Torex Gold Resources Inc.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the TORX Gold First Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call and Webcast. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. During the question queue, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may reach an operator by pressing star then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Dan Rollins, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. On behalf of the Torex team, welcome to our Q1 2026 conference call. Before we begin, I wish to inform listeners that a presentation accompanying today's conference call can be found under the investor section of our website. I'd also like to note that certain statements to be made today by the management team may contain forward-looking information. As such, please refer to the detailed cautionary notes on page two of today's presentation, as well as those included in the Q1 2026 MD&A. On the call today, we have Jody Kozenko, President and CEO, and Andrew Snowden, CFO. Following the presentation, Jody and Andrew will be available for the question and answer period. This conference call is being webcast and will be available for replay on our website. Last night's press release and the company financial statements and MD&A are posted on our website and have also been filed on CDAR+. Also note that all amounts mentioned in this call are U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated. I'll now turn the call over to Jody.

Thank you, Dan, and good morning to everyone on the line. As this will be my final earnings call as CEO of Torex, I wanted to take a moment here to reflect on how the company has evolved since I joined back in 2018. Back then, we were a single mine company with production from ELG and a mine life out to 2024. MediLuna wasn't yet in reserves and we were facing a potential gap in production between the depletion of the open pits and the start of MediLuna mining. In the years since, We've extended the mine life of the open pits and systematically stepped up production from ELG underground to ensure stable production until Medialuna came online. We tunneled seven kilometers underneath a river to connect to the south side of Morelos. We designed and built and successfully ramped up Medialuna ahead of schedule. And we now have steady production of gold, copper and silver coming from two mines with a third on track to come online later this year. We've also invested meaningfully in exploration, adding 10 years of mine life at Morelos, now out to at least 2034, and we have a very clear line of sight to continue to extend mine life far beyond that. From a financial perspective, we funded Medialuna out of cash flow and a small amount of debt. Not even three quarters after starting at Medialuna, we are now once again debt-free and generating strong free cash flow. announcing a return of capital program for our shareholders for the first time in the company's history late last year, and stepping that up even further with our results announced last night. We've also expanded our portfolio with the addition of Los Reyes and four early stage exploration properties, extending our footprint outside of Guerrero and venturing into Sinaloa, Chihuahua, and the United States. As I step into retirement here and Andrew takes the helm, I leave the company a place that I'm proud of and excited about the future under Andrew's leadership as the company continues to grow in Mexico and beyond. Now getting into it, our quarterly results turning to key highlights here on slide four. Finished production was lighter quarter over quarter due to mine sequencing at Medelluna as we mined through lower grade and lower recovery stoves per this year's mine plan. all in sustaining costs of $1,917 per ounce, were elevated primarily as a result of the lower finished production, higher reagent consumption, and stronger than expected Mexican peso. However, our financials remained very strong with a record ASIC margin of 60% for the quarter, as well as record quarterly revenue and adjusted EBITDA. Despite $165 million of tax and royalty payments to government, we generated $157 million of free cash flow, enabling the full repayment of debt outstanding while also returning $121 million to shareholders through dividends and buybacks during the quarter. Importantly and critically, all of this success was accomplished safely. I am so pleased to say that our lost time injury frequency is once again zero per million hours worked for both employees and contractors. It's truly remarkable safety performance. Full year guidance is outlined here on slide