Coeur Mining achieves record Q3 results with cash flow exceeding $2 million daily, boosting 2025 EBITDA and free cash flow outlook amid solid production growth.
In this transcript
Summary
- Coeur Mining reported a second consecutive quarter of record results, driven by higher realized prices and strong production levels, indicating a strong financial position with cash balance expected to exceed $500 million by year-end.
- Full-year EBITDA is projected to exceed $1 billion with free cash flow expected to top $550 million, reflecting higher-than-previous estimates.
- The acquisition of Las Chispas has been beneficial, contributing significantly to free cash flow, and the company is optimistic about its asset portfolio and positioning for future growth.
- Operational updates highlighted adjustments and improvements at various sites, including Rochester and Kensington, with ongoing efforts to enhance production efficiency.
- The company has narrowed production and cost guidance ranges, indicating slight adjustments in gold and silver production expectations.
- Management expressed confidence in achieving a record-breaking year in 2026, supported by solid operational and financial performance, as well as strategic M&A activities.
This transcript experience runs on Finvera’s Transcript API. Integrate it into your own workflow. View documentation →
Sam - Moderator - (00:00:00)
Sam Good day and welcome to The Core Mining Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference call. All participants will be in listen only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press Star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mitchell Krebs, President and CEO. Please go ahead.
Mitchell Krebs - President and CEO - (00:01:12)
Good morning everyone and thanks for joining our call today to discuss our third quarter results. Before I kick off, please note our cautionary language regarding forward looking statements and refer to our SEC filings that are on our website. The third quarter highlights on Slide 3 showcase our second consecutive quarter of record results driven by higher realized prices, strong production levels and solid cost management. As a result, our cash balance is growing rapidly and is expected to exceed $500 million at year end, placing us solidly in a net cash position heading into 2026. Based on recent price levels, we now expect our full year ebitda to exceed $1 billion and our full year free cash flow to top $550 million, both of which are higher than our prior estimates. Mick and Tom will provide some further operational and financial details in a few minutes, but a couple of other highlights I wanted to quickly mention. Our Las Chispas silver and gold operation in Sonora, Mexico had another consistent quarter of production during its second full quarter. Since the Silvercrest transaction closed back in February, its free cash flow increased by 34% to $66 million in the third quarter. In addition to their solid operational and financial results, we issued an exploration update last month that highlighted several high grade intercepts at Las Chispas. We couldn't be more pleased with the Silvercrest transaction and the addition of the Las Chispas operation and its team. It's a great example of well timed M and A that has allowed us to significantly up-tier our asset portfolio by adding low cost silver production and immediately bolster our balance sheet which has put the company in a terrific position as we look ahead to what should be an even stronger fourth quarter and a record breaking year in 2026. The share repurchase program. We managed to get nearly 10% of our initial $75 million program completed so far and we'll continue to evaluate our repurchase activities and overall capital allocation priorities with our board over the coming months. At Rochester, the team continued to make solid progress toward achieving steady State. We mentioned during our last call that we took extended downtime early in the third quarter to make some modifications to the crusher corridor which have proven to be successful. Mick will talk more about the progress there in a few minutes. Finally, you'll see we fine tuned our full year production guidance ranges and we also tweaked our cost guidance ranges. These narrower production guidance ranges resulted in a small increase to the midpoint of our full year gold production guidance and a slight decrease to the midpoint of our full year silver production guidance. The main drivers to these adjustments are Las Chispas, Palmarejo and Wharf being nicely ahead of plan, offset by some Rochester ounces being pushed into 2026 to reflect lower than planned crushed tons of so far this year. Before I turn it over to Mick, I just want to quickly thank the team. Our safety and environmental performance this year is among the best in our company's 98 year history and the operational and financial results speak for themselves. It's great to see these themes all coming together at the same time. The impact of our recent investments in expansions and exploration, the Silvercrest acquisition, and now these higher prices to generate these strong results for our shareholders from our balanced platform of North American assets. Mick, over to you.
