Newmont Corporation

Good morning and welcome to Newmont's third quarter 2024 earnings pool. 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. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Tom Palmer, President and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call. Today I'm joined by my executive leadership team, including Natasha Villioun and Karen Overman, and we'll all be available to answer your questions at the end of the call. Please note our cautionary statement and refer to our SEC filings, which can be found on our website. Before we discuss our third quarter performance, I would like to take a moment to remember Antoine Fortin, who tragically lost his life at our Illinois operation late last month. We recognise that this is our fifth fatality in less than a year and we are working diligently to strengthen and improve our safety systems along with the key safety tools that we use in the field. We are fully committed to understanding the factors that contributed to this tragedy and are taking decisive action to improve our safety culture. with a clear focus on effectively controlling all of the risks that could lead to our fatality. We will also continue to transparently share the lessons we learn from the investigation with our peers in the industry to help improve the safety performance of our sector. At Newmont, we know that a strong safety culture is fundamental to sustainably delivering on our commitments, and it is our accountability to ensure that everyone working at Newmont returns home safely after each and every shift. Turning now to a summary of our third quarter. I'm honored to have recently been appointed as the next chair of the International Council on Mining and Metals, or ICMM. I look forward to playing an even greater role in advancing sustainability and responsible mining practices, both at Newmont and across our industry. During my term as Chair, one of my key priorities will be building support for the Consolidated Mining Standard Initiative, an effort we have strongly supported and actively engaged in over the last few months. These consolidated standards will be essential for strengthening the industry's reputation and providing stakeholders with confidence that the commodities we produce are mined responsibly. Last week, we announced that we have partnered with MKS PAMP to launch our first mine-to-market traceable gold bar for sale in the United States, making Newmont's gold directly accessible to consumers and demonstrating our commitment through transparent sourcing. Shifting to our world-class portfolio of Tier 1 and emerging Tier 1 operations and districts. In the third quarter, we produced nearly 1.7 million ounces of gold and 430,000 gold equivalent ounces from copper, silver, lead and zinc. And notably, this included 37,000 tonnes of copper. We generated $1.6 billion in cash flow from operations and $760 million in free cash flow. Our non-core divestment program has advanced meaningfully since our last earnest call, with the two recently announced transactions expected to deliver up to $1.5 billion in combined gross proceeds. The first announcement was a definitive agreement to divest the Telfer mine and our 70% interest in the Haberon project in Western Australia for total proceeds of up to $475 million. We continue to progress the closing conditions and expect to complete the transaction this quarter. The second announcement was a definitive agreement to sell the Achim mine in Ghana for up to $1 billion in cash consideration. And we also expect to close this transaction towards the end of the year. With this solid progress, we remain firmly on track to realise our commitment to generate at least $2 billion in gross proceeds from the divestment of our non-core assets. It is also important to note that this is in addition to the $527 million in cash proceeds that we have already received this year from the London Gold and Nita Hijau transactions. Our divestment progress and strong free cash flow generation have positioned us to be able to continue reducing debt and returning capital to shareholders. Since our last earnings call, we have retired $233 million in debt and returned $786 million to our shareholders through share repurchases and quarterly dividends. We also approved an additional $2 billion share repurchase program, bringing our total authorization to $3 billion. In addition, we continue to safely advance the three projects we have in execution. the second expansion at Tanami, our new mine at Halfo North, and the Panel Ks at Cadia. And finally, turning to synergies. When we announced our decision to acquire Newcrest, we committed to delivering $500 million in synergies from three areas, G&A, supply chain, and our full potential program. And as of today, we have achieved that $500 million synergy run rate. Starting with G&A, a $100 million synergy run rate was achieved through labour rationalisation and reductions in both insurance costs and contractor spend. Moving to supply chain, our team has been leveraging the scale of our combined company to achieve improved commercial outcomes that have already brought our synergy run rate from this area to $200 million. And finally, we have begun to realise significant value from our full potential program and are in the delivery stage of our initiatives at CADIA, Redcris and La Hia. From this work, we have successfully surpassed a $200 billion synergy run rate with potential upside to be realised in future years. The majority of the value realised so far has been attributed to CADIA to the work we've been doing to more efficiently move stockpile material and to optimize the output from our high pressure grinding roll system in the mill an initiative that i touched on last quarter and the remaining value has come from redcris and lahir at redcris we're improving gold and copper recoveries from the optimization of both the grinding and flotation circuits while also increasing throughput by delivering a more consistent ore feed to the mill. And at Lahia, we are focused on improving efficiency by de-modelnecking the materials handling and crushing circuits, as we mentioned on our first quarter earnings call. With our synergy commitment now met and our divestment program well advanced, we are now focused on the sustainable value that we will deliver from our go-forward portfolio of 11 managed large, long-life operations. So with that, I'll now turn it over to Natasha for an operational update and then to Karen to take us through our financial performance for the quarter. Over to you, Natasha.