five. With the return to higher grades and recovery stopes planned in the second half of this year, production and costs are expected to strengthen accordingly. As such, we remain on track to achieve both production and cost guidance for the year And I'd note here that Q2 production costs are expected to be similar to those achieved in quarter one. Moving on to our operational performance on slide six, the processing plant was impacted by two extended periods of maintenance during the quarter. One was planned and the other was unplanned when we went down in February to replace a faulty batch of bolts, which subsequently created issues with the discharge grates in the sag mill. I'm pleased to say that following the repair, The plant has returned to operating above design levels and in the month of April, we averaged over 11,400 tons per day. Recoveries in the chart on the right reflect the lower recovery stopes that I mentioned and are expected to remain at current levels through quarter two before increasing in the back half of the year. Mining rates at both Medialuna and Yilji Underground are ahead of plan as shown here on slide seven. At Medialuna, we were able to achieve consistent production at design mining rates of 7,500 tons per day. This is nine months ahead of the schedule set out in the technical report and three months earlier than our latest forecast. This is due to how far advanced we were in capital development in 2025, which provided us the operational flexibility we needed. It's also due to the performance of the ore handling systems, including the Y-Hose Tunnel Conveyor, that the team got working very reliably, very quickly. At ELG Underground, rates continue to deliver ahead of their targeted 2,800 tons per day, a trend we plan to continue until MediLuna North comes online in quarter four of this year. Updates on our projects are summarized here on slide eight. At MediLuna North, we continue to make excellent progress on the north edit breakthrough, which is on track for mid-year. Once completed, ventilation fans will be installed, allowing access to the ore body for infrastructure construction to support first ore production. We have also continued to progress on plan the main haulage ramp back to the existing MediLuna infrastructure, with breakthrough on this ramp expected in late June. At Los Reyes, work on the preliminary economic assessment continues to progress and is on schedule for completion mid-year. The study is contemplating a combined open pit and underground mine, with mill throughput of 5,000 tons per day. Our target is for production between 140 and 150,000 gold equivalent ounces per year with an initial mine life of at least 10 years. Field work on site has not yet resumed at Los Reyes, but we continue to be in active discussions with all three levels of government and the local communities to create the conditions to safely and importantly, sustainably return to the area and resume work. Finally, before I hand the call over to Andrew, I'll touch on the exploration results we shared last week, summarized here on slide nine. In the MediLuna cluster, we're seeing strong potential to expand resources to the south and east of the mine, with surface mapping suggesting potential continuity between these two zones. Additionally, infill drilling is being conducted at the mine to upgrade inferred resources to indicated with our year-end update, with the target to offset depletion. Drilling at Medialuna North has recommenced, targeting to expand resources even further to the north of the new mine, while drilling at Medialuna West will resume in the second half of this year, looking to build on the inaugural resource we declared in March of this year. At ELG Underground, following the discovery of mineralized structures running parallel to the Ellymore sewer trend announced in May last year, We've continued to find more of these structures, which importantly remain open a long strike and at depth. We also continue to encounter mineralization beyond the boundary of known resources at the sub-SIL and Éléments West trends. All of this suggests that we've yet to fully unlock the full potential of ELG underground and expect another year of resource expansion and reserve replacement with our year-end update next March. At our regional targets at Morelos, early drilling at Atzcala is giving us a better idea of the structural orientation of the Breccia bodies, while drilling at El Mirangel commenced last month. We look forward to sharing the results of these programs once they are available. With that, I'll hand the call over to Andrew to take you through financials.

