Newmont Mining Aktie

Hello, and welcome to Newmont's First Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions]. Please note that this event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Newmont's Group Head of Treasury and Investor Relations, Neil Backhouse, Neil, please go ahead.

Thank you, Christine. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining Newmont's First Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. Joining me today are Natascha Viljoen, our President and Chief Executive Officer; Peter Wexler, our Interim Chief Financial Officer and Chief Legal Officer; and other members of our management team who will be available to answer questions at the end of the call.

Before we begin, please take a moment to review our cautionary statements shown here and refer to our SEC filings, which can be found on our website. With that, I'll turn the call over to Natascha.

Thank you, Neil, and hello, everyone. Newmont's focus on operational excellence continues to deliver consistent and predictable performance with our first quarter results demonstrating that we are on track to achieve our 2026 guidance. And importantly, this consistency is reflected in our compelling financial results. Our unrivaled portfolio of high-quality operations and projects, combined with our focus on cost discipline and productivity positions us to capture the benefits of higher commodity prices, even amid the operational headwinds we experienced in the first quarter, delivering margin expansion and robust free cash flow generation.

The benefits of record free cash flow generation are flowing through our enhanced capital allocation framework, resulting in continuous reinvestment in our business. a predictable quarterly dividend and ongoing share repurchases, supplemented by new civilian -- dollar share repurchase authorization.

But before we review our quarterly results in more detail, I want to begin with an update on Cadia, following the magnitude 4.5 earthquakes that occurred near the operation on April 14. As mentioned in our released statements, our immediate priority was society of our people. Our safety protocols operated as designed and within minutes of the event, all personnel working underground will move to safe locations before being brought to surface in the subsequent hours following the event. And I'm really pleased to share that there were no injuries.

Based on our initial findings, the damage of Peers Limited, reflecting the strength of our ground control systems. I'm pleased to report that the underground power and dewatering systems have been restored and we received approval from the regulator earlier this week to begin repays. Importantly, all surface infrastructure was inspected immediately following the event and sustained no damage. This includes our tailings facilities.

From an operational standpoint, we are currently processing surface stockpiles and expect underground rehabilitation to be completed in the next 5 weeks, enabling return to 80% operating capacity with full recovery expected by the end of the second quarter. As a result, second quarter production is expected to be lower due to this short gap in mill feed with operations returning to normal levels beginning the third quarter.

I want to recognize and personally thank the team at Cadia. We responded quickly and effectively, implementing established emergency procedures to ensure the safety of all personnel and positioning the operation for the best possible recovery.

Turning now to our operational performance. In the first quarter, we produced 1.3 million ounces of gold, 30,000 tonnes of copper and 9 million ounces of silver, with both copper and silver volumes supporting a favorable by-product cost profile for the quarter as the third largest silver producer in the world, we also benefited from a favorable silver price environment, further supporting our free cash flow generation and unit cost management.

The performance translated into strong financial results, including $3.8 billion in cash flow from operations after working capital and $3.1 billion in free cash flow, marking another all-time quarterly record, which is especially notable given the seasonal working capital headwinds typically experienced in the first quarter of each year.

During the quarter, we also received approximately $321 million in after-tax proceeds from the sale of equity investments in Surgold and great resources, along with contingent payments related to the divestments of Musselwhite and Cripple Creek and Victor last year, bringing total after-tax proceeds received from our noncore divestiture program to over $4.6 billion.

Touching briefly on cost performance, which Peter will cover in a little bit more detail shortly. Over the last few weeks, the world has experienced a notable increase in energy prices and impacts to global supply chain dynamics as a result of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. We continue to monitor the geopolitical environment and its potential impact on costs closely, but remain encouraged by our demonstrated ability to effectively manage cost and improve productivity, and are, therefore, maintaining our full year cost guidance at this time.

Taking our strong first quarter operational and financial performance into account, we expect to remain well positioned to continue executing on the enhanced capital allocation framework that we have announced in February. Since our last earnings call, we have reduced debt by an additional $42 million and are pleased to share that we have returned $2.7 billion to shareholders through both regular dividends and ongoing share repurchases. Fully exhausting our previous repurchase authorization.

In line with our established approach, our Board has approved another $6 billion share repurchase program. reinforcing our enhanced capital allocation framework and disciplined approach to returning excess cash to shareholders. This framework is designed to systematically reduce Newmont's share count and in doing so, driving sustainable per share dividend growth and improved across other key per share metrics.

Building on our strong first quarter performance and looking ahead to the rest of the year, we will remain on track to achieve our 2026 guidance, continue generating robust free cash flow from our world-class portfolio and return capital to shareholders in a consistent manner. Operationally, we delivered a stronger-than-expected quarter especially considering challenging conditions faced by several of our sites, including the bush fires at Boddington, we have since made a full recovery with full throughput capacity back to normal levels for the second quarter. We've had extreme snowfall at Brucejack and record levels of rain at Tanami. This performance underscores the strength and resilience of our world-class portfolio build around high-quality long-life assets that are intentionally diversified both operationally and jurisdictionally to deliver consistent performance across a range of operating conditions. Not only with standing volatility as it arises, but also capturing value from it.

Given this strong start to the year, we believe it is appropriate to maintain our existing production waiting, our first quarter outperformance provides prudent flexibility to absorb any impact from temporary interruptions to more feed at Cadia in the second quarter as we progress recovery efforts following the earthquake. First quarter production was driven by several key factors.

At Cadia, we saw a step up in gold and copper production compared to the fourth quarter, supported by improved throughput and favorable grades from the current panel cave. At Merian, production also increased compared to the fourth quarter as we begin to access higher grades from Merian 2 bit as band.

At Ahafo South, production increased due to higher mining rates and improved underground drawpoint availability. At Yanacocha, we delivered stronger leach production performance from high grades out of catch of mine. And as we discussed last quarter, we are executing on a highly capital-efficient plan to continue mining operations through 2026 and into 2027, adding low-cost ounces that are expected to benefit our production profile in 2027 with further potential upside.

Penasquito delivered strong co-product production in the quarter, particularly silver and zinc, as we continue to process stockpiles during the transition phase between Phase 7% and Phase 8. And finally, the ramp-up at Ahafo North continues to progress very well and in line with the plan in line with plan in its first full year of commercial production. We also achieved several notable milestones in our projects in execution during the quarter.

At our Tanami Expansion 2 project work has now fully resumed following the temporary pause earlier in the quarter with the underground primary crusher now commissioned and the materials handling system on track for completion by the end of the second quarter. We have also completed the investigation into the fatality that occurred at Tanami earlier this year. and are committed to ensuring the learnings are shared across our organization and with the broader industry.

At Cadia, both BC23 and PC12 are progressing well and is tracking to plan as I move through key phases of development. Newmont's first quarter performance continues to highlight the strength and resilience of our portfolio as well as the progress we have made to stabilize and improve our operations positioning us to deliver consistent performance and achieve our full year commitments.

I will now turn the call over to Peter to walk through our financial results for the quarter.

Thank you, Natascha. And hello, everyone. Newmont delivered outstanding financial results in the first quarter, driven by strong operational performance that Natascha just outlined in the supportive metal price environment. our continued focus on disciplined execution resulted in adjusted EBITDA of $5.2 billion and adjusted net income of $2.90 per diluted share for the quarter. But most notably, Newmont generated $3.8 billion in cash flow from operations after working capital and a record $3.1 billion of free cash flow even after making approximately $1.3 billion in cash tax payments during the quarter. gold all-in sustaining costs were below our full year guidance at $1,029 per ounce for the first quarter on a byproduct basis.

Our cost profile benefited meaningfully from stronger-than-expected coproduct pricing and sales volumes, lower cost applicable to sales as a result of disciplined capital spending and the timing of sustaining capital. As Natascha noted earlier, we are maintaining our cost guidance and while higher oil prices may create incremental pressure, we view this as manageable at this time and are actively working to mitigate the impact rather than viewing it as a risk to our operating plans. And as a reminder, the guidance we provided in February was based on a $70 per barrel Brent assumption with diesel making up approximately 6% of our direct operating costs.

For every $10 per barrel change in oil prices, we expect approximate $60 million impact on cost, which equates to roughly, a $12 per ounce impact on all-in sustaining costs. We are not currently experiencing any disruption to fuel availability and continue to maintain business continuity by leveraging our scale and strong supply chain team, which is working closely with suppliers to proactively identify and manage risks. While higher fuel prices began to materialize in March, we remain focused on offsetting these pressures through continued cost and productivity improvements across our operations. In addition, in February, we quantify the potential annual impact of the newly introduced Ghana sliding scale royalty on our cost profile. While this will represent an incremental cost headwind of approximately $25 per ounce in 2026. Our goal is to mitigate the impact of disciplined cost management and productivity initiatives.

Looking ahead to the second quarter, we expect production to be slightly below the first quarter, keeping us on track to deliver our full year production guidance of 5.3 million ounces. Sustaining capital is expected to increase in the second quarter as we move into the summer season at Brucejack and Red Chris, take delivery of mobile equipment at multiple sites and continue progressing tailings work, primarily Acadia and Boddington.

Similarly, development capital is expected to increase beginning in the second quarter as we progressed the expansion at Cerro Negro advance the feasibility study work at Red Chris, and begin spending on the Lihir nearshore barrier project later this year. with our full year guidance of $1.4 billion remaining weighted to the second half.

All-in sustaining costs are expected to be notably higher in the second quarter and more in line with the guidance we provided in February, driven by the ramp-up in sustaining capital, higher cost applicable to sales and lower silver production than we saw in the first quarter as planned.

Turning to capital allocation. Last quarter, we introduced our enhanced capital allocation framework, which is underpinned by net cash from operations and prioritizes cash flow in a clear and disciplined manner. This framework is designed to be sustainable through the cycle, maximize shareholder returns and maintain a strong and flexible balance sheet, and we are already seeing the positive benefits of this framework in action through our first quarter results.

Within this framework, excess cash is first allocated to sustaining capital spend and our dividend, priorities that are intended to remain consistent through the cycle. We continue to invest in sustaining capital to strengthen the longevity and integrity of our portfolio, with $381 million spent in the first quarter.

Next, cash is allocated to our sustainable total cash dividend of $1.1 billion per year, which is paid quarterly. In the first quarter, we declared a dividend of $0.26 per share which is consistent with the last quarter and aligned with this approach. Following these commitments, our development capital spend and balance sheet position may flex over time to reflect portfolio needs and broader market conditions.

We continue to invest in development capital to advance our highest return opportunities from our deep organic pipeline with $239 million deployed in the first quarter. At the same time, we remain committed to maintaining a resilient balance sheet, anchored by our net cash target of $1 billion plus or minus $2 billion over the course of the year. The target is managed on an annual basis and may vary quarter-to-quarter due to macroeconomic conditions, including the recent volatility in gold.

Once these priorities are met, excess cash is allocated to share repurchases. Since our last earnings call, we have repurchased $2.4 billion in shares fully completing our previous authorization and bringing the total repurchases to $6 billion since we began repurchasing shares over 24 months ago. As a result, our Board has doubled the size of our share repurchase program with an additional $6 billion authorization, representing our fourth authorization since February 2024.

We intend to execute this program consistently in line with our capital allocation framework, reflecting our confidence in the intrinsic value of our shares and benefits of these repurchases and the benefits these repurchases deliver over time. As we approach completion of this authorization, we expect to seek additional approval from our Board, consistent with our disciplined and repeatable approach to returning excess cash to shareholders. Both our share repurchase program and the resulting per share dividend growth are formulaic outputs of our capital allocation framework with repurchases systematically reducing our share count driving higher per share metrics and increasing shareholder exposure to the free -- to the strong free cash flow generated by our portfolio.

In fact, on a per share basis, our free cash flow is already 6% higher than it would have been prior to initiating our share repurchase program. At its core, this framework is designed to deliver sustained per share growth, maintain balance sheet strength and provide shareholders with consistent and growing exposure to the value generated by our world-class portfolio.

With that, I'll turn the call back over to Natascha for closing remarks.

Thank you, Peter. In closing, Newmont has had a very strong start to this year, reflecting the deliberate progress we have made to strengthen our operations and enhance the capabilities of our teams and systems, driven by disciplined execution and a clear focus on our commitments. We remain on track to achieve our 2026 guidance, supported by solid operational and financial performance in the first quarter and are well positioned to drive margin expansion and generate strong free cash flow through continued cost discipline and productivity improvements across our world-class portfolio, which continues to deliver stable and consistent results. Our enhanced capital allocation framework is translating that performance into shareholder returns through a predictable dividend and ongoing share repurchases, supported by a new $6 billion authorization.

Looking ahead, we will continue to leverage our industry-leading portfolio and deep bench strength of expertise across all functions to build a stable and resilient future for Newmont, positioning us to generate growing free cash flow and deliver increasing returns on a per share basis even in a dynamic macroeconomic environment.

Before turning to questions, I want to briefly address that we continue to engage constructively with our Nevada Gold Mines joint venture partner with a clear focus on improving the performance of our shared assets and delivering long-term value for Newmont shareholders.

With that, we look forward to addressing your questions. And I will now hand it back to Christine, our operator, to open the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from Tanya Jakusconek with Scotiabank.

Great. Natascha, can you comment on the -- where we are on the whole process with the default that was issued on February of this year with respect to Nevada Gold mine?

Yes. Thank you, Tanya. Good question. I'll start, and then I'll hand over to Peter to get into a little bit more detail. I think Tanya for start is, as we said in our prepared remarks, our focus remains, firstly, on improving the Nevada Gold Mines joint venture performance. And then we are continuously working with our joint venture partner to gain more information around Fourmile and the work that we need to do there. And then for the notice of default, specifically, I'll hand over to Peter Wexler.

Thank you, Tanya, for the question. The period of the notice of default is open ended, and we're working with them. As Natascha said earlier, to work on the operations, and we work through an orderly process on the notice of default, including exercising our audit rights viewing those findings. So it's really just an ongoing process at this point in time.

Okay. So my follow-up question is that I'm just trying to understand how long this process is going to take. So I'm assuming that you had meetings with them, you've got the information or Barrick has handed over in the information that you've asked for, and now you're in the process of reviewing this. And talking to Barrick on how we move forward. I'm just trying to understand the procedure and what to expect on the time?

Actually, if you -- while you may see time lines in the agreements, it's more of an iterative process between the 2 companies. So we have questions and follow-up questions on information. And as you correctly assumed, they respond to us and we work productively through those answers. There's no set time line for bringing it to resolution but we hope to do so in the near term and make sure that Nevada Gold Mines is operating at the highest level possible.

Our next question comes from Matthew Murphy with BMO Markets. Matthew, your line is open.

Congratulations on a strong first quarter. Can you take us through where operations were beating your expectations? And it sounds like Q2 may be a little bit down quarter-on-quarter. Should we think about Q2 as sort of the lowest production quarter for the business and then progressive sort of momentum from there.

Yes, Matthew, and thank you for that question. I think if we look at quarter 1, the improved performance that we have seen was across, firstly, Yanacocha, where we saw beat after the last catcher mine ore that we have in mind that we see the benefit of that coming through. We have also seen an improved throughput and grade from Cadia coming through, and that was certainly the basis of that improvement.

Then the solar production at Penasquito higher than what we have delivered at any quarter last year, and that's just a phasing on where we are in the pit. And I think importantly, also strongly supported by really high silver prices. We have also treated the last -- well, the last mining stockpile from our Subika open pit material at Ahafo South, and we started to see Ahafo North, obviously, continuing well with its production ramp-up.

As we look into the second quarter, and we've depleted the Subika open pit stocks at Ahafo South we do see lower grades coming from a -- and once opened it. For Penasquito in this quarter, we will have some months that we are treating organic carbon. And therefore, we will also see lower silver production. And then, of course, as we've touched on earlier, we will see the recovery proceeds that we are working through at Cadia. So therefore, a slightly lower quarter as expected, and we'll see the third quarter coming back stronger.

Okay. And as a second question, slightly different topic related to the CFO recruitment process. Peter, certainly, Newmont's delivering results with you and the CFO chair, but there is the interim in the title. So Natascha, any update on how that recruitment process is going?

That recruitment process is going well, Matthew, and we trust that we'll be able to share more information soon.

Our next question comes from Anita Soni with CIBC.

I just wanted to ask, when it comes to the discussions around for me. Have you had any discussions with Barrick on in that into the joint venture partnership at this stage?

Anita, we continue to collect information on formal and to do our technical evaluation as I think, as we've touched on before.

Okay. I missed that. And then just in terms of some of the mine sequencing, I think you touched upon the stockpile processing that you would be doing at Cadia. Can you give us an indication, I guess, stockpile to bridge gap between polar from the underground. But could you give us an indication of what grade those stockpiles are at right now?

Anita, we'll have to come back to you. I can't give you an indication, but I'll ask Neil to just give you the feedback on the grade.

Our next question comes from Lawson Winder with Bank of America Securities.

Thank you, operator. Hello Natascha and team, nice quarterly results. And thank you for today's update. Can I ask about the cost pressures? I mean, I think it's notable, the impressive unit cost results in Q1, considering what have been relatively significant cost pressures on energy. Could you speak to some of the levers that Newmont can pull in order to ensure that input cost inflation doesn't drive 2026 unit cost guidance above the range. And then to what extent might Newmont be insulated from cost pressures across the supply chain.

Lawson, thank you for that question. And indeed, we were very pleased with quarter 1's all-in sustaining cost on a byproduct basis. Firstly, we know that the -- we have seen the work that we've done last year, both on productivity improvement and cost reduction and now going into cost discipline. We've seen that benefit flow through in various aspects of our cash. cars was impacted in the first quarter by elements like Tanami that where we saw a period of stoppage due to the fatality. We have also had lower production in 2 areas, predominantly Lihir and sooner -- due to shutdowns that we've had that impacted CAS. And then we've seen just a seasonal lower sustaining capital for quarter 1.