Thank you, Tom. As we enter the final quarter of 2024, I'd like to start by re-emphasising the operational priorities I highlighted at the beginning of the year. Our focus remains on three key objectives. First is making sure that every person walking through a Newmont gate is fully equipped and authorized to do their work safely. Second is continuing to deliver strong performance from our managed assets, while also guiding our non-core assets through a respectful and productive process for divestment. And last, is enhancing long-term productivity at every one of our 11 managed Tier 1 and emerging Tier 1 operations. Turning to the next slide, and let's begin with an operational overview. In the third quarter, our managed portfolio delivered a meaningful step up in production as planned, producing 4% more gold than the second quarter. and building momentum for a strong finish to the year with an anticipated 1.8 million ounces of gold in the fourth quarter, or an approximately 8% increase over the third quarter. This performance has been largely driven by our six managed tier one operations, which I now will touch on in more detail. And I will start with Tanami. We began accessing higher grades from the Liberator ore body and remain on track to deliver the year's strongest grades in the fourth quarter. At Boddington, we continue stripping in the north and south as planned, which is expected to continue through 2025 and will bring forward strong gold and copper grades starting in 2026. Moving to Penesquito. We delivered steady gold, silver, lead, and zinc production in the third quarter from the Chile, Colorado pit and commenced mining ore in the higher gold grade Penasco pit, well ahead of plan due to efficient stripping. This will result in an increase in gold production in the fourth quarter and into 2025, and importantly, we have signed a new collective bargaining agreement with the union at Benesquito, which safeguards the rights of all workers and provides a solid foundation for operations at Benesquito through 2026. Turning now to CAIDIA. As factored in our guidance, grades at CAIDIA are expected to continue declining in the fourth quarter as we transition to and ramp up Panel CAIF to three, We are progressing integrated studies to align cave development with life of mine tailings capacity, setting up CAIDIA for the next three decades of all feed. Our focus for tailings is maximizing capacity in the current infant storage facility, repairing the southern wall of the northern facility that slumped in 2018, and then raising the wall of the southern facility. These efforts are expected to contribute to a period of increased sustaining capital spend at Kaidea over the next few years, as we make the necessary but disciplined investment to remedy and expand the current tiling facilities. At Lihue, we continue to progress the planned shutdown of the primary autoclave, which remains on track to deliver an approximate 30% step up in gold production in the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to the third quarter. As we look ahead to 2025, our operational focus at the year will remain on reducing complexity to deliver more sustainable and predictable results at this Tier 1 operation. In the short term, these efforts will result in lower than initially anticipated production next year due to lower throughput to allow for asset reliability improvement work and changes to the mine sequencing, including the establishment of wider ramps to manage surface water and repositioning all roads to be more effective and efficient. Once we complete this work, we will be processing a higher proportion of lower grade stockpiles in 2025. And we anticipate that gold production next year from the year will be largely consistent with this year's and around 250,000 ounces lower than our initial guidance for 2025 that we provided back in February. Importantly, this work will simplify and improve operations at Lihir for the long term, establishing it as a more consistent contributor as one of the 11 managed operations in our Go Forward portfolio. Similarly, at Bruce Jack, we have taken a step back this year to do the development and drilling work to ensure that we improve our knowledge of this nuggety ore body We continue to experience periods of exceptional high grades, including a one-day average of 52 grams per tonne last month, and an average of over 20 grams per tonne in the same week. As a result of the work we are doing, we anticipate that the gold production next year from Bruce Jack will also be largely consistent with this year, or around 100,000 ounces lower than our initial guidance for 2025 that we provided back in February. Moving to Ahofo South. In the third quarter, we achieved a significant increase in gold production of nearly 15% over the second quarter, driven by a higher mole throughput following the successful girth gear replacement in April and strong grades from our Subika open pit and underground mines. Looking ahead, we expect our half-hour south to maintain consistent production levels in the fourth quarter and into next year, before declining in the second half of 2025 when we complete mining activities at the Subika open pit as planned. And finally, during the fourth quarter, we expect to commence mining activities at our half-hour north. and will stockpile ore to be used to commission the mole next year. This will be an essential milestone for our African business unit as ACHEM is divested and production is replaced with new low-cost ounces from AHAFA North towards the end of 2025. Continuing with AHAFA North, we have made notable shift from land clearing and earthworks to constructing the infrastructure for this new mine. The carbon and leach tags are complete and we continue constructing the crushing, conveying and more infrastructure, which you can see in the photo in our presentation. We recently completed the lining of the tiling storage facility and are establishing the whole roads to begin stripping at this new mine in the fourth quarter. At the second expansion at Tanami, Our focus remains on the concrete lining of the shaft and we have completed more than a kilometre of this 1.5 kilometre deep production shaft. As you can see in the photo, the winder building is now largely complete and we are preparing to install the wasting machinery which will be used to raise and lower our people, equipment and ore within the mine shaft once complete. Al-Qaeda Panel Caves project is progressing well. At Panel Caves 2-3, we have achieved cave establishment, meaning that the intended fracturing has begun and gravity is now playing an important role in the mining process. This is a significant milestone for this multi-year project, and we are successfully processing gold and copper ore from this cave. Over the next decade, Panel Caves 2-3 is expected to deliver a million ounces of gold and more than 400,000 tons of copper and is anticipated to ramp up to an average of 400,000 gold equivalent ounces between 2027 and 2032. At Panel Guide 1-2, we continue to advance underground development and the construction of the materials handling system. As a much larger cave, Tunnel Cave 1-2 is expected to deliver nearly 4 million ounces of gold and more than 700,000 tons of copper over its 15-year cave life. And it is anticipated to ramp up to an average of 525,000 gold equivalent ounces between 2030 and 2014. And with that, I'll turn it over to Karen.

