Royal Gold, Inc.

Good day, and welcome to the Royal Gold Fiscal 2021 Third Quarter Conference Call. All participants will be in a 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. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning and welcome to our discussion of Royal Gold's third quarter 2021 results. This event is being webcast live and you will be able to access the replay of this call on our website. Participating on the call today are Bill Heisenbuttel, President and CEO, Paul Libner, CFO and Treasurer, and Mark Yistel, Executive Vice President and COO of Royal Gold Corporation. Dan Brees, Vice President of Corporate Development of RJAG, 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, adjusted net income per share, net debt, 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.

Good morning, and thank you for joining the call. Before beginning, I would like to remind you that Royal Gold continues to operate remotely, and we'll do our best to offer a coordinated response to any questions. I'd also like to mention that we held an investor update a couple of weeks ago that provided detailed information on our assets, growth profile, finances, and strategy. For those of you who joined our call, we thank you for your time. And for those who are unable to participate, I just want to note that all the materials from that event are available on our website. Turning to this quarter's results, I'll begin on slide four. We had another good quarter of operating and financial performance. Total revenue of $143 million was driven by solid operating results across the portfolio. And our royalty segment continued to be an important contributor to our results. as it was in the December quarter. Earnings for the quarter were $54 million or 82 cents per share. Adjusted earnings were 84 cents per share after adjusting for tax and fair value changes in our holdings of equity securities. And Paul will provide more detail on both of those. Operating cash flow remained strong at just over $92 million. We paid our regular dividend of 30 cents per share, returning a further $20 million to shareholders during the quarter. in keeping with our longstanding commitment to capital return. We paid down $50 million on our revolving credit facility during the quarter and ended the quarter with a net cash position of $220 million and over $1.2 billion of liquidity. On April 1st, we chose to repay the outstanding balance on the credit facility in full, leaving us with zero debt and access to our full $1 billion credit facility. We continue to fund our investment in the ComiCal project, and during the quarter, we paid $32.6 million to reach the $212 million necessary to acquire the 80% base silver stream. In early April, we made a further $29 million contribution in the form of stream and debt, increasing our stream rate to 84% of the payable silver as a result of the incremental stream payment. We're pleased with the progress at ComiCal, and Mark will give you more detail in his remarks. And finally, we agreed to fund important social initiatives with two of our operating counterparties. With Golden Star, we entered into a five-year agreement to support a sustainable palm oil agribusiness around the Wausau Mines. With the Pueblo Viejo Joint Venture and the International Relief Organization Project Cure, we are funding the transportation of donated medical supplies and equipment for use in hospitals around the Pueblo Viejo Mines. These are good examples of investments that promote sustainability and social initiatives, and we're pleased to be involved in programs to provide long-lasting benefits to the communities where we have invested. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mark for an update on our portfolio and progress at ComiCap.

