of a mining province than they like to give themselves credit for. But there still needs to be a lot of training. We have significant programs underway, a lot of hiring. We hired over 60 -- sorry, 70 people last month. We're already at 50 people, this month, we've hired. We're ramping up in San Juan.
The engineering at Fluor Daniel, they have 2.5x more people than they did 2 months ago, engineers working on this project. We are ramping up to be able to be ready to make that sanction decision by the end of this year.
But we're not only focused on project readiness, we're also focused on operational readiness. Earthworks is not only being engineered, it's being done. We have 25, 40-tonne Scania trucks on site right now with associated excavation equipment. We are already started preparing the earthworks for the process plant. We have 7 Komatsu, 150-tonne trucks coming in, we say October here, as I heard last night, that's going to be September, plus a large excavator. Again, working on earthworks for the process plant but also starting to start on tailings as well.
So don't just think that this is all -- we're all sitting at the starting line, waiting for the sanction decision, no. Things are already happening on site. Similarly, major vertical construction packages. So the wet and the dry packages for the process plant are being put together right now to be issued early next year and the high-voltage power line.
Let's talk a little bit. I've really focused on Stage 1, but let's talk a little bit about Stage 2 and 3. The key here, what we saw in the video, there's still lots of room for optimization. I talked about how Josemaria had a very solid foundation, the Filo oxides and the Filo sulfides less so, but that creates opportunities. Specifically in the oxides, the process that was there that we walked through that's in the PEA, we know we can improve on that. We have a lot of metallurgical test work underway, some new mine plans.
Similarly, with the Stage 3, we actually have drilling still ongoing. Filo is still expanding. We're also focusing on some of the high-grade core and looking some of the things that Eduardo talked about what they've done at Candelaria and Caserones with their mine plans and looking at them differently, we're applying that now on Filo sulfide.
Can we look at optimizing, getting more value sooner? As many of you saw, probably if you read the PEA, you saw that it was a short Josemaria and Filo oxide sulfides. We're looking at opportunities. Can we look at opportunities to maybe blend and bring -- share the opportunity to increase the grade and throughput. So there's a lot of work underway.
The infrastructure is key for Stage 3. That's when we make the move to desalinization water, start bringing water up from Chile. We're looking at about a 2,000 liter per second plant, looking at opportunities there for financing, location, opportunities to maybe work with Lundin Mining in terms of scaling up infrastructure. The concentrate pipeline that was mentioned, that is one area where we're actually stepping back, is on concentrate treatment for Filo. Does a roaster make sense? Does a smelter roaster make sense? Do some other technologies that we're doing the work maybe make more sense. That's one area we are very aggressively stepping back and maybe looking at some future opportunities.
The other part of this is by national treaty. Filo, oxides and sulfides sit in Chile. Part of it -- sorry, part of it sits in Chile. The oxide is actually not a small percentage. So there is a binational treaty in place between Chile and Argentina. We already have an exploration protocol. And our strategy is to put together an exploitation protocol Phase 1 for Josemaria, which will help us be able to move supplies materials, et cetera, back and forth between the two countries. It's not needed for a concentrate export. It's just would help in construction and operations.
But an exploitation protocol Phase 2 for the actual operation because then we will be mining ore in Chile, bringing it into Argentina to process and then export. So that one will take a little bit more work.
The advantage we've got right now, you've got two governments. We've almost got the perfect storm in a great way. You got Kast in Chile, Milei in Argentina. The first place -- first time -- first meeting Kast had was with Milei. And guess what, Vicuña was brought up. So this is a project that these governments are focused on. I've attended meetings with Jack and the team in Chile. We have attended meetings in Argentina. This project is a focus, and that's one of the things that we'll definitely be working on as part of the Stage 2 and 3.
What to expect next year? Expanding the earthworks. I mentioned the Komatsu fleet that's going to be arriving. Major vertical construction contracts awarded. We're talking a lot with major construction firms in Argentina about these opportunities. We announced an expansion of our camp to an additional 2,500 beds, which will start construction. And we'll expand it even further to 4,300 beds and keep moving that engineering and obviously initiates power line construction.
We're started. We're waiting for that sanction decision. The team is so focused on putting together all the documents that will help the BHP Board and the Lundin Mining Board to make that decision to move forward. It's a very exciting time right now with Vicuña, and seeing what the opportunities are. And our team have to stay focused on building that foundation but it's a lot of fun because we've got this group sitting and building this foundation, but also get to spend some time looking at the upside and potential that we can see in Stage 2 and 3.
It's a district, it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of people, it takes a lot of focus on it. But with the backing of BHP and Lundin Mining, we're able to hire people. It's a challenge in this industry, but we're able to hire people because they want to come work with something that's pretty unique and will be world-class.
So that kind of summarizes what it is, focus on project operational readiness, build that first stage, look at opportunities and sanction.
With that, I'll turn it over to Teitur.
Okay. Good afternoon, everybody. Can you hear me? Good. So we're coming up here to the final stretch going through the financials before I hand it back to Jack for some concluding remarks.
And just before going into the outlook we're going to give here on the financials, I thought it was just good to recap on what we went through last year. As Jack said, last year was the first time we had a Capital Markets event for the company and also the first time we started to give more longer-term financial projections.
And what we focused on last year, the narrative last year was all around the Vicuña and how on earth this company could afford to fund such a big project as Vicuña. Obviously, back then, we didn't have any CapEx number for Vicuña and we didn't have our revolving credit facility in place to [indiscernible] -- to fund all that. But what we did outline was that we thought the funding -- the company had a funding capacity of up to $6 billion in funding. And we sort of tried to give the confidence to the market that, that should be more than sufficient to fully fund the Vicuña Stage 1 and then beyond. We also outlined our financial framework, whereby we committed to shareholder distribution of $220 million per year. And we also outlined that we felt we could distribute that amount of money every year even through the build phase of Vicuña.
And what we will show today, obviously, now with the PEA of Vicuña in place, we now have firm CapEx numbers. We have production profiles embedded in our financial framework. And we will now not only give you a 5-year outlook on the projections, but 10-year outlook to really capture that kick we get in production volume when Vicuña is in production. So I think that's what you should expect over the next few slides. There won't be any fancy videos but there will be some very impressive numbers.
And then just on the financial framework. This is something we outlined last year as well, and you will see the frame here is very similar to what Juan Andres has presented on the operational side. And there's no coincidence in that because everything is really fundamentally anchored in on our LOMs, what our assets, producing assets can generate in future cash flows. And the guiding principles there are that we are maximizing value on all our LOMs. That is the target of what we're doing here. It's not volume or growth for the sake of growing. It's maximizing value. So that is what we always center back to when we go through the cycle and we go through it once a year in 3 sort of iterations, doing the block models. And then midyear, we do all the profiles and the physicals. And then towards the end of the year, when we do the budget and the new 3-year guidance, we update for all the costs and the inflationary environments that we have to embed in our LOMs.
And that then generates the operating cash flow that you see here, and you will see through our projections that we have a very, very solid cash-generative portfolio within the company, both with low taxes and also with low operating costs. And it's that operating cash flow part of money that we then use to allocate through our financial framework.
Obviously, sustaining CapEx, you saw Juan Andres went through the rigorous process we have there in terms of trimming costs across the board where we can. And that's a continuous process that will never end. And then on the expansionary CapEx, obviously, Vicuña is one, but you've seen the more brownfield projects we are embarking on here now with Saúva and more cathodes coming through the underground expansion on Candelaria as well. So all of that goes into the expansionary CapEx part. And again, there, we remain very disciplined in terms of where we allocate capital towards growth. We need to hit certain IRRs.
And we are also not afraid to recircle our decisions. We were looking a few years back on what we call CUGEP, which was a more fancy way of increasing the throughput of Candelaria underground. But actually, when we had reassessed that, we decided to bin that particular project and doing a much more plain vanilla more gradual expansion in Candelaria underground just by adding more mining fleet to increase the throughput.
And what you will see in our projection, shareholder distribution is a core pillar to our strategy. And in any numbers you see here, we are assuming $220 million a year in shareholder distribution every year. Whether we look at it for a 5-year outlook or a 10-year outlook, it will remain unchanged over that period.
And then obviously, the balance sheet, we always want to keep a conservative leverage on the balance sheet. And today, we are actually in a net cash position. And depending on which scenario we look at here, you'll actually see that we are really on the fringes now of funding this entire growth we have ahead of us, self-funding it without relying on -- drawing on in debt. Obviously, depending on what commodity prices we assume, but there is a real avenue here now for us to actually be able to execute on this growth without drawing or too heavily on debt facilities.
And I think, obviously, for you guys to navigate through our financial projections, I think it's important that we remain crystal clear here on what is included and what is not included in our projections. Obviously, the three LOMs that you saw Juan Andres and Eduardo go through is the backbone of our projections. And then on the corporate side, we are including, as I said, the shareholder distribution. We are also including certain contingent payments that remain to be paid by Boliden in relation to our sale of our European assets. So far, we have banked $5 million on contingent payment from Boliden, but we are projecting more payments this year the deal is that as long as zinc is over $1.30 at Neves, then we get 60% of every increment revenue generated above that and also $4.50 on copper. So today, spot prices are significantly above that. So that's generating extra cash inflow for us. And that deal also remains into all of 2027, whereas on Zinkgruvan, it's a slightly higher zinc price of $1.40 per pound, but even at that threshold, zinc prices spot are higher than that.
So we are assuming some cash inflow from Boliden within our projections. We also have some deferred payments still on Caserones to JX. We acquired the asset from JX. So within our projections, there's still another $130 million worth of deferred payments to make to JX, which is all embedded in our projections.
And then the Candelaria stream, as Juan Andres has explained, we project that to step down first half next year from 68% down to 40%. So that should release more gold ounces net into our cash flow stream, which is also reflected here.
On the project side, you see on the right-hand side of the slide here. Obviously, the Vicuña numbers are as disclosed previously and as Ron just explained. So there have been no changes made there. Saúva Phase 1, you saw the production profile and the $110 million CapEx for Saúva, including the extra ball mill for higher recoveries. That is included in our profile. But Phase 2, which was outlined by Tim and Eduardo is not currently included, so that could be further upside.
On the Caserones side, we are assuming up to 35,000 tonnes of cathode production. You heard the guys presenting a scenario where we potentially can get up to 40,000 tonnes, but we have only included 35,000 tonnes per annum in these projections. And then you have the remaining sort of projects we are currently working on. None of those are currently included in our projections.
And what's also important to understand our projections is obviously which macro assumptions we are assuming and you see those here. Last year, we started at $4.40, and we were increasing the base case up to $4.50 long-term copper. Obviously, the world has moved on since then. So we are now assuming $5.50 long-term copper and actually keep that flat through all the projection period, whereas on the gold, we start off with $4,000 per ounce and stepping down to $3,700 in the long term.
You'll also see on the right-hand side, the FX assumptions. And what we are assuming here is that the Chilean pesos will be somewhat correlated to the strength of the copper price. So the higher the copper price is stronger the Chilean pesos and vice versa. So that's what we are assuming in our projections. And then the Brazilian real, which is less impactful on the overall consolidated numbers that we have. But nevertheless, you see which FX rates we are assuming on that front.
And if we start just on the near term here with our 2026 financial projections, we have already reported Q1 numbers. So those are in the back of this slide deck as well. But you can see the full year numbers here where we are reiterating this morning the copper and gold full year guidance is there's no changes there. So 323,000 tonnes copper is the midpoint of the guidance for the full year. And we did 80,000 tonnes in Q1. So that's smack in the middle of the projected guidance around about 25% of annual guidance we achieved in Q1.
And that's then generating at $5.50 copper price for the full year, $4.5 billion in revenue. And the correct EBITDA, that you see here is $4.3 billion, on like in the press release this morning where there was a clerical error in the guidance we initially gave in the press release. But $2.3 billion EBITDA is the correct number. And if you look at what we did in Q1, we did $625 million, so around about 27% achieved in Q1. So we are again tracking to full year guidance on that.
And then we guide to free cash flow from operations adjusted. So this ignores working capital movement of -- sorry, $1.2 billion for the full year and we did $335 million in Q1 alone.
And then on sustaining CapEx, we are guiding $550 million. There is no change on that. That was the original guidance we had in the beginning of the year. But we have increased the expansionary CapEx at today's CMD by $35 million to reflect the extra ball mill at Chapada that Eduardo took you through. So we are now guiding $480 million in expansionary CapEx this year. Obviously, the majority of that number is still made up of by the Vicuña spend, $395 million net to us. There are some Candelaria expansionary CapEx in here as well. And then, as I said, $35 million for the CPU plant at Chapada.
So that leaves us to project an adjusted free cash flow for the full year of $700 million. And you see the sensitivities on the right there, plus or minus $1 change in copper price would release between -- well, around about $400 million extra free cash flow for the group.
And in terms of net cash or debt impact, it's slightly lower, $1 movement in price would translate into $320 million to $330 million movement in net debt given that some of the free cash flow we generate is being paid out to our non-controlling interest at Candelaria and Caserones. So we are now projecting to finish the year within a net cash position of $60 million before changes in working capital.
And here, you see the production profile that we are basing our financial projections on. And whether you look near term, medium term or long term, you will have growth across the board. So it doesn't really matter which way you skin this cat, you will conclude that there is growth within the portfolio. Obviously, in the near term, the growth is a bit more moderate, but it's also very low CapEx intensity growth, mainly being the extra cathode at the Caserones in the near term. And then Saúva is now assumed to come on stream in 2029. So that's contributing quite significantly to the medium-term growth. And then obviously, with the blue portion of the bar here, you see Vicuña coming onstream and sort of makes that significant step change that we have in the profile.
And if you look at from 2026 out to 2025, going from 330,000 tonnes per year, up to 500,000 tonnes per year, that will translate to close to a 5% CAGR over this period. So that, I think, is a pretty impressive growth profile that we have in the portfolio.
And on the Vicuña piece, obviously, it's subject to sanctioning happening at the end of this year. But all the star signs are that this will be fully sanctioned. And actually, both companies are, I would say, behaving as if a sanction has happened, and we are allocating significant capital into the project already.
So if we then look at the first 5 years here in terms of how our C1 cost is tracking and therefore, the EBITDA margin and ultimately, on the right here, what the absolute cumulative EBITDA numbers will be. You can see here, if you start on the right that we're projecting now to generate over $13 billion cumulative EBITDA at our base price deck of $5.50, that translates to an average EBITDA over the next 5 years of $2.6 billion. So very, very significant EBITDA generation. And you can also see that it's mainly Candelaria and Caserones that are contributing to the EBITDA generation. Candelaria is projected to do $5.6 billion cumulative over the next 5 years and Caserones is slightly below at $4.5 billion, and then Chapada will be $2.3 billion. And given we project out to 2030, we will have a small sliver of Vicuña also entering the fray here with $1 billion of EBITDA generation, our net 50% share will come into the picture here.
And you can also see on the C1 cost on the left here, how Vicuña impacts the C1 cost, given the significant byproducts both in gold and silver. Actually in the very first year, we are projecting that Vicuña will have a negative $2.5 C1 cost given the significant gold and silver that we have. So that's pulling down the average for the group from around about -- we'll sit at around about $2 C1 cost over the next 4 years or 3 years. And then with Saúva coming in, we're dropping down to $1.5 roughly. And then when Vicuña comes in, in 2030, we're around about $0.75 C1 costs for the group on a consolidated basis. And that's obviously what's helping to elevate our EBITDA margins over this period.
And if we then hone in a little bit more on the input costs that the company is incurring to generate the production that we have. This is the input split -- input cost split for 2026. And you can see in the pie chart here on the top, this is making out around about, I think 67% or 66% of the total input cost that we have. And a big chunk of that is relating to the labor cost. We have around about 4,000 employees. So that's roughly 1/3 of the total labor force that we have. And the majority of that is obviously sitting with the contractors that we have with each of the three mine sites.
And it's important, therefore, that labor productivity is always looked at very closely because it is a big input factor. In Chile, we obviously have the unions cycle of negotiations. And we just went through that in Candelaria. So we have embedded a new 3-year union agreement there. So there shouldn't be any renegotiation on that over the next 3 years. And at Caserones, that labor negotiation process is commencing in early 2027. So we're going to go through that cycle as well.
And it's important to say when we look at all the projection numbers here that we are presenting everything in real 2026 terms. So we are not assuming any inflation either on copper prices, gold prices or on the input cost. But what we are assuming in our long-term projection is one extra cycle of labor negotiation for the Candelaria and Caserones. So given this every 3 year, we will have three cycles of those over the next 10 years, but we're only assuming one uplift in union bonuses over those negotiation processes simply because we present everything in real terms.
And what you see on the right-hand side here is obviously very topical these days is fuel and energy and in particular, the diesel costs. And you can see out of the total input cost here, it's not that significant for us. We're consuming around about 180 million liters of diesel per year across the three sites. And that's amounting to around about 7% of the input costs. Actually, electricity cost is the higher proportion of that. And on the electricity front, we have PPAs, as Jack said in the beginning, all the renewable power generation. And we have a PPA locked in around producing the electrons that we need. And particularly at Chapada, we have a very competitive price of less than $40 per megawatt hour, whereas in Chile, we have 55% at Candelaria and 73 -- sorry, $55 per megawatt hour at Candelaria and $73 per megawatt hour at Caserones. So relatively competitive PPA contracts, I would say that we have locked in.
But what is a bit of a headwind in Chile is that even though we have PPAs, the electrons are still transported through the public grid. And the grid fees in Chile are relatively high. They vary a bit, but between $30 and $40 per megawatt hour is the grid fee. So our all-in costs are around about $90 to $110 per megawatt hour in Chile, whereas in Brazil, they're below $40 a megawatt hour, so very competitive.
Our C1 guidance for the full year remains unchanged at $1.90 to $2.10. We have reduced, as you saw earlier, the Chapada C1 cost by $0.25. But on a consolidated basis, given the weighting that Chapada has in our consolidation, we have decided not to change the fully consolidated range, $1.90 to $2.10. And you also see at the bottom here, the sensitivities on both diesel price, inputs and also the FX rates that we have. And here it's important also to highlight that we have locked in for this year, both some Brazilian real and some Chilean pesos hedges. So any appreciation in the Chilean pesos below CLP 900 to the dollar, our hedges will be in the money and therefore, we will somewhat mitigate what otherwise will push up our U.S. dollar-based C1 cost as we report them.
So if we then move on and look at then the free cash flow generation still only for the next 5 years. We project adjusted operating cash flow of -- at our base case of $10.5 billion. And again, here, Candelaria is contributing $4.1 billion and Caserones -- even though Caserones has a lower EBITDA number, it has a higher free cash or operating cash flow number of $4.3 billion given that we have significant tax losses at Caserones, whereas we don't have any tax losses at Candelaria. So on our projection, we are assuming that Caserones tax losses will remain available until the end of 2031 when we have fully -- we currently have close to $4 billion of tax losses at Caserones. And as I said, over the next 5 years, we are depleting that tax loss base down to 0, which means that we'll only be paying the mining royalty tax in Chile and no corporation tax.
Chapada is doing $2 billion of operating cash flow and Vicuña here is $600 million for the 5 years, obviously all coming at the end of 2030 when we Vicuña starts off. In Vicuña, we are assuming 100% equity funding, which means that we are paying what 0.5% equity tax every year as we put more and more money into Vicuña to fund the CapEx I think we will optimize that funding structure when we sanction the project, but to be conservative, we have assumed 100% equity funding throughout the project period here of 10 years, which means, therefore, that there's a lower tax loss position at Vicuña when you start off because you haven't had any interest adoption, plus you're paying the 0.5% tax on the equity that you put into Vicuña.
And when we net out the sustaining CapEx, we are now projecting $8.1 billion of adjusted free cash flow from our operations compared to $4.9 billion that we had at last year's CMD, albeit at a lower commodity price deck than we currently show.
But as I said in the beginning, we wanted to stretch our projections more than just for the next 5 years. And now we are showing you a scenario here where we are projecting over the next 10 years, and we call this a decade of two halves. I mean we have the World Cup going on now, and we all know in various sports events, you can have games of two halves where the first half is terrible and then the team turns it around and has knock it out of the park in the second half. However, our portfolio is also two halves, but it has an exceptional performance even in the first half and an even better performance in the second half.
With the Vicuña coming on stream in 2030, you can see the uplift here in EBITDA, 70% for the following 5 years and even more so in free cash flow from operations close to 90%, given that we will have some tax losses again, at Vicuña, when you start up because you have obviously been through the development phase. So therefore, you build up a significant tax loss position at Vicuña as start-up. So out of the $15.5 billion in free cash flow from operations as we project from '31 to '35, Vicuña accounts for roughly half of that cash generation, 51%.
So extremely cash generative portfolio. And obviously, even though when you look at the average step-up in copper production, it's around about 30% in the second half of the decade versus the first half. What makes the free cash flow numbers go up this much is obviously with the gold and silver component that's coming through in the portfolio. And combined with that, you actually have a declining expansionary CapEx profile of $4.9 billion in the first 5 years, falling to $3.9 billion in the second 5 years.
And then that then gives you the full picture of what the company will look like over the next 10 years. And again, we've tried to split this up into the first 5 years versus the second 5 years. And if we take this from left to right, as I said earlier, the free cash flow from operation, which is after the sustaining CapEx that we incur we are modeling here for the next 5 years, $8.1 billion. And with a higher copper price of $6.50, we will be close to $10 billion in free cash flow at a lower copper price of $4.50, we will be at $6.5 billion.
The next bar you have here is distribution to shareholders. As I said, $220 million. So over 5 years, that's $1.1 billion of return capital to shareholders in addition to around about $1.4 billion returned to JX and Sumitomo as the minority shareholders in Caserones and Candelaria respectively.
Before Vicuna CapEx, we have some incremental expansionary CapEx. This mainly relates to Sa�va Phase 1 and also the EIA 2040 program at Candelaria in addition to some pre-stripping for future phases at Candelaria, around about $600 million for the next 5 years.
And then we also have some leases and deferred obligations, notably the $130 million payment to Caserones that we have to make over the next few years up to 2029. In addition to the $250 million fee we paid to JX earlier this year when we acquired an incremental 5% stake in Caserones plus 31% in Los Helados. So pre-Vicuna CapEx over the next 5 years, we are generating over $4 billion in free cash flow for the group.
We started 2026 with around about $60 million in net cash. So when you then deduct the Vicuna CapEx, which is Stage 1, obviously, $7.1 billion, we pay 50% of that. But there's also Stage 2 capital spend in these numbers. So all in, it's $4.9 billion net our share over the next 5 years. That then leaves the company with a net debt position of $700 million at the end of 2030. And then the fund begins with Vicuna ramping up. And you can see then in the subsequent 5 years, we are projecting $15.5 billion in free cash flow from operation.
And as I said earlier, Vicuna is obviously the main contributor to that, over 50%. And at the high and low end of the price deck we have here, we could get over $17 billion or down to $13.5 billion. And we will continue to pay the shareholder distribution, as I said, another $1.1 billion for the next 5 years from 2031 to 2035, plus we will pay around about $1.3 billion of dividends to our noncontrolling interest with Sumitomo and JX from Candelaria and Caserones.
And then we have obviously continued expansionary CapEx, mainly again on Vicu�a, Stage 2 and Stage 3 are in full flow during this period. So $3.9 billion of additional CapEx going to Vicu�a here, plus some very minor expansionary CapEx still being spent on Candelaria.
So all in, that then leaves the company in a net cash position of $8.2 billion at the end of 2035. Or if you take the high end of the price deck, $6.50 copper right back to 2026 through the next 5 years -- the next 10 years, we will have accumulated net cash of over $11.6 billion at the end of 2035 or $4.5 billion net cash in the lower price deck.
So whichever price scenario you're on here, you can see the company remains very cash generative. And what is amazing to think is when you look at 2035 and the 500,000 tonnes copper production we have at that point, we still have a resource to production ratio of 40 years. So we could stay at 500,000 tonnes per year for the next 40 years at 2035 as we look forward with the remaining resources we have into producing assets plus our 31% in Los Helados. So a very solid outlook for the company.
And I talked about funding capacity. As you saw in the previous slide, we will barely tap into our revolving credit facility to fund this growth. But nevertheless, we have entered into a new credit facility with 17 international banks. Today, we have locked in credit lines of $2.25 billion. And we are going through a gap analysis on the ESG front in Vicu�a. And once that report is executed and delivered, then we will automatically step up to $3.5 billion in commitments from the banks. And once Vicu�a Stage 1 is sanctioned, which is planned to happen as early as the end of this year, then the banks will release the last $1 billion of liquidity. So we will have full access to $4.5 billion upon sanctioning Vicu�a.
So plenty of firepower in here. We took out the RCF really to mitigate against any downturn in commodity prices. You will see here even at the low price deck of $4.50, our leverage will actually peak at 1.2x attributable net debt to attributable EBITDA. So we will -- even at the low price deck, we have plenty of headroom. And actually, when we took out the RCF, we always wanted to plan for a rainy day with copper prices being even lower than $4.50 in the long term.
So we're in a great position to execute on our business plan and actually to do more if the right opportunity comes along. And just a housekeeping slide here on the shareholder distribution policy. You'll be aware that we have a blend of dividends and share buybacks. So to date, this year, we have acquired $62 million worth of shares bought back. So in total, 2.25 million shares at an average USD price per share of $27 per share roughly. And then we are doing our quarterly dividends, which are amounting to CAD 0.11 per share per year.
And our commitment is still to distribute $220 million, and we will remain opportunistic around how we do our share buybacks. And in the event that we don't fully utilize what we currently allocate to share buyback of $150 million, any shortfall of the $150 million, we will pay out as a special dividend so that the shareholders have always been made whole in that they will receive $220 million with a blend of share buybacks and dividends. And our next dividend payout is happening on the 25th of June.
So with that, just to wrap up on the financial outlook side, as you hopefully have gathered from the slides I've shown here today is that the company is in a fantastic position to embark on this growth profile ahead of us. We're entering this growth profile with having met guidance 3 years in a row. The operations are running smooth, and we have a net cash position on our balance sheet. And depending on copper price outlook, we could potentially fund the impressive growth we have ahead of us without actually tapping into the RCF or even if we do, it will be only marginal draws on the RCF to execute on this program.
So there's potential to do more growth or more M&A or potentially increase shareholder returns over time. So with that, I'll hand back to Jack.
Thank you, Teitur. Thank you, team, for the great presentation. So I'll wrap up the Capital Markets Day in the following few slides here, and then we'll open up for some Q&A. But as Teitur kind of elegantly walked us through the profile of Lundin Mining and really the future projections of our organization, what you can see here is we've got growing production, continued significant revenue and really a strong underlying business that underpins the ability to grow at a significant pace and at a remarkable scale.
So you're seeing kind of a summary of what Teitur was saying in terms of revenue and average production. If you look at 2021 to 2025, our average annual copper production was 306,000 tonnes per year. So you're seeing over the next 5 years, going up to 340,000 tonnes and then really that step change going up to 445,000 tonnes. And beyond that, as Teitur was saying, once we get into the next 10 years, we'll be able to sustain slightly over 500,000 tonnes of annual copper production, which firmly puts us into a top 10 copper producer.
And also, it's very important to state that we're chasing that scale. We have that growth ambition, but we're doing so in a disciplined manner where our EBITDA margins as well are going to be growing. So we're doing this both on a per share basis and in a value-accretive way for the company, not just for the sake of growth itself. When you look at revenue, very impressive revenue growth. We did from 2021 to 2025, USD 18.3 billion in revenue generation. So we'll be scaling up now to $24 billion over the next 5 years and then close to $36 billion from 2031 to 2035.
Now if we look here at the illustrative EBITDA and cash flow after capital expenditure requirements. So Teitur walked us through these details, but I think, again, important to highlight 70% growth in cumulative EBITDA from the 5- to 10-year outlook and 90% growth in cumulative adjusted free cash flow from operations. This is going to drive excessive cash generation, gives us the flexibility to continue looking at opportunities to grow our business, to look at potentially scaling up with shareholder distributions and continue to be in a position of strength as we go into that next level of ranking in the copper sector.
Again, this is growing from the last 5 years of $8.3 billion in adjusted EBITDA and the last 5 years from 2021 to 2025 of $3.1 billion in adjusted free cash flow from operations. So continued sustainable growth going into the next decade and very exciting for position for Lundin Mining, very exciting for us to be the company that we are today with this trajectory.
So as a takeaway here, as we look to wrap up, I think it's very clear, we've been demonstrating that this is an organization poised for growth. We're underlining our business by strong operational performance, always focused on ensuring that our existing operations are performing to the best of their ability. They're now at a level of maturity where we've tasked our great managing directors that are here today with looking to grow the business in the near term, and we've identified some very exciting opportunities that we're going to be aggressively pursuing over the short term here.
We're going to continue to find near-term catalysts at our existing operations with Vicu�a and other opportunities in the Vicu�a district like Los Helados, which we opened up and revealed today to the audience with our partners at NGEx. Financial strength really underlines the business as well. So we've got the flexibility, and we've got the financial representation here to be able to grow our portfolio and really this Vicu�a era. I think Lundin Mining is a history of a series of successful strategic transformative transactions and the Vicu�a era is simply the latest and potentially the largest and greatest one yet.
So with that, thank you to all of you in the audience. Thank you to those online. We'll now open up for Q&A. Thank you.
So if I could ask the presenters to come stand up here, and we'll take turns answering some of these questions that may come.
[Operator Instructions]
And may be we will start over here then.
2. Question Answer
It's Dan Major from UBS. A couple of questions. Maybe first one on Vicu�a. You mentioned you're doing a bottom-up review of the CapEx estimate. Most CapEx numbers go up from a PEA to a definitive feasibility study, but you obviously highlighted the advanced nature of this. Exactly when should we get that CapEx update? Is it around the time of FID? And directionally, where do you see the risks around the $7.1 billion?
Yes. It's -- actually, it's not a bottom -- it's actually a brand-new estimate. We're taking it because that estimate was done as part of the original study. So this is actually a buildup from first principles estimate. And based -- we're well on our way through that. Yes, that will be coming out as part of the FID decision. But we're -- as with a lot of estimates, my experience over time, you start to see pluses and minuses as you keep working through. The key is our team is -- we're working very closely with Fluor to not just sort of sit back and wait until they give us the estimate and then sort of say, okay, no, it's very much an iterative process because we also -- we have a short period of time. Our shareholders, I got over there and his cohort at BHP have really given us a short time to get all that done. But yes, it will be part of the FID.
Okay. Sorry, just to push slightly, there's a balance of positives and negatives, where would you see the skew of the balance and positive negatives on the CapEx at this point?
I look at myself as our team is tightrope walkers right now. We're not leaning one way or the other. We're staying on the tight rope.
Okay. And then just a follow-up question. Yes, you talked a lot about the funding options. What's the position on streaming at the JV level or as the individual shareholders on the Lundin side, how is that discussion as a funding source?
Yes, maybe I can take that. I mean that will be a shareholder decision as opposed to a Vicu�a Corp decision whether we do that. We have looked at various funding options over the last year, 1.5 years together with the treasury team at BHP and as we are looking at it today, I think entering into any streaming arrangements is extremely unlikely. We see that as really being sort of on the border line of being equity cost of capital. So not something that neither Lundin Mining nor BHP really needs to enter into. I think the most likely scenario of funding here will be that respective shareholders will put a blend of equity and shareholder loans into Vicu�a Corp. And then potentially further down the line, there might be some element of project finance or ECA type of structure in place, but it needs to stack up commercially compared to what Lundin Mining and BHP can borrow at parent company level.
Ioannis Masvoulas from Morgan Stanley. A couple of questions from my side. Again, maybe one for Ron. When you look at all the feasibility work that you're doing right now, you said that CapEx is something you're focusing on. But a couple of questions. First, looking past Phase 1, thinking about the oxides because I recall from the site you did a few months ago, the flow sheet was a big focus, whether you're finding ways to potentially simplify the flow sheet there. Maybe an update there on how you're thinking about that?
And then b, when it comes to the infrastructure, you made a couple of comments, but just intrigued to hear your latest view around like roster. Is this less and less likely as you do more work? And then thinking about the broader infrastructure, Candelaria is sitting on a lot of infrastructure around port and desalinated water and pipelines. Is there a prospect where some of that asset base could potentially be folded into the infrastructure vehicle you're considering for the broader district?
I'll start with the last and work back. And yes, that's one of the things we're really looking at. We had a workshop about a week ago with Lundin Mining, BHP and ourselves looking at opportunities to share or expand that infrastructure. So that's definitely part of what's being taken into account. With regards to concentrate treatment, the initial feedback that we received from the regulators and that is a roaster and also on the commercial side, the roaster is it may be our only opportunity. We're still -- we keep it there, but we are looking at other ways to maybe do it. One option may be a combined smelter roaster with partners or something like that. It's definitely something that we realized quickly we needed to step back. But some form of treatment is going to be necessary.
And with regards to Phase 2, Stage 2 -- sorry, Stage 2, we're definitely looking at simplifying the process. And the other part is not only to simplify it because the original process was in the PEA with the on-off and the sequential leach. We all knew that was technically -- it could be technically challenging. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but it could be technically challenging, but we see other opportunities.
And then the other aspect is looking at not just looking at Stage 2 and then looking at Stage 3, but looking at the combined because really, again, you got to remember, the whole thing about the oxides is to get to the sulfides. And we think there were some -- as part of the PEA as our work to get there, there may have been some opportunities overlooked that, again, simplify Stage 2 with a focus to get to the sulfide sooner.
Orest Wowkodaw with Scotiabank.
Just you did such a good job outlining how strong the balance sheet outlook is even in the context of a big project build. I'm curious, I mean, given that your internal cash needs are quite low with the brownfield expansions you got ahead in �Vicu�a, yes, it's big, but you've got cash flow. I'm wondering if there -- you see room to bolt on other assets to grow the portfolio before �Vicu�a is up and running. I mean the company has got a great history of making astute acquisitions of producing assets over time. I'm wondering if you see opportunities out there.
Thanks, Orest. I can take that. Great question, and that's absolutely right. I mean we've got the financial flexibility to do more than what our portfolio shows. But I think hopefully, what we also portrayed is mining is tough, projects are tough. We need to be able to focus our attention on where we believe we can extract the most value. And I think that's with what's already within our portfolio.
That being said, Lundin Mining, Lundin Group Company being opportunistic, seeing what's out there in the sector. If we see something that makes sense that could bolt on to our portfolio, that would be something nice in the interim to complement what we already have, then by all means, we would be interested in looking at that.
So I would say that we stay opportunistic, but by no means do we have to be executing on another transaction. I think the team is very much enjoying this period where we're -- we've got a smaller asset base, albeit each asset is much bigger, but we can focus our attention on where we think we can drive that value. So we'll stay opportunistic.
And just as a quick follow-up, this one again for Ron. Can you remind us what was the diesel assumption in the $7.1 billion CapEx like from a -- just from a stripping earthmoving perspective? And like when you update the study here, I mean, given how volatile diesel pricing is and other input pricing, like can you give us a sense of just what that impact could be as a stand-alone?
Yes. We've looked at it, and we actually just completed sort of the summary memo for where we're going to end up on diesel. I'd have to get back to you Orest. I think one of the things we get a quick sensitivity, I think it was like a $0.10, $0.15 a liter difference is in -- it's in the $10 million type range. So it's again, we're not -- it is an impact. with the greenfield construction like this, concrete, steel, all those other things have a bigger impact and plus the strip ratio is quite low at Jose. So those -- it's not as big as what you saw in Teitur's numbers for the operations as it is an impact on us, but I'll get back to you on that.
Yes. I think -- I mean, we got that question on our Q1 call as well. And I think we looked at it straight answer. I mean, diesel prices have fluctuated a lot. So it depends on what point in time you lock in the diesel price. But I seem to recall we were looking at maybe $100 million plus or minus increase on the total CapEx?
But that was like $0.50 or something [indiscernible] higher diesel price than what we're currently trading at.
Yes. It's Johannes Grunselius, SB1 Markets.
I have one sort of question on your operating track record because it's been really, really good for a couple of years. You also showed us the health and safety KPIs, which are also trending well. You mentioned you have a program there, some kind of FRM program or something like that. But the reason why you're doing great, is that sort of -- is the answer your culture, monitoring systems? Or is it also -- the answer is that you have very sort of easy assets to operate. If you can give some color on that, please?
Yes. Well, I can start and maybe if my colleagues would want to complement or if I'm missing anything, then please chime in. But I think really, it starts with the team being close to the assets, having a cohesive team is key, putting our focus where we believe the attention should be, which is the asset planning cycle, a very robust 12-month rolling period where we constantly are looking from the resource extension that makes its way into the mine plan that makes its way then into the budget and how we present to the Board and get approval on the 1- to 3-year budget.
I mean we're constantly following a very rigorous planning cycle, and we integrate the corporate team, the operations team, and we're always looking together on where we think we can drive value through bringing costs down and driving operational improvements. But fundamentally, I think for Lundin Mining, the success that we've had in the last 3 to 4 years really comes from having a best-in-class team and committed staying relentlessly focused on driving cost down and looking for operational improvements. I don't know, Jens, if I was missing anything there.
Lawson Winder from Bank of America. You did a really interesting job of discussing some of the projects that were excluded from the financial scenario. So Caserones Sulfides Deep, Angelica, Candelaria underground expansion, Los Helados, Sa�va Phase 2, though, Juan Andr�s, you sort of glossed over that. I was wondering if you could give us a little bit more color on what you see with Phase 2 of Sa�va and how big that opportunity might be?
Yes. I can probably support Juan Andres while he's getting the microphone and Eduardo as well. But I think really the focus, Lawson, on us is seeing how we can fast track the development of Phase 1 through really unlocking the ability to increase recoveries through the Chapada ball mill addition of that second ball mill and then also looking at the easier to get to material in Sa�va, which forms Sa�va stage or Phase 1.
So we are very much keen to continue pursuing Phase 2 once we get into Phase 1, but that's a later-stage kind of project opportunity. There's a different execution plan on that permitting time line as well. So still a lot of work to be done, but it very much is something that we are keen to continue pursuing. And with Itamar here and Eduardo's team, we're working on kind of developing a plan there.
Yes. And just to add to that. So we -- as mentioned in the slides, we first -- we're focusing on expanding the capacity of the concentrator plant to increase recoveries. And then we are focusing on capturing the highest grade core in the first 4, 5 years. But as I mentioned, it's only 30 million tonnes out of 250 million tonnes of resource. So there is a very good potential there that we want to capture, and we are actually studying that. It requires -- because it's a larger volume, it requires a more sophisticated material handling system, and we cannot rely on just tracking that material from Sa�va to Chapada. So that's the work where we're performing right now. We're going through a pre-feasibility study for a potential expansion of...
If I can ask a follow-up on the more immediate term, your 2026 guidance, really significant reduction in the CapEx -- sorry, the cash cost guidance for Chapada for '26, 23%. But nevertheless, consolidated guidance was left unchanged. Are you guys just being conservative here? Or are you seeing cost pressures elsewhere in the portfolio that are offsetting that?
No, I don't think we're being conservative. I think we're being pretty realistic. I mean, obviously, with the drop in -- at Chapada, there are 2 things there. One is the gold byproduct is actually pretty significant. And with the higher gold prices now versus what we based our guidance on, that is contributing to the reduction. And also at Chapada, there's been a diesel tax that we historically have paid. But now we have -- there's been a court ruling in Brazil, whereby mining is deemed to be a processing activity.
So any diesel we consume within the periphery of the mining activities, this diesel tax does no longer apply. It does still apply to getting the concentrate from mine site to the port. But within the compound of the mining activity, this diesel tax is not applying. So those 2 factors have contributed towards that. Whereas on the other side, the Candelaria has obviously, with diesel prices being slightly higher and certain other input factors also being slightly higher. When you blend everything together, we felt it was prudent to keep consolidated guidance unchanged.
Matt Murphy with BMO. First one, just on the Los Helados development pathways. How should we think about the -- you've got the sort of maturation of the Caserones pit and this Los Helados opportunity, pretty advanced, but also some very exciting district opportunities. What would you have to see in those district opportunities to prioritize, say, like Cordillera over Los Helados? Or is it just Los Helados is so much more advanced that it likely comes before whatever else you find?
Do you want to talk to the exploration potential, Tim?
Yes. I might just start by saying that, obviously, Cordillera, it's a large target, but has yet to receive one drill hole compared to Los Helados that has 96,000 meters of drilling, 110 drill holes. So they're very, very different stages. And Los Helados is also 2/3 indicated. And so it's quite advanced. We'll have to wait and see what occurs in Cordillera but it's very early to judge and speculate, I think.
Yes. And to complement that, I think, as well, like we're going to continue pursuing these exploration targets that we see. I mean, we're clearly in a very highly prospective region. So we want to continue to look at those exploration opportunities now with Los Helados being so far advanced, that kind of comes into an opportunity that we need to pursue. So we'll pursue all of those opportunities in parallel, and then we'll stack them up based on what we think we could drive the most value in the near term.
Okay. And then just one on the Vicu�a sanctioning decision. Ron, on your slide, the provincial agreements, can you go through what's required there?
One we're focusing on right now is it's called the DIA Trust, and this was a part of the environmental approvals. And what this agreement would be something very similar like what we did in Ecuador we've done before, which is a prepayment and then we would pay 1.5% of sales. We get a 5-year holiday on that. That's part of -- the DIA has this requirement for us to be putting some money in for infrastructure, et cetera, like that. That's a small part of it.
The key part of that agreement, royalty stability for life of mine at 3%. That's the key that's part of that agreement. That's step one. Then we're also focusing then on a second agreement, get the first one through Congress. The second will be on infrastructure that we need for the project, and we would get some royalty offsets because that infrastructure benefits not only Vicu�a, but the whole province. So there's kind of 2 agreements. The DIA is the one we're really focusing on right now, and we want to be -- have the other one essentially ready to be signed, but it probably won't be signed until sanction.
[indiscernible] from Berenberg.
A couple of questions. The first one, just on the operations broadly. Despite excluding the cost pressures, just generally over the last few months, is there any availability issues that you're seeing across Chile or Brazil? That's the first...
You mean availability of...
Sulfuric acid, consumables regions?
No. Actually, we have taken some provisions on fuel availability. We contracted 8,000 cubic meters of fuel storage that we're using to smooth out our supply. So we have that insurance, if you want to call it that way. And in the case of sulfuric acid, our annual consumption is 40,000 tonnes per year, so not that significant. And we have long-term contracts with our supplier, and we haven't seen any interruption of our supplies.
And the second one would be just on Vicu�a again, just on the long-term revenue profile. Just back on the envelope calculation, it looks like given the 85% copper revenue split in 2025, it looks like long term, that's probably coming down, just given the gold and silver credit at Vicu�a. Does that mean assuming streaming is extremely unlikely at this point that you're comfortable with that and precious metals gain high proportion in the portfolio long term?
Yes, absolutely. I mean we're looking at Vicu�a and all of the minerals that it has contained in the deposit, both at Josemaria and Filo. And I think it's a blessing that you've got such a strong copper asset that has precious metals like gold and silver that will help as byproduct material. So for us, we're a copper-focused company, but with byproducts like gold and silver coming into these assets, I think it again underlines the uniqueness of these types of deposits. So that doesn't kind of hurt our vision at all.
