WPM Wheaton Precious Metals Corp.
$136.31
Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. Q3 F2026 Earnings Call Transcript
AI Conference Call Analysis
Sign in or subscribe to read.Julianne
Conference Call Operator
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Wheaton Precious Metals' 2026 Third Quarter Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star then the number one on your telephone keypad, or type your question in the Q&A box onto the webinar. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again.
Julianne
Conference Call Operator
Thank you.
Julianne
Conference Call Operator
I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded on Friday, November 6th, 2026 at 11 a.m. Eastern Time. I will now turn the conference over to Emma Murray, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Emma Murray
Vice President, Investor Relations, Wheaton Precious Metals
Thank you, Julianne. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for participating in today's call. I'm joined today by Haytham Hodaly, Wheaton Precious Metals President and Chief Executive Officer, Vincent Lau, Chief Financial Officer, Wes Carson, Vice President, Mining Operations, and Neil Burns, Vice President, Corporate Development. Please note, for those not currently on the webcast, a slide presentation accompanying this conference call is available in PDF format on the presentations page of our website. Some of the comments on today's call may include forward-looking statements. Please refer to slide two for important cautionary information and disclosure. It should be noted that all figures referred to on today's call are in U.S. dollars, unless otherwise noted. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Haytham Hodaly, Wheat's President and Chief Executive Officer.
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
Thank you, Emma, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss Wheaton's third quarter results of 2026. Wheaton's momentum continued in the third quarter, supporting a record-breaking first nine months for the company. Year-to-date, we have delivered record production, sales volumes, revenue, earnings, and operating cash flow. Our portfolio of long-life, low-cost assets produced 231,000 gold equivalent ounces in the third quarter, led by our operating assets, including Solobo, Antamina, and Petosquito, together with the continued wrap-up of our development assets keeping us firmly on track to achieve our 2026 production guidance range. Our corporate development team continues to evaluate a robust pipeline of opportunities while maintaining the discipline to pursue only the most accretive transactions. At the same time, the quarter was exceptionally active across our portfolio with a series of catalysts that further de-risk our growth pipeline and mark meaningful progress towards future growth. Valley Base Metals announced plans to implement a coarse particle flotation circuit at Solobo, an investment that is expected to add 6 million tons to Solobo's annual ore processing capacity, and one that underscores Valley's long-term commitment to the operation. In Cote d'Ivoire, Montage Gold achieved first gold pour at its Kony project, and in Ethiopia, Allied Gold has begun production at its Kermuk mine, marking the transition of two key development assets into production. This week, B2 Gold announced that they have completed Phase 1 upgrades to the fixed We also received our first deliveries related to Ivanhoe's slavery project in South Africa, an important step as that project continues to ramp up. Furthermore, Hunt Bay approved construction at the Copper World Project in Arizona, a significant milestone as this long life asset advances towards production. And in Australia, KGL Resources approved a final investment decision for its Pure Voice project. Collectively, these catalysts reinforce our confidence in Wheaton's sector-leading organic growth profile of 50% by 2030. That growth is already embedded in our existing portfolio and is not reliant on future transactions. Our balance sheet remains strong, with approximately $3 billion in total liquidity between cash on hand and our evolving credit facility as of September 30th. Together with our robust forecasted operating cash flows, we believe this provides ample flexibility to fund all outstanding commitments and pursue new, Thank you for joining us today. underpins our disciplined approach to capital allocation. Turning to sustainability, innovation remains critical to advancing more efficient and sustainable mining practices. We have been encouraged by the submissions to our third annual Future of Mining Challenge, which is focused on mine optimization and reducing land impacts. Three finalists are expected to be announced in February and the winner selected in March 2027. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Wes Carson, our Vice President of Mining Operations, who will provide more detail on our operating results. Wes?