Thanks, Bill. I'll start by making a few comments. Our portfolio, which performed well and delivered solid results again this quarter, as Bill mentioned. Our royalty segment contributed about 33% of revenues. mainly due to strong performance from Penosquito. One area where we've seen reduced deliveries is from Silver Stream at Pueblo Viejo. The Silver Circuit is complex, and some recent issues with equipment in the circuit have caused lower recoveries. America is working to address these issues and expects to be running normally again within the current quarter. If you recall, our stream agreement has a fixed silver recovery factor of 70%, to protect against recovery risk. And the agreement also includes a deferral mechanism that allows the economic impact of any shortfall in silver deliveries to be made up in future periods. Approximately 362,000 ounces of silver have been deferred. We expect the shortfall to be made up as planned performance improves. From our perspective, this is a cash flow timing issue, and we do not expect it to have any lasting impact on soil revenue. On slide five, we'll give an update on the Coma Cal project in Botswana, currently under development by Coma Cal Copper Mining, or KCM. We gave a detailed project review in our investor update two weeks ago, so I'll keep my comments brief today. Overall construction completion reached about 92% at the end of the quarter, up from 85% at the end of the December quarter. At the end of March, underground development at the three mines in Zone 5 reached over 11,000 meters, and there was a stockpile of 190,000 tons of high-grade sulfide on the surface. And on April 23rd, the milestones reached when the grid connection to the Paseto mill site was energized, allowing both Paseto and Zone 5 to operate fully on grid power. With respect to upcoming project milestones, ACM has started plant commissioning activities and they expect plant startup around the end of 2021 with the sale first concentrated in the third calendar quarter. Production is expected to ramp up to nameplate capacity in the fourth quarter of 2021 and reach sustained production levels by the end of the fourth quarter. This assumes no increase in COVID-19 challenges. KCM has advised that they do not expect to require any further material funding from Royal Gold should the timing of the project milestones remain unchanged. Turning to slide six, I'll quickly mention some of the other developments announced during the quarter. I discussed these and several additional organic growth opportunities during our April 20th investor update. So please refer to our website for the event presentation and additional details. First is the preliminary economic assessment, or PEA, on the Wausau Southern Extension Project. Golden Star announced the PEA results in early March, which adds about 11 years of production to the existing six-year reserve plant. The PEA shows an increase in underground production, which will allow the existing 7,400 ton per day plant to operate at near capacity, compared to an average 20 throughput of 5,500 tons per day. Golden Star plans to complete more infill drilling and expects to finish the feasibility study on the southern extension in early 2023. The second is Penesquito, where Newmont's full potential program has resulted in significant improvements to mining and milling performance over the last year. Penesquito's gold production increased considerably over the past two quarters due to higher grade and mill throughput. Compared to 2020, Newmont's production guidance for 2021 is higher for all metals. Newmont has also turned their attention to near-mine and regional exploration and expects exploration success could extend the mine's life by almost 10 years to 2040. Turning to slide 7, at Pueblo Viejo, Barrett continues to advance the plant tailings facility expansion project. Overall engineering for the process plan is about 65% complete. Long-lead contracts and purchase orders have been placed, and construction continues to ramp up. Social, environmental, and technical studies for the additional tailings and waste rock storage has also continued to advance. Post-expansion, Barrick is expecting gold production to be maintained at approximately 800,000 ounces per year on a 100% basis until the mid-2040s. And finally, we received an updated reserve statement and like a mine plan from Nevada Gold Mines that covers our royalty areas at Cortez. Year over year reserves did not change despite depletion during 2020 and stands at 3.5 million ounces. In terms of production guidance attributable to our royalty interest, Nevada Gold Mines is expecting 2021 production of 350,000 to 375,000 ounces. and average production for 2022 to 2026 of approximately 415,000 ounces per year. Most of which is expected to come from the crossroads deposit. We have five royalties in this area, parts of which overlap. So the best way to think about these combined royalties is to apply an approximate 8% gross smelter return royalty rate to the production guidance I just mentioned. Of course, this is an approximation. And there will be variations depending on which areas are mined. But it is a good approximation that considers our estimates for relevant deductions for each royalty. I'll now turn the call over to Paul for discussion of our financial results.