Cody Hayden from Deutsche Bank.
Just on Vicu�a, and you talked about it briefly on project readiness and headcount and resource. Looking at kind of the numbers you present on the slides, a significant uplift in the amount of people. You mentioned briefly you might you encountered some challenges or how should we think about that over the near term? What challenges might you face? How might you overcome that? And do you see there being more concerns just given some of the other greenfield copper projects in the region potentially coming online or being started up in the next few years?
Great question. Yes, it is one of our top risks, but the way to handle that risk is get in front of it. I think the advantage we have as with any Lundin Group project and BHP certainly are supporting this is we're going to be first. We're going to be the first ones out there. We're the first ones that are really hiring. We're -- and we're putting -- we've already bought simulators, and we're putting some of those in local communities to open up opportunities for training in the communities.
We just got to get in front of it. And we experienced that at Fruta del Norte. Nathan and I were together there, and we had to get -- we were way in front of the training program before we actually got into operations. And that's the key. Because the other thing, too, is you want to get start training on trades and things like that. We're working with local universities, technical schools because those are people, you get the training in place, they can help you through construction, but then also you identify the good ones to keep during operations. Look, we realize it's a challenge. It's not only greenfield in there. We're starting to see the whole industry. But one of the advantages we have is we'll be first, and that's going to be a big plus.
Just a couple of follow-ups. The first on the Los Helados opportunity. One of the options is increasing the throughput at the existing mill. So question here is what sort of increase you are considering? Are we looking at a small incremental throughput increase or something more substantial? And is it just on the concentrator side or also on the cathode side?
Yes. Thanks for the question. We are keeping that open by now, but we're -- we look into the real estate of Caserones, and we will need to do some modifications, but we're thinking like at least one more line production -- one more production line. So like 100,000 tonnes per day. But we don't want to limit our options only to that. Marcelo also has projects to debottleneck the current capacity of the plant. So maybe we explore that with lower capital intensity. So yes, we're going to keep the options open, but I think the maximum for the real estate is another line, 100,000 tonnes per day.
That's very clear. And just a second question on copper price expectations and forecast. We've seen the whole industry moving up along with the spot copper price. And if I look at the PEA in February, you used $4.60 as a sort of central case. And today, everything was around $5.50, so a 20% increase in 4 months. So question here is, when you look at all these growth options within the portfolio outside Vicu�a, is $5.50 the level you use to evaluate IRRs and whether projects could meet the right hurdles?
Do you want to start?
Yes. No, I mean, we are an agile, nimble company. So we're not going to lock ourselves in on a copper price and a IRR number that come hell or high water, that's what it needs to be, like we are much more flexible than that. We will build up a matrix of copper prices, gold prices, discount rates, technical profiles and you essentially build up a matrix of NPV and IRR and you take a decision on that basis as to whether you want to go ahead or not.
So but fundamentally, we I think we stay conservative. I mean, our budget this year was built on $4.50. And when we look at M&A and so on, we're obviously not disclosing which price decks we're running that on, but I think you can rest assured that we are not going to push the copper price to be able to sanction an M&A or some brownfield investment. So we will remain disciplined on that.
Just a follow-up as well, please. Orest Wowkodaw from Scotiabank. Teitur, the financial forecast out to 2035, when you went through what's included, what's excluded, I didn't see a box there for the infrastructure CapEx. It wasn't listed as included or excluded. Is that excluded?
Well, it is as presented in the PEA. And what we assumed in the PEA was that it's not part of the CapEx, but it is part of the OpEx. So we reverse engineered that and we had our internal CapEx number for the infrastructure. And the way we went about it to say, okay, if a third-party owned this infrastructure, they are seeking xIRR on that infrastructure. Therefore, our tariff needs to be a certain profile to meet that IRR profile that the infrastructure owner owns.
So again, commercially sensitive numbers, but we're not disclosing what they are, but I think we've been reasonable again in what the typical infrastructure rate of return will be, and we have applied that to the CapEx numbers that we have built up.
Okay. And then just a follow-up to the overall picture on infrastructure. Just is there any sort of time line we should think about when some decisions will be made with respect in terms of tying in some of the Lundin Mining infrastructure into Vicu�a? And is that still years away? Or is that something that could come sooner in terms of getting a better picture?
I wouldn't say that, that's years away, but definitely something into later part of 2027, I would say that we would probably have an update there. So we're using this opportunity now while we're really focused on sanctioning Stage 1 and getting everything ready from a project readiness and operations readiness standpoint there to really look at the Filo project and what that's going to require in terms of logistics and transport and then looking at Caserones and Candelaria and now with potential of Los Helados and adding all of that in. So there's a lot of work that is being done right now. It's definitely not sitting idle. But I would say towards the end of next year, we'll probably have a more fulsome update for the market on that, Orest.
Shane Nagle from National Bank. Just a couple of questions that we've seen like the Governor of La Rioja come out with some opposition. We've seen -- I think there's some discrepancy on the power draw within San Juan. You obviously have very strong federal support for this project. Can you just comment on the materiality of some of these risks to your development time line?
Yes. La Rioja first. Yes, there is one part of the road to site that goes through that province, and they've been sticking their hand up and raising a challenge now going back to Josemaria days. The interesting part, though, that ended this whole thing was community protests. We had nothing to do with it. The community themselves went out and protested the government for shutting this down because they want their jobs, they want to be able to work at Vicu�a. And that was a real eye-opening thing. And I think it shows the work that this team has done for the last several years in building up that community support.
So now we're working with the government. I think they realize and we're focusing on building that bypass and working with increasing our opportunities for training. We had several workshops that were all planned for towns in La Rioja. And when they put that out, we shut them all down. So it's just part of building a project.
And on the power side, yes, there was a hearing that was held last week now on -- by the national regulator. And we and the provincial and some of the stakeholders, the communities that have agreed that, look, let's see what the issue is. Let's have some discussions about how we can overcome this, but [indiscernible] is still very supportive of our application and what we -- what that was 3 years in the making. So there's a lot of work that's been done on that. But we're seeing what we can do and listening to the -- in particular, communities.
[indiscernible] we could have a scenario that NGEx might be in production before Filo starts production. How would that change? The scenario?
Well, I think as you've seen through the Vicu�a District video that we showed in the fly over, there's a number of deposits that are all being pursued in parallel. But for us, with Lundin Mining, with Vicu�a Corp and what we have in our portfolio requires a lot of attention and focus. And I think NGEx, they have their business strategy very clearly laid out. They're maturing an asset that is still very much in early stages in Lunahuasi. And so they're going to continue to drill that deposit out. And of course, they've applied, I believe, for a RIGI application, but the base RIGI and still a bit of work to be done.
So there may be an opportunity down the road to look at some more consolidation in the district in the future. But right now, we're very much fully focused on what we have in our portfolio.
Richard Garchitorena from Barclays.
One bigger picture question on free cash flow. You show 5-year, 10-year, very stronger free cash flow. I know you have obviously a couple more stages beyond Stage 1. But in terms of the $220 million capital allocation that you've sort of earmarked, I mean, is that a starting point? Can you look at increasing that over time? And how would you allocate versus share dividends, share repurchases versus dividend increases and special dividends such a thing.
I can start and then, Teitur, if you want to complement. But what we wanted to do was ensure that we came out with a shareholder distribution framework that could fit in our long-term projections. So as Teitur was talking about, when we look at projects and do we stick on a copper price, absolutely not. We look at flexing the model. We use price sensitivities, various inputs to see what are we comfortable with going forward.
And during this growth period, it was determined that, that absolute return of around $220 million through reducing our dividends and implementing a stronger buyback protocol, that was what we wanted to do.
Now of course, we're going to have a lot more flexibility given the commodity price environment that we're in, given the performance of our existing operations.So I think we've got a minimum shareholder distribution framework that has been established, and we do have the flexibility to look at that. But that fits into all of our scenario planning for capital allocation. But what I think is a key takeaway is that shareholders can rest assured that we can maintain that as our minimum distribution policy.
Follow-up from Dan at UBS. Just on the infrastructure discussion. I mean it sounds like you're confident on other parts of the construction sort of piece. But how advanced are you in discussions with third parties around the infrastructure? Would the infrastructure be constructed by the joint venture and then kind of farmed out? Or would it be built by somebody else? And then the third question, is there actually any examples in the industry of a roaster or a smelter being acquired by an infrastructure fund?
The answer to the last one, no, we're not an infrastructure fund, but you could look at a smelting company or something like that rather than looking at a traditional infrastructure fund. In terms of how it's built in that, that's still all early stages. We're still looking at different opportunities. I think we're very early stages.
Exactly. We're in early stages, as Ron was saying, we've had a workshop to kind of scenario plan all of the options that exist, and there are many. And so we're working towards what is the best viable option and embedded within that is the commercial strategy as well. So it's too early for us to come out and say what that is, but we're maturing that with the team with Vicu�a and with our partners at BHP.
Okay. And so just to follow up on you saying it could be a smelting company. I mean the cost of capital for a smelting company, I suspect is not as low as a water or electricity solution. Is that something you've also factored into your return assumptions that are embedded in the cost estimates?
Not at this point. We took an approach of just taking that sort of infrastructure for the PEA level.
Well, I think that -- sorry, maybe one last question.
I think it's probably for Juan Andres. I think it's really neat that you have your mine managers here, and they must be really proud of that safety record and running reliable operations. Can you give us a bit of color like 1 or 2 things that each of your mine managers does very well and that you're going to sell Ron, you need to take these best practices from them and make sure they get implemented at Vicu�a?
Great question. Thank you, Frank. Well, they're all exceptional, exceptional leaders. And I think they do a lot of things extremely well. The presence at the site. They spend most of the time at the site with their teams working on safety, cost control, full potential initiatives, meeting with the communities. They are our face in front of the communities, meeting with the regulators on a regular basis.
But the focus on discipline, on operational discipline is one. We have established several routine and processes to make sure that we are continually monitoring the progress on a daily basis, weekly basis, monthly basis, quarterly basis, producing reliable data that can be analyzed that we can look at the information and do protection from there and take action on the deviations that we're seeing.
So I think very strong technical leadership presence at the site being the face of the company out in the community and leading with the example on safety, cost control and discipline in general.
I think to add to that, Andres, is the experience at Caserones is working at Altitude as well. That we're learning a lot. They're learning a lot there. We'll certainly be able to take some of their learnings there too, Vicu�a.
And lastly, maybe a healthy competition on driving what are the best full potential initiatives and how can you share those experiences and then look to even get better from one site to the next. So I think sharing ideas and being a cohesive unit is definitely something that we have in our organization, which drives a lot of value.
Great. With all the good questions that came in here, we've covered everything that's online. So maybe I'll just hand it back to you, Jack, for one final closing remark, and we'll close out for the day.
Okay. Before I do that, I'm going to hand it back to you just so you can go through the plan for this evening. After the -- okay. apologies. Well, for those online, I just want to thank you again on behalf of Lundin Mining for sitting through another Capital Markets Day. We're very excited about the future of Lundin Mining. And hopefully, you've got all the necessary information from this presentation, but we look forward to following up with all of our current shareholders, the analysts that are here, our prospective shareholders, and the future couldn't be brighter for Lundin Mining, and we're going to continue to pursue all of these options and initiatives with a relentless focus on continuing to drive best-in-class safety, best-in-class full potential opportunities and pursue that growth.
And year-over-year, I think you'll see that the business will continue to transform for the better. So thank you, everybody, again for being here.
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Lundin Mining — Analyst/Investor Day - Lundin Mining Corporation
Lundin Mining — Analyst/Investor Day - Lundin Mining Corporation
Lundin Mining präsentierte auf dem Capital Markets Day ein 10‑Jahres‑Wachstumsprofil mit Vicuña als Kern‑Catalyst und starker Near‑Term‑Cash‑Generierung.
🎯 Kernbotschaft
- Strategie: Konzentration auf hochwertige Kupferprojekte (Vicuña‑District) und organische Brownfield‑Wachstumsoptionen.
- Finanzstärke: Net-Cash‑Position in 2026 (rund $60m vor WC), Revolving Credit Facility (RCF) bis $4.5bn bei Sanction.
- Ziel: Ausbau auf ~500kt Cu/Jahr langfristig; Vicuña als Haupttreiber für Margen und Free Cash Flow.
🚀 Strategische Highlights
- Vicuña: 50% JV mit BHP; PEA: sehr grosses Metallinventar (u.a. 47 Mt Cu, 96 Moz Au, 1.8 Goz Ag) und Stage‑1 CapEx PEA $7.1bn; RIGI‑Antrag genehmigt.
- Near‑term Projekte: Saúva (Chapada) CapEx $110m, Ball‑Mill $70m (dieses Jahr $35m), Produktion ab Q1‑2029; Caserones Cathode Upside (35k–40k t).
- Operatives Setup: „Full Potential“ Programm reduziert C1‑Kosten (Beispiele: Chapada von $11.8→$10.6/t Mill; Chapada C1‑Guidance nun $0.75–$0.95/lb).
🆕 Neue Informationen
- 10‑Jahres‑Projektion: Management zeigt nun 10‑Jahres Finanz‑Prognose: 2026–30 starkes EBITDA/FCF, 2030+ Vicuña‑Step‑Up; projektiertes adjustiertes FCF 2026 ~ $700m (inkl. Expansionary CapEx).
- Los Helados: Zukauf 31% (Chile) erhöht District‑Footprint; indikierte Ressource (angegeben) substantiell; drei Entwicklungsoptionen: Extension→Expansion→Stand‑alone.
- Finanzrahmen: Verbindliche Ausschüttungspolitik $220m/Jahr (Dividenden+Buybacks) bleibt Mindestziel.
❓ Fragen der Analysten
- Vicuña‑CapEx: Management arbeitet an einer neuen Bottom‑up‑Schätzung; Update mit FID erwartet; Antwort blieb bewusst neutral („tightrope‑walk“), Risiko eines Re‑Rangings von Kosten bleibt.
- Finanzierung: Streaming unwahrscheinlich; wahrscheinlich Equity/Shareholder‑Loans + ggf. Projektfinanzierung/ECA; RCF von Banken schrittweise auf $4.5bn bei Sanction.
- Risiken & Umsetzung: Permitting/Provincial‑Agreements (DIA/royalty stability), Infrastruktur (Power/Desalination/Concentrate treatment) und Arbeitskräfte/Training wurden als Hauptausführungsrisiken genannt.
⚡ Bottom Line
- Fazit: Lundin Mining verkauft ein glaubwürdiges, kapitaldiszipliniertes Wachstumsszenario: starke operative Performance und Near‑Term‑CFs finanzieren Brownfield‑Upside, Vicuña ist der entscheidende Multi‑bn‑$‑Catalyst mit verbleibenden CapEx‑ und Ausführungsrisiken, die Anleger überwachen sollten.
Lundin Mining — Q1 2026 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Lundin Mining's First Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your speaker for today, Jack Lundin, President and CEO. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and welcome to Lundin Mining's Q1 2026 Financial Results. Last night, we reported our financial and operating results for the first quarter. We appreciate your continued interest as we review our performance and key developments from the period.
The presentation is available on our website where a replay is also available. All figures presented are in U.S. dollars from continuing operations, unless otherwise noted. Before starting our call, I ask everyone to read the cautionary statements on this page. Be aware that some of today's remarks will contain forward-looking information and are subject to risks and uncertainties. For more details, please refer to the cautionary statements on Slide 2 and our most recent filings on SEDAR.
Thank you for your attention as we continue. Joining me today on the call will be Juan Andres Morel, our Chief Operating Officer; and Teitur Poulsen, our Chief Financial Officer. I am pleased to report that we had a solid start to the 2026 calendar year as reported in these first quarter results.
Operationally, we produced approximately 79,900 tonnes of copper and 31,500 ounces of gold at a consolidated C1 cash cost of $1.66 per pound, keeping us on track with our annual guidance.
Our operations generated over $1.1 billion in revenue, $627 million in adjusted EBITDA and $380 million in free cash flow from operations for the quarter, demonstrating consistency and stability from our asset base.
These results strengthened our net cash position. and at the end of the quarter, we had approximately $250 million in cash, net of debt and excluding lease liabilities. There were a number of corporate events from the quarter with the key highlights being presented on this slide. A significant milestone as most on the call would be familiar with, was the results and subsequent filing of the integrated technical study on the Vicuña project, highlighting a Tier 1 asset capable of producing over 500,000 tonnes of copper and 800,000 ounces of gold at a first quartile C1 cash cost.
In March, we hosted a visit with a group of analysts and investors touring both the Vicuña project and the Caserones operation. The visit highlighted the exceptional potential of the district anchored by the stable high-margin Caserones asset and complemented by the significant long-term growth opportunity across the broader Vicuña district with the Josemaria and Filo del Sol deposits.
During the visit, we announced the acquisition of an additional 5% interest in Caserones, along with a 31% interest in the adjacent Los Helados project from our partners at JX Advanced Metals. We now have 75% interest in the Caserones mine.
We see considerable synergies and future strategic optionality at Los Helados , and we'll continue to evaluate the project and provide updates to the market throughout the year. I will speak to the regional developments towards the end of this presentation. Year-over-year, on an attributable basis, we increased the company's copper mineral resources by approximately 115% to over 39 million tonnes.
This includes the 31% interest of the Los Helados project. As we rapidly progress our growth opportunities within our portfolio, we have high conviction in converting these resources into reserves in line with our strategy to feed a pipeline of growth opportunities.
A significant driver of this considerable increase was the initial resource estimate generated last year at Vicuña, which incorporated the Filo del Sol deposit and highlighted what is now recognized as the largest copper discovery in the last 30 years. The Vicuña project contains 46 million tonnes of copper, 97 million ounces of gold and 1.8 billion ounces of silver and is continuing to grow through the drill bit.
During the quarter, we finalized the upsizing of our revolving credit facility from $1.75 billion to $4.5 billion, ensuring that we are fully financed for the first stage of the Vicuña project. With our balance sheet in great shape and an expanded credit facility, we are positioned to fund our portion of the project. In line with our shareholder distribution policy, during the quarter, we purchased 1.4 million shares for USD 40 million as part of our share buyback program, along with the declaration of our Q1 dividend.
Since 2017, we have returned over $1.6 billion to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. And finally, we filed our inaugural CSRD report under the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, providing enhanced disclosure and greater rigor around our key environmental, health and safety governance and social commitments, which reinforces our dedication to responsible mining practices. I will now hand the call over to Juan Andres, Chief Operating Officer, to talk about our production results.
Thank you, Jack, and good morning, everyone. We are pleased to report that we had one of the strongest safety performances on record with a TRIF of 0.03 during the quarter, and this coincided with the good operational results from our assets. Copper production for the company was 79,900 tonnes for the quarter, which is in line with guidance. Gold production for the quarter totaled 31,500 ounces. We expect gold grade profiles at Candelaria and Chapada to contribute to a stronger second half of the year for gold production and remain on track to guidance.
At Candelaria, production was 30,800 tonnes of copper and 17,700 ounces of gold. Lower grades from mine sequencing in the first quarter, combined with approximately 3 days of unscheduled downtime to complete preventive maintenance on the mill, which impacted production.
During the downtime, we took advantage of the opportunity and moved up scheduled maintenance that will improve run time hours in the second half of the year. Candelaria will be second half of the year weighted with approximately 55% of the production expected in Q3 and Q4.
Production at Candelaria is tracking to plan and on target to meet guidance for the year. Caserones performed well this quarter and produced 38,600 tonnes of copper. Higher grades from ore sourced from Phase 6 contributed to higher production along with high cathode production. Cathode production continues to be strong from higher irrigation rates, improved irrigation patterns and more material being placed on the dump leach pad. We expect Caserones to be first half of the year weighted and grades to come down in the second half of the year. Caserones is also tracking to guidance for the year. Mill throughput at Chapada was high this quarter from higher mechanical availability and softer ore, which offset lower grades.
During the quarter, Chapada produced 10,600 tonnes of copper and 13,800 ounces of gold. Production will also be slightly weighted to the second half of the year, driven by the grade profile at the mine. I will now turn the call over to Teitur, to provide a summary on financial results.
Thank you, Andres, and good morning, everybody. Financially, we had yet another very strong quarter, driven by consistent operations and higher commodity prices. We generated almost $1.2 billion in revenues. Earlier in the quarter, we finalized the sale of our Eagle mine to Talon Metals, which solidifies our position as predominantly being a pure-play copper company with approximately 85% of our revenue generated from copper and approximately 10% from gold. For the second consecutive quarter, Caserones was our largest revenue contributor, accounting for 44% of total revenue of the company. Moving to the next slide and looking at the volumes sold and realized pricing. During the quarter, we sold 77,700 tonnes of copper at a realized price of $5.70 per pound and 29,900 ounces of gold at $5,120 per ounce.
The LME copper price during the quarter was fairly stable and relatively in line with the LME copper price as of end of 2025. which, therefore, has resulted in the realized price of $5.70 per pound during the first quarter, which includes provisional adjustments from prior period sales, and this being closer to the LME average copper price over the same period.
All shipments scheduled at the end of the first quarter were successfully completed, which has led to our concentrate inventory levels remaining relatively low at the end of the first quarter with around 29,000 tonnes of concentrate inventory. At the end of the first quarter, approximately 67,100 tonnes of copper were provisionally priced at $5.54 per pound and remained open for final pricing adjustments, as did 27,900 ounces of gold at a price of $4,540 per ounce.
A breakdown of our operating costs are summarized on Slide 12. Since the breakout of the war in the Middle East, there has been a heightened focus on input costs for the mining sector. This slide illustrates that the bulk of our costs are split between labor, consumables and energy. When combined, these input costs account for approximately 2/3 of our overall cost structure. Diesel costs accounted for approximately 7% of our total operating costs for the first quarter, with the rise in diesel prices only materializing towards the end of the first quarter and therefore, not being that impactful for the quarter as a whole.
Our current guidance assumes a diesel price based on the New York Harbor Index of around $0.60 per liter. The current New York harbor price is around $1 per liter and when combined with the partial abolishment of the specific diesel tax credit for diesel use in mines in Chile, this increase is forecast to result in an increase in C1 cash cost of approximately $0.08 per copper on a consolidated basis for the year, which means that the company remains on track to meet full year C1 cash cost guidance even if the current diesel prices persist for the rest of the year.
We have proactively increased our physical storage capacity for diesel in Chile for our 2 mines from approximately 1 week worth of consumption to 1 month's worth of consumption. This enhances this enhanced storage capacity allows us to mitigate supply risks and maintain short-term operational continuity should diesel supply restrictions arise in the future. Overall, consolidated production costs have come down from the previous quarter and remained consistent with prior periods, totaling just under $500 million with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 54%.
Last quarter, elevated costs were driven by higher sales volumes. At Candelaria, in the fourth quarter last year, the company finalized early labor agreement renewals, which led to a one-time increase in costs due to signing payments. The first quarter total costs were $202 million compared to previous quarter of $227 million.
At Caserones, costs have come down quarter-over-quarter, reflecting the lower volumes sold. Better cost control and higher byproduct credits and somewhat offset by a stronger Chilean peso have helped improve C1 cash cost to $1.58 per pound, the lowest Caserones has seen since we acquired the asset.
Both Candelaria and Caserones were impacted by unfavorable foreign exchange rates. The Chilean peso strengthened against the U.S. dollar by approximately 5% compared to the previous quarter. At Chapada, costs remained stable and with a higher gold price, the C1 cash cost was $0.45 per pound, remaining in line with last quarter's results. On a consolidated basis, the company's C1 cash cost for the quarter was $1.66 per pound, which is below our current guidance for the year of $1.90 to $2.10 per pound, primarily driven by higher byproduct credits.
Our first quarter key financial metrics are presented on Slide 14. Strong operational results translated into adjusted EBITDA of $627 million and adjusted operating cash flow of $450 million during the quarter. Once again, this was near-record adjusted quarterly EBITDA figure for the company, reflecting continued benefit from higher commodity prices and robust production across our assets.
Continuing with our financial results. Free cash flow from operations was $380 million and adjusted earnings were $265 million, which resulted in an adjusted earnings per share of $0.31 attributable to our shareholders. Sustaining capital expenditure during the period totaled $126 million, while expansionary capital expenditure during the period totaled $54 million, of which $52 million was spent at Vicuña.
The majority of the sustaining CapEx was focused on open pit waste stripping, underground mine development and tailings storage development. Sustaining capital expenditure was slightly lower than expected due to project delays at Caserones and Candelaria.
We anticipate capital spending cadence will increase over the remaining quarters and our full year sustaining CapEx guidance for all assets remains unchanged. We also saw an underspend at Vicuña for the first quarter relating to phasing of expenditure. and as such, our full year guidance for Vicuña spend of $395 million for our 50% interest remains intact.
Slide 17 presents in greater detail the sources and uses of cash in the first quarter. Our continuing operations generated just under $500 million in operating cash flow after having paid cash taxes of $95 million.
After sustaining capital spend of $126 million, the company generated free cash flow from continuing operations of $380 million. The company declared a dividend in Q1 that will be paid out in Q2 and also purchased $40 million in shares as part of its share buyback program.
Dividends to noncontrolling interest in Caserones amounted to $60 million, and the company ended the quarter with a cash position of $565 million on a consolidated basis. We ended the first quarter in a net cash position of roughly $250 million, excluding capital leases compared to a net cash position of $77 million at the end of the last year.
Subsequent to quarter end, we closed the acquisition of an additional 5% interest in Caserones and a 31% interest in Los Helados, which resulted in a cash outflow of $215 million at closing, leaving the company with a current net cash position of $51 million.
During the first quarter, the company finalized the upsizing of its revolving credit facility to $4.5 billion. The credit facility currently has $2.25 billion available for drawing, which will expand to $3.5 billion, subject to certain conditions being satisfied with a further increase to the full $4.5 billion upon approval of Stage 1 of the Vicuña project.
So in conclusion, the company continues to be in great shape from a financial perspective with highly cash-generative producing assets, net cash on the balance sheet and ample liquidity available to fund its exciting growth plans in parallel with maintaining an annual shareholder distribution of around $220 million. With that, I'll hand the call back to Jack.
Thank you, Teitur. So in February, we announced the results of the integrated technical study for the Vicuña project, confirming its Tier 1 status and outlining a comprehensive stage development plan.
The study highlights the project's potential to generate significant returns through high volumes of copper, gold and silver production at first quartile or lower operating cost profile. The technical report has been filed on SEDAR and is available for download.
As part of the project governance framework, the technical assurance and peer review process for the PEA phase identified opportunities to enhance value and advance sanction readiness through targeted derisking initiatives across all development stages.
The Vicuña team is actively progressing these initiatives and detailed design and engineering continued to progress on track as per the 2026 work plan. On site, activities are progressing well as project readiness ramps up. The project added over 100 hires in the first quarter, increasing the full-time Vicuña corp workforce by approximately 25%, excluding contractors. Early works preparation is underway, including ongoing equipment operator training and initial deliveries for the earthworks fleet have begun.
We expect site development to commence in the coming months, supported by the arrival of the 40-tonne trucking fleet and other auxiliary equipment. The existing 1,500-person construction camp continues to serve as the base of operations. Current efforts are focused on early earthworks to prepare for larger-scale bulk earth moving, which the project plans to self-perform as part of the initial construction strategy.
Also, our RIGI application, which was filed under the long-term strategic export project category back in December continues to progress through the review process with several rounds of questioning successfully completed, most recently at the end of April. We anticipate to receive approval in the near future, which will support our final investment decision on Stage 1, which is targeted as soon as before the end of this year. Another exciting development opportunity for the company was the recently announced transaction with our partners, JX Advanced Metals, as mentioned by Teitur. With our additional ownership in Caserones, we acquired a 31% ownership in the Los Helados project. Los Helados is located approximately 17 kilometers south of our Caserones mine, roughly midway between Caserones and the Vicuña project on the Chilean side of the district.
As shown in the center of this slide, the initial discovery hole was drilled in 2011 by the NGX exploration team and more than 100 kilometers of drilling has since defined a significant resource.
We see strong potential for synergies and long-term optionality between Los Helados and Caserones. We are actively evaluating opportunities to capture these synergies, including transporting mined ore to Caserones as well as a stand-alone development scenario at Los Helados.
This work will continue to advance throughout the year with our partners at NGX. Los Helados is an advanced copper-gold development asset with more than 100 drill holes of drilling completed to date. This work has resulted in a resource estimate of 12 million tonnes of copper and 14 million ounces of gold on a 100% basis, including a higher grade core of 2.9 million tonnes at 0.72% copper equivalent, providing us with a strong foundation to continue advancing and analyzing the project with our partners. We look forward to providing an update on our vision for Los Helados at our upcoming Capital Markets Day in June. We are very pleased with the strong start to 2026.
Our solid operating performance has translated into strong cash flow, allowing us to build on our net cash position. We remain firmly on track to deliver our full year guidance while maintaining disciplined cost and capital management. With a strengthened liquidity position, we are well positioned to advance Vicuña along with other growth opportunities while continuing to return capital to shareholders through our dividend and buyback program.
At Lundin Mining, disciplined execution across high-margin, stable operations underpin our performance. Supported by an unrivaled growth strategy and a strong balance sheet, we are positioned to drive significant value for our stakeholders over the years ahead. With that, I would now like to open up the call for questions.
[Operator Instructions] And our first question will come from the line of Orest Wowkodaw of Scotiabank.
2. Question Answer
Thanks for the sensitivity on the diesel price on the OpEx. I'm just wondering with the current environment, if you could also share perhaps an impact on the Phase 1 CapEx of Vicuña. And I'm curious what diesel price was assumed in Phase 1 relative to where we are today at spot as well. I'm just also wondering if you're starting to see some inflationary pressures as you're getting, I assume, firm contracts for parts of Phase 1.
Orest, it's Teitur here. So all the input factors for the CapEx estimates that we announced in the PEA were effectively based on spot prices at that point in time. So the diesel prices would have been closer to what we assumed in our C1 cost guidance for the company was around about $0.60 per liter. So we're still doing the bottom-up cost estimates for Phase 1, but we're not anticipating any major changes on that front. Obviously, this will be a development phase over 3 or 4 years. So let's see how that turns out. And we're also trying to map the volume of all the input costs and to then take a decision later on together with BHP, our partner on Vicuña as to whether we should lock in any hedging on any of the input costs or not.
But that remains under evaluation and no decision has been taken on that. In terms of our operating assets, I think we're in a good position. As I said on the call, even if current diesel prices persist for the remainder of the year, we will stay within guidance. And in fact, we run a sensitivity even if diesel prices double from current levels, we still project to be within the upper end of our C1 cost guidance of $2.10.
So I think we're in good shape in terms of input costs despite the fact that we had seen some pressure on increasing input costs just now.
And just as a follow-up, what about the sulfuric acid cost at Caserones? Can you give us some sensitivities there?
Orest, this is Juan Andres. In Caserones, the acid, the sulfuric acid consumption is fairly low, 45,000 tons per year. We have not seen any indication of shortage of supply from our suppliers. We have seen a small increase in costs. We're above the $300 per ton of sulfuric acid. But so far, we continue to have the supply with no interruptions.
Okay. And is that price fixed for a certain amount of time? Or are you purely market exposed on the acid?
No, we do have some adjustments to the spot price.
And our next question will be coming from the line of Matt Greene of Goldman Sachs.
Teitur, if I could just ask another way perhaps on the diesel question. I appreciate your costs that strong cost performance. But a lot of your CapEx is earthworks related, which is obviously a lot more diesel intensive than perhaps the broader cost base.
Can you give us a sense just of that $400 million for Vicuña, how much of that is earthworks related? And then I guess, for every dollar spent on earthworks, could you give us a sense for how much of that is fuel related?
I don't have that level of details. Obviously, diesel, steel, cement, all those input costs are material in the context of the CapEx for Vicuña. So it's as I said, it's something we are mapping out as we work off the more detailed engineering on the project and the CapEx estimates.
And I think it will be prudent of us to look at those volumes, how they are phased over the next 3, 4 years and then see whether we should lock anything in. I think where diesel prices are trading at just now, I'm not sure I will allocate locking anything in at these levels. But I think assuming things normalize in the Middle East later in the year, I think it would be prudent to perhaps look at locking in certain of those costs.
Yes. Got it. That's great. And look, sticking with Vicuña, the comment in there just around the power with ENRE, could you just elaborate just on what's going on there? Because I understand you're funding a transmission line. You get about 90% of the capacity that you're building out.
But some of your peers in the region are, I guess, pushing back on some of this and there's a hearing next month. Can you just elaborate on just what's going on there? And if there was, I guess, a negative outcome from this hearing, does that impact the sanctioning or development timeline at all?
Matt, we'll have to get back to you on the details of that. But I mean, for us, right now, the transmission line and the work that we're doing as part of our off-site infrastructure planning, it's still on track. And so we have a plan to connect to the national grid through Rodeo and San Juan to supply 260 to 290 megawatts of power to the project.
And that hearing that I think you're referring to is a routine part of connecting power to Argentina's national grid. So yes, I mean, we follow it closely. But for us right now, we haven't seen any material impacts that could adversely impact our planning.
[Operator Instructions] Next question is coming from the line of Craig Hutchison of TD.
Just in your opening remarks, you talked about some of the work you guys are doing around Los Helados. Just given you guys have a 31% stake, is the plan to work with NGX and put out some kind of scoping level study later this year or early next? Just kind of curious on what you guys are going to kind of surface value there?
Yes. Thanks for the question, Craig. So absolutely, I mean, now that we've got a 31% stake of Los Helados and working with our new partners at NGX to see what the development options are that exist. We're approximately 17 kilometers away from Caserones.
We're looking at synergies between what we could develop through Los Helados and bring material into Caserones. We're also looking at if we need to do more exploratory drilling, looking at kind of different development concepts such as potentially building a new concentrator close to Los Helados.
And so all of that is work that we would be doing with our partners at NGX. And ultimately, there's still a lot of work to be done given that we have just kind of earned into this deposit, but it's very attractive. The exploration in the prospective area is still exists. And so we plan to kind of give more of a fulsome update in the work that we've done and are continuing to do at our Capital Markets Day in just over a month. But very exciting for us as we see this as kind of right in the center of the Vicuña district where we are already heavily invested in and very familiar with the region. So we're excited to see this growth opportunity mature.
Okay. Great. And then just maybe sticking with Caserones. Just you guys had a really good cathode production numbers for the quarter. Do you see the opportunities to kind of stay at those levels and potentially come at the top end of your guidance there? I know you guys are doing a bunch of work on that front.
Craig?
Yeah.
Yes, thank you for the question. This is Juan Andres. Yes, we do see opportunities, of course, to stabilize the sustaining CapEx in all of our assets. We continue looking at that through our full potential initiatives. So probably we'll be updating the market on the next Capital Markets Day.
The next question is coming from the line of Stefan Ioannou of ATB Cormark Capital Markets.
Maybe just to follow up on Craig's on Los Helados and maybe it's something that comes out in the Capital Markets Day. But just I remember there's also a lot of sort of compelling exploration like not only at Los Helados, but between Caserones and Los Helados beyond Angelica. Like is the plan going forward to sort of do a fulsome sort of more deep dive on that exploration potential as well and how that might tie into the Los Helados strategy? Or is the thinking right now to focus on Los Helados and how that fits into the Cash flows itself?
Stefan, thanks for the question. You're exactly right. I mean when we acquired Caserones, what we acquired was a significant land package around 58,000 hectares of underexplored territory in the Vicuña District.
And so with our exploration team led by our VP of Exploration, Tim Walmsley, we've been, and the team, of course, at Caserones, we've been looking at how to stage that exploration. So we've been focusing in the Caserones deep sulfide zone. We've been focusing on Angelica. As you know, there's an oxide overburden.
And underneath, we've been exploring for some sulfide breccias and trying to see if that could potentially look at making its way into the mine plan if we can find a significant amount of volume at attractive enough grade. So we're continuing to explore that near-mine exploration.
We're also looking at 2 targets, which we're currently drilling out a little bit further away from Caserones. And we'll continue to kind of mature those opportunities in parallel to looking at this new development opportunity with Los Helados.
So everything kind of goes into our capital allocation framework, and we look at where the high-impact investments could be. But ultimately, exploration in this area will be prioritized on where we believe we can quickly turn discovery into resource into reserve and then add that into the Caserones mine plan. But knowing that we have such a well-defined resource at Los Helados or a partnership of this or equity in this Los Helados deposit, it now is making its way into the development kind of opportunity horizon.
At this time, there are no more questions in the queue. And I would like to turn the call back to Jack for closing remarks. Please go ahead.
Thank you, everybody, for joining the call. We continue to see great progress in all of our initiatives at Lundin Mining and another solid quarter, and we'll continue to progress with capital discipline, disciplined operational performance and pursuing our very exciting growth opportunities. And we look forward to updating the market in more detail at our upcoming Capital Markets Day on June 17. Thank you.
Thank you all for joining today's program. You may now disconnect.
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Lundin Mining — Q1 2026 Earnings Call
Lundin Mining — Q1 2026 Earnings Call
Starkes Quartal: robuste Cash‑Generierung, Vicuña als Tier‑1-Wachstumstreiber, Guidance gehalten, Treibstoffkosten und Netzanschluss bleiben Risiken.
📊 Quartal auf einen Blick
- Produktion: ~79.900 t Kupfer und 31.500 oz Gold (Q1 2026) – in Linie mit Jahresguidance.
- Umsatz: nahezu $1,2 Mrd. in Q1.
- Adj. EBITDA: $627 Mio. (bereinigtes EBITDA).
- Free Cash Flow: $380 Mio. aus laufender Geschäftstätigkeit.
- C1-Kosten: $1,66/£ (C1 = direkte Produktionskosten pro Pfund), unter Jahresguidance $1,90–$2,10/£.
🎯 Was das Management sagt
- Vicuña‑PEA: Integrierte Studie bestätigt Tier‑1‑Projekt (hohe Volumen, First‑Quartile C1‑Profil); Stage‑1‑FID anvisiert noch 2026.
- Portfolio‑Erweiterung: Erwerb +5% Caserones und 31% Los Helados; synergiepotenzial (Transport zu Caserones oder eigenständige Entwicklung).
- Kapital & ESG: RCF auf $4,5 Mrd. hochgefahren; kontinuierliche Ausschüttungen (Dividende + Buybacks) und erste CSRD‑Berichterstattung.
🔭 Ausblick & Guidance
- Guidance‑Status: Management bestätigt Volljahres‑Guidance; Q1‑C1 deutlich unter Guidance treibt Puffer.
- Kostenrisiken: Diesel‑Spotspot erhöht C1‑Sensitivität; aktueller NYH‑Preis könnte +$0,08/£ C1 bewirken, aber Guidance bleibt erreichbar.
- Projekt‑Timing: Vicuña‑Baubeginn/Früharbeiten laufen; RIGI‑Bewilligung und Stage‑1‑Genehmigung erwartet vor Jahresende, beeinflusst FID.
❓ Fragen der Analysten
- Diesel‑Szenario: Analysten baten um CapEx/OpEx‑Sensitivitäten; Management nannte $0,60/l Annahme, prüft Hedging, lieferte aber keine detaillierte Aufschlüsselung (z.B. Erdbewegung vs. sonstige CapEx).
- Stromanschluss: Nachfragen zur Übertragungsleitung/Regelhörung in Argentinien; Management sieht aktuell keinen materialen Zeitrisiko, will Details nachreichen.
- Los Helados & Exploration: Nachfrage zu Studien‑Timing; Management plant weitere Scoping/Integration mit Caserones und Updates am Capital Markets Day (17. Juni).
⚡ Bottom Line
- Fazit: Lundin liefert starke Cash‑Generierung und behält Guidance; Vicuña (Tier‑1) und Los Helados erhöhen langfristiges Wachstumspotenzial. Kurzfristig sollten Investoren Diesel‑inflation, Wechselkurs‑ und Netzgenehmigungsrisiken beobachten; Liquidität ist mit erweitertem RCF solide, der Netto‑Kassenbestand sank jedoch nach den Erwerbungen auf rund $51 Mio.
Lundin Mining — Q4 2025 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Lundin Mining Fourth Quarter 2025 and Year-End Financial Results Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.
I would now like to hand the conference over to Jack Lundin, President and CEO. Please go ahead.
Welcome to Lundin Mining's Full Year and Q4 2025 Earnings Call. Our operating and financial results were released last night, and the news release, presentation and webcast replay are available on our website. All amounts are in U.S. dollars unless stated otherwise. You may have noticed a new look in our materials for this call. Today, we are pleased to introduce to you Lundin Mining's new brand, which is aligned with our copper-focused strategy and long-term growth ambitions.
Over the past 2 years, we have completed transformative transactions that have streamlined our portfolio and sharpened our focus on copper. Our new brand identity brings together our corporate and sites under one unified recognizable look and feel while strengthening our visibility in the regions where we operate. You'll see the updated brand across our investor materials, website and operations, starting with the financial results we are discussing today. About the logo and colors, the stylized L in our new logo symbolizes momentum and growth, while our new color palette is inspired by copper and the landscapes where we operate. Before we start, we will play a quick video capturing our new look. Please enjoy.
[Presentation]
As a reminder, yesterday's results and some remarks made on today's call will include forward-looking statements. Please refer to the cautionary statements on Slide 3 for reference. With me on the call today is Juan Andres Morel, our Chief Operating Officer; and Teitur Poulsen, our Chief Financial Officer, to present operating and financial results for the company. 2025 was another milestone year for Lundin Mining on nearly all fronts of the business, and we have positioned ourselves on a clear path to becoming a top-tier copper producer, completing 3 transformative transactions during the year, which rationalized our portfolio and sharpened our focus on our existing assets in South America.
In January, we finalized the merger of our Eagle mine with Talon Metals to create a new pure-play American nickel company. This transaction unlocks meaningful synergies, including the opportunity to leverage the Humboldt Mill as a shared centralized processing facility. At the same time, Lundin Mining has retained a 20% ownership in the combined company, and me and Juan Andres have joined the Board, along with former Managing Director of Eagle, Darby Stacey, as the new CEO of Talon. With this streamlined asset base, we continued to advance our growth initiatives.
This includes refining growth plans for our 3 operations and maturing the large-scale growth plans for the Vicu�a project. We recently announced our updated mineral reserve and resource statement and on an attributable basis, the company now has contained metal of over 35 million tonnes of copper, over 60 million ounces of gold and over 960 million ounces of silver, effectively doubling our copper resource base and adding a significant amount of gold and silver to our mineral resource inventory.
We delivered our best financial performance in the history of the company and generated record revenue of more than $4.1 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $1.9 billion for the year from continuing operations, not including the Eagle Mine. We declared our 39th regular quarterly dividend, paid out $106 million in dividends during the year and purchased 15.1 million shares for a total return of $256 million to shareholders, demonstrating our commitment to shareholder returns as part of our capital allocation strategy.
We are pleased to reinforce today several recent announcements that have been published by the company. The highlight from earlier this week was the announced -- was that we announced the results of the integrated technical report on the Vicu�a project, highlighting an incredible project capable of producing over 500,000 tonnes of copper, 800,000 ounces of gold and over 20 million ounces of silver during its peak production years, which would position it as a top 5 in terms of scale on all of these metal categories. We also announced commitments to upsizing our revolving credit facility to $4.5 billion to enable us to fund the next phase of growth for our company.