Thank you, Natasha. Turning to the next slide, I'll begin with an overview of our financial performance for the quarter. Building upon Tom and Natasha's remarks, Newmont delivered strong third quarter results. We reported adjusted EBITDA of $2 billion driven by sustained gold prices and strong quarterly production. And we recorded adjusted net income of 81 cents per diluted share, an increase of 9 cents compared to the second quarter. We also generated $1.6 billion cash flow from operations and $760 million of free cash flow, which does not include the approximately $300 million in cash payments received during the third quarter from the sale of the Lundin Gold financing facilities and Batu Hiju contingent payments announced earlier this year. The cash flow for the quarter includes $209 million of unfavorable working capital changes, largely due to the building stockpiles of $202 million, mainly at Lahere and Telfer, and $107 million of reclamation spend, primarily related to the construction of the Anacocha water treatment facilities. With $273 million in reclamation spent to date, we anticipate an approximate $225 million to be spent next quarter. These unfavorable working capital changes were partially offset by the favorable timing of accrued liability payments. Looking ahead, we expect to reach the year's strongest production volumes in the fourth quarter, positioning us to deliver strong free cash flows and to continue returning capital to shareholders. As Tom mentioned, the divestitures announced to date from our non-court portfolio are expected to generate up to $1.5 billion in gross proceeds on top of the nearly $530 million in cash proceeds received from other investment sales in 2024. And as we committed to earlier this year, we have been using the proceeds to create long-term value for our shareholders by strengthening our balance sheet and repurchasing shares. Since our last earnings call, we repurchased 9.4 million shares at an average price of $53.16 per share for a total cost of $500 million, including $198 million repurchased during the third quarter and $302 million in October. And with $250 million remaining in the current program, Newmont's board authorized an additional $2 billion share repurchase program to be executed over the next 24 months, bringing our total authorization to $3 billion. To date, we've now completed $750 million of our $3 billion authorization fee. Additionally, we declared a fixed common third quarter dividend, 25 cents per share, consistent with the dividend declared for the past three quarters. And we purchased $233 million in nominal debt for $210 million, or around 90 cents on the dollar, of which $150 million was purchased during the third quarter and $83 million was purchased in October. To date, we've now retired nearly $500 million for the year. We maintained an investment-grade balance sheet and ended the quarter with $7.1 billion in total liquidity. And our gross debt now stands at $8.5 billion compared to our target of $8 billion. In line with our balanced capital allocation strategy, we continue to focus on maintaining a strong balance sheet, steadily funding value accretive capital projects, and returning capital to shareholders. Looking ahead, we expect approximately 1.8 million ounces of gold production in the fourth quarter as planned. Production from our managed tier one assets continues to drive our strong operational performance, and we remain on track to meet our full year production guidance. As signaled by our joint venture partner, production from Nevada gold mines in Pueblo Viejo is expected to significantly increase in the fourth quarter, which is crucial as these sites comprise just over 20% of our attributable gold production for 2024. All in sustaining costs for the fourth quarter are expected to be approximately $1,475 an ounce, which represents an 8% reduction compared to the third quarter. This favorable decline is expected to be driven by higher gold production volumes and will be slightly offset by higher sustaining capital reinvestment, primarily anticipated at Nevada gold mines based on the run rate through the third quarter, and CADIA to remedy and expand the current tailings facilities, as Natasha described. Increased production taxes and royalties from a higher gold price environment, and slightly higher G&A spend, largely due to an increase in contracted labor. Turning to development capital, we expect to spend $320 million during the fourth quarter, keeping us on track to meet our full year guidance estimates for earlier this year. And we continue to expect to invest an average of $1.3 billion per year into projects that will generate the highest returns. With that, I'll pass it back to Tom for closing remarks.

