11/4/2020

speaker
Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Royal Gold September Quarter 2021 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 touchtone phone. 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 Alistair Baker, Vice President of Investor Relations and Business Development. Please go ahead.

speaker
Alistair Baker

Thank you, Operator. Good morning and welcome to our discussion of Royal Gold September quarter 2021 results. This event is being webcast live and you will be able to access a replay of this call on our website. Participating on the call today are Bill Heisenbuttel, President and CEO, Paul Libner, CFO and Treasurer, I'm Mark Gistow, Executive Vice President and COO of Royal Gold Corporation. Dan Breeze, Vice President Corporate Development of RGAG, and Randy Sheffman, General Counsel, are also available for questions. During today's call, we will make forward-looking statements, including statements about our projections and expectations for the future. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. These risks and uncertainties are discussed in yesterday's press release and our filings with the SEC. We will also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted net income and net cash. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are available in yesterday's press release, which can be found on our website. Bill will give you an overview of the quarter, followed by Mark with an operating update. Paul will then provide a financial update, and Bill will wrap up the call with some closing comments. We'll then open the lines for a Q&A session. Now, I will turn the call over to Bill.

speaker
Bill Heisenbuttel

Good morning, and thank you for joining the call. Turning to this quarter's results, I'll begin on slide four. This was another great quarter for Royal Gold. Performance was excellent once again across the portfolio, and we recognize revenue of $174 million today. gold equivalent ounce volume of $97,400 and operating cash flow of $130 million, all of which are quarterly records for the company. Earnings for the quarter were $70 million or $1.07 per share. We had net cash of $60 million at the end of the quarter and subsequently paid down $50 million on our revolving credit facility. We now have $50 million of debt outstanding and access to $950 million of available liquidity under our credit facility. We received our first silver deliveries from ComiCow, and after the end of the quarter, we increased our stream percentage to 90% of the payable silver. Mark will share more details on his recent visit to ComiCow, and we're looking forward to increased contributions as the mine continues to ramp up. We have also seen recent positive news from the acquisitions we announced last quarter. Newcrest published a positive block cave pre-feasibility study at Redcrest. I would like to compliment our technical team for its work on our acquisition due diligence. Our team's estimate of cumulative GEO production for the next two decades was in line with Newcrest's study, and the study clearly demonstrates a long mine life with good future optionality. Arrow Copper released further positive exploration results at NX Gold, which confirms exciting near-mine and regional exploration potential. And construction progress continues at the Cote Project, and it is on track for first production in the second half of 2023. And we continue to progress our work on ESG initiatives. At Rainy River, we entered into contribution agreements with the Riverside Foundation for Healthcare and the McKinac Center for Wellness, supporting our partner Newgold in its community outreach efforts and helping to bring new medical equipment and wellness programs to the communities that surround the mine. We have also achieved net zero carbon emissions for our direct corporate operations during fiscal 2020 with the purchase of carbon credits. And we received further recognition of our corporate ESG practices with an upgrade in our MSCI ESG rating to AA, which places us in the top tier of companies in our sector. Finally, I'd like to comment briefly on the transaction announced earlier this week between Golden Star and Shifeng. We've been aware of this transaction for several months and have had direct communication with Shifeng during that time. Shifeng is a $4 billion company with several operating assets in China and Laos, and they plan to apply their financial and operating resources to the potential Golden Star has identified at Wausau. Closing of the transaction won't occur until the new year, And in the meantime, we're looking forward to further building our relationship with Xipeng. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mark for an update on our portfolio.