Operationally, our assets performed exceptionally during the year, and we were able to increase copper guidance in the third quarter while also reducing our consolidated cash cost guidance range. We met revised guidance on all consolidated metals in 2025. Safety remains our top priority. And during the quarter, we continued to strengthen our safety culture through visible leadership and targeted training programs across all operations. We continue to improve our total recordable injury frequency rate, which resulted in achieving the lowest rate in the company's history. Including Eagle, consolidated copper production was 331,000 tonnes of copper for the year, led by strong performance from Caserones and consistency from Candelaria and Chapada.
Gold production was 142,000 ounces for the year. Caserones annual production for copper was at the top end of the most recent production guidance range and the fourth quarter copper production was the highest since the mine was acquired by the company in 2023. From continuing operations, we generated adjusted EBITDA of $1.9 billion and adjusted operating cash flow from operations of $1.6 billion during the year, both annual records for the company. For the third year in a row, we met copper guidance, reflecting the accuracy of our planning cycle and our disciplined focus on operational consistency.
I will now hand it over to Juan Andres to go through the operational results in more detail.
Thank you, Jack, and good morning, everyone. We shared our production results earlier this year. I will now briefly highlight some of the key points from the year-end release. The company exceeded original guidance -- copper guidance and met revised guidance across all metals. The company produced 331,000 tonnes of copper this year and 87,000 tonnes in the fourth quarter, inclusive of the Eagle mine. Gold production for the fourth quarter totaled approximately 34,000 ounces and for the full year, 142,000 ounces, which was in line with guidance.
Throughout the year, Candelaria maintained steady operations with 95% mill availability and processed approximately 7.8 million to 8.1 million tonnes of ore each quarter and 32 million tonnes in the year. Candelaria produced a total of 145,000 tonnes of copper, in line with annual guidance. In the fourth quarter, the mine produced 34,000 tonnes of copper, which was slightly less than previous quarters due to planned lower head grades.
Caserones performed very well and annual production for copper beat original guidance and was at the top end of the most recent production guidance range. Fourth quarter copper production was the highest since the mine was acquired by the company, as Jack mentioned earlier. Caserones produced 133,000 tonnes of copper during the year and 40,000 tonnes in the quarter. Higher production was driven by higher head grades and strong cathode production.
Additional oxide material placed on the dump leach together with improved leaching practices increased copper cathode production to 25,800 tonnes in 2025. As mentioned at our Capital Markets Day, these optimization efforts have led our annual copper cathode production forecast to increase to approximately 26,000 to 28,000 tonnes in 2026 through 2028, an improvement of 6,000 to 8,000 tons from prior levels. Chapada was slightly second half weighted this year. During the fourth quarter, throughput was 6 million tons, which produced 11,200 tonnes of copper and 44,000 tonnes of copper in 2025, which was at the upper end of guidance for the year. And finally, Eagle produced 2,200 tonnes of nickel in the quarter and for the year was in the midpoint of guidance at 10,000 tonnes.
Our assets demonstrated positive progress in 2025. Moving forward, our focus will remain on operational enhancement to optimize margins and further improve the cost profile of our holdings.
I will now turn the call over to Teitur to provide financial summary.
Thank you, Andres, and good morning, everyone. So before going into the numbers, as a reminder that with the completion of the sale of our Eagle mine, this operation is presented as discontinued operations in our income statement and the assets and liabilities on the balance sheet have been classified as held for sale as of December 31, 2025.
As Jack mentioned earlier, robust copper and gold production, combined with unwinding concentrate inventory, along with high commodity prices led to an outstanding financial performance for the period. We reached record revenue and adjusted EBITDA for 2025. We generated close to $1.4 billion in revenue during the fourth quarter, including $52 million from discontinued operations. Revenue for the full year amounted to a record $4.5 billion, including $409 million from discontinued operations. Our sales mix remains predominantly leveraged to copper and has increased from last year where 75% was generated from copper compared to the fourth quarter this year, where the copper component accounts for 87% for the quarter.
Moving to the next slide. In the third quarter, we incurred a shipment delay of approximately 20,000 tonnes of copper concentrate at Caserones due to weather-related impacts. And this resulted in the company carrying higher-than-normal inventory levels at the end of Q3. This elevated level of inventory has been unwound during the fourth quarter, leading Caserones to sell 45,000 tonnes in the quarter. Pricing adjustments on prior period sales of concentrate had a positive impact on revenue by $83 million in the fourth quarter, helping drive financial performance. In the fourth quarter, we realized a copper price of $5.89 per pound, which was higher than the LME quarterly average of $5.03 per pound.
For the full year, our average realized price was $4.91 per pound for copper, which is materially higher than the annual LME average of $4.51 per pound copper. This higher realized price is driven by the fact that the disproportionate share of our annual sales occurred during the fourth quarter when the market prices were higher than the annual average price. At the end of the fourth quarter, approximately 80,000 tonnes of copper were provisionally priced at $5.64 per pound and remained open for final pricing adjustments.
Moving to Slide 13. Consolidated production costs for the fourth quarter amounted to $585 million, including discontinued operations, which is higher than previous quarters due to the elevated sales volumes and certain one-off costs expensed in the fourth quarter. At Candelaria, the company finalized ahead of schedule labor renewal agreements with Candelaria's 5 unions during the fourth quarter, which led to a onetime increase in costs due to signing payments. Cash costs for the fourth quarter were higher than previous quarters and were similarly impacted by the one-off union signing bonus payment. The higher sales volume at Caserones for the fourth quarter drove a high absolute production cost for the quarter.
Cash costs for the fourth quarter were in line with the previous quarter and Caserones full year cash cost of $2.17 per pound is towards the bottom end of guidance. Chapada's full year cash cost of $0.75 per pound outperformed the revised range -- guidance range of $0.90 to $1 per pound. Cash costs were positively impacted by the favorable gold pricing compared to forecast, resulting in improved byproduct credits for both the full year and the fourth quarter. Cost control across all sites remain very robust, and this has resulted in the company's cash cost for the full year of $1.87 per pound coming in below the bottom end of our original guidance and towards the bottom end of the revised guidance. This better-than-expected outcome was achieved despite the unbudgeted union agreement payment at Candelaria being accelerated from 2026 into 2025.
Slide 14 shows our total capital expenditure for the full year, which amounted to sustaining CapEx of $499 million, inclusive of Eagle compared to revised guidance of $510 million. The lower sustaining capital investment was primarily the result of reduced stripping and a delay in capital projects at Caserones. Capital expenditure at Vicu�a was $167 million compared to guidance of $215 million, with this underspend mostly relating to timing. Our full year and fourth quarter key financial metrics are presented on the next couple of slides. As previously stated, total revenue for the year, including discontinued operations, reached close to $4.5 billion with almost $1.5 billion generated in the fourth quarter. We generated adjusted EBITDA of $1.9 billion for the year from continuing operations, including $686 million in the fourth quarter. Adjusted operating cash flow from continuing operations exceeded $1.6 billion for the year, including over $665 million in the fourth quarter.
Moving to the next slide. Free cash flow from continuing operations was $774 million for the year and $388 million for the quarter. Operating cash flow benefited from higher commodity prices and was offset by a significant negative working capital build of $414 million for the full year and a working capital build of $132 million for the fourth quarter. Full year adjusted earnings from continuing operations amounted to $688 million and $364 million for the quarter. Earnings from continuing operations for the quarter amounted to over $900 million and were positively impacted by a noncash deferred tax recovery at Caserones of $517 million, with the company now having recognized a larger portion of the $3.9 billion tax loss at Caserones.
Slide 17 presents in greater detail the sources and uses of cash in 2025. In 2025, our continuing operations generated just over $1.6 billion in cash flow before working capital.
This cash generation includes close to $400 million paid in cash taxes during the year. After netting capital expenditure and noncash working capital movement, the free cash flow from continuing operations amounted to $539 million. As per the company's shareholder distribution policy, the company executed on its share buyback program totaling $150 million. And combined with the dividends for the fourth quarter 2024 and the first 3 quarters 2025 has paid an additional $106 million in dividends. Dividends to noncontrolling interest in Candelaria and Caserones amounted to $138 million for the year.
The company had a cash outflow of about $150 million on lease payments, interest and hedges and ending the year with net -- with a net cash position of $77 million, excluding capital leases. The company has significantly strengthened its balance sheet during 2025 with the sale of the European assets being pivotal to this strengthening. With last week's announcement to upsize our revolving credit facility from $1.75 billion to $4.5 billion, combined with the strong cash generation from our producing assets, the company is now financially primed to embark on the capital investment required to unlock the exciting Virunyia project in Argentina.
And with that, I'll now turn the call back to Jack.
Thank you, Teitur. In January, we announced updated 3-year guidance for production, operating cash costs and capital expenditures for 2026. Copper production is forecast to be 310,000 to 335,000 tonnes on a consolidated basis in 2026. Compared to last year's 3-year outlook, mine sequencing optimizations are expected to increase copper production by 20,000 tonnes in 2027, while the midpoint of 2026 has been adjusted by 5,000 tonnes, resulting in a net increase of approximately 15,000 tonnes over the 2-year period. Revisions to Candelaria's 2026 copper and gold production guidance incorporates lower underground mining rates in the first half of the year as the company in-sources the underground mine operations contractor.
The production profile is forecast to be modestly weighted towards the second half of the year due to higher expected grades from Phase 12. We expect the in-sourcing strategy to lead to cost savings and improved productivity for our underground operations, which represents a significant value driver for the future of our Candelaria operation. At Caserones, 2026 estimates remain unchanged, while copper guidance in 2027 increased by 10,000 tonnes to range between 115,000 to 125,000 tonnes, resulting from higher cathode production and increased mill throughput. Chapada copper production guidance has been revised upward by approximately 5,000 tonnes for 2026, resulting in an anticipated range of 45,000 to 50,000 tonnes.
Gold production guidance also increased by 10,000 ounces for 2027 compared to previous guidance. The updated mine plan reduces the dependence on lower-grade stockpile material from around 25% down to about 10%, enhancing copper and gold recovery rates over the 3-year period. Consolidated gold production is forecast to be 134,000 to 149,000 ounces in 2026 for the company. Consolidated cash cost for 2026 is projected to range from $1.90 to $2.10 a pound of copper after accounting for by-product credits. Total sustaining capital expenditures are forecast to be $550 million, consistent with prior year's guidance.
Candelaria and Caserones account for approximately 80% of the sustaining capital budget with the majority of expenditures directed to stripping, mine development for Candelaria's underground, tailings and mining equipment purchases and replacements. Expansionary capital expenditures are forecast to be $445 million, and this includes the 50% expenditure related to our 50-50 joint arrangement between the company and our partners, BHP for the Vicu�a project.
This ramp-up in expenditure gets us ready for a sanction decision on Vicu�a as early as the end of this year. Included in expansionary capital expenditures, we also have $35 million in expansionary CapEx at Candelaria, which includes preproduction stripping related to Phase 13 in the open pit. Exploration this year is estimated to be $53 million, and we will target drilling almost 70,000 meters between Caserones, Candelaria and Chapada. The drill program at Caserones will primarily focus on defining the size of the Angelica deposit, both in terms of leachable copper resources and the underlying copper molybdenum sulfide mineralization, where we are targeting a maiden resource next year in calendar year 2027.
Additional drilling at Caserones will be directed towards new discoveries and testing at least 2 new district exploration targets, Centauro and Cordillera. At Candelaria, drilling is designed to continue expanding the underground resources and also growing the shallow La Espanola deposit and neighboring La Portuguesa target. At Chapada, additional drilling at Sa�va will continue to further define higher-grade resources that will be incorporated into an updated resource estimate later this year, which will also be embedded within the updated technical report for Chapada.
I'll now hand it back over to Juan Andres to give an update on the Sa�va project.
Thank you, Jack. As mentioned at our CMD last year, we are advancing key growth initiatives at our Chapada mine, including the installation of an additional ball mill and the development of the nearby Sa�va satellite deposit. The ball mill installation will allow a finer grind size, which is expected to increase recoveries by approximately 5% for both copper and gold for the entire life of mine. At the same time, ore from Sa�va deposit will provide higher grade ore, helping to offset the lower grade material at Chapada and further enhance overall plant performance. The pre-feasibility study for Sa�va has been completed and a feasibility study has been initiated.
We are targeting to make a sanctioning decision in the second half of 2026, and we expect construction of the new ball mill to begin by the end of 2026 or early 2027, which will put the commissioning of the ball mill near the end of 2027. Permitting at Sa�va will continue to advance in parallel and potentially, we could see first ore from Sa�va in 2029, subject to permit time lines. The pre-feasibility study highlighted an average production increase of 17,000 tonnes per annum for copper and 32,000 ounces per year over a 5-year period for Phase 1. We anticipate this profile will improve as the mine plan is optimized to include Phase 2.
I will now turn it back to Jack.
On Monday, we announced the results of the Vicu�a Integrated Technical study, signifying an important milestone for this impressive district scale project. At full capacity, the district is expected to produce over 500,000 tonnes of copper, 800,000 ounces of gold and 20 million ounces of silver each year. The project benefits from a first quartile cash cost profile and will be built to generate sustained significant cash flow for many decades throughout the cyclical nature of the base and precious metal sectors. Furthermore, the stage development approach is designed to use cash flows to fund subsequent expansions, optimizing capital efficiency and value creation.
It is great to start off in 2026 with these recent company highlights and on the heels of a record-breaking year for the company. Divesting our European assets simplified our portfolio and strengthened our balance sheet, allowing us to focus on future growth across our South American sites. Our partnership in the Vicu�a District positions us for multiyear growth toward becoming a top 10 copper producer. Filo del Sol, one of the largest undeveloped copper, gold, silver deposits globally and our joint venture with BHP creates a pathway to form a new multigenerational mining district.
Anchored by consistent operational performance, we delivered record revenue of $4.5 billion, declared our 39th consecutive quarterly dividend and returned a total of $256 million to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks, highlighting our financial discipline and commitment to shareholder returns. Lundin Mining is uniquely positioned with a strong balance sheet, funding commitments for our ambitious pipeline of growth, a simplified portfolio and a strategic partnership with BHP in the Vicu�a District, offering unparalleled growth opportunities for our stakeholders.
With that, I would like to open the lines for questions. Thank you.
[Operator Instructions]
Our first question comes from Johannes Grunselius with [ SB1 Markets ].
2. Question Answer
Yes. It's Johannes. I have 2 questions. So the first one is on Caserones, where you had really good grades, as you highlighted. I can see that your annual sort of copper output is [ 158 ] or something and your full year '26 guidance is [ 130 ] to [ 140 ]. Are you seeing that more conservative now than you did when you launched the guidance in 1 in December? That's my first question.
Johannes, this is Juan Andres. We -- as I mentioned on the presentation, we have seen a significant improvement in the performance of the cathode plant. So we are forecasting more cathode production. And that is somehow offsetting some of the drops in the grades in the following year, but we are maintaining our guidance overall as previous years.
All right. Okay. So it was sort of in line with your expectations, the Q4 volumes. They didn't surprise you.
No, it was as expected in the mine plan.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Good. And the second question, and you partly answered it in your presentations. But when I look at the OpEx versus, for example, your ore volumes in Candelaria, Caserones, it's a pretty high increase in OpEx per tonne ore mined and ore milled. And you mentioned there was some negotiations with unions that could explain that. But could you -- how should we view it? How much did cost move up sort of on an underlying basis? And is this like in line with the mining industry right now in Argentina and Chile?
Johannes, it's Teitur here. I mean, first off, I mean, it's a great result that we managed to land these 5 agreements with the unions at Candelaria ahead of schedule because that eliminates any risk of any production disruption in 2026. But we are not disclosing the exact details of what those bonus payments are. The sequence here is that every 3 years, we enter into negotiations with the unions. And normally, what happens is you're paying certain one-off bonuses to the labor force in order to extend stability for the next 3 years.
And the way we account for that is that whenever we pay these bonuses every 3 years, we expense that payment in the quarter where the payment occurs. So that did elevate the, as you say, the Candelaria absolute costs in Q4, but the return from that is that we now have stability over the next 3 years. And at Caserones, the absolute costs are also up, and that's simply because we report the production cost as per the sold volume, not the produced volume, and we sold an elevated amount of volume for Caserones in Q4. So that's what's driving a higher absolute production cost. But if you look at it on a unit basis, it's as low as it was inQ3.
Our next question comes from Daniel Major with UBS.
Just on the Sa�va update, I'm just looking at the slide from the Capital Markets Day on the scoping study. And I mean, you're sort of guiding for a similar rate of production. I think it was 15,000 to 20,000 tonnes per annum of copper -- it's now [ 17 ], it's fractionally lower gold. But the parameters seem somewhat different. I mean the CapEx has gone down from [ $155 million ] to [ $110 million ]. The grades are lower. The throughput is lower, but the production is the same. Can you just run us through what the difference is between what you're presenting on now relative to the Capital Markets Day and kind of what's changed, particularly the reduction in CapEx? Was that just a conservative initial assessment? Or has the scope changed much?
Daniel, this is Juan Andres. Thank you for the question. So in -- during the CMD, we guided based on a conceptual study. And as we move into the pre-feasibility study, of course, we increased the level of understanding of this opportunity. In the original CapEx estimate, we have considered a secondary crusher for the addition of the ball mill. During the PFS, we learned that, that was not necessary. So that was basically removed from the CapEx estimate.
And the rest of the scope remains the same. So we have the ball mill, which is roughly $60 million, $65 million. And then for the Sa�va itself for the open pit is another $45 million for road construction, liners for the waste dumps and a water treatment plant. So that is basically the scope. So that is what triggered this CapEx reduction. Of course, there were some minor adjustments to the mine plan, given also changes in the metal prices that were used for mine design, and that explains the small changes in the tonnes and grades.
Okay. Second question, just around the treatment and refining charges. I think Antofagasta settled what looks like the benchmark essentially close to 0. Would it be fair to say that you're following similar terms? And then is there any difference in the realization when we look at what you're sort of putting in your accounts for treatment and refining charges, -- is that going to dramatically decline? Or are there any additional charges incremental to what a pretty close to 0 benchmark represents?
Yes. Those are also the numbers we are hearing. Certainly, for volume going into China, I think it will be segmented a little bit more than what normally was the case. So we will have to see what the Japanese rates land up and other rates. But generally speaking, it's trending very well. I mean within our cost guidance for 2026, we have assumed 25 and 2.5. So I think we're likely to land ahead of what we assumed in our guidance. So I think that's as much as we can say. And obviously, then depending on the blend of how much we sell on the fixed-term contracts versus spot markets, that might ultimately also impact the weighted average TC/RC charges we have for the full year.
Okay. But you've assumed 25 and 2.5. So there's obviously quite a bit of downside even though it's a relatively small number. Okay. Yes. And then final one, I'll let someone else go. Just wanted to follow up on some of the discussions in the call earlier in the week around streaming in Vicu�a. I mean it felt like the narrative from BHP on their call following the announced transaction at Antamina was the reason they were happy to stream that was that there wasn't a huge amount of long-term growth optionality beyond life extension, which made up with the same dynamic in Vicu�a. Can you just give us another summary of how you're viewing streaming in the district and confirm whether it would be at all possible that one party out of the JV would stream and the other would not.
Daniel, it's Jack here. So I think as we were mentioning and as we released on Friday last week, we've upsized our near finalization of upsizing our revolving credit facility up to USD 4.5 billion, which would put us firmly in position to be fully financed for our portion of the build. Now that also gives us the optionality to look at other forms of financing, streaming being one of them. We're seeing that there are some uniquely structured streaming deals being announced in the market, and we're obviously following what our partners, BHP are doing at Antamina. I think it opens up optionality and opportunities for us.
But I think also, as we've mentioned, the Filo deposit is still open in all directions, and we see significant upside potential for the resource to grow, and that includes silver qualities and quantities. But of course, you can structure a deal where you're having step-downs or arrangements where you don't have to run the stream in perpetuity. So we're looking at opportunities, but I would say it's still lower down on the probability list for us in terms of financing. And if there were to be one party working on a different form of financing than another, then as part of the JV, the partners would have to get together and align on what that is. But right now, I think we're in a really good position as it pertains to our funding strategy.
Our next question comes from Sathish Kasinathan with Bank of America.
My first question is on the long-term outlook, the 3-year outlook. So your 2028 guidance, which currently calls for a modest drop in copper production versus 2027. I guess there is upside from Sa�va, which could start in the second half of 2028. Can you talk about some of the other opportunities you highlighted at the Investor Day, mainly the underground expansion at Candelaria and then the Angelica target at Caserones?
Yes, I can talk about the growth projects, and I'll hand it over to Juan Andres to talk about the 2028 production guidance range. So for Candelaria underground, as we mentioned on the call, right now, the focus for us is to be in-sourcing the mine production operator in the underground.
And in order to accommodate that smooth transition, we've lowered the throughput assumption from the underground, and we'll be exiting 2026 getting back to kind of that 14,000 tonne per day baseline production rate. Once we've been able to do that, then we'll look at putting a plan in place to potentially grow in increments up to what could be around 22,000 tonnes per day in the underground, which translates to around 10,000 tonnes of copper per annum for Candelaria overall. Angelica is a very exciting exploration play right beside Caserones.
We've got a number of exploration targets that we're following up on through our drilling season this year at Caserones. And really, what we're looking at is high-impact holes that are near the existing infrastructure of Caserones that could quickly translate into mineable inventory to potentially feed higher-grade material to the sulfide concentrator or even more oxide material for our dump leach, which as we have been announcing and talking about the cathode plant is running exceptionally well due to upgrades that we've made to our overall kind of leaching plan. So yes, we're going to be chasing up those opportunities in addition to the Sa�va project, which we just spoke about, and I'll hand it over to Juan Andres to talk about 2028.
Yes. In our guidance in 2028, we have not yet included any of these opportunities yet. So as we move forward, we will be including those. So I don't think there's...
No. And Sa�va is not part of our -- we haven't fully sanctioned it yet. We look to do that before the end of this year. I mean the Chapada plant upgrade for the extra ball mill is something that we will be proceeding on. And right now, the PFS outlined us getting into first production actually in 2029, not in 2028.
Okay. Understood. Maybe one question on the Chapada stream. So Chapada currently has a stream on the primary metal production. With the change in ownership there with the acquisition of Sandstorm. So have you had any initial talks with the new owners and whether you can potentially take advantage of the current strong gold price and convert it into a gold stream instead of a primary metal stream?
No, we haven't had any discussions since the change of ownership on that stream, but something that we'd obviously entertain potentially in the future.
Our next question comes from Cody Hayden with Deutsche Bank.
You kind of touched on it already, but as we approach a potential sanctioning decision at Vicu�a later this year, I was wondering if you could comment on how we should be thinking about the balance sheet and capital allocation. Is there any consideration on updating any of your policies? Are you sort of in a holding period until financing agreement is confirmed at Vicu�a? And then second, I noticed the calculation of net debt has been updated to exclude lease liabilities. I was wondering if you could just explain a bit of the rationale behind this change.
Yes, I can address just on the capitalized leases. Most of those actually relate to the Caserones operations. But we just think it's a cleaner story. It's less confusing if you just segregate the actual external debt as debt when we talk about the net debt. The leases are -- financially, it has to be classified as debt, but they really relate to the operations of the Caserones mine. So that's why we prefer to separate the 2, and we are always very clear as to when we talk about net debt that it excludes capitalized leases. So there's nothing more to it than that. We just feel it's a simpler way to communicate the position of the balance sheet.
Yes. And with respect to kind of our capital allocation, I think we've been very consistent in our messaging. We will look to remain distributing capital to shareholders in absolute terms of around $220 million through dividends and our buyback policy. We've got growth opportunities that we're pursuing. And then we've got this upsizing of our revolving credit facility that we're on the cusp of finalizing. And so that puts us in a really good position, right, being in a net cash position.
We entered 2025 with a debt of around $1.3 billion, thankfully, to the conclusion of the sales of our European assets and other transactions, we've been able to pay down our debt in addition to the strong cash flows being generated. So I think we're in a very strong position, which gives us the ability to maintain returns to shareholders, pursue our brownfield opportunities at our existing operations and then go after the big growth opportunity with Vicu�a. So we're in good shape.
Our next question comes from Craig Hutchison with TD Cowen.
Most of my questions have been answered, but I just wanted to circle back on Sa�va. Just looking at the production profile, it seemed to me pretty accretive, particularly given the high gold grades in year 1. But is any possibility you could give us some kind of sense in terms of what the NPV uplift would be from this project? It's just difficult to kind of understand just based on only having initial capital and some of the grades. But is this a pretty material uplift in terms of how you view the NPV for Chapada overall?
Yes, absolutely. It definitely impacts the overall value of Chapada, adds a significant amount of NPV to the asset. We use base case kind of consensus pricing for the sanctioning decision and for our economic model. But if you were to use spot pricing, I mean, this would significantly enhance the overall value of Chapada. And so these are the exact type of projects that we're tasking our sites to go out and look to pursue given that Chapada has stabilized the operation and is generating strong cash flows year-over-year. I think Sa�va plays a key role to improving the overall value. And I will say as well, targeting before the end of this year, we're going to be updating the technical report, which will update the resource and reserve for Chapada. It will incorporate Sa�va as a reserve as well, and it will include kind of the development plan and overall strategy for making that part of the core of the operation.
Okay. Great. I guess you can't give us some kind of a sense of what it's -- what that NPV uplift is at this point? Or we have to wait until sort of year-end?
Yes. We're not disclosing that at this time. But yes, but you'll be able to see it in the near term.
Our next question comes from Matt Greene with Goldman Sachs.
Congrats on a great year. If I could just carry on that question on Sa�va, Andres. What do you -- I guess, firstly, just a clarification point because I think the language is changing a bit here. At your CMD, you talked about incremental production, and now we're talking about offsetting low-grade material. So I just want to confirm that is still incremental production on top of what the mine plan you presented at the CMD? And then just kind of how you -- since the scoping study in this PEA, has your approach to how you're thinking about this project changed at all? I mean metal pricing has gone up. I guess, are you solving for NPV? Are you solving for capital intensity, the ability to bring this to market quickly? I'm just kind of keen to know if your approach towards this project has changed at all since the CMD.
No. And in general, the approach has not changed, Matt. And we're still aiming for bringing production earlier in the life of mine of Chapada and taking advantage of the current commodity prices. So we're aiming for low intensity -- low capital intensity opportunities as we highlighted during the CMD. And to your initial question, it is incremental production. So we're basically deferring or delaying low-grade material from Chapada and replacing that with higher-grade material from Sa�va.
And those 17,000 tonnes of copper are actually incremental over the previous life of mine of Chapada. And just to add one more comment. This is the first phase of this project, which is this near-term opportunity. But as we continue with the study of the project, the feasibility study, we'll also be working on the pre-feasibility study of the remaining of the ore body, which is still very attractive, but we need to understand more the deposit and how we're going to bring that project forward.
Yes. Got it. That's clear. And I guess just taking a step back on the concentrate markets. You touched on TC/RCs earlier, but I don't think that really tells the whole story, just given the tightness, not getting to get penalized as much on purities, free metal. I think your bargaining power as a mining concentrate producer right now is quite favorable. So is this I guess, changing the way you're thinking about how you produce your concentrates across your mines. I mean, are you able to lower the grade of your concentrates, perhaps mine material if you do have it that has higher impurities and be quite opportunistic in this market? Is this something that is perhaps opening up a few opportunities?
Yes. We have been looking at opportunities from that regard. We are testing some different approaches in Chapada, for example, where we're making a trade-off between lowering the grade of the concentrate and increase our recovery significantly. So we are testing those opportunities. We have seen, on the other side, an incredible increase in the concentrate grade in Caserones as we mine through an area of the deposit where recoveries are higher and concentrate grades are highest, is basically driven by the metal, but those are the kind of trade-offs that we're testing now.
Okay. And is that looking quite promising? Is that all reflected in your guidance? Or could that be a little bit of upside, you think?
No, they're not yet totally reflected in our guidance.
That will conclude our question-and-answer session. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
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Lundin Mining — Q4 2025 Earnings Call
Lundin Mining — Q4 2025 Earnings Call
📊 Quartal auf einen Blick
- Umsatz: Rekordumsatz von ca. $4,5 Mrd. für 2025 (inkl. $409 Mio. aus veräußerten/discontinued Assets).
- Adj. EBITDA: $1,9 Mrd. aus fortgeführten Aktivitäten (Jahresrekord).
- Kupferproduktion: Konsolidiert 331.000 t Kupfer (inkl. Eagle); Guidance 2025 erfüllt.
- Cash-Kosten: $1,87 je lb Kupfer für 2025 — unterhalb der Guidance (besser als erwartet).
- Kapitalrückfluss: $256 Mio. an Aktionäre via Dividenden und Buybacks; 39. Quartalsdividende ausbezahlt.
🧭 Was das Management sagt
- Strategie: Portfolio gestrafft, klare Ausrichtung auf Kupfer als Kernwachstumstreiber; Markenrelaunch unterstreicht Fokus.
- Vicuña: Integrierte Studie zeigt District-Potenzial (>500.000 t Kupfer p.a.); Ziel: Stufensanktionierungsentscheidung bis Ende 2026.
- Bilanz & Finanzierung: RCF-Upsize auf $4,5 Mrd. vorgesehen — schafft Finanzierungsoptionen für Vicuña; Optionen wie Streaming werden geprüft.
🔭 Ausblick & Guidance
- 2026 Produktion: Konsolidierte Kupfer-Guidance 310.000–335.000 t.
- Kosten & CapEx: Konsolidierte Cash-Kosten 2026 erwartet $1,90–$2,10/lb; Sustaining CapEx ~$550 Mio.; Expansionary CapEx ~$445 Mio. (inkl. 50% Vicuña-Anteil).
- Exploration: ~70.000 m Bohrprogramm, Exploration ~$53 Mio.; Ziel: Maiden-Resource Angelica (Caserones) 2027.
❓ Fragen der Analysten
- Lohnkosten/Unioneffekte: Einmalige Bonuszahlungen bei Candelaria erhöhten Q4-OpEx; Management betont Produktionsstabilität über die nächsten 3 Jahre.
- Concentrate TC/RC: Behandlungssätze verbessern sich; Management sieht geringere TC/RC-Risiken, aber Abhängigkeit von Absatzmix (Festverträge vs. Spot).
- Saíva & CapEx-Änderung: PFS reduzierte CapEx (kein Sekundärbrecher), trotzdem inkrementelle Produktion erwartet; NPV-Ausweis folgt in technischen Updates.
⚡ Bottom Line
- Bewertung: Starke operative und finanzielle Auslieferung 2025, klare Kupfer-Fokussierung und verbesserte Finanzierungsoptionen stärken Wachstumspfad. Kurzfristige Risiken: Projekt-Sanktions-Timing, Ausführung von Vicuña/Saíva und Marktpreise; Aktionäre profitieren von Dividenden/Buybacks, aber Wertentwicklung hängt jetzt von erfolgreicher Projektumsetzung ab.
Lundin Mining — Special Call - Lundin Mining Corporation
1. Management Discussion
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Lundin Mining project update. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would like now to turn the conference over to Jack O. Lundin, President and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone. It's an honor to be here today to be able to present the results of the preliminary economic assessment for the Vicuna project. I will be making forward-looking statements as well as the team that will be with me today, and answering questions. And so therefore, we encourage you all to look at this press release, look at this slide and go on to our website for more details on the cautionary statements.
So the agenda today is as follows. We're going to walk through the highlights of the PEA. We're going to get into the details of the full-scale Vicuna project. We'll also talk about the recently updated mineral resource estimate that supports this preliminary economic assessment. We're going to get into the details of the stage development plan, so Stage 1, Stage 2 and Stage 3, which will get us to full scale, including and incorporating Josemaria and Filo del Sol deposits, and then at the end, we'll get into a summary followed by next steps before jumping into a Q&A session.
I'm pleased to be joined today on the call with members of both the Vicuna Corp. and Lundin Mining executive teams. So Ron Hochstein, who will be calling in from Argentina is on the call. And in the room with me today is Dave Dicaire, the GM of Vicuna Corp; Teitur Poulsen, our Chief Financial Officer; and Juan Andres Morel, our Chief Operating Officer. We have a couple of other members of the Vicuna Corp. project team to help with answering any questions if necessary.
So jumping into the highlights of the preliminary economic assessment. So what we can say with these results is that we are clearly delivering on our strategy, outlining a pathway to become a top 10 copper producer by pursuing a clear and disciplined growth strategy. We hope to really acknowledge that and demonstrate the viability of this plan through the update of this project. And what we're classifying and what we're identifying here is a giant metal district. The study that we released the results of yesterday outlined a Tier 1 status project. We call it multigenerational because of the mine life that stretches beyond 70 years. And the stage development plan offers significant upside and optionality, which will continue to refine as we get through later stages of the study. But also because of the stage development, there's huge upside in terms of optimization work that we can focus on, particularly in the later stages.
With these results, the project is marked as what has the potential to be the largest ever mining project in Argentina. I mentioned that Ron is currently in Argentina right now. He's in Buenos Aires, meeting with President Milei to discuss the highlights of this study. And this follows on a meeting where our partners BHP, along with myself at Lundin Mining and Ron were able to go to Buenos Aires and meet with Milei to discuss the updated status of where we're at with the project. And I think it's very important for us to state that we're committed to working with local and national authorities to put the best plan in place to maximize value for all stakeholders associated to the Vicuna project.
Before getting into the results of the PEA, a refresher on the stage development plan and the overall district concept, I think, is very important for everybody to be refamiliarized with. So we're breaking this project down into 3 stages. Stage 1, which outlines the Josemaria project, building a sulfide concentrator that will get to 175,000 tonnes per day of mineral processing capacity or about 64 million tonnes per annum. That will be the size of the sulfide concentrator for Stage 1, contemplating 3 initial lines, feeding material into the processing facility. And the first 5 full years of production from Stage 1 will outline about 200,000 tonnes of copper and 400,000 ounces of gold before introducing the Filo sulfide ore.
Stage 2 is the oxide circuit. So we're contemplating a 60,000 tonne per day heap leaching process to treat initially blended material to recover the copper, followed by a 30,000 tonne per day heap leach to recover the gold content. And so that is what we've identified as Stage 2. The oxide material is the overburden on top of the Filo sulfide deposit, and that is outlined in Stage 3. And Stage 3 is what brings us to full scale expanding the concentrator by adding 2 lines to get us to just under 300,000 tonnes per day or about 100 million tonnes per annum. This would also include, which we'll show in a video, building a conveying system to get the material from Filo to the centralized processing facility in Josemaria. And Stage 3 is what really enables us to get to a peak production of well over 500,000 tonnes per annum of copper and over 800,000 ounces of gold per annum.
To achieve this full scale, we've developed an infrastructure strategy, whereby we'll outsource the components of the off-site infrastructure to a third party. This is common for projects of this scale, and we'll talk to it a little bit later in the presentation. Our partners, BHP have experience in this at other large-scale operations in their portfolio, and we'll look to leverage that knowledge. This does not materially impact the NPV as capital savings are offset by operating costs.
Now touching on the highlights. So the first row of this slide is showing the 10-year average during peak production for copper, gold and silver. So as mentioned, over 500,000 tonnes of copper, over 800,000 ounces of gold and over 20 million ounces of silver. Putting this at a large scale, Tier 1 district development, which is very exciting for a company like Lundin Mining to have 50% of such a large-scale and exciting project.
In the second row, what we're outlining is the first 25-year average before the full scale. So still very impressive numbers over 25 years of over 400,000 tonnes of copper, 700,000 ounces of gold and 22 million ounces of silver. So you'll see that the silver production profile is actually heavier weighted to the initial years of production when compared to copper and gold.
In the third row, a couple of other important metrics. So Stage 1 CapEx right now is earmarked for USD 7.1 billion. So that gives us a very strong capital intensity of approximately $21,000 per copper equivalent tonne. Thanks in large part to the strong precious metal byproduct that we're generating, as you can see on this slide. But what's really impressive as well is the 25-year average annual free cash flow. So subtracting the growth CapEx or the Stage 2 and 3 CapEx from this average 25-year free cash flow assumption, USD 2.2 billion using our base case commodity price assumptions. And so very impressive cash flow generations. And that's really, again, in large part due to the commodity mix that's going to be produced from this asset. And that generates or translates into a negative C1 operating costs over the first 25 years.
On this slide showing kind of the continued highlights of the overall project. So there's other key metrics that are important to show here. As I mentioned, the generational nature of this project being over 70 years in mine life. When you're adding now Stages 2 and 3 to Stage 1, the overall initial capital is envisioned to be just over USD 18 billion of capital requirement. And that gets us to a capital intensity on full scale of about $26,000 per tonne copper equivalent. So still very, very attractive figures here even given the large-scale nature of this overall combined project.
All-in sustaining costs. So the sum of refining costs, third-party royalties, site operating costs, sustaining CapEx and closure costs subtracted by byproduct credits and divided by the pounds of copper sold is $0.47 a pound, so very attractive over the life of mine all-in sustaining cost.
And lastly here, what you can see the last -- the lower 2 figures, these are the benefits to Argentina in terms of taxes and royalties, will be approximately $1 billion per annum. What's not mentioned on this slide, but we'll talk to you a little bit later on is the direct and indirect jobs that will be created from this project for the country. So over 5,000 direct jobs to be created during the construction period, and that translates into nearly 20,000 indirect jobs. It's very impressive from an employment standpoint. And I'm pleased to share that the support will be provided for this by the Vicuna Foundation, a newly formed foundation, to support capacity building, construction and operation readiness and local supplier development programs.
So here on this slide, what you can see is the leverage to commodity prices. The lighter colored bar is our base case assumption. You can see strong internal rate of returns being generated from our base case commodity prices. But I think it's also very important to highlight at consensus -- or sorry, at spot prices today, the project of this size and scale generates very impressive returns. And I think that the payback period, the ability to fund the later stages through cash flows shows that not only is this project have strong leverage to commodity prices, but also at conservative price assumptions we have the ability to get to full scale without stretching the balance sheet too significantly for Lundin Mining and its 50% share.
Most of you that have been following the story would be familiar with this slide where we're showing how the Vicuna project stacks up against the mining giants today. These are compared to existing mining operations. And what you can see when we get to that 10-year peak production average the Vicuna project does get into a top 5 category for copper, for gold and for silver. And that really, I think, is what attracts us to really pursuing this project at a rapid pace. Phenomenal numbers that we're generating. And what's unique about Vicuna is that it gets to be top 5 status across all 3 of these commodities. And that's unique when you compare to the other large-scale operations that are producing in the world today.
This also demonstrates the Tier 1 nature of Vicuna. So the global cost curve shows first quartile, first quartile pricing as well as, in many years, first decile cementing this has the potential to be that true Tier 1 operation. And so I think we see significant upside today to even refining those costs and improving as we refine the studies, but already looking at the preliminary economic results for this project, we are comfortably within first quartile and, in many years, first decile of the cost curve.
And this slide is very important to demonstrate the disciplined approach to our staged construction strategy. What you can see here is the cash flows being generated already in the first full year of operations, so in 2031. Following expenditures for Stage 2 and 3 CapEx, we're going to be in a positive cash flow position. So these are showing unlevered cash flow figures, which essentially means that we're going to be in a position to not only fund our growth, but also to pay down any debt that would be taken on to advance this project. And this does not include any cash flows from Lundin Mining's other operations. So I think the disciplined approach aligns very well with our partners, BHP, on being able to support getting into first stage operations and then using those operation returns to fund Stages 2 and 3.
Now I want to spend a little bit of time touching on the resource, the mineral resource estimate that we're outlining and forming the basis of this study. We're going to show kind of the comparison here from the 2025 May mineral resource estimate, which was the maiden resource estimate for Filo sulfides and an update to the Filo oxides and Josemaria mineral resources. So when combining all categories, what you see here is now a combined mineral resource of 46 million tonnes of copper, nearly 100 million ounces of gold and nearly 1.8 billion ounces of silver. So we've added 9 million tonnes in all categories of copper, which is another 1.5x Josemaria's mineral resource in the M, I & I category.
Looking at gold, we've added 16.5 million ounces of gold. So basically another 1.7x Fruta del Norte in less than 1 year of drilling, which really shows the uniqueness of this deposit continuing to grow in all directions. And with the amount of drilling that we've done only in the last few months, we've substantially increased the size of this mineral resource.
Here's another slide showing the resource comparison from our May update to the now newly updated PEA resource model. So we're taking a cross section, so you can see the lateral expansion of the mineral resource estimate, showing that both to the east and to the west, mineralization continues to expand and that we've already seen that the deposit is continuing to grow in all directions. So to support this updated study, in the last 8 months, we've drilled 35 holes over approximately 45,000 meters. And really, it just demonstrates the remarkable resource growth from that amount of meters drilled.
As I've said, the resource is open in all directions. And in 2026, we will continue to follow up with another approximately 50,000 meters of drilling, focused on supporting really optimizing the mine plan to generate improved early cash flows to support mine plan optimizations. So now we're going to show a video that really shows kind of the overall scale of the project and puts kind of what we've been talking about into perspective.
Starting with the Caserones open pit mine, which is located approximately 40 kilometers away from the Vicuna project on the Chilean side of the Vicuna District. This is Lundin Mining's operating mine in the Atacama region in the Vicuna District on the Chile side. If you follow the project south, you'll get to the border between Chile and Argentina, and you'll enter into the Vicuna District and the Vicuna project on the Argentinian side. Here, we're showing the Josemaria deposit, which forms the basis for Stage 1. You can also see now the associated infrastructure and the location of what will be the centralized processing facility.
Now stepping out and looking at the proximity of Josemaria in relation to the Filo del Sol deposits. Stage 2 contemplating the oxides or the capped mineralization over the Filo sulfide deposit. You can see the location of the leaching pads and the associated Waste Rock facilities. As mentioned earlier, this will be a sequential leaching circuit so that we can capture both the copper and the gold.
Now what you'll see is the mineral resource for the Filo sulfides and the final pit outline. The high-grade core of Aurora is we anticipate to get into the Aurora zone within the first 8 years of operating the sulfides at Filo. This demonstrates the scale and high-grade nature of the deposits continue to expand in all directions. And for us, the importance of optimizing the mine plan to get into the high-grade material as soon as possible.
We will be sending the crushed material from Filo sulfides via a network of conveyors to the central processing facility, which is located near Stage 1 Josemaria. You can see the Josemaria pit. And now you'll see adding another 2 lines from the ore stockpile to the processing facility. And this is where we get to approximately just under 300,000 tonnes per day or over 100 million tonnes per annum of processing capacity.
Okay. So just couple more slides before opening it up to Q&A. So as mentioned before, the offsite infrastructure strategy here, there are a few components that are important to mention. So water supply for Stage 1 is expected to be sourced from well fields in the project area. But to accommodate the Stage 3 Filo del Sol mine expansion and mill expansion, a desalinated seawater system has been proposed along the Chilean coast. And this is engineered to deliver 2,000 liters per second to the Vicuna project. This initiative includes the development of a dedicated seawater intake, a desalination facility and a pipeline extending across to the freshwater pond at the project milling site in Vicuna.