Okay, thank you, Jodie, and good morning, everyone. I'll start my commentary just turning first to slide 11, and as Jodie noted, all in sustaining costs for the quarter came in just above our guided range, largely due to lower production and a strong Mexican peso, but also due to the impact that higher metal prices have on our royalties and profit sharing, as well as higher reagent consumption required to process the lower recovery ore that, again, Jody mentioned. Despite this, our margins remain robust at a record 60% for the quarter, And costs are expected to trend lower through the back half of the year as we return to higher grade and recovery stokes. One area we've been seeing cost pressure is with the Peso, as I mentioned. We have budgeted the year at an average exchange rate of 19 to 1, but averaged about 17 and 1 half to 1 through the first quarter. With 50% of our operating costs PESO denominated, we are sensitive to movements in the exchange rate, and in Q1, this added about $50 an ounce to our cost profile. We have placed further PESO hedges now for both 2026 and 2027 to provide additional protection and to mitigate against these fluctuations, but we recognize this is the cost pressure we expect will continue for the foreseeable future. Additionally, a number of our peers have seen cost inflation owing to higher diesel prices, and this has been a common question we've received from shareholders over recent months, and so I did want to just touch on this briefly. And given our operations are now fully underground and the majority of our MediaLuna fleet is battery electric, diesel costs only make up a small percentage of our cost profile. And in addition, diesel is subsidized in Mexico and to date has only seen an increase of approximately 15% year to date. And so for context, if prices stayed at this level through the end of the year, we would see less than a $5 an ounce impact to our oil and sustaining costs. Next, just talking briefly about free cash flow, you would have seen that we generated an impressive $157 million for the quarter, and that was after we paid $165 million of taxes and royalties in Q1. Our outlook for free cash flow remains very strong, and the current spot prices were forecasting approximately $650 million of free cash flow to be generated this year. Turning next to slide 12, you can see here this provides a breakdown of our cash flow for the quarter. Our adjusted EBIT dollar of $159 million was a quarterly record, of course, supported by high metal prices and record margins. And this allowed us to fully repay the outstanding debt accumulated during the media lunar build, while also returning $121 million of cash to shareholders through both a dividend and $111 million of share repurchases. And I'll speak more on our enhanced return of capital program that we announced last night momentarily. Before we move off the topic of cash flow, though, just as a reminder to everyone of the cash flow seasonality we have, and you can see that here on slide 13. I know as the group on the call are aware, Q1 is always our highest cash outflowing quarter of the year as we pay our annual true up for taxes and royalties. this year amounting to $165 million in total on account of higher metal prices we saw through the course of last year. Q2 will see our annual Mexican mandated profit sharing payment, which we expect will be approximately $38 million this year. Q2 will also likely be impacted by lower sales compared to Q1, just given Q1 benefited from the sale of the inventory on hand at the end of the year. And as usual, we expect Q3 and Q4 to be the highest cash flow in quarters of the year with these annual payments then fully behind us. Next, just turning to slide 14, you can see here an outline of our current liquidity position. And despite the significant tax and royalty payments that I mentioned, as well as return of capital program that we've been executing on, our cash balance grew quarter over quarter to $130 million. And we expect this to continue to grow over the coming quarters. to at least our minimum balance of $200 million, which is our current target. Following the repayment of the final $30 million of debt outstanding in January, we're once again debt-free and have available liquidity of $467 million at the end of Q1. Next, just moving on to capital allocation, and you can see on slide 15 that there are four key priorities for our capital allocation. These are all outlined here. Firstly, we're looking to continue to invest in our Morales property to extend the production profile of the property, and that's supported by $45 million of drilling on the property for this year. We're also investing $100 million of capital to complete the construction of MediaLuna North by the end of this year. Secondly, we're focused on unlocking value across our portfolio of development stage and exploration properties, including Los Reyes in Sinaloa and our other properties across Chihuahua and Nevada, while continuing to look for and seek value accretive M&A. Thirdly, focusing on our balance sheet, growing our financial strength to a minimum $200 million of cash on hand. and that will provide us both operational and strategic flexibility looking forward. And finally, our shareholder returns, which we've just enhanced, and I'll dive into that next on slide 16. And as you will have seen last night, we announced a target to return a total of $350 million to shareholders in 2026 through both an increased dividend and continuing to aggressively buy back shares which is a strong return, particularly given where our shares are currently trading. As I mentioned that spot prices were expecting to generate approximately $650 million free cash flow this year. And so the $350 million we expect to return to shareholders represents about 55% of this forecasted free cash flow or approximately 40% prior to non-sustaining capital expenditure. The $350 million includes the $121 million returned during the first quarter and builds on the total of $165 million that's been returned to shareholders to date since announcing our inaugural return of capital program last November. With this announcement, our dividend was also increased by 7% to 16 cents per share, implying a forward annualized dividend yield of about 1%. And our intention with this announcement was to provide more transparency and clarity on the magnitude of capital we expect to return this year. And we feel that returning over 50% of our free cash flow to shareholders is a meaningful way to generate value for our shareholders, with the remaining amount being reinvested across other capital allocation priorities in our portfolio. Finally, before I open up the line for questions, although Jody is not retiring for another month, this will be her last earnings call before I step into the president and CEO seat next month. Anything I say here will not do her leadership and tenure at Torex justice, but I do want to take a moment just to acknowledge Jody publicly in front of the analysts and investors on the line for all she has done and accomplished at Torex over the past eight years. She's made a real difference to the lives of so many in Mexico and beyond, who will be greatly missed by everyone across the team here at Torex, as well as I'm sure all of our stakeholders, including those on the line today. And with that, I'll open up the line for questions.