Wes Carson
Vice President, Mining Operations, Wheaton Precious Metals
Thanks, Jacob. Good morning, everyone. Overall production in the third quarter was 231,000 gold equivalent ounces, a 13% year-over-year increase, primarily driven by the addition of the BHP Antamina stream, together with new production from Hemlo, Phoenix, Platte Reef, and Mineral Park. In Q3, Slobo produced 65,800 ounces of attributable gold, decreased approximately 2% relative to Q3 2025, primarily the result of lower grades due to mine sequencing, partially offset by higher recoveries and throughput. As Haytham mentioned, during the quarter, Valley Base Metals reported that quartz particle flotation is expected to be the key near-term growth driver at Slobo, supporting Slobo 3's expansion from 12 million to 18 million tons per annum and targeting total throughput for the operation of 42 million tons per annum by 2029. In Q3, Antamina produced 2.7 million ounces of attributable silver, an increase of approximately 60% relative to Q3 2025. The increase was primarily driven by the newly acquired BHP Antamina stream, which increased the company's share of silver production in Antamina from 33.75% to 67.5%, effective April 1, 2026. The increased production share was partially offset by lower silver rate Copper Zinc Corp, which contains more silver. On September 26, 2026, Montage Gold reported that it achieved first gold pour at its Code A mine, on budget and ahead of schedule. Montage reported that the oxide circuit is expected to reach commercial production in Q4 2026, while construction of the Hard Rock Combination Circuit remains on budget and on track for completion in Q2 of 2027. Subtle development projects continue to ramp up in Q3 2026, including Mineral Park, Phoenix and Platte Reef, with commercial production at both Phoenix and Platte Reef expected in Q4 of 2026. At Komuk, Allied Gold reported that ore had been introduced into the processing plant and the mine is now in production, ramping up into the end of the year, with commercial production expected before year end. We also saw significant de-risking across the rest of our development pipeline. At Copperworld, HUD-BAE and Mitsubishi announced the results of the Definitive Feasibility Study and formally approved the final investment decision to proceed with construction with first targeted production in the second half of 2029. In Australia, the KGL Resources Board approved the final investment decision for the Gervois Project, which is fully funded with first concentrated production targeted for the first half of 2028. At Marathon, Generation Mining commenced construction following the earlier announcement that it had secured final funding, with early works expected to run through Q4 2026 and into 2027. With Kone and Kermuk now transitioning into production, Gervois targeted for the first production in 2028, and Copper World for the second half of 2029, these catalysts are expected to continue to de-risk the development pipeline that underpins our industry-leading growth profile. Wien's production outlook for 2026 remains unchanged. with strong year-to-date production of approximately 640,000 GEOs. We remain well-positioned to achieve our annual production guidance of 860 to 940,000 GEOs and maintain a strong production forecast across the portfolio for the fourth quarter. Looking ahead, we expect annual production to grow at an industry-leading rate, reaching 1.2 million GEOs by 2030, with average annual production forecast to remain at approximately 1.2 million GEOs from 2031 to 2035. That concludes the operations overview, and with that, I'll turn the call over to Vincent. Thank you, Wes.
Vincent Lau
Chief Financial Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
Production in the third quarter was 231,000 GEOs, a 13% increase year over year, driven primarily by the addition of the BHP Antamina stream and continued contributions from newly operating assets, including Hemlo, Phoenix, Platte Reef, and Mineral Park. Still, those volumes were 192,000 GEOs, a 19% increase from the prior year, At the end of the third quarter, the produced but not yet delivered, or PB&D, balance was estimated to be 179,000 GEOs, representing 2.6 months of payable production. This represents an increase from the prior quarter due primarily to the timing differences between production and sales. Looking ahead, we expect increased production in the fourth quarter to result in a slightly higher PB&D balance, with higher sales volumes expected in the first quarter of 2027 due to the timing differences between production and sales. Strong commodity prices together with higher sales volumes generated quarterly revenue of $772 million, an increase of 62% compared to the prior year. This increase was driven by a 36% increase in the average realized gold equivalent price, combined with a 90% increase in the GEOs sold. Of this revenue, 51% was attributable to gold 46% to silver, and the remainder to palladium and cobalt. Net earnings increased by 12% from the prior year to $410 million, while adjusted net earnings increased by 46% to $410 million, resulting in year-to-date records across revenue, net earnings, and operating cash flows. These results highlight the strength of our asset base and the ability of the streaming model to translate higher commodity prices into significant cash flow. During the quarter, we generated approximately $645 million in operating cash flow and made approximately $87 million in upfront payments related to El Domo and Armato. We also made a quarterly dividend payment of approximately $88 million and repaid $372 million under our revolving credit facility. As a result, net debt declined from approximately $1.9 billion at the end of the second quarter to approximately $1.5 billion at the end of the third quarter, demonstrating the strength of our cash generation and our capacity to rapidly repay debt. On September 30th, we had approximately $146 million in cash on hand, $1.6 billion of debt outstanding under our term loan and revolving credit facility. With our revolver nearly repaid, we intend to maintain term loans to preserve liquidity for potential near-term opportunities, while retaining significant flexibility to fund our existing commitments. Given the strength of our production outlook and high-margin business model, we expect to continue to reduce our net debt and return to a net cash position in the near term, while remaining well-positioned to pursue additional accretive stream acquisitions. This concludes the financial summary. I'll now hand things back over to Haytham.