Mick - (00:05:12)
Thanks Mitch. The third quarter was another solid step forward for Coeur marked by strong execution and operating discipline throughout the business. Consolidated Gold and Silver production coal continued a 2025 trend of positive sequential quarterly increases, delivering over 111,000 ounces of gold and 4.8 million ounces of silver. Adjusted cost per ounce for gold and silver also continued that positive Trend compared to Q3 2024 at $1,215 per ounce and $14.95 per ounce respectively. Looking in more detail at each of the operations, rock solid consistent production and cost performance with a balanced portfolio was the key takeaway in the quarter. Beginning with Las Chispas, the operation continues to perform exceptionally well with silver production increasing to 1.6 million ounces and gold production to 17,000 ounces generating $66 million of free cash flow. As Mitch mentioned earlier, the mine's outperformance to date and expectations for a strong finish to the year led us to increase the range of 2025 silver and gold production guidance. I'm also pleased to report that the full integration of Las Chispas is now complete. Kudos to the entire team for a job well and safely done. Turning to Palmarejo, the mine delivered $47 million of free cash flow during the quarter with strong recoveries and mill throughput that reached their highest levels in six quarters. The pace of exploration activity has also increased in the East District outside the Franco, Nevada Goldstream area of interest including drilling, mapping and site work in the highly prospective Camachin and Guazaparas trends which we believe will be key drivers in Palmarijo's next leg of growth. Palmarejo's strong performance year to date and expectations for a good finish to the year supported an uptick in their full year 2025 production guidance ranges and driven by continued strong cost management, a reduction in their full year 2025 CASS guidance ranges. Turning to Rochester, the priority in the third quarter remained on building consistency and momentum through the three stage crushing line which continues to drive steady sequential growth in production at a lower overall cost profile. Gold and silver production increased 3% and 13% respectively compared to the second quarter, driving a second successive quarter of free cash flow at $30 million. I'm pleased to report that the average particle size continues to trend downward for material passing through all three stages of crushing, from a P80 of around 0.92 inches in the second quarter to slightly better than budget levels of 0.84 inches in the third quarter and the related recoveries continue to track our PSD models just as we expected. As mentioned last quarter, the team took an extended down period in July to successfully implement several modifications after startup to further enhance the tremendous processing power and efficiency of the crushing train. We also managed through some premature belt wear challenges in the secondary reclaim feeder during the quarter with a few more minor modifications to address this in the fourth quarter. This downtime resulted in a slight decrease in tonnes crushed compared to the prior quarter. However, total tonnes placed on stage six in the third quarter increased over 9% to 8.3 million tonnes by utilising our available fleet and supplementing crushed tonnes with direct to Pad material. Revised 2025 production and cost guidance ranges at Rochester reflect the cumulative effects of this year to date downtime and the expected timing of ounces coming from stage six moving to Kensington. The positive impact of the recently completed multi year underground development programme continues to shine through in the form of a stronger, more consistent production profile. Gold production increased for the third consecutive quarter exceeding 27,000 ounces cost per ounce at Kensington has shown similar sequential improvement in 2025, reaching $1,659 in the quarter. These positive trends contributed to free cash flow of $31 million, Kensington's highest quarterly cash flow in over six years. In light of strong results to date, coupled with greater flexibility and productivity taking root throughout the mine. Kensington's 2025 production guidance has increased and its 2025 casks per ounce range has been narrowed downward. Finishing up at Wharf, the main achieved its third consecutive quarter of increased production and lower costs applicable to seals. Quarterly gold production increased by 16% to 28,000 ounces leading to free cash flow of an impressive $54 million. This great year to date performance led us to increase full year gold production guidance by 3,000 ounces at the same time moving CAS guidance down by $125 per gold ounce. As Mitch mentioned, the power of Kerr's balanced North American portfolio is fully enjoying this moment of record setting metals prices. With that, I'll pass the call over to Tom.