To accommodate the increased throughput associated with Stage 3 as well, a new concentrate pipeline and associated pumping system will be installed to link the concentrator with a designated roaster to deal with the arsenic content from the Filo sulfide material. All works associated to the off-site infrastructure strategy will continue to be matured through the advanced project phases and advance in parallel to all of the on-site project work that we're doing. And as mentioned, the costs associated to the infrastructure are embedded as operating costs and the overall project economics are maintained through this strategy.
Now touching on next steps. So this PEA forms the basis for us to advance through project definition and eventually to what we would see as a sanctioned decision as soon as before the end of this year. But there are significant opportunities that exist to improve overall project economics. So engineering for Stages 2 and 3 will continue, trade-off studies, as I mentioned, drilling and mine plan optimization will all continue. Mineral process, flow sheet optimization and the stage sequencing is all looking to be advanced in these parallel work streams. And Stage 1, which is Josemaria, is advancing now through a Class II estimate, which will be ready prior to year-end and will form the basis for our sanction decision.
The RIGI application that we submitted in December is going through the formal review process. And so we anticipate to receive approval on that application, and that would be, of course, a requirement prior to coming up with a final investment decision. And as mentioned, all of this work will support the FID coming as soon as the early -- as soon as the end of this year.
So with that, I'd like to open up the floor to questions and allow some of the team to support with some of the responses. Thank you very much.
[Operator Instructions] And our first question will come from Orest Wowkodaw with Scotiabank.
2. Question Answer
Congratulations on the update. I was wondering, could we get some clarification on the infrastructure assumptions? Just how much CapEx is involved if you -- if the project did have to build the infrastructure? And then corresponding, I'm wondering how much is that impacting the cash cost either per pound or per tonne by assuming, I guess, user fees for the third-party outsourcing?
Thank you for your question. So the -- as I mentioned, the offsite infrastructure is embedded within the operating cost. And so we're actually not publishing the capital cost estimate. This plays into the strategy for us to be able to spin out that infrastructure into a new entity, and therefore, we would be a receiver of that infrastructure by utilizing it via a tariff. And so we're actually not providing the capital estimate for the offsite infrastructure at this time.
Okay. And how much is it impacting the user fee, how much -- or tariff? How much is that impacting the cost per tonne or the cost per pound?
Yes. No, it's Teitur here. So I mean there will be just some commercial sensitivities around this, given that we are looking to potentially spin this out into a separate vehicle. And obviously, the rationale here is that these infrastructure investors are requiring a lower rate of return than what mining companies normally are looking to achieve. So with that cost of capital offset, we believe there is economic benefit to the project to allow a lower risk and lower returning assets to be held by somebody else. So there are certain commercial sensitivities around this, which is why we are not disclosing these metrics.
Okay. No, fair enough. I mean, obviously, your balance sheet is well positioned here with negligible net debt and your credit facility. But I'm just curious whether you would consider streaming any of the precious metals to help finance this project from a Lundin perspective? Obviously, we just saw BHP do a very large silver stream overnight. Is that something that Lundin is considering?
Yes. I mean what needs to happen from now until we sanction the project potentially as early as late this year is that we do need to agree with BHP on the exact funding mechanism and strategy around Vicuna. I mean, as you saw last week, we raised $4.5 billion in our new upsized RCF. So if the decision is that we -- each shareholder is going to fund this project from their respective balance sheets, we are fully funded to do that already. But there is a scenario where the project itself, as you mentioned, raises some debt, whether it's project finance or whether it's streaming or whether it's something else. And there's also a third scenario where it's going to be a blend of shareholder funding versus asset-based funding. So all those details are still to be worked out and agreed with BHP prior to sanctioning, but whichever avenue we take, we, at this point, are fully covered to fund our share of it.
And our next question is going to come from Ralph Profiti with Stifel.
Jack, I got a question on the updated mineral resource estimate at Filo. And just wondering on some of your learnings on how well defined the transition zone is between those 2 domains there? And I'm just trying to quantify the risk of acid-consuming sulfides entering the leach pads. And it doesn't seem like the recovery has changed as much, but just wondering what the new MRE is telling us about that?
Yes. Thanks for that question. We've actually got the Director of Resources for Vicuna here -- -- Vicuna Corp here, [ Cole Mooney ], so I'll hand it over to him to answer that.
Yes, it's a good question. Thank you. The transition zone has been -- will be a major focus of the 2026 studies going forward. We're currently working on a lot of geo-metallurgical test work and studies. So currently it's -- the transition zone is defined, but it's not fully defined. We're going to continue to advance that understanding throughout the year.
Okay. Great. Helpful. And just coming back to the last question, can you talk a little bit about the landscape and the appetite for third-party infrastructure development plays? And because it sounds like that once this is spun out into a new entity that we may see the joint venture provide some or part of the funding? Or will these truly be stand-alone entities?
Yes. I think it's really too early to conclude on any of that. I mean it will be -- first of all, we need to agree on the details with our partner, BHP in terms of how we go about this. I mean it's fair to say we've already received inbounds from infrastructure investors inquiring about this. It's obviously fairly big pieces of infrastructure. So this, I think, registers on anyone's radar screens. But it's a process we need to go through and whether we launch an official tender process around this or how it's done, it's still to be -- details are still to be worked out. But as I said, the rationale for it, I think, is very sound, and we've had preliminary discussions with BHP. In fact, you've seen BHP doing something similar on other assets already. So I think we're fairly well aligned with BHP in terms of how to go about this, but details still to be worked out.
And our next question will come from Ioannis Masvoulas with Morgan Stanley.
And congratulations on the update. A couple of questions from my side. The first, we've seen several mining companies looking to develop projects across scope and other minerals in Argentina over the coming years. How do you anticipate to manage the potential scarcity around labor and other resources during the construction cycle? Do you expect to bring over contractors from Chile or further afield? Some color on that would be very useful.
Yes, this is Dave Dicaire from Vicuna. One of the benefits we have with Vicuna is we're kind of the first ones of the large-scale projects that we're going to build. So we're not seeing any issues with labor sourcing. And Argentina has relatively high unemployment right now. We already are in the midst of our training programs to ensure that we have adequate skilled labor and also prioritizing local labor. We've also gone down and got early contractor involvement to discuss with the contractors the planning of the project, the labor sourcing. And some of these contractors are continuing contractors are also looking to JV with other larger foreign companies to assist them in managing the workload. So we're not seeing it as a high risk or an issue at this time.
Okay. Very clear. Just second question, going back to the funding topic. If there were to be streaming as part of the funding solution for the JV partners, how could that work? Could it be the case that streaming only happens on the 50% share of the BHP while you use a different funding mix given that you don't really need the capital? And then related to that, how do you feel about hedging during the development phase to backstop the balance sheet or the cash flow on any downside scenarios?
Yes. I mean on the streaming part, obviously, there's a big contingent of both gold and silver here. But I do believe if we were to enter into streaming arrangements, it would be done at asset level. I mean the arrangement is that the offtake here is allocated 50-50 to BHP and Lundin. So we will market our 50% net attributable share of the copper. And if we get the gold and silver as well ahead of streaming, then we will market all of that on our account and BHP will market their 50% share on their account. But I think normally, you would expect a streaming arrangement like this to be implemented at asset level. And the second part of the question was...
Hedging.
No. I mean, as you've seen, we -- if the scenario is that even if we fund 100% of this project from our respective balance sheet, parent company balance sheets with our facility of $4.5 billion, even in a very, very low copper price environment, we are fully funded to do that. So we would not envisage entering into any commodity price hedging. We have traditionally done some FX hedging just to protect our operating costs in Chile and Brazil. So we might continue to look at that. But in terms of commodity price hedging, that's not going to happen.
And our next question will come from Lawson Winder with Bank of America Securities.
Congratulations on moving this project a long way towards an ultimate completion. If I could just get a sense of the CapEx and the contingency applied, can we think of that as accounting for inflation? Or is there other more design-related considerations that make up that contingency?
And then I guess, actually, where I'm coming from is, what's the risk that once we get to a feasibility level that ultimately, CapEx is higher than what we are today?
Yes. Thanks for the question. This is Dave Dicaire again. We've updated the estimate based on where we were at a couple of years ago. But we're right in the middle right now of doing a complete bottoms-up estimate. We have done some factors in where we had done provisions for inspection and things like that in those areas. So we're doing a complete bottoms-up estimate. We're very confident in the CapEx numbers. We've had pretty in-depth reviews of those. And we've also benchmarked them against other projects and other capacity factors and things like that.
So we're not concerned. We have current pricing. We're actually seeing very competitive pricing right now in the market also on things like bulks and commodities and equipment. So we have a lot of confidence in our CapEx number.
And maybe we should add also that all the costs you see here and all the economics are based on real 2026 money. So there's no escalation on either cost or on commodity pricing. So the IRR you're seeing here is in real term ahead of inflation -- before inflation.
Okay. Great. And then as a follow-up, with respect to the infrastructure company, to what extent could the existing desal, port and other infrastructure at Caldera that's now associated with Lundin Mining and Candelaria be part of that infrastructure company? Or is that just not something that's being contemplated?
Lawson, yes, that definitely is part of the strategy that is being contemplated. So we do have a significant amount of infrastructure already that is supporting our Chilean operations. And so this is something that we're looking at right now that could be added to this strategy, whereby we are ensuring that we have sufficient spare capacity at the Caldera port. We'll look at pipeline routing as well. We'll look at key locations for infrastructure such as pumping stations, and we'll see if we can tap into economies of scale through the assets that we already have in the Atacama region. So all of that is being contemplated and further refined through these advanced studies.
And the next question will come from Johannes Grunselius with SB1 Markets.
I have one question on the tax environment and when you present and provide us the different NPV values, you say it's after tax. How should we think about that? Have you sort of applied existing tax law, in other words, 35% or the most likely coming tax of 25% in your models? That's my question.
It's Teitur here. So the tax or after-tax cash flows have been modeled on the RIGI PEELP framework, which we have in the slide deck, you can see the key factors in terms of tax rate and the other aspects of that is a 25% corporation tax rate. And we have assumed the RIGI to be applicable for 40 years, which is the current rule. And obviously, the mine life here is 70 years. So after the 40 years, we revert back to the current framework, which is then getting back up to 35% and there's an export royalty applicable from that point onward. So that's how we have modeled it. And all the numbers you see here are on a stand-alone unlevered project basis. So this is before dividend is streamed out of the country, which would attract certain smaller withholding tax numbers as well.
Yes. Maybe you have discussed this in the earlier presentation, but is that like how should we be considering the lower 25% tax versus existing tax laws? Is that a dumb deal to you or are this discussed? Or have you sort of -- what's your discussion where -- what's the status on that?
Yes. So we submitted the application for fiscal stability under the RIGI scheme in December. And upon receipt of approval of that application, we would then be working from the updated kind of fiscal regime. So we feel comfortable and confident that you can be modeling under the benefits from the RIGI regime when you're looking at the economic parameters for the full-scale project.
And the next question will come from Craig Hutchison with TD Cowen.
Just with regards to the concentrate roaster plan for Stage 3 to deal with the elevated arsenic levels, how critical is this from an economic perspective? Like have you guys -- I'm sure you've looked at the alternative of just doing a blend and taking the penalties. But in the event that permitting a roaster is challenging, just kind of curious like from an economic perspective, how critical it is to have it in the project?
Yes, this is Dave Deciare. We're in early stages on a lot of the test work and the roaster is a proven technology, and we will continue to test and look at alternative scenarios. There are scenarios looking at different leaching technologies of the concentrate also, and we'll have a better idea on that as we get closer to sanctioned as that test work comes out of the labs.
Okay. Great. Maybe just a follow-up question. Just on the CapEx, the $7.1 billion, does any of the spend this year a credit against that $7.1 billion? Or should we just assume it's $7.1 billion from project sanction?
No, none of that $7.1 billion is -- has including costs for this year. This is kind of pre-CapEx period. And so we've classified CapEx following the sanction decision and starting in our model in Jan 1 of 2027.
And the next question will come from Anita Soni with CIBC.
A few questions. First question, I guess, is next steps. Will you file this PEA on SEDAR? And after that, will you do an updated feasibility study?
Yes. We will be filing this technical report on SEDAR once it's fully completed within the 45-day window of when the results were published as of yesterday. And then we will continue to refine and update studies for all stages as we continue to advance the project, and we'll likely have another published estimates prior to sanction.
Great. And did you give us a time line for construction on how long you think it will take once the project gets sanctioned?
Yes. I think we're outlining in what we've stated in the press release and what will be outlined in the PEA is around a 40-month construction period from when you start to when you get first material through the mill and start commissioning, so about a 40-month period. And we're obviously looking at opportunities to improve that time line as well as opportunities to improve and refine the time lines for Stages 2 and 3 as well. So all of that is part of the work program that continues to advance as we're moving towards the end of this year.
Okay. Secondly -- or sorry, I guess this is third. On the -- can you give us a breakdown of the CapEx spend by year? You've given us the $7.1 billion, but I don't see anywhere where you -- and then you've broken out Stage 2 and Stage 3, how much it is per annum in CapEx spend, but I don't think there's a breakout of the $7.1 billion for each year.
Yes. That information will be readily available when we publish the results, and I think as well as an updated presentation online that we're going to be sharing, which we'll get into more details on the cash flow for expenditures for all phases, but spending a lot of time in demonstrating the viability of Stage 1 as that is the most advanced kind of stage for us with the most definition. So that will become available to you, Anita, and we can have a follow-up call if you have more questions on specific details of staged CapEx or any components to the different phases.
Okay. A couple more. Just in terms of the mining rates, is it fair to assume that it's direct ore feed, there's no stockpiling going on or any of that?
Thanks for the question. Yes, the majority of it is direct ore feed. There always is some stockpiling in any operation, especially of the scale, but the majority of it is direct ore feed, you're correct.
And then lastly, on the tailings management, between all of the phases, there's $300 million in tailings. Is there something -- can you just explain what the tailings philosophy is there?
Yes. It's Dave Dicaire again. You'll see that when the report comes out, that there is 3 proposed tailings sites and they're all within the vicinity of the plant site. So they're all very close. So there is good sites close by for expansion. So there is a capacity for the tailings, and you'll see those when we produce the drawings in the report.
And the next question will come from Stefan Ioannou with ATB.
Congratulations on the study, looks great. I was just curious, when you talk about optimizing Stage 2 and 3 going forward and maybe more so Stage 3, is that really focused on the existing deposits? Or do you start to maybe think about things like Cumbre Verde potential and/or other opportunities in the immediate region?
Yes. Great question. I think those would be classified as later stages at this point in time. Like when we go across, when we look at the level of maturity of the various stages that we've outlined, there's a lot of work that goes into ensuring that we've got the optimal kind of mine plan and the supported drilling to get us to a reserve base that we could then look at refining that mine plan and that milling plan. So anything beyond kind of yet to be discovered material would be seen as later-phase opportunities. But it is good to mention that given the nature of the Vicuna District and continuous mineralization kind of in all directions, there does remain significant upside for us to see future expansions beyond Josemaria and Filo.
And our next question will come from Dalton Baretto with Canaccord.
Congrats on getting this out. My first question is on the roaster assumptions that's part of the study here. And I guess 2 parts to that question. The first one, is that roaster part of the Stage 3 CapEx? Or is that part of this infrastructure vehicle you're thinking about? And then Part B is, you're probably assuming that you're going to build your own, but would something off the shelf like Mount Isa is up to sale with that work as well?
Sure. I can take that. It's David Dicaire. The roaster is in the infrastructure CapEx at this time. And we haven't really looked at details about available facilities. There is available capacity in Chile also with Codelco that we'll talk to them about also. But right now, that's in the CapEx for the infrastructure -- or in the OpEx for the infrastructure.
Great. And then maybe just a follow-up with Teitur on a comment that was made earlier around infrastructure cost of capital. When you compare that versus the implied cost of capital on the stream that was announced yesterday in Antamina, is the infrastructure piece still lower or comparable? I mean because we're talking low single-digit IRRs on the stream here.
Yes. I mean I can't really answer that, I don't think. But I mean, I think conceptually, as we said, infrastructure investment, whether it's desal or whether it's port or slurry lines, in its very nature, it is infrastructure. So the risk profile on those assets is significantly lower. Obviously, still the offtake is reliant on Vicuna and potentially other assets in the area. We have a few other assets there, which could tap into some of that infrastructure. So there could be some risk sharing as such for the infrastructure investors. But it's early days on this, and it will be -- first of all, strategically, we need to decide whether that's the path we want to go down, which is likely. And then we need to go through the commercial negotiation with the infrastructure owners as to how we structure it and what the cost of funding is going to be.
And the next question will come from Matt Greene with Goldman Sachs.
Congratulations. I have a couple. Just you touched on your benchmarked CapEx against other projects, but the productivity, I guess, just looking at the time line and execution, BHP flagged this at Jansen productivity as being a big issue. So can you just touch on how you've benchmarked productivity just given the remote nature of this district and the elevation?
Sure. It's Dave Dicaire. I'll take that. The bulk of the estimates done by Fluor, and we benchmarked a lot of it off their database for labor and high altitude projects in South America. We've also checked the benchmarks against what was experienced in other high altitudes sites that we're aware of. We've also got some engagement with [indiscernible] to review some of the construction planning and some of the productivity. So we're fairly comfortable with the productivity that we've used that's had a lot of review and a lot of scrutiny.
And just my last question is around the glacier reform. With the RIGI PEELP submission, are you happy with the proposals or has the government actually reformed some of the, I guess, ambiguity around the previous glacier reform?
Yes, we're happy with what's been proposed in that glacier reform language or clarification. So yes, we're comfortable with that, and we're happy with it.
And the next question will come from Daniel Major with UBS.
A couple of questions. You mentioned you're targeting FID at the end of the year. Could you just give us a sense what is the key determinant around that? Is it the RIGI approval time frame? Is there a specific level of detailed engineering you would need to achieve for the first phase to feel confident in the FID? So is it more internal or external that determines being comfortable and ready to FID?
Yes. Thanks for the question. There's a number of stage gates that will get us ready to come out with an FID or sanction decision. So you've mentioned those. I mean, of course, this PEA is a significant step forward, but it also forms the basis for us now, as Dave was speaking about, to further refine the Stage 1 estimate, and that will give us more definition and more accuracy in that estimate, which would be something we would use to put forward to -- or Vicuna would put forward to the shareholders for an FID. We've got various secretarial and provincial approvals that we're looking at obtaining and the status of those are moving forward as per our baseline schedule.
And the RIGI application, which is working through its way through the review process, I would say, is on track as well. So permit approvals, updated estimates, line of sight to financing and ensuring that we're hitting all of our milestones that we've agreed on with our partners will be required before sanction. And what I will say is we've been moving on and hitting kind of our baseline targets from when we established Vicuna Corp. back in January 2025 up until this point in time. So momentum is definitely building, and we are making positive progress to that eventual decision to be made by both BHP and Lundin Mining jointly.
Okay. Second question, can you tell us what the level of contingency is included in the CapEx estimates you provided in this presentation?
This is Dave Dicaire. I think on the Stage 1 contingency is about 17%. And on the other stage, it's probably up around 20%, 20% to 22%.
Okay. That's clear. And then a final one, just thinking about the latter stages of the project, cross-border project development didn't work out so well further down south historically. Have you got a clear legal framework in place for the cross-border requirements for the latter stages of the project? It's the first part of the question. And then the second is permitting on the Chilean side of the border historically has been more challenging. Do you have a clear pathway to permitting the required infrastructure to complete the final stages?
Yes, the permitting strategy is, of course, part of the overall strategic plan for developing and getting into full-scale operations. There is a binational treaty that exists today between Chile and Argentina. In fact, we have a Vicuna protocol that exists for this exploration stage that the projects are in. And so we can move in and out between Chile and Argentina without having to clear customs each time. Now what we would look at doing is escalating that to an exploitation agreement between both countries, and that would enable us to move product and personnel through this operations phase more freely. So we're working both with Chilean and Argentinian authorities as part of that binational treaty commission to establish this. And we do have time to ensure that we tick all the boxes and get the necessary approvals to really bring that to that exploitation phase.
We're seeing as well and understanding the permitting time lines and using those assumptions for unlocking the full scale. So I think we've got a good strategy in place, a collaborative effort between people that are working for BHP, Lundin Mining, Vicuna Corp. and working with the Argentinian and Chilean authorities as well. So no doubt, it's a big undertaking, but I think we've got a good plan in place, and we do see it as a feasible and viable option to get to full scale.
And our next question will come from Orest Wowkodaw with Scotia Bank.
You've already got a plus 7-year mine life. Clearly Filo is probably going to get bigger. Is there any plans for a Phase 4 at this point in terms of expansion. And I'm just wondering if you feel like you're capped out at the Phase 3 design throughput with respect to your ability to mine at Jose and Filo? Or do you think the ore bodies could support a future expansion well beyond what you're currently thinking?
Great question, Orest. And I think that given the size, the scale, the life of this project, it gives us flexibility to look at a multitude of options. And really what we would be trying to do is enhance near-term cash flows and economic viability in the earlier year. So improving mine plan, seeing if we can get the grade profiles up so we can be feeding higher-grade material earlier on, establishing that kind of peak production profile earlier on and seeing how long we could plateau that out rather than trying to extend mine life beyond 70 years. But I think ultimately, this is a unique district that once you get into production, you're going to be operating for many, many decades.
So we've got the optionality because of the size of the mineral endowment. And I think exploration also lends to looking at future optimizations if we were able to find high-grade near-surface mineralization that could supplement maybe lower grade material that's currently contemplated in the existing resources. These are the types of things that we'd look to kind of pursue in parallel to all of the ongoing work streams.
And just one follow-up, if I could. It looks like BHP has put out a slightly different number or range, I guess, for Phase 1 CapEx of they're saying $7 billion to $8 billion. And it looks like they've applied some kind of plus 10% to the $7 billion number. Is that just a difference in philosophy? Or is that essentially putting a contingency on a contingency? How should we think about that?
Yes. So we're all aligned on the initial capital number of being $7.1 billion. And so think that's BHP's method of presenting the data. So at Lundin Mining, we've presented the absolute figure and not giving ranges to those numbers. So it's just a difference in reporting standards. But overall, both BHP and Lundin Mining through the Board of Directors of Vicuna Corp have signed off on the results of the PEA, and those are seen the same way between both companies.
And our last question will come from Ioannis Masvoulas with Morgan Stanley.
I think you partly answered it, but if I look at Slide 31, where you show the concentrator feed by source, we do see quite a lot of great variability after the first sort of 10 years of operation. Is that something that, as you indicated, you're planning to improve as you continue your visibility work and your exploration, and therefore, we might end up with a flatter grade profile at high levels? Or due to the nature of the mining district, we might have to accept some variability depending on the phase of our production?
Ioannis, I think it's very common to see during this kind of level of study grade variability in the manner that you're seeing on the presentation and the material that we're providing. So absolutely, the work of the mining engineering team, together in collaboration with the exploration and geology department will be to refine that reserve and mine plan to look at having less variability and bringing forward higher-grade material. So that all comes down to further refinements of the updated studies. And we believe there's significant kind of upside to ensure that we can do that.
This does conclude today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.
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Lundin Mining — Special Call - Lundin Mining Corporation
Lundin Mining — Special Call - Lundin Mining Corporation
📣 Kernbotschaft
- PEA‑Ergebnis: Die Preliminary Economic Assessment (Vicuna, Lundin 50%/BHP 50%) skizziert ein Tier‑1‑Mineralgebiet mit >70 Jahren Lebensdauer, gestufter Entwicklung (Stage 1–3) und einem 10‑Jahres‑Peak von >500.000 t Kupfer/Jahr und >800.000 oz Gold/Jahr.
- Kapitalbedarf: Stage‑1‑CapEx USD 7,1 Mrd.; kumulatives Initialkapital über USD 18 Mrd.; FID‑Ziel noch dieses Jahr, abhängig von RIGI‑Zulassung und Finanzierungsentscheid.
🎯 Strategische Highlights
- Stufenkonzept: Stage 1: Josemaría Sulfid‑Konzentrator 175kt/d; Stage 2: Oxid‑Heap‑Leach (60kt/d Cu, 30kt/d Au); Stage 3: Ausbau auf ≈300kt/d (zentralisierte Verarbeitung, Förderbandnetz).
- Infrastrukturstrategie: Off‑site‑Infrastruktur soll ausgegliedert und per Tarif genutzt werden (Desalination, Pipeline, Roaster); Ziel: Infrastrukturinvestoren mit niedrigerer Renditeanforderung.
- Wirtschaft: 25‑Jahres‑Durchschnitts‑Free‑Cash‑Flow USD 2,2 Mrd.; All‑in‑sustaining‑Cost USD 0,47/lb; positive Hebelwirkung zu Rohstoffpreisen.
🔭 Neue Informationen
- Ressource: Aktualisierte kombinierte Mineralressource: ~46 Mio. t Kupfer, ≈100 Mio. oz Gold, ≈1,8 Mrd. oz Silber; netto‑Zuwachs gegenüber Mai: +9 Mio. t Cu, +16,5 Mio. oz Au.
- Infrastruktur: Desalination‑Konzept 2.000 l/s an der Pazifikküste, Konzentrate‑Roaster für arsenreiche SULFIDE in den Modellen; Stage‑1‑CapEx beginnt modellmäßig 2027.
❓ Fragen der Analysten
- Infrastruktur‑Kosten: Management veröffentlicht keine separaten CapEx‑Werte für ausgelagerte Infrastruktur; Auswirkungen auf Tarife/OpEx bleiben kommerziell sensibel und offen.
- Finanzierung: Optionen: Anteilseigner‑Finanzierung, Projektfinanzierung, Streaming oder Mischformen; Lundin hebt USD 4,5 Mrd. revolver hervor und sagt, man sei „fully funded“ für den eigenen Anteil.
- Technik & Genehmigung: Metallurgie (Übergangszone Oxid/Sulfid) und Arsen‑Roaster sind Themen; RIGI‑Antrag läuft und ist Gate für FID, Genehmigungs‑/grenzüberschreitende Infrastruktur bleibt überwachte Risikogruppe.
⚡ Bottom Line
- Fazit: Vicuna ist ein potenziell transformierendes, multigenerationelles Projekt mit erstklassigen Produktions‑ und Cashflow‑Kennzahlen. Chancen: erhebliche Skalierbarkeit und niedrige langfristige Kosten. Risiken: hohe anfängliche Investitionen, offene Finanzierungs‑/Infrastruktur‑Struktur, Metallurgie‑ und Genehmigungsrisiken; nächste Katalysatoren: technischer Bericht (SEDAR), Class‑II‑Schätzung und RIGI‑Entscheidung.
Lundin Mining — Q3 2025 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Lundin Mining Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.
I would now like to turn the conference over to Jack Lundin, President and CEO of Lundin Mining. Please go ahead.
Welcome to our third quarter 2025 conference call. The financial results press release and presentation are on our website where you can also find a replay of this call. All figures today are in U.S. dollars unless stated otherwise. After the presentation, we will open the floor to questions.
Today's webinar will include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Please review the cautionary notes on Slide 2 and the disclaimer in our MD&A.
With me today is our Chief Operating Officer, Juan Andres Morel; and our Chief Financial Officer, Teitur Poulsen, to discuss our Q3 operating and financial results.
Touching on the highlights from the quarter. Consistent operational performance continues to drive solid financial results, which I'll briefly summarize on the next slide, and Juan Andres and Teitur will provide additional details shortly.
We've tightened our production guidance ranges, increased copper guidance and reduced cost guidance, reflecting the strength and stability of our operations. We continue to advance the Vicuña opportunity during the quarter given the positive momentum and many working fronts that are progressing well against the baseline plan, we felt it was the right moment to further strengthen the management team.
Effective tomorrow, Ron Hochstein will be leaving Lundin Gold to join Dave Dicaire in the rest of the Vicuña Corp. team, where he will support as Chief Executive Officer of the joint venture. Ron joined a group of familiar former colleagues, many of whom were involved on the successful project phase of the Fruta del Norte gold mine in Southern Ecuador, currently owned and operated by Lundin Gold.
Together, the team will look to build on a successful track record by bringing the Vicuña project towards the sanction decision and ultimately, development and operations.
Our operational success goes hand-in-hand with our safety performance. In the first 9 months of the year, we're pleased to report no major injuries across any of our operations and the total recordable injury frequency rate of 0.29, the lowest in the company's last 10 years. This achievement underscores our commitment to risk management and the effectiveness of our proactive improvements to critical controls.
Lastly, as we outlined at our Capital Markets Day in June, we're advancing several near and midterm growth opportunities across each of our three Latin American operations.
One key initiative relates to the Caserones cathode growth opportunity, and I'll provide an update on that towards the end of today's presentation.
On the next slide, we're pleased to announce that the third quarter was the best quarter year-to-date by most metrics. We're seeing the benefits of a simplified portfolio, full potential initiatives and disciplined planning and the execution of our plans are paying off now.
Copper production for the quarter totaled 87,400 tons, primarily driven by a strong performance at Caserones from higher copper grades and elevated cathode production. As a result, we have increased annual copper guidance by approximately 11,500 tons in the midpoint. The new guidance range is 319,000 to 337,000 tons of copper, improving by about 3.5% when you compare the midpoint.
Gold production was in line with the last quarter at 38,000 ounces, and year-to-date, we are tracking to achieve our full year guidance. During the quarter, we produced copper at a consolidated cash cost of $1.61 per pound, benefiting from stronger gold prices and cost reduction efforts at our assets through our full potential programs. We have since lowered cost guidance to $1.85 to $2 a pound and tightened our production ranges on several of our assets as we enter the final quarter of the year. We will provide details on guidance improvements later in this presentation.
And on the operational financial performance, we delivered over $1 billion in revenue in Q3, making it one of the strongest quarters in the company's 30-year history. And we generated approximately $490 million in adjusted EBITDA and $383 million in adjusted operating cash flow. We also declared our 38th regular quarterly dividend, highlighting our commitment to financial discipline and shareholder returns.
There were no share buybacks in the quarter. Year-to-date, we've purchased or repurchased 12.6 million shares for approximately USD 104 million at an average price of CAD 11.70 per share. With about $45 million remaining under our $150 million buyback program, subject to market conditions, we intend to complete the buybacks before the end of this year.
However, any shares that are not purchased will be turned into a special dividend, ensuring we deliver on our $220 million total annual return target.
I would now like to invite Juan Andres, our Chief Operating Officer, to discuss our production results for the quarter.
Thank you, Jack, and good morning, everyone. Our assets continue to perform well, and the focus on increasing our operational discipline is correlating to strong safety and production results. As mentioned earlier, we increased copper guidance, and I will discuss that later on.
Copper production for the company was 87,400 tons for the quarter and 244,200 tons year-to-date, which puts us in a comfortable position to meet our increased guidance range for the year of 319,000 to 337,000 tons of copper.
Gold production for the quarter totaled 37,800 ounces and 107,700 ounces year-to-date. The company is positioned well going into the end of the year and tracking to production guidance on a consolidated basis for copper, gold and nickel for 2025.
At Candelaria, copper production for the quarter totaled 37,000 tons, along with 19,900 ounces of gold. Candelaria continues to be extremely consistent this year, softer ore from Phase 11 led to higher throughput in the mill, which processed 8.1 million tons of ore during the period. This is the highest throughput in a quarter in the last 5 years and the second highest quarter for throughput since we have owned the asset.
Year-to-date, Candelaria has produced 111,000 tons of copper and 61,500 ounces of gold, which puts Candelaria well on track to meet guidance for the year. We anticipate production levels in the fourth quarter at Candelaria to be in line with Q3.
At Caserones, copper production reached 35,300 tons in Q3, one of the strongest quarters since we have owned the asset. Year-to-date, it has produced 93,300 tons. As mentioned last quarter, the asset is second half weighted. Head grades have improved in the second half of the year and should continue through Q4, putting Caserones on track to meet guidance.
Cathode production continued to outperform expectations, but in line with what we announced in June during our Capital Markets Day. A total of 6,300 tons of copper of cathodes was produced in the quarter driven by increased material placed on the leach pads and improved irrigation practices. We have updated the hydrometallurgical model for the dump leach and anticipate cathode production for the full year to be approximately 24,000 tons, which is higher than what we have planned at the beginning of the year.
This strong capital production has led us to increase overall guidance for Caserones and tighten the range. The new copper guidance is forecast to be 127,000 to 133,000 tons for the full year at Caserones.
In the quarter, Chapada produced 12,600 tons of copper and 17,900 ounces of gold. Production at Chapada continues to be weighted toward the second half of the year, and fourth quarter production should be in line with Q3.
At Eagle Mine, nickel production was 2,700 tons and copper production was 2,400 tons for the quarter. Mill throughput was strong at 183,000 tons, which was the highest quarterly throughput in the last 2 years.
Eagle is tracking to guidance and is expected to be within 9,000 and 11,000 tons of nickel and within 9,000 and 10,000 tons of copper for the year. Year-to-date, operations have been performing well. Strong capital production and throughput at Caserones has led to a guidance increase for approximately 10,000 tons. As mentioned, the new guidance range for Caserones is now 127,000 to 133,000 tons.
With increased confidence going into the end of the year, we have tightened the guidance ranges for Candelaria and Eagle. The new copper guidance range for Candelaria is 143,000 to 149,000 tons and for Eagle is 9,000 to 10,000 tons of copper.
Consolidated copper production guidance range is now 319,000 to 337,000 tons of copper an improvement of approximately 11,500 tons to the midpoint of the guidance.
Consolidated gold production guidance is now 135,000 to 146,000, representing a tightening of the range for improved confidence at Candelaria and Chapada. Overall, we're in a good position entering the fourth quarter.
With improved guidance and consistency from our operations, we are tracking to reach the midpoint for our guidance for all metals.
I would now like to turn the call over to Teitur to provide a summary on our financial results. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you, Andres, and good morning, everybody. I'm very pleased to be able to present a strong financial quarter for the company.
The company's financial performance was supported by strong operational results, as Andres has just now presented, coupled with favorable copper and gold prices. These factors enabled the company to achieve another quarter of strong financial performance.
The revenue for the quarter came in at $1 billion with our revenue remaining heavily weighted towards copper, which accounted for 79% of the revenue mix.
Gold and nickel contributed 13% and 3%, respectively. With the price of gold hitting all-time highs, we have seen our gold revenue contribution climb by about 2 to 3 percentage points.
During the quarter, our Chilean mines, Candelaria and Caserones generated 74% of the company's revenue. In combination with Chapada in Brazil, operations in South America represented 95% of total revenue.
Looking at volumes sold inventory levels of concentrate and realized pricing. During the period, we sold approximately 79,000 tons of copper at a realized price of $4.61 per pound, which is slightly better pricing than the average LME spot price for copper during the period.
As disclosed in our pre-release in October, we incurred a shipment delay of approximately 20,000 tons of copper concentrate at Caserones due to weather-related impacts at the port of Punta Totoralillo. This has resulted in company carrying higher than normal inventory levels at the end of Q3. This elevated level of inventory is expected to unwind during Q4, and thus having the revenue and cost of goods sold associated with this inventory to be recorded in the fourth quarter, 2025.
Traditional pricing impact in the third quarter was positive by $11 million, primarily driven by gold ounces that settled in the quarter. The realized gold price during the quarter was just below $3,900 per ounce. At the end of the quarter, 78,000 tons of copper were provisionally priced at $4.65 per pound and 34,000 ounces of gold were provisionally priced at $3,800 per ounce and remain open for final pricing adjustments in Q4.
Turning to Slide 14. Production costs totaled $490 million for the quarter, consistent with the past few quarters. At Candelaria, total costs were higher compared to previous quarters due to higher mining costs and higher ore milled during the period and due to reclassifying certain stripping costs from sustaining CapEx to production costs.
Cash costs have continued to benefit from strong gold prices and remain in the $1.90 range. For the full year, we reiterated the cash cost guidance of $1.80 to $2 per pound for Candelaria.
Caserones costs for the third quarter are lower than normal due to inventory build relating to the deferred shipment of concentrate into the fourth quarter, representing approximately $20 million in costs associated with this delay.
Costs in the third quarter also benefited from certain one-off credit notes from certain suppliers and due to a new and more cost-effective equipment maintenance contract. Total costs were in line with expectation of $158 million for the quarter when adjusted for the above-mentioned items.
Cash cost at Caserones were $1.86 per pound and benefited from better TCRC terms, stronger cathode production and byproduct credits as well as lower contract costs as mentioned earlier.
We expect cash costs in the fourth quarter to continue to benefit from strong cathode production and byproduct pricing and have lowered our guidance range for Caserones to between $1.15 to -- sorry, $2.15 to $2.25 per pound, representing an approximate $0.30 per pound decrease.
Chapada's total cost for the third quarter amounted to $96 million, reflecting higher mill throughput during the quarter and volumes sold.
C1 costs continued to decrease compared to prior period and came in at $0.50 per pound for the quarter, primarily due to higher byproduct credits from gold prices. We are reducing the full year cost guidance range again to $0.90 to $1 per pound from the previous guidance range of $1.10 to $1.30 per pound. On a consolidated basis, our C1 cost for the quarter was $1.61 per pound, well below our full year guidance range of $1.95 to $2.15 per pound.
Based on the adjustments mentioned above, we are, as previously mentioned, reducing our consolidated cash cost guidance range to $1.85 to $2 per pound for the full year.
Total capital expenditure, including both sustaining and expansionary investment was $160 million for the quarter and $485 million for the 9 months of the year.
Full year guidance for the total capital expenditure has been revised down by $45 million to $750 million due to a deferral of projects at Candelaria and Caserones, as well as reclassifying some of the capitalized stripping costs at Candelaria to production costs. For sustaining capital, we expect spending to increase going into the fourth quarter to reflect the roughly $170 million that remains to meet guidance for the full year.
At Vicuna, capital expenditure during the quarter was $51 million and year-to-date, $126 million and is tracking to guidance of $250 million for the full year. Q3 expenditure was primarily focused on field activities for water program, drilling, trade-off studies, engineering, cost estimation and permitting and preparation for the integrated technical study in the first quarter 2026.
Our key financial metrics for the third quarter are presented on Slide 16. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $490 million, with a 49% margin. Adjusted operating cash flow for the quarter totaled $383 million and for the first 9 months totaled just below $1 billion, including cash tax payments of close to $300 million. The company achieved solid free cash flow from operations of $169 million despite the impact of $113 million working capital build during the quarter.
Adjusted earnings amounted to $255 million for the quarter, which translates to an adjusted EPS of $0.18, an improvement of 64% from last quarter.
Turning to cash generation during the third quarter. We entered the quarter with around $279 million in cash and a net debt position of $135 million. We generated adjusted operating cash flow of $383 million after cash tax payments of $86 million and incurred a working capital build of $113 million.
The sustaining capital investment amounted to $109 million, which resulted in free cash flow from operations for the quarter of $169 million. We had total shareholder and NCI distributions of $43 million during the quarter, of which $17 million related to the payment of regular dividends. After debt, leasing and interest payments as well as the deferred payment of $10 million relating to our Caserones acquisition, we ended the quarter with cash of around $290 million and a net debt position of $108 million, excluding lease liabilities.
By the end of the year, we expect to be essentially net debt free. We continue to advance the process to increase our revolving credit facility as part of our strategy to fund future growth plans. We have a number of interested banks, both existing lenders and potential new lenders and have been progressing term sheets and expect the process to conclude towards year-end or in the early part of next year.
So overall, a very good quarter that aligns with the financial outlook that we provided at our June Capital Markets Day.
So, I will now turn the call back to Jack for some final remarks.
Thank you, Teitur. I'll take a few moments to discuss one of our near-term growth initiatives, which we outlined at our Capital Markets Day back in June.
Cathode production at Caserones continues to improve. We delivered another strong quarter and are on track to produce approximately 24,000 tons of cathodes this year compared to an original plan of approximately 16,000 tons. Total cathode plant capacity is roughly 35,000 tons.
As we discussed in June, our goal is to capture an additional 7,000 to 10,000 tons of cathode production from a baseline of 15,000 tons which was the average annual production over the 2 years prior to us acquiring Caserones. Over the past 8 to 12 months, we've implemented several key operational improvements. Firstly, we enhanced leaching practices, including better dump leach coverage and higher irrigation rates.
Secondly, we have increased oxide material placement on the dumps supported by improved geological understanding and tighter waste control in the open pit. These actions are now translating into higher cathode output as the benefits flow through with leach cycle residence times.
As mentioned by Juan Andres, we also recently completed an update to our hydrogeological leaching model, improving our ability to predict leaching kinetics and incorporate recent operational gains. Based on these improvements, we see potential for future annual cathode production to increase further, which we are now analyzing.
On the next slide, before reaching the closing remarks, I would like to outline a few upcoming catalysts to look out for. We're in the final stages of completing our reapplication and see a potential window to submit before the end of the year.
In the first quarter of 2026, we expect to complete the integrated technical report for the large-scale fully integrated development and operations plan for the Vicuna project. This milestone will outline a clear path for Lundin Mining to become a top 10 global producer once in full scale operation at Vicuna.
In parallel, and as Teitur mentioned, we're advancing our financing strategy to support these growth plans. We've initiated the process to increase our revolving credit facility and continue to see strong interest from our existing banking partners as well as future lenders. We expect this process to conclude towards the end of this year or early part of next year, as Teitur mentioned.
At Chapada, the Saúva project represents a compelling near mine growth opportunity with the potential to add 15,000 to 20,000 tonnes of copper and 50,000 to 60,000 ounces of gold annually, production increases of approximately 50% and 100%, respectively, for the Chapada operation. And the study includes expanding grinding capacity to process higher grade ore from Saúva through the Chapada mill.
Permitting and technical work are underway with the pre-feasibility study targeted for completion by the end of this year. We look forward to providing further updates as this exciting project continues to advance.
Touching on the conclusions now. We delivered our best quarter year-to-date, producing 87,353 tonnes of copper at a C1 cash cost of $1.61 per pound. Strong operations and higher gold prices enabled us to raise production guidance and lower consolidated cash costs. The copper guidance midpoint increased by 11,500 tons to 319,000 to 337,000 tons of copper driven by stronger cathode production at Caserones and improvements in the leaching circuit at Caserones.
Cash cost guidance at Caserones and Chapada dropped lowering the consolidated midpoint by $0.125 to $1.85 to $2 a pound. We generated $383 million in adjusted operating cash flow, strengthening our balance sheet with the company expected to essentially be net debt free by year-end. We continue to be in strong financial standing as we look to advance our growth initiatives at Lundin Mining.
Looking ahead, our priorities remain focused to continue to deliver on strong safety performance which directly supports our operational excellence programs, advancing near-term growth and preparing Vicuna for potential sanctioning in 2026.
The company enters Q4 well positioned with key catalysts over the next 4 to 6 months, including, as mentioned, a RIGI application in the near term and an integrated technical report for Vicuna.
All-in-all, a very solid quarter, and we remain poised to deliver a strong overall 2025.
Operator, I'd like to now open up the call for questions. Thank you.
[Operator Instructions] The first question will be coming from the line of Orest Wowkodaw of Scotiabank.