With the discipline that we've established last year, the leaders sits in 2 areas. The one is in productivity were the best way for us to offset the increased cost pressures that we see from input costs through higher productivity. We have seen through the last quarter and going into this year, as an example, we have parked a high number of pieces of equipment drive across all of our operations. to help us to reduce consumption. That's certainly the first area that we will be focusing on.

We will also continue to do that cost discipline work to offset high -- the impact of higher gold price and the impact that it has in royalties and work participation. As we think going forward, we have not seen the full impact coming through on increased fuel cost. And the same levers that I've touched on just now, will continue to be the levers that we will pool both in terms of fuel cost but also the second and third-order consequences that might come through on the back of as we see higher energy costs flowing through.

In the meantime, we have a really strong supply chain team that works closely with our suppliers, and we're certainly leveraging across the different jurisdictions, the benefits that we have for the geographical spread to pull all of the levers we can to both sustain supply and manage cost.

Okay. That's extremely helpful. If I could ask what might not be a quick follow-up, but could be.

Yes. Sorry, Lawson, yes?

Onto our next question while Lawson gets back on. Our next question in the meantime will be from Josh Wilson with RBC. Josh, you are currently live.

I'll follow on Lawson's questions. Hopefully, I'm not taking them before we get the chance to redial in. Thank you for providing some of that disclosure on energy price or oil price impacts and the diesel overall exposure. You mentioned some of the secondary factors there. Is there any way the company can quantify the impact of sensitivity to some of these overall primary and secondary impacts and based on current prices?

Josh, not at this stage. I think the sensitivities that we supply both firstly, on fuel and then also just our cost mix is what we have available as such.

Okay. And then just following on that theme of costs. Beyond the energy side of things, is there any commentary the company can provide in terms of broader trends in terms of costs and that would include labor reagents. And then alongside that, regionally, is there any perspective the team can provide where there's higher pressures or lower pressures.

Josh, I think if I think through the various elements of our cost, labor, materials and services and energy, I think we've spoken at length about energy. Labor is always a continuous conversation, and we do see our agreements with LIBOR coming up for renewal on a continuous basis across all of the jurisdictions we operate in. So far, we have been able to get agreements in place with every -- in all of the areas that we were negotiating new agreements. So nothing more than what we have planned for and has been included in our guidance. And then, of course, the last one is what we've just discussed on services and materials. Nothing else.

Okay. And then maybe your perspective, regionally there, if there's any specific areas where you see inflation higher or lower?

No. I think, Lawson, not on the inflation cost due to higher cost due to higher gold prices and royalties and workers' participation. but not the inflation more in specific areas now.

The next question we have comes from Lawson Winder again from Bank of America Securities. Lawson, your life.

Just wanted to -- before I ask my question, I want to double check, you can hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

I think Josh actually covered a lot of the questions, but something else that I've had on my mind is just the M&A outlook. We've seen some activity from one of your peers already this week. And I mean, based on the work we've done, it's a pretty conducive environment for M&A. What's Newmont's appetite for acquisitions at the current moment.

Thanks, Lawson and Josh. I do apologize if you're still on the line. I believe I've just called you Lawson because Lawson and I thought we're still talking to you.

So Lawson, just from disciplined capital allocation point of view. Our focus remains firmly firstly, on continuing to drive our own operations to be the best operators of these operations and to get them to operate in the way that they should. Then we have a number of brownfield opportunities, firstly, that we believe would be very value accretive for us. And then, of course, by the time we get to greenfields projects and any what could be acquisition opportunities, it will have to compete for capital within the broader portfolio. So our focus at this stage remains firmly internally on our own operations.

Our next question comes from Fahad Tariq with Jefferies.

There was a headline yesterday that Ghana is asking Newmont among other companies to shift mining operations to local firms by the end of this year. Maybe just any color you can provide on thoughts around that and whether that timing is feasible, what that could mean for costs, et cetera?

Very, very relevant topic for us. I think, firstly, I need to start by saying that we all know that we've got a long history and going on, we have been over this period of time, invested I think, responsibly and we've built good relationships. The contractor mining issue is not new for us. We have been working with the Minerals Commission on this matter over a period of time and also on our approach to this matter. And it's important to note that we will -- we are following a process that is commercially and technically disciplined. Because what we want to do is to ensure that what we develop here has long-term options for our investments in Ghana and also in support of government's objectives here.

We are in active engagement, not only with the Minerals Commission. But I had an opportunity last week to meet with President Mahama. And I think these relationships and conversations are very constructive and in the best interest of all parties.

And then maybe just as a follow-up, based on the work that you've done or the team has done, would it be possible to use local contractors for all the mining operations if the deadline doesn't change? In other words, is that something that's even feasible?

It depends on how you define mining operations, and there are certainly certain mining operations that there is good capacity and capability in Ghana. But other areas that's more technically complex we -- that will both impact the productivity of our operations, the safety of our operations. We hold a very firm view on how we approach any of those areas. So I think it is a combination if we think about some of the more bulk kind of operations across mining, there's definitely capability, but not in all aspects.

Our next question comes from Daniel Morgan with Barrenjoey.

Natascha, just on the supply chain. My question is not on cost, but on availability. So with regard to diesel and everything else that you need to run your business, is there anything in the supply chain you can identify that you might face shortages on that could impact your business outcomes at all?

Daniel, now at this stage, there's nothing that we have identified. We do, however, keep a very close eye on all of our supply chain, not only the primary supply, but also how this primary impact on energy, for instance, will impact some of the second and third order consequences of that there's any potential disruptions. And at this -- and we're working very closely with the suppliers, industry partners and governments to support our operations.

And just on Cadia, not -- my question is not related to the other bits. It continues to outperform expectations with regard to grade -- is that positive grade reconciliation? Or is it higher grade ore presenting itself earlier than thought? Basically, I'm just wondering if this win we've had in recent times means we see lower production in future periods.

Daniel, it's -- what we're seeing is coming through the existing cards, BC2 specifically. So it is higher grade reconciliation. And we continue to expect this growth to decrease as we get to the end of this Cadia life.

Our next question comes from Daniel Major with UBS.

Natascha, questions. First one, just thinking about the business beyond the current year. You've not been guiding on a 3-year basis. Do you intend to reinstate medium-term guidance at some point in the future? And then the kind of second part of that question, if you're looking at an asset level, at least directionally, what we should be expecting for the major moving parts into 2027 if you can give any steer at this point?

Daniel, we know that there is a keen interest for us to give multiyear guidance. And as we work through this year, we will -- we're all keeping that in mind to consider that for 2027 guidance. If I think about 2027 and key movements as we see this portfolio getting back to growing back to the 6 million ounces the areas that's of interest for us is if I just think through the various jurisdictions here, we're starting to get into high-grade areas. That's part of the mine plan and part of work that we've been doing there.

Cadia, we see the new caves come on Boddington as we complete the pushbacks and getting into high-grade areas, half north, meaning fully ramping up. Cerro Negro as we continue to drive really hard on the productivity work there, and we have some other shorter-term options that will come online. Yanacocha as we see this. The shorter-term additional production from mining coming on as well. So those are some of the early movers that will help us to you will remember, we said that in 2026, we run a trough, and those are the big movers that will start to build up on the other side of the trough.

Okay. So the message is that very much this is the trough year and there should be meaningful improvement in the subsequent years. Is that I read on that?

Yes. Note that, thanks, Daniel.

Okay. And then maybe if I could ask my follow-up question just on a similar growth trajectory. You've indicated the intention to FID the Red Chris projects in the second half of this year. Can you give us any idea on the magnitude of kind of increase relative to the previous CapEx estimates provided by Newcrest?

Daniel, the process that we're following is a very structured process. We have taken on board the lessons from the fall of ground that we've had last year. We're progressing really well with that work. We also are progressing well with the engagements with our Talton, the Talton community to progress our permits. So all of that is tracking well. And we will be able to give you a proper estimate that you all hopefully know by now, we want to say what we do and do what we say. So by the time when we give you an estimate on capital. It will be an estimate that we will hold ourselves accountable for.

Our last question comes from Bob Brackett with Bernstein Research. This will be our last question. Bob, your line is now open.

I had a follow-up related to the notice of default. If I understand it properly, there was an identified event of default related to evidence of this management diversion of resources at the JV. You filed the notice of default. And there could be a range of remedies something as simple that Barrick offers a cure related to that event of default up to much more consequential remedies. Can you talk about the range of remedies? And what are your rights under the JV related to those?

Bob, I'm going to ask Peter Wexler to respond to that.

Sure, Bob. And I think you captured it accurately in your statement, there are a range of possibilities. And discussing each and every range probably is not practicable I think at the end of the day, if the best way to look at it is we're working through the process, as I told one of the other analysts. And we are going back and forth in this iterative process to try and understand exactly each other's viewpoint on what transpired and how things were working. Once we've gone through that process, then either there's a potential meeting of the minds or another avenue would have to be followed. We hope it's the former because that is part of getting NGM back on track. But like you said, there's a range of possibilities, and we are working through the structured process in the JV agreement and where that takes us. Well, hopefully, hopefully, we'll work that out between us and not need to resort to any third parties intervening and viewpoints.

Very good. A quick follow-up, third-party intervention, would that be arbitration or litigation.

It depends. We hope that there's a wide variety of ways we could pursue that path if and when it became necessary, we certainly hope it doesn't.

This concludes the question-and-answer session. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Hello, and welcome to Newmont's Fourth Quarter 2025 Results and 2026 Guidance Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Newmont's Group Head of Treasury and Investor Relations, Neil Backhouse. Please go ahead.

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining Newmont's Fourth Quarter 2025 Results and 2026 Guidance Conference Call. Joining me today are Natascha Viljoen, our President and Chief Executive Officer; Peter Wexler, our Interim Chief Financial Officer and Chief Legal Officer; and Francois Hardy, our Chief Technical Officer. They will all be available today to answer your questions at the end of the call. Before we begin, please take a moment to review our cautionary statements shown here and refer to our SEC filings, which can be found on our website. With that, I'll turn the call over to Natascha.

Thank you, Neil, and thank you all for joining today's call. At the beginning of this year, I transitioned into my new role as Chief Executive Officer of Newmont. And I want to be clear that the priorities that guided me as Chief Operating Officer and that contributed to Newmont's success in 2025 remain firmly in place. As CEO, I will continue to focus on the following key areas: Firstly, ensuring that safety remains the highest priority across the organization, embedding efficiency, including cost and capital discipline into everything that we do, demonstrating that we are the best owners and operators of our assets by driving continuous improvement and greater operational consistency, developing the highest return projects in our portfolio, ensuring our business has the runway to operate for decades to come and enhancing shareholder returns by improving our per share metrics and returning capital to shareholders in a predictable manner, which we believe will support stronger price performance over time. Together, these priorities position us to strengthen our business, enhance returns and build enduring value for all of our stakeholders.

Turning now to our results. The fourth quarter of 2025 marked a strong finish to a year of continued progress at Newmont. We achieved our full year guidance, improved our operational performance and strengthened our financial position, reflecting disciplined execution across the business. Our consistent focus on operational delivery, combined with a deliberate and patient approach to balance sheet management has positioned us to continue returning capital to shareholders while improving our financial resilience. Building on that momentum, today, we are introducing an enhanced capital allocation framework structured to be sustainable through the cycle. At its core is a dividend designed to grow on a per share basis, supported by ongoing share repurchases that permanently reduce our overall share count. As a first step, we have increased our quarterly common dividend by 4% with predictable future growth potential.

With that in mind, on today's call, we will review our full year 2025 results and then walk through Newmont's 2026 guidance and the enhanced capital allocation framework. But first, I want to take a moment to acknowledge the tragic loss of one of our team members, Matthew Middittlebrook, following a fatal incident at our Tanami operation earlier this month. Our thoughts and deepest sympathies go out to his family, friends and colleagues, and we are focused on supporting them however we can during this very difficult time. An investigation into the circumstances that led to the incident is underway, and we are committed to fully understanding what happened and taking the necessary actions to strengthen the systems and controls we have in place to ensure that everyone who walks through our gates goes home safely every day.

Turning now to our operational performance in 2025. We successfully achieved our production and cost guidance for the year. We produced 5.7 million ounces of gold from our core portfolio as well as 28 million ounces of silver and 135,000 tonnes of copper. We benefited from the cost savings and productivity initiatives implemented last year, which helped us mitigate pressures associated with a higher gold price environment and supported further margin expansion. In addition to achieving our absolute and unit cost guidance for 2025, we were able to meaningfully improve our G&A guidance for 2026 by $100 million, which equates to a 21% improvement. This operational and cost discipline contributed to record earnings and free cash flow on both a quarterly and annual basis, generating $2.8 billion in free cash flow in the fourth quarter and $7.3 billion for the full year. We also generated $4.5 billion in proceeds to date from the successful completion of our noncore divestiture program. And notably, we returned $3.4 billion to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases.

Finally, at the end of 2025, we achieved commercial production at Ahafo North, bringing over 300,000 ounces of gold production into the portfolio this year. Over the last few years, Newmont has been on a transformational journey aimed at curating a world-class portfolio of operations with complementary gold and copper growth opportunities. In 2024, that transformation accelerated as we integrated new assets, began divesting noncore operations and improved our understanding of the potential of our portfolio. And in 2025, this focus shifted to stabilization and optimization with a deliberate emphasis on cost control, productivity improvements, project execution and expanded exploration activities. At the beginning of last year, we indicated that Newmont would benefit from a more stable production profile, and that is exactly what we delivered, demonstrating both the strength of our underlying portfolio and the capability of our people. And as I'll discuss in a moment, we continue to advance value-accretive growth options, including the initiation of a mine life extension program at Lihir and the expected completion of Newmont's feasibility study for the Red Chris block cave in the second half of the year. Underpinning this portfolio is the industry's strongest reserve and resource base, providing long-term visibility and confidence. And with this, I will turn it over to Francois to review our 2025 reserves and recent exploration success.

Thank you, Natascha, and hello, everyone. Today, we announced that our gold reserve base stands at 180 million ounces, supported by an additional 149 million ounces of gold resource together, representing approximately 40 years of production life with meaningful near-mine upside potential at many of our operations. In addition to holding the industry's largest gold reserve and resource base, Newmont also has one of the largest copper endowments within the gold industry, providing significant organic optionality to further diversify the portfolio over time. Following a thorough review, we have increased our reserve price assumption for 2025 from $1,700 per ounce to $2,000 per ounce. Even with this increase, our reserve price assumption remains conservative at more than 20% below the 3-year trailing average and well below spot. And our reserve grade remained unchanged year-over-year when adjusted for the assets divested in 2025.

It is worth noting that while our reserve price assumption may not change every year, we conduct a disciplined annual review process to ensure it remains appropriate and reflective of evolving views on near- and long-term price. While the divestment of noncore assets was the primary driver of year-over-year change in reserves, there are a few additional movements worth highlighting. At Yanacocha, we reclassified approximately 4.5 million ounces from reserve back to resource following the decision to indefinitely defer the Yanacocha Sulfides project, better aligning the reserve base with our updated development strategy as we prioritize other opportunities at and around the site and continue advancing closure activities in nonoperational areas. This was partially offset by several meaningful reserve additions unrelated to gold price or cost escalation, including at Tanami and Lihir. And then at Brucejack, where we are seeing significant exploration success, converting approximately 740,000 ounces from resource to reserve. Our exploration activities also delivered promising results at Ahafo South, where we added approximately 2 million ounces to resource in 2025.

Exploration remains one of the most strategic levers to extend mine life, grow reserves and create long-term value, which I'll expand upon as we turn to the next slide. Newmont's exploration program is tightly integrated across our 12 managed operations with approximately 80% of activity focused on near mine and brownfields programs, which are designed to replace reserves, extend mine life and leverage our deep ore body knowledge to unlock future upside. The remaining effort is targeted at select greenfield opportunities that provide longer-term optionality for Newmont. While we're seeing encouraging results across the portfolio, our focus today on Brucejack and Ahafo South, where the work underway clearly demonstrates the strength of our approach. At Brucejack, our focused near-mine drilling guided by extensive ore body knowledge delivered a meaningful result in 2025. So in addition to the reserves I mentioned earlier, drilling activities also delivered new resources adjacent to where we're currently mining. And importantly, we have made a new discovery in the D zone as highlighted on the slide, with several significant intercepts, including 20.9 meters at 154 grams per tonne downhole, representing another potential high-grade mineral zone and a key focus of our 2026 growth program. Together, these results reinforce the value of targeted exploration around existing infrastructure -- they increase our confidence in Brucejack's longer-term potential and highlight the broader district scale opportunity within the Golden Triangle.

Shifting now to Ahafo South. Exploration beneath the Subika and E Pena open pits continues to point to the next phase of high-grade underground growth. Based on current results, which are indicating grades higher than the current mine average, we anticipate exploration activities will deliver approximately 4 million to 5 million ounces of new gold reserves in 2026. This would meaningfully extend the life of Subika underground mine and support the potential development of a new underground mine at Epensing, both leveraging the existing surface infrastructure and processing capacity at Ahafo South. Looking at our broader portfolio, we're also seeing encouraging exploration developments at Merian, which we plan to provide a more comprehensive update on later this year. I'll now turn the call back to Natascha.