Tom - (00:11:08)
Thanks Mick. As Highlighted on Slide 8, our strong Q3 financial results demonstrate the power of our five asset portfolio which is delivering as expected. It was pretty exciting to see the surge in quarterly free cash flow and EBITDA margin during the quarter. Perhaps more exciting is the resulting dramatic improvement of the company's financial position in such a short period of time. Metal sales climbed 15% to $555 million during the quarter, driven primarily by a healthy increase in the number of ounces sold and further accentuated by the 15% higher silver price quarter over quarter. This strong top line revenue growth combined with overall solid cost control led to several new quarterly financial records for net income, adjusted EBITDA free cash flow and adjusted EBITDA margin. One neat metric to highlight is that Coeur free cash flow partly continued at a pace of roughly $2 million per day during Q3 and we expect this rate to increase with the expected higher Q4 realized prices. Turning to the balance sheet on Slide 11, our cash balance grew to $266 million. We took advantage of our improving financial position to early repay $10 million of higher cost capital leases as we aim to drive down our interest expense even further. We have now repaid over $228 million in debt during 2025, driving our net debt below $100 million. We closed the quarter with a net debt ratio of 0.1 times. We are prepared to declare victory on achieving our long term goal of net debt to EBITDA of nil during Q4 2025, which is nicely ahead of schedule. Included in our Q3 2025 earnings was a significant milestone around our $630 million of US net operating losses. As the students of accounting on this call will appreciate, we recorded these US net operating losses on the balance sheet during the third quarter this accounting requirement resulted in a one time $162 million non cash tax benefit for accounting purposes during the quarter, which is a reflection of the strong performance of the US Operations over the past three years. On a cumulative basis, we have enhanced our guidance and disclosure relating to tax matters to provide additional color on the go forward effective tax rate and on quarterly taxes paid. Speaking of guidance, we have fine tuned our 2025 production and cost guidance as is the normal cadence after the end of the third quarter. As Mitch referenced, the overall production changes are truly minor tweaks and speak to our overall predictability over the past three years. The Despite a stronger peso than we had budgeted and higher royalty obligations due to stronger gold and silver prices, we are particularly excited to lower our cost guidance at three of our five mines which reflects the efforts of our business improvement culture and signs that our 2025 inflation estimates were conservative. With that, I'll now pass the call back to Mitch.
Mitchell Krebs - President and CEO - (00:14:34)
Thanks Tom. Before moving to the Q and A, I I want to quickly highlight slide 13 that summarizes our top priorities for the remainder of the year. We've made tremendous progress this year by delivering on our strategy and pursuing opportunities to further improve the quality of the business. We expect this discipline and focus to result in a strong finish to the year and to position us exceptionally well for a record year in 2026. With that, let's go ahead and open it up for questions.
Operator - (00:15:08)
We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Mike Siberko with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Mike Siberko - Equity Analyst - (00:15:44)
Thanks operator, and good morning and thanks for taking my question team. Maybe starting possibly with Marnie, maybe starting with Mick on Rochester, or I assume it's Mick anyways, none of the guidance change and what you're seeing in the second half at the Crusher. Can you talk a bit more about what's needed to get the operation up to full capacity or steady state, let's say into 2026 from a throughput perspective.
Mitchell Krebs - President and CEO - (00:16:17)
Mick, you want to go ahead and take that?
Mick - (00:16:20)
Yeah, Mike, thanks for the question. Absolutely. You know, we telegraphed a little bit that we're going to do those extended shutdowns during July. We did that and we got Three really strong projects done. One on the, the primary, which was really to help us get more efficiently in and out of the primary, to maintain that asset.
UNKNOWN - (00:16:41)
Around a real system underneath the primary.
Mick - (00:16:44)
So that allows us to then run more consistently at the primary level. On the secondary, it was about some modifications that we did to split the two secondary systems up so that we can run one of the systems while maintaining the other one, which also impacts productivity improvements. And then the third key project that we did during the quarter was an auto sampler downstream around the tertiary system that allowed us to both drive uptime to get more tonnes through the pipe and to get better visibility of the size fraction online during dynamic operations. So all three of those projects have really driven the opportunity for more uptime for size control and productivity. At Rochester, that was done in the third quarter and we've seen some good signs that's getting some traction and we're looking forward to better results going forward.
Mitchell Krebs - President and CEO - (00:17:42)
And just, Mike, to piggyback on what Mick just highlighted.
UNKNOWN - (00:17:48)
To get to the. Point of what's needed to get up to capacity out there, I'd say the.
Mitchell Krebs - President and CEO - (00:17:54)
The unplanned downtime late in the third.