Thanks, Mark. I'll now turn your attention to slide eight and give an overview of the financial results for the quarter. For this discussion, I will be comparing the third quarter of fiscal 2021 to the prior year quarter. We experienced another solid quarter of revenue, as we recognized a 5% increase in our revenue to $143 million on volume of 79,500 gold-equivalent ounces, or GEOs. The increase in our revenue was mostly due to higher average metal prices and strong performance from our Pensacola Royalty, offset by lower gold sales from Anticoil. With respect to metal prices, the average price of gold, silver, and copper increased 13%, 55%, and 51% respectively over the prior quarter. Contributions from gold continued to dominate, and gold remains our focus within the portfolio. However, our revenue from gold for the current quarter was 68% compared to 79% in the prior period. The decrease in our gold contributions during the current quarter was largely due to significantly higher increases in the average silver and copper prices. Our G&A expense decreased nearly $3 million during the quarter, due to the additional non-cash compensation expense we recognized during the prior year quarter, which was related to the retirement of two long-standing members of senior management. Our G&A expense was again in line with the typical quarter for Royal Gold and is what we anticipate going forward, absent any large or unusual items. Our G&A expense was $41.3 million, or $520 per GEO, down from $594 per GEO in the prior year quarter. The decrease in our DD&A expense during the quarter was primarily due to lower gold sales at Mount Milligan, Anticoil, and Pueblo Viejo, as well as lower depletion rates at both Pueblo Viejo and Mount Milligan. The gold and silver depletion rates at Pueblo Viejo decreased due to reserve additions, as reported by Barrick, while the gold depletion rate at Mount Milligan decreased due to improved gold recoveries. Given the reduced depletion rates at some of our principal properties, we are lowering our DD&A guidance for the June quarter to between $525 and $575 per GEO, and our full fiscal year DD&A guidance to between $540 and $590 per GEO. The annual DD&A guidance range we previously provided on our last quarterly call was between $590 and $640 per GEO. Earnings were $54 million, or 82 cents per share, an increase of 39%. We had two minor adjustments to our earnings this quarter. The first was a $0.04 per share charge primarily due to a change in the reliability of certain deferred tax assets held by our Swiss subsidiary, while the second adjustment was a $0.03 per share gain or $0.02 per share net of tax due to the fair value increase on our equity holdings. After removing these two items, our adjusted EPS was $0.84 per share for the quarter. We had another strong quarter of operating cash flow as our cash from operations for the period was $92 million. Our operating cash flow was modestly down $7 million, and this was primarily due to higher cash taxes paid in the current quarter. The increase in our cash taxes paid during the current quarter was due to timing. The timing of estimated tax payments can vary year over year, and due to COVID, we did see some taxing authorities allow deferrals with their estimated tax payment schedules. Looking forward to the June quarter and absent any potential operational impacts from COVID, We expect stream segment sales to be in the range of 60,000 to 65,000 GEOs and inventories for the quarter end to be in the range of 31,000 to 36,000 GEOs. With respect to tax, we expect our effective tax rate for both the June quarter and the full fiscal year 2021 to range between 19 and 23%, absent any unusual or discrete items. I will now turn to slide nine and provide a summary of our financial position. Our liquidity position continued to strengthen as we ended the quarter with cash of $370 million, working capital of $384 million, and a net cash position of $220 million. During the quarter, we repaid $50 million on a revolving credit facility, and at the beginning of April, we repaid the $150 million outstanding balance and are now debt-free. Although we are mindful that COVID risks remain, we believe we have sufficient liquidity, our available cash resources, and our operating cash flow to cover G&A costs, any potential remaining commitments at ComiCal, and our expected dividend payments for the foreseeable future. Should we require additional funding beyond our existing resources, we have the full $1 billion available under our revolving credit facility, which is low cost and flexible. With respect to ComiCal, as Bill mentioned in his remarks, During the quarter, we made our sixth advance payment of $32.6 million and completed the $212 million commitment required to fund the base silver stream of 80%. On April 7th, we provided an additional payment of $28.6 million, which included $10.6 million in stream financing and $18 million in debt financing. Our silver stream rate increased to 84% with this additional stream financing contribution. Our remaining commitment to KCM includes $49.4 million in stream and debt financing up to commercial production, which should be by the end of calendar 2021. KCM has advised us they do not expect to require any further material funding from Royal Gold if the timing of project milestones remains unchanged. If they do elect to request additional funding, we would make any further 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.