speaker
Mark

Thanks, Bill. I'll start on slide five. The portfolio, again, continued to perform well with record geo deliveries in the quarter. Our royalty segment contributed $58.5 million in revenue, an increase of 45% over the prior year. representing about 34% of total revenue for the quarter. The increase was led by Cortez, where mining has recovered since pit wall stability issues curtailed production starting late last year, while higher grades and leach recoveries showed improved production during the quarter. Other royalties that contributed large increases included Penesquito, Dolores, Robinson, and Kernopi, which is our NPI on the South Labberton mine in Australia. On the stream side, revenue was up 9% over the past year, and we received the first contributions from both ComiCal and NX Gold. We also received the first delivery of deferred silver ounces from Pueblo Viejo. If you recall, Barrick deferred delivery of silver ounces during the March and June quarters due to equipment issues in the silver circuit that caused recoveries to fall below contractually prescribed levels. The circuit issues were addressed, and with improved silver recovery, Barrick delivered approximately 18,700 deferred ounces in the quarter. The balance of deferred ounces has now declined to approximately 418,300 ounces, and we expect these ounces to be delivered over the next several quarters. This remains a cash flow timing issue from our perspective, and we don't expect it to have any lasting impact on silver revenue. Turning to slide six, I'd like to give an update on ComiCal and Botswana. I had the opportunity to visit the site in mid-October and was impressed with the excellent progress transitioning from construction into operations. As I've described on earlier conference calls, my development has been in progress since the March quarter of 2020. Stope ore production began in September with ground conditions, ore body widths, and grades consistent with expectations. The photo on the slide shows a stope slot drill in operation during the visit. Mine development has progressed slower than planned, impacted by a few factors, including COVID-19 travel considerations for the Barminco crews to and from Australia, the late arrival to site of key pieces of stope drilling equipment, and general issues related to drilling and blasting of the first stopes. Equipment delivery issues have been resolved, and the operational issues with drilling and blasting are also being systematically addressed. The mining rate at the end of October reached about 40% of the targeted 10,000 tons per day. Stope war is providing about 50% of the mill feed currently, and development is complete. to support six months of mining. With respect to ramp up plans, KCM expects the operating rate to steadily increase to 10,000 ton per day target over the next four quarters. Absent any COVID-19 related issues, KCM expects to reach about 75% of target by the end of March and steadily improve from there to full production in the September quarter. In the plant, progress has been excellent while processing stockpiled ore. KCM has successfully tested the 10,000 ton per day target processing rate. Recoveries in October were approximately 85% for copper and 81% for silver and are expected to improve to target recoveries of 88% for copper and 84% for silver. Concentrate quality has been within required offtake specifications. With respect to funding, the slightly lower ramp-up caused KCM to review their working capital forecast, and they drew an additional $15.9 million on the option silver stream in early October, taking our total stream interest to 90% of payable silver. KCM expects this to be the last funding draw from oil gold, absent any changes to the ramp-up plan I just described. Should any further funding be required, the final 10% of the option silver stream remains available for which we would provide a further $26.5 million. On slide seven, a few photos from my recent visit. Going clockwise from the top left, you can see some of the recently delivered mining fleet on the surface, one of the three finished box cuts, the equipment maintenance workshop, and finally crushed ore being dumped into the primary crusher ore bin. On slide eight, again, going clockwise from the top left, you can see a portion of the 34-kilometer sealed haul road between the mines at Zone 5 and the Bassetto plant, a loaded haul truck arriving at the plant, the flotation cells in the plant, and the yard where concentrate bags are being loaded onto a truck for transport to the offtaker. These photos show a modern, well-built mine and I'm impressed with the progress since construction started in 2019, especially considering that most of the development was completed in the midst of a global pandemic. ComiCal is expected to be a key contributor to Royal Gold for the next couple of decades, and we look forward to growing stream deliveries as production ramps up over the coming quarters. I'll now turn to some of the other recent developments at our newest acquisitions. Starting with Redcrest on slide nine, Newcrest released the pre-feasibility study on the Block Cave in early October, which they described as a stage one. We were pleased to see Newcrest's production profile is broadly consistent with how we viewed the mine's potential. Newcrest also outlined several areas of upside and optionality not included in the PFS, including the potential to upgrade the plant and increase throughput and potential production from areas that are still subject to exploration. In particular, I'll reference you to the oblique section on the slide. Newcrest identified near-mine opportunities, including a new higher-grade zone discovered southwest of the main zone, as well as the East Ridge target. Redcrest is a permitted operating mine in a Tier 1 jurisdiction with a world-class operator. and our royalty entitles us to continued revenue while Newcrest advances exploration and studies on what should be a meaningful contributor to royal gold for several decades. Finally, turning to slide 10, the exploration continues at the NX Gold Mine, where nine drill rigs are operating. In mid-October, Errol Copper announced promising results within the mine's footprint and on the regional land package, all of which are covered by our area of interest. But to mine infill and extension drilling on the Santo Antonio vein, the current mining area, has extended mineralization down plunge in 115 meters beyond the limits of the current resource shell, confirming continuity of the high-grade mineralization while the veins remain open at depth. At the Metinia vein, drilling continues to extend the known limits of mineralization with apparent thickening at depth and a second parallel structure at depth. Errol indicated that the Matinia vein has the potential to become an additional mill feed source, which is currently underutilized. Errol expects to include the results of this exploration in their year-end mineral reserve and resource updates. We're pleased to see that the continued positive exploration results confirm our investment thesis for high prospectivity in an underexplored area. Now at Cote, the Cote Gold project, IAM Gold continues to advance construction with overall progress at approximately 36% at the end of September. IAM Gold stated that they will issue an updated technical report before the end of this year, which will include the results of the mine plan optimization since the 2018 technical report. The project remains on track for first production in the second half of 2023. and IAM Gold expects production of 489,000 ounces per year for the first five years of the 18-year mine life. I'll now turn the call over to Paul to discuss our financial results.