Thank you. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. The first question comes from Cosmo Xu with CIBC. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Thanks, Jody. All the best to you. Enjoy retirement. And Andrew, congratulations. And here comes the questions. Maybe my first question is on the enhanced return of capital program. You know, as you mentioned, you really talk about the intention in terms of capital return in 2026, but there wasn't any mention in terms of what happens beyond 2026. I guess maybe a question to Andrew, is the intent of the enhanced program to be maintained into, you know, future years, or is it something that you would, I guess, look at year over year?

Yep, thanks Cos for the question and that's a good question. So our intent with the return of capital announcement last night was to provide guidance on what to expect in 2026. And so we will be looking at that program annually to determine what our annual commitment will be each year going forward. And just to note though, of course, our return of capital program does include a dividend and that quarterly dividend is expected to be declared every quarter going forward. And so that's something that you can expect we would maintain in future years. And then in addition to that, we'll be providing annual guidance on what to expect from a share buyback perspective.

Great. And then, you know, Andrew, maybe if you can talk about how you came up with that sort of 55% of free cash flow being returned back to investors. We've seen from other, you know, companies in your peer group, they've talked about 35% return, 40% return. 55% is certainly on the higher end. You know, maybe can you talk about how you came up with that number?

Look, I think for us, Cos, I mean, what's very compelling is Where our shares are currently trading, we're currently trading at a significant discount compared to our peer group. And so it's a very compelling business case to be buying back our shares at this price. And so that helps motivate us to be very aggressive in our share buybacks this year. That said, we are looking to maintain in and around 50% of our free cash flow for our own balance sheet. And so we're looking to both return that capital to shareholders as well as grow our cash balance and liquidity on the balance sheet to deliver on broader capital allocation priorities. And so that's just the right balance for us, given the opportunity for our share buybacks as well as our broader strategic priorities. Great.

Maybe switching gears a little bit at Los Reyes, you know, likely you will be able to give me a timeline in terms of when you can potentially return to site. But if you can, that's great. If not, then could you maybe walk us through, you know, when you do return to site, what can we expect? Are you going to bring drills back? Are you going to start drilling once again? Like, what can we expect? Is there a plan in place in terms of what we can expect once you get back to site? And then I guess there's been some news in terms of a change in government in Sinaloa. The government, the governor of Sinaloa had recently resigned. Is there any kind of read through in terms of the asset level and how you view the timeline of your potential return? Anything that we should read into it?

I'll take this question, Cos. And so a few questions in there. Firstly, just to validate your assumption, Cos, we're not in a position to provide a specific date on when we'll be returning to site. I don't think it's appropriate to put pressure on the team. We'll make that decision at the right time. And that said, though, I'll say our discussions at all level of government, both locally and federally, has all been very positive and constructive. We're feeling very well supported across all levels of government and are making positive steps forward to create the conditions to access site. You know, we're hoping to get to site obviously sooner rather than later, but the timing would still need to be determined. When we do get to site, though, our plans are already set. We'll be looking to get the drills turning fairly imminently once we do get access to site. The drill rigs are actually already on site. They were not removed from site by Prime when they stood down the workforce over a year ago, and so the drills will be ready to turn fairly quickly after access is available. And then we'll also be looking to do work to support advancing our PFS. And so there's various other sample testing that we'll look to do to be able to support column testing and other methodological work. We'll want to fully assess the initial plans of plant location to make sure that that location makes sense based on geotech conditions and do further sampling and testing at sites. And so the work will be twofold, both drilling to continue to support the resource base as well as work to support the PFS.

Great. And then maybe one last question. Media Luna North, as you mentioned, you know, productions start in late 2026. There's a number of kind of items being progressed at this point in time. There's the main access ramp, a haulage drift, ventilation. But I guess my question is, is there a critical path? Is there certain items that we need to make sure that you complete on time to hit that target in terms of late 2026 production?

Yeah, there's a number of key milestones in the plan, Cos, and as Jodie mentioned today, everything is tracking to plan. I would say, I mean, at this point, the key critical milestone, which is imminent here, is the breakthrough of the North Bend Abbott. It's important for us to get access to additional ventilation to be able to commence the broader ramp development and open up the mine. That's in plan for May of this year, and that will be a key milestone to then start building out the mine. In addition to that, there's obviously the procurement activities that are underway. All of our long lead items have already been put, orders have already been put in place. And we've got commitments from those vendors to be able to deliver online with our schedule. But until that equipment obviously arrives at site, there's always some risk associated with that. But as we did with MediaLuna, we're working very closely with our suppliers to make sure that they adhere to their commitments to us. And so that work is ongoing. But at this point, everything that we're seeing is supportive of us producing first ore in December of this year.

Great. Thanks, Andrew. Those are all the questions I have. Jody, once again, thank you for all the years at Forex and all the best. Thanks, Carlos.