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
Thank you, Vincent. In summary, Wheaton's strong momentum continued through the third quarter, contributing to a record-setting first nine months. Year-to-date, we achieved records across productions and sales volumes, revenues, earnings, and cooperating cash flow, reflecting the quality and strength of our portfolio. Our growth pipeline delivered on multiple fronts, with first gold pour at Kone, the start of production at Kermoo, the construction of Louisville Copper World, FID approval at Gervois, and the planned implementation of a coarse particle flotation circuit at Salobo, which represent just a few of the catalysts we see in our growth profile. Our balance sheet remains strong, providing the flexibility to fund all of our commitments while pursuing well-structured, accretive opportunities. And as the pioneers of this training model, we continue to believe Wheaton offers one of the most effective ways to gain exposure to gold and silver with a growing dividend and a sector-leading growth profile. With that, I would now like to open up the call for questions. Operator?
Julianne
Conference Call Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now conduct the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. There will be a brief pause while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Fahad Tariq from Jefferies. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Fahad Tariq
Analyst, Jefferies
Hi, thanks for taking my questions. Just on the gold guidance for the year, I think if I do the math right, it implies a pretty significant pickup in the fourth quarter. Can you maybe touch on the contributing factors to that, and specifically on Solobo and what you're expecting on gold grades there? Thanks.
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
Yeah, thanks for the question, Fred.
Wes Carson
Vice President, Mining Operations, Wheaton Precious Metals
So, really, it is Solobo that is the main driver of... of the improvement in the fourth quarter. And really what we're looking at there is just getting back into kind of the bottom of the pit. We did see in the third quarter a slight drop in grades at Solovo, really as they were forced to students from operational issues to move into phase five of the pit, which is a little bit lower grade. And that means really the fourth quarter here, we should see quite a significant grade improvement and expect a strong out of Solovo. All the other assets are actually Setting up pretty well for this fourth quarter as well. So I think really we're expecting a strong fourth quarter.
Fahad Tariq
Analyst, Jefferies
Okay. And then just to follow up, is there any expected contribution from Kone or Kermuk in the fourth quarter? Or is there going to be a more significant leg and that'll be something more in the first quarter of next year? Thanks.
Wes Carson
Vice President, Mining Operations, Wheaton Precious Metals
We may see some very small production from both those assets in the fourth quarter, but it's not currently in our forecast. If we do see some, it'll be for us.
Unidentified participant
Conference call participant
Okay, that's it for me.
Julianne
Conference Call Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Brian MacArthur from Raymond James. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Brian MacArthur
Analyst, Raymond James
Good morning, and thank you for taking my question. It just has to do with the restructuring of the Slobo PMPA. The $40 million gets paid in installments. and you mentioned that'll be up and running by 2029. But do you make any $8 million payments in that time period or is that all post-2029? So I can think of these as 220 million payments before 29 and then take all the eights out after. Is that how this works?
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
Thanks for the question, Brian.
Wes Carson
Vice President, Mining Operations, Wheaton Precious Metals
Really, when we did the deal on the course particle flotation, we actually removed those $8 million payments. So that was to do with the high grade option. So there are now just the two $20 million payments, one about 50% completion and one at completion of the CPF project.
Brian MacArthur
Analyst, Raymond James
Perfect, thanks. And then is there any option or anything if they decide to do what I would call syllable four now? as a result of this restructuring, or if that comes up, do you just go back and set a new deal?
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
We'd love to see a solo before it happened, Brian, I would say. That being said, there's no current plan to move forward with that, but they're always looking for ways to continue to grow that production. When you've got decades of reserve life, you're always trying to figure out a way to accelerate that production. If there was... Although there's no requirement in our contract to do so, if they made it more economic for us to help, it was always something we would consider.
Unidentified participant
Conference call participant
Great. Thanks very much.
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
That's very helpful. Thank you, Brent.
Julianne
Conference Call Operator
Our next question comes from Cosmos Chu from CIBC. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Cosmos Chiu
Analyst, CIBC
Thanks, Haytham and team. Maybe to follow on the valet, the coarse particle The construction here. The $40 million, as you mentioned, is in lieu of the $80 million that would have been paid on the high-grade proposal under the previous agreement. But I guess my question is, you've kind of quantified the coarse particle processing, the additional 6 million tons. How does that compare to what the benefit would have been with a high-grade? Is it about half? Is that why you're paying half, $40 million, versus what would have been paid, $80 million under the high-grade proposal?