Thanks, Karen. We remain confident in the long-term strength of the go-forward portfolio we have assembled and continue to make solid progress on the four key commitments we made at the start of the year to our shareholders. Since our last earnings call, we continue to diligently implement the lessons learned from our recent fatalities and are working to strengthen and improve our safety and risk management systems. We delivered high production as planned, keeping us firmly on track to meet our full year production goals. We generated $1.6 billion of cash flow from operations and $760 million in free cash flow. We made meaningful progress on our portfolio rationalisation with the announced investments of Telfer, Haviron and Achim. We achieved our synergy run rate target of $500 million. We've demonstrated our commitment to shareholder returns, delivering $786 million from both regular dividends and share repurchases. We strengthened our balance sheet with $233 million of debt reductions and we approved an additional $2 billion share repurchase program, bringing our total authorisation to $3 billion. Having now gained almost a year of experience working with our new operations, we have developed a much deeper understanding of their long-term contribution to our core portfolio and the work needed to create consistent and lasting value for our shareholders. Looking ahead to 2025, we expect gold production from our Go Forward Tier 1 portfolio to remain largely consistent with this year, driven by the lower than previously expected production from two of our new operations in Lahere and Brucejack. We expect unit costs from our core portfolio in 2025 to align with the trends we are observing this year. We also remain committed to the critical tailings work in CADIA, which may result in an annual sustaining capital spend of around $1.8 billion from our core portfolio over the next few years. And we continue to see higher previously expected direct costs and G&A spend that with the clarity of our Go4 portfolio, we are now working to manage. With this context, My leadership team and I have a laser focus on the work we need to do to optimise our go-forward portfolio of 11 managed operations and three projects in execution. Whilst we do anticipate production growth over time, our focus is firmly on expanding margins, generating a strong return on capital invested and creating value versus chasing volume. We are taking a critical look at our organic project pipeline and spending time to ensure that any reinvestment we make into our portfolio is both disciplined and deliberate. And we're applying an economic lens to the long-term decisions we are making today, ensuring that we deliver on Dumont's purpose to create value and improve lives through sustainable, responsible mining for decades to come. With that, I'll thank you for your time today and turn it back over to the operator to open the line for questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. We ask that you please limit inquiries to one primary question and one follow-up question. And to ask a question today, you may press star then one on your touch-tone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Daniel Major at UBS. Daniel, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi there. Can you hear me okay?

See you later. Thanks, Dan. Tom here.

Great. Great. Thanks. Yeah, sort of two parts to the question, but I mean, the first one is perhaps a kind of reflection on the industry as well, but when I look back to February and you look at your cost profile in the medium term, like many in the gold industry, you've got costs coming down over time over the next few years. Yet this year, all in standing costs are $100 higher than you saw in February. Is it realistic and credible to actually assume that unit costs will moderate over time, or should we rather be assuming that the best case outcome is limiting inflation?

Thanks, Dan. I'll kick that off, and Karen, you might want to jump in as well. Certainly, if I think about the gold industry, there's always been a strong correlation between a gold price and the cost of producing an ounce of gold, given that inflation is one of those key structural elements behind the gold price. So if you look forward, if a gold price eases, then you'd expect the cost of producing an ounce to ease, and obviously, again, you see some tracking between the cost per ounce and the gold price. Our focus is on what we're putting in place is that we have 11 managed operations going forward where we're going to be in a position to be looking over the long term and strengthening and growing those margins. The other comment I'll make before I pass to Karen, if you wanted to build on that, is when you look at the out-year numbers that we had provided back in February, that assumed zero escalation. And so when you think about any forward-looking numbers, there's no escalation. And obviously what we're seeing as we get closer to 2025, the run rates we're seeing as we close out this year are largely going to flow into next year as we understand the cost for the next 12 to 15 months. Karen, anything you'd build on that?