The next question comes from Don DeMarco with National Bank. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. And yeah, I'd just like to echo Cosmo's comments as well. Jody, best wishes on next steps. First question. Great to see the shareholder return program. With that, the $200 million minimum cash balance seems readily achievable, especially looking to the high free cash flow quarters in H2 and beyond. Is this minimum adequate dry powder to develop Los Rios or even for M&A? Given cash could provide a bidding advantage on some deals?

Yes. Look, Don, I'll take that question again. The $200 million we see as being a minimum balance that can provide as good operational flexibility as we work through seasonality in our cash flow looking forward. We will naturally, as you rightly point out, we will naturally build a cash balance beyond that through the course of this year. And in addition, we do have a fully undrawn $350 million revolver. And so the combination of where our cash will end at the end of this year and the the um available credit facility that we have we feel provides us good flexibility to be able to support our broader strategic initiatives you know as we kind of think about m a more broadly obviously if opportunities do come up that are beyond that we've got lots of debt capacity that we could take on um to support right the right deal at the right time and so we feel we've got the balance sheet to be able to support whatever strategic priorities we are looking to focus on going forward

Okay, great.

Yeah. And sorry, just to answer your question about lost raise, we'll be coming out with our PEA on that, of course, next month. As we've talked about in the past, we expect capital to be in the region of $500 million. And so that's a level of cash that we can build up. very quickly here and the timing of that would be in the in the 29-2030 period and so a significant period of time here to build cash to be able to support that build and we're very comfortable with that with that path forward.

Okay that's helpful. Then looking at MediaLuna you know given that you achieved the MediaLuna mining rates ahead of schedule Is there any favorable read-through to higher production this year, maybe even possibly toward the upper end of the guidance range?

Well, I mean, there's a potential read-through there, Don, in us being able to achieve mining rates at MediaLuna beyond 7,500 tons per day. And so that's something that we're working through. Today, I would say, assuming a steady state of 7,500 tons per day, is a good go-forward plan to include in your models and your assumptions. um in terms of overall production i i wouldn't expect that we would be above our guidance range i think we're very comfortable with our with our guidance range and that is although we're ahead of schedule on hitting the the rates at media lunar if you remember i think in q1 our initial target was to be at 7 000 tons per day and we achieved 7 500 tons per day and so the incremental or there will not have a meaningful impact on our on our annual production

Okay, thanks. And then just as a final question, looking to your expiration update from last week, you know, there was some comments on the prospect of drill target at Scala. Are you getting any initial indications from the modest drilling that's been done so far of its potential in terms of, you know, the standalone oxide deposit and so on? Or is that really something that we need more drilling to verify? Okay.

Look, it's too early, Don, to be able to share any specifics. At this point, we will have more data that we can share later on this year, but I know we've had discussions in the past about the real potential that we see within Escala, and everything we're seeing today continues to support the potential that we hope we can prove out in Escala, but we'll have more data that we can share in the second half of this year once we undertake further drilling.

Okay, great. Well, thanks again for taking my questions. That's all for me. Good luck with the rest of the quarter.

Thanks, Tom.

Once again, if you have a question, please first star, then one. The next question comes from Lauren McConnell with Paradigm Capital. Please go ahead.

Good morning, guys, and thank you for taking my questions, and congratulations, Jody, again on the retirement. Just, you know, talking about the planting at Morales, you know, you guys have contemplated, you know, taking it back up to that historical 13,000 ton per day levels. Can you just remind us of sort of when that decision could possibly be made and sort of what the key factors going into that are?

Yep, I can take that question again, Lauren. Good morning and thanks for the question. And so that's work that's underway now, clearly in the current gold price environment. The business case is potentially compelling here. But there's work that we need to do both to understand the engineering that's required to bring the plant back up to those historic levels, as well as understanding the broader impact that that decision could have on our go-forward mine plan and resource base. And so the work we're looking to do through the course of this year It's the supporters having a discussion and becoming decisional, I would say, in Q1 of next year.

Okay, perfect. That's really helpful. And then, you know, if we were to factor in or think about factoring in, it would be more like a 2028 timeframe then, if you did move forward with it.

Yeah. I think that's a fair assumption, Lauren. Correct.

And then just a quick question on Medialuna North. When you do tie that in, I just want to confirm that there's no plant downtime and there's no Medialuna mining rate downtime during that tie-in.

That's correct, Lauren. There's no impact to the plants in any way and no downtime within the Medialuna mine either.

Okay, perfect. Thank you. That's all for me.

As there appear to be no more questions. As there appears to be no more questions, this concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.