Thank you, Francois. 2025 was a milestone year for projects, punctuated by the successful commissioning of Ahafo North, a major achievement that now enables the mine to begin delivering an average of 300,000 ounces per year, and we are pleased to report that the total capital spend for the project is expected to come in at the lower end of our estimated range at approximately $950 million. Building on this strong momentum, we continue to advance our 2 other major projects in execution towards completion. Beginning with the second expansion at Tanami, with the 1.5 kilometer concrete shaft lining now complete, we are shifting focus to equipping the shaft and completing construction of the underground crushing and associated materials handling system. Construction for the head frame and mechanical work is expected to be completed in late 2026 with full project completion still on track for the second half of 2027.

At Cadia, development for both panel caves continues, and we are progressing towards cave completion at PC2-3 in the fourth quarter of this year as planned. In addition, I'm pleased to announce that in December, we filed the first drawbell at PC1-2, making an important milestone for this project and initiating the next critical phase of cave development. And we continue to advance tailings work at Cadia while progressing the necessary government approvals to support continued operations beyond the current facilities for decades to come. In addition to these major projects in execution, we received full funds approval for the nearshore barrier mine life extension at Lihir, which involves the construction of an in-ground concrete water seach barrier, unlocking access to over 5 million ounces of low-cost ounces from the carpet ore body and extending the year's mine life to beyond 2040. And we continue to advance the feasibility study at Red Chris for the block cave expansion project with full funds approval targeted in the second half of 2026 when we plan to provide a more fulsome update. With the strong progress made in 2025, we are well positioned to continue delivering value from our world-class portfolio in 2026.

Now I want to take a look now at 2026. And as with 2025, we are providing high confidence 1-year guidance within a plus or minus 5% range, along with a few of the key drivers supporting longer-term production growth, beginning with production. Our 2026 guidance remains consistent with the indications provided on our third quarter call with total attributable production of 5.3 million ounces, including 3.9 million ounces from managed operations and 1.4 million ounces from non-managed operations. This outlook reflects the year-on-year changes from the planned mine sequencing at Ahafo South, Peñasquito and Cadia as well as the production impact from the Boddington bushfires in December. But we are pleased to report that the recovery following the fires is going well, and our team has successfully repaired the critical water supply infrastructure and processing operations have now restarted at full levels.

This guidance also incorporates lower-than-expected ounces from Nevada Gold Mines and Pueblo Viejo as indicated by the managing partner. And importantly, through a careful assessment of our mine plan at Yanacocha and in light of the current gold price environment, we have identified a highly capital-efficient plan, which leverages current infrastructure to continue mining operations through 2026 and into early 2027, adding additional low-cost ounces that are expected to benefit our production profile in early '27 with further potential upside. For the full portfolio, we expect production to be relatively evenly weighted throughout the year with a modest second half weighting of about 52%. And as previously indicated, 2026 represents a trough in our production cycle due to planned mine sequencing across several operations as we position the portfolio to return to production growth in 2027 and beyond, maintaining our longer-term outlook of approximately 6 million ounces of gold and 150,000 tonnes of copper annually.

Turning now to our cost outlook. As mentioned at the start of the call, we have made great strides towards improving and managing the cost within our control, and this will remain a key priority in 2026, especially when operating in a volatile macroeconomic environment. Last year, we committed to measuring the success of our cost and productivity program by our ability to control absolute cost. And in 2026, the only expected increases to our cost applicable to sales are those directly linked to timing impacts and higher gold prices, including production taxes, working participation costs and third-party royalties. Importantly, even with these price-linked impacts, all-in sustaining costs are expected to be more than $100 per ounce lower than they would have been without the cost savings initiatives launched last year, demonstrating the structural improvements we've made to our cost base.

As previously indicated, we are providing guidance on a byproduct basis going forward, consistent with our industry peers while continuing to report both by-product and co-product cost for comparability. On that basis, 2026 all-in sustaining costs are expected to be approximately $1,680 per ounce. This assumes a $4,500 per ounce gold price, a $60 per pound silver price and a $5 per pound copper price. And for every $100 increase in gold price, we expect a $6 increase in our all-in sustaining costs due to taxes, royalties and profit sharing payments. Beyond the macroeconomic impacts, the year-over-year change is primarily driven by the reasons we addressed on our third quarter call, including lower gold production from planned mine sequencing, changing in inventory at multiple sites and the timing shift of sustaining capital from 2025 to 2026. But without the $150 million shifting from 2025, we now expect sustaining capital of about $1.95 billion in 2026. Of that, roughly 52% is weighted to the second half of the year, primarily related to tailings work at Boddington and Cadia to support production capacity and future mine life as well as the advancement of the ventilation work at Tanami, which is expected to be completed this year.

Turning to development capital. We expect to invest about $1.4 billion in 2026 as we advance our major projects in execution, continue the feasibility study work at Red Chris and progress the mine life extensions at Lihir and Cerro Negro. We expect 55% of total spend to be weighted to the second half of the year, primarily due to the start of the work on the Lihir nearshore barrier. We also expect a modest step-up in exploration and advanced project spend to about $525 million this year as we continue to invest in value creating near our existing assets, including Brucejack, Ahafo South and Merian, as Francois previously touched on. Reclamation spend for 2026 is expected to be around $850 million, in line with 2025, primarily related to the construction of water treatment plants at Yanacocha, which are expected to be completed in 2027. Once complete, we expect total reclamation spend to return to more normal levels of between $300 million and $400 million in 2028. In the first quarter of 2026, we expect to make over $1 billion of tax payments, primarily due to accruals made in 2025. As a result and in addition to normal working capital seasonality, we expect first quarter free cash flow to be lower than the fourth quarter of 2025.

Looking ahead, our longer-term production growth profile is supported by several clear and executable drivers. The continued ramp-up of Ahafo North, delivering new low-cost ounces beginning this year, the completion of the Boddington stripping campaign in 2026, enabling access to higher gold and copper grades beginning in 2027, the completion of Tanami Expansion 2 in the second half of 2027 as planned, the ongoing development of the Cadia panel caves extending mine life into the middle of this century and access to low-cost ounces at Lihir following the completion of the nearshore barrier, extending mine life well into the 2040s. Together, these opportunities provide a clear path to renewed production growth, supported by disciplined capital allocation and a portfolio designed to deliver value through the cycle. I will now turn the call over to Peter Wexler to walk through our enhanced capital allocation framework. Thank you, Peter.

Thank you, Natascha, and hello, everyone. Our capital allocation priorities and commitment to discipline remain unchanged and supported by our focus on maintaining financial strength and flexibility, reinvesting in our business to ensure long-term sustainable free cash flow growth on a per share basis and returning capital to shareholders in a consistent and predictable manner. With that in mind, our enhanced capital allocation framework begins with net cash from operations and then prioritizes that cash be allocated first to sustaining capital and our dividend, which are intended to be commitments that will remain consistent throughout the commodity and investment cycle. Second, cash will be allocated to development capital and our balance sheet targets, which may flex based on our needs and priorities. Third, excess cash available after these priorities are met will be allocated to share repurchases.

Starting with the two priorities designed to be consistent through the cycle. We will continue to allocate free cash flow to strengthen the longevity and integrity of our portfolio through targeted investments in critical infrastructure, which may entail elevated sustaining capital over the next few years as we work to maximize the long-term value of our portfolio. We will also pay a sustainable cash dividend of $1.1 billion per year, creating significant per share growth potential for multiple metrics as ongoing share repurchases continue to reduce our overall share count. For the fourth quarter 2025, we have declared a dividend of $0.26 per share, reflecting the per share growth potential embedded in this new approach.

Following these consistent commitments, development capital spend and our net cash position may vary over time to reflect portfolio needs and broader macroeconomic conditions. We will invest development capital to advance our current projects and prepare for the next phase of growth with a clear focus on responsibly advancing our highest return opportunities while maintaining strict capital discipline and a clear commitment to value creation. At the same time, we will maintain a resilient balance sheet, anchored by a $1 billion net cash target plus or minus $2 billion and underpinned by a minimum cash balance of $5 billion. This provides the flexibility to return capital to shareholders while funding our capital programs through the commodity price cycles and driving sustainable production growth and operational efficiency. Once these priorities are achieved, we intend to deploy excess cash on a ratable basis to share repurchases. This approach is expected to drive sustained per share growth in our dividend and provide shareholders with greater exposure to the strong free cash flow generated from our portfolio, even with the recent increase in our share price. Our shares represent an exceptional value given our world-class portfolio of long-life operations and our deep pipeline of gold and copper projects. With that, I'll turn it back to Natascha for closing remarks.

Thank you, Peter. In closing, 2025 was a year of execution and follow-through as we achieved our full year guidance, finished the year strong with a strong financial position, optimized our cost structure, advanced project capability, delivered meaningful exploration success and returned capital to shareholders, reinforcing the solid foundation we have built and the potential of this organization. Building on that, we are well positioned to drive margin expansion and generate robust free cash flow from our world-class portfolio of operations, projects and exploration opportunities. Our scale, asset quality and project optionality allows us to capture upside in favorable markets while remaining flexible through the commodity cycle. And finally, we are anchored by a resilient balance sheet and a disciplined capital allocation framework, which has enabled us to implement our enhanced approach to return capital, delivering predictable and sustainable returns to shareholders with a clear path to per share growth.

As we look ahead to the rest of 2026, while we are operating in a rapidly evolving geopolitical and macroeconomic environment, our confidence comes from a clear understanding of our portfolio, a disciplined, responsible approach to investment, focused on delivering results and long-term value for our shareholders. Just before I turn to Q&A, I want to briefly address the recent announcement by our Nevada Gold Mines joint venture partner. At this time, the only information available to us is what has been publicly disclosed and as stated in our recent press release. Our primary focus remains on working with a managing partner to improve performance of these assets and generate long-term value for Newmont shareholders. As disclosed in our 10-K, we have issued a notice of default to our joint venture partner related to operational performance and management of Nevada Gold Mines. We do not have any additional information to share at this time and confidentiality provisions in the joint venture agreement prevent further comment on the notice of default. With that said, we look forward to addressing any questions about Newmont's operational and financial performance. I will now hand it back to the operator to open the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Lawson Winder with Bank of America Securities.

Very solid result. Nice to see for the end of the year to wrap it up strongly. If I could ask about CapEx and the -- and I apologize for that fire in the background. Just the CapEx as it sounds like there could be some potential upside through Red Chris and Merian. Could you just talk to those two projects and the update that we're going to be getting on those later in the year and whether that could lead to higher CapEx than what's currently been guided?

Lawson, it was a little bit noisy, so I'm going to just reframe your -- repeat your question to make sure. You're asking about CapEx and whether CapEx would increase with the Red Chris project and Merian. Is that what you asked?

Exactly.

Thank you, Lawson. Firstly, Lawson, we are on track to talk a little bit more in detail on Red Chris project towards the second half of the year. Our capital guidance, as we have stated it, is on average, the $1.8 billion on sustaining capital, $1.3 billion on development capital. And we did say that, that would be average over a period of time. The capital allocation framework also allows us to -- within the context of setting that guidance, allowing us to make decisions on value-accretive projects as they come along, and we will be disciplined in how we allocate any capital to further development projects. The Merian example that Francois has spoken about is certainly a future opportunity that we will be able to share more information upon later in the year.

Okay. I look forward to that. And then if I could, just on a separate issue with your JV partner in Nevada Gold Mines, Barrick. Have the two entities had any further discussion on Fourmile and a potential mechanism for vending that into the joint venture? Where does that currently stand?

Lawson, our current discussions have been predominantly around the improvement of the performance of Nevada. And I think a very constructive relationship to work together to improve that performance and which we believe would be in the best interest of all of our shareholders.

Our next question comes from the line of Josh Wolfson with RBC.

Just going back to the long-term growth targets of 6 million ounces. Is there any time frame that can be disclosed on when that target is expected to be achieved? And maybe what are the larger drivers for that?

Josh, thank you for that question. As I think as we've indicated over the last while is that we'll continue to give you 1-year guidance. We have completed our asset reviews. We just completed all of our long-term plans. And as we conclude this work and it builds to maturity, we will be able to give you a better guidance of what that profile would look like. And we certainly expect to be able to do that towards the end of this year.

Got it. And I guess I can't ask about NGM directly, but maybe indirectly related to some of the speculation in the media about M&A. Could you clarify maybe what the company's views are on M&A today and maybe just how this plays into the current gold price environment?

Josh, a really good question. Firstly, we're really happy with our portfolio of assets and our pipeline of projects. And as we do the work with -- on the back of all of our asset reviews, certainly enough potential in our own portfolio. We continue to evaluate our portfolio of assets, and that's just the right thing we believe it's the right thing to do. It's part of the continuous work that we need to do. And as we find value-accretive opportunities to make any changes to our portfolio, we will do that, but it will happen in a disciplined way and within the context of our capital allocation framework.

Our next question comes from the line of Daniel Major with UBS.

First one, just to be clear on the capital allocation waterfall that you provided, should we be reading that in terms of the commitment to the buyback that if you were to go above the threshold, so $1 billion plus or minus, you would -- we should assume in our models that 100% of free cash flow would be returned to shareholders through buybacks. And if that is the case, would that be done during a quarterly period or an annual period?

Thank you for that question, Daniel. So your assumption is accurate, and I think that's why we -- in the cash flow waterfall, we've set it out with clear expectations of where we want our cash to be, all driven to a resilient balance sheet. As notice as a reminder, share buybacks will be ratable. And as we come to the end of a program, and you would know that at the moment, we still have $2.4 billion left on our $6 billion approved program. We will go back to our Board for approval for any additional buyback.

Okay. That's clear. And then a follow-up on the cost guidance, and you've changed the sort of headline guidance from co-product to byproduct. So on a like-for-like basis, your 1,935 co-product guidance for ASIC. First, is it -- what is the like-for-like for CAS as well?

We don't guide CAS, Daniel, but it is -- would be in the order of 1,430.

Okay. And then maybe just a follow-up on that cost dynamic. On Slide 16, you provided the drivers of the inflation through the year. If we look at those buckets, inventory change, working capital and volumes, would it be fair to assume those would reverse in the subsequent 1, 2 years?

Yes, Daniel, probably worthwhile to just quickly step through that. In the prepared remarks, we spoke about volume, and I've given you the underlying drivers that will reverse the volume. Sustaining capital, you remember that a portion of that is sustaining capital that we've moved from 2025 into 2026. And we will see an elevated level of sustaining capital whilst we're still busy with Cadia and Boddington tailings. The changes in inventory, you are right, it's predominantly driven this year by the fact that we are treating stockpile material at Peñasquito and that we are not adding any stockpile material at Lihir. And then we will see a change at Yanacocha going forward as well, where we're not mining anymore and putting material. So those changes of inventory are purely just a factor of where we are on our normal mining cycle. I think what is important, I want to highlight that our cost applicable to sales has stayed constant year-on-year. And I just want to direct you towards that as well and the work that we've done last year on making sure that we can keep what is in our control on cost stable year-on-year.

Our next question comes from the line of Tanya Jakisonik with Scotiabank.

I'm going to start, Natascha, just on Nevada Gold Mine. I'm interested in your views on as you've had time to spend time on the property and look at what needs to be done to maximize shareholder value. Can you review with us what you think we need to tackle to maximize shareholder value and how long that's going to take?

Tanya, thank you for that question. I will kick off the question, and I will ask Francois, who led the team who was there to add anything as he sees it. Firstly, we have -- we welcome the approach that we've seen from our JV partners with the change in leadership to work together to improve the Nevada Gold Mines performance. And to that extent, we used the same kind of methodology that we've used for our own operations by really understanding district potential and working our way through opportunities, really thinking about the entire Nevada operations as a district and working it back all the way to near-term and short-term productivity improvements. And so it's exactly the same that we've done at Nevada.

Thank you, Natascha, and thank you, Tanya, for the question. I think just to build on what Natascha said, the opportunity is to fill the mill effectively and use a portfolio approach to how we do that and also to blend the different types of material that is available there. I think there's also some short-term opportunity in terms of optimizing plans across the portfolio rather than on a site-by-site basis. But those are probably the main drivers for our potential there at NGM.

And sorry, the implementation, how long do you think all of this takes?

Yes. Look, it's an ongoing partnership at the moment with our JV partners. We did a review in December, and we continue to work through the action plan accordingly.

Okay. And then my second question on still on Nevada Gold Mines. Just want to confirm, I understand that you have on, I guess, February 3, notice of default to Barrick. Can you just provide us just the process from this default and how we go forward and if it's not resolved? I just want to know the proceedings of what happens. I know there's a time period of where you try to resolve it. And if not, there's a court. I'm just trying to understand the timing of that and if the court is in Nevada, if there's no resolution.

Thank you, Tanya. I'm going to hand that question over to Peter Wexler.

Thank you, Tanya, for your question. I think you're absolutely right and you have access to the agreement, which was publicly filed, and it sets out detailed timelines for both how any disputes between the partners are resolved as well as the jurisdictional where it would be decided. So -- or if it ever gets to that stage, but you have that all right in front of you, actually.

Our next question comes from the line of Hugo Nigowasi with Goldman Sachs.

Two questions from me, please. Look, the first one, I appreciate the emphasis on share repurchases as the key use of excess operational cash flow, but it appears that some of the more medium- to longer-term growth projects seem to have lost their emphasis a little bit such as the Red Chris Cave and definitely deferring Yanacocha sulfides and some of the other resources like Nova Union, Norte Abierto, Galore Creek, Conga, Laurkina, Wafi-Golpu. To name a few, they don't seem to be priorities for this decade. Do you see room for further divestments of resources from the portfolio? Or conversely, should we take the comment that you're exploring more opportunities in the region around Yanacocha that you're actually still acquisitive from here?