speaker
Bill

Thanks, Mark. I'll now turn to slide 11 and give an overview of the financial results for the quarter. For this discussion, I'll be comparing the quarter end of September 30, 2021 to the prior year quarter. Revenue reached a record of $174 million for the quarter, a 19% increase over the prior year period. We also had record volume of 97,400 gold equivalent ounces, or GEOs, which was a 27% increase over the prior year period. As metal prices were mixed, most of the increase in our revenue was driven by strong operating performances, as Mark mentioned in his remarks. Deliveries from our newly acquired NX Goldstream also contributed to our record revenue and contributed approximately $4.4 million during the quarter. With respect to metal prices compared to the prior year quarter, the average price of gold was down 6%, the silver price was flat, and the copper price was up 44%. Gold remains our focus and continues to be dominant in the portfolio at about 73% of total revenue. The higher copper prices increased the percentage of copper revenue to 14%, and silver came in at about 10% of revenue. Cost of sales, which excludes DD&A and is specific to our streaming segment, increased to $27.2 million from $21.9 million in the prior period. The increase was due to higher gold and copper sales from Mt. Milligan and higher overall copper prices. Gold sales from the newly acquired NX Goldstream also contributed to the overall increase during the quarter. Our DD&A expense was $50.6 million, up from $46.3 million in the prior year quarter. The increase was primarily due to higher gold and copper sales from Mt. Milligan higher gold production at Cortez, and gold sales from the newly acquired NX Gold Stream. These increases were partially offset by lower gold and silver sales from Pueblo Viejo and lower gold sales from Andacoyo. Our DDA expense on a $1 per GEO basis was $519 per GEO, compared to $600 per GEO in the prior period and below the $520 to $570 per GEO guidance we provided during our last quarterly call. The lower DD&A per GEO when compared to our earlier provided guidance range was largely due to the better than expected contributions from our royalty portfolio. As most of our royalties have been in the portfolio for many years, they then have lower overall carrying values and lower depletion rates. Earnings were $70.2 million or $1.07 per share, a decrease of 34% from the prior year. The decrease in our earnings was primarily due to a one-time gain in the prior period of $34 million attributable to the sale of our interest in the Manchot Project, formerly known as Peak Gold. Excluding the one-time gain on the sale of our interest in the Manchot Project and other discrete tax items in the prior year, our prior period adjusted earnings were $53.8 million compared to adjusted earnings of $70 million in the current year, or a 30% increase. We reported operating cash flow of $130 million this quarter, which was another record for Royal Gold. Our operating cash flow was up nearly $36 million from the prior period which was primarily due to the higher proceeds received from both our royalty and stream interests. Moving on to slide 12, I'd like to provide some comments on guidance. As we mentioned during our last quarterly call, we are moving to calendar year-end reporting, effective this coming December 31st. The six-month period between July 1 and December 31, 2021 will provide a transition period for us to move to the new calendar year reporting, and we will start our calendar 2022 reporting on January 1, 2022. As part of this change in year-end reporting, we expect to begin providing one-year guidance for total portfolio GEO sales, DD&A per GEO, and our annual effective tax rate early in the second quarter of each calendar year. This will replace the quarterly stream sales and inventory guidance that we previously provided. To help with your transition over to our new guidance process and reporting, last quarter we provided total GEO sales and DD&A guidance for the six-month stub period ended December 31st 2021, and today I will provide stub period effective tax rate guidance. For the six-month stub period, absent any potential operational impacts from COVID, we are increasing our total GEO sales guidance range to between 180,000 and 190,000 GEOs. The increase in our GEO sales guidance is driven by the strong operational performances as we already discussed. With respect to our DD&A guidance, we expect DD&A to range between 525,000 and $575 per GEO for the stub period, which is a slight increase over our previously provided guidance. This assumes the metal prices as shown on slide 12, which are unchanged from our previous guidance. Regarding our stub period effective tax rate guidance, we expect this to range between 18 and 22 percent, absent any unusual or discrete items. I would also like to make a few comments on some of the recent news regarding global minimum tax, which could impact the broader streaming sector. In October, a group of 136 OECD countries agreed to a blueprint to implement a 15% global minimum tax with a targeted effective date of 2023. However, I would like to again remind everyone that the U.S. and Royal Gold already has a minimum tax on our streaming segment, as embodied in the Global Intangible Low Tax Income, or GILTI, regime, which was implemented in 2017. Under GILTI, our stream segment, which accounts for nearly 70% of our total revenue, is currently subject to an effective tax rate of 13.125%. Further, the proposed global minimum tax is not being discussed or suggested to be added on top of the 13.125% effective GILTI rate. As such, given the small difference between the current GILTI rate and the proposed global minimum tax, we do not expect significant impact to Royal Gold if the global minimum tax is ultimately implemented in the U.S. One final note on our fiscal year-end change. We plan to issue a press release in late November that will include further details on the fiscal year and change, including historical calendar year results for key financial metrics such as revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and operating cash flow. This information should help establish a new basis for financial comparisons as we move over to the new calendar year reporting. I will now turn to slide 13 and provide a summary of our financial position. Our liquidity position remained very strong as we entered the quarter with $160 million of cash, working capital of $172 million, and a net cash position of $60 million. We entered the quarter with a debt balance of $100 million, which resulted from the August draw on a revolving credit facility to help fund our recent business development successes. As I mentioned during our last quarterly call, our expectation was to repay this balance over the next couple of quarters as cash flow allows, and on October 8th, we repaid $50 million of this balance and increased the available balance on the revolver to $950 million. Assuming continued strong operating cash flows, we anticipate repaying the remaining $50 million during the December quarter, absent any new business development successes during this period. Drawing on our revolver to help fund growth in our business and paying it down using cash flow is consistent with our long-standing objective of providing a creative growth to our shareholders. With respect to our outstanding commitment under the ComiCal Stream Agreement, As Mark mentioned, we currently have $26.5 million available to KCM, if required, until the earlier of development completion or 60 days after the start of commercial production at ComiCal. As part of the index gold stream, we have also potential payments of up to $10 million from calendar 2022 through 2024, depending on aero copper meeting certain exploration and resource targets. If further funding is required for either case, we anticipate making these contributions from our available cash resources. That concludes my comments on our financial performance for the quarter, and I will now turn the call back to Bill for closing comments.