No, I think that's right, Simon. Just to emphasise, those out years, as you mentioned, don't have an escalation in those. You know, generally speaking, as we indicated, the costs that we're seeing here in 2024, we do expect those to trend into 2025. Costs were higher driven by higher direct costs primarily. If you think about contracted labor, which is 50% of our cost structure, we've seen those increase into the third quarter and through the year. And so we expect that that's been built in now into our cost

Thanks, Karen. Dan, did you say you had a second part to your question?

Yeah, I had a second part, if that's okay. Yeah, again, just thinking about your guidance comments for 2025, you previously looked at in February around 6 million ounces from the core portfolio in terms of gold. You highlight in the comments 250,000 ounces lower than your previous plans at Lahere and 100 at Bruce Jack. So is it fair to then assume 350,000 off the 6 million is the new base when we look into 2025? Yeah, thanks, Dan.

Certainly they're the two movers in terms of our managed portfolio. And as I think, as Natasha said in her remarks, I followed up with the drivers behind that, and getting in front of understanding the resource definition of Bruce Jack and the development work and the drilling you need to do for that. Both of those are progressing well, but it's the ounces for next year reflect that important work. I think the numbers, if you then look at the rest of the portfolio and those trends coming through from 2020, flowing into 2025, the numbers more like 5.6 as you think about this portfolio for 2025, the core portfolio for 2025. Obviously, we've got some divestments to close out and still got some more work to do on that front. Some of that will flow into 2025 as we complete that divestment work with that core portfolio 5.6.

Okay, thanks. So, yeah, it's sort of broadly flat production and costs into next year is the message. Okay. Thank you.

Thanks, Dan. That's correct.

Next question comes from Josh Wolfson from RBC Capital Markets. Josh, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks very much. I'm trying to wrap my head around the change, the significant change in sort of cost expectations and to some degree production expectations going forward. know versus what uh we had been hearing about previously and i guess there's sort of two different aspects at least that i can understand you know one is you know despite the synergy targets being achieved it sounds like there's some larger integration issues you know given the challenges or higher costs mentioned across bruce jack lahir and cadia and then on the other hand we're hearing you know, significant and unexpected inflation expectation changes, which I guess would be a larger industry-related item. I just want to sort of clarify, you know, how should we be thinking about these things, you know, and am I sort of assessing this appropriately? Thank you.

Thanks, Josh. Let me kick off, and I think, Karen, you might want to jump in. So I didn't pick it up in a few parts. The commentary around Lahere, Cadia, Serenegra, I think you mentioned, is really the Q3 cost story. So it's around Lahere, we had some costs that we had assumed would be in the fourth quarter for the large autoclave shutdown, specialist labour in a remote part of the world moving into Q3. So that's one of the drivers there. Cadia was power, a high power cost coming off our contract for price taker. Serenegro was more around the ramping up following the tragedy earlier this year and making sure we're focused on doing that work safely, some productivity impacts. And then the other factor in the third quarter was we had some concentrate sales out of Penasquito that didn't get away at the end of the third quarter due to some weather impacts there that obviously flowed into the fourth quarter. So that's sort of a bit of a wrap-up of the third quarter cost story. When I look at 24 flowing into 25, so there's two impacts. The volume impact we just talked about with Dan and Lahir and Bruce Jack work next year linked to that. And the cost impact is sustained capital, and particularly around the work we're putting into the TARDIS facilities at Cadia. Cadia's got a 30-plus year life, several panel case will come on, And there's work we need to do to ensure that TALA's capacity is matched to the volumes coming out of those panel caves. So that story is around volume for those couple of key drivers and then sustaining capital. Karen or Tasha, anything you'd build on the back of that?

Sure, just to put a little more granularity in terms of 2024. So about a third of that is increased due to that lower sales volume, including impacts from Telfer, Lahere and Bruce Shack. Another third relates to that higher sustaining capital that we've been talking about, largely driven by Nevada. And then the remaining third, half of that is about royalties due to higher gold price and half associated with the G&A. So our run rate synergies are driven by the targeted benefits at Cadia, Redcrisp, and Lahere. However, we've also had performance challenges within the business, including the telfer tailings, as well as the non-managed underperformed expectations. And I think further to that, supply chain and G&A benefits have been impacted by our need to invest in the future of this combined Tier 1 portfolio with a key focus in areas with the integration from New Crescent to Newmont as needed. But, you know, we're not happy with where we're at, and we're working to reduce these costs. Thanks, Karen.

Thank you. And if I can add sort of to the follow-up question, just sort of, understanding if there's a quantum that can be provided in terms of maybe what the inflation trends is, the company seeing, you know, something that we can think about for modeling forecasts on operating costs or capital costs. Is there sort of any, you know, initial impressions you have on what inflation rates are running at currently?