Yes. You, there's lots in that question. So let me just see how I can unpack that. Firstly, we've built -- deliberately built this portfolio of assets with the intent to develop and grow it, first point. Second point, we will do that in the disciplined manner that we set out in our development -- in our capital allocation framework. So important to note. Your question around Peru. Peru remains centered to and key to our portfolio. You shouldn't read the fact that we have walked away from the Yanacocha Sulfides project as any indication to the potential that we have in the Kirus project and the Conga project in Peru. As we've concluded, as I mentioned earlier, and we've concluded the asset reviews and developing the profile going forward, all of these projects are under review. We've got a very clear framework in which we review these projects to sequence them appropriately in the project. The Red Chris project specifically benefited from the unfortunate incident that we had last year when we had the failure in the decline, but it benefited us in highlighting just the areas of opportunity to improve design. And there's no other indication than just an opportunity to improve design at Red Chris.

Got it. And then a follow-up then maybe on costs. Great to see the cost savings initiatives you worked on last year coming through. Are you able to just provide some more detail on the magnitude of those cost savings that are hitting that 2026 outlook number? And then any further cost-out targets you're looking to try and deliver this year?

Yes. Probably a couple of ways that you can look at that, Hugo. The first thing is, as I said earlier, cost attributable to sales stayed constant year-on-year. So we've basically offset inflation. Another way that you can think about it is that savings allowed us to reduce $100 per ounce from our cost. So that is a good other way of doing it. So our all-in sustaining cost would have been $100 per ounce higher if we didn't have that. I also want you to point you to the G&A reduction. In the prepared remarks, we've spoken about a 21% reduction in G&A from guidance to guidance, and you will see that our G&A is well aligned last year with this year. So just a couple of markers that you can look at. We also -- as we've done -- as we've retired debt and repurchased shares. We've also seen a reduction in cost of about $230 million between those two elements. As we go forward, some of those -- we had two focus areas for cost reduction, headcount and non-headcount reduction. The headcount reduction has been completed and the future continuous work that we have through operational productivity and discipline, all goes back to the continuous non-headcount reduction, and we've made some significant progress to embed our savings in our cost structure.

Our next question comes from the line of Anita Soni with CIBC.

I just wanted to ask about the Tanami expansion too. Just seeing the total spend to date is about $1.3 billion, and you're spending about $3.5 -- sorry, $350 million, $330 million this year. And the project total is $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion with still a significant amount of time to go. So will you hit that $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion? Or will you be near the upper end or slightly above that?

We are right on track to hit those targets, Anita.

Okay. My other one is a somewhat quick one. On the capital allocation framework, you said plus the net cash position of $1 billion, but I see plus or minus $2 billion. I think maybe someone else mentioned plus or minus $1 billion. I want to clarify that, but -- and then also ask, it seems like a pretty wide range. Like how do you make that decision that we're going to keep an extra $2 billion of cash instead of buying back shares at this point?

Anita, that's a very good question. That was a very disciplined approach by the Board to take a look at the ability for the company to withstand volatility across commodity cycles and ensure that our fixed dividend is always payable and we can meet our commitments. It can flex up and down depending on where we are in both the cost cycle, the price cycle as well as the other needs for some of the nearshore projects that we might want to execute on that would be cost accretive with our financial discipline fully in focus. So that's how it was arrived. It was a very thoughtful process with the Board of Directors and to ensure the long-term resiliency of the company.

And Anita, it is $1 billion plus or minus $2 billion. So it is clearly set out in Slide 10. So the detail is really set out there for your reference.

Yes. I just thought I heard someone say $1 billion plus or minus $1 billion. So I just want to clarify that. But I did see the slide plus or minus 2...

Our next question comes from the line of Daniel Morgan with Barrenjoey.

My question is gold and copper at all-time highs, you have some of the best assets in the industry. Is there an opportunity to do a bit more on debottlenecking, brownfield expansion? Is this something that should be worthy of greater consideration? I mean if I look at a lot of the messages today, you've got a new capital allocation strategy, which appears to speak to a focus on returning cash rather than growth. Can you just talk about that?

Thank you, Daniel, and a really relevant question and something we continuously evaluate. So Daniel, firstly, we make sure that the baseline of our production remains sustainable through the cycle. I think that's an important evaluation. So that is -- then we continue to look at short-term opportunities. In my prepared remarks, I referred to Yanacocha specifically, where we have seen an additional cut in the pits that we will be taking. So the really near-term opportunities we are focusing on are those where we have low capital investment because the moment you start to talk about capital investment, there's time associated with it. So low capital investment means quick to market. It considers constraints like tailings dam capacity because we do need to consider the cost and the time to ensure that we've got long-term tailings capacity. So that needs to be considered as part of the economic evaluation. And then the next constraint would be our processing plant. So we have no constraints, and we can make sure that it comes to market quickly with low risk, we are absolutely pursuing every opportunity. So a very good point.

And are there -- I know you've got Red Chris this year, but I mean, maybe you can just cast the market's eyes to potential assets across the portfolio, which have those opportunities for debottlenecking where there's a plant that has very capital-efficient expansion or ample tailings? Or what are the assets where if we thought creatively about growth beyond, say, Red Chris that we should be thinking about?

Daniel, you're now talking just brownfield expansion, right?

Correct, correct.

Yes. Okay. So a couple. Ahafo South, we definitely -- and Francois mentioned in his prepared remarks on -- and we're actively pursuing that development, underground development that goes hand-in-hand with the exploration work that we're doing. Ahafo North as a brownfields expansion, there's a potential for us to basically duplicate what we've done at Ahafo North to date. So that's a definite opportunity for us. If we look across and we look across to the Lihir, we've just concluded 14A. So we will have access to high-grade ore there and the nearshore barrier will give us access to further high-grade material. If we go to Tanami, as we complete Tanami, there's certainly opportunities there for us. I'm just thinking through -- I think I've touched on all of the main ones. Brucejack, of course, Francois just reminded me here of Brucejack. Brucejack, there's two opportunities. The one would be that we are looking at stope sizes that is easy to -- easy for us to do to develop our stope sizes slightly larger, capturing the value of just what the ring around the current stope sizes, slightly lower grade, but we do have the capacity in both the plant and the tailings in the tailings dam. And then I'm going to quickly jump over to Argentina at Cerro Negro. We are pursuing an open pit that we should be able to access and start mining on towards the end of the year. And then at Cadia, just a reminder that PC2-3 basically will be up full -- up and running by the end of the year and PC1-2 following closely after that. So a number of opportunities for us, some of which we've touched on already, but some of them not necessarily remarked on.

Our next question comes from the line of Martin Pradier with Veritas Investment Research.

My first question is related to Newmont and the relationship with Barrick. So there is this news about you having a right of first refusal. Could you confirm that you have that right of first refusal? And what does it mean? Can Barrick do an IPO without your consent -- or that will be violating the agreement?

Thanks, Martin. Peter will take your call.

Thank you, Martin, for the question. The rights for both parties are spelled out in the agreement. We don't have any other information than you do on the IPO and anything else would be a theoretical exercise. So we'll let you and as I noted to Anita to review the agreement and make that determination for yourself.

Okay. And in terms of Yanacocha, how much is in book value of Yanacocha still there? I mean I know you're stopping the development and you did some impairment, but I'm assuming there is quite a bit more there in the book value.

So on sulfides, book value was in the order of $78 million, Martin, and Conga is in the order of about $900 million.

So $900 million in Conga and how much in the other one?

The $78 million in sulfide is predominantly in the equipment that's still there that we will be putting up for sale.

Our next question comes from the line of Levi Spry with UBS.

Just one quick one back to Tanami. Can you just confirm the status there currently? And what's included in your guidance for this year and the rest of the ramp-up?

Sorry, Levi, I don't think we've heard you properly. Would you mind repeating?

What's happening right now on site at the Tanami and what's imputed in your guidance this year and next?

Okay. And Levi, I assume you are asking in relation to the fatality that we had.

Yes. Is it currently operating? And when will it turn back on or when you expect it to turn back?

All right. Thanks for that, Levi. I just want to make sure I'm clear on your question. The operational side of Tanami has been up and running within about four days after the incident. After the incident, we shut down the entire site. We made sure that all of our colleagues are looked after and that everybody is getting assistance through our EAP process, and we wanted to make sure that people's focus is on operations so that it can be safe and didn't want to distract their attention. So operation is fully up and running. The project other than the shaft infrastructure. So we stopped all work on the shaft infrastructure, but development for the ventilation underground infrastructure is back to normal operations. And the shaft infrastructure, we will start up as soon as we've completed our internal investigation and make sure that we understand the root cause of the incident and make sure that it doesn't happen again. So what has been included is our normal production at Tanami. That's what's been included in our guidance.

Our final question for today will come from the line of Adam Baker with Macquarie.

I'm just wondering from a corporate perspective, how you considered to lift your reserve and resource assumptions, noting that your resource gold price assumption is now $2,000 an ounce and your reserves at $1,700 an ounce. Why did you determine to do this? Do you think this is still too conservative? And I guess, how did the team land on that number?

Thank you, Adam. I'll ask Francois Hardy to answer that question.

Yes. Thanks for your question, Adam. I think we go through quite a rigorous process in terms of how we define our gold price assumptions. And we look at many different market assumptions and direction. And the one we tend to align with reasonably closely is the 3-year trailing average. And at the time of setting our 2026 gold price assumption for reserves, we were just above 80% of the 3-year trading average, which is typically we like to be in the low 80s -- low to mid-80% of the 3-year trading average. And obviously, it shot up since then. We don't believe it's too conservative. We have a rigorous process that we look at our total portfolio and we look at how we structure and look at our long-term mine plans and the like. So at this stage, the 2,000 is the right number for us, but we continue to evaluate short-term opportunities and the like. And I'll just point to reminding you that the mine plan assumptions and the reserve and resource assumptions that we make are two different numbers that we optimize against.

This concludes the question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Tom Palmer for any closing remarks.

Thank you so much, operator, and it's still not yet. And thank you for everybody for joining our call today and looking forward to our next quarterly call. Thank you.

That concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect your lines.

Hello, and welcome to Newmont's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Newmont's Group Head of Treasury and Investor Relations, Neil Backhouse. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and hello, everyone. Thank you for joining Newmont's Third Quarter 2025 Results Conference Call. Joining me today are Tom Palmer, our Chief Executive Officer; Natascha Viljoen, our President and Chief Operating Officer; and Peter Wexler, our Chief Legal Officer and Interim Chief Financial Officer. Together with the rest of our executive leadership team, they will be available to answer your questions at the end of the call.

Before we begin, please take a moment to review our cautionary statement shown here and refer to our SEC filings, which can be found on our website. With that, I'll turn the call over to Tom for opening remarks.

Thanks, Neil. To begin today's call, I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the import leadership transition we shared a few weeks ago, announcing my retirement at the end of this year and appointing Natascha as Newmont's next President and Chief Executive Officer. When I joined Newmont more than a decade ago, I could not have predicted the remarkable transformation our company would undertake. Over these years, we have not only grown as a business, but redefined what it means to be the world's leader in gold mining. We have successfully navigated some of the most significant transactions in mining history, fundamentally changing the landscape of our industry and what it means to be a gold company.

Today, we stand as the benchmark for responsible gold mining with an operating portfolio that has meaningful copper production and a project pipeline that is the envy of our industry. During my time with Newmont, the mining industry has undergone profound change. Newmont has responded to these changes and actively shaped its destiny. Rather than simply riding the commodity cycle, we have built a long life, globally diversified portfolio, one that will sustainably deliver shared value to our host communities and governments, shareholders, employees and all of our stakeholders.

It has been a privilege to serve as Chief Executive. And as I pass the baton, I am confident that Natascha, who has demonstrated exceptional leadership throughout her 30-year career in our industry, will seize the many opportunities that lie ahead for our business.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Natascha to take you through our third quarter operational and financial performance.

Thank you, Tom, and thank you also for your leadership and support since I met you the first time 3 years ago and for your leadership of this great company over the past 10 years. Your contributions have helped shape the strong foundation we stand on today, and I look forward to leveraging that experience to further unlock the value that we all know this business can deliver.

Before diving into the details about our operational and financial performance, I'd like to highlight a few notable milestones and record achievements from the quarter. First and foremost, in July, we safely recovered 3 team [ members ] at our Red Chris project, a result of robust procedures and systems in place, the swift and trained actions from individuals involved and strong collaboration across the mining industry. As an organization, we are taking a hard and honest look at the findings from the investigation into the circumstances that led to the incident, and we are fully committed to applying and sharing those learnings across our business and the broader industry.

Second, we've received nearly $640 million in net cash proceeds from equity and asset sales since the start of the third quarter, marking the successful completion of our asset divestment program and the further streamlining of our noncore equities portfolio. Third, from our portfolio of [ wood ], glass, gold and copper assets, we generated record 3 quarter cash flow of $1.6 billion, enabling us to reach an all-time annual record of $4.5 billion, with 1 quarter still remaining. And we made significant progress on the cost discipline and productivity work we announced at the beginning of the year, which has allowed us to meaningfully improve our 2025 guidance for several cost metrics whilst maintaining our outlook for production and unit cost in a rising gold price environment, a notable success in today's market.

We achieved this by establishing a smaller senior leadership team with a decentralized organizational structure that is designed to sharpen accountability and simplify how we work. This includes consolidating our structure to 2 business units, [ giving ] our 12 operating sites greater decision-making authority and enabling faster, more agile execution.

In addition, we further strengthened our balance sheet and enhanced our financial flexibility, ending the quarter in a near zero debt position after successfully retiring $2 billion of debt. And Moody's upgraded Newmont's issuer credit rating to A3 with a stable outlook, a clear reflection of our improved credit profile, strengthened balance sheet, excellent liquidity position and prudent financial management.

We have also continued to share our success with our shareholders, returning $823 million since the last earnings call through a stable dividend and ongoing share repurchases. On top of this financial discipline and excellent performance from our operations, we will also declare commercial production by the end of today at our new exciting mine, Ahafo North, which expands our existing group footprint in Ghana and adds profitable gold production over an initial 13 years of mine life. With this strong momentum from our operations and projects, we are well positioned to continue creating long-term value for years to come.

Building on our cost and productivity work and solid foundation from the first half of the year, our third quarter operational performance reflects our continuous focus on safety and optimization. Our third quarter production was largely in line with the second quarter, primarily driven by a step-up in production due to higher grade [ projects ], improved productivity at Cerro Negro and continued success from our patented injection leaching technologies at Yanacocha.

As previously signaled, Peñasquito delivered a lower proportion of gold and steady lead, silver and zinc production in the third quarter, consistent with the planned sequence at this polymetallic mine. And at Ahafo South, we completed mining at the Subika open pit during the third quarter as planned, shifting mining activities to lower grades from the Awonsu open pit. And finally, at Lihir, we completed the construction of the engineered wall of the Phase 14a layback, preparing the site to efficiently reach higher grades in the future years.

Consistent with our stable production in the third quarter, our unit costs remained largely in line with the second quarter. Our continued focus on cost discipline and productivity has enabled us to offset higher cost from profit-sharing agreements, production taxes and royalties resulting from the stronger gold price environment. In addition, we continue to progress the projects we have in execution and reached several significant milestones during this third quarter.

As I mentioned, we poured first gold on September 19 and will be declaring commercial production at our new mine, Ahafo North, by the end of today. At our second expansion at Tanami, we have fully completed the concrete lining of the 1.5 kilometer [ deep ] production shaft and are equipping the shaft and completing construction of the underground crushing and associated materials handling system. At Cadia, [ guiding ] from PC2-3 has continued according to plan as we advance the underground development for PC1-2, along with a critical tailings remediation and storage capacity work, which I will touch in a little bit more detail in a moment.

Moving on Newmont's operational strength in the third quarter, we delivered another solid financial performance. Newmont generated $3.3 billion in adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net income of $1.71 per share for the third quarter, a 20% increase from the second quarter and more than double last year's results. Also during the third quarter, Newmont generated $2.3 billion of cash flow from operations and $1.6 billion of free cash flow after working capital, marking a record third quarter performance. This achievement represents the fourth consecutive quarter with free cash flow exceeding $1 billion, underscoring Newmont's scale and leverage to [ fibre ] gold prices.

So far this year, we have generated $4.5 billion of free cash flow, an all-time annual record already, with 1 quarter still remaining. And since the last earnings call, we have received $640 million in after-tax cash proceeds from successful asset divestitures and further equity sales, bringing our total 2025 proceeds to over $3.5 billion in cash to support Newmont's disciplined capital allocation priorities. These priorities remain unchanged and include maintaining the strong balance sheet, steadily funding cash generative capital projects and continue to return capital to shareholders.

Looking ahead to the remainder of the year, strong execution across all our managed operations during 2025 has positioned us to achieve our full year production guidance. In the fourth quarter, mining at Yanacocha is expected to conclude, and we will continue to evaluate the opportunities in the surrounding regions of the [ room ]. Additionally, we are looking forward to adding new low-cost ounces during the fourth quarter from our new mine, Ahafo North, and we are anticipating higher ounces from Nevada Gold Mines in the fourth quarter, as indicated by our joint venture partners.

From a cost perspective, we are already seeing that our signings initiatives are bearing fruit this year, and we have reduced our absolute cost guidance in 2025 for G&A, Exploration and Advanced Projects by approximately 15%. This improvement in G&A expense is the direct result of our deliberate efforts to simplify the organization and drive down labor and contractor costs. And on the back of progressing labor reductions, our Exploration and Advanced Project guidance is also reflecting the optimization work we are doing to ensure we are managing cost efficiently, including how we deploy resources and equipment, sequence studies and focus exploration on areas that will generate the highest value.