speaker
Bill Heisenbuttel

Thanks, Paul. The portfolio performed exceptionally well again this quarter and delivered record revenue, cash flow, and GEO volumes. With revenue from 44 operating mines, the breadth of our portfolio provides for consistent top-line performance, and our discipline around maintaining low and stable G&A costs allows that top-line performance to produce high margins. Our cost structure is designed to remove direct exposure to operating costs, and we are not subject to margin pressure caused by inflationary input prices. Our business offers inherent protection of margins from inflation, which seems to be creeping into the global economy. Looking forward to 2022, I think we're in great shape. We expect to see progress at several assets in the portfolio, and in particular, we're looking forward to higher production levels at ComiCow, First production at King of the Hills, continued exploration success at NX Gold, and continued advancement on the Pueblo Viejo expansion. In addition to this organic growth potential, we remain active in the pursuit of new business opportunities. Between our balance sheet, $950 million available on the credit facility, and ongoing cash generation, we are well-placed to act quickly on those opportunities that fit our criteria for investment. which include precious metals with a preference for gold and the potential for exploration and production upside. Operator, that concludes our prepared remarks. I'll now open the line for questions.

speaker
Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press Start N1 on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star, then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Tyler Langton with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

speaker
Tyler Langton

Good morning, Bill Palmar. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe just to start with ComiCow, I guess the deliveries were a little bit higher than I had modeled out this quarter. Should Is it fair to assume that sort of your deliveries will just kind of ramp in line with sort of the production ramp at Coma Cow? Are there any, I guess, are there any lags or anything else we should be aware of?