UNKNOWN - (00:17:56)
Quarter regarding that conveyor belt under the. Secondary crushed ore stockpile. That cropped up. Which caused us to lose a little.
Mitchell Krebs - President and CEO - (00:18:05)
Bit of momentum there on the back of completing those projects that Mick just highlighted. That'll get addressed here in November and that should. Those are always going to be something. I'm sure that pops up from time to time, but that's probably the one thing that we need to get behind us and then we'll hopefully have some clear Runway on the backside of that. Is that fair to say, Mick?
Mick - (00:18:29)
It's absolutely fair to say. You know, the trend is positive. We're seeing some better numbers as we go through this month and year to date. Now that we've got those projects behind. Us and we'll just continue to tweak. I'm really actually quite happy where we're at. It's not unusual that we do some of these modifications after startup. And in relative terms, compared to, you know, the industry average, it's been quite a quite a lean set of modifications, to be fair. So, so far so good. Does that help, Mike?
Mike Siberko - Equity Analyst - (00:19:02)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I guess just to follow up on that, that was going to be my next question. I mean, when you look at the issues that you have been addressing, either, you know, sort of planned or unplanned, would you say this is more normal course adjustment during a ramp up of an Operation this size or are you seeing more with respect to either the conveyors or the we the material you're running that maybe needs more of a step back and some readjustment, or is it both?
Mitchell Krebs - President and CEO - (00:19:36)
I'd say it's much more of the former, Mike. Things that when you run a large crusher train like this for a little while, something pops up, you fix it and then you move on. Mick.
Mick - (00:19:50)
Fair to say. Absolutely fair to say. They're not atypical conveyors, belts, adjustments to chutes, a little bit on striker bars around the secondary that will make adjustments on. That'll give a bit more longevity on. The belts and we should see the. Benefits of that going forward.
Mike Siberko - Equity Analyst - (00:20:09)
So then if I can ask, and maybe without getting into guidance specifics, the original 2025 guidance had called for about 20,000 ounces of gold and 2 million ounces of silver in Q3 and Q4. Is that still a quarterly run rate that you feel confident in can be reached next year?
Mitchell Krebs - President and CEO - (00:20:37)
Yeah, I'd say the step up from. 25 to 26 will be pretty material out there. Getting closer to that on a. On a full year basis that that annual kind of plus 30 million ton crushing rate, which is really where we need to be to achieve that kind of annual 7 to 8 million ounces of silver, 70,000 ounces of gold on an annual basis. So, you know, we expect to see some momentum in the fourth quarter heading in that direction and then, you know, sustain that more throughout 2026. And that's going to give us a nice incremental step up year over year out there.
Mike Siberko - Equity Analyst - (00:21:20)
Okay, great. Maybe one more for me and then I'll turn it over. Just some growth. Nice segue to M and A. Obviously Lachispas has worked pretty nicely for you over the last 12 months or so. You seem to be anyways well into cash harvest at this point. How are you thinking about other opportunities either producing or in development out there in the market? And maybe if you can address that in the context of how you're thinking about Silvertip in the longer term.
Mitchell Krebs - President and CEO - (00:21:56)
Yeah, yeah, sure. Thanks for the question. Look, we came into this year very internally focused on some clear priorities around closing and integrating Silvercrest, ramping up Rochester to steady state, paying down debt quickly, you know, and now here we are almost in November and you can say that we've either completed or are well on our way to checking the box on all of those. And we're always looking right at things that we could do to potentially, you know, make this a better business up to the quality of the company and the operations that we have, not that much of a focus on going back into the development stage game after having just come out of a period of pretty heavy investment at Rochester, at Kensington and exploration. Being in this free cash flow positive phase is somewhere where we'd like to remain.
UNKNOWN - (00:22:52)
For a while.