2. Question Answer
Congratulations on the strong quarter. I'm just curious with the integrated technical report for Vicuna District, I guess, only a couple of months now from completion. Just curious if there's been any thought to any potential scope changes on what Phase 1 or Phase 2 could look like and whether we should still be anticipating, call it, around 175,000 ton a day operation for -- that would reflect Jose under Phase I? Or -- I'm just trying to understand if any of the goalposts have been locked in at this point or whether the project scope is still under discussion?
Orest, thanks for the question. I would say that, broadly speaking, the scope for Phase 1 has not changed significantly since we last gave an update on Jose Maria, which is considered to be Phase 1 for the Vicuna project. We're working through this integrated technical report, which will have a lower level of definition as you get into the later phases.
But I would say our level of confidence, especially for Phase 1 continues to grow with that -- those numbers that you mentioned there. So, the oxides, we're looking at opportunities, continuously looking at areas where we can improve costs and drive value. And I think as this technical report comes together and we put all the phases together and look at various trade-offs like that will show in Q1 when the report is published, but Phase 1 specifically, we continue to refine and derisk on scope that was -- that we've been speaking about for the last number of quarters here. So, we're on track and no significant changes should be expected from Phase 1 particularly.
Okay. And just as a follow-up on the time line, just given already in November, do you have a sense of when in Q1, we could anticipate that?
I can't pinpoint an exact date for you, Orest. But I would say in the towards the latter part of Q1. That will be coming out with the results. And then, there's going to be a period between when we come out with the results and when we actually publish a technical report. But obviously, the team is working very hard on trying to get everything together. So that, some part in the second half of Q1, we'll be able to publish the results followed by the report coming out within 45 days of when the results get published.
The next question will be coming from the line of Lawson Winder of Bank of America Securities.
Very nice quarterly results, and thank you for today's update. If I could also ask about the integrated Vicuna plan and just get a sense for one aspect that Filo had previously proposed, which was this idea of a precious metals-focused initial starter pit.
I mean, for a smaller company like Filo, it made a lot of sense. For a larger company like Lundin, perhaps it's just not enough capital or cash flow to really move the needle. But I mean, that would be in a much lower gold price than I would make a comment like that, I think in the current gold price, I mean, is there any thoughts potentially doing some sort of precious metals-focused starter pit with Filo in conjunction with the Phase I at that you just spoke about?
Right now, we're still considering kind of going ahead with the base plan that we've outlined Phase 1 being Jose Maria. Of course, with commodity prices going higher, we see if there's opportunities to maximize value based on that -- based on market conditions.
But right now, Lawson, I would say Phase 1 still is very much contemplating Jose Maria and then Phase 2 being the oxides of Filo, which includes base and precious metals. So, to summarize, no, we're not considering changing the scope right now.
Okay. Perfect. And then, just thinking about some of the opportunities that lie ahead, including the success you've had at Caserones, this update we're looking for in early 2026 on Sauva. The current 2026 CapEx plan that you've laid out, is there a risk that ex Vicuna, that could change materially from what you currently have in the market?
It's Teitur, here. But on CapEx, we have not guided any CapEx for the company in 2026. What we did say at the Capital Markets Day that we had around about $155 million, I believe it was for the Sauva expansion, and that number remains intact.
And then as we think about Caserones, I mean, could you expect something material or I guess the way to think about it then is, can you expect something materially higher from what you guys are on track to spend this year?
No, I don't think so. I mean, we will come up with our usual annual guidance in January, and all that will be disclosed, but I would not expect any significant deviations on current trends. No.
And that increase in cathode production that we outlined in the presentation doesn't come at any real additional capital requirements, which is why it's such a robust opportunity. And really, the team has been -- behind it has been just working on optimizing the leaching circuit. So, as Teitur said, we wouldn't expect to come out with any materially increased capital numbers for Caserones specifically.
[Operator Instructions] And our next question will be coming from the line of Daniel Major of UBS.
Congrats on a good quarter. Just first question on the oxide production profile at Caserones is 25,000 ton run rate this year. Is that a reasonable assumption to bake into the subsequent couple of years? And can you remind us what was embedded in the 130,000, 140,000 guidance? I've got about 15,000 tons previously. So is there upside to that '26 previous guide number?
Daniel, this is Juan Andres. Thank you for the question. Yes. I think the answer to your question is yes. Looking forward we're looking at sustaining that level of production from the cathode plant. So, 24,000, 25,000 tons per day, at least for the next, let's say, 3, 4 years is a good, good assumption.
Okay. And then, just a question on -- follow-up on the CapEx, sorry, if I'm getting some of the numbers mixed up here. But is it fair to assume the sustaining CapEx for the group, excluding any spend at Vicuna would be a similar kind of run rate, so like $400 million or so?
And then on top of that, you're assuming in late FID of Vicuna late in the year, probably a similar run rate of spend at the Vicuna. So, are we looking at a similar sort of $650 million, $700 million range. Is that reasonable for CapEx for next year, excluding any other FIDs?
Yes. I mean, we -- as I said, we will come up with further detailed guidance in January. But this year, we guided $530 million in sustaining CapEx for the full year, and we've now guided that down to $410 million. I think it's important to say that, that saving is -- or that reduction is not really a saving. It's more a deferral of projects from 2025 into 2026.
Also remember, our CapEx guidance is based on cash payments, not incurred activity. But I think that run rate from about the current of 2025 run rate we have, it should be roughly what we expect to see going forward.
Just to clarify, $530 million down to $510 million.
Sustaining CapEx, excluding growth CapEx.
Okay. Yes. And for Vicuna, like we're going through the 2026 budget now with the Vicuna team. And similarly, we would be updating kind of the guidance range on that. But hopefully, we'll be in a position where we can continue to ramp up with activities prior to a sanction decision. So, it wouldn't be like -- you could expect that provided progress continues on the trend that it is, that it would be higher than -- higher next year than it is this year.
Okay. That's clear. And then, maybe just a final one. This reasonably sizable working capital build in the quarter, $112 million or something, which puts you not up quite a bit in terms of working capital year-to-date. Would you expect that to reverse in the fourth quarter?
Yes, I would expect that. It's always hard to predict the exact timing of year-end shipments, et cetera. But if everything goes according to plan, we should see an unwind of that in the fourth quarter, yes.
[Operator Instructions] And our next question is coming from the line of Dalton Baretto of Canaccord.
Congrats on a great quarter and also a great choice appointing Ron as CEO of Vicuna. I wanted to ask about some of these cross-border negotiations that are still ongoing. Jack, can you sort of remind us what elements are under discussion? What the status is? And what's going to be assumed in the technical report when it comes out?
Thanks, Dalton. Yes, I fully agree. It's great to officially bring Ron over to Vicuna, starting effectively tomorrow once Lundin Gold gets through their quarterly results.
So the -- there's a binational treaty that exists today between Chile and Argentina. I think it was established in 1997. There is on that treaty of Vicuna protocol that exists during this current exploration phase that the project is in. So, we're able to kind of move from one side of the border to the other freely. And at the moment, what we would be looking at doing is specifically when we get to Phase 4, and we're mining from Filo sulfides and getting to full scale, that would require the binational treaty to turn into kind of an exploitation arrangement.
And at that time, we would be contemplating significant pieces of infrastructure like desalinated water line, potentially concentrate slurry line and really integrating all of the infrastructure together during that final phase of the project. But initially, what we're looking at doing is building Jose Maria, 100% within Argentina and then trucking the concentrate out. And so, we don't need to have that significant uplift in that treaty. But we have time. There is engagement between both the Chilean and Argentinian authorities to elevate this national treaty into exploitation phase, but that's not required during the initial years of production through Jose Maria.
Got it. So, no concerns around moving the concentrate out through Chile, no concerns around bringing water up or any of that kind of stuff?
I think it's early days that we're working on that plan and that scope, and we have time to ensure that we do it the right way. So far, our baseline schedule is intact. And I think dialogue is strong, and we just need to continue building on that momentum. So overall, I think we're feeling very positive about all phases, and we'll just continue to derisk as we bring the project forward towards integrated study and eventual sanction.
Got it. And then, once the study comes out and you put a pin in it, what are sort of the next remaining steps before an FID?
So, I think having fiscal stability, having the integrated technical report released and published, having our financing plan so that Lundin Mining can ensure that we can fund our 50% portion of Phase 1. And then, there's various permits that we're still working through and government agreements in the provincial level at San Juan that we would need to receive. We're updating our environmental impact assessment as well.
So, there's a number of kind of items on the checklist that we would be required to fulfill before going to the shareholders being BHP and Lundin Mining for a sanction decision. But we're progressing well on all of those fronts.
So this could be a sort of a back half of next year type thing?
If we continue to progress on the plan that we currently are on, then it's not out of the question to have a sanction decision coming at the back half of next year. Of course, a lot of work to be done between now and then, and we're working to make sure that we get all of our ducks in a row to achieve that. So, that's the hope.
That's great. And maybe just one last one. This is more of a confirmation thing than anything else. What you're applying for under RIGI, it's is all the phases, right?
That's a great question. So, because we have Jose Maria and Filo del Sol together now under Vicuna Corp within the same SPV, the projects are integrated together and they're looked at as one large-scale project. However, for us, it's important to get fiscal stability and approvals and permits for Phase 1 as we have much more definition around Phase I, but the intention would be achieving fiscal stability on the entire Vicuna project, which includes both Jose and Filo and potential future discoveries in the region. As we know, it's a very prospective area, and we definitely feel like we'll be finding more minerals as we continue to spend more time in the area.
Thank you. And there are no more questions in the queue. At this time, this does conclude today's conference call. You may all disconnect.
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Lundin Mining — Q3 2025 Earnings Call
Lundin Mining — Q3 2025 Earnings Call
📊 Quartal auf einen Blick
- Kupferproduktion: 87.400 t in Q3; neue Jahresguidance 319.000–337.000 t (Midpoint +11.500 t).
- Finanzen: Umsatz > $1 Mrd; Adjusted EBITDA $490 Mio; Adjusted OCF $383 Mio; Adjusted EPS $0,18.
- Kosten: Konsolidierte C1 $1,61/lb (Q3); konsolidierte Cash‑Cost‑Guidance gesenkt auf $1,85–2,00/lb.
- Cathoden: 6.300 t Q3; Full‑year ~24.000 t (vs. ursprünglich ~16.000); Upside‑Potenzial sichtbar.
- Kapital & Dividende: YTD Buybacks $104 Mio (12,6 Mio Aktien), $45 Mio Rest; Net Debt ~ $108 Mio, Ziel: faktisch schuldenfrei bis Jahresende.
🎯 Was das Management sagt
- Betrieb: Vereinfachtes Portfolio und "full potential"-Initiativen liefern: stabilere Produktion, niedrigere Kosten.
- Wachstum: Vicuna wird priorisiert; integrierter technischer Bericht in Q1‑2026, Team verstärkt (neuer CEO für JV) zur Beschleunigung Richtung Sanction.
- Asset‑Chancen: Caserones‑Cathoden als kapitalarmer Hebel; Chapada‑Saúva als near‑mine Erweiterung mit sign. zusätzlicher Kupfer/Gold‑Produktion.
🔭 Ausblick & Guidance
- Produktion: Konsolidierte Kupferguidance 319–337 kt; Caserones 127–133 kt; Candelaria 143–149 kt; Eagle 9–10 kt; Gold 135–146 koz.
- Kosten & CapEx: Konsolidierte Cash‑Cost Guidance $1,85–2,00/lb; Full‑Year CapEx revidiert auf $750 Mio; Vicuna CapEx YTD $126 Mio, guidance $250 Mio.
- Timing: Integrierter Vicuna‑Report in Q1‑2026 (Veröffentlichung 2. Hj Q1, techn. Bericht folgt binnen 45 Tagen); Inventaraufbau aus Q3 soll sich in Q4 auflösen.
❓ Fragen der Analysten
- Vicuna‑Scope: Frage zu Phase‑Definition; Management: Phase‑1 (José María) bleibt Baseline, keine signifikanten Scope‑Änderungen.
- Timeline: Wann im Q1? Management nennt späten/zweiten Teil von Q1; Bericht innerhalb ~45 Tagen nach Ergebnisveröffentlichung.
- Grenzüberschreitende Infrastruktur: Diskussion zur binationalen Behandlung (Chile/Argentinien); initiale Produktion geplant 100% in Argentinien mit Trucking, größere Infrastruktur erst für spätere Phasen.
⚡ Bottom Line
- Fazit: Sehr starker operativer Quarter: höhere Kupferproduktion, sinkende Kosten, starke Cash‑Generierung und klarer Fortschritt bei Wachstumsvorhaben. Aktie profitiert kurzfristig von erhöhter Guidance und Kapitalrückfluss; mittelfristig entscheidend sind Vicuna‑Report, Genehmigungen und Finanzierungsplan.
Lundin Mining — Q2 2025 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Lundin Mining Second Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.
I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Jack Lundin, President and CEO. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and welcome to our 2025 second quarter conference call. A press release and presentation summarizing the financial results for the quarter is available on our website, where a replay of this call will be available. All figures presented today are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted.
Before we begin, please note that today's presentation will include forward-looking statements that are subject to various risks and uncertainties. We encourage you to review the cautionary statements on Slide 2 as well as the forward-looking information disclaimer in our MD&A and related filings available on SEDAR.
With me on the call today are 2 members of our senior executive team, our Chief Operating Officer, Juan Andrés Morel; and our Chief Financial Officer, Teitur Poulsen.
On June 18, we held our first ever Capital Markets Day, where we outlined our strategic vision and financial outlook to support our growth ambitions. We have set a target to become a top 10 global copper producer, targeting over 500,000 tons per year of copper as well as over 550,000 ounces of gold. To support our strategic vision, we highlighted multiple near-term growth initiatives at our existing operations in addition to the longer-term opportunity that is presented with the Vicuña project. The mineral resources contained within this project establishes Vicuña as one of the world's largest copper, gold and silver mineral resources.
There is a replay of the CMD available on our website where the audience can go to view to get the full overview as well as highlights from the day. On April 16, we completed the sale of our 2 European mines to Boliden. This transaction generated cash proceeds of $1.4 billion, and the use of the proceeds went towards fully repaying and canceling the company's Caserones term loan and towards substantially paying down the outstanding balance on our revolving credit facility, bringing our net debt, excluding lease liabilities, down to about $135 million as at the end of Q2. As a result, our reporting now focuses solely on our 4 continuing operations, which are Candelaria, Caserones, Chapada and Eagle.
In May, we announced the initial mineral resource at Filo del Sol, demonstrating one of the world's largest copper, gold and silver resources. Combined together with the updated mineral resource of Josemaria, the project contains 38 million tons of copper, over 80 million ounces of gold and nearly 1.4 billion ounces of silver, making it a truly unique asset. Also during the quarter, we published our 2024 sustainability report, highlighting the company's environmental, health and safety, governance and social performance.
We are proud to note that in 2024, based on our recalculated 2019 baseline emissions, which now include Caserones, our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions targets for 2030 has been achieved. Even without the inclusion of Caserones, our other operations reached 91% of the emissions reduction target. This was primarily due to Candelaria expanding its contractual agreement to purchase 100% of its electricity from renewable sources with 0 carbon emissions in 2024. Our full sustainability report can be found on our website under the Sustainability page.
Importantly, there were no major injuries in the first half of the year and the Total Recordable Injury Frequency rate, or TRIF, was the lowest in 10 years at 0.33. The team's strong safety performance in the first half of the year reflects our shared commitment to identifying and mitigating critical risks. Our continued proactive efforts are driving meaningful improvements to the critical controls we are implementing.
Now touching on Q2 2025 highlights. Copper production for the quarter totaled 80,000 tons higher than Q1, primarily driven by a strong performance at Candelaria and Caserones along with improved copper and gold grades at Chapada. In the first half of the year, we produced 157,000 tons of copper, keeping us on track to meet our annual copper production guidance range of 303,000 tons to 330,000 tons. Gold production also increased significantly quarter-over-quarter from 32,000 ounces to 38,100 ounces this quarter, positioning us well again to achieve the full-year guidance range of 135,000 ounces to 150,000 ounces of gold.
This year, we included a consolidated copper cash cost range in our annual guidance. During the quarter, we produced copper at a consolidated cost of $1.92 a pound, coming in below our revised guidance range of $1.95 a pound to $2.15 a pound, which was supported by strong by-product credits and gold prices. Our operations delivered close to $1 billion in revenue, supported by strong gold and copper prices, $395 million in adjusted EBITDA and $277 million in adjusted operating cash flow.
This quarter, we declared our 36th regular quarterly dividend, which has been adjusted down to just under $0.03 a share per quarter, making room for 4.6 million shares to be repurchased under our NCIB program in Q2. Year-to-date, we have bought back 12.6 million shares, representing approximately $104 million in share repurchases. Our updated shareholder distribution policy targets approximately $220 million in annual returns, combining an annualized dividend of $0.11 per share with $150 million in share buybacks under our NCIB program.
I will now pass the call over to Juan Andrés, our Chief Operating Officer, to talk about our production results in more detail.
Thank you, Jack, and good morning, everyone. The company is tracking to production guidance on a consolidated basis for copper, gold and nickel for 2025. As mentioned earlier, copper production for the company was 80,000 tons for the quarter and 157,000 tons for the first half of the year. Gold production for the quarter totaled approximately 38,000 ounces and 70,000 ounces for the first half of the year.
At Candelaria, copper production for the quarter totaled 37,000 tons, along with 20,500 ounces of gold. Operationally, Candelaria performed well during the quarter and softer mill feed continued into the first part of Q2. This drove higher throughput in the mill, which processed 7.8 million tons in the period. In the first half of the year, Candelaria produced 74,000 tons of copper and 41,500 ounces of gold. We anticipate steady production levels for the second half of the year, which keeps Candelaria firmly on track to meet full-year guidance for copper and gold.
At Caserones, copper production reached 29,300 tons in Q2 and 58,000 tons for the first half of the year. Ore mill was in line with planned production despite unplanned downtime caused by a blockage in the primary crusher. In the second half of the year, it is expected that copper head grades will improve to approximately 0.4%. Cathode production continued to outperform expectations with 5,800 tons produced in the quarter, driven by increased material placed on the leach pads.
In the quarter, Chapada produced 11,300 tons of copper and 17,500 ounces of gold. Performance improved due to higher grades and better copper recoveries from increased processing of fresh ore and reduced reliance on stockpile material. Production at Chapada is expected to be slightly weighted towards the second half of the year and on a quarterly basis, similar to production levels in Q2.
At Eagle, nickel production was 2,700 tons and copper production was 2,500 tons for the quarter. Equipment availability and power outage during the period limited throughput. We expect these to improve in the second half of the year. Grades and ore availability are expected to normalize, which will support the annual guidance forecast for the year.
I will now turn the call over to Teitur to provide a summary on our financial results.
Thank you, Andrés, and good morning, everybody. I'm pleased to be able to present yet another solid quarter of financial performance for the company, driven by continued good operational performance, as you just heard from Andrés, coupled with relatively stable LME copper price environment in addition to higher gold prices. All these factors have allowed the company to post another set of good quarterly results.
Before going into the numbers, a reminder that we continue to report the contribution from our European assets as discontinued operations. As this transaction closed on the 16th of April, our second quarter reporting reflects contribution from these assets for the first 15 days of the quarter. The revenue for the quarter from continuing operations came in at $937 million, with our revenues remaining heavily weighted towards copper, which accounted for 82% of the revenue mix. Gold and nickel contributed 11% and 3%, respectively.
As you can see on this slide, our 2 Chilean mines, Candelaria and Caserones remained the key revenue contributors and represents 77% of the revenue generation in the second quarter. When including Chapada in Brazil, 94% of our revenues are generated from our South American operations.
Now looking at volumes sold and realized pricing. During the period, we sold 79,000 tons of copper at a realized price of [$4.48] per pound, which is slightly better pricing than the average LME spot price for copper during the period. For the second consecutive quarter, we had sales volumes exceeding the copper production volume at Caserones due to shipping schedules. We had a negative provisional pricing impact of $6 million in the second quarter and approximately 113,000 tons of copper were provisionally priced at $4.49 per pound at the end of the quarter and remain open for final pricing adjustments. Turning
to Slide 14. Production costs totaled $507 million for the quarter, consistent with the past few quarters. At Candelaria, total costs were higher compared to previous quarter due to higher sales volumes, while C1 costs over the last 2 quarters are somewhat higher compared to the second half of last year as the mining sequence is now back to normalized grades compared to the elevated grades that were mined during the second half of last year.
Caserones costs for the second quarter have normalized compared to first quarter when we had abnormally high sales volume from delayed shipments at the end of last year. Total costs were in line with expectations at $205 million for the quarter, and cash costs are trending in line with recent quarters at $2.45 per pound.
Chapada total costs for the second quarter amounted to $75 million. C1 costs have significantly decreased compared to prior periods, primarily due to higher by-product credits from gold prices and favorable FX rates. Given the continuing low C1 cost at Chapada, we are reducing the full-year guidance range to $1.10 to $1.30 per pound from the previous guidance of $1.30 to $1.50 per pound. This updated guidance represents a 37% reduction from the midpoint of the original C1 cost guidance as released in the beginning of the year. On a consolidated basis, our C1 cost for the quarter was $1.92 per pound, slightly below our revised full-year guidance range of $1.95 to $2.15 per pound.
Total capital expenditure, including both sustaining and expansionary investments was $150 million for the quarter and $325 million for the first half of the year. Full-year guidance for total capital expenditure has been revised upward by $60 million to $795 million due to an increase in the Vicuña budget as announced at our Capital Markets Day in June. An increase in capital expenditure at Chapada from additional tailings development and higher capitalized stripping has been offset by lower capital expenditure at Caserones due to certain projects being delayed into 2026. At Vicuña, the second quarter expenditures were primarily focused on field activities for water program, geotechnical investigations, road maintenance and the procurement of certain long lead equipment.
Our key financial metrics for the second quarter are presented on Slide 16. We generated adjusted EBITDA of $395 million and achieved an adjusted EBITDA margin of 42%. Our adjusted operating cash flow was $277 million and was negatively impacted by cash tax payments at Candelaria of $165 million, of which $92 million related to a payment to fully settle the 2024 taxes due.
Working capital decreased by $37 million, which positively impacted cash flow and was the result of a partial release from the significant working capital build in the first quarter of the year. The company achieved solid free cash flow from operations of $211 million despite a relatively large cash tax payment made during the quarter. Adjusted earnings amounted to $98 million for the quarter, which translates into an adjusted earnings per share of $0.11.
Turning now to Slide 18. With the closing of the European asset sale in April, there have been a number of cash inflows and outflows impacting our cash flow statement and our net debt positions during the quarter. As you can see on the left of this chart, we entered the quarter with around $1.44 billion in net debt, and we exited the quarter with net debt of only $135 million. From the sale of the European assets, we received approximately $1.3 billion in net proceeds when allowing for closing adjustments as regulated in the SPA and when netting out the cash sitting in the acquired subsidiaries.
Following the closing of the sale, the company paid off $1.15 billion in term loans as well as repaid $170 million of debt drawn on the revolving credit facility. The adjusted operating cash flow and working capital inflow amounted to $315 million and with total capital investments of $150 million resulted in free cash flow for the quarter of $165 million. We had total shareholder distribution of $108 million during the quarter, of which $72 million related to the payment of the regular dividends declared for the fourth quarter 2024 of CAD 0.09 per share and for the first quarter of 2025 of CAD 0.0275 per share.
Dividends to noncontrolling interest at Candelaria and Caserones during the quarter amounted to $41 million, while other items amounted to a cash outflow of $23 million, leaving the company with a very strong balance sheet with net debt position at the end of the quarter of $135 million. The company continues to hold significant liquidity headroom from its $1.75 billion revolving credit facility with just over $1.5 billion remaining undrawn as of June 30.
That wraps up the summary for the second quarter financial performance, and I'll now turn the call back to Jack.
Thank you, Teitur. I'll take a few moments to talk about our joint venture partnership with BHP, which holds the Vicuña project, a project which combines the Josemaria and Filo del Sol deposits. Combined together, the Vicuña project ranks in the top 10 mineral resources for copper, gold and for silver when comparing against the world's largest operating mines.
In May this year, we released the maiden mineral resource estimate for Filo del Sol and updated the mineral resource estimate at Josemaria. In addition to the size demonstrated by these deposits is an impressive amount of volume contained within the high-grade core. The Filo de Sol high-grade core contains over 10 million tons of copper and 19 million ounces of gold and over 390 million ounces of silver, while Josemaria has a high-grade core of 1 million tons of copper, 2.4 million ounces of gold and 11 million ounces of silver.
Looking on this slide, the image on the right shows the additional drill holes from Filo del Sol completed after the cutoff of the mineral resource estimate. Over 20 additional holes targeting resource expansion and infill drilling, primarily along the eastern boundary of the deposit, as shown in the figure on the right, are showing good progress and will make its way into an updated mineral resource estimate as part of our integrated technical studies.
A total of 60,000 meters of drilling is budgeted for the calendar year 2025, of which already over 50% has been drilled. In addition to the solid progress made on drilling, an updated EIA for Josemaria was submitted in the second quarter as per the plan. Ongoing work to support the parallel studies for the multiphase development plan are progressing on schedule. We anticipate the integrated technical report, which will incorporate all phases of the full-scale project to be complete by Q1 in calendar year 2026.
Preparations for the fiscal stability application, otherwise known as RIGI are also progressing in parallel to the ongoing project study work. Overall, the Vicuña project team continues to make solid progress and remains on track with its 2025 work plan. As presented at the CMD, we have identified several low capital intensity and midterm organic growth opportunities. These are targeting 30,000 tons to 40,000 tons of copper and 60,000 ounces to 70,000 ounces of gold in additional annual production for the company.
At Chapada, the Saúva project presents a near-term opportunity to increase annual production in the range of 15,000 tons to 20,000 tons of copper and 50,000 ounces to 60,000 ounces of gold, representing 50% and 100% growth, respectively. This study includes adding grinding capacity to process higher-grade ore from Saúva through the Chapada mill. Permitting and technical work are ongoing with a pre-feasibility study targeted for completion by the end of 2025.
At Candelaria, we are implementing a 2 step process to ultimately improve performance with the goal of eventually increasing throughput from the underground. Starting with in-sourcing the underground mining contractor, which is expected to improve both mechanical availability and ultimately development rates in the underground, we will be able to in-source as a first step and the second step will be to lead a campaign to improve mining rates in the range of 50% to 60%, bringing underground throughput capacity from where it is today at around 14,000 tons per day up to about 22,000 tons per day.
This could deliver an additional 14,000 tons of copper annually for Candelaria and recruitment, training and licensing for internalization of the crews is already underway. These brownfield opportunities complement the longer-term vision of developing the Vicuña project. We will continue to provide updates as we continue to advance and derisk these near and longer-term initiatives.
In conclusion, solid operational performance from our high-quality operations and higher commodity prices drove strong financial results for the company in Q2. We remain firmly on track to meet annual guidance on all metals for the year. We revised cash cost guidance at Chapada, which improved the consolidated cash cost guidance for the company, which is now at $1.95 a pound to $2.15 a pound. Net debt stands at the end of the quarter at $135 million, which was significantly reduced in the quarter using proceeds from the sale of our European assets.
The company is very well positioned for the future. The Vicuña District and near-term growth opportunities at our existing operations provides a clear path to becoming a top 10 copper producer as outlined at our Capital Markets Day in June. The team remains focused on meeting operational targets, enhancing margins through disciplined cost management while maintaining the highest health and safety standards to protect our workforce.
Thank you, and I would now like to open the call for questions.
Our first question comes from Ralph Profiti of Stifel Financial.
2. Question Answer
Juan Andrés, there was some Caserones crusher downtime in the quarter. I'm just wondering, it seems as though this was unanticipated. Just wondering what the root cause was, how much downtime? Are these issues behind you?
Yes. It was basically some clay-ish material that created a blockage in the primary crusher. It took us probably around 16 hours to 20 hours to solve the problem, so nothing structural. It was probably some material coming from a faulty area in one of the benches that got clogged in the chamber of the primary crusher.
I see. Juan Andrés, a second follow-up. You talked about some softer ore mill feed at Candelaria. Is this a function of Phase 11 or Phase 12? As you also speak about some higher anticipated copper grades coming from Phase 12, is that also anticipated with higher strip ratios? Or are you maintaining that kind of life of mine 2.1 ratio that I see from the technical report?
Yes. That's a good point, Ralph. It was something temporary, it’s nothing structural in the strip ratio on Phase 12. There were some delays in the ore coming from the underground, so we went a little further on Phase 12 and took some extra tons from the lower benches, but we will get back on track with the spatial compliance by the end of the year.
Regarding the softer ore question, due to these small changes in the short term, we took more ore from the stockpile. We had, let's call it, mid-grade stockpile, not a low-grade stockpile that we use that material to feed the mill, and that material was softer than anticipated. That is what created these better results in the throughput.
Our next question comes from Orest Wowkodaw of Scotiabank.
Also a question around Candelaria, pretty strong results in the first half. Your guidance talks about grades being higher, but production being flat versus the first half. Beyond the softer ore issue, which I guess is now behind you, is there some planned downtime here in the second half? Or is there maybe just some potential upside? Or are you being conservative with the guidance for the second half?
No, this is a very steady year for Candelaria. We're not second half weighted as last year. Grades are going to be very stable along the year. We don't anticipate any differences from our performance in the first half of the year. Maintenance is as planned for the second half and grades will be back on track for the full-year in the second half. Throughput is expected to be in line with our projections, so no big changes in the second half of the year.
Sorry to clarify, are you saying grades at Candelaria are similar to the first half? I thought I heard earlier, they're going to be up.
No. In Candelaria, slightly lower because they were higher in the first half.
Our next question comes from Anita Soni of CIBC.
A couple of questions. A little follow-up on Candelaria. I thought I had read that you had some -- throughputs were stronger because you also had some rescheduled maintenance. Can you let us know when that maintenance is now going to be taking place?
It's a normal scheduled shutdown, and sometimes, since we had softer ore, the liners of the mill were at a lower pace. We decided to postpone that shutdown from June to July.
July is over, so how long did that shutdown take?
They're normally 90 hours.
Fairly short. Then secondly, in terms of the CapEx spend this year, could you just give us a little bit of color on the back half of the year for each of the assets? I think both on sustaining and growth capital, you're a little under the half year run rate. I'm just trying to understand how those pick up over the rest of the year?
Yes, I mean we are a little bit behind on Caserones, in particular, on certain projects, which indeed was also the case last year. The scope of work is running a little bit behind plan. That's more phasing. It's not really any savings sort of identified at this point. Therefore, there could be a slight chance that we are slightly underspending on Caserones for the full-year, but we have also taken down guidance on Caserones since -- compared to the original guidance.
Then in Chapada, in particular, there was some extra work needed to be done on the tailings dam, which is now more or less behind us. We have increased guidance on Chapada, and we're also doing more stripping or more fresh ore and less from the stockpile, which also has increased capitalized stripping costs a little bit. Those are the key moving parts, but $795 million is the full-year guidance, including the growth CapEx, and we reaffirm that guidance today.
Just on the Caserones, you said that some of those projects may be pushed into next year. Are you saying that you're going to hit the $795 million for the year? Or is there a chance that you're going to be underspending this year?
Well, let's see how we do in the second half. I mean we are now assuming that what's planned to be done in the second half will be done, which is why we are reaffirming the guidance, but all I'm saying is that the trend has been that the work has progressed a little slower than planned. We will have to wait and see.
When you said that you've taken your guidance down, you were referring to the production guidance, right, for Caserones? Or the CapEx guidance?
No. The CapEx.
Then my question is, if it works going a little slower than planned, is there any production impact that we should be expecting?
No, there's not.
Then a final question from me. In terms of the cost guidance, you revised the Chapada cost guidance down, but maintain the overall cost guidance for the consolidated copper cost guidance for the company. Is that just a function of the relative weighting of Chapada relative to the other assets? Or is there just you're just expecting to be maybe at the lower end of the overall guide? Or is there something else that I should be thinking about?
Yes. We talked about that. I mean, obviously, the big reduction in guidance was released at the Capital Markets Day because originally, Chapada was guided at, I think, it was $1.80 to $2 per pound, and we took that down to $1.30 to $1.50. At that point, we did also guide down the consolidated group guidance between $0.10 to $0.15 because of that, but this subsequent reduction in Chapada guidance has such a small impact on the weighted average for the group that we decided to leave it intact. Mathematically, I think it would represent $0.02 or $0.03 further reduction in the consolidated guidance.
Our next question comes from Matthew Murphy of BMO Capital Markets.
Another one on Candelaria, just the recruiting for in-sourcing the underground mining. How many people do you have to hire? How would you describe current levels of mining labor availability in Chile?
Matt, Juan Andrés here. The total in-sourcing process, which will take us at least 2 years, is a 4-wave process. In total, there will be approximately 250 people or positions involved, but since we're in-sourcing, we have already started conversations with the contractor. We will, of course, give priority to the employees that work for the contractor. We don't see any problems in finding the right skills to complete this in-sourcing process.
Separate question I had on the RIGI deadline. I think there was a San Juan Copper Conference this week and just some headlines about companies raising for the deadline. Do you have any view on the likelihood that the time line gets extended and when we might hear about that? Would there be any benefit to the Vicuña JV from a slightly looser RIGI deadline time line?
I can take that. Matt, thanks for the question. We don't have kind of any commentary to provide or any understanding that there's going to be an extended deadline for the RIGI application. Recall that the deadline is July of 2026, and so for Vicuña Corp., we're tracking on to that schedule and I can't speak for any other companies that are looking to apply with the RIGI application, but we are trending on schedule.
Our next question comes from Lawson Winder of Bank of America Securities.
Nice quarterly results, and thanks for today’s update. Just in light of the really, really strong gold price, your updated guidance from Chapada reflects that. As part of the low CapEx expansion at Chapada, is there an opportunity to perhaps focus that asset on increased gold production either through an updated mine plan or perhaps an optimized flow sheet? Part of where I'm coming from is, as you know, when you guys bought this, you bought this from an operator that actually operated that asset as a gold mine. It's a huge gold endowment.
Lawson, yes, you're absolutely right. We're, of course, looking at opportunities to increase recoveries in both copper and gold, but especially given the current gold prices, there's a greater opportunity to add more value from Chapada if we can achieve higher gold recoveries. We're looking at a few options that later in the year, we could share with the market.
Interesting. Then I'd ask the same question about Candelaria in light of the same considerations and further with consideration to the fact that the Franco-Nevada stream, the percent that they take should drop off next year.
Yes. In Candelaria, in general, we have a very good performance at the mill. If you look at our copper recoveries, they are in the order of 92%. Any changes to the flow sheet, we don't see a lot of opportunities there, but of course, we will always be open to any new technology or any marginal improvement to our flow sheet to increase recoveries in all the metals.
Our next question comes from Matt Greene of Goldman Sachs.
I guess just following on from the -- with the gold theme on Saúva. The PFS expected later this year. Just thinking about the go forward, what are the limitations? Any sort of key technical or regulatory hurdles you have highlighted permitting, but just trying to, I guess, get a sense of how conservative the development time line is for Phase 1? Is there scope to possibly accelerate that?
The schedule for Phase 1, I think we're very confident that we can achieve that. Of course, we're still looking at the permitting process. I think we've shared during the Capital Markets Day that we have received the unified license, which will give us some advantages, but we need to confirm that approach. I think in the second half, we will have more clarity together with the completion of the pre-feasibility study.
Maybe just to add to that as well. I mean, we're already looking at collecting baseline data that will support the environmental licensing process. We're working to get the pathway to permitting as soon as possible. Technical studies are underway. We'll be looking to follow the quickest pathway possible following this environmental licensing process.
That's great. Just one more for me. I guess just on the buyback, any specific financial or broader thresholds you would need to see before you would consider expanding the scope of that buyback program from about $150 million a year?
No, I think we simply just remain opportunistic around when we do the buybacks. We've done just over $100 million year-to-date, so 2/3. The target is $150 million. What we have said is if for whatever reason, we do not reach the $150 million in buybacks, then the -- whatever gap there exists will be paid out as a special dividend in the fourth quarter dividend declaration, so i.e., it's paid out in 2026. We monitor this, obviously, continuously as to when we think the window of opportunities to buy back.
Our next question comes from Daniel Major of UBS.
First, just a small operational question. The cathodes production at Caserones continues to remain sort of around the 6,000 million tons, 6,5000 tons a quarter. Is that expected to sustain through the remainder of the year? I think your guidance for '26 is 14 to 18, so coming off a bit. How is that profile in the cathodes at Caserones?
Daniel, yes, during the Capital Markets Day, we outlined some opportunities to increase the utilization of our cathode plant in Caserones, and we have been working on those options. As you said, for this year, we're expecting a little higher production than what we planned initially in the year, and that should also carry over in 2026. We're looking at improving our irrigation strategy, improving also our -- the way we model the production.
We have found more oxide ore in the phase -- in the first benches of the Phase 7, which is the new phase in Caserones. Then further on, we're looking at bringing potentially some oxides from Angelica and testing some leaching technologies for the future. With all that set of alternatives, we're looking at maximizing the utilization of our SX-EW facility.
If we look at the run rate for this year, if you were to extrapolate that into next, it would be fair to say 5,000 tons to 10,000 tons upside to your guidance you previously gave potential the cathodes?
No, I think what we're doing is maintaining the guidance that we had. I mean the significant increase in cathode production will probably come later once we've actually been able to improve the capacity of the cathode plant.
Then second financial question, 2 parts to it. Your cash tax looks like it's still trending below P&L tax. Can you give us any guidance on where do you expect cash tax to be for the year? Then secondly, you reversed some of the working capital in the second quarter, how should we be thinking about that in the second half?
Yes. I mean we did actually have quite a high cash tax payment in the quarter because as I said, we were doing a final settlement of the 2024 Candelaria tax due. That was $92 million. Then as we go through this year now, we are now starting to install cash taxes as per the 2024 tax assessment. The tax installments for the next 2 quarters are going to be slightly higher than they were in the installment for Q1 this year because the Q1 tax installment this year still reflected the 2023 tax assessment.
Essentially, our cash taxes as we tried to outline in our Capital Markets Day, is relatively low compared to the effective tax rate on the P&L because of these tax losses we have at Caserones. What we have been guiding is sort of between 15% to 20% effective cash tax as a percentage of the EBITDA generation. We should expect that trend to continue for a long time given the significant tax losses we have at Caserones.
15% to 20% cash tax -- I'm sorry, that's an EBIT or EBITDA?
EBITDA.
Then final question. BHP has been in the joint venture for a few months now. Can you share any kind of changes or what you think sort of the direction of development? What BHP has brought in terms of to the process since the formation of the JV?
Yes, sure. I mean, obviously, BHP brings a lot of bench strength with them and a lot of experience with large-scale projects and operations. The partnership that we formed transaction closed in January. Really, the biggest thing was bringing together Filo and Josemaria and looking at this as a joint development project and a large-scale phased development project. The Vicuña Corp. team, the project team is working away on parallel studies.
We've got independent review teams established to look at the packages of work that will be coming out. Together, both BHP and Lundin Mining are providing support as peer reviewers. I think overall, the partnership is strong, and we're very aligned. I mean this was a culmination of several years of getting aligned before doing the deal. I think it was really -- things are moving as per plan, and the partnership is very strong today.
Our next question comes from Ioannis Masvoulas of Morgan Stanley.
Also from my side, well done on the results. Just a couple of questions left from my side. The first on Chapada, where we saw a very good performance, especially on unit costs, which I would think is a combination of your own initiatives that you launched a few years ago, but clearly also FX and gold tailwinds. As we move forward into the second half and next year, do you see potential for more progress on an underlying basis from self-help? Or are you largely where you want to be? Here, I'm just looking at the current operations ignoring the [Sol] opportunity. I'll stop here for the first one.
Yes, definitely, we have had a very good performance in Chapada. As you said, it is the result of a combination of the full potential initiative that we launched in 2023, but also with the help of the increased metal prices. What we're seeing today is the result of that work, and we expect to continue seeing that level of performance in 2026. Probably the main change would be that we're working on reducing our reliance on the low-grade stockpile. The effect of that could be a slight increase in the head grade and improvement in the recoveries. We're still working on the next year budget and mine plan, but those are some changes that we could expect going forward.
That's very interesting. Second question, we've seen some of your peers looking to capitalize on the elevated gold prices via streaming contracts and hedges. Is this something you are considering actively to further bolster your balance sheet ahead of the next CapEx cycle? Within that, as it was mentioned earlier, you've got the Franco-Nevada step down on the current streaming. Just wondering whether you have the appetite to look at financing right here right now? Or is it something that you will consider once the technical report is out next year and you have more visibility on the capital commitments?
Yes, the Franco stream is obviously there and it was entered into to fund -- to enable the acquisition of Candelaria in the first place. We sort of had to be done at that point in time. With the elevated gold prices, as you say now, that stream is becoming quite costly, but it is what it is. The 68% stream that Franco gets at the moment is projected to step down to 40%. At this current production rate, we anticipate that to happen towards the end of next year, end of 2026. From 2027, we should get a higher gold revenue coming from that.
Of course, there are options around how we play that, but at the moment, the contractual relationship is that that will step down to 40% at that point in time. We obviously know with the funding requirements that we have with the Vicuña build that we do need to increase our liquidity lines to fund that. At the moment, the base case for us is simply to increase our revolving credit facility.
We see that as the most cost-efficient way of getting access to a higher funding capacity, but we are not ruling out anything else, but it will surely be done on what we believe is the most cost-efficient way of doing it. The streaming arrangements we are seeing at the moment that we don't think are cost competitive to RCF. But that's always up for negotiation, and if there's an attractive offer, we will look at it. We don't rule it out by principle, put it that way.
Thank you. This concludes our question-and-answer session and today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.
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Lundin Mining — Q2 2025 Earnings Call
Lundin Mining — Q2 2025 Earnings Call
📊 Quartal auf einen Blick
- Umsatz: $937M (Fortgeführte Geschäfte, Q2)
- Adj. EBITDA: $395M (Marge 42%)
- Operativer Cashflow: $277M; Free Cash Flow $211M
- Produktion: Q2 Kupfer 80.000 t; H1 157.000 t; Gold Q2 38.100 oz — auf Jahresguidance 303–330k t Cu und 135–150k oz Au
- C1 & Bilanz: Konsolidierte C1-Kosten $1.92/lb (unter revidierter Guidance $1.95–2.15/lb); Net Debt $135M nach Verkauf Europa
🎯 Was das Management sagt
- Wachstumsziel: Ziel, Top‑10 Kupferproduzent zu werden (>500k t Cu p.a., >550k oz Au p.a.), gestützt durch Vicuña (Josemaria+Filo del Sol).
- Brownfield‑Upside: Near‑term Chancen: Saúva (Chapada) +15–20k t Cu / +50–60k oz Au; Candelaria‑Insourcing zur Steigerung des Untertage‑Durchsatzes.
- Kapitalallokation: Verkauf Europa brachte ~$1.3–1.4B Netto; Term‑Loans getilgt, Net Debt massiv reduziert; neue Ausschüttungspolitik: $0.11/Jahr Dividende + $150M Buybacks
🔭 Ausblick & Guidance
- Produktion: Auf Kurs für Jahresguidance aller Metalle.
- Kosten: Chapada C1 neu $1.10–1.30/lb (reduziert); Konsolidiert $1.95–2.15/lb bestätigt.