Thanks, Paul. I am pleased with another quarter of solid operating and financial results. We continue to benefit from a diverse portfolio that delivers goal-based revenues into a high-margin, unleveraged business that can self-finance its core operations and provide cash returns to shareholders. We have some good organic growth opportunities within the portfolio, which we hope to see advance in this healthy metal price environment. I encourage you to review the materials on our website from the investor update as we spent a fair bit of time providing project specifics for a number of these assets. While we are pleased with the potential for this organic growth, we remain active in the pursuit of new business opportunities. With access to the full $1 billion credit facility, In addition to existing cash balances 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 being disciplined with respect to return. Operator, that concludes our prepared remarks. I'll now open the line for questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then 1 on your touchtone phone. 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 2. Our first question will come from Tyler Langton with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Yeah, good morning, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Bill, could you just talk a little bit about... sort of deal activity, kind of what you're seeing in terms of whether activities have sort of increased or, you know, type of assets, locations, just any color there would be helpful.

Sure, Tyler. I mean, what I'd like to do is if we can get Dan Brees to unmute and give his input as the head of our business development efforts.

Sure. Yeah, thanks, Bill. Hi, Tyler. Hope you're doing well. I think the message is pretty much in line with what we've been saying the last few calls in terms of it being a very healthy market. We're seeing opportunities in the $100 million to $500 million range. That's been pretty consistent over the last year or so. And in terms of where we're seeing the use of proceeds, it's really, again, focused on development assets. And I'd say primary gold assets specifically, precious metal byproducts as well, as part of that mix, too, from base metal assets. So we're pretty encouraged by the market we're seeing right now. Does that answer your question for you?

Yep, that was perfect. Thank you. Just kind of final question on Pueblo Viejo. The 362,000 ounces of silver that you'll receive, I mean, is that something where we kind of take the next couple quarters? Just kind of just getting a rough sense of timing and when we should expect that.

Yeah, you know, that's hard to say. It depends on the speed with which they are able to address the operational issues. So I think the best I can say right now is just kind of follow it quarter to quarter. If we start seeing trends, we'll certainly point that out to you. But I wouldn't want to lay out a time frame right now because they're still in the middle of addressing the issues.

Okay, great. All right, that's all I have. Thanks so much.

Thank you.

And the next question will come from Cosmos Chu with CIBC. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks, Bill, Mark, and Paul, and team. Maybe my first question is on Cortez. Thanks for giving us, you know, the guidance here. I guess you have to wait for Barrett to give it to you first. But I just want to confirm my understanding here. I guess, you know, for calendar 2021, you're saying that, you know, on your royalty ground, it's about 350 to about 375,000 ounces of production. If I look at last year, it was 175,000 ounces. So, you know, if gold prices were to stay the same, does that mean that, you know, we would expect kind of double the revenue in calendar 2021 versus 2020?

Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Cosmos. Mark, is there anything you want to say on the ounce side of things?

Well, I guess the way I would look at it, as I tried to explain, is, you know, I would just, the 350 to 375 range was what was provided that we could disclose. And using the 8% gross value royalty factor, if you will, you know, will certainly give you, you know, a very good annual approximation of how to look at the return to us. So we know that, you know, Barrick has stated that the back half of the year is going to be more weighted to production than the first half of the year. So it'll be a little bit lumpier. It won't be equal quarters, but we're certainly feeling that the range is right and the 8% value loyalty factor is a very good summation on an annual basis.

Got it. And not to be pedantic here, but if I were to look at your disclosure from last year, I think you had mentioned on your royalty grounds, we're expecting about 425,000 ounces from calendar year 2021 to calendar 2026. Now, those estimates have been sort of refined. Mark, to your knowledge, I guess, and to the extent you can share with us, what has changed?

Well, well, your observations, right? Um, it certainly has the production profile has been, uh, shifted out a bit. Um, one of the, one of the factors that's, uh, affecting this year, uh, for sure is that they had a, a geotechnical issue in the pipeline pit, which, which occurred back in, in the fourth quarter of last year, late last year. Um, so that, that, uh, that's been in part impacting this year for sure. But yeah, the next two years, we certainly saw some ounces being pulled out. So you're correct, which we've typically seen this. I mean, it's the Cortez Crossroads deposit is a lower margin material. And I think what we see is it being relegated based on other materials that are available to process. That's my assessment.