Yeah, Josh, we're seeing in terms of input costs around shingles, fuel, materials, That's largely in line with what the world's saying. There's nothing particularly surprising for us there. It's the labour costs where we're seeing that escalation, particularly the contract of labour, where we're seeing some of those escalations come through. And then incorporating that in the sort of commentary or the steer we're giving for what plays into next year.

The next question comes from Matthew Murphy from Jefferies. Matthew, please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hi, I'm wondering if you can elaborate a little more on what this outlook for 2025 means going forward in terms of, you know, those initial graphical kind of indications you put out had production growing over 6 million ounces, costs falling to call it the mid 1200s an ounce. I mean, should we be doing, you know, thinking about 2025 continuing in 2026, you know, and beyond? Is this a five and a half million ounce a year, you know, 1500 AISC type company that, you know, we're going to see going forward?

Good morning, Matt. I think if I look at costs, you're certainly going to, in the outlook we've given in February, there was no escalation there. if you make assumptions about what escalation inflation may do linked to what gold price might do, and there's a key link between gold producers and gold price, then that's going to be a pretty significant driver of the cost of producing an ounce of gold at Newmont and any other gold mining company. So that's one trend that will flow through. And obviously gold price softens and those costs come off. We see a portfolio... as we complete our investment work in the first part of next year, really start to focus in on our 11 managed operations and the three projects that we've got in execution. Those projects in execution will start to deliver new ounces in the latter part of next year, and then they'll flow through to 26 and 27. So we do have some new lower-cost ounces coming on, and that will help us have a portfolio of operations Over the long term, around or about that 6 million ounce run rate and about 150,000 tonnes of copper. We're not going to chase volume for volume's sake. Our focus is going to be on driving margins and ensuring that we're getting the best value, the best return on that capital that's invested. Another driver of our oil and sustaining costs is the important work we're putting into tailings facilities. and ensuring that we have a set of tailings facilities that have the appropriate capacity and structure to support these very long-life operations. So we have some of that spend, which is not spend that's consistent over the whole time, but there are periods of elevated spend in sustaining capital in any mining company as you ensure your tailings facilities are up to scratch. So that's another factor in terms of our 2025 and 2026 story. I can probably just

Go ahead, sir. I wanted to build a little bit on Tom's point on the six million run rate. And just as a reminder, Boddington is in two years of high stripping and lower than normal ounces. So, Boddington will get back to its normal production, but Esquita we'll start to see coming back in the new year. Kaidea, we have been predicting all along that we will see lower grades coming through, but as PC2.3 comes in during the next two years, we'll see Kaidea production step up as well. And then Lahir is also two years of high investment and we'll start to get back into higher grade ores in the near term. And that's to just build a little bit of granularity on Tom's point.

Particularly, we get more ounces out of the shaft to minimize. It gets commissioned into 27, 28. You've got half a north start to produce gold in the second half of next year. So we've got that reinvestment back in the business. Brings ounces on that complement the numbers we're talking about for this year and next year.

Okay. And is there a timeline where you're thinking... you'll be able to provide more formal asset by asset multi-year guidance. Is that the plan, maybe early next year?

It'll be in due course, Matt, into next year. We'll certainly be focusing on giving greater granularity on the 2025 numbers in February. We're busy still, and we're still in the end of the second phase of the divestment of our North American assets, and that work's progressing well, but we need to close out that work and as we've got that clear line of sight to completing that divestment program focusing on our 11 managed operations going forward and those three projects in execution and with that um with that clarity we'll look to come come back with some with some more more color on this down go forward portfolio into next year the next question comes from Anita Sony from CIBC Anita your line is open please go ahead

yeah a lot of the questions um that uh that i i guess are now the questions i had were all very detail oriented but don't seem that relevant anymore um could uh can i just ask you in terms of um i guess longer term cadia the dust emissions like when do you expect to get approvals for that and that's what gets you to 35 million times per annum right

Sorry Anita, I'm not sure if you, if I could just put in clarity, dust emissions, I just want to make sure that I understand your question.

Sorry, on CADIA, the original goal or target was to get to, I think, 35 million tons per annum. Is that still valid and what kind of approvals do you need and when do you expect those?

Yes, okay. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure that because the dust is not necessarily directly related to their Tiling's Dam approvals. There's a couple of things that needs to happen around the Tiling's Dam that is all under way. The first thing, as I've mentioned, is the repair of the southern wall of the northern dam. And then there's further expansions that is under way. There's a number of permit applications that's and under Y. And we are balancing the permitting requirements, the expansion of the Tiling's Dam, and the Kydia or the panel Kive development to make sure that we've got optimal capital efficiency.