- CapEx & Projekt: Full‑Year CapEx auf $795M erhöht (Vicuña‑Budget ↑); integrierter technischer Bericht Vicuña erwartet Q1 2026.
- Risiken: CapEx‑Phasing (insb. Caserones) und Genehmigungsfristen (RIGI‑Deadline Juli 2026) könnten Zeitplan/Kapitaleinsatz beeinflussen.
❓ Fragen der Analysten
- Cas. Downtime: Primärcrusher stoppte 16–20h wegen tonigem Material; kein strukturelles Problem.
- Candelaria: Kurzfristig weichere Mill‑Zufuhr; In‑Sourcing Untertage in 4 Wellen (~250 Stellen, ~2 Jahre) geplant.
- Chapada: Kostenvorteil durch Goldpreise und FX; Management prüft weitere Gold‑Recovery‑Hebel.
- Finanzen: CapEx‑Phasing möglich; Buybacks opportunistisch ($150M Ziel, Ausfall → Spezialdividende Q4) und Steuerquote Cash ~15–20% EBITDA erwartet.
⚡ Bottom Line
- Konsequenz: Operative Stärke und höhere Metallpreise liefern starke Quartalskennzahlen; Bilanz deutlich entspannt nach Asset‑Verkauf. Kurzfristig begrenzen CapEx‑Phasing und Genehmigungsfristen Tempo, langfristig bieten Vicuña und Brownfield‑Hebel klaren Pfad zu signifikantem Produktionswachstum und höheren Rückflüssen an Aktionäre.
Lundin Mining — Analyst/Investor Day - Lundin Mining Corporation
1. Management Discussion
Good afternoon, everyone. For our guests here in [ London ], welcome. For those of you online, good morning and good afternoon. My name is Peter Brady, I'm the General Counsel at Lundin Mining. We're looking forward to a great afternoon here together today.
I just want to go over a few housekeeping and safety rules for all of us here in the building in [ London ]. There are washrooms, of course. You may have seen them just out the door to the left. There are no fire alarm tests today in the building. So if there is an alarm condition, it will be a real one. So please take that into account.
For fire exits, there are two. The first one out the door to the left, the way you came in and up the stairs to the lobby. The second one is just here to my right behind this door, exit left and then up to the lobby to the street.
The Q&A session for today's will be at the end for those of you in [ London ]. For those of you online, please use the function on the platform to e-mail in your questions, and we'll curate those and answer them in due course during the Q&A period.
At this point, I'd like to introduce the Chairman of our Board, Adam Lundin; as well as our CEO and President, Jack Lundin, to come to the stage to lead you through today's presentation.
Thanks, Peter. I'll hand it off to Jack quite quickly here, but just wanted to -- big thanks for everyone showing up today in-person and online. We're very excited about the business and where it's going. It's been a lot of hard work in the last 3 years to put us in the position we're in today.
I think it's been intense and -- but it's been good conditioning because pretty shortly here, we'll be heading into a live project, which is going to keep that intensity up. But I think we're well conditioned to do that and look forward to pulling it off successfully. But without that, we've got a lot of great slides here, and I'll hand it over to Jack.
Thanks. I got the mic. So, okay. Good afternoon, everyone. Hopefully, everybody can hear me well. And for those of you dialing in online and everybody that's here today, I just want to say thanks for making the time to be here today with us and to listen to the presentation that we're about to give on really a comprehensive overview of Lundin Mining and really to highlight all the changes and the adjustments portfolio that we've made, but really use this opportunity to project forward looking, what we're looking to achieve and the value that we're hoping to create here at Lundin Mining.
So as Peter was saying, we're going to do Q&A at the end. A lot of information to go through. And so hopefully, your answers -- or your questions will be answered throughout the presentation. But don't worry because there'll be time at the end to get into Q&A.
So the agenda today is as follows, and this presentation has been uploaded to the website for those that want to download it or look at it after today. We've got a comprehensive overview. I'm going to start with an introduction and just kind of summarize the outlook for the company and some recent highlights and some positive messages that we hope to convey throughout the day.
We're going to spend an hour with Juan Andres Morel to go through the operations and really highlight some key improvements we've been making over the last period and really to show the exciting opportunities that we have going forward.
We've got two breaks for bathroom, water, refreshments, whatever you need, so don't worry about that. And then we'll get into an update on the Vicuña District, where myself and Tim will talk about the next steps for the district and what we've been able to achieve to date. Tim will then continue on with an exploration overview.
And then we'll get into the financial overview that Teitur is going to walk us through. And we'll finish up with a sustainable overview that our VP of Sustainability, Nathan Monash, will walk us through and as mentioned, closing remarks and Q&A.
So today's speakers, pleasingly, we've got a large portion of our senior leadership team here today. The speakers today are here. As I've mentioned, Adam gave the opening kind of statement; myself, Jack Lundin, President and CEO; Juan Andres Morel, Teitur Poulsen, Nathan Monash and Tim Walmsley.
But also in the audience, we've brought in some key members of our leadership team. And for those that are coming to dinner this evening, we've tried to space out the seating arrangement so that you could really get an opportunity to see the great people within our organization and have more fulsome discussions after this afternoon session. So we look forward to kind of presenting and then getting into enjoyable evening after today.
So as mentioned, I'm going to give an overview of what we've been able to achieve in the recent 24 months really. But last year, we really had a strong year at Lundin Mining. We were very, very busy. We called it a record-breaking year because on many fronts, it was a record-breaking year. In terms of copper and zinc production, we produced more copper tonnes than in the history of the company at 369,000 tonnes. That translated into very strong cash flow generation, which was also a record.
So what you're seeing on the middle of the screen there is free cash flow from operations in 2024, was just $870 million. We continue to deliver returns to our shareholders in the form of dividends and buybacks, so to the tune of $227 million, mainly through dividends, but we initiated towards the end of last year, buybacks and bought back 3.2 million shares in December last year.
On the transaction front, on the M&A front, extremely busy with the 3 major transactions, which I'll highlight on a later slide. These 3 transactions totaled USD 5.6 billion in value. So a very busy year, a lot of value creation and a lot of exciting transformational steps we're taking in 2024.
From a sustainability perspective, we actually were able to achieve our 2030 carbon reduction goal. Nathan is going to walk us through that, but really rapidly advanced our initiatives on the sustainability front, and our 3 LatAm sites are actually all running from renewable energy today. So pleasingly, we're in a position now to reset a new achievable target from that perspective.
And then it was our 30-year history, so 30 years in the business, Lundin Mining has been. And following up a milestone year with record-breaking results, we've really positioned ourselves well in 2025. And that's what I'll talk to here on the this slide.
In 2025, we've started the year strong. Pleasingly to say Q1 performance was on track. We produced 77,000 tonnes of copper, 32,000 ounces of gold. At the lower end of our C1 cash range, cost guidance is actually now reduced, which you can see at the bottom of this slide, to $1.95 to $2.15 a pound. So performing well at our operations.
And then as mentioned, with the unrivaled growth profile that we have at Vicuña, looking forward to walking through the details of the project where we're at today and I'm sure at the end, having questions about the progress being made.
We streamlined our portfolio, a key theme you'll see in this presentation. So we exited Europe and sold both Neves-Corvo and Zinkgruvan for a combined sale price of $1.4 billion. That really puts us in a strong financial position in terms of our overall net debt.
We reduced it down to less than $150 million as of last week and continuing to provide shareholder distributions through the form of buybacks and dividends. And we reframed our overall shareholder distribution policy. And so far this year, we spent about USD 100 million on buybacks. We maintained our copper production guidance around 300,000 to 330,000 tonnes coming from our operations, which you can see on the map on the right-hand side of the screen.
So a little bit on the last 4 years or 3 years So a little bit on the last 4 years or 3 years of the company's existence here. We've had key strategic acquisitions that have positioned us in a very unique footing as we go forward with Lundin Mining.
In 2022, we were able to acquire Josemaria, which is a further advanced project in the Argentina side of the Vicuña District. Overall, consideration for that acquisition was just under USD 500 million. We did issue about 40 million shares from Lundin Mining as part of that acquisition.
And then in 2023, we followed up with the acquisition on the Chilean side of the Vicuña District, where we bought 51% of Caserones for an overall asset value of $1.3 billion. In 2024, after having strong performance the year prior and really understanding that asset, we exercised our call option early to increase our overall ownership of Caserones to 70%.
And then last year, we were able to also execute on a very important transaction for the company, which was the Vicuña Corp transaction with BHP. We issued about 94 million shares in addition to the CAD 890 million consideration for buying 50% of Filo Corp. But now we've got a strong toehold in an emerging district and a great vision to grow the copper production and gold production profile for Lundin Mining.
And then keeping on our theme of streamlining our portfolio and really trying to position ourselves where we think we can grow the most value going forward, we were able to also announce and conclude the sale in 2025 of our European assets.
And when you look at the last 3 years of free cash flow generated from both Neves-Corvo and Zinkgruvan, we basically pulled forward 20 years of free cash flow by bringing in USD 1.4 billion into the company's portfolio for the divestiture of these 2 assets. So very strategic acquisitions and divestitures and very pleased with what we were able to achieve from that front.
But for us, it's not just about growing our portfolio. We look at the performance per share. And when you look at this slide here, you see that from a resource perspective, both for gold and for copper, we've significantly increased our resource base. But even with the acquisition of 2 large-scale greenfield projects, the divestiture of our European assets and so a slight reduction in our overall copper production profile, we're still actually increasing on a per share basis our copper production per share.
And so that's extremely important for us. What we're wanting to do is drive value per share, not just grow for the sake of growing.
And you can see what that looks like these over the last 5 years from 2021 to 2025. So from a mineral resource perspective, what we're calculating here is 100% of our resource base from our 4 existing operations plus 50% of Vicuña. And you can see the sizable increase from 2021 up until 2025, 150% overall growth in terms of our measured indicated category of copper resources. And what that's translated to as well with the acquisition of Caserones and the production, excuse me, profile since 2021 has steadily increased about 20%.
So accretive growth is what we're classifying that as. We've got opportunity that we executed on to -- we hear a lot of times the narrative on the buy versus the build. I think Lundin Mining, because of the strong financial standing that we're in, we're able to achieve both. And we look forward to advancing with the profile that we have today.
But all of that is going to be anchored to our -- the results that we're driving from our existing operations. And so as I mentioned in a short period of time here, Juan Andres is going to come and walk through in detail our existing operations. But everything for us is focused on our underlying producing assets today.
And that starts with a strong safety performance. In Q1, we were able to pleasingly come out with a very, very strong safety record, I think, in Q1, from a total recordable incident frequency rate, the best quarter in the history of Lundin Mining in terms of lost time incidents, the lowest rate in 5 years. And you see a direct translation in performance when you have a strong safety record. So each quarter, each day, we look to follow up with a best-in-class safety performance.
As I mentioned, our copper production guidance, we've kept that steady. We're looking coming in kind of today at the midrange of that guidance. And then because of really operational improvements, strong gold environment and good performance at our Chapada operation, we've narrowed and reduced our overall C1 cash cost guidance.
And importantly, for us, as we look at our capital allocation going forward, we're in a position to continue to distribute returns to our shareholders. We went and rebalanced our shareholder distribution plan.
And now we're looking at still staying in line with our peers in terms of our overall dividend, but initiated more of a buyback policy to really take advantage of the discount that we're trading at today to our underlying value. And so still keeping consistent year-over-year, looking at an absolute quantum of around USD 220 million to be distributed through buybacks and dividends per year.
And with our existing operation base, so not baking in any of the growth that I'm going to talk to on the next couple of slides here. But our base case here, which we came out with the press release yesterday evening, is showing that over the next 5 years, significant cash flow, operating cash flow forecast of $6.5 billion or free cash flow from operations at just under $5 billion over the next 5 years and just over $8 billion over the next 5 years in adjusted EBITDA, which puts us in a very strong position as we look to finance and grow our portfolio.
So when we look at copper, as I mentioned and as you would have seen, for those of you that were able to read the press release that we came out with yesterday, we've got near-term opportunities and we've got longer-term very unique opportunities. And that really has the has the line of sight for us to go from being a top 25 copper producer in the world today up to a top 10.
But that near-term target of adding about 10% to our production portfolio, we've really been looking at stabilizing our operations. And now with a couple of our MDs in the crowd today, we feel very confident that we can now continue to perform at the best of our abilities with our existing operations, but also now pursue brownfield growth.
And so we'll look to kind of fill that gap between when we go into the development phase of Vicuña and get to that really large-scale production portfolio with adding some midterm growth.
And so to the tune of 30,000 to 40,000 tonnes of copper over the next 3 to 5 years, Juan Andres will walk through kind of what that looks like and how we hope to achieve that. But really, what we're targeting is a company that has line of sight to producing over 500,000 tonnes of copper per annum.
But it's not only copper that makes us unique. The growth that we have in gold as well, taking advantage of the recent gold price environment and seeing that we've got line of sight with both brownfield and greenfield projects to really juice our gold production profile, I think as well, it really is a unique investment opportunity for Lundin Mining.
And so in that interim phase, looking at a potential 40% increase in overall gold production. And then again, once we step up with Vicuña and adding together with our existing operations base, we see line of sight to getting to over 550,000 ounces of gold per annum.
And that large growth is really anchored to this right here, the Vicuña district. It's a giant mining district in the making. I've got a section to kind of go through where we're at in terms of now that we've formed Vicuña Corp. We've got the cadence of meetings. We've got the Board set up with our partners, BHP. We see a very unique opportunity to advance a world-class district. And so we'll walk you through later on in the presentation on what that means.
But I think also importantly, we put this map here in the top right to show the uniqueness, not just of the district itself, but of the -- of it in relation to our existing largest mining operations and the fact that we have infrastructure that could support really untapping this mining district and this giant deposit here.
And so that translates into a resource estimate that we came out with in May -- forgive me, in March, and we just published the technical report for this resource estimate on Monday here to provide more detail. And what you're seeing here measured, indicated and inferred of 38 million tonnes of contained copper, just over 80 million ounces of gold and just under 1.5 billion ounces of silver.
So we've got some comparatives later on to show you kind of how that stacks up against the existing giant mining operations, but copper, gold and silver really makes these combined projects quite unique in nature. But it's not just the size, it's also the fact that they've got near-surface, high-grade mineralization that really help with how we want to untap these deposits and strategically build them out in sequence.
So for us, all of our success hinders on making sure that we've got strong safety performance, as I was touching on, and then the best responsible mining practice in the industry. So with Nathan here, we're going to walk through our sustainability metrics.
But as I mentioned, being able to reach our 2030 carbon reduction target 6 years early, it really shows that there's more opportunity to continue to drive that initiative and those initiatives forward.
Copper Mark designation that we have at our Chilean operations shows the commitment of the teams in Chile that we want to go above and beyond the call to ensure that we've got the accreditation from internationally recognized groups like Copper Mark to show that we have best practices being implemented at our operations.
And then the support of the Lundin Foundation, I think that's a key differentiator for Lundin Mining being a Lundin Group company. We have the Lundin Foundation that comes alongside the mining companies to ensure that we've got a really good understanding of how we can make sure we're maximizing the benefit from the local stakeholders as well as the investment community here.
So very pleased with the safety performance year-to-date, very exciting about the sustainability practices that we have within the company. And I think it really anchors us to a solid profile going forward.
So just to summarize my section, as I was mentioning, we feel like we've really improved the business model at Lundin Mining. We've got a path to becoming a global top 10 copper producer, underpinned by a best-in-class team, which you'll meet many of them here today.
And all of this here, we've streamlined our portfolio, we make sure that we're focused on our performance, and Juan Andres will really walk you through the exciting enhancements we've made at all of our operations. And we've got unrivaled growth, not just with Vicuña, but I think with the near-term targets that we're looking to execute on, it's a great platform for Lundin Mining to continue driving value on.
So with that, I'd like to hand it over to our Chief Operating Officer, Juan Andres.
Thank you. All right. Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you, Jack. I think Jack, in his intro, was able to set the framework of what the rest of the presentation is going to be about, the strategy of Lundin Mining with the anchor on the operations and the Vicuña district.
From an operational perspective, I'm going to walk you through safety, some asset overview of our 4 assets and some growth opportunities for the near term. But along my presentation, I will be referring to 3 key pillars, which we think are the foundation of the strategy from an operational perspective, which are operational discipline, full potential and low capital-intensity growth.
So starting here, you can see that in the last 3 years, we have significantly improved our operational discipline. We have established a new planning cycle, which we have, together with Eduardo and his team, set new standards, quality, QA/QC processes and tollgates in our planning cycle to make sure that our loans, our 5-year plans and our budget meet the highest standards in the industry.
We have added new routines in our monitoring process of performing -- to follow up the performance of our operations. We have added data through Power BI tools that we use regularly to track the performance of our assets. And with that, we have been able to achieve guidance in the last 2 years, and we're tracking well to achieve guidance in 2025. We had a good first quarter, and the second quarter is aiming to meet our internal goals as well.
Health and safety, well, health and safety go hand-in-hand with production. There is no single operation where you have good production performance and not a good safety performance. So in our case, the enhanced operational discipline has led us to achieve, as Jack mentioned before, to one of the best safety records in the history of the company.
In Q1 of 2025, we achieved a record in terms of performance across all our operations, the lower LTIFR in the last 5 years and the best ever quarterly TRIF in the history of the company as well.
So now let's get into each of our assets. Starting with Candelaria -- I'm sorry, before we jump into Candelaria, let me give you a framework of what our operational strategy is all about.
We did not took an off-the-shelf full-potential approach. We basically customized this approach to our own needs. We looked at each asset and the context of each asset with the intrinsic characteristics, the externalities, positive and negative, and comparative advantages. And based on that, we crafted a fit-for-purpose full potential program for each of our assets.
Then together with that, we picked the peer group for each of our assets based on their intrinsic characteristic, and we established what is the full potential. So how can we extract more value from the ore body that each asset has?
From that, we split it in two: operational excellence and asset strategy, which means how can we maximize the use of our installed base and how can we increase the value from our assets by including adding some low capital-intensity project. So the operational excellence is normally reflected in our budgets and in our loans, and the asset strategy is normally reflected in our growth loans.
So what have we -- what has been the focus of our full potential program? We have focused on some key areas. First, we went to the basics. We think that mine planning presented some interesting opportunities in Lundin Mining. We took some modern tools and technologies and applied to the mine plan that we had in some of our operations, and we were able to see some extraordinary outcomes. So I'll walk you through that during the presentation.
Then we looked at process improvements. We produce a significant amount of data on a daily basis from each of our assets. So we applied some data analytics to improve our processes. And we were able to standardize process that finally impacted recoveries, tonnes per hour, the pay factor of our trucks, average speeds and other KPIs.
Also, we looked at cost reduction. We went and looked at the areas where we could reduce spending. We optimized the way we're spending sustaining CapEx. We renegotiated some contracts. And also, we have been in-sourcing some key processes in our operations. With the establishment of the regional office in Chile, we were able to start some joint bidding processes between Candelaria and Caserones and capture some significant synergies between those two operations.
And all this makes sense if we can make this change, remain sustainable along the mine life. So we have put a significant effort in training our operational excellence team in order to give sustainability to this new philosophy in our company.
Now let's get into our first asset. So Candelaria is one of our two Chilean operations. It was acquired in 2014 and became the flagship operation since day 1. Today, it represents 43% of our revenue contribution. And this year, as Jack mentioned, they celebrated their 30th anniversary.
As you can see on the slide, it is 80% owned by Lundin Mining. It has an open pit and underground. It has a throughput capacity of 75,000 tonnes per day in the mill and 3,800 tonnes per day for the underground. Our average grade is in the order of 0.43 for copper and 0.8 in the underground.
As you can see, there has been a significant downward trend in our C1 while maintaining steady production in the order of 150,000 tonnes of copper per year. Through full potential, we have been able to keep reducing our C1. And I'll walk you through some details on that in a minute.
So this is Candelaria. For those that have not been in Candelaria, you can see the open pit. We have the underground. This is Candelaria North. Candelaria South, the he portals are on this wall of the pit. We have the old tailings. The new tailings will be in this area, and the processing facilities are here. The primary crusher is in this area. That's the mill, the thickeners. And again, the operating TSF will be down here.
So we have done some significant optimizations of the open-pit mine plan, and I'm going to walk you through that. We are working in optimizing the underground operation as well, and full potential has continued giving very good results since the beginning of this program. We have, in the near term, a step down of the streaming that we have with Franco-Nevada that will step down from 68% to 40% of our gold production. So I'm going to refer to that also in a minute.
So our long-term mine plan, as I mentioned before, we used -- we applied some new tools, new technologies to maximize the value creation from our mine plan. And as you can see there in the graph, on gray, we have the LOM 2024. In the bluish color, we have the LOM 2025. You see a significant reduction in [ mine ] movement, especially in waste, in the first 7 years of the 10-year plan that we have on the screen.
And this was achieved by maximizing the extraction of value and postponing some high strip-ratio phases in the mine plan, one of them being La Española. We were able to defer La Española to later years and bring another pushback that had higher grade. And by doing that, we're able to increase the grade profile in the early years of the mine plan. We also did some changes in the design of the pushbacks at the mine. So that all allowed to a much more optimized mine plan -- long-term mine plan.
Here, you can see some very good results that we have obtained from the full potential program that we launched in Candelaria in 2024. A significant reduction in our open-pit mining cost in dollars per tonne moved, which has gone down from $4.7 to $3.6 per tonne.
As I mentioned before, with the optimization of the mine plan, we were able to reduce significantly the strip ratio, which has gone down from, let's say, 3:1 to almost 1:1, which is a significant contribution to also the sustaining capital expenditure that we see on the right graph. We have taken sustaining capital from close to $400 million per year to $200 million per year, which is the guidance for 2025. And the first quarter, we are in track to meet that guidance in terms of sustaining CapEx.
One key component of Candelaria is the underground mine. The underground is able to produce higher grade than the open pit. And of course, that drives significantly the results in Candelaria. You have been hearing from us about the [indiscernible] project, which is the expansion of the underground mine. But we looked at the underground operation, and we saw an opportunity to in-source the projects or the contracts that we have in the mine.
Historically, the underground has been operated by contractors in Candelaria. So we see this as a first step in the process of increasing the production from the underground mine. So we have established a 2-year process to in-source all the contracts, and we're aiming to reduce the mining cost between 15% to 20%, and that is a very attractive value increase in the production -- in the contribution from the underground mine.
So what happened with the underground expansion? As I mentioned before, you may recall that we have been referring to the [indiscernible] project, which was initially a project based on a significant investment to build underground material handling process. That entitled the construction of underground primary crusher and some conveyors to bring the ore to the surface.
But looking at opportunities to be more capital efficient, we found an alternative, which is based on tracking the ore from the underground to the surface and by doing that, reducing significantly the risk exposure and the initial capital cost. As you can see there, the capital intensity went down from $20,000 per tonne to less than $5,000 per tonne just by switching to this new approach.
Copper contribution will be in the order of 12,000 to 14,000 tonnes of copper per year, and we're aiming at a gradual increase of our throughput from the underground as we implement this new approach.
As I mentioned before, we have also, in Candelaria, this opportunity that will add value to the company. So we have right now streaming with Franco-Nevada, and that streaming will step down from 68% to 40% once we reach 720,000 ounces produced. And since that is based on production, we don't have a specific date, but we think that this will happen by the end of 2026 or early 2027. And that will contribute with 40 million to 70 million tonnes -- sorry, $40 million to $70 million per year free cash flow at the current gold prices.
So in summary, Candelaria has a great future ahead, and this graph represents the 10-year outlook of production with Candelaria with the addition of the contribution that this new underground project will give to the Candelaria copper profile.
So now I'm going to switch to our second operation in Chile. This is our newest asset in our portfolio. As Jack mentioned, it was acquired, the first 51%, in 2023. And then in 2024, the company exercised the 19% call option to account for 70% ownership in the asset.
It's, of course, an open-pit mine. Caserones doesn't have underground. It has a mill throughput capacity of 100,000 tonnes per day. We also have a cathode plant, which has a nominal capacity of 35,000 tonnes of copper per year. The average head grade for copper is 0.29.
And we took operatorship in the second quarter of 2023. And since day 1, we focused on debottlenecking the throughput of the mill. And then later, we launched the full potential as well that I'm going to refer in a minute. But with the Caserones accounts for 40% of the revenue contribution and with the proximity to Candelaria, we have seen also a lot of opportunities to capture further synergies between these two companies.
And as I mentioned before, after we took operatorship, we created this regional office where we have centralized all the support functions. And by doing that, we were able to capture synergies and we continue to do -- all the big bidding processes are being done in a jointly manner between Caserones and Candelaria.
So for those that haven't had the chance to visit Caserones, we have here the open pit. We're currently mining Phase 6, Phase 7, which is up at the top here. We have the primary crusher, the conveyor that takes the ore to the ore stockpile, then the mill and the thickeners and the Moly plant down here.
We have -- the tailings are splitted in two, in the coarse fraction and the fine fraction. And the coarse fraction is deposited in El Tambo TSF, and the fine fraction is transported to La Brea, which is some a few kilometers away from the site here.
This area is the dump leach. So all the leachable material is dumped directly on a ROM manner, so run of mine directly on the pile and is leached, and the solutions are captured here at the bottom of the pad and then transported to the SX, or solvent extraction, electrowinning plant for the production of the cathodes in Caserones.
So we -- in Caserones, as I said before, the first focus was the debottlenecking of the mill. We made some improvements to the supply of water from the well field, and that allowed us to basically maximize or reach the nameplate capacity of our SAG mill. And then right after that, we started the full potential, which was launched in mid-2024.
Since the beginning, we have also focused in increasing the utilization of the nominal capacity of the cathode plant, and I'll refer to that in a minute. And we continue seeing some interesting opportunities, which are related with continued utilizing the cathode plant, but also looking at bringing some leachable ore from a nearby exploration target called Angelica, and we're going to refer to that in a minute.
So the -- we have made significant progress also in the full potential program in Caserones. As I said before, we launched it in mid-2024. And since day 1, we have seen an immediate impact on the cost. Total cost divided by tonnes milled, if we compare to the full year 2022, where we see a $20 per tonne mill, we have been able to bring that down by 10% so far to close to $18 per tonne mill and with that, increasing the margin -- the EBITDA margin from 34 to 36.
In -- the full potential has also included some significant renegotiations. We have renegotiated the Mark contract, which is the fleet maintenance contract. And we went from a full Mark to an LPP, which has translated into significant savings for the company. We're looking at in-sourcing some processes also at the mine and in the maintenance of the mill. And by doing that, we're lowering our cost and bringing our productivity up in Caserones.
Another way to see the impact of the full potential program. As you can see there, in the mine operation, we have achieved some record mine movement per day, reaching up to 236,000 tonnes per day in the Q1 of this year, which means basically a 21% increase from the historical average.
To achieve that, we have increased the payloads of the trucks from 295 to 310 tonnes per truck. We have reduced the cycle time by 20% and increased significantly the availability of the fleet also through this renegotiation of the Mark contract -- or the maintenance contract.
In the case of the mill, also a significant improvement. You can see there on the graph, the first impulse of increasing productivity since we took operatorship in the second half of 2023, where some debottlenecking or some restriction on the water supplies were released. We were able to reach [ 4,270,000 ] tonnes per hour. And then later through the full potential, we have been able to even increase that by 15% to somewhere close to 4,300 tonnes per hour in the last 2 quarters.
This has been achieved by, among other things, securing the stockpile levels above 75%, improving the blast fragmentation at the mine and also some blending strategies that have been applied at the mill.
As I mentioned before, the cathode plant has a nominal capacity of approximately 35,000 tonnes of cathodes per year. Historically, the utilization of that capacity has been in the order of 50%. So the team, in the last 2, 3 years, have -- or in the last 2 years, have focused on implementing a different irrigation strategy by basically irrigating some areas that represent the slope of the damp leach. They have also increased the placement of damp leach material by adjusting the cutoff grade at the mine.
And in the most recent month, we have identified that there is an opportunity to bring more oxide ore that is showing up in the Phase 7 of the pit. So by doing that, in 2024, we were able to reach 24,000 tonnes of cathodes per year. This year, we're aiming to something of that same order. And we think that with this short-term opportunity, we can increase or maximize the utilization of the cathode plant and adding another 7,000 to 10,000 tonnes of copper per year at a very low cost -- basically at a marginal operating cost.
As I mentioned before, there is a nearby exploration target called Angelica, and Tim Walmsley will refer to that in more details in his section. But basically, Caserones holds a land package of 60,000 hectares. And inside that land package, there are several exploration opportunities, and the most attractive right now for the proximity to the existing processing facilities is the Angelica deposit.
Angelica was originally only explored for the leachable reserves up on top. But later exploration conducted by the exploration team have identified some interesting sulfide potential at the bottom. So we think that with the oxide that sits on top, which is very close, it will be also a low capital-intensity opportunity to keep the cathode plant at its maximum capacity, probably not at the nameplate capacity, but in the order of the 7,000 to 10,000 tonnes of copper additionally in the next -- in the near term.
Finally, Caserones, as I said before, very steady and has been doing some significant improvement with the full potential program and is projecting the 10-year outlook at an order of 130,000 tonnes of copper per year, as you can see on the graph.
And we see the addition of those 7,000 to 10,000 tonnes of copper through the utilization of the nominal capacity of the cathode plant, which, by the way, the cathodes, of course, have a lower C1 cost and have, of course, a very high margin that contributes to the cash flow of the company.
Let's now switch to Chapada. Chapada is our operation in Brazil in the state of Goiás. It was acquired by Lundin Mining in 2019. It represents 12% of the revenue contribution. And as you can see on the graph, it has had a very steady performance in terms of copper production and gold production in the last 4 years. However, since Chapada was the early adopter of the full potential, we can see a very interesting downward trend of the C1 cost, and I'm going to refer to that in the next slides.
For those that have not had the chance to visit Chapada, we have a series of open pit. We have the North pit up here. That's the central pit, Southwest and South pit with all the different waste damps. What you see here on the left of the screen is the current tailings facility, and the processing plant is located right here. So as I said before, Chapada was our first operation where we launched the full potential in late 2023. And since day 1, we have been able also to see some significant results.
Chapada was also subject to the optimization of the long-term mine plan. We saw some significant opportunities by applying these new tools that I mentioned before. And given the importance that gold plays in -- not only in the cash flow generation, but also as a credit to the C1, we have been also looking at opportunities to improve the recovery from the gold production.
Chapada also holds probably the most attractive near-term growth opportunity, which is the Saúva project, and I'm going to refer to that also in the next couple of slides.
So looking at the results achieved in the full potential in Chapada, you can see a significant decrease in the total spending in the open pit mine that went from $170 million per year to close to $120 million per year in 2024. The strip ratio, which was already an advantage of Chapada, went down from 1.5 to less than 1:1 waste to ore. So that is a significant contribution to a reduction in the sustaining CapEx and also in the C1 of the company as a whole.
As you can see also on the last chart, the all-in sustaining cost has dropped significantly from $3.36 to $3.07 in 2024. And all these are the reflection of the work that the team has done in the implementation of the full potential in Chapada.
I think this graph shows clearly the impact of the new long-term mine plan. We were able to reduce close to 30 million tonnes of waste per year. And when we did that, we, first, were able to reduce our dependency on a mining contractor. So by doing that, we basically reduced the amount of the contract by half, and that had a significant impact on the mining cost.
We eliminated also the -- we added the inclusion of stockpile material, which now we're feeding to the mill between 6 million to 8 million tonnes of stockpile material per year and all this while maintaining basically intact the copper and gold production in the long term. So this was a significant change in the long-term plan for Chapada that has been contributing to a significant increase in the productivity and cash flow generation from the site.
As I mentioned before, Saúva is the most attractive near-term low capital-intensity growth opportunity for Lundin Mining. And it's based on the exportation of a satellite deposit that seeds 15 kilometers north of the Chapada mine. We have a prefeasibility underway for the Phase 1, and I'm going to explain what Phase 1 means, and we plan to finish this study by the end of 2025.
We're also looking in parallel at what is the best permitting path because there are several options. And we recently were granted the second -- the first expansion with the integrated license, which gives an umbrella for the permitting process in Chapada.
So this can become, as I said before, a very low capital-intensity growth opportunity at approximately $8,000 per tonne of copper, which puts Saúva as a very attractive opportunity for us. We are, of course, studying in parallel the Phase 2 expansion that I'm going to also explain in a minute.
So if we take -- this is a planned view of the Saúva deposit. And if we take a cross-section from A to B looking to the Northwest is what we see here on the screen. So as you can see, Sauva is a tabular deposit that outcrops the surface with some very interesting grades. So the Phase 1 is basically extracting the outcropping mineral to the surface with a smaller pit and tracking that ore directly to the mill in Chapada.
Later, we will be studying the Phase 2, which will extract all the open pit -- open pitable reserves. And then later, we will be also studying the potential for an underground operation here. The ore body continues dipping, and all the drill holes are continually demonstrating that this is a very robust and the grades are really interesting compared to what we are processing now in Chapada.
So in summary, the Saúva Phase 1 will be an open pit, as I mentioned before, the initial capital, it's in the order of 155,000 -- sorry, $155 million, which encompass all the acquisition of a mine fleet. Basically, there's no pre-stripping required since the ore is outcropping to the surface. And we are considering here the addition of the second ball mill.
Given the grades that you can see here, 0.5 for copper and 0.45 grams per tonne in gold, it's basically double of what we have today at Chapada. So in order to maximize the extraction of metal from this high-grade ore, we need additional milling capacity to reduce the grind size and increase the recovery. So there is an addition of a second ball mill considered in the $150 million initial capital.
With this, we're aiming to increase between 15,000 to 20,000 tonnes of copper per year and 50,000 to 60,000 ounces of gold per year for the 4 years that the Phase 1 will last. And then will come the Phase 2.
So how -- this is how Chapada looks in the 10-year outlook. And you can clearly see the impact that the Saúva Phase 1 and Phase 2 will produce in the overall copper production, and the same impact will be on the gold production in this time frame of 10 years.
So we're working on the Phase 1 that should be completed by the end of the year. And at that point, we'll have more detailed information on initial capital and the grade profile and metal contribution for the next 10 years.
Let's now switch to Eagle. Eagle is our operation in the Upper Peninsula in the Michigan state in the U.S. It was acquired by Lundin Mining in 2013 and has been since that -- since the first day, a steady cash generation for the company. We are now approaching what is probably the last 5 years in the life of Eagle. And we are seeing, of course, the grades tapering down for both nickel and copper.
2024 was an odd year for Eagle. Some of you may recall that we had an incident in the main ramp, a fall of ground that did not result in any injuries, but we had to stop the access to the Eagle East deposit and work on the rehabilitation of that ramp to ensure a safe workplace. And that is why there was an impact on the production in 2024 compared to the previous year and 2025. But now that work is basically complete, and now we're back into nominal capacity in Eagle.
For those that have not visited the Eagle, we have the mine that is several kilometers away from the mill. The mill is basically rehab-ed old iron ore mill that was transformed to process the copper and the nickel ore. And the ore is transported from the Eagle mine along a state road that is approximately 100 kilometers long. So the ore is hold to the Humboldt mill to be processed. We have the processing facilities and the Humboldt TSF, which is sub-aqueous TSF, a very unique way of depositing the tailings.
The team has been doing a remarkable work in keeping the costs down. And in 2024, we in-sourced the underground contract that we had with Cementation in order also to reduce the mining cost. And by doing that, we were able to lower our cut-off grades and include -- and add some additional reserves into the mine plan.
And the team continue to look at several opportunities to in-source some contracts and continue to keep the cost, the operation free -- positive cash flow in the last 5 years of the life of mine. However, in 2025, we saw an opportunity that emerged with the Talon Metals to explore an adjacent property that is called the Boulderdash.
As I said before, Tim Walmsley, in his presentation, is going to provide more details about Boulderdash. But in general, it's a mining property that sits 12 kilometers from the Eagle mine. It has the same type of mineralogy as the Eagle and the Eagle East deposit, same type of nickel and copper grades. So any discovery of resources that then can be transformed in reserves will allow us to extend the life of Eagle. So we are currently conducting a drilling program. And again, Tim will refer to that in his section.
So with that, I'm going to finish my section by reinforcing that operational excellence sits in the center of our strategy. We're trying to drive our assets to their full potential.
And we have established this program that is not an isolated initiative, it's connected with all the other management systems that we have in the company like the operational excellence, the planning cycle, the asset strategy and of course, all the people strategies that are related with performance incentives and creating organizational capabilities.
So this has been -- this has proven to be a very good tool to keep driving performance and increasing the cash flow from the current operations that is needed for the consolidation of our growth -- long-term growth strategy in Lundin Mining. And this is driving also the transformation of our culture, and we're consolidating what we call our Lundin way.
The results, I think, are very tangible and visible. We have been able to bring down the cost in dollars per tonne mill in all our 3 operations. You can see Candelaria, 30% reduction; Chapada, another 30% reduction and a 10% reduction in Caserones, which started the full potential in mid-2024.
In our near-term low capital-intensity organic growth, we have some very interesting opportunities. As I said before, the Saúva project is probably the most appealing opportunity. But we have, in the case of copper, the opportunity to increase by 10% our copper production with a very low capital intensity alternatives based on our Candelaria underground expansion and the Saúva expansion.
We also see some opportunity beyond that 10% related to the utilization of our installed capacity in the cathode plant in Caserones by bringing some of the Angelica oxide material into the plant.
In the case of gold, we see an opportunity to increase by 40% the production compared to the guidance of 2025, and that is based on the Candelaria, the contribution from the Candelaria underground and especially from the Chapada Saúva project, which has a very high gold content.
So finally, again, the three main pillars that represent our strategy from an operation perspective, operational discipline with a strong focus on safety performance, our full potential, which is helping us optimize and deliver results from our 4 operations, and our effort to bring all the opportunities of low capital intensity in the near term through these growth projects.
So that's my presentation. Thank you. And of course, I'll be available for questions at the end of the session. Thank you. We now go to a break. Thank you.
[Break]
Yes, district overview and update on the formation of Vicuña Corp and the progress that we've been making to date, we'll talk about the exploration potential, the resource. And then we'll segue into Tim Walmsley section, where he'll go with more of a comprehensive overview on all the exploration updates that we have for the whole portfolio.
So starting off, actually, we're going to show a brief video that ties the district to the region and the assets that we have within it.
[Presentation]
So starting here from the port and desalination facility that we have in Caldera in the Atacama region in Chile, so this infrastructure came with the acquisition of Candelaria back in 2014, 1,000 tonne per hour loading capacity at the port. I think we've got 4 loadings per month and desalination facility with 500 liters per second capacity underutilized at the moment and right now, just serving Candelaria.
So about 110 kilometers by road, as you can see, we get to the Candelaria operation. We just did a comprehensive overview with Juan Andres, so most of you would be familiar with the layout here. Processing facility producing 100% concentrate. And Tim will also talk about the 20-year life of mine. We've basically been able to double the life of mine since acquisition. So foundational asset for the portfolio.
If you follow the corridor into the Andes, about 155 kilometers by road you'll get yourself to Caserones up in the Andean region. Again, Juan Andres walked us through, but what you can see is the Caserones open pit is that an elevation of 4,300 meters above sea level and using gravity going down to the processing facility at about 4,000 meters in elevation. So you can see a very tightly-held layout, so the processing facility right next to the open pit.
And then if you continue to the Southeast, we get into the Argentinian side of the Vicuña district. And starting here, you can see the Josemaria surface outlay. So we came out with our updated resource. This is an image of the block model. You can see the grades on the top left. We want to identify that while it's a sizable resource, we also have a unique high-grade core, 1 million tonnes at 0.5% copper and near surface.
This is a rendering of the infrastructure at the feasibility study, so obviously subject to change, but just to kind of get an image of what it will look like once we're in operations from likely Phase 1 of the development.
And then just over the hill, about 10, 15 kilometers away, you'll see the Filo del Sol surface. You can see the Miocene belt. And as we've demonstrated, world-class in nature when you also include the Josemaria resource, 38 million tonnes of contained copper and over 80 million ounces of gold.
Going beneath the surface here, you can see this truly gigantic deposit, 6.5 kilometers in strike. You can see the grades again. Here, we've been targeting to try and find the ends of this deposit. It's open in all directions, but now we're also tightening up and looking at that high-grade core. 600 million tonnes of 1.14% copper equivalent really gives us a lot to work with when we look at the studies that we're implementing at the moment. As I mentioned, open in basically every direction. mineralization continues to extend in all directions for Filo del Sol.
Here, you can see the block model. We came out with the technical report on Monday, and it does outline one of the world's largest copper, gold, silver resources and the largest discovery in the last 30 years.
Okay. Getting back to the presentation now. So I think as you've seen, I mean, the location of the Vicuña district and proximity to our existing operations is what makes it unique, but giant metal deposits are unique in theirself. This is giant by definition. It's not a promotional description.
The size of districts are formally classified and quantified by industry academia. So calling something a giant metal deposit that actually comes from the Society of Economic Geologists and the characteristics of deposits like this, it shows scale, it shows clusters and it shows combining multiple ore structures together.
And this is a new district in the making. You look at the largest mining operations in the world. They're all along this Andean corridor. So starting from Southern Peru, you can see the likes of Collahuasi, Chuquicamata, Escondida. And further south, you get to Andina and El Teniente.
40% of the world's copper comes from the central Andes when you include both Chile and Peru. And so what we're on here is a new cluster. We classify it as productive and efficient because you can tap in and produce a large amount and tap into economies of scale and of course, extremely rare.
As I mentioned, this is the largest discovery in the last 30 years in the copper sector. And so for us to have this district to have a partnership with BHP and for it to be in such close proximity to our 2 largest operating mines really presents a very, very unique opportunity for us, which we look to kind of continue pursuing.
This is a closer image. So I mean, again, it's not just because of its merits that make Jose Marie and Filo unique together, but also the fact that it's close enough to our existing operations that we can share infrastructure and look at tapping into even further economies of scale. We saw in the beginning of the video where the port and desalination facility are. So we've got spare capacity. We've got real estate to look at expanding.
We are also studying other locations for what would eventually become a key infrastructure region for the Vicuña district on the Argentina side and Vicuña Corp more specifically. But the nature of these deposits and its proximity of where it's located is a very strategic advantage for the company.
So we call this kind of a giant journey. I mean this isn't something that happened overnight. We're just going back to October 2020 here on this page, but these discoveries were made in the early 2000s. And so a lot of work, a lot of study, a lot of field campaigns have culminated into where we are today.
Josemaria, it came out with the latest technical report, feasibility study that came out in 2020. At that time, the district was really maturing. In May 2021, Filo del Sol discovered the high-grade Aurora Zone with hole 41, and that really kind of, I think, demonstrated the unique nature of this region and really put the district on the map.
Lundin Mining came in and entered the district, we announced in 2021 and closed in 2022 with the acquisition of Josemaria. Around the same time, our now partners, BHP made an incremental investment into Filo in February 2022.
And then as we continue to progress Josemaria, we got an environmental impact assessment approved in 2022 as we continue to refine and look at bringing that towards predevelopment activities. And then in March of 2023, we announced the acquisition of Caserones, further strengthening our toehold in this area.