Great. Thanks, Mark. Hey, Bill. I'll just add, when we start talking about the longer-term ounce figures, just remember what we're saying on average, and there can be some variability around that average.

Of course. Thanks, Bill. Maybe switching gears a little bit, you know, on your Fisco Q4 guidance, you know, thanks again for giving us the guidance here, 60 to about 65,000 geos. that's much higher than the 52.5 thousand geos that you just realized in fiscal Q3. Could you maybe remind us in terms of the seasonality quarter over quarter to the extent that you can?

Yeah, I'll start and then I might turn it over to Paul to see if he has anything further to say. But it's not seasonality. We have two of our large two or three largest revenue producers, they produce a concentrate and we get paid based on the timing of those shipments. And so that when we last got together last quarter and we had the much lower sales forecast, really, you know, a lot of that was the fact just the timing of the shipments and when we expect the deliveries to come from those shipments. And you may see that variability. In the past, we've had Iandecoyo and Milligan kind of offset each other, and this quarter we just happen to have them overlap. So it really is concentrate timing. Paul, is there anything else you would add to that?

No, that's what's going to be my response, Bill, is it's solely timing. And, Cosmos, you may recall from our last quarterly call that we did talk about just kind of the – the timing that we're experiencing here currently. So I think Bill's response is certainly right down the middle there.

Great. You know, and then in terms of guidance, you know, it's good that we get the, you know, quarterly guidance. But, you know, I was also thinking that as we end now almost fiscal Q4, you know, Bill, have you given it any thought in terms of, you know, putting out longer-term guidance? maybe annual guidance. If I look at the peer group, you know, some of the other companies in your peer group even put out five-year guidance. You know, is that something that you would consider?

Cosmos, it is a conversation we are having internally. The one thing I will say is that, you know, if we have guidance for we offer guidance. It's different. We don't own the properties. We don't know what's going on at the properties all the time. So, you know, for Newmont to give guidance and for us to give guidance, it's two totally different things. And I'd say our competitors, although they do it, they don't control the properties either. But I hear your question. I've heard the question from others, and it is something we talk about. But, you know, I've had examples just in the last few months of where something's come up and we've learned about it. And you kind of go, well, that's why we don't give guidance, because I don't want to do it and then have something happen in a property that we didn't foresee. You know, Penesquito, we don't have a lot of information rights. We learn about it when you learn about it. And then we end up potentially having to change that frequently. So that's my concern. But again, we're talking about it.

And then maybe, you know, just following up on Pablo Viejo here, you know, could you remind us, you know, understanding that there's recovery issues with a silver circuit, what percentage of your revenue coming from Pablo Viejo is actually coming from silver?

Paul or Mark, Paul, I imagine, I don't have that number right in front of me. Do you happen to have it?

I do not, Bill. Coswell, I'd be happy to look at that and get back to you. But, yeah, it certainly is just overall silver, you know, for our portfolio on average is roughly 10%. So, you know, and our silver deliveries primarily do come from Pablo Viejo. So it would make up the larger piece of that 10% that we normally get.

Got it. And then one last question here on Pablo Viejo. You know, as you talked about it, about 362,000 ounces of silver is currently sort of inventoried. You know, when that gets released, is it going to be over several quarters or is it going to be like one shot and we're going to see, you know, a peak, a spike in revenue coming from that release?

Well, Cosmos, it depends how the operation performs and as the recovery rates increase. I mean, if they suddenly shot up to a much higher level, you might see all of it come in at once, but that I can't predict. It could come piecemeal over a number of quarters. It could come very quickly. It just depends on how they do with recovery rates.

Got it. Thanks again, Bill and team, and those are all the questions I have. Thanks a lot. Thanks, Cosmos.