Mitchell Krebs - President and CEO - (00:22:54)
So any opportunities that we look at, though, have to fit a fairly rigid set of criteria around being gold and silver and improve the quality of the business sticking in our jurisdictions where we are. So we're always looking at those things. There's not a lot of those, frankly, that fit all those criteria. So we're always actively monitoring and evaluating those kinds of opportunities. Just turning to Silvertip for a second. That'S very much a part of how we think about growth in the future. Not necessarily in the near term, but looking out a bit longer term, that's a significant leg up in growth in particular on the silver side. You know, that could bring in a pretty chunky amount of annual silver production. Assuming Silvertip becomes a mine. I think I said last quarter, you know, we kicked off an initial assessment here to take a look at that project. We'll need to complete that next year. Consider whether we move on to the PFS phase and then, you know, if. That clears, if the project clears that. Hurdle, then onto the feasibility study stage, obviously permitting and then a lot of drilling. So all of those things take time. We don't want to do anything to cut any corners or any shortcuts. We want to make sure we get it right. Of course, Canada is providing a lot of, a lot of support for critical minerals projects like Silvertip. So we're getting our arms around that and seeing how that might affect the overall timeline. But, you know, so it's out there a few years, but it's something that we're continuing to advance and, you know, I think it's probably going to look. Pretty, pretty attractive, especially at the, you. Know, in the current metals price environment.
Mike Siberko - Equity Analyst - (00:24:40)
Okay, great. Thank you very much. Appreciate you taking my questions.
Mitchell Krebs - President and CEO - (00:24:44)
Yeah, thanks, Mike. Appreciate it.
Operator - (00:24:48)
Our next question comes from Joseph Rager with Froth Capital Partners. Please go ahead.
Joseph Rager - Analyst - (00:24:54)
Hey, Mitch and team, thanks for taking the questions.
UNKNOWN - (00:24:57)
Yeah.
Mitchell Krebs - President and CEO - (00:24:57)
Hi, Joe.
Joseph Rager - Analyst - (00:25:00)
So this first thing, I know you. Guys gave a little bit of guidance. On how the tax rate's going to look this year, but what should we be thinking about, you know, as far as next year and beyond, now that you know this is. You have this deferred tax asset, Tom?
Tom - (00:25:19)
Sure. Thanks.
UNKNOWN - (00:25:21)
We were.
Tom - (00:25:22)
We're taking bets on whether we get A tax question. So thank you. So again it was critical to highlight, you know, the, the setting up of the, of the tax asset. And so for years we've really had basically a zero effective tax rate on our U.S. earnings. And so that will change starting next year. The federal rate's 21%. The states are, you might want to add in like 3% on average. And so that should be the go forward kind of rate. We'll tweak that. Of course we have to wait and see how fast we chew through all of the net operating losses. And trying to predict how fast that's going to happen with these increasing commodity prices has been. It's a high class problem to have. But you know, we should even be in a situation where we will, there's a potential actually pay US income tax which was in 2026 federal income tax, which was a pipe dream many, many years ago. So I don't know if that gave you enough color, Joe, but that's how you should be thinking about it.
Joseph Rager - Analyst - (00:26:28)
That's helpful. And then. Was a good quarter overall. But I did note Palmarejo and Las Chispas saw a little bit of a drop in grade. Was there anything to that or is it just sequencing? Is it at los cheapest? Was it related to stockpiles that were processed like any color you guys can give there for what drove that?
Mitchell Krebs - President and CEO - (00:26:55)
Yeah, I think you actually just almost.
UNKNOWN - (00:26:58)
Answered the question. With your answer there. With your suggestions at least.
Mitchell Krebs - President and CEO - (00:27:04)
Mick, do you want to give a little more color?
Mick - (00:27:07)
Yeah, I mean in underground thin vein mines, of course, we're already always characterizing a little bit more ore as we go through the production phase. And when we do that, we then look to see whether that ore is economic. And then you can either stockpile that ore or you can run it through the pipe with Palmarejo. Of course we've got upside in one mill and capacity there, so we chose to run some of that. We ran about, I think 6% more. Tonnes through the pipe in the quarter and that helped to make those adjustments to the gains. But that's just past for sure. We ran a lot of that historic. Stockpile down and that's a great thing. So that we've now got a very clear view of the stockpile that we have sitting there at last. Cheese pass.
UNKNOWN - (00:27:51)
Okay.
Joseph Rager - Analyst - (00:27:51)
All right, well congrats on good quarter. And I'll turn it over.