Turning now to unit cost. It is important to note that our 2025 guidance was established using a $2,500 per ounce gold price assumption at the start of the year. With sustained high gold prices, our fourth quarter all-in sustained cost outlook includes increased cost from profit sharing, royalties and production taxes. However, through ongoing optimization and cost improvements, Combined with supportive macroeconomic tailwinds, we expect to largely offset these impacts, enabling us to maintain our guidance for cost applicable to sales and all-in sustaining cost per ounce.

Finally, now shifting to capital spend. Sustaining capital spend in the current year is tracking below our guidance published in February 2025, primarily due to the timing of spend related to our investments in the tailings work at Cadia. The team has done outstanding work this year, thoroughly assessing every option to ensure we're deploying capital in the most efficient way. Our focus continues to be maximizing capacity in the current [ input ] storage facility, repairing the Southern wall of the Northern facility and then rising the wall of the Southern facility. With this plan in place, we are ramping up our spend, ensuring that we achieve the right balance between responsible capital management and the tailings capacity needed to support this very long life mine.

Similarly, development capital spend is also tracking below our initial guidance, primarily to a deliberate shift in the timing of spend related to the study and underground development work to support the potential expansion project at Red Chris. Adding everything into account and looking ahead to 2026, gold production from our managed operations is expected to be within the same guidance range we provided in 2025, but towards the low end due to the planned mine [ seasons ] at our world-class operations. As previously indicated, lower ounces from Ahafo South next year will be largely replaced by new low-cost ounces from Ahafo North mine. In addition, the decrease in expected production next year will be driven by a lower proportion of gold production from Peñasquito as we transition into the next scheduled phase of mining at the Penasco pit while slightly increase our output of silver, lead and zinc; lower leach production at the end of quarter as we conclude the mining activities at the [indiscernible]; and lower gold and copper production from Cadia as PC1 and PC2 come to an end and we transition to the next [ panel cave ], PC2-3.

In addition, following the anticipated $200 million improvement to capital guidance in 2025, we expect capital spending to be elevated in 2026 as a result, keeping our 2-year average largely in line with expectations. Lastly, building on cost and productivity improvements achieved in 2025, we expect to realize the full benefits of our cost saving initiatives, which will be reflected in our 2026 guidance to be provided in February next year. However, if elevated gold prices persist into next year, increased profit sharing, royalties and production taxes could offset a significant portion of the benefits we expect to realize from our cost savings initiatives in 2026. These ongoing efforts demonstrate our disciplined approach to cost control and our continued commitment to driving margin expansion, with more work underway to capture additional efficiencies even in a rising price environment.

With our guidance reflecting continued operational and financial discipline, I'll next turn to capital allocation, where our focus remains on striking the right balance between financial flexibility, reinvestment in the business and returning capital to shareholders. We remain committed to our shareholder-focused capital allocation strategies, which are 3 key priorities and remained unchanged, beginning with our strong and flexible balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $5.6 billion in cash, and we reduced gross debt to $5.4 billion, ending the quarter in a near zero net debt position and reinforcing our financial resilience in today's unpredictable environment.

Secondly, we continue to steadily reinvest in our business, in line with our long-term planning cycle and external guidance, with a goal of generating sustainable free cash flow. And finally, we continue to return capital to shareholders. We declared a fixed common quarter dividend of $0.25 per share. And we repurchased $550 million of shares since our last earnings call in late July. This year, we executed $2.1 billion in share repurchases, bringing the total to $3.3 billion in share repurchases since February of last year, with approximately $2.7 billion remaining in our $6 billion program. We will continue to be disciplined and balanced in our capital allocation priorities despite the record level gold price environment, ensuring that Newmont is well positioned to drive consistent long-term shareholder value.

With another strong order behind us, we remain well positioned to continue delivering on our commitments to our shareholders. Driven by the consistent operational performance we have seen so far this year, we are firmly on track to achieve the improved 2025 guidance that I outlined earlier. And from this stable and efficient operational performance, we have generated $4.5 billion in free cash flow so far this year, achieving a full year record in just the first 3 quarters. From this position of strength, we have focused our time and attention towards optimizing our assets, taking deliberate actions to improve our cost structure and unlock the full value of our world-class portfolio.

Alongside our operational strength and financial discipline, we will declare commercial production at our Ahafo North project at the end of today, setting us up to deliver new low-cost ounces for many years to come. In addition, we have successfully completed our asset divestment program and the further streamlining of our noncore equity portfolio, generating greater than $3.5 billion in after-tax cash proceeds from asset divestitures in 2025 to support Newmont's disciplined capital allocation priorities.

Over the last 2 years, we have repaid $3.9 billion of debt and have returned over $5.7 billion to shareholders through our common dividend and share repurchases, delivering approximately $250 million in annual savings from these actions alone. Even amid unprecedented gold prices, our commitment remains to disciplined, balanced capital allocation, cost management and productivity improvement, driving long-term shareholder value and financial resilience.

As we look to the future, Newmont is well positioned to continue generating industry-leading free cash flow, strengthening our business and rewarding shareholders through a predictable dividend and ongoing share repurchases. Lastly and most importantly, I would like to sincerely thank Tom for his leadership and contributions that helped to put Newmont on such a strong footing.

And with that, I'll turn it back over to you, Tom, one last time for closing remarks.

Thanks, Natascha. As only the tenth CEO in Newmont's 104-year history, it has been a privilege to serve this great company. I'd like to thank our Board for its guidance and partnership throughout my time in the role, our executive leadership team and all of our teams across the world for their support in shaping our business into the industry leader that it is today.

And with that, I'll hand the line back to the operator to open the call up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Daniel Major with UBS.

Congratulations, Natascha. And Tom, good luck in the future. So yes, a couple of questions. First one, just on capital allocation and the balance sheet. You've been returning cash shareholders at a healthy rate, but the balance sheet is effectively net debt zero, well below your net debt target. How do you see that going into 2026 if gold prices stay at this sort of level, would you look to build cash? Or would you look to accelerate the rate of buybacks and cash returns to get closer to your net debt target?

Thank you for that question, Daniel. As we've said in our prepared remarks, we remain firstly committed to, I think, a very well-defined capital allocation framework. Within that framework, we've made some good progress, and we will continue to review our returns to shareholders within the flexibility that we have in the capital allocation framework, and we will remain disciplined towards that. And of course, just to add, we do review that on a quarterly basis with our Board.

Okay. So if prices stay here, would it be fair to assume you would accelerate the rate of cash returns rather than move into larger net cash -- [ does it will ] move into a net cash position, is that fair?

Daniel, I would rather steer towards we'll remain disciplined within that framework. And we will continue to review that as we have greater certainty of what the gold price [ do ] in the future. What's in our control, certainly, is to continue to focus on our operational performance, our safety, cost and productivity work.

Okay. And then the second question is just on the project pipeline, previously indicated that Red Chris block cave would be the next project that would potentially be approved. Has there been any delays to that potential timeline with the incident last quarter? And is there any other updates on the other kind of longer-dated projects, Yanacocha, Wafi-Golpu, et cetera?

Daniel, firstly, on Red Chris, we remain on track to deliver a proposal to the Board towards the middle of next year. And we have, as we said earlier, done quite a bit of work to do a thorough investigation on the incident that we had. And we are building all of those learnings into the work that we're doing through the feasibility study. We are -- the progress remain on track.

In terms of longer projects, those are part of our projects in our -- that's part of our studies pipeline. And all of them will have to earn their right in the portfolio for us to allocate capital to any future decision.

The next question comes from Matthew Murphy with BMO.

Congratulations, Tom, on retirement and Natascha on the appointment. When you described giving the sites more autonomy and just some of the restructuring, I'm interested, what that means for your team? Are there key appointments that you're still looking to make? Or do you feel like you have the team to carry out that strategy already?

Matthew, as you know, in our executive leadership team, we do have a vacancy in house for our CFO, who is -- and currently, we have our team very capably led by Peter Wexler and a very capable team supporting him in that finance -- in the finance function. So that would be a key appointment that we are focusing on. We have a deep bench across our operational teams that we are leveraging from. We've redefined or reshaped our business into 2 business units, who will be -- that will be led by 2 very strong managing directors, each having authority over 6 of our assets. We also have a very strong group [ hit ] in our projects and studies and another group [ hit ] looking off to health, safety, security and environment. So all 4 of them absolutely focused on operations and projects at the core, making sure that we can deliver on our objectives in a sustainable and safe manner.

And then, of course, we continue -- just within the framework of the restructuring, we have a very strong functional team across all of our important functions that will continue to support the work that we've defined in this restructuring. So very comfortable that we have a very capable team across our operations, projects and functions.

Okay. Great. And then just any color you can share on the ramp-up of Ahafo North? How -- you've got it into commercial production. Has that gone as planned? And how is the ramp looking in Q4?

So we will be -- we will officially declare it, absolutely a matter of timing. By the end of today, we'll be able to declare commercial production. What that means is that we have, on average, [ front ] for 30 days at more than 65% of the design, which gives you about 300 tonnes per hour. And that ramp-up is going -- is running on schedule. So we're very, very excited about this new mine. I think Tom and I will be hitting out there next week. I think particularly, that's a big legacy for Tom as well for us to get this [ separation up ] of money. And -- but we will be celebrating with the team that brought this asset online next week to officially open it. But we're really excited about having this new mine as part of our portfolio.

The next question comes from Josh Wolfson with RBC.

I recognize it might be a bit early to ask, but is there any sort of perspective you can provide on reserve pricing, gold assumptions for next year? And then also in that context, whether we should expect a growth in the reserves?

Josh, you're right. It is a little bit early. As you would expect, we're right in the middle of our budgeting cycle, right, also busy with our resource and reserve review. And we will definitely give you an outcome of that work in February next year.

Okay. Got it. And then just back to some of the comments on 2026 guidance. And I guess, there's sort of two parts here. One is, I think you had mentioned earlier the average CapEx over '25 and '26 would remain unchanged. If the CapEx declined in '25 by $200 million, should we assume the number next year is the same as '25, so -- or 3.2 and then add $200 million to it?

And then the other question is just on AISC. I recognize there's a bunch of moving parts here. Directionally, there wasn't any indication provided there. But is the suggestion in the text that the AISC cost should remain stable? Or is one of the optimization and synergies outweighing the other of higher gold prices?

Josh, yes, firstly, starting off with capital. I think you're accurate. And if you consider that over the 2 years, '25 and '26, that we will remain within the guidance that we've given, 2026 will be higher. So you can assume that, that will flow through into 2026.

If we look then at all-in sustaining cost, the 2 elements that will impact our all-in sustaining cost, firstly, would be the guidance that we've given or the indication of that we did for the guidance next year of where our ounce profile will be for our managed operations, I want to just add that. And the impact would be predominantly from Ahafo South, where we -- our Subika open pit operation has stopped, and we've moved into a Awonsu pit with lower grades. But our Ahafo North would largely offset that. The reductions then further will be Yanacocha from the [ Kachwa mine sets ], that where we stop mining, and we will only be focusing on leasing activities.

Penasquito, we see a move into GEOs and our goal just due to where we are from the mining profile and Cadia as we wait for PC2-3 to ramp up. So the combination of what we think would be on the lower end of our guidance for ounces and moving of sustaining capital into 2026. Saying that, however, despite the good progress that we've made on our cost and productivity work and we start to see that benefits flowing through, that work will continue with a focus on cost and productivity. So to help offset any increases due to high gold prices or what we've seen in the higher capital lower ounces next year.

The following comes from Lawson Winder with Bank of America.

Thank you very much, operator. Hello, Tom and Natascha. And Tom, congratulations on concluding your very notable career at Newmont. And then Natascha, I just want to say congratulations on your appointment as CEO. I do look forward to following this next chapter in Newmont's history.

If I could, I'd like to ask about capital allocation again, but just from a slightly different point of view. Obviously, there's a lot of extra capital which Newmont can consider allocating in a variety of different ways. It sounds like capital return is a priority. The balance sheet is already very strong. How do you think about acting on asset or company acquisition opportunities? Is that something that's still within the wheelhouse of potential capital allocation? When you think about growth and investing in growth assets, is that on the docket?

Lawson, thank you for that question. Firstly, we believe that with the -- with this wealth of the portfolio that we have, that the best investment for us is in our own assets and in share buybacks. So definitely, we will remain disciplined around that. And just as a reminder, those 3 elements, you've touched on it. The one is certainly strengthening our balance sheet and our resilience. We've made some good progress there, the investments that I've just touched on. And the progress that we are making on bringing Tanami 2 and the 2 blockades at Cadia are still online, disciplined in making sure that we spend our money well in those projects and bringing them online in time. And then lastly, we still have our ongoing share buyback program and our fixed dividend policy. So we will remain committed, and that investment will only be made where we know that it's value accretive.

Okay. Fantastic. And in that same vein, I mean, there will be an opportunity to consider a significant investment into Nevada Gold Mines from the point of view of [ Four Mile ], which is now 100% controlled by Barrick. I mean, there's also a demonstrated significant upside at [ Goldrush ] as a result of the work that's been done at [ Four Mile ]. I mean, how do you think about those two investment options? Is one preferred over the other? And when you look at [ Four Mile ] potentially coming into the portfolio several years down the road, do you think of it as another project to which to allocate capital? Or is that a separate decision from the project delegation?

Firstly, on [ Goldrush ], it's already part of Nevada Gold Mines. So already included in that portfolio, and the capital required is included in the capital forecast as we have it from [ Barry ] today. From a formal point of view, and if you look at that Nevada Gold Mine district, we know that it's a district that is -- still has a wealth of resources and a long future in terms of mining.

And as Barrick has concluded their pre-feasibility last year and from the results that we have seen, which is the same results that you have seen and just from what we know from that district, we're very excited about the opportunity that we have that's included in the current agreement for us to have an option to continue our share of that project as well. So we are waiting for Barrick to give us more information so that we can make an informed decision. And as you would have indicated a little bit earlier, it will be a project that will compete for capital against all of our other projects, and we will be disciplined in also making this capital decision when we have the information available as our JV agreement.

The next question comes from Anita Soni with CIBC.

Good evening in the [ past ], Tom, and congratulations, Tom, on your retirement and Natascha, on your appointment as CEO. Just a further question, a couple of detailed questions, I guess, on Yanacocha, I think that the papers and you said it's closing in the fourth quarter, but had a really, really strong quarter this quarter. Is that expected to continue into the fourth quarter?

So Anita, yes. Thank you for that question. Into the fourth quarter, we do see slightly lower than the third quarter. And that is as we in the mining, in [indiscernible]. And then we will be fully focused on the injection leaching through those in the [ new features ] that they have. And that's where online production source would be. Sorry, Anita.

That's fine. As you indicated that you're going to be at the lower end of the -- if you -- you said it was similar levels to 2025 for your managed operations, but at the lower end, I assume that means the lower end of the plus or minus 5%. Within that, are you assuming Cadia is going to drop off in grade next year? Or could you see some positive surprise on that side as well?

Anita, it's a really good question. We have -- we are planning according to the best estimates from our models. We have seen upside in this year so far. And we will continue to monitor PC1 and PC2 as they come to the end. So the models predict that we will see a decrease going into next year. And that's what we've served and incorporated into our planning for next year.

All right. And then last question on cost. So I think this quarter, you indicated CAS of about -- or sorry, in fourth quarter, CAS about 1,260. Is that -- I mean, just as a proxy to next year, is that a good -- if you're using current gold prices and the kind of operational efficiencies that you've already achieved, is that a good run rate on average for next year, assuming obviously higher gold prices and some great declines, as you mentioned? But on average, would that be a reasonable assumption for CAS for next year?

Anita, our fourth quarter G&A is normally cyclical by nature. So I think that's in the first assumption that you need to consider. And we do not see that, that is the run rate going into next year. And then from CAS point of view, CAS is impacted by our -- will be mainly impacted by our normal inflation. And then depending on where we are with gold prices, increases in taxes, royalties and worker participation. But it's very much still work in progress as we work through this last quarter and getting ready for the guidance in February.

All right. And then one last quick one for me. On the Ahafo North, my prior assumption was production of around 300,000 ounces for next year as it ramps fully. Does that mean that Ahafo South would decline by the same amount? Or is 300,000 ounces too aggressive for the first year of operations at Ahafo North?

I think if we look at the 2 operations, you could assume a similar kind of run rate that we've had for this year between the 2 operations.

The next question comes from Tanya Jakusconek with Scotiabank.

Great. Good evening, everybody. Natascha, congratulations on your new appointment. And Tom, congratulations on the retirement, and hope it's going to be a good one and a great adventure. Three questions, if I could. Just Natascha, starting off on Nevada Gold Mines, you said you're waiting for Barrick to provide you with information so you can make your decision. Just trying to understand, is that information the feasibility study that we need to wait on? Or is there something else before that? I think the feasibility study is not until 2029.

Yes. That's right, Tanya. We're waiting for that feasibility study.

Okay. That's helpful. And just on the capital returns to shareholders, you focused a lot on share buyback. Should I be assuming that in February, our $1 per share dividend remains intact and constant?

Tanya, as you know, and again, within the -- in the framework, in the capital allocation framework, we -- as we have it today, we have a fixed dividend, and it is a read -- something that the Board reviews on a quarterly basis.

Okay. So it could be possible, I guess, that part of your return to shareholders could include an increase in dividend in addition to your share buyback?

Yes. Tanya, it's absolutely not something that I think I can give you any indication on, I think. I think the commitment that we have is to remain discipline within the framework that we're very familiar with.

Okay. Maybe on the restructuring then, if I could. Understand that you flatlined a lot. I'm just trying understand, I'm trying to draw an organizational chart. Natascha, how many people do you have reporting or divisions you have reporting to you at this point?