The next question will come from Brian MacArthur with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Good morning. First thing, I just want to comment and say thank you very much for giving us more detail on some of the smaller assets going forward. I think it'll be helpful. We have quarterlies that we can follow that, and I do realize it requires some work, but I do think that's very helpful, so thank you very much. My question, unfortunately, goes to PV, too. So I just want to try to understand this a little better. A couple of questions. This deferral, do you actually book anything as quota receivable and then just pick up the cash later? Or is the whole amount just technically delayed and it comes out whenever it comes out?

Paul, I'm going to ask you to handle that one.

Yeah, I know. Appreciate it. Thanks for the question, Brian. So just in general, high level, and obviously in accordance with the U.S. capitals that we follow here, there has been no revenue recognized or accrued in association with these deferred silver ounces. As Mark did mention in his remarks, we do have approximately 362,000 ounces of deferred silver to date, of which actually about 60,000 of that was attributable to our December quarter. So when the ounces are delivered, we'll pay the contractual cash price, take those ounces into our inventory, and start selling according to our policy. We do expect a shortfall to be made up with the improved performance that kind of Mark spoke of earlier. And we really just view this as a cash flow timing issue, and we don't anticipate that these referrals will result in, quote, unquote, lost revenue. But we have booked a nominal number as far as an asset and a payable on our books. It's very small, but it was mainly just because of the cash price that we paid for the ounces that we did receive so that we will ultimately pay when those ounces are contractually delivered to us at a later date.

And you may not want to get into this, but Given this is a delay because of not hitting the 70%, does the price risk get protected too, or does it just all get delayed and it's kind of a volume issue? I guess where I'm going here is what happens if the price when you get those $362,000 is $4 silver in the market? Do you take that price risk? I don't know if it's non-performance, but because it's non-contractual, does that get adjusted to, or is it just a point of volume function?

I would say it's more of a volume function. And when we do receive the ounces, obviously, yes, price could be different then than it is today. So again, when we do take those ounces into inventory, our cash price that we may pay will go up or down. And then again, when we correspondingly sell those ounces, the price could be higher or lower than today. So But nothing that we'll have to, quote, unquote, mark to market, you know, anything for the period or anything of that nature.

Great. Thank you very much. And I guess my second question is probably you, too, because it's accounting. So just as we move forward with the comma cow, because now you've increased the stream and it's obviously a contractual part there, but then there's obviously putting debt in. is that debt just going to go on as an, I assume it's just going to go on the, you just book it as an, you know, as an investment and just clip the coupons off until it's repaid. Is that the way I should think about it?

Well, yeah. And so just real quick, you know, again, we did close on that in April for on in April here. So, you know, this is a Q4 transaction for us. And so we haven't quite finalized our accounting on that, but, I do anticipate that we'll record a note receivable on our balance sheet for that amount that we contributed there in April. And then any corresponding interest that we received during a period would be recorded as interest income on our income statement. And, you know, this treatment, if you recall, Brian, would be similar. If you recall, we had that loan, a similar loan with Golden Star back in 2015. So I would say it's going to be, you know, similar to that treatment, you know, when we move to Q4 here.

That's very helpful. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Brian. Thanks, Brian.

And the next question will come from Mike Jelanin with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Oh, hi, Bill. Coswell has asked a few of my questions, but I still had one from the Barrick call yesterday. Mark Bristow was commenting that Barrick or Nevada Gold Mines is looking at pipeline, which he called an old tier one asset. and uh you have royalties on it so a royal gold doesn't and just wondering uh maybe mark has some background there what's uh what's what's mr bristow up to sounds very promising for all gold oh thanks yeah i'm not sure mark i'll turn it over to you i'm not sure we have much more color but but perhaps you do yeah i i did uh i i read the comments um

And they're still producing from the pipeline deposit, the pipeline pit. It's co-mingled with the crossroads material. So he made reference to looking between the crossroads pit and the pipeline pit in one statement, which I found interesting, but not really related to our royalty grounds so much. He also made reference between pipeline and the Robertson property. So he had... He seemed to have two concepts in his comments, but one does relate to us with respect to the area between the two crossroads in the pipeline deposit.

Are they drilling, or you just have, at this point, this is the first you've heard of them?