speaker
Bill Heisenbuttel

Thanks for the question. I think contractually, I wouldn't expect any lags. This is not the contract similar to Andacoyo or Mount Milligan, where the deliveries actually occur a number of months after final settlement. We get paid very shortly after a provisional or final settlement is reached. So I'll ask Mark if he wants to say anything, but I just look at the ramp up between now and the third quarter and just ramping it up, assuming that that is the end date of getting to 100% capacity. Mark, would you add anything else to that?

speaker
Mark

No, no, I think it's a good description. Okay.

speaker
Tyler Langton

And then I know, you know, sort of production is kind of, you know, over the mine life, so it's the average, I think, 1.8 to 2 million ounces. Is it further to assume, I think, sort of in the first several years, the production was supposed to be a little bit lower than that average?

speaker
Bill Heisenbuttel

Actually, I don't have it right in front of me, but if you go back to the 2019 presentation we did on the project, we actually gave an estimated production profile. And one of the very interesting things about it is I both copper and silver is relatively constant. I don't believe that there's any major variability through the 20 years of the mine life. And again, I'll sort of turn to Mark. Are you aware of any changes?

speaker
Mark

Yeah, you're absolutely right, Bill. There's very little change. I think from a modeling perspective, using the average numbers is a very accurate way to do it.

speaker
Tyler Langton

Okay, that's helpful. And then just a final question, you know, in sort of deals, one of your peers commented this morning that they were, you know, that the focus is still on precious metals, but they're sort of also open to sort of base, you know, battery and bulks. Are you still focused on precious metals or, you know, are you seeing, are most of the deals that you're seeing sort of on the precious metal side or, you know, are you sort of interested in, you know, sort of looking, you know, outside precious metals?

speaker
Bill Heisenbuttel

We're going to stay focused on precious metals. As I think I've said before, strategically, if we find a very attractive base metal opportunity, we will certainly consider it. Right now, I think our precious metal revenue percentage is something that could accommodate some other metals. The only thing I would caution is we understand the precious metals markets. We understand most of the base metals markets. If you get outside of those things and we're dealing with industries that we may not understand as much, I don't want to say it's an impediment, but it's something we'd have to certainly consider whether or not we're getting into something we don't fully understand.

speaker
Tyler Langton

Got it. Great. Thanks so much. That's it for me.

speaker
Bill Heisenbuttel

Thank you.

speaker
Operator

Again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star then 1. Our next question comes from Cosmos 2 with CIBC. Please go ahead.

speaker
Cosmolson

Thanks, Bill, Paul, Mark, and Alistair. Maybe my first question is on taxes. You know, Paul, as you mentioned, you're subject to the GILTI tax anyways, and the global minimum tax is not going to be additional to it. But could you confirm, I seem to believe that, I think I read something about As you mentioned, right now the GILTI tax is 13.1%. I thought that was going to go up as well. So does that help in terms of, or how does that piece of the puzzle fit into the global minimum taxes? And then the other part of my question is, with the potential of the global minimum taxes coming in, does that change your ability in terms of how you repatriate funds back from Switzerland?

speaker
Bill Heisenbuttel

Paul, can I turn that over to you?

speaker
Bill

Yeah, yeah, appreciate it. Hey, Cosmolson, and yeah, good to hear from you, and thanks for the question. Yeah, under the Build Back Better, I think, legislation that's being thrown around here in the U.S., there is talks that the U.S. could implement the GMT, which would, you know, under our current legislation, under the GILTI regime, as you said, it's 13.125%. That could move to 15% if it's moved under the Build Back Better legislation. here in the U.S. So we could see a slight increase, as I said, but again, we don't anticipate that being a significant impact to royal gold. So with respect to repatriation of earnings, that's a great question. You know, our Swiss earnings, which are subject to that same guilty rate, you know, those earnings or cash can be brought back to the U.S. tax-free. So, you know, in 2000, I believe it was 17, you know, the introduction of guilty regime and prior taxation of repatriated funds was eliminated. As the guilty tax and repatriation of taxation, you know, that would effectively cause a double taxation. So, again, when the guilty regime came in, there was no repatriation taxation.