So Tanya, we have restructured the organization to have 2 business units, each of them fix the assets. So it's a good spread of -- an equal spread of operations and also a good spread from a jurisdiction point of view. So if I look at a future structure where I have the operations and the 2 managing directors, plus the group head for projects and the group head for safety health environment still reporting to me, it would be a team of 8 people.

Sorry.

Sorry, Tanya, I just want to correct that. If I add the CFO, it would be 9. Yes.

The next question comes from Fahad Tariq with Jefferies.

Maybe just first, just to clarify on 2026 production guidance. I think I heard 2 different things. I just want to make sure I'm getting it right. You're saying it's within the same guidance range for the core portfolio as 2025, which would be 5.6 million ounces. But that -- but you're also saying it could be lower. So is the right way to think about it potentially 5% lower than 5.6 million ounces?

Fahad, I think the first thing is the 5.6 is obviously the managed and non-managed operations. So non-managed, we are waiting for a light normal. We will be getting that guidance from Barrick. And the focus for the managed operations would be we normally guide within a range of plus or minus [ 5% ]. And we do see that next year's production would be on the lower end of the managed portion of the guidance, which is in the order of 4.2 million ounces.

Okay. That's very clear. And then in all the cost commentary, I didn't hear anything about cost inflation. You mentioned that some of the cost saving initiatives at the unit cost level are being offset by higher royalties, profit sharing, taxes, but that's all gold price driven. Are you seeing any underlying cost inflation on labor, consumables, fuel, anything?

It will be part of our budget, Fahad. There will be a normal increase in that we normally do for our labor increases. And then well, obviously, there would be economic factors from some of our major consumables. I think the biggest challenge that we normally around inflation with the taxes, royalties and workup participation. And that we've been able to offset a large portion of through the cost savings initiatives.

The following question comes from Daniel Morgan with Barrenjoey.

Natascha and Tom, just a follow-up on the 2026 qualitative guidance chart. So to clarify, your managed guidance, 2025 is 4.2. You say today that it's expected to be similar but close to the bottom end of the range, which implies 5% lower at a lower, down to 4.0 million ounces. Is that too conservative view for the market to take as the midpoint for 2026 guidance?

I think, Daniel, considering that you very rightly commented that it's indicative from where we are going for the next year, we're in the middle of that work, so it is directional. And just to remind you, the impacts that we are having, firstly, I think probably just to take a step back. At the beginning of the year, we've given a clear indication of the work that we're doing to support the long-term profile through the projects and the projects that's in delivery. And those like Ahafo North that [ we just did ], they are all on track for delivery.

Then we have other production improvements that we're working on, amongst others, with the laybacks that we are doing at Boddington and Lihir, all of those [ under wife ] that long-term guidance and making sure that we're consistent with around that 6 million ounces for next year. However, the areas that we are focusing on that we have seen come down is Yanacocha because we have stopped production at the [ Cadia ] mine pit. So we're absolutely now required and reliant on the injection meeting. Penasquito, where we're seeing that we're taking another layback. And that's just due to the normal sequencing of that, but we'll see lower gold and slightly higher ounces, [ G on G ] ounces. And then Cadia, as we were to bring in PC2-3 online, which is well on track to deliver on time, we see a period for where we see PC1 and PC2 and our rights as they come to an end. So the impact on 2026 are very much driven by those dynamics.

And just on -- I know it is still early, but just on the reserve discussion that's coming up. There's obviously a fair degree of discretion, which you would be debating. I imagine about the gold price is up a lot. What do you do with thinking about reserves, versus -- do you try to maintain higher margins, et cetera? Just wondering how collectively you're thinking about that debate internally right now.

So from a reserve and resource pricing point of view, that as you're right, we're in the middle of that divide. Independent of how we think about resource and reserve price, firstly, the focus for us is to always put to prioritize high -- the highest grade ounces through the capacity available to us, first. A very important factor for us as we see the cost of tailings. And that's probably 1 of our biggest bottlenecks is to ensure that it's economic ounces from a tailings point of view as well.

So that is the important factors for us to consider as we make any decisions on resource and reserve impact prices. And again, Daniel, I'll probably just double down on -- as we think about margins. We -- independent of what gold price does, we will continue to focus on our underlying cost and productivity to drive margins in that way. So that is absolutely the focus for us. I think the only additional mention for us around resource and reserves is probably just the divestments that we've started through the year. But you need to -- that you can consider.

Okay. I appreciate your perspectives, Natascha and Tom.

The next question comes from Hugo Nicolaci with Goldman Sachs.

Congratulations, Tom, on your tenure at the helm and Natascha, as you take the baton. I wanted to ask a more strategic question on the project pipeline. How do you maximize the value of your currently longer-dated projects here? Does the gold price let you accelerate some of these given the reduced balance sheet risk from your position now? Or is there maybe room to monetize additional assets like the stakes in some of these multimillion ounce projects like [ Galore Creek ] and [ Never Union ] as you go forward if they're not medium-term priorities?

I think either [ me side ] is probably 5 times on the call, so forth. So we're going to remain disciplined in terms of that capital allocation. So we have these projects in study phase in various sizes in the pipeline. They will all, as per the formal comments a little bit earlier, all compete for capital within the profile or within the portfolio. I think it's important to consider that we have many opportunities, both brownfields and greenfields. And the most value-accretive projects will have the benefit of capital allocation. But obviously, within that framework of maintaining a resilient balance sheet and returning capital to shareholders through share buybacks and dividends. So that remains the focus. And as we develop those projects, when the time is right, we will make those decisions.

Got it. So to clarify, are projects not comparing for capital in, say, the next 5 years is a divestment option?

We continue to evaluate our portfolio. That's something we should be doing to continually look at what is the value that we can get from these assets. And if we have a view that we cannot get value out of them, then they will be -- that will be an opportunity for us to reconsider its position in the portfolio.

Got it. Fair enough. And then lastly, if I could, Tom, as you take a step back, maybe what excites you the most about the future of Newmont?

Thanks, Hugo. Thanks for the chance to use my voice. This portfolio we've built is unsurpassed in the gold industry. The long life operations, the project pipeline you were just asking about, that can be developed with discipline over time to be able to make decisions and lay out a portfolio of gold production, supported by copper and a few other metals coming through. It's never been seen before in this industry.

What I'm going to be looking forward to watching from [ Cottesloe Beach ] is in the years to come, '27, '28, '29, '30, 2035, looking at Newmont sustaining the sort of production levels and margins that no other gold company can compete with. That's the thing that excites me, Hugo.

A follow-up question comes from Ralph Profiti with Stifel.

Just 1 question from me, Natascha. When I look at this $450 million in Exploration and Advanced Projects, how much of that reduction is due to rationalization and asset sales, and it's just sort of catch-up adjustments versus the original guidance? And how much was from strategic capital allocation decisions aimed at say, cost savings where Exploration was either pulled back or Advanced at certain assets?

Thank you, Ralph. As in the last 18 months and as we had clear line of sight of our go-forward portfolio, we have done a material amount of work on all of our assets to understand the full potential around each of these assets, considering not only where we are with every asset today, but the long-term potential, including any exploration upside in these -- all of these assets. And that, in addition to the Advanced Projects, basically made up the baseline for how we reconsidered the work that we need to do going forward for Newmont, making sure that, that work is targeted towards delivering the value out of each and every one of these assets. That is what then and also underpinned our organizational structure and the decentralized design.

I know that's not your question, but I think it's an important context because in that same framework within that same context, we are also targeting our exploration dollars where we are clear on where the best next exploration work is and where we can expand our understanding and future of these assets. So when we see a reduction, it wasn't a hiccup. It was a deliberate review of doing the right work for the assets and targeting our dollars towards that. So it's been a very deliberate piece of work.

Thank you. This concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Tom Palmer for closing remarks.

Thank you, operator. I was expecting that to go to Natascha. Thank you for your time, and I'm pleased to enjoy your reading or the rest of your day. Thank you.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

And make sure that our safety systems, processes, capability in the business is where we need it to be for safe operations. That goes hand in hand with how we think about productivity in lease operations. Our 12 assets are world-class assets. And the focus for us is making sure that the cost price and the productivity in these assets are getting the focus that it needs to. So that leads into your question on gold price.

The best way that we can run these assets that we have today is to ensure that we remain and reset low-cost space, keep the discipline around what [ nullable], making sure that we optimize these assets in terms of physical inputs. And when we talk about productivity, it's important to know that, that our approach to productivity is doing more work with what we have is how do we stretch the capital that's already deployed in our assets.

So whilst there's a real opportunity in the high gold price. I think it's required for us to remain focused on keeping costs under control and to do more with the deployed capital that we have in our assets already.

Lots of focus on costs in that answer. So that leads into a question on cost reduction. There was a media story last month discussing a cost reduction push in the company. Should we look at that as part of the cost and productivity initiative you announced in February? And can you update us on progress on that?

Yes. So as we brought these 2 companies together and integrated the assets, it was a real opportunity for us to stand back and also look at the work that is required to deliver the productivity that I've touched on earlier.

We took a step back, making sure that the work is clear. We've looked at the structure in the organization both from a cost base point of view and how we are structured in our operational organizational structures.

And we have stopped work and we have reshaped the organizational structure to be fit for purpose for the 11 assets, the operational assets that we have today.

The cost reduction focus is in a couple of areas for us. The first area is cost control and discipline. The second area is making sure that we're appropriately structured and we only do the work that we need to do and that we only have the people and the structures that is required for us to run these assets really, really well.

The first aspect of that is productivity is how do we do more with what we have. And then the last one is we've got 4 projects in execution at the moment. It's making sure that how we execute on these projects, we keep within the time lines, we keep within the budgets and we bring those ounces to market in a time that the market is looking for additional ounces to get benefit from the margins that we're seeing in a high gold price environment, brings lower cost ounces to the portfolio as well.

So 4 main focus areas for us as we do this work. This work is well underway, and we are firmly positioned to complete this work before the end of the year. And we'll be able to integrate that into our business plan for 2026, and we'll be able to talk to the market more in more detail about it at the beginning of next year.

Okay. Great. I look forward to that update. Next question, just on free cash flow. Company is generating record free cash flow, recently doubled the approved share repurchase program to $6 billion. How does the company prioritize return of capital versus further debt reduction or organic growth?

Yes. I think we have -- as we made the change with the Newcrest assets coming on board, the integration, we've also relooked our capital allocation quite -- with quite a bit of discipline. And we have these 3 main components if we think about capital allocation and how we want to deploy the additional cash across the business.

The first element of this is how do we maintain an investment-grade balance sheet. We have made material progress in the process of strengthening our balance sheet. We've just recently completed an additional $2 billion debt tender. And we have well and truly brought our debt into where we want to be now currently lower than $5.5 billion.

With the balance sheet now that we have good confidence in the strength of our balance sheet, it gives us an opportunity on focusing on the other 2 areas. And the first one is how do we invest in high-return projects in making sure that these projects fit our company profile, both from a returns point of view and also from a risk and a jurisdiction point of view.

Our current focus, and we'll have an opportunity to talk about the 4 projects underway, is to complete these projects and continue to invest in these high-return projects.

And then the last one is returning cash to -- and benefit to our shareholders. And again, there's 3 ways that we think about returning benefit to our shareholders. The first one is in our dividend. We have been consistent in our dividend of $1 per share or approximately $1.1 billion a year that we are returning to our shareholders.

The next one is the share buyback program that you've touched on just now, and we do -- we're halfway through a $6 billion approved share buyback process. Up to the end of Q2, we've bought back in the order of $2.7 billion of shares, and we'll continue with that program as we go forward. So all in all, I think important for us to remain disciplined and to work on expanding our margins and not to get too excited about only high gold price, but making sure that we keep what we can in our control, expand those margins and return the benefits to shareholders. And with the share buyback, an additional benefit of what our earnings per share would look like.

I'm interested in your thoughts on the company asset portfolio. You've been with the company for over 2 years. Do you feel that the assets you have now are the right size for Newmont? How difficult is it to run 11 managed operations plus you've got all these interactions with JV partners?

Yes. I'll probably talk to it in 2 areas. I'll talk to it about the operations, and I do want to touch on our projects. Over the last 2 years, I joined Newmont just as we started the integration of Newcrest. And with the integration, divestments done, we have stabilized the business and our focus now is on optimization.

We've done a detailed piece of work on every one of our 11 assets. And without a doubt, these assets are Tier 1 multigenerational assets with huge endowment and long-term potential. All of them are assets in jurisdictions that we do know and understand really well, and we've been operating in many of these jurisdictions for decades within Newmont.

We've used this opportunity not only looking to look at what the long-term potential of every asset is, but we stepped it back all the way into what our operational performance is today and setting out to be the best operators of these assets. We have done a material amount of work on productivity. And with the scale that we have in every operation, we have been disciplined in just the basic mining principles of setting up our operations well, getting the sequencing of mining right and leveraging the benefit of scale of the individual assets.

If I then jump to what we're doing on projects, we've got 4 major projects in execution and near completion. So not only do we have these projects that's in execution and will bring ounces to the market really soon, we also have a pipeline of projects that in that next phase of either completion of feasibility or going into -- or being in studies. 4 projects.

The first project is Ahafo North, again, Ghana is a jurisdiction that's very well known to us. Our Ahafo project is we've completed commissioning 100% over the last couple of weeks. We're working our way to commercial production, and we're looking forward to having our first gold bore here in the next -- in the coming weeks.

If I go to our next biggest project is the 2 cave developments that we are doing at our Cadia project. The first cave development, and we call it PC2-3 is now handed over to our operational team. There's a couple of drawbells that we still need to establish. But by and large, that cave is now in production, and we're starting to ramp that cave up.

The third project and the second project at Cadia and shortly just behind that is PC1-2. And that development of that cave and the development of underground infrastructure is well underway. Both of these caves -- well, PC1-2-3 will be fully ramped up before the end of decade, PC1-2 well into ramp-up by the end of the decade.

The last project is our T2 project, is our Tanami Expansion 2. And that shaft is progressing really well, and we are tracking to deliver the shaft to the operations by the first half of 2027. So where does that leave us if we think about near-term ounces and our operations. It leaves us with 11 and soon a new asset, a new operation, Ahafo North, around it 12 operations.

We have done the work to know exactly how we're going to improve productivity, and we've seen that improvement coming through. And we've seen that in cost that's already flowing through into our performance with a focus on expanding that margins. We are bringing on that near-term ounces.

And the next step for us is to look at a near-term project, Red Chris Canada, we've heard about the recent focus that the Canadian government have on big infrastructure projects, our Red Chris project feasibility near completion, permitting work that we are doing with the Tahltan Nation. It is the first time that, that has been done with permitting by First Nation as a first step before federal government look at this project. And that is progressing well, and we are envisaging having permits and ready to deliver a feasibility study to our Board, [ half 1 ] in the new year.

This, again, is a project in a jurisdiction that we are familiar with. It is a caving technology that we have the skills for, and we have developed caves in Newmont over many years. And it is a very exciting project that we will be bringing online.

Great. Any questions from the audience? And maybe I'll ask one about copper. You've got the Red Chris, which has a copper component, Cadia as well. How do you think about Newmont's copper exposure? And is there -- what are the opportunities you have in the portfolio?

Matt, all of our future projects have copper in the portfolio. So it is an organic way for us to expand our exposure into the copper market. It's still fairly small if we think about all of our projects, the gold contribution and specifically at the gold prices we're seeing today, the gold contribution remains material.

The copper production is organic by its nature and gives us a good organic diversification in the business. It is not something that we will select projects on. Our focus is on projects that is in the right jurisdiction, fit our risk profile and making sure that we deliver the right level of returns.

Great. Well, congratulations, by the way, on yesterday's announcement of the sale of the Coffee project and a great divestment program, and we'll look forward to seeing how results come in, in the second half.

Thank you, Matt. And that officially concludes the divestment that we committed to do is the last divestment that we've done in Coffee, and I think well done to the team that's led that work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, and welcome to Newmont's Second Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Chief Executive Officer, Tom Palmer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining our call. Today, I'm joined by Natascha Viljoen, our President and Chief Operating Officer; Peter Wexler, our Chief Legal Officer; and as recently announced, our Interim Chief Financial Officer, along with the rest of my executive leadership team and we will all be available to answer your questions at the end of the call. Please note our cautionary statement and refer to our SEC filings, which can be found on our website.

As we reported yesterday, on Tuesday this week, two fall of ground incidents occurred at our Red Chris operation in British Columbia, locking the access way to the underground work area of our nonproducing project at these sites. At the time of the initial incident, we had 3 business partner employees working underground, more than 500 meters beyond the affected zone. We asked them to relocate to a designated refuge chamber and confirmed that they have safely arrived in the chamber before the second fall of ground blocked the access way.

This second fall of ground also impacted our underground communication system. All appropriate emergency response protocols were immediately activated and operations at Red Chris have been suspended whilst we're responding to the incident. Along with the support from emergency responders and teams from nearby mine sites, our focus is on restoring communications to the refuge chamber, safely reestablishing access underground and bringing our 3 teammates back to the surface and to their families and friends.

We are diligently responding to this incident with excellent support from the broader industry and appreciate your understanding during this very live and evolving situation.

Although overshadowed by this incident at Red Chris, Newmont delivered another strong operational performance in the second quarter, keeping us firmly on track to achieve our 2025 guidance. Underscoring this performance are our 3 key priorities for this year, which remain clear and unchanged. First and most importantly, to strengthen our safety culture; second, to stabilize our 11 managed operations; and third, to execute on capital returns. As I just described, we are concentrating the full force of our organization on the safe recovery of our team members at Red Chris, and we will conduct a thorough and independent investigation into the factors that led to this event. All findings and lessons learned will be leveraged across Newmont to strengthen our Always Safe program and will be shared across the broader mining industry.