In July, and I'll talk to it in a little bit, in Argentina, in 2024, there was an investment framework that came out, approved through Congress, which really provides clarity on how we're going to form fiscal stability for a project of our size. That's a key requirement for us to understand the overall tax requirements and really the partnership that we'd be forming with Argentina. So that was a key trigger event for us.
And in that same month, we announced the joint acquisition of Filo Corp with BHP and really put the wheels in motion to form Vicuña Corp. And then in May, we came out and announced the resource that really, I think, validated the district last -- or this week on Monday, coming out with that technical report, and we continue to move forward. So it's been a busy 5 years. It's been a busy 20 years, and it's going to be an even busier 5 years ahead.
Most of you would have seen this slide. So Vicuña Corp. was formed and the transaction was completed in January, Lundin Mining and BHP, both owning 50%. And then for us, integrating both Josemaria and Filo to look at one unified project, both of these assets very much complement each other as we look to execute on a phase development scenario, and I'll get into that in a little bit.
However, prior to getting into that, I think we're going to invite Tim here to just talk briefly about the geology of Filo and Josemaria.
Thanks, Jack. Yes, it's quite a special and unique system, the Filo system. It's a privilege good to be a part of it. But obviously, as Jack said, this project was developed over multiple decades. It's 25 years in the making.
This is a prospective view, which I guess has been superseded by the video, but it gives you a good view. We're looking west from Argentina into Chile. And you can appreciate the full scale of the mineralized system and the cluster of porphyries in this area. Caserones is 30 kilometers to north of Josemaria. And then as Jack mentioned, Josemaria is only about 10 or 12 kilometers away from the Filo pit.
It's hard to believe, I still remember the day the news release came out on hole 41 and how that's changed the world. But when you go back 5 years, this was a Filo project, and this was 20 years in the making. All of this drilling was really focused on what was at the time an attractive high-grade shallow oxide dominated system. And all of those 20 years were focused on developing and understanding the system.
It's more or less located in the southern part of the greater system, and it is quite shallow starting with oxides and sulfates and sulfides right from surface.
But the world completely changed for Filo in May of 2021 with the release of hole 41, over 850 meters of 1.8 copper equivalent at a time when most mines are just happy to keep producing 0.5% copper at their large pits. So this was a really significant hole. And after this hole, for the next 2 years really, the focus of the drilling of the Filo team was really to [ flesh ] out and build out the size of the rich Aurora Zone that this hole had proved up.
And you can see some of the other holes. This hole wasn't alone. Obviously, there's quite a large area. And you have to keep in mind scale here. I think these are 1 kilometer grid blocks that you're looking at. So the Aurora Zone was well over striking 1 kilometer north-south and over a kilometer in vertical depth. It's quite exceptional.
And then 2 years after, the next 2 years, they're fleshing out the size of Bonita or sort of Aurora. And then for the last 2 years, the exploration work there is focused on expanding this high-grade northwards into the Bonita zone.
Originally, Bonita started with a single hole. It looked like it might be another porphyry system. But since this is such a long-lived multiphase porphyry system, it's hard to know whether Bonita is a separate porphyry system within a long corridor of mineralization or whether it's just part of the entire system.
Now stepping forward 5 years from -- or 4 years from that key drill hole, this is what the first initial sulfide resource looks like today. It's -- and you can appreciate, I think, by the amount of high-grade material on the edge, on the surface of the resource that we still haven't closed this system.
There's high grade sticking out from all directions in this deposit, as Jack said. I mean, you can see it's open east, where we're seeing the eastern flank of it. It's also open to the north. It's open south at depth. It's open really in every single direction. And that's something you hear a lot in exploration. It's always open, but this is one of those cases where it really is.
This first sulfide resource was a product of 20 to 25 years of drilling. There's over -- there's 400 drill holes that comprise this resource. Over half of those drill holes are diamond and 3/4 of the drill meters are diamond drill meters.
But within this significant resource, there's even more impressive high-grade core, as Jack alluded to. This high-grade core starts from surface on the south end of the system in the original oxide discovery, then it moves towards, and it's centered really around the Aurora Zone at the center of your screen, and then it continues moving into the Bonita zone.
This high-grade core is comprised of over 600 million tonnes of over 1.1% copper equivalent in the indicated category, but it also contains another 800-plus million tonnes of 0.9% copper equivalent. So together, it's a really significant tonnage of material that averages towards 1% copper.
This next slide gives some better indication into just how open the system is. In the resource slide previously, you saw the amount of high grade on the surface of the model. But here, you can see a number of holes surrounding the resource that are showing significant grades that are sort of sitting out by themselves. There's not enough drill density between those holes and the resource to stretch the resource into to encompass those outlying holes.
So that can give you some indication as to future resource growth to come. As the resource -- as the drilling gets infilled and we better understand the edges of the system, you're going to see the envelope of the resource start to grow in many directions and encompass some of these higher-grade holes on the edge of the system.
The drilling program for 2025 at Vicuña and at Filo will really be focused this year with between 50 and 60 kilometers of drilling meters. It will be focused on finding these eastern and western edges of the system. The eastern edge here, you can see that has sparse drilling and the resource will grow here.
And there's a similar drilling perspective that's behind the resource you can't see on the other side, but you could replicate what you see on the east on the western side. And the drilling that they'll be doing will be largely focused in these two directions to try and better understand the edges of the system and to better understand the stripping ratio on the eastern and western flanks of this body.
Right now, anything outside of this resource is considered waste and obviously, so that increases the stripping cost. But you can see from these holes that everything on the eastern side of the pit that's not in the resource is not going to be waste. As you start to fill in that gap between these high-grade holes and the resource, you're going to start to fill in this blank space with interesting grades that will reduce the stripping ratio significantly.
And as big deposits get bigger, this is obviously the case in Filo, big systems bring big surprises, and they keep coming in all sorts of ways. Hole 141 here is an example of the sort of surprise that comes. This is only a few weeks old or a few months old, one of the last holes to be drilled. This had intercepts of over 20 meters of 8% copper equivalent, including over 4 meters of 40% copper equivalent.
And that's a sort of surprise and shows you the sorts of grades that this large system can provide. And I don't think it will be the last of this sort of surprise that Filo will contribute.
But not to be left out, Josemaria also has its high-grade core. And as you can see here, it's extremely shallow. It's really near surface, and the grades are very attractive. At 200 million tonnes of 0.73 equivalent starting from surface, those are extremely attractive grades for an open pit today.
Thank you, Tim. So these next three images just kind of show how Vicuña, with its maiden resource estimate, stack up against the largest operating mines today for copper, gold and silver.
So here, starting with copper resources of the largest copper mines, so measured and indicated 13 million tonnes of contained copper and then another 25 million of inferred. Of course, still a lot of drilling to be done to move that into the measured and indicated category. But just kind of, again, further demonstrating the uniqueness and the scale of this project.
What's amazing is that you can see as well the gold contained within this deposit and how it stacks up with the largest operating gold mine. So top 3 here with our maiden resource and if you see kind of indications, as Tim was saying on hole 141, this is still subject to grow significantly. We believe that we're going to continue to find continuous mineralization. I think we've validated that now.
And so Tim was talking a little bit about it about the drilling campaign that we have. There's a lot of competing interest for that drilling campaign, but we now need to really further demonstrate the grade and really hone in on the areas that are going to serve as the earlier mine plan and really focus on a rapid payback.
But we know that both from a copper, gold and silver perspective that this deposit will continue to grow. And what's unique here is when you look at silver, it stands out as the second largest silver resource when comparing to the largest operating silver mines. So Vicuña would be the only mine that you'd see actually across all three of these mineral trends. So for copper, gold and silver, Vicuña is the only project that is on all three.
So let's talk briefly about the budget. You would have seen that we've increased our budget. So this is for the 50% portion that Lundin Mining is responsible for contributing. So we went from $155 million to $215 million. Really, that's a result of the fact that once Vicuña Corp. was formally established and the transaction was completed in January, we were able to consolidate both the Filo and the Jose budget and start looking at this as a unified project.
We set up the policies within the company. We set up the Board and the committees and the regular cadence of the meetings that were going to be had. And we were there asking the project team to really come up with a budget that they saw could advance at a reasonable pace if we were going to be looking at kind of moving things forward now that everything is looked at as one project.
And so the team identified areas to advance and accelerate the work plan. And the main increases are coming from, of course, engineering with all the study work that we've got ongoing, and I'll talk to that on the next slide; camp costs, so supporting the field works. We've got 9 rigs turning in the Filo area, both on the Argentinian and Chilean side of the district.
And then supporting that is off-site infrastructure, so building roads and access to get to this site. I mean, as we look to kind of increase the cadence of teams coming to site, we want to make sure that we've got significant amount of infrastructure invested in there to ensure safe passage going up into the district.
And then Tim mentioned, I think we've doubled or more than doubled the drilling meters that we've applied to this field season. And with that, an increased staffing requirement. And so those are the main increases, and that's kind of what comprises the Vicuña budget for 2025.
So we often get questions about how we're going to build Vicuña. I mentioned and we all know we're working towards an integrated technical report that will identify a full-scale project, which will really look at doing a phased development. You've seen that Josemaria is well identified, and then there's still continuous drilling at the Filo del Sol deposit.
Josemaria in 2020 had a feasibility study released on the project. And so it is the most studied and most advanced project, also in relation to where it's located, where we would be putting fixed infrastructure. Josemaria really does provide an opportunity to get into an early cash flow scenario where we could use future cash flows to really fund the expansion.
Filo oxides, Filo Corp had actually had an updated pre-feasibility study on the oxide project. And so of course, we continue to advance. We're looking at a multistage leaching circuit that will capture as much of all the metals that are presented, mainly copper, gold and silver. And so that's what would be the second most advanced level of definition in the district, and we continue to mature that opportunity.
What's great about the Filo oxides is that this is mineralization overlaid on top of the sulfide deposit. So it's essentially a cash flowing or NPV positive pre-stripping opportunity for us.
But getting this project into full-scale operation will require a significant amount of Chilean -- or sorry, infrastructure investment. And so what we've looked at and what you've seen talking about the desalination facility, talking about the fact that we've got a port with spare capacity, I mean, we really need to study that a lot further and looking at also when you get to full scale, wanting to avoid having to truck all of the material, looking at things like concentrate slurry line, rail line and really looking at that off-site infrastructure. I mean that's work that's ongoing right now, but it will take time to study and further refine that.
And all of that will then support the globally ranked kind of target that we're hoping to achieve here, which is the Filo sulfides. Tim, he was able to kind of demonstrate and show the unique nature and the size and scale of this deposit, and everything kind of builds on itself to get into that full-scale scenario with the Filos sulfide.
So we're working on an integrated study that will combine all of these studies that will really reveal an integrated approach at how to build this, working with the Vicuña Corp project team with our partners, BHP. And in Q1 of 2026, we'll be able to come out and add much more clarity on what we envision and how to get to that global rank production operation.
A little bit on Josemaria here. So as I mentioned, the latest study that's in the public domain was a feasibility study that came out in 2020. We also had an EIA approved in 2022. And so we've got a lot of understanding on how to build this.
It's a much more well defined, but also it's a conventional large-scale open pit mining operation. We have mill equipment already stored in San Juan. We've got a construction camp outfitted with capacity for 2,500 personnel that would eventually be up in the district to build Phase 1.
And then because of this not being full scale, we envision a solution where we could start with trucking the produced concentrate and therefore, not requiring a significant amount of off-site infrastructure investment upfront. So it's an advanced stage development asset, and we really see this as the asset that will unlock us to grow substantially higher in the region.
A little bit on the investment environment in Argentina. So most of the audience and those following the story would know that there's a new President in Argentina. Javier Milei took office in December 2023. He was able to rapidly make some pretty drastic reforms in the country and one that is very significant for foreign investment is this large-scale investment regime called the RIGI Bill, which was approved through Congress in July 2024.
So for us, looking at putting together an application so that we could adhere to this regime, we've got a window between July 2024 last year and July 2026 to apply for this to get a long-term strategic export status, which will basically give us a clear stability framework for up to 40 years.
And the requirement there, as you can see on the screen here, is you'd look to put 20% of the initial $2 billion threshold over 2 years to secure this. So we would definitely be able to classify and hit that requirement to be classified as a long-term strategic export partner with Argentina. And therefore, as we continue to mature our definition around the integrated study, we'll be in a position to look at applying for this RIGI incentive regime.
The macroeconomic conditions in Argentina have been improving. Monthly May inflation rate is at 1.5%. And so we're seeing that there's been some steady improvements in the investment opportunity and the investment climate in Argentina. And the IMF right now is forecasting 5.5% growth in 2025, following what had been years of a pretty significant recession.
In April 2025, Milei removed fixed exchange rate to the U.S. dollar as part of this $20 billion loan from the IMF. And so I think what we're seeing is that there's an appetite to incentivize for investment in Argentina. The economic environment in Argentina is improving, and that's giving us further confidence that a project like ours is going to be able to get into this next phase.
And so we continue to see progress being made. There's a midterm elections coming up in October, and we'll continue to monitor the environment in Argentina. But we see this significant window of opportunity being open right now. And of course, we'll continue to approach it with a pragmatic lens, but we remain encouraged.
So in summary, I mean, putting all of these together, what I was showing in the previous comparables was the mineral resource. This is actually the production profile of the 10 largest copper, gold and silver operations.
And as I mentioned, Vicuña has the potential to be in all three of these. There's no other mining operation right now that has -- that exists in all three of these categories with copper, gold and silver production. And so very exciting unique opportunity for Lundin Mining, for BHP and for Vicuña Corp.
And as I mentioned, our focus now for the project is to combine all of the studies that we've got underway right now, culminate this in an integrated technical report, and that will really form the basis of the next decision for us to move the project into construction. So we're targeting the integrated technical report to come out in Q1 of 2026.
So I'll hand it back over to Tim for an overview of exploration.
Thanks. So even though the biggest jump in resources that Lundin will see has come through the acquisition of Vicuña, there's still incredible growth opportunities at all our sites in Lundin. Lundin's had a pretty impressive, I would say, track record of exploration and resource growth. The majority of sites within the Lundin Holdings over the last 30 years have seen at least twofold growth in their resources from the time of acquisition.
And here's a few examples of the growth, threefold growth in Candelaria, doubling in resources in Neves and just a huge growth in Zinkgruvan that was also accompanied by production increases. And obviously, Eagle, we didn't quite double the resource, but the discovery of Eagle East was a really, really critical discovery to extend the mine life at Eagle. And hopefully, we can do more of that.
But clearly, the star in terms of the organic resource growth has been the Candelaria example. Candelaria was acquired just over 10 years ago now. And at the time of purchase, the mine had a 14-year mine life. That mine life has been more than doubled today. The mine -- that mine life of 14 years would have ended in 2028. But today, you can see that the mine life at Candelaria is currently scheduled to go out well beyond 2040.
And so this is the benefit of significant exploration and resource growth in the brownfield sites. It gives you that base upon which you have different organic growth opportunities in terms of production and scaling up.
The MIRA process is a process that we started applying. We started with Candelaria in 2015. It's basically an organized process by which we take a very structured and serious look at all the different growth opportunities within the land holdings of the mine. And that way, we get an early indication of the opportunities for growing.
Rather than waiting before waiting until the stage where resources are defined and drilled off, we try and get ahead of that game and get quicker indication of where we may have growth within our sites by looking at categorizing all these growth opportunities before they're at the resource stage.
And then we can go through a very rigorous process in reviewing these opportunities, prioritizing them. It helps to define our 5-year exploration plan and can allow us to make better and more strategic exploration decisions and eventually by increasing the resource base that allows increases in production rates and ultimately in value.
And things like the underground expansion project at Candelaria is an example of the opportunity you have to increase production when you increase your resource base, similar to Saúva and Chapada.
But without a large brownfield landholding, none of this strategy would be effective. Thankfully, all of our largest assets have a very extensive landholding associated with them. And each one of our mine sites still contains a large number of exploration targets and attractive targets.
One of the largest land holdings, as Jack mentioned, is over 60,000 hectares in Caserones. And this is just a different perspective just to show how close the targets are within the Caserones landholding to the various targets that also exist still to be found within the Vicuña district or within the Vicuña Mining Corp. property.
At the time of acquisition, Caserones had approximately 8 targets that were known, but not well worked. Over the last year in 2024 was our first full year of exploration at Caserones, having acquired the asset in mid-2023. And we've gone and aggressively attacked the landholding by flying airborne geophysics and expansive ground geophysical programs so that we can scan as quickly as possible the large landholding and figure out which one of these various targets offers the best chance for success.
So when we started, we had 8 targets. Now we have over 12 targets, but only 2 of these 12 targets have really been drilled today. And even that drill testing is quite limited. So we have a lot of work to do and a short time to do it.
While we were scanning the rest of the property at Caserones, we didn't want to wait until we knew which was the best target. We still had -- started advancing our best opportunities while we were scanning the rest of the property. So we started focusing our original exploration plan in 2024 in 2 areas: Caserones, the main deposit itself; and the Angelica satellite deposit.
The focus of the exploration within Caserones was really look for potential high-grade breccias within or just below the resource. The focus of the exploration historically at Caserones was really looking at extending out the supergene and the rich blanket that the mining programs commenced with, the very shallow high grade, but not a lot of deeper drilling looking for more important hypogene grades was carried out in those campaigns.
The other area is Angelica that Juan Andres mentioned. There's some known oxides that were defined in previous years at Caserones, but not a lot of drilling went any deeper than the oxides or the small supergene that's associated with the oxides to understand what sort of sulfide system underlay that oxide blanket and produce that oxides in the first place. So this was quite an opportunity, I think, and a lot of our initial drilling was focused in these 2 areas.
This is a section running sort of northwest to the southwest portion of the pit. Just to give you some idea of what we mean when we're targeting high-grade breccias, you can see the higher grade at the top of the system in Caserones and that's related to the supergene-enriched blanket. A lot of the historic drilling that was the focus of early mining has now been exploited, and this is the current pit that we see with the current resource pit in black. But you can see there's a lot of high-grade material that is hinted at in very sparse drilling in the lower part of the resource. But unfortunately, because the historic drill pattern was really focused on the horizontal blanket, a lot of that drilling was vertical. Vertical drilling is not ideal when you're trying to target vertical high-grade breccias. You can put breccias in between the drill pattern and not find them.
So recognizing this, when we started exploring within Caserones, we wanted to drill only large angled holes to see if we could find some of these blind breccia bodies that might be hiding in between some of these very sparse deep drill holes that were in the inherited resource.
And this is one example of what we've been able to do. This is a hole from last year, where we drilled looking for this, the opportunity that some of this higher grade could be related to a breccia that would continue at depth. And we did confirm that there is, in fact, a significant breccia depth that we'll hopefully be able, if we find more of these, to drag down the future pit of the deposit.
But we didn't expect that we would actually find, at the same time, some high-grade enrichment that wasn't in the model. So this just shows there's still all sorts of upside surprises yet to be had within this deposit. And this high-grade enrichment here is likely related to an upgrading of a potential -- another breccia pipe. So there's multiple opportunities to find more of these hidden breccias within the system, and that will be the focus of this -- the remainder of this year's drilling campaign.
Jumping over to Angelica, this is a section running through the Angelica system. You can see a large number of shallow holes that were really focused on the upper part, the oxides part of the system and the supergene part in beige here. So there's a number of intercepts of interesting grade of oxides and supergene sulfides in the upper part of the system. But for some reason, none of the historicals ever decided to venture deeper and find out what was producing this accumulation at surface. So you can see some of the holes ended in copper from the historic drilling.
And when we started this campaign last year, this was one of our first holes that hit mineralization, showing that there are copper, moly sulfides underlying this system. And this is a hole from our first drill campaign hole from this season, and we've hit really, really exciting results here. The results that we're getting, this hole is just only recently finished, and we're still awaiting QA-QC on some of the assays, and we still haven't got gold assays. But the copper and moly intercepts we're hitting here are very favorably comparable with the very best hypogene sulfide holes anywhere within Caserones.
So that's a very, very good sign that there is another sulfide system here at Angelica. And the focus of the drilling for the rest of the year will be to flesh out and find the limits and the size of this system.
Moving over to Candelaria. Even though the Candelaria has seen this incredible growth over 10 years, tripling resources in a decade, you would think that it's probably approaching its natural entitlement for resource growth. But there's still room to continue growing. And I think you'll see continued resource growth here for the next decade as well at Candelaria.
In the center of the screen is the main open pit at Candelaria and the mineralization extends beyond the pit and into the underground sector to the north and to the south, and there's opportunity to continue growing the underground resource in both those directions, north and south of Candelaria. And here, towards the bottom of the screen, you can see the Española resource pit with the mineralization associated here. This starts right at surface Española. The grade is not quite as high as Candelaria, but it's very, very shallow, and it's only about 2 kilometers from the plant. So it's got all sorts of benefits as well.
And there's an area to the southwest of Española called Portuguesa, where we've intercepted a number of similar intercepts to the Española mineralization. And we think there's good opportunity to continue growing and expanding that style of mineralization to the southwest from Española.
This is a long section through both deposits, the main Candelaria deposit to the right-hand side of the screen to the north of the system and the Española deposit to the left-hand side of the screen and the southern part of the system. You can see here how the pit extracted the main part of the Candelaria deposit, but then this [ manto ] horizon at this lithologic contact continue going further, further north, and there's still room to grow that further north yet. To the south side, there's been less exploration than to the north side, mainly because it's getting a little bit deeper, and it doesn't have the same expansive consistent blanket of mineralization that Candelaria North does. But what we do have in the south are extremely high-grade breccias and veins. When you get into them, you get very, very, very high-grade copper and can produce very attractive mining, economic mining. And there's a lot of room to continue chasing this to the south.
At Española, obviously, there's some mineral inventory and probably close to having inferred opportunity here at Portuguesa. There's a gap between these 2 areas, and we've recently acquired some mineral rights earlier in January of this year. So now we can start to fill in this gap and see if we can join together the success we had in Portuguesa with the deposit Española.
And as a good exploration geologist, there's always the dream that we haven't really chased yet that above Candelaria historically were smaller deposits similar in nature to Española. And actually, Candelaria was found by looking for these smaller deposits along strike by Phelps Dodge. And little did they know they were finding a much more important deposit at depth at this horizon.
So if you extrapolated this horizon south of Española, one could wave your arms and make the case that you could have something similar going on here. And we haven't explored for this. Obviously, it's deeper, and we're focused on shallow mineralization, but this is something we'll start to look at in the future to see if there are any additional Candelarias hiding along this horizon at greater depths.
Moving over to Chapada into Brazil. Juan Andres touched on the important Saúva deposit. This deposit was found within 2 years of Lundin's acquisition of the mine. We acquired the mine in June of 2019 and the discovery drill hole in the center here of Saúva was made in August 2021. And since that time, we've been trying to expand and grow this resource.
Today, the last published resource sits at just shy of 250 million tonnes of grades that are generally 20% to 30% better than the head grade at Chapada. And as Juan Andres mentioned, some of these grades start right at surface. So it's quite an attractive material. But within the 250 million tonnes, there's a higher grade 100 million tonnes, and then there's an even higher grade core of 50 million tonnes where the grades get to the range of 2 to 3x the head grade at Chapada. So that makes this material extremely attractive.
And then beneath the pit, the mineralization continues extending at depth. Currently, there's a small resource, but this hasn't been upgraded since we haven't done any drilling that's been added to this resource since September 2023. But since September 2023, there has been drilling going on. We just haven't upgraded the resource, and we've been hitting mineralization with similar grades as the high-grade core and similar grades to the underground resources but even getting better at depth. And we've extended the mineralization that we see in the underground resource by at least 600 meters, and this continues wide open at depth. And all of the holes in this direction are hitting attractive copper grades and gold. I should say the gold is much more attractive here than in Chapada.
Lastly, moving on to Eagle. As Juan Andres mentioned, in the last couple of months, Lundin has entered into exclusivity to negotiate an earning agreement with Talon Metals that would give us the opportunity to earn into 70% if we fully complete a phased drilling campaign, summing to 30,000 meters and then following that up with a feasibility study, and that would give us 70%.
The initial drill hole by Talon was drilled in October of last year. The mineralization starts just below the surface, which is quite impressive. I don't know if you recall, Eagle and Eagle East are quite deep deposits. So you have to work your way to get down to them. The mineralization at Boulderdash is very similar in nature and aspect and tenor and grades to the Eagle and Eagle East deposits. But this discovery hole started hitting mineralization at 9 meters. So it's very shallow.
Right now, as part of the early conversations, even though the earn-in agreement has yet to be completely finalized, we're in the last stages here, we have started an agreement where we funded their drilling campaign, so they can accelerate the exploration of this target. And they started drilling about 3 weeks ago. They now have 2 drill rigs on the project. And the idea is to try and extend this mineralization on geologic strike and see if they can chase this mineralization at depth, looking for the grades and tenors to increase.
Very similar, you can think of it as the Eagle East deposit has this sort of tenor and material at surface. But as you go deeper into Eagle East, the grades get much higher in 3% and 4% copper and nickel. So we'll be doing the same sort of thing here, trying to extend the deposit and follow the intrusive conduit that holds the mineralization to depth and along strike, hoping that we get into accumulation of higher grades and tenors. A discovery of the nature of Eagle or Eagle East here would be extremely, extremely beneficial and economic for Eagle given the 12-kilometer proximity of the plant. It would have really, really attractive economics.
Proximity to the mine.
To the mine. Yes. Yes. That's exploration.
Great. [ A quick 10-min ] break.
[Break]
We'll do a quick break and then come back and do a financial review.
Good afternoon again, everybody. My name is Teitur Poulsen. I'm CFO of the company. So logically, I will take you through the financials. We are now on the home stretch of the presentation. And following my section, Nathan will go through the sustainability, and then Jack will come back with some concluding remarks. And after that, we get to the really exciting bits with Q&A. So we hope for many good questions.
So going on to my first slide here. I thought it was good just to outline big picture, the financial framework of the company. And really, it's a framework which is centered on 3 key pillars, as you can see here, we call it operational excellence. But really, what that's all about is to make sure that we optimize our producing assets the best we can so that we generate maximum free cash flow for minimum input, minimum sustaining CapEx, et cetera.
And as you've seen with the portfolio mix that has been presented today, we are very copper geared. Over 80% of our metal mix is now copper, 84% actually in Q1 this year. And that scenario is likely to remain at least up to Vicuña coming on stream, which you have seen there's quite a bit of both gold and silver in Vicuña. So the copper to gold ratio might change somewhat post Vicuña start-up. We'll go into more detail on C1 cost and EBITDA margin, but what we are outlining here is a projection of 5 years out in time. And what we see is that we will have a fairly stable C1 cost of around about $2 a pound copper or actually slightly below.
And what you'll also see here is for the first time, the company is guiding a 5-year outlook on cash generation and EBITDA. And on our base case scenario, we will come back to what that will consist of, but we are generating close to $5 billion of free cash flow from our producing assets. So that is the first key pillar of the financial framework. And the second pillar is to have a robust balance sheet, which we indeed have today. With the sale of the European asset, we are essentially debt-free, less than $150 million of net debt where we stand today. And that equates to a leverage ratio of less than 0.2x EBITDA, actually closer to 0.1x EBITDA.
And what we will also outline in the presentation here today is that we have significant funding capacity available to us. We are not guiding on Vicuña CapEx just yet. That will come in the technical report Q1 next year. But the idea here is to show you what sort of funding capacity we have from a clean balance sheet and from very strong free cash flowing assets. And again, we will show various scenarios, but big picture, we have well in excess of $6 billion in funding capacity as we enter into this growth phase ahead of us.
And the third pillar of the financial framework is all about growth and shareholder distribution. And for us, it's important we have this Goldilock position, if you like, where we can both grow the resource base and production base and at the same time, also distribute value back to shareholders. And that's the framework we've managed to set up, and that's the framework we foresee being there consistently through the build phase of Vicuña and obviously even more so post going into production on Vicuña.
And as I said, we will be outlining various scenarios here. So it's important that we sort of calibrate all of you on what key assumptions we are making here for the projections we're going to show you. So on the left-hand side of this slide, you see the base case scenarios. So these are essentially our Board budgeted copper prices, $4.40 real term 2025 copper this year, and that gradually increases to $4.50 by 2027 and then it stays flat from there on out. And that's actually very close to where the forward curve sits on copper at the moment. It's around about $4.50 long term.
Gold prices, we have tweaked up as we've gone through the year. We budgeted originally at $2,500 gold for the year. We are now assuming $3,000 an ounce gold for this year and next. But then I guess we've been somewhat conservative and err on the side of caution. So having a long-term price of $2,500 per ounce gold is the long term. And you see the moly prices here in silver as well. And nickel, we haven't put on here, but we are assuming $7.50 per pound nickel flat for this period.
And then the key currencies we deal with are obviously where we have our operations in Chile and Brazil. So we are doing CLP 950 to the dollar this year. And then we are assuming with an increase in copper price, we're assuming the peso somewhat strengthened to CLP 900 flat long term and the Brazilian real, we keep at BRL 550 flat. We are also going to present to you in less detail, but we will show you the bookends of a low and high case copper price scenario where we're assuming $4 per pound flat copper price in real terms through the 5-year period we project. And on the upside, we assume $5.50 copper price flat. And again, on currencies, you can see that with a lower copper price, we also assume a weaker Chilean pesos. There's somewhat of a correlation there, we believe.
And with a higher copper price, we assume a stronger Chilean pesos, meaning that our C1 costs in dollar terms are going to go up somewhat. So those are the key macro assumptions sitting behind the projections we're showing. And before we go into the 5-year scenario that we will show, we thought it was just good to calibrate everybody back on 2025 guidance. You will recognize the production guidance range here, 300,000 to 330,000 tonnes copper for the full year and 135,000 to 150,000 ounces of gold for the full year. And as you have seen during the presentation, we are more or less tracking to the midpoint of these 2 ranges in terms of the first 5 months of production year-to-date.
So assuming that we will achieve the midpoint of these guidance ranges for the full year and with the $4.40 copper price that I showed on the previous page, we project to generate around about $3.7 billion of top line revenue for the year. That compares to around about $960 million achieved in Q1 alone. So if you extrapolate Q1 revenue, we should come in slightly higher than this. But with mark-to-market changes in copper price, we had a higher realized copper price of $4.40 in Q1. So we feel with $4.40, that should be the revenue we are able to generate. And with the C1 cost we have shown you, $1.95 to $2.50 per pound is the guidance range we have revised to, we should generate around about $1.7 billion of EBITDA for the full year. And again, calibrating that to Q1 actuals, we did $390 million in Q1. So we are sort of on track to achieve the EBITDA number.
And then adjusted operating cash flow, which is essentially EBITDA less cash taxes and some other items, we are projecting, excluding any working capital movement, $1.3 billion for the full year. And in the first quarter, we did $340 million. So again, we are tracking very closely to what the full year guidance is on adjusted operating cash flow.
And then we get to adjusted free cash flow from operation, which is essentially operating cash flow minus the sustaining CapEx that we incur. And you can see here, we retain guidance of that of $530 million. But we are projecting $800 million of free cash flow from our producing assets for the full year, excluding any impact from working capital. And this metric also excludes exploration expenditure, which we are guiding to be around about $50 million for the full year.
And then the expansionary CapEx, we have increased that guidance somewhat $265 million with the higher Vicuña spend for the year that Jack took you through. And post expansionary CapEx, we now project $535 million of free cash flow for the group. So this is pre-finance cost and pre-distribution to minority shareholders from Candelaria and Caserones.
And with these numbers and the dividend assumption or shareholder distribution assumptions of $220 million for the full year, we project to be in a net cash position at year-end of around about $150 million, assuming we achieve the midpoint of production guidance and assuming $4.40 copper price for the full year. So if we now look a bit further ahead, and we're going to go into the 5-year projection in a minute and the production volume sitting behind the 5-year projection you see on this graph. So for the average for the next 3 years from '25 to 2027, we are guiding 320,000 tonnes copper per year on average. And that number is essentially just the average or the midpoint of the 3-year guidance outlook that we provided at the beginning of the year. That guidance remains unchanged.
What is new on this slide, of course, is the second phase of the 5-year outlook from '28 to 2030, where -- if we include the brownfield growth projects that Juan Andreas took you through, we are averaging 350,000 tonnes of copper per year over that 3-year period, but our financials are not including those growth projects at the moment. So we are essentially back to the baseline that Juan Andreas took you through, which over this period would equate to 310,000 tonnes copper on average per year over that period.
And what we then show here is obviously the uplift that would occur as and when we go into the next decade, and we are ramping up Vicuña. And at that point, we project to be a 500,000 tonnes copper per year company and also very meaningful gold production of 550,000 ounces of gold per year. So what does that then mean? Here, we are showing for the 5-year outlook from '25 to 2029, how our unit costs and EBITDA margins are trending over these 5 years. And then on the right-hand side of this slide, you see the cumulative EBITDA generation over these 5 years on the base case of $8.1 billion cumulative, which equates to around about $1.6 billion average per year.
And you also see what the EBITDA generation would be if the $5.50 high case copper price came in, then we will be close to $11 billion in EBITDA generation. And similarly, on the downside, if we assume $4 per pound copper flat for this period, we would be at $6.6 billion in cumulative EBITDA generation. So very strong EBITDA generation. And you can see the margins we project here. We are doing on average around about 46% EBITDA margin over the 5 years on average. You can see it fluctuates a little bit in tandem with the C1 cost on the left, also because we have a bit varying production numbers from one year to the next. But essentially, it will hover around 45%, 46% EBITDA margin. And obviously, with the higher copper price, the EBITDA margin will go up.
Remember, now we are assuming a somewhat stronger Chilean pesos, but nevertheless, around about 54% EBITDA margin in the higher copper price environment on average over the 4 years. And then on the left, you see the C1 trend over the next 5 years. In 2026, which is a slightly stronger production year, you can see that the C1 costs are actually trending down to a low point, whereas in 2027, despite the fact that in that year we are stepping down the stream at Candelaria, which releases more gold and therefore, reduces -- sorry, we have more byproduct credit coming in on C1 and therefore, should reduce C1 cost for us. But that's more than offset here with, we are assuming higher TC/RCs from 2027 onwards. We are back up to $80 per tonne TC/RC from '27, and we are actually assuming $90 per tonne TC/RCs from '28 onward here.
So there are a few interchanging factors impacting the C1 outlook in general. But if you take the average C1 over this period on the base case that we're showing, then we average actually below $2 per pound, around about $1.95 is the average C1 cost over this period.
And if you then look further on, on the free cash flow generation from our producing assets. And again, this excludes any brownfield upside. This is just on the base case long scenario. We anticipate to generate, on the left here, adjusted operating cash flow at a base case of $6.5 billion. And then we also have guided long term here a total sustaining CapEx number for the 5-year of just below $2 billion, $1.9 billion in sustaining CapEx. You will note that this year, we are guiding $530 million in sustaining CapEx. So this number on an annual basis is clearly stepping down as we have lower strip ratios, less capitalized stripping going forward.
So on average over this period, we are guiding $375 million of sustaining CapEx for the 5 years. So that $6.5 billion generation in operating cash flow becomes just below $5 billion in free cash flow post sustaining CapEx. And you see here also the high and the low cases with the high and low copper price, where we are projecting $8.6 billion in operating cash flow and close to $7 billion in free cash flow after sustaining CapEx in the high case. And in the low case, we project $5.4 billion in operating cash flow and then $3.7 billion in free cash flow from operations. So even in the low copper price scenario, we are still very, very cash generative from the base case loan that we project here.
In terms of the split of sustaining CapEx, as I said, roughly 1/4 of $475 million goes into capitalized stripping and underground development, mostly relates to Candelaria, around about $145 million, whereas the delta here is obviously allocated to Eagle. And then otherwise, you have sustaining CapEx, which includes tailings and equipment renewal, water management, et cetera, which makes up the balance.
One other feature which ranks us very favorably in our opinion is the tax profile that we have on the portfolio on a consolidated basis. You can see on the chart here to the left, the tax regimes we operate under. And in Chile, we actually have 2 different regimes. In that Caserones is still surviving on the old tax royalty regime and will do so until the end of 2027, which means that there's no top line royalty, whereas with the new regime, there's a 1% royalty. And on the mining royalty income, there's only a 5% tax for Caserones, whereas with the new regime, there's been the sliding scale regime or scale introduced ranging from 8% to 26%. And in Chile, the corporation tax is 27% corporation tax.
But one of the key benefits we got with the acquisition of Caserones was a significant tax loss position. As of end of last year, that tax loss amounted to $4 billion, only a very small fraction of that has actually been recognized on our balance sheet. But when you model out the LOM for Caserones, we are actually projecting, depending on what copper price you're on, but generally speaking, not to pay any corporation tax on Caserones for the life of mine.
So when you blend all this together and you simply take a current tax charge to the P&L as a percentage of the EBITDA generation that we showed in the previous slide, you can see here that we are running at very low effective current tax rate, even though technically speaking, you can get up to 46% tax take in Chile and close to 40% in Brazil with the tax losses that we have and also the grandfather provisions on Caserones for the next 3 years, we are having a cash tax rate of somewhere between 15% to 20%, depending on whether you look at the high or low case copper price outlook. So that is a key advantage.
With the base case EBITDA, we projected $1.6 billion a year. This means that we should be paying cash taxes in the region of around about $300 million or maybe slightly below that. So that's one aspect which makes our portfolio very cash generative because we have fairly low cash taxes to pay out of the pretax cash flow that we generate.
And in terms of liquidity position, we've managed the balance sheet and the company has always done this historically as well very, very conservatively. We've always had good liquidity headroom. You see the red line there is the credit lines we have had in place with the banks over time. And you can see at the moment, the only credit line we have in place really is our revolving credit facility of $1.75 billion. We canceled $1.15 billion of term loans earlier this year when the sale of Europe completed when we received proceeds of $1.4 billion. So we felt it was prudent to simply pay off the term loans at that point.
So with the net debt now of less than $150 million, it essentially means we have liquidity headroom of around $1.6 billion. And you can also see here the debt profile we have built up with the acquisition of Caserones in 2 tranches, first 51% and then the remaining 90% that we locked in with the call option on the original purchase. But you can also see that the sale of Europe more than paid for the buy-in cost of Caserones, which is what Jack showed earlier was -- represents a great value accretive sort of trade for us in terms of leveraging off more copper in Chile versus selling down zinc in Europe.
And in terms of forward-facing liquidity lines for the company, it's clear that as and when we embark on the Vicuña development, we will need to expand our credit lines, and that's something we already are working on with the banks. There are a number of options on the table in terms of how we structure this, but we believe the most cost-efficient way of doing it is simply to upscale our revolving credit facility. We have very strong support from 13 banks in the facility at the moment. And we anticipate to probably invite another 3 to 5 further banks in when we do the upscaling. And the good news is that there's very, very good appetite for this, and it's a very cost-efficient way of doing it because we want to secure full funding of Phase 1 of Vicuña prior to officially sanctioning the project. So if we can lock in an upscaled RCF, you simply pay relatively low commitment fees upfront until you start to draw on the facility and then you only pay obviously, interest on the debt that you draw over time.
So that to us will be the most optimal way of funding our share of Vicuña, but obviously, it needs to be aligned with BHP, how we fund the joint venture company. But our vision on this is that we do from our parent company balance sheets and put in equity and shareholder loans to fund the development of Vicuña. And this is now circling back on the original statement I made in terms of our funding capacity as a company with a clean balance sheet and strong free cash flowing assets where we said we have over $6 billion of funding capacity for our growth projects as we look forward for the next 5 years and beyond.
And if you read this slide from left to right, you will recognize the green bar there, which is the adjusted free cash flow, so no working capital impact here from our producing assets over the next 5 years, where we see that being roughly $5 billion in the base case of free cash flow generation. The shareholder policy, as Jack outlined in the beginning, is committed to be $220 million per year. So over this 5-year period, that equates to being $1.1 billion of dividends paid and share buybacks. So that comes off the $5 billion of cash generation that we have.
The noncontrolling interest in Candelaria and Caserones. 20% is held by Sumitomo in Candelaria and 30% is held by JX Nippon in Caserones. So obviously, as and when we pay dividends out of those subsidiaries up to the parent company, part of that dividend goes to either Sumitomo or JX. And in our base case, over the next 5 years, we are assuming $800 million of dividend goes to noncontrolling interest.
Then we have expansionary CapEx here, which is around about $700 million over the next 5 years. This includes the expansionary CapEx on Vicuña this year only. So no further Vicuña spend is included here other than 2025 budget of $215 million. And then the rest of around about $500 million is attached to the EIA 2040, which we categorize as expansionary capital investment at Candelaria.
And then the last flying brick you see here, which relates to leases, and we have also some deferred consideration payments to pay for our Caserones acquisition, $10 million a year, plus $100 million in 2029. That then gets us to, in the base case, $1.7 billion of available free cash flow to allocate into growth project. So that is from the producing assets that we can allocate into growth. But as I said in the beginning, we have a clean balance sheet, essentially 0 net debt.
And if you then assume the normal covenants within our revolving credit facility and indeed, the facility we have at the moment allows 3.5x leverage net debt to EBITDA. So again, in this scenario, it needs to be attributable EBITDA net to the company. So this excludes 20% that goes to Sumitomo and 30% that goes to JX Nippon. But if you take attributable EBITDA net to the company over the next 5 years or the average per year and then you multiply that simply by 3.5x, which is the ceiling leverage that you're allowed within RCF, then that in the base case gives us a total funding capacity of $6.2 billion for growth. So this already reflects shareholder distribution of $220 million per year. And in the low price scenario, we project that to be $4.5 billion. And in the high price scenario, we should have funding capacity of $9.3 billion. So exceptionally strong platform for us to grow from with a clean balance sheet and strong free cash flow and assets.
And just some housekeeping around the shareholder distribution policy that we announced earlier in the year, where we pivoted from being a clean dividend story only to now being dividend plus share buybacks. We essentially recommitted to distributing USD 220 million per year. And we are saying a minimum of dividend is CAD 11 per share annually, which on the share count we have outstanding today amounts to roughly USD 70 million in dividends. And then what we're saying is that we are buying back stock up to USD 150 million per year. But that share buyback will always be predicated on where our share price trades relative to what we see as being our underlying asset values. So that's why we say up to. So this is not just a mechanical sort of share buyback where we do so much every month. We will remain opportunistic around this.
And when we feel like we are traded at a discounted value as we believe we are at the moment, we will do more share buybacks, whereas if we feel we rerate properly and trade more fairly, then the likely scenarios we will do less share buybacks and then instead pay out a special dividend so that we still fulfill the $220 million annual distribution per year.
And if you then look at the table below here, the way we will do that is obviously, we will need to translate the Canadian dividends because we paid them out in Canadian dollars at every payment date, which you see here, 25th of June and 24th of September, et cetera. So it will be the FX rate cut to U.S. dollar on those payment days that will translate into the cumulative $220 million full year distribution. And the Q4 dividend for which will be paid out around about April time next year, the date there has not yet been set, which is why we say it's still to be decided.
So essentially, if we pay out $70 million in base dividend and buyback share of $150 million, then there will be no special dividend paid. But for argument's sake, if you say we do no more share buybacks for the rest of this year, so we've done around about $100 million share buyback to date. That would then mean we will pay out a $50 million special dividend together with our Q4 dividend declaration in April next year.