speaker
Cosmolson

Great. Thanks, Paul. Maybe switching gears a little bit on ComiCal here. You know, reading the MD&A and also looking at the presentation, It seems like the ramp up at the mill is slightly ahead compared to the ramp up at the mining operation, the underground. Am I reading it correctly, Mark, or not?

speaker
Mark

Yeah, exactly. The mill has ramped up very well on the stockpile order that was there. They tested the 10,000 ton a day rate successfully. The recoveries, as I stated, are well within the bounds of where they expected them to be. The stoping has ramped up slower than they expected. So the constraint in the operation will not be the mill. It will be the mine, and it will be ramping up the stoping. You can think about development or generating about 60,000 tons a month or so, and the rest of it coming from stoping ore, which will be really the ramp-up piece as we go into next year. So as I said, you can expect 75% of the 10,000-ton-a-day rate by the end of March, and it's really around stoping.

speaker
Cosmolson

Mm-hmm. Great. And that's maybe one last question here for Bill. You know, Bill, I appreciate that you, in answering the last questions, you know, your focus continues to be on precious metals. And as Paul mentioned earlier, you know, 73% of your revenue in the quarter was from gold, 10% from silver, 14% from copper. In an ideal world, you know, Bill, are you happy with that mix or would you have wanted that to be a bit different?

speaker
Bill Heisenbuttel

Well, since we're precious metal focused and gold in particular in an ideal world, the gold figure is higher. People always ask us about minimums, and I always say, when I look at it, I'd like the gold to be higher. I think gold is down because our copper revenue was so much higher with the prices where they are. but strategically, again, I've always said if you give me five projects, three are gold, one's silver, and one's copper, I'm probably going to look at the three gold ones first, but we'll look at all of them.

speaker
Cosmolson

Great. Thanks, Bill and team, and those are all the questions I have. Thank you. Thanks, Cosmos.

speaker
Operator

Again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star then one. Our next question comes from Scott McDonald with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

speaker
Scott McDonald

Hi, good morning, everyone. Thanks for the update and congrats on a good quarter. Bill, just want to follow up on your comments on the types of business opportunities you're seeing. What are the types of deals you're looking at predominantly in terms of the counterparty's use of proceeds and what kind of range of deal sizes are you looking at?

speaker
Bill Heisenbuttel

Yeah, actually, I answered the first question from a strategic perspective, but I thought I might bring Dan Brees in here if I can and have him as the head of our business development to give you a sense for what we're seeing. Great, thanks.

speaker
Dan Brees

Yeah, thanks, Bill. Hi, Scott. Hope you're well. It's Dan here. Look, the environment has been really good this year, 2021. And if you look at the transactions year to date, it looks like it's going to be one of the best years in the last five years or so in terms of dollar volumes. In particular, the first half of the year, and I know that your firm has highlighted this in your quarterly industry reports, and that's when we transacted with NX Gold as well. Royalties, the volumes are also pretty solid through the year. Lots of third-party royalty transactions. Obviously, we were part of that with Cote and Red Chris. Some packages are still trading with the operators. They're finding a good market to sell those packages into. But I'd say it's been a bit slower. Scott, if you look at, say, July through September, a bit more slow. But we're seeing processes now start to kick off. And I think it's going to be a good finish to the year. The pipeline actually looks quite good right now. In terms of use of proceeds, I'd say it's still weighted towards project development, followed by probably by strengthening of balance sheets. And again, looking at our Arrow Copper and X Gold transaction, that's an example of that type of financing. So it's good. I think the size is very consistent with what we've been saying this year, $100 million to $300 million range. Similar to what we transacted and in terms of those types of deals, that's what we're seeing right now in the pipeline. And that's a good size for our company. It's meaningful to our portfolio. And again, as Bill said, focused on gold. And that's actually what we're seeing. It's mostly gold opportunities, a bit of silver as well in the streaming side. So hopefully that helps you.

speaker
Scott McDonald

Yeah, that's great. Thanks, Dan.

speaker
Operator

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Bill Heisenbuttel for any closing remarks.

speaker
Bill Heisenbuttel

Well, thank you, everyone, for taking the time to join us today. We certainly appreciate your interest in Royal Gold, and we look forward to updating you on our progress during our next quarterly call. Take care, everyone. Thank you.

speaker
Operator

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

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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