You can also expect that we will continue to provide regular updates as those efforts progress. Turning to our ongoing work to stabilize our operations. Our portfolio of world-class gold and copper assets delivered another solid quarter. We produced 1.5 million ounces of gold and 36,000 tonnes of copper, remaining in line with our full year guidance and the indications we provided on our last call. This strong production supported robust financial results, including $2.4 billion of cash flow from operations after working capital, and an all-time record for quarterly free cash flow of $1.7 billion, of which more than $1.5 billion or 90% was generated by our core managed operations.

Our shareholders continue to benefit from our noncore asset divestment program that we successfully completed earlier this year. As we announced last week, we expect to receive approximately $470 million in cash proceeds after taxes and commissions from the sale of our shares in Greatland Gold and Discovery Silver, shares that we received as consideration for the divestments of Telfer and Porcupine, respectively. As a consequence, we now expect to generate $3 billion in after-tax cash proceeds this year from our divestment program. And these proceeds will be used to support our third key priority, returning capital to shareholders.

Since our last earnings call, we have retired $372 million of debt and returned over $1 billion to shareholders through both regular dividends and share repurchases. And in addition to making meaningful progress on our existing program, our Board has approved an additional $3 billion share repurchase program, doubling our total authorization to $6 billion, of which $2.8 billion has been executed to date.

With our strong second quarter results and continued operational and financial momentum, we remain firmly on track to meet our 2025 guidance, whilst also generating industry-leading free cash flow and consistently returning capital to shareholders through a predictable dividend and ongoing share repurchases. With that, I'll now turn it to Natascha for an update on our operations.

Thank you, Tom, and hello, everyone. Before we jump into the details, I'd like to echo Tom's statements about our team members at Red Chris. Above all else, we are focused on bringing them home safely, and we are leveraging the strength and extensive experience of our global technical, operational and safety teams with the support of our industry partners. Shifting now to our operational performance. This quarter underscores the resilience of our world-class portfolio, which has been thoughtfully assembled around high-quality, long-life assets. With this robust foundation in place, we are exceptionally well positioned to organically deliver multi-decade value through our high-caliber operations, robust pipeline of projects and deep bench of technical and operational leaders.

Our second quarter operational results outperformed our previous expectations, effectively bookending the first half of the year and establishing a solid foundation for consistent delivery in the second half. This compelling performance was largely driven by production from our core managed operations, including higher-than-expected production from Cadia in the first half of the year due to higher grade ore from the current panel cave. And in addition, we have been able to noticeably reduce downtime related to planned maintenance.

As previously mentioned, we expect production to decrease in the second half of the year as we continue to transition to our new panel cave, PC2-3. Peñasquito exceeded our gold production expectations in the first half of the year due to higher grade ore from the Peñasco pit. However, production is expected to shift from a higher proportion of gold to a higher proportion of silver, lead and zinc content, primarily in the fourth quarter as we move to lower gold grade areas in the Peñasco pit as part of a planned sequence in this large polymetallic mine. And at Lihir, we delivered consistent production in the first half of the year. However, this will begin to decline in the second half of the year as we begin processing lower-grade material as part of our planned mine sequence.

What really stands out at Lihir is the steady progress we're making in bringing stability to both the mine and processing plant. For example, we are beginning to see the benefits from improved drainage and water management around our haul roads, along with cleaner access to both pit and stockpiles, creating a safer and more efficient design for this mine. As a result, we've been able to park 9 trucks and materially reduce the contractor footprint, generating significant cost savings from these initiatives alone.

For the last 2 years, we have been on a journey of integration, rationalization and optimization with a view to creating value over a period of decades. With the rationalization phase largely complete, we have been applying the full force of our operating and technical capability to systematically optimize operations across all 11 of our managed operations. And as reflected in our results, these stabilization efforts are delivering tangible benefits, positioning us to confidently continue our optimization work.

With a deep understanding of each and every asset, we are working on productivity enhancements and improvements to the cost structure across our managed operations, ensuring each site meets the performance metrics required to earn its place in our world-class portfolio. You saw an example of this at the beginning of the year when we paused our investment in the underground expansion activities at Cerro Negro and again, more recently, with the cost improvement measures we are working on at Merian.

Building on the strong production performance from our core managed operations in the first half of the year, we remain firmly on track to meet the full year guidance ranges we issued in February. Turning now to our cost performance. We remain on track and are continuing to focus on driving improvements across our portfolio. As mentioned, sharpening our efforts on cost discipline and productivity enhancements has been a primary focus for all of us at Newmont. And as a result, our cost applicable to sales and our all-in sustaining costs are in line with the guidance expectations set at the beginning of the year.

Finally, our capital spend for 2025 is on track to land within the guidance ranges we set at the beginning of the year. Starting with sustaining capital. We anticipate spending to be approximately 57% weighted towards the second half of the year, driven by deliberate decisions to defer expenditures for key activities across several sites, including planned spending at Tanami associated with our expansion of our ventilation system in the second half of the year, purposefully moving some of our ongoing optimization work at Lihir to the third and fourth quarters with a specific focus on asset integrity and reliability and a continued surface work at Red Chris and Brucejack during the warmest summer months in Canada.

Higher sustaining capital in the second half of the year will also include an expected increase at Cadia to support the ongoing panel cave development as well as addressing the historical underinvestment in tailings remediation and storage capacity, while we continue to evaluate more efficient tailing solutions at this world-class operation. Our development capital follows a similar guidance and is now expected to be 51% second half weighted, primarily due to the timing of spend related to the projects currently in execution.

At our Ahafo North project, we are progressing as planned and are preparing to pour first gold in the coming months, keeping us firmly on track to declare commercial production in the fourth quarter as previously indicated. In parallel, we successfully completed the 160-meter raise bore at the bottom of the shaft at our second expansion at Tanami and have removed the pentice or an [ inshaft ] barrier, which allows the safe and efficient completion of this critical path work. And finally, at Cadia, [indiscernible] from PC2-3 has continued according to plan while steadily advancing the underground development for PC1-2 and progressing the important tailings remediation and storage capacity works I mentioned previously. I now will turn it back to Tom to go through our financial results for the quarter.

Thanks, Natascha. I'd like to start this update by acknowledging the recent departure of Karyn Ovelmen, our Chief Financial Officer. Whilst the timing was unfortunate, we respect her decision and thank her for her contributions to Newmont over the last 2 years. We have commenced a comprehensive search for our next CFO. And while we do that work, we continue to have a very strong and experienced finance team in place, being capably led by Peter Wexler on an interim basis. Importantly, there are no changes to our financial policies or capital allocation strategy, and we remain on track to deliver on our 2025 commitments and continue returning capital to shareholders.

As I mentioned at the start of the call, Newmont reported strong financial results in the second quarter, driven by robust production, steady unit costs and a supportive gold price environment. Gold all-in sustaining costs for the quarter were slightly below our guidance for the full year at $1,593 an ounce on a co-product basis. This is largely due to lower sustaining capital spend in the first half of the year, which as Natascha just described, is expected to increase in the second half by comparison. As a result, all-in sustaining costs are expected to be higher in the third and fourth quarters, but overall in line with the indications we provided in February for the full year.

I also want to highlight that going forward, we plan to more prominently present our unit costs under both the co-product and by-product methodologies to better assist our investor base with industry benchmarking and comparisons to our peers. By providing our unit costs under both methods, we aim to offer our investors better insights into the individual contributions of the metals that we produce in addition to gold, whilst also providing a more comprehensive view of Newmont's overall margin performance.

To put this into perspective, on a by-product basis, our gold all-in sustaining costs for the second quarter were $1,375 an ounce, which is more than $200 an ounce lower than our unit costs under the co-product method. And from our core managed portfolio in the second quarter, our gold all-in sustaining costs were $1,276 an ounce on a by-product basis.

For the second quarter, Newmont generated $3 billion in adjusted EBITDA and reported an adjusted net income of $1.43 per share. The most material adjustments to net income for the quarter include $0.63 related to a gain from the sale of [ Akyem ] and Porcupine as part of our noncore asset divestment program, $0.14 related to mark-to-market gains on equity investments, primarily from the gain on the sale of shares received as proceeds for the sale of our Telfer operation and interest in the Havieron project to Greatland Gold, and $0.31 in offsetting taxes primarily related to these adjustments. But most notably, Newmont generated $2.4 billion of cash flow from operations and $1.7 billion of free cash flow, well above the first quarter and setting a new record quarterly cash flow performance.

Our operating cash flow in the second quarter benefited from $156 million of favorable working capital adjustments, primarily driven by sales timing and higher revenue and pretax income associated with strong metal prices. We are encouraged by the strength of our cash flow performance in the first half, which underscores the quality and potential of the world-class portfolio we have assembled and continue to shape and optimize. With this in mind, we remain committed to our shareholder-focused capital allocation strategy, which remains unchanged and has 3 priorities: to maintain a strong balance sheet, to steadily fund cash-generative organic projects and to continue to return capital to shareholders.

Starting with our balance sheet. We finished the quarter and the first half of the year with $6.2 billion in cash, well above our target of $3 billion on average. It's worth noting that this cash balance includes $330 million of the approximately $470 million in cash proceeds, net of taxes and commissions from the sale of our equity shares in Greatland Gold and Discovery Silver. In addition, we continue to surpass our debt target of up to $8 billion and reached an outstanding principal balance of $7.4 billion as of June 30. And we are proactively assessing opportunities to further reduce our outstanding debt, creating a flexible and resilient balance sheet that is able to navigate the commodity cycle.

Turning to shareholder returns. We declared a fixed common second quarter dividend of $0.25 per share, consistent with the past 7 quarters. And since our last earnings call in late April, we repurchased $750 million of shares, bringing the total shares repurchased in 2025 to $1.5 billion. In total, since February last year, we have executed $2.8 billion in share repurchases. And as I mentioned earlier, our Board has approved an additional $3 billion share repurchase program. This brings our total authorization to $6 billion, demonstrating the confidence that we have in our business and our commitment to rewarding our shareholders with predictable dividends and ongoing share repurchases in 2025 and beyond.

In closing, we delivered a strong second quarter and first half of the year and remain on track to achieve our 2025 guidance and deliver on our commitments for the benefit of our shareholders. We achieved an all-time record quarterly free cash flow of $1.7 billion in the second quarter, and we continue to advance our disciplined capital allocation strategy, which includes strengthening our balance sheet through ongoing debt reductions and returning capital to shareholders through a predictable dividend and continued share repurchases, for which we have approved an additional $3 billion.

Looking ahead, we will lean into the full capability of our teams and portfolio to leverage the momentum from our core managed operations in the first half of the year and continue building a stable and resilient future for Newmont. In turn, we are well positioned to reward our shareholders through growing free cash flow per share and consistent capital returns. However, we recognize that none of this matters until we bring our 3 Red Chris teammates home safe and sound. And with that, I'll thank you for your time and turn it back over to the operator to open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from Lawson Winder from Bank of America.

Very nice quarterly result, and thank you for today's update. Can I ask about your capital allocation priorities as it pertains to acquisitions? Certainly, your valuation has improved, your results have improved and you're generating significant free cash flow. Is there an appetite for further acquisitions at Newmont? And then further to that, is copper still viewed as a strategic metal for Newmont as it pertains to acquisitions?

Thanks, Lawson, and good afternoon. I'll be as clear as I can. Our focus is internal. And the best use of our capital is to buy back Newmont stock. And that's where you'll see us spend our time and attention. So internal focus, buying back Newmont stock.

The question around copper, we have copper-producing assets in Red Chris, Boddington and Cadia. And we have a magnificent organic project pipeline. Next cab off the rank is the -- likely to be the Red Chris block cave, which is a copper-gold mine. And so you will see us focus on a balance of copper in our portfolio as a gold mining company, but that copper exposure will come from our organic growth.

Our next question today comes from Daniel Major from UBS.

The first one, perhaps on management changes and management succession. Obviously, I guess, Karyn's departure was somewhat unexpected. Certainly, there's been some discussion in the market around Natascha's appointment of President, whether that's a precursor to any other management changes. I wonder if you can make any comments on this and whether Karyn's departure impacts any other potential thinking about succession.

I have a couple of comments. As I said in my prepared remarks, it's unfortunate, Karyn resigned, but I've literally got sitting around me our finance leadership team and a really capable and experienced group of people. So we won't miss a beat. And in Peter Wexler, we have a very capable interim Chief Financial Officer. So absolutely no concerns in terms of the strength and capability of our business. And I think we've got a real opportunity to think about the next CFO that we bring in for the next exciting chapter of Newmont. So that's part of a natural progression evolution in organizations. So very comfortable with where we sit with our existing team in the interim and actually pretty excited about the opportunity we have in terms of that recruitment process.

In terms of -- and I didn't pick it up in our prepared remarks, but I'll take your question to have the opportunity to congratulate Natascha on the promotion to President and Chief Operating Officer, which we announced back in early May. Natascha has been with us almost 2 years now and has consistently demonstrated strong leadership and a deep commitment to safe and disciplined operational delivery. And the expanded role is the opportunity to give Natascha a balance of both strategic and operational focus and also an opportunity for her energy and passion and resolve to be -- continue to be critical attributes as we work to improve safety, cost and productivity over time.

Her move to President is part of ongoing leadership development. It's something that Newmont has done for generations, something that Newmont has done incredibly well. And I wouldn't read anything more into it other than a natural process of Newmont doing what Newmont has done very well for many years. And I'm sitting in this room looking around a number of people who have benefited from Newmont having a focus on leadership development, and I'm also a beneficiary of that. So hopefully, Daniel, that gives you some color in terms of both the finance team and also Natascha [indiscernible].

Great. That's some great color. And then the second question, just of cash flow outlook. You benefited from some working capital items during this period, I think payables, receivables. Any color on kind of any reversal and how that might impact free cash flow in 2H?

And then the second part of the question, could you just remind us on how much of deferred proceeds from the divestments you have remaining and when they will expect to be coming?

Yes. Thanks, Daniel. What you'll see with the free cash flow generation in the second half of the year is it's going to be pretty steady production coming through. So for instance, third quarter is going to look pretty similar to the second quarter. As [indiscernible], we'll see a step up in our sustaining capital in terms of that first half to second half weighting pushing up to around 50% weighted in the second half. So obviously, that will come off our free cash flow. The other one to look at is our reclamation. And if you see first quarter to second quarter, that stepped up, and that's about us building the momentum around the construction of the 2 big water treatment plants down at Yanacocha. So you'll continue to see an increase in that spend. I think it's around $600 million or thereabouts we want to spend this year on that. So that will step up to a steady state rate. So you'll see a bit more sustaining capital, steady production and some of that reclamation spend will be factors in second half free cash flow.

And of course, the other area to keep in mind is we're enjoying current gold price levels, and we'll start to see some tax payments from those higher gold prices, taxes and royalties start to flow through.

In terms of the -- some of the equity positions, we're able to -- basically, we're out of Discovery Silver. So there's nothing left there. So those sales over the last couple of months, I mean that [ Tony and team ] can charge on and deliver from Porcupine. We've still got some shares in Greatland Gold that are part of that transaction. I think -- and a deferred -- we've got deferred cash payments from both Discovery, and we've got some deferred contingent payments. I think we announced at Discovery, the deferred cash payments are around $150 million, and they're payable in equal tranches over a 4-year period starting at the very end of 2027. And then in Greatland Gold, we've got some deferred contingent payments in the order of about $100 million. And we've got about 9.9% left in Greatland Gold, and there's some covenants around when we can dispose of that.

We've quite a position in Orla still that came with the Musselwhite sale, free and clear of Éléonore in terms of Dhilmar, free and clear of Akyem with Zijin. I think, Daniel, that probably gives you the -- some of the key items in terms of that divestment program.

The next question today comes from Fahad Tariq from Jefferies.

I want to focus a little bit on Cadia and Peñasquito, which were clearly very strong in the second quarter on high grades. Can you maybe walk through production, why production is expected to decline specifically in the third quarter for these 2 mines? I know there's a bit of a transition, but I'm just -- I think you'd have to see a pretty significant grade drop off in the third quarter to see production come up. So I'm just trying to get more color on how to think about grades into the third quarter and just production at these 2 mines in the third quarter.

Thanks, Fahad. Your line was a little crackly. So for those that might not have heard, just looking for some color in terms of the balance between first half and second half for Cadia and Peñasquito. And I'll ask Natascha maybe to talk about those operations and how we see that [ production grade ].

Thanks, Tom. And thanks for that question, Fahad. And obviously, both of these operations are key to our portfolio. If I can start with Peñasquito, we -- this year, we're seeing the benefits of the work and the investment we've done in that open pit and pushbacks that we've done during last year. We've moved into of the Phase 7 of the Peñasco pit, largely moved out of Chile Colorado. Peñasco pit, variable ore body, specifically variable as far as the different metals are concerned. And it's just the natural progression as we mine and follow our mine sequence through the Peñasco pit that we do see different grades coming through. So we will see lower grades in -- of gold in the third quarter, and we will see higher grades of silver, lead and zinc coming through. So typical indications about 2% higher silver and about 1.5% higher zinc, and we'll see a reduction in -- an associated reduction in our gold grades.