Okay. Cerro Negro original target I think was around 3.5 million ton per annum. I think you're doing You're significantly under that right now and have been for a while. When do you think you'll get that asset up to the original target, or is that still valid?

Sarah Negro, our largest focus area for Sarah Negro is in productivity and making sure that the baseline operation gets back to where we need it to be from a productivity point of view. We've got all of the mining areas available. We have all of the equipment available. So the focus is 100% on productivity to bring us back to where we need to be.

Thanks, Adeda.

The next question comes from Mike Parkin from National Bank. Mike, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi, guys. Congrats on getting the synergy target achieved. Of the $500 million, How much of that flows through OPEX?

Good morning, Mike. Obviously, the G&A component of that is part of your OPEX. The supply chain is a combination between proving costs and opportunity you get to productivity and volume. A lot of the full potential work is around volume. So you get some more productivity with the current gold price, you get that benefit flowing through. Probably of the amount of that delivery, it's probably less than half that's come from that operational exit improvements as opposed to the productivity and volume improvements and the free cash flow that you get coming through. And if I look through that, if I look at where we sit, it's one of the earlier questions as we're closing out the integration, an important part of closing out the integration is completing our divestments. and having a clear line of sight to 11 managed operations, three projects in execution, I'm not happy with the G&A that we have for that go forward business. And that's an area that we're going to be focusing on to get that number down to match the go forward business. And that's a little bit of that high cost to carry as you look through that transition. But as we get that clarity on the remaining divestments going out the door, we need to that our G&A is matching in the size of the go forward business and expect to see some, be working hard to get to be proven in that area in the months ahead.

Okay. And just to follow up on that, because you've achieved that, is that fully reflected in your Q3 numbers? Just wondering, you look at your quarter over quarter off X, you're up about 7% quarter over quarter. trying to understand how where the savings come in with the fourth quarter guidance if all the synergies have already been realized or is it a bit of a deferral in terms of when they start to flow through the financials yeah i think you see um certainly those that impact the cost base uh are there and they're in our direct costs i think what you're going to i think key driver is going to flow through in the fourth quarter is a very strong

gold production quarter and we're certainly well set up to be delivering on those commitments through the fourth quarter. So that's what you're going to see drive that improvement in the fourth quarter is that higher production, getting the sales matching that production to ensure that the unit costs are coming to the levels that we've guided to for the fourth quarter.

The next question comes from Lawson Winder from Bank of America. Lawson, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, Tom and team, and thank you for the update. I just wanted to ask about capital allocation and in the context of a news story that the prime minister of PNG recently called on all stakeholders involved in Wafi to finalize the special mining lease and the mine development contract, sort of ASAP. I think he actually set a deadline of like December of this year. And so that got me thinking, in terms of capital allocation, is that a sign that Wafi might be taking precedent as a preferred project in the portfolio over some of the other options?

Good morning, Lawson. We continue to work very closely with Job Venture Partners Harmony and the P&G government on those negotiations to convert what is a very robust and competitive framework MOU through to a mineral development contract and ultimately a special mining lease that would then move into a process of starting to understand updates to feasibility studies and a whole bunch of study work that would come once you've reached that conclusion of those negotiations. So important work and working very constructively with all of the parties around the table. Any project in our pipeline is competing for capital. and we are going to be very disciplined in terms of any project that we take into execution, going to have confidence in terms of the cost to build it, the time to deliver it, and the returns from that invested capital. Our plate is full with three projects in execution, Katamai expansion two and a half foot north and the panel case at Kodia. We're going to ensure that we properly deliver on our commitments on those projects, and only then will we bring on our next project, And Wafi Golpur sits there in the pipeline with five other very interesting projects to compete for capital.

Okay. Thanks very much for that context. And then just as a follow-up on some of the earlier questions on the labor inflation that drove the cost a little higher in the quarter. you know, I believe yourselves and some of your peers budgeted approximately 4% labor inflation for 2024. I mean, it would be helpful to kind of put some numbers around that in terms of, you know, what's the realized experience in terms of labor inflation so far this year? Are you expected versus that 4% that seemed to be the industry standard at the start of the year?