I couldn't give you any more detail than I just gave you. I think his comments yesterday were about what we know at this point.

Sounds like a great mind tour, maybe sometime in the future. Well, thank you.

Yes. Thanks, Mike. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star, then one. The next question will come from Tanya from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning, everyone. First off, I do want to thank you very much for that additional disclosure. It was noted and much appreciated, so thank you for that. I wanted to come back to the silver circuit at Pueblo Viejo. I'm just trying to understand exactly what's happening in that circuit. And the second thing is, what is your understanding of what Barrick is doing to get these recoveries back up?

Mark, sounds like one for you. Oh, okay. Yeah, our understanding of the problem relates to what they call the preheaters. There are three preheaters that heat the slurry up going into what they call the long boil circuit, which allows for the recovery. And those three preheaters have been an issue, and they've been in the process of rebuilding those three preheaters. So the recovery has been bouncing around quite a bit over the last period of time, several quarters.

Okay, so is your understanding that they need to replace these three preheaters?

They've actually rebuilt two of them. They're a unit that can be maintained and rebuilt. Two of them have been rebuilt, and we understand. We don't know the current status of the third one. We understood it was to be rebuilt in April, but I don't have a, information on that particular one yet.

I'm just trying to understand. Once these three preheaters have been rebuilt, it's going to heat this appropriately to go in and get the silver recovery? Is that your understanding?

That's exactly. It's one of the components that allows for the ore to be treated to make the silver recoverable So they have to heat up the solution to a certain, or the slurry to a certain temperature. And that process has been interrupted. But it's one of the pieces of the lime boil circuit.

Okay. And you said in your opening remarks that you thought that this was being resolved this quarter?

That is this current quarter, yes, that's correct.

Okay, so we should see improvement then, let's say, fully going forward in sort of calendar Q3.

Okay, thank you so much. Yeah, that is our understanding. I can't, you know, to be seen. I guess we have not been informed that everything is working properly and they've come up to normal recoveries yet. But we know it's an active process of maintenance. and we expect it to come back.

And maybe just on M&A, if I can ask, and thanks for the clarity on looking at anywhere between up to $500 million in project bills. I'm just wondering, are there still any opportunities available in royalty portfolios anywhere within some of these companies that are able to be for sale? I once heard that there were a couple up to 100 million. Are those all done?

Dan, do you want to start that off?

Yeah, sure. Hi, Tanya. It's Dan here. And thanks for the question. So you've seen a number of the portfolios trading the market. And so the market's pretty healthy for the sellers. And we look at most of those. We have a hard time with a couple of things. One is trying to find a cornerstone asset to really justify the portfolios. And number two, pricing in some cases. So we're looking at those things that are trading, but those are the issues that we've been coming across. And of course, we don't have perfect information on most of these packages as well. So that's the other challenge too. But certainly it's an active market and we're monitoring it very closely. Bill, do you want to add something to that?

Yeah, I mean, yes, we look at it. You know, I think the portfolios that have not been sold, from my perspective, they tend to be very heavily focused on sort of exploration or development assets. So, you know, I just, as Dan said, finding something cornerstone that you can grab onto and say, I really, really like that asset and I want it in my portfolio, that's getting harder and harder to do.

Okay, so would it be a fair statement then that these portfolios, the easy one with those cornerstone assets have gone, so like the $100 million ones have gone and sort of the portfolios of royalties left are going to be significantly under that value?

I can't say that because I don't know every company's portfolio, but I would say based on the trend of what we're seeing, that probably is a valid statement. Okay. Okay.

It was just something that I heard, you know, that there's all these portfolios, and I just wondered, you know, are we pretty much done with them?

Well, I can't rule it out. And as Dan said, the seller's market. So there could be mining companies out there right now putting together a portfolio that they want to sell because they like the value that they can get.

Okay, great. Thank you so much.

Thanks, Danielle.

Thank you. This will conclude today's question and answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Bill Heisenbettel for any closing remarks.

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

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