As far as Cadia is concerned, Cadia, of course, one of the newer operations in our portfolio. We have done quite a bit of work to understand this operation and all of the requirements to run it on the -- as a quality asset as we should. As we see the first 2 block caves, PC1 and PC2 come to the end. We do see some model benefits from PC2, where the model has been predicting lower grades through PC2 as we come to the end of its life, but we do see the grades still hold strong as we complete the mining of PC2. And then, of course, we will slowly, but surely, we're starting to ramp up PC2-3, and we will see that going through an original lower grade and then ramping up steadily into full production and higher grades. And it's doing exactly as we expected -- it's that -- as we expected it to.

The next question today comes from Matthew Murphy from BMO Capital Markets.

Great quarter, and we wish you great success in this rescue operation. I wanted to ask a question about Lihir. It seems to be doing really well. And Natascha, you talked about some of the improvements being realized, and that's even before you've spent much CapEx on it. So as the spend picks up in the back half, how does that set it up for 2026?

Matthew, a really great question, and it is another one of our big operations that we feel quite excited about. And I think you might remember that for a period of time, we've been talking about how we build stability in that operation. It gave us the opportunity to relook the mine design, some of the basics like road design, specifically around water management on the various roads. What that has resulted in is far higher productivities for us in mine because we can manage water better off our haul roads. We get -- our fleet can run faster. And we've been able to park a number of trucks, as I said in our remarks, 9 trucks in the process.

We've built on that by creating a buffer between the mine and the plant with intermediate stockpiles, which gives us both the opportunity to ensure a stable feed into the plant, disconnect the mine from the plant and get more stable grades through the plant as well. The team has made material progress in how we think about the asset management of that asset, specifically starting with our big shutdowns, ensuring and being very considered around our big plant shutdowns. You might remember at the end of last year, we had basically 2 -- our biggest autoclave and another autoclave down for maintenance. And with the skills that the team has been developing focus on big shutdowns, we have seen that shutdown coming ahead of time.

We continue to build on that maturity in really creating stability in the plant, not only through more stable feed from the mine, but just higher levels of reliability. I have to recognize, though, that we still have a bit to do. The plant still needs quite a bit of work in terms of asset management and reliability. And we are continuing to build the capability, the planning and execution capacity that we have on site.

Maybe just a couple of builds, Matt, on Natascha's summary. We're very much about, as we've talked about over the course of a number of these calls, a big mine like Lihir, setting it up for the long term. So what Natascha is describing is the actions we're taking for an asset that's been a big asset in our portfolio. So it's been the elephant in the portfolio. It now sits with a number of other peers in the Newmont portfolio, and we're making deliberate decisions to set this mine up for the long term. It's what that ore body and that installed infrastructure and the people at Lihir are looking for from us. And we also have at Lihir, one of our strongest general managers in, Dawid Pretorius, a man I've known for a better part of 25 years and a really, really strong general manager. Big complex mine like this is well suited to his set of capabilities.

And a very skilled people leader as well, which is something that, that operation thrives under.

Our next question today comes from Josh Wolfson from RBC Capital Markets.

Great job on the cost containment for total cash cost year-to-date. I'm wondering if you can provide any more details on some of the trends you're seeing in your underlying cost structure, I guess, including inflation rates and if there's anything notable regionally as well?

Yes. Thanks, Josh. Largely, what we're seeing play out is consistent with expectations that we set as we build our business plan and guided at the beginning of the year. Some swings and roundabouts with fuel, energy, materials and consumables, but not significant. So we're largely -- the cost we expected to see, we're seeing this year. And labor is pretty much holding as we'd expect, both contracted services and our own employees. So what we expected is certainly playing out this year and the assumptions we made about inflationary impacts in all of those different categories is consistent with what we assumed even in the elevated gold price environment.

Clearly, we're seeing the higher taxes and royalties associated with that. In Natascha's comments, she talked about stabilizing this portfolio and then looking to optimize the portfolio. And we are very much focused on where we can get after productivity improvements and also enhancements to our cost structure. So we're absolutely not sitting on our laurels saying, "Oh, we're meeting expectations for what we assume for this year." We recognize that this portfolio, which is still relatively new in terms of how we've shaped it, both the acquisitions, the integrations, the rationalization, and we are very much focused on productivity levels from every operation that meets our expectations and industry benchmarks and ensuring that's being supported by the appropriate cost structure.

So we continue to actively work that even though our costs are meeting the levels that we expected this year as we built our plan and guidance.

Got it. And as you sort of navigate stabilizing the operations, when we think about 2026 and what we should expect at that point, has there been any thought towards which of the larger project updates we could expect and whether the outlook will be beyond just a 12-month basis?

It's just probably a couple of thoughts in terms of answering that question, very much sitting at the halfway mark focused on ensuring we safely deliver second half of this year, such a critical year given the challenge we've been through. So I want to make sure that our eyes are firmly on that task. And in that as we move into -- we've started the process now building our business plan for next year, and that's work that's very active at the moment. Our expectations would be that in February of next year, we'd do something similar to this year and we'll be focusing on giving the market a set of numbers for the 2026 year. But we're -- at the moment, the sleeves are rolled up, and we're head down, tail up getting after what we can do to deliver '26 business plan. So very much work in progress.

On the project side of things, really important that we deliver -- safe to deliver first gold and commercial production out of Ahafo North, continue to progress the Tanami expansion and continue to progress the two panel case at Cadia. But we are actively working our project pipeline. And I think, as I've mentioned on previous calls, Red Chris is a project that's close to shovel-ready, and we're ensuring that we have a feasibility study to a Newmont standard that, that project washes its face and that we have the various consent and permits to be able to progress with that project. So very much focused on that project and whether that could come up to the mark to be considered for full funds in the 2026 time frame.

Our next question today comes from Daniel Morgan from Barrenjoey.

How should we read production guidance? Basically, I think you beat your own plans by circa 100,000 ounces this quarter. Just trying to clarify, was that unexpected bonus versus the plan? Was it a bring forward of stuff in the second half to first half? Or how do you -- why not lift guidance somewhat? Is it pitch conservatively? Or have you just brought forward ounces from half 2?

Yes. Thanks, Daniel. If you think about -- I think, as Natascha answered the earlier question, you've certainly got a couple of big assets in Cadia and Peñasquito. Cadia moving into some lower grades out of those panel caves is what our expectations are. And we have the benefit of some positive reconciliations in the first half that's flowing through. So we will still remain sober in terms of what the model is telling us for Cadia out of those cases in the second half. Peñasquito is running beautifully. And so we were able to get some good production through and through some of that material and benefited from some higher metal production in the first half, but we do move into those lower grades in the second half.

We look to the second half, we've got Nevada Gold Mines is a pretty important contributor in the second half, fourth quarter weighted. So again, we've -- it's a not insignificant part of our Newmont portfolio. And so we want to make sure we're cautious around ensuring that we can see that line of sight in the second half. And we got Yanacocha, we'll get some expecting -- we'll have a stronger second half in terms of the injection leaching work we've got happening on the heap leaches there. And we've got Ahafo North commission. Commissioning a new project has some risk associated with it. So again, being prudent in terms of how we think about the second half. So that's a little bit of color, hopefully, Daniel. And when I think about where we sit with our production, yes, we've had a good solid first half. We provided a number, which had a range around it. I think we're still sitting comfortably within that range. And so we're firmly on track to meet our guidance.

And just a follow-up question, possibly one more for Natascha, which I guess is two parts, it's projects. So first, it's -- can you please just expand on the Tanami shaft works? Is the risk of overbreak now behind us? Is that concrete line? Maybe go into a bit more detail? And then just on Ahafo, can you expand on the works remaining to first production and any risks that are front of mind?

Thank you, Daniel. Let me start with Tanami Expansion 2. The risk of the overbreak on the lower part of the shaft is truly behind us. We have completed the raise bore through the concrete [indiscernible] that we've bought over -- at the beginning -- well, end of last year into the beginning of this year. The pentice has been removed. So we now have clear access to the entire shaft. And we started with -- we're still putting a lining in at the bottom half or the bottom end of that shaft to make sure that there's alignment with the top half and that there's smooth access to the bottom.

The equipping of the top half is progressing well. And as soon as we complete the lining in the bottom half or the last bit of the shaft, we will complete that equipping as well.

Underground operations are going to schedule. So I think everything there, the highest risk elements are behind us. And now it is the focus on completing the remaining work under the leadership of also a very strong Project Director, General Manager, Leigh Cox and that team is going from strength to strength.

Ahafo North is making good progress. We are getting ready for commissioning. We have indeed started commissioning in certain areas of the plant. As you would remember, we have started mining. We're stockpiling material to get ready for the commissioning of the plant. So we're very well on track. It's a little bit of a small ball pipe being left, a little bit of electrical work still left. But by and large, the large construction work basically is complete. And we're very excited to go and see the first gold pour.

Our next question comes from Anita Soni from CIBC.

I just wanted to ask a little bit more about Red Chris. On Red Chris, could you just let me know -- I think you had mentioned that there was an initial fall of ground. And then the -- and the workers were asked to go to a refuge station. That fall of ground, did that happen in the decline?

Yes, the decline, about 200 meters down the decline. There was an initial fall of ground that was detected. And so the emergency response protocols kicked in place. We only had those 3 people in that area. So it's not an operating mine. It's some developer being done as part of preparing hopefully for the Red Chris project in the coming period of time. So these 3 folks, when that event occurred, call went out, please make your way to refuge chamber, which they did. They got themselves into the refuge chamber, radioed in that they were safely there. And then shortly after that, in that same area, in the decline, we had the larger fall of ground that blocked the access play and took out the leaky feeder cable, which has taken out our communication to the refuge chamber. So as I talked about then in my prepared remarks, our focus is on reestablishing communication back to the refuge chamber to confirm that all are safe and well, whilst we work on various plans for getting access to rescue them. So we're working on plans to get access down through that decline again to do so safely.

We're also -- we also have a secondary area to access, which would be through a vent shaft. So we're considering different methodologies to do that. So a whole bunch of people, both at Red Chris, the wider Newmont, and it is amazing the wider industry -- how the wider industry comes together to support with solutions and equipment and plans. So these are the 2 things that are happening in parallel, getting communication reestablished and determining the safest and most effective rescue plan for the 3 people.

Okay. I hope they're safe and well and you get them out quickly. My second question is with respect to some of the changes that you -- the capital spending. I just want to get an understanding why the capital spending was shifted. I think you said it was deliberately, but in terms of -- I think Natascha said that there was some in order to maintain integrity of the mine at Lihir. Could you just elaborate on those comments?

Anita, I think as I [indiscernible] probably a little bit earlier on the work that we are doing at Lihir around our asset integrity work in the plant. And there's also a big power plant that we are maintaining. We have been -- as we plan and make sure that when we take large shutdowns that we do effective work and that we spend our capital effectively. As whilst we're talking about capital allocation, I think, hand in hand with that is capital discipline and being sure that when we start to spend the capital that we're ready to spend it effectively. So we did make a deliberate decision on spending that a little bit later in the year.

Other areas would have been our [ vent raise 9 ] at Tanami. That is work that has also developed through the productivity work that we have been doing, identifying a need for us to enhance some of our ventilation work to enhance some of our productivity and development work at Tanami. And that's why that work will actively be happening in the second half.

And then lastly, just the summer period of works with Brucejack and Red Chris. And it just happened that the spend moved a little bit more into the second half than what was planned originally.

Our next question comes from Tanya Jakusconek from Scotiabank.

And again, I just hope that the miners get out safely as well. Just a couple of questions, if I [ could ]. The first one is just coming back to your portfolio. I think Tom, this is for you. You mentioned Greatland Gold, you still have some position there. I think you mentioned they're noncore. So those ones could be divested of -- you mentioned Orla, you have an equity investment in that as well. Is that noncore position as well?

I think the simplest answer to both of those, Tanya, I think as we think about the Newmont portfolio and how we want to focus our time and effort and manage this portfolio and simplify this portfolio as much as we can, both those positions you described, will I put in the noncore category.

Okay. And I just wanted to check where your Lundin Gold position also stands in terms of that position because that's also a big position.

Very comfortable with our 32% interest in Lundin Gold and the Fruta del Norte asset. And I think it's something -- we've only had a minute with all the other work we're doing. So Ron Hochstein and crew are doing a terrific job running that asset. And there's a bunch of stuff we can learn from a great operator like Ron. So we want to understand and learn from that asset, but very comfortable with that position in our portfolio.

Okay. And sorry, lastly, I just want to ask is this Wafi-Golpu. Have you had a chance to look at that? Is that fit at all?

Wafi-Golpu is certainly, we see that as an important asset, important project in our organic project pipeline. It's something that we're actively working on in terms of negotiations with the PNG government on converting a framework memorandum of understanding to a mineral development contract, which then enables you to get a special mining lease. Working very closely with the team at Harmony as we navigate through that. So very much looking at Wafi-Golpu as an important project in our organic project pipeline. And these negotiations are important in getting some clear stability around any investment decisions that may come down the track with a project such as Wafi-Golpu.

Okay. Natascha, if I could ask one for you. I mean I look at the portfolio and congrats on getting this portfolio stabilized. That's great to see. As you think about your core portfolio, where do you see -- and you talk about all these productivity improvements, where do you see the greatest bang for your buck in terms of productivity? Like what assets do you think that we could see really improvements in productivity that would actually show really good cost?

Tanya, it's going to be difficult to choose that one because I think the opportunities are different at every asset, but there are certainly opportunities for us across the board. I can perhaps tie to bookends as examples. The one bookend would be absolutely at Lihir, one of our big assets, plenty of opportunity that will help us to make big step changes, long-term asset and continuously thinking about -- and it's got several different aspects to how we improve that. There's material, people aspects that we're focusing on asset management focus areas, mine layout and design for productivity all the way into our tailings management. So really a diverse set of opportunities for us at Lihir.

And then obviously, I think at Lihir also a very unique opportunity for us to make an impact on the community of that Lihir Island.

On the other bookend, probably, I will reflect on Cerro Negro, which has got a beautiful ore body. And our biggest challenge is productivity. We have assets that's in good state. We don't have major challenges with reliability of our assets. And we are working closely with our employees, with our unions on site to -- with an unwavering focus on how do we lift the productivity on that asset. So more of a singular focus on how do we do more with the assets and the teams that we do have.

And then we have in between a couple of assets that either in as a full asset or in unique opportunity, and unique areas are certainly benchmark. Peñasquito is one such an asset. We've recently worked through asset reviews where we did a multidisciplinary deep dive through all of our assets. And Peñasquito in every aspect, there's quite a bit for us to take learnings and take that across all of the operations. And then very recent, we've had the same experience with Cadia on their asset management strategies, asset management processes specifically that we will leverage from and make sure that we use that across all of our other assets. So different for different assets and everyone unique opportunities.

Our final question today comes from Hugo Nicolaci from Goldman Sachs.

Congrats on the quarter and the first half. Just a couple of operational questions for me, if I can. Firstly, just on Nevada, the production improvements in the second quarter, looking promising, but the costs there obviously remaining high. How much of that is the ongoing production improvement works in fleet replacement versus just underlying cost pressures? And how confident do you remain in that full year cost guidance?

I think when you think about Nevada, a couple of those questions are firmly for the operator. So I don't think it's appropriate that we give that level of granularity. And we also haven't had our Board meeting for this quarter yet. So Natascha, Francois and I will all be in Nevada next week with the team there, and we'll have a Board meeting and visit a couple of the operations and start to unpack in a bit more detail, second quarter performance with the team and also discuss the views and approach for the second half of the year and how opportunities are gone after and risks managed. So if it's okay, Hugo, I think that's probably a question best asked of the operator when they report their results in a couple of weeks' time.

Fair enough, Tom. And then maybe on one that is yours -- at Boddington, it looks like the mill ran above nameplate capacity in the quarter for the first time in about 4 years. Are you able to talk us through the productivity improvements there and how sustainable you think that is going forward and sort of holding that nameplate capacity?

Very observant, Hugo, but I'll pass to Natascha to give her perspective on Boddington, maybe both mine and plant.

Yes. And I'll definitely do that. So Hugo, let's start with the mine. You would remember, just as we started to go through COVID, we rolled out an autonomous haul fleet at Boddington. And it has been a continuous learning journey for us on reestablishing and redesigning an existing mining operation to be appropriate for an autonomous hauling fleet.

The team has really done an amazing work with our technical team with -- under Francois' leadership, considering mine design, road widths, the road layouts to be far more appropriate for an autonomous haul fleet. We have certainly take learnings from others on how to improve productivity. And we have seen a 10% uplift in productivity through that -- with that autonomous haul fleet.

We see that at the moment, as we -- as you might remember, we are still in a pushback campaign, and we see the benefits of us lifting just -- the total materials movement has left materially year-on-year on the back of the productivity improvements we have not increased that fleet. So on the mining side, certainly, the team is doing a really good work.

On the plant side, it's all about asset management and reliability. It is closely related, though, to mining performance. It is closely related to fragmentation. So back to mining discipline, ensuring that the fragmentation from the mining side is appropriate for feed and then the work that the team has done on asset management and establishing that reliability levels that we need.

So in both instances, [ it is a ] working on making sure that the basis is strong so that we can continue to benefit from the work that we're doing.

Natascha, so if I can just pick on that a little bit. So should we expect that plant to continue to run close to nameplate? And if the mine is slower to get access to ore, then you'll draw down that, I think, 60 million tonne-plus of stockpile and continue to run close to that 10 million tonnes a quarter?

We continue to draw on the medium-term stockpiles. We're still very much in a phase of pushback, and we will still be there for the next at least 12 months. So our focus here is to getting the pushbacks complete and making sure that we can adhere to the rates that we need to get that pushback done in time.

This concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Tom Palmer for closing remarks.

Thank you, operator, and thank you, everyone, for taking the time to join our call today, and I appreciate your full range of questions. And please enjoy the rest of your day all or your evenings. Thanks, everyone.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.