Mitchell Krebs - President and CEO - (00:27:56)
Okay, thanks a lot, Joe.
Operator - (00:27:59)
Our next question comes from Kevin o'. Hill, Aaron with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Kevin o'. Hill - Analyst - (00:28:08)
Hey Mitch and team, thanks for taking my Question.
Mitchell Krebs - President and CEO - (00:28:10)
Hi. Yeah, sure.
Kevin o'. Hill - Analyst - (00:28:12)
So, yeah, great, great to see the cost guidance coming down at most of the operations and looks like that's mostly on the back of higher guided production. But can you guys comment on what you're seeing from a unit cost perspective and any main cost pressures that you might be seeing across the portfolio?
Mitchell Krebs - President and CEO - (00:28:31)
You know, we have. Thanks for the question. I think we have that inflation slide. In the deck that we typically include that shows, you know, from our perspective we're still squarely in that sweet spot. Of, you know, strong rising prices and. Flat input costs into the business. I think slide nine in the deck combined, those are close to, I think around 60% of our total total OPEX. And you can see that, you know. Whether you look over the last 12. Months or the last 24 months, you know, it's a pretty attractive cost environment that we're seeing. So not a lot, a lot of pressure there. No, no tariff pressure at all. At least, at least yet. But I don't know. Mick, Tom, is there anything on the unit cost side that.
Mick - (00:29:23)
Yeah, I mean, look, we saw inflation three years ago or two years ago and we put really robust cost controls. In place at all of the sites. And they're holding true. We're still focused on costs even in this nice price environment and being disciplined in that space helps drive the margin. So, yeah, we're enjoying that.
Tom - (00:29:44)
Kevin, One thing to pile on is just, you know, from a royalty perspective, I mean, that's something that can impact costs. And so despite paying some higher royalties, even out at Rochester, we've had a royalty that will start paying based on these prices. And so, you know, that drove a lot of the Rochester increase. But I think it's fantastic that we're able to lower the cost at the other three mines despite the higher royalty pressure. And don't forget the peso as well. The peso has been very strong and Mick and Sandro and the team down in Mexico have done a great job on costs. So really happy.
Kevin o'. Hill - Analyst - (00:30:27)
Great. Yeah, thanks, that's helpful. Just moving on. Kind of already touched on this at Palmarejo, but with higher metals prices, I think pretty much everyone in the industry is facing the decisions of whether to send lower grade ore to the, to the mill. Maybe it was previously considered waste and now with metals prices, it can go to the mill. You mentioned you're seeing a bit of that at Palmareo. Are you seeing or facing any of those sorts of decisions at any of the other operations? And do you expect going forward or do you expect to be sticking largely to the mine plan.
UNKNOWN - (00:31:06)
Yeah.
Mitchell Krebs - President and CEO - (00:31:07)
Mick, you wanna.
Mick - (00:31:07)
Yeah, I mean look, on an annual basis we'll try our best to stick. To the main plans. We're always finding that marginal all and then we make a decision about that to stockpile that or do we run it. And the great thing is though, we don't just look at that grade, we. Look at the recovery. So if you look at pound Rayjo for instance, some of that lower grade. Material actually recovered better. And so the balance of play on that was good. And that's why you see that positive, that positive outcome at Palm Rayhorse or. Just the grid by itself has to be coupled with the tonnes and the recovery performance.
Kevin o'. Hill - Analyst - (00:31:41)
Great. Appreciate that guys. That's all for me, I'll leave it there, thanks.
Mitchell Krebs - President and CEO - (00:31:45)
Okay, thanks Kevin.
Operator - (00:31:48)
Again. If you have a question, please press star then 1. There are no further questions at this time.
Mitchell Krebs - President and CEO - (00:32:04)
Okay, well, we appreciate everybody's time today. Thanks for joining our call. We wish you all a happy Halloween. Safe, healthy holiday season ahead. And we'll talk to you when we report fourth quarter and year end results early next year. Thanks, have a good day.
Operator - (00:32:26)
The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
Premium newsletter
Now 100% freeDon't miss out.
Be the first to know about new Finvera API endpoints, improvements, and release notes.
We respect your inbox – no spam, ever.