So that takes me to the summary slide. And just to recap on the financial framework we outlined in the beginning, operational excellence. We have a very solid production base, 2 large producing assets in Chile and then we have Chapada and then Eagle in U.S. And that, we believe, will generate strong cash flow with a low cash tax burden. So almost in any price scenario that those assets will be very cash generative. The balance sheet is in great shape. We essentially have zero net debt, which gives us a fantastic platform to launch this growth initiative that we are about to embark on. So strong balance sheet with ample borrowing capacity available to us.
And then as I said, the blend of shareholder returns and growth at the same time, it's not every company that can say they can deliver on that. But we are ideally positioned to do that. We are committed to do that, and we project to do that over the next 5 years as together with building out Vicuna.
And then just a quick recap before Nathan comes here on sustainability on the 3-year guidance outlook. There is no changes here to what we presented in January this year. But here, you can see that next year, we do project to have somewhat higher production volume compared to this year or in 2027. But this is a long-term investment thesis. So what we showed earlier was simply just on average over these 3 years. And similarly, on gold and nickel, we are not changing any of those 3-year guidance outlooks. And in terms of detail per assets, you have the 2025 production guidance here. And again, we are not changing any of these guidance ranges. And you can see here that Candelaria and Caserones indeed are the biggest assets in the portfolio in terms of the copper production. And you can also see here the meaningful gold production in Candelaria, which is why it's so meaningful for us when that stream on Candelaria steps down from 68% to 40% towards the end of next year, towards the end of 2026 or early 2027. So that will release a lot more gold for us and as we have been guiding today, we project that to be somewhere between $40 million to $70 million per year in added gold revenue, depending on gold price, of course.
And then in terms of cash cost guidance, as alluded to by Jack earlier, the only change here is a positive change in terms of reducing costs at Chapada to $1.30 to $1.50. Most of that is driven by the fact that we are assuming a higher gold price of $3,000 per ounce for the full year now versus the original guidance being based on $2,500 per ounce and is also being helped by the weaker Brazilian Real, we had in Q1 of around about $4.84 was the original or was the actual FX rate for Q1, whereas for the rest of the year, we assume $5.50 as an FX rate, which is roughly where the spot rate is trading at the moment.
And then my last slide is on the capital expenditure here. You see the sustaining capital at the top of this table is retained on a consolidated basis for the group of $530 million. What you can see there are a few moving parts within that, where in Caserone, we are assuming a $15 million -- it's not a saving, it's deferral of projects, a similar trend to what we saw last year with some of the scope of work being somewhat delayed. And on Chapada with a higher tailing costs, we are increasing by a similar amount, $15 million from $85 million to $100 million, so still amounting to $530 million for the full year. And then on Vicuña, Jack took you through the details of the increase from $155 million to $215 million, essentially accelerating work programs, more drilling which is leading to this increase.
So all in, in terms of capital expenditure, we will be just below $800 million of expenditure this year. So that concludes my section.
So I will now ask Nathan to come up to present on sustainability. Thank you.
All right. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Nathan Monash. I'm the Vice President of Sustainability, pleasure to be with you here this afternoon. I think it's a nice way to conclude the day to talk about sustainability because it is something that brings together everything you've seen so far in the day.
Our job in sustainability is to facilitate all the work my colleagues have presented over the past couple of hours. A little bit about myself. I haven't had the opportunity to meet many of you just quite yet. We'll get on to that later this evening. I've been with Lundin Group a little bit more than 10 years now, but I've been with Lundin Mining for about 1.5 years, coming up on 2 in a couple of more months. The balance of the time with the group was in Ecuador with Lundin Gold, where I was leading the sustainability work for the construction and then going into operations at Fruta del Norte. So a lot of experience within the group and really happy to be joined Jack over the last couple of years here with Lundin Mining.
Many of you who follow sustainability will know that it's a pretty dynamic space right now. Lots of acronyms can get thrown around, lots of changing terminologies. For Lundin Mining, it is something that is core to what we do. We're not chasing any specific trend. It is what we represent as a company to be focused on sustainability. When I arrived at Lundin Mining, there was already a well-developed sustainability strategy. But one of the things that we noticed was it was difficult to explain how our sustainability strategy was directly linked to operations to the strategy you've seen laid out here today.
So that's what we're trying to work on now. I hope it comes through in the presentation that I go through with you here. We are trying to very explicitly link our sustainability performance to facilitating everything that's been presented so far. Before I go any further, I do want to talk just briefly about the Lundin Foundation. Jack already mentioned it. It is a key differentiator for the Lundin Group and Lundin Mining specifically, not going to walk you through each one of these things. We'll get into many of these in my brief presentation. But we work with the Lundin Foundation across all of the aspects of sustainability with Lundin Mining. They have deep expertise across a range of issues. They're working with us at our operational sites. They're working with us at corporate, on strategy and a number of other areas.
It's another very quick one here. Those of you who are following us closely, we'll know that we've issued our 15th sustainability report recently. This is a demonstration of our commitment to transparency to discussing with you the relevant issues that impact our operations. Few things have changed this year. We are following the ESRS. This is the European standards for sustainability that is changing how sustainability reporting is managed within companies. And you'll also notice that we issued it several months before we have in the past, and we will continue to accelerate that process next year.
So let me start by talking about our approach to environmental stewardship. If you have looked at the sustainability report, you will see that this presentation follows the structure of the report itself. And so the first topic that I want to just touch on briefly is climate action. We know that we are operating in a changing climate, and that means that we have specific actions that we need to be taking.
One is that we need to be making a good faith effort to be reducing our direct Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. I'll get into specifically what that means in a moment. It also means we need to be speaking and thinking about how our sites adapt to climate. So what can we do to ensure the resiliency of our operations and how can we understand future climate scenarios and how that will impact operations. We also need to be thinking about Scope 3 emissions, indirect emissions with our suppliers and working directly with them on opportunities to reduce emissions together.
Air quality at many of our operations is focused on dust and how we can mitigate dust in the Atacama region in -- during the dry season in Brazil, and what we can do to work with communities to ensure that we are addressing an issue that they tell us is a priority for them. Water stewardship is a key part of our operations at each one of our mines. Jack mentioned it will be key in Vicuna as well.
Throughout all of our mines, we seek to minimize our freshwater consumption, and we're always looking to maximize efficiency. And as I'll come back to in a moment, when we talk about water, we are often talking about climate and climate modeling. And then finally, biodiversity has become a more material issue for us over the past years. And so each one of our operations undertakes baseline studies. They seek to understand their impacts through ongoing monitoring and surveys, and we undertake offsets -- biodiversity offsets at several of our operations.
So key headline here, and Jack already mentioned it, is that we have achieved our 2030 carbon reduction target 6 years early. And so that's due to a couple of factors. One was the acquisition of Caserones and the rebaselining that we undertook to integrate that operation into our target. And it's also due to the direct Scope 1 and Scope 2 emission reductions that we have undertaken at each one of our operations.
Jack already mentioned it, but our Latin American operations as of this year are 100% renewable energy powered. And so there are no scope 2 emissions at those operations. As we continue to think about what we've achieved in 2024, we have completed scenario analyses in the Atacama and in Brazil. Again, it's an effort to understand the types of risks that we will be facing, driven by changing climate over time. We started a pilot initiative at Caserones to identify, hopefully, NPV positive.
We found a few NPV-positive Scope 1 emission reduction opportunities. And we also have started to really get a better understanding of our Scope 3 emissions. Those of you who follow the industry in this space will know that Scope 3 emissions can be something of a black box for many companies. They are estimated in a fairly imprecise way. We are working very closely with our operations to get a much better understanding of where our Scope 3 emissions reside and then working with those upstream and downstream companies together to reduce our emissions.
And finally, worth mentioning that we really are trying to integrate sustainability with some of the operations -- operational challenges that we face. And one of those is Candelarian dust. And so we were hearing from communities that dust was an issue. And so we have worked with the site to modify our blasting regime in order to mitigate that impact.
So on the environmental side, when we think about our 2025 priorities, it is to complete that pilot that we started at Caserones. We're already working at Chapada and Candelaria to identify Scope 1 emission reductions there. I already mentioned that we are 100% renewable powered. We are developing a climate offset strategy as well. This is really part of an all-of-the-above approach. We know that we really can't leave any rock unturned. We need to be looking at all options when we think about emission reductions.
We continue with the construction of water infrastructure at Chapada. This is a good example when we talk about changing climate. Chapada has had a change in climate since its construction under Yamana. And so given that, we do need to be building new structure, some of that will be coming online soon with a water treatment facility. And then finally, we need to continue to think about how we can become more efficient with water.
For example, at Caserones, that's been an ongoing initiative working closely with Juan Andres and the team with Marcelo. So if I change gears here a little bit, I wanted to focus also a little bit on social performance. For Lundin Minding, we need to -- we always want to be focusing on meaningful stakeholder engagement. When I say meaningful, what I mean by that is that we are engaging with stakeholders in a transparent manner that we are seeking true dialogue with local communities.
We have a viable and effective grievance mechanisms at each of our operations with service as an early warning radar for us at each operation. We also make use of an innovative tool called the Social License Index. This is something that we work on it, each one of our operations. It also serves to highlight emerging social risk. We hear from communities well before something turned into something more serious. And we're able to address those issues proactively. Again, the issue of dust at Candelaria is just one example.
Where our sites interact with indigenous communities, we have a clear commitment to respect their rights and as part of a larger commitment to respect human rights across the board. We engage with indigenous communities at each of the sites where that's a relevant stakeholder. We seek to strengthen their community as we seek to invest with them jointly on areas that are a priority, both for them and for us. More broadly, when we invest in local communities, we are looking to develop and provide shared value. I think that the way mining companies engage with communities has changed over time. It is not so much anymore a philanthropic approach. It is much more focused on local content, how we can jointly develop local workforce, how we can jointly develop local suppliers and create common interest in seeing the ongoing development of the mine.
And then finally, we need to be tracking impacts. That's something we're working on quite intensely within Lundin Mining is to move beyond understanding only dollars spent, but also understand the impacts that we are creating, the positive impacts.
So a few highlights from 2024, we have seen a significant decrease in community grievances year-over-year. We believe this is driven by changes we have made to our engagement with key stakeholders. I mentioned the SLO index. One of the things we measure through that is trust and acceptance at each one of our operations. We've seen that improve over time as well. That SLO index was integrated into the sustainability-inked loan that we have. It's one of the two KPIs, the other being linked to climate. In 2024, we have several new agreements with indigenous communities around our Caserones operation. We have a new focus on how the governance of the investment we undertake with those indigenous communities will be undertaken. We continue to focus on local investments, local community investments. And you see here that we have an impressive number, the $6.7 million of local investments into community projects. But again, that's just a top line number. Hopefully, the next time we have this meeting, I'll be discussing other metrics about impacts.
And finally, I think it is important to note that the biggest impact that we have on local communities is our presence there. Being a large mining company in some of these rural areas, that's our biggest impact. And so when we think about the procurement that we undertake at the local level and at the national level, we are having very significant impacts on local and national economies.
So when you think about our social performance objectives for 2025, just a few up here. We know that there is an overlap in terms of stakeholders between our Caserones operation, our work on the Chilean side and Vicuna. And so we will be working on a district-wide external engagement strategy to ensure that we are aligned in our approach with these key stakeholders. We will continue with a strong commitment to human rights, ongoing due diligence at our operations and training for staff to ensure that human rights is well understood that we are respecting the rights of stakeholders and that we are integrating human rights aspects into our enterprise risk management systems.
We will be developing local content plans at each of our operations this year. And so again, local content being local employment, local procurement, that will be a key focus for us. And again, ensuring that we continue to further the integration of sustainability into operational and corporate strategy.
So this is my last slide. And just to close out my presentation, I did want to spend a moment just about how we approach governance of sustainability within Lundin Mining. We will be updating our internal sustainability management system this year, aligning it with enterprise risk and with our double materiality. In other words, we want to ensure that our governance system is addressing the key issues that we face as a business. The sustainably linked loan, I mentioned that, that's been an effective tool internally for us to be linking sustainability performance and finance activities that Teitur has mentioned. I'd like to also mention that sustainably linked loan has received an award this year for the innovative use of the KPIs that we have, especially around our SLO Index.
Internally, we've ensured the sustainability forms part of both our corporate and site level scorecards. So all of us within Lundin Mining are being evaluated in part on our sustainability performance.
Our role in corporate is really one of strategic oversight. That's the model that we have, where we are working directly with sites to help them to meet the standards that we have internally to comply with the policies, but it is an approach where we are working very collaboratively with our sites.
One tangible outcome of that work is the fact that our 2 Chilean operations have been certified under Copper Mark and that will continue. I mentioned our enterprise risk management system, I think that, that is an important part of the governance framework that we have in the sense that we are now working to ensure that our ERM system effectively addresses sustainability and the key risks and opportunities that we are facing as a business. I think that, that is just one example of when I say that our objective is to integrate sustainability into the corporate strategy. It's just one tangible way that we are doing so.
So with that, I'll bring my presentation to a close. I think that now we move on to the Q&A. And certainly, if there are any questions about what I've just presented, happy to address them or this evening as well.
Appreciate your attention.
Okay. Everybody can hear me. So getting to the conclusion of a pretty comprehensive overview of Lundin Mining. I just want to thank everyone again for being in attendance. And for those online, it's been a pleasure for us to be able to come and present the great things that we're working on. I think to try and summarize all that we've presented today, we've talked about kind of pillars that we rely on at Lundin Mining in the Lundin Group. And I think with the strong asset base that we have, our 4 existing operations, delivering on our strategy, operational excellence is paramount for our success going forward. We've talked about safety being the underlying component to really drive our consistent execution, making sure that we set achievable targets, and we always focus on cost control and cost management and optimization really puts us in a position of strength going forward.
Capital allocation is what makes the company successful. We've got key levers of adding value through our capital allocation strategy. So we've talked about shareholder returns. We've shown the exciting brownfield expansion opportunities that will continue to mature in the near term. We've talked about Vicuna, transformational opportunity that we look to advance forward with a pragmatic lens and very excited about the progress that we've made to date. And being a long-life business, we look at our operations, and we try and look decades out in time and seeing to be successful through the drill bit and looking at exploration and always looking at trying to extend mine life and it gives you opportunities when you have a 10- to 20-year horizon on how you want to strategically approach your operations. So a very exciting exploration portfolio that Tim was able to walk us through.
All of that leads us to the financial strength that we have, strong cash flow, clean balance sheet gives us significant funding capacity as we look to tap into this ambitious growth profile that we have. And then underlying it all, as Nathan was saying, a strong stability framework that we have embedded in the overall corporate strategy. It doesn't sit outside of our corporate strategy. It's embedded in everything that we do. We really looked uphold that reputation that we have at the group at Lundin Mining, and we'll continue to drive that forward with the initiatives that we have on the horizon.
So with that, I'll invite some of the team here to come upfront, and we have some microphones that we can hand out and start answering some questions before we conclude this portion of the CMD. So once again, thank you, everybody, for being here. Appreciate it.
[Operator Instructions] Dalton, here you go.
2. Question Answer
First one, Jack, thanks for hosting this. Lundin team, thanks for hosting this. It's very informative. We've spent so much time over the last couple of years talking about Vicuna that we sometimes forget what's happening in the rest of the business there. And it was really nice to see today. I'm just wondering, do you have any plans at this time to sort of formalize everything you said today into a set of new tech reports so that the market could sort of see how this plays out over the next little while?
Yes. Thanks, Dalton, thanks for the words. Absolutely. I mean I think the focus for us as we had a very busy couple of years on the transaction front, I mean, we were kind of restructuring the portfolio, and we were also looking internally at our operations and really focusing on stabilizing our existing operations. But we were maturing in the background, some growth opportunities. And now seeing that we've got a solid performing asset base, we are with our MDs that are here today and future MD that's coming in at Candelaria, who unfortunately can't be here today, we're looking at pursuing those. And of course, they have to be anchored to a technical report so that we can then speak more openly about the details of those.
Juan Andres, I don't know if you had anything else to add there.
Yes. I think, for example, Saúva, we're progressing the PFS and the outcome of that will be at some point a technical report. So we need to finish some studies, some engineering in order to be able to issue a technical report on the brownfield expansions that we discussed today.
Perfect. And then just maybe as a quick follow-up, Jack, you kicked off the presentation talking about streamlining the portfolio. I'm just wondering where Eagle sort of sits now?
Yes. Eagle has been one of our actually best performing mines in recent years. And we see that there's an excellent team. It's run very well, and we've got this exciting exploration opportunity with Boulderdash that Tim walked us through and Juan Andres touched on. And so we really want to continue seeing if there's opportunities to extend mine life. We've got Darby Stacey, our Managing Director in the audience with us today. And I think that for us being able to continue advancing, we have to drill out this opportunity and hopefully, it becomes an economic discovery.
Of course, the larger scale projects in South America are kind of where we're going to drive the most significant value. But we very much see that this is still an asset that we want to continue to try and find opportunities on.
Orest Wowkodaw with Scotia. A question for Juan Andres around Candelaria. You showed us the mine plan for the next 5 years and longer term. It's scheduled -- currently scheduled to decline around end of decade, I think, from around 150,000 tonnes of copper closer to, I don't know, 100,000, 110,000 tonnes or so. Are there opportunities to smooth that out? Because obviously, it improves again longer term. I'm just wondering if that's -- if you can improve that outlook.
Yes, it's probably more a question to exploration because the natural decline or the grades is driven by the mine plan, but with the interesting exploration potential that we have in that district, I'm sure they will be able, at some point, replace some of the low-grade material, that is at the end of the mine plan to keep that production more steady. But at the moment, that is the long-term mine plan that we have.
Is the -- you've talked about the strip ratio coming down to, I think, almost less than 1:1. Is that sustainable for the next couple of years?
Yes. Yes. The new mine plan that we put together, it shows that we're completely sustainable.
Lawson Winder from Bank of America. I think this event was fantastic, very informative for myself, and I suspect everybody else here. I wanted to ask about two things.
So one, on CapEx intensity. You guys highlighted some great work that you did with the Candelaria underground project, reducing that intensity to just $5000 per ton, that's well below benchmarking that we do. Can you maybe walk through some of the details there, and then perhaps connect that to Vicuna and ways that we could think about how the CapEx intensity that Vicuna could be managed on?
Do you want to start with Candelaria?
Yes. In the case of Candelaria, so originally, we were thinking in building some infrastructure underground to take the ore from the ore from the stopes to the primary crusher. And the original idea was to build a primary crusher, which means that you need to excavate a big cave underground and then install some -- forgot the length, Eduardo, you can help me the length of the conveyor belt -- yes, like a 5K long conveyor belt to take the ore from the stopes again to the surface to the primary crusher.
So the value engineering showed that at a very significantly lower CapEx, we could achieve basically similar copper production results. So that is when we decided to eliminate that infrastructure and track the ore from the underground to the surface. And by doing that, it is basically where we reduced the exposure to project construction and so that we significantly reduced the risk.
We are able to anticipate the implementation of that because we don't need to go through a long construction phase for that infrastructure. And that is basically how we came up with this low capital intensity alternative for the underground expansion.
Yes. I think with Vicuna capital intensity, of course, it's greenfield and sort of the first phase getting cash flowing is going to be very important for us. And then when we look at future expansion opportunities, that's where the capital intensity we look to kind of optimize. But on a whole, because we've got kind of three forms of production that we're going after, Jose Maria sulfides, Filo oxides and Filo sulfides, I mean, building this out in sequence will help us manage that capital intensity as well.
Okay. Fantastic. And then I wanted to follow up on Candelaria and just to get a sense of a timeline to when you might start exploring some of those horizons below Espenola. I mean that's actually -- with this asset, that's absolutely where you guys have added a tremendous amount of value since you've owned it in 2014. What is the timeline to that? And then what is the depth of that horizon that you showed on the chart for Espenola?
Yes. That would be significantly deeper, which is why we haven't driven that sort of exploration yet. It would be in the range of a kilometer depth. But if you look at the core history of Candelaria, the first decade of production, the head grade was over 1% copper and 0.2 grams gold.
So those sorts of grades in a similar deposit could certainly support an underground operation, but obviously, it'd be smaller in scale. And with deeper drilling, it's more labor and more cost intensive to test those opportunities. So we've been focusing for the last decade on the obvious sort of step-out extension of the underground and the quick wins at surface.
But we've always had the idea of drilling some of these well cat 1 kilometer holes in the district to test that opportunity. But we will start to accelerate that as we run out of other quick wins.
Ioannis Masvoulas from Morgan Stanley. It's refreshing to see the focus on operational excellence. A couple of questions from my side. The first one on just the production targets. So medium term, 350,000 tonnes of copper, long term, 500,000 tonnes, simplistically or at least more than 500,000 tonnes. So that would simplistically suggest that from Vicuna, you expect a lower bound of 300,000 to 350,000 tonnes on a 100% basis.
But clearly, there are quite a few moving parts with Eagle potentially offline, and some grade profile changes across the other assets. So could you talk perhaps about the lower bound that you see at Vicuna and even some comments on the upper bound, what would be the upside opportunity once Phase 1 to Phase 3 with phhilosulfides is up and running?
Yes. I mean it's a great question, and we're working through all of that now. I mean we have internally what we expect we'll be able to achieve, but all of that's going to come through with the technical studies, the field work that we've got ongoing, the engineering work that I was talking about now. And so unfortunately, it's a bit premature to be able to talk about the lower and upper bound, but it should give you a good sense of what that target is that we've set. We think that we could comfortably hit that in the future term, once we get Vicuna up and full scale running. But you'll just have to wait, Ioannis, I'm sorry, we're all eagerly awaiting, but for Q1 for that technical report to come out.
That's absolutely fine. And the second question, just on the -- maybe for Ted on the leverage ceiling. I think in the past, the company talked about 2.5x net debt to EBITDA being the ceiling. Today, you're talking about 3.5x on copper prices that are potentially close to spot. So clearly, on a more adverse macro environment, that gearing ratio could shoot up quite a bit. So how are you thinking about your appetite from -- to really go up to 3.5x? And how should we think about other funding options as part of the mix, including potentially streaming, which is something you've done successfully at Candelaria in the past?
Yes. Of course, all this depends on ultimately what the CapEx quantity and also the phasing of that CapEx will look like for Phase 1 and beyond on Vicuna. But when I say 3.5x, I'm not necessarily saying we are gearing up to that level. All I'm saying is that typically within a traditional revolving credit facility, you are allowed to leverage up to that level.
And I've been involved in oil and gas projects in the past where you have a very similar phase where you ramp up CapEx quite aggressively. And then you -- just before you get into production, which is normally when you peak your net debt, and then you delever very quickly thereafter.
So to me, having a sustainable sort of 1.5 to 2x leverage is actually good capital allocation in my book, because that's the cheapest capital you can get. And if you then peak at 2.5x or maybe even slightly above that, I don't see that as an issue. And clearly, lenders don't see that as an issue since they allow up to 3.5x net debt to EBITDA.
So the message today was just to tell the market, we still don't have the CapEx number for Vicuna, but just to indicatively show what the funding capacity with the most conservative debt instrument and therefore, most cheap debt instrument is with RCF is up to over $6 billion. And as you say, there are other avenues of funding available, of course, which I believe would be more expensive and therefore, not optimal, but those additional funding avenues are there also to tap into.
But I think with the size of the company we are today, with the cash generation we get from our producing assets and with a clean balance sheet, I think the objective for us should be to minimize cost of borrowing. And as I see it through an RCF, that's how we would achieve that.
It's Matt Greene from Goldman Sachs. Teitur, you highlighted the expansion CapEx, $700 million, of which $200 million is for Vicuna, $500 million at Candelaria. On the 2040 plan, I think you said you filed an underground expansion, which is just under $100 million, no upfront infrastructure. But I presume you're going to need some ventilation and sort of CapEx down the line. How should we think about that $500 million CapEx, expansion CapEx at Candelaria? Does that number potentially fall underground?
Yes. I mean maybe we can start with the big picture. So when we guide $1.9 billion sustaining CapEx for 5 years, that suggests that the average run rate will be below what we spent this year of $530 million. And there are many reasons for that.
One is, in Caserones, we know we have some catch-up work to do on camps and communication and some other items, which is why sustaining CapEx on Caserones is a bit elevated at the moment. And then at Candelaria, as you say, the strip ratio is coming down. So capitalized stripping is definitely coming down. And when we talk about expansionary CapEx, it's everything relating to EIA 2040.
So there are -- and maybe you can comment as well, Juan, but there are other benches we are now mining that we were given access to through the 2040, which we classify as expansionary over that period. So I don't know whether you have...
Yes. In considering that expansionary CapEx in Candelaria related to the EIA 2040, there are some commitments related with the community that fall in that category. The relocation of power lines that also fall in that category. So there are projects or expenses related to the extension of the mine life after we approve the -- or we received the approval of the EIA 2040.
Okay. So should we think about despite the underground CapEx coming down, total expansion CapEx over the medium term at $500 million is unchanged.
Yes.
Okay. And then, if I could just ask on Caserones, the sort of request for more oxide on the dump leaching. But a lot of your peers out there are looking at dynamic heap leaching and new leaching technologies for secondary sulfides. Is this something you're looking at?
Secondary sulfides?
Yes. And potentially primary sulfides in the future. But I guess just to try to fully utilize your cathode production.
Yes. So currently, we are leaching oxides and secondary sulfides currently. And we are investigating for the future the potential application of some primary sulfide leaching. There are several options in the market, and we're testing a few of them to see if that can be -- one of them can be applied in Caserones.
Matt Murphy at BMO. Sorry if I missed it, Juan Andreas Andres, did you say when Saúva likely happens at Chapada?
I don't think we have put a date yet.
Yes. I mean we're working through the PFS. The date for the technical report, the PFS to be completed for Phase 1 is Q4 of this year.
Yes. So the key issue to define the potential start date for Sauva, it depends on the permitting strategy. So there are different path right now that we have available since we received the integrated license that give us an umbrella to potentially expedite the permitting of Sauva. And the base case or the worst case will be to go through a full EIA. So we're in between those two bookends, and we're trying to determine which is the optimum path to permit Sauva.
Okay. What I'm getting at is the $700 million expansionary CapEx. That's -- even though it excludes growth projects, it's probably the growth number in Sauva comes beyond that time frame? Or could we potentially see projects getting added on to that $700 million?
No. I think, as I said, in the financial guidance we gave, none of these brownfield expansion projects are included, either in the cash generation or in the CapEx associated with that generation. But what we try to illustrate here is the CapEx intensity is very low. So over a 5-year period, you're likely to have even more accretion on free cash flow because payback on those projects is very fast. So I think we've taken the conservative approach here by not including it, and also because we need more maturity on some of the timelines associated with some of these projects.
Okay. And then just one more on the different mining outlooks where you've managed to reduce material movement. How should we think about that? Is -- are we likely to see a bigger stripping campaign at some of these assets once you've built Vicuna? Or is it real sort of changes to the mine plan to not have to do it at all?
Yes. It's a real change to the mine plan, and it's totally sustainable, and we're probably continue seeing that in the long term year after year independently of [ Vicuna ].
So I've got a couple on Vicuna, if I may. Number one, as you guys move forward towards sort of crystallizing the tech report in Q1 2026, have you settled on an approach to handling the arsenic gap?
I mean, yes, of course, for the campaign that will support the technical report that would be coming out with, we've got a lot of geo metallurgical work that's being undertaken.
And part of that is in areas of the Filo deposit where there is high arsenic content, we're looking at what the treatment solution could be for that. So that would be lower definition of study because it comes later in the mine life, but it would be identified.
Right. But -- so I guess what I'm suggesting is you're still looking at different options. Have you settled on something already?
We have not settled on something yet, but we are looking at various options, and we're narrowing it down, yes.
Got it. Okay. And then just as a follow-up, you guys and BHP 50-50 partners. What's the dispute resolution mechanism on a go-forward basis?
Yes. So it's clearly stated for once we get into project sanction and once we've agreed on what the budget will be for Phase 1 and future phases. And right now, the merit of the agreement is for us to both align on what the work plan can be, which is why I talked about the budget going from $155 million to $210 million, I think it is for our portion because we align with BHP based on the Vicuna project team coming out with a work plan to get us ready to sanction. And when we're talking -- about the investment making that we're making until that sanction point, it's not a significant investment, compared to what it will be once we get to that phase.
So right now, it's an agreement that we have to align on the work plan prior to getting into a position to sanction.
Okay. And then after sanction?
After sanction, it would be -- traditionally, we'll have 50% of our requirement to pay our share. And then if you're not able to pay your share, then there's dilution mechanisms and what you would standard see in an agreement like that.
Okay. But all the sort of other decisions would be made at the asset level, at the JV level in terms of.
Yes, there's thresholds of an approval like a delegation of authority for the project team to approve a budget to a certain amount.
Orest Wowkodaw, Scotia. Historically, I would say Lundin Mining has probably been one of the most successful companies I've ever seen bolting on producing assets built by others. I'm just wondering, I know you've got the massive growth coming with Vicuna, but is there any appetite to add more existing copper assets in the interim, given how strong your financial capacity is right now?
What I would say to that, Orest, is we remain opportunistic. And if we see that there's an opportunity to add more near-term production through an acquisition to our portfolio, then we would entertain it. I mean we've been very busy over the last 3 years as we've identified.
And I think we've got a great portfolio with near-term opportunities that we've identified, and we really want to pursue and see how real those can become and how we can mature them to actually sanctioning these brownfield expansions.
But that being said, and you talked about it, strengthen our balance sheet. It gives us the opportunity to be quite flexible and seek new opportunities. But I would say for us, with the portfolio that we have, I think we're happy to mature the opportunities in this existing portfolio.
Ioannis Masvoulas again. Just a couple of follow-ups. I think in the past, when you bought Caserones, you talked about the first phase of synergies with Candelaria, the $30 million to $40 million, which you have pretty much executed. But you also talked about longer-dated synergies around bringing some of the water, desalinated water into Caserones because you're paying for water now and optimizing the concentrate logistics for Caserones.
Is that something -- I guess there was not a big focus on that, but how should we think about this? Is this work being done in the background? Or is there -- is that part of what you're doing around Vicuna? Because clearly, if you bring water from Candelaria to Caserones, the obvious step would be to bring it over the border. So quite intiging to hear what your thought process is there.
Thank you, Ionis. You're right. We're making -- working on that in the background. We are doing some studies to understand the benefit of bringing Caserones concentrate into the Candelaria port, and potentially switching to provide water from the desal plant of Candelaria to fulfill the requirement that Caserones has.
But that takes some time because there are some permitting strategies also involved in this. And of course, there are third parties involved in that contract that we have right now. But it's something that we have in the back burner for now, and we're studying those opportunities.
And maybe I could add also, there's also a contractual aspect to take into account here because we can't just terminate contracts that will. You've got to wait until they run their natural course unless you want to pay termination fees, which are suboptimal.
So what we're trying to do is whenever one contract comes up for renewal of one site to make sure we put a tenure on that contract, which aligns to when a similar contract on the other side naturally expires. So at that point in time, you can go out with a joint tender for that service. So that will take probably several years before you roll through the whole procurement of contract that you need. So there's, for sure, value to capture, but that will come over several years, I would say.
Okay. Okay. No, that makes sense. And maybe just a second question on ESG. Nathan, you talked about NPV positive opportunities to bring down Scope 1 emissions. I would be quite interested to hear what you guys see there because you've done a lot of progress on Scope 2, like a lot of companies in the space in LatAm, but what's really the opportunity in Scope 1, especially when it comes to NPV positive projects?
Yes. I mean, to be honest, so we -- as I mentioned, we started that at Caserones. We've completed that work. There are some NPV positive projects we've identified, so things we should be doing. But if you think about that cost abatement curve for Caserones, it's pretty narrow bars.
And so things we should be doing, but those -- if we talk only about Caserones are not opportunities that are going to materially change the Scope 1 emissions at Caserones. But that being said, we are continuing that same work now at Chapada and Candelaria. And when we have those three assets that have completed that work, we will be able to develop a carbon cost abatement curve across all of our Latin American operations.
And there, we will see. But we hope that we will be able to identify some additional and wider bars on that cost abatement curve that will be NPV positive. But that's still work that needs to be completed.
We've also got some questions online as well. And one of the first questions was if you could discuss water availability in the district and if we think there's enough water to support our expansion plans at Josemaria and Filo?
Yes. Great question, and that's part of the expanded work plan that we have. I mean we've been looking at water source availability for a number of years as we've been maturing Josemaria. And now as we look at the Phase 1 opportunity of bringing Josemaria online first, the approach that we're taking is likely looking to pull water from the continental watershed prior to getting into that full scale where we would be looking at bringing in desalinated water line. So that work is complementing everything else that we're doing in anticipation of getting that integrated study completed.
Great. And maybe, Nathan, if you could elaborate a little bit more on our 2030 carbon reduction targets and how we were able to achieve those, earlier than anticipated.
Yes, sure. So the integration of Caserones was a big piece of that. So we originally set up our 2030 target based on the 2019 asset base. And so the integration of Caserones, if we think about 2024, we will rebaseline for the European divestiture this year. But thinking only to the end of 2024, the integration of Caserones was key.
And I think it demonstrates one of the attributes that we look at when we think about the types of mines that we want to be developing. Caserones made a decision between 2019 and 2024 to move to 100% renewable energy. And so their 2019 baseline was significant. And over that period of time, they went to 100% renewable. So all of their Scope 3 -- sorry, Scope 2 emissions went to 0. So that was a significant component, allowing us to meet our target.
But if you look at our 2023 report, you will see that we were already making very tangible progress towards the 2030 target. And that continued as well. So the Scope 1 emission reductions that you asked about, those continue -- we continue to look at those. Some of those have been implemented and that also was a contributor to meeting the target.
Maybe another one here, Jack. Just talking a little bit more about the RIGI bill and the threshold limits there and what's required to meet that level of threshold to qualify for the large-term incentive project there.
Yes. So as stated in my section in the presentation, the requirement to get to the long-term strategic project or strategic export project would be 20% of a $2 billion threshold over 2 years.
Good. And then Tim, with some of the exploration that's been ongoing, have you seen or you want to elaborate a little bit more on Cumbre Verde and drill results from Cumbre Verde?
Yes. We -- Cumb Verde is a deeper target. It was the western part of the Josemaria property. So after the amalgamation of Josemaria and Vicuna, it's now part of Vicuna Corp.'s landholding. So the exploration would now be driven by Vicuna.
And -- but given the richness of the deposit with half a century plus of copper production from pits, chasing a deeper target that could be at depths that might require block cave consideration, that's way out in the next half century.
So obviously, because Fila is so rich, it -- some of these other exploration targets that would be exciting to other groups drop down the priority list. But yes, there was exciting mineralization there, but we only had a couple of holes just clipped the edge of it. And so it's still very unknown. But if I were -- if that was a Lundin project instead of a Vicuna project, I'd still be very excited about it. But Filo has so many more attractive resources to flesh out that it will drop in priority for them.
And Juan Andres, maybe this last question here, if there's a plan to leverage procurement opportunities implemented in Chile and also incorporating maybe Chapada or Vicuna into that potentially into the regional office structure?
Well, Vicuna is probably a little bit more challenging. It's an independent company, and they're building their own capabilities to handle procurement, especially in the project phase, it is a completely different discipline than procurement for operating assets.
So probably not -- I would say no to that for now. And we have also BHP that have -- they also have capabilities in Chile to also provide that same service. In the case of extending the regional office beyond Chile and maybe including Chapada, it's something that is an idea that has been since the beginning of the implementation of the regional office. But as of now, we have decided to let the regional office reach maturity before we assess that opportunity.
But we are capturing procurement synergies between Caserones and Candelaria today. That was one of the biggest synergies that we captured.
Any final questions from the audience?
Okay. I guess that concludes this part of the Capital Markets Day. And so for those online, thank you very much for being in attendance, and we look forward to hosting everybody at the Spero restaurant at 6:30 p.m. this evening. So thank you very much, everyone.
Transkripte auf Deutsch freischalten
- Alle Event Transkripte auf Deutsch
- Sofortige Übersetzung
- KI-Zusammenfassungen für die wichtigsten Insights
Lundin Mining — Analyst/Investor Day - Lundin Mining Corporation
Lundin Mining — Analyst/Investor Day - Lundin Mining Corporation
🎯 Kernbotschaft
- Kernaussage: Lundin Mining positioniert sich von einem bereinigten Produzenten hin zu einem wachstumsorientierten Unternehmen mit klarer Pipeline: starke operative Performance und Cashflow 2024, Portfolio-Streamlining (Verkauf Europa), plus ein potenziell weltklasse Projektcluster (Vicuña) gemeinsam mit BHP.
⚡ Strategische Highlights
- Operative Disziplin: "Full potential"-Programme senken Stückkosten; Q1‑Performance und Safety‑Verbesserungen betont.
- Nahfristiges Wachstum: Niedrig‑CapEx Projekte: Candelaria‑Untertage (12–14kt Cu/a Zusatz), Chapada Saúva (15–20kt Cu/a, PFS bis Ende 2025) und Caserones‑Upside (Angelica, 7–10kt Cu/a Cathodes).
- Kapitalallokation: Neuere Policy: USD 220M/Jahr an Ausschüttungen (Dividende + Buybacks), opportunistische Rückkäufe bei Bewertungsabschlägen.
🆕 Neue Informationen
- Vicuña‑Ressource: Maiden‑Resource kommuniziert (in der Präsentation: ~38 Mio t enthaltenes Kupfer, ~80 Mio Unzen Gold, ~1,5 Mrd Unzen Silber) und technischer Bericht veröffentlicht (laut Event Anfang Woche).
- Budget & Guidance: 2025‑Budget für Vicuña‑Anteil erhöht von $155M auf $215M; Management nennt 5‑Jahres‑Basisfall mit ~ $6.5bn operativer CF bzw. knapp $5bn freier CF.
- C1‑Ausblick: Engere C1‑Spanne (C1 = Cash‑Kosten pro Pfund Kupfer) und Ziel <~$1.95–$2.15/lb je nach Jahr/Asset.
❓ Fragen der Analysten
- Technische Berichte: Nachfrage nach formalen TR/PFS für Saúva und andere Brownfields; Management: PFS Saúva bis Ende 2025, integrierter Vicuña‑Study / ITT für Q1‑2026 (Zielangabe).
- Finanzierung & Hebel: Wie Vicuña finanzieren? Plan: Upscaling revolvernder Kreditlinie (RCF) als Kern, indikative Funding‑Kapazität >$6bn; 3.5x NetDebt/EBITDA als typische RCF‑Obergrenze — Details abhängig von CapEx‑Phasing.
- Technik & Risiken: Fragen zu Kapitalintensität (Candelaria: Value‑Engineering reduzierte CapEx), Arsen‑/Metallurgie‑Lösungen und Wasser/Infrastruktur‑Synergien (Studien laufen); Management blieb bei einigen Punkten noch ergebnisoffen.
⚖️ Bottom Line
- Fazit: Starke operative Erträge und nahezu schuldenfreier Bilanz liefern Kapital für Buybacks und aggressive Projektentwicklung. Vicuña ist transformational, aber Wertrealisierung hängt von technischen Studien, Permitting und Infrastruktur‑Finanzierung ab — near‑term Brownfield‑Upside reduziert Entwicklungsrisiko und sollte den Wert je Aktie stützen.
Finanzdaten von Lundin Mining
Umsatz
Der Umsatz stellt die Summe aller Einnahmen eines Unternehmens z. B. für dessen Produkte oder Dienstleistungen dar.
Umsatz (TTM) einfach erklärtDirekte Kosten
Direkte Kosten sind die Kosten, die direkt im Zusammenhang mit der Herstellung des Produkts oder der Dienstleistung entstehen.
Bruttoertrag
Der Bruttoertrag gibt an, wie viel vom Umsatz nach Abzug der direkten Herstellkosten im Unternehmen verbleibt. Berechnet man den prozentualen Anteil vom Umsatz, spricht man von der Bruttomarge (engl. Gross Margin).
Brutto Marge einfach erklärtVertriebs- und Verwaltungskosten
Die Vertriebs- & Verwaltungskosten (engl. Selling, General & Administrative expenses, kurz SG&A) beinhalten alle Aufwände für Marketing und den Verkauf sowie die allgemeine Verwaltung des Unternehmens.
Forschungs- und Entwicklungskosten
Die Forschungs- und Entwicklungskosten (engl. research & development costs, kurz R&D) geben Auskunft darüber, wie viel das Unternehmen in die Forschung und die Entwicklung seiner Produkte investiert. Vor allem prozentual vom Umsatz und im Vergleich zu direkten Wettbewerbern sind die Kosten interessant.
EBITDA
Das EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization) ist der Gewinn des Unternehmens vor Zinsen, Steuern und Abschreibungen. Berechnet man den prozentualen Anteil vom Umsatz, spricht man von der EBITDA-Marge.
Abschreibungen
Abschreibungen stellen Wertminderungen von Vermögensgegenständen des Unternehmens dar (z.B. durch Abnutzung von Maschinen).
EBIT (Operatives Ergebnis)
Das EBIT (engl. Earnings Before Interest and Taxes) ist der Gewinn des Unternehmens vor Zinsen und Steuern, das auch als operatives Ergebnis bezeichnet wird. Berechnet man den prozentualen Anteil vom Umsatz, spricht man von
der EBIT-Marge.
Nettogewinn
Der Nettogewinn stellt den Gewinn oder Verlust nach Abzug aller Kosten dar.
Nettogewinn einfach erklärtaktien.guide Premium
| Mär '26 |
+/-
%
|
||
| Umsatz | 6.032 6.032 |
23 %
23 %
100 %
|
|
| - Direkte Kosten | 3.722 3.722 |
16 %
16 %
62 %
|
|
| Bruttoertrag | 2.310 2.310 |
56 %
56 %
38 %
|
|
| - Vertriebs- und Verwaltungskosten | 151 151 |
34 %
34 %
3 %
|
|
| - Forschungs- und Entwicklungskosten | - - |
-
-
|
|
| EBITDA | 3.023 3.023 |
49 %
49 %
50 %
|
|
| - Abschreibungen | 873 873 |
10 %
10 %
14 %
|
|
| EBIT (Operatives Ergebnis) EBIT | 2.150 2.150 |
74 %
74 %
36 %
|
|
| Nettogewinn | 2.045 2.045 |
1.654 %
1.654 %
34 %
|
|
Angaben in Millionen CAD.
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Firmenprofil
Lundin Mining Corp. ist ein metallbasiertes Unternehmen, das sich mit dem Abbau, der Exploration und der Erschließung von Mineralgrundstücken vor allem in Chile, den USA, Portugal und Schweden befasst. Das Unternehmen ist an den folgenden Projekten beteiligt: Chapada, Candelaria, Eagle, Neves-Corvo und Zinkgruvan. Das Unternehmen wurde am 9. September 1994 gegründet und hat seinen Hauptsitz in Toronto, Kanada.
aktien.guide Premium
| Hauptsitz | Kanada |
| CEO | Mr. Lundin |
| Mitarbeiter | 6.195 |
| Gegründet | 1994 |
| Webseite | www.lundinmining.com |