Thanks, Lawson. In our direct costs, half the cost is LIBOR. About half of that is our employee base, and that's the 4%. So when you think about the people who work for Newmont across nine countries, when you aggregate the wage escalation, it's about 4%. The other cost base is the cost for all the contracted services we use, whether that be maintenance shutdowns, maintenance that you use to supplement your workforce, costs of running camps, costs of flying people to and from, all of those sorts of costs, that's where we're seeing some escalation beyond what we'd assumed at the start of the year. And as we look into 2025, then that's what we're guiding to today in terms of how we're seeing those costs flow through. So obviously those costs have escalated over the course of this year and looking to capture that level of escalation that we see flowing through the next year in terms of that broader cost for new money in 2025.

Next question comes from Alex Hacking from . Alex, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks. I just wanted to clarify some of the guidance commentary from earlier. So on next year, production from Tier 1 mines is going to be flattish. What assumption is embedded in that on Nevada goldmine. Thank you. Yeah, thanks, Alex. To answer that question, we provided granularity on the here and Bruce Jack in terms of pretty significant movers in our managed portfolio. The rest of the operations in our core portfolio going forward, we're assuming that the run rates you're seeing through the course of this year will flow through 2025. So just to clarify, Nevada goldmine's flat next year Alex I'm answering that question in terms of the rest of our portfolio without getting specific okay and then on the on the following up on Matt's question on the midterm outlook it sounds like you know 6.7 million ounces in 2028 is under review let's say but did I hear you say Tom that 6 million ounces is a It's kind of a mid-term target or did I mishear that? Thanks. Thanks, Alex. When I look at our 11 managed operations and the three projects we've got in execution that will deliver ounces over the next three to five years into that portfolio of operations, it remains 11 managed operations because they're all essentially brownfield expansions. And the long life, I mean, each of those ore bodies underneath those 11 managed operations has got several decades out in front of them. I look at that portfolio and say it can produce, over the long term, an average of around 6 million ounces of gold and about 150,000 tonnes of copper. It might have some years where you push north of 6 and there'll be other years where you're south of 6, but over the long term, that's how we think about this portfolio we've assembled. 11 plus 3, 6,150. Our growth is in margins, and it's where we focus our time. Thanks, Alex.

The next question comes from Tanya Yakis-Koenig from Scotiabank. Tanya, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Great. Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for my question. I just wanted to come back to the cost, so just so that we understand what is Newmont-related and what is industry-related. I just want to make sure, Tom and Natasha, I understand that what's Newmont-related in these costs has to do with your particular operations on volumes, which you've given us on lower volumes at Lahere and Bruce Jack, and then you've given us the additional sustaining capital that you have at some of your operations in Acadia on your tailings and Nevada gold mines, some other stuff there. You mentioned G&A as well on your all-in sustainings. Is it fair to assume that the only industry-related cost is your labor, which pertains to the contractors, which is half your, you know, 50% is your labor cost and 50% of that is contractors? If that's the case, Tom, I remember you mentioning that contractor inflation was like 12% or 14%, if I can remember correctly. Can you just maybe share with us where you are seeing this contract or inflation? Is it related in Australia? Is it in the US? I'm just trying to understand if it's also... That's my first question. Just I'm trying to understand if I understand this correctly.

Thanks, Tanya. Good morning. Just clarifying, you're talking about 25 versus 24 as you're looking at your numbers? Yeah, I think certainly the 24 to 25 story is the volume story and the sustaining capital story. Largely what you're seeing is the cost we're seeing this year for labour, whether it be employees or contracted labour, staying about the same going into next year. And it's the driver is lower volume and the sustaining capital 24 to 25.

Mm-hmm. But this labor, the contractors, am I correct to see to have that 12% to 14% inflation in your contractors? Has that not changed? I'm just trying to understand if that's still the case.

Yeah, I think about answering it this way, Tanya, in terms of what's in our cost run rate as we close at 24 is flowing into 25. We're not seeing a step up. of the sort of percentages you're talking about, the rate of our costs as we close out the year, we're seeing that slow into 25.

Okay. All right. Okay, maybe I'll ask my second question then. Maybe just on Natasha, Kate, you mentioned that, you know, as we look into next year and the year after, Next two years, we're going to have a cadence production decline from about this 370,000-ounce level. Could you kind of just share with us where I should think about the decline before we step back up again when the other cave comes in?

I think, yes, that's right, Tanya. And you will remember we have been saying that as BC1 and BC2 come to the end of their lives, or of its life, we see lower grades coming through. And we have been predicting that we'll continue to see that going into next year. At the same time, PC2.3 is now ramping up. So we've seen that case actually . And we will slowly ramp that up over the next two years to full production. And PC2.3 will then start to replace the lower production from PC1 and PC2. And then BC1-2 is only targeted towards the end of the decade.

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

Thank you, operator, and thank you everyone for joining us this morning, and have a good rest of your day. Thank you.

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