Wes Carson
Vice President, Mining Operations, Wheaton Precious Metals
Thanks for the question, Cosmos. I wouldn't look at it in that way, really. I mean, the high-grade payment was really almost like an artifact of kind of what the original deal was when we negotiated silver spring. and when we made the changes to that. That high-grade plan is something that really has changed quite a bit and is really integrated into the current planning with the significant increase in throughput. So and really the way that you can look at it as they're actually feeding more material through which means that you are getting significantly more metal. It doesn't change I would say the way that you would look at it between those two plans. 40 million really was calculated based on what the capital was to build that project and the benefit that Wheaton was going to see out of it. So that's really how we came up with that number. Those two numbers are not directly correlated. And you know what, the 40 million, the payback period of that to us is like a year and a half.
Vincent Lau
Chief Financial Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
So it makes complete sense to be aligned on that and get that benefit together with Vale.
Cosmos Chiu
Analyst, CIBC
Great. Yeah, I like how, you know, you mentioned that it's an artifact because I remember it being signed. So, you know, that would make me an artifact too. In terms of, it's great to see that, you know, you've maintained your long-term guidance, 1.2 million geos. But I guess my question is that's based on a gold-silver ratio of 60 to 1. We're not really at 60 to 1 at the moment.
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
maybe it's too early to ask have you you know thought about what you know ratio you could be using when you put out your new five-year guidance and and could that change the 1.2 million so so yeah it's a little bit early usually we reassess that at the end of the year when we see how things are going early next year but we are optimistic on on the outlook for both gold and silver and we do think silver will have a bit of a recovery I will say that you know that we're Fairly comfortable with 1.2, but it does vary based on what that ratio is. But we do have at least another three or four different development projects in the pipeline over the next five to six years that are also kicking in, whether it's Generation Mining, their marathon project, whether it's the Gervois project, whether it's the Cangrejos project that CMOC's putting together. There's a lot of additional growth that's not already in that number, so we would hope to be able to at least maintain that number going forward. But again, it all depends on where that ratio ends up.
Cosmos Chiu
Analyst, CIBC
Great. Annette, maybe one last question. Looking wider, we're seeing some buy-downs at not so much Wheaton Precious Metals, but at some of your competitors, Grey Bear or Cote last night. Could you remind me, Haytham, if there's any potential buy-downs near term within your portfolio?
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
So Cosmo, that's a great question. And the reason I'll say that is because one of the things we've always resisted is having buy downs. The only time we provide buy downs is in the event of a change of control because a lot of the projects that we have actually funded, the development stage projects, they're always looking for ways to either build value and sell the asset or continue to grow. What we've found and what we provide is only a one-third buy down in the event of a change of control for a limited period of time. and we don't at this point see anything that is going to kick in here in the next few years that's going to activate that. So we're pretty comfortable with our portfolio as it stands.
Cosmos Chiu
Analyst, CIBC
That's great to hear, Haytham, and thanks for answering all my questions. That's all I have. Have a great weekend. Thank you.
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
Thank you, Cosmos. You too.
Julianne
Conference Call Operator
Our next question comes from Daniel Major from UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Daniel Major
Analyst, UBS
Hi Haytham team, thanks very much for the questions. Yeah, first operational question. Newmont indicated on their call they expected a sharp reduction in silver production in Q4, but then also at a group level about a 30% reduction in silver production in 2027, which essentially implies lower output from Penasquito. Can you give us a steer on how you're seeing that profile specifically at Penesquito Q4 and directionally into next year? And then the second question just on that in terms of the sales profile, both Penesquito and Solobo have seen pretty sizable build, sort of delta between sales and production. Is that going to unwind in Q4?
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
Yeah, thanks for the question, Dan.
Wes Carson
Vice President, Mining Operations, Wheaton Precious Metals
So both of those items on Penosquito are integrated into our current plans. We are expecting to see a fairly significant decrease in silver production at Penosquito. Really, that just ties into the way that the pit production is set up and into next year as well, where they're starting to feed some of those carbon-rich stockpiles in. They've got a fairly significant amount of that that's in the plan next year as they continue on with stripping in the Penasco pit. So both of those are currently integrated into the production profiles for this year and next.
Vincent Lau
Chief Financial Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
And on the PB&D, we're currently sitting at about 2.6 months as a whole, as a portfolio. So that's kind of on the lower end of the range. As I said earlier, we do expect a slight increase So not a material increase, but a slight increase to our overall PB&D balance heading into year end.
Daniel Major
Analyst, UBS
Okay, so we shouldn't see a significant unwind. Yeah, slight build. Okay, that's clear. And then on Antamina, yeah, I mean, it feels like underlying productions lagged a little bit behind expectations this year. Can you give us the data on whether you'd expect that to benefit where you're previously thinking on 2027 and directionally, how should we be thinking about, and Tamina, your share of silver into next year?
Wes Carson
Vice President, Mining Operations, Wheaton Precious Metals
Yeah, I would say for this year, in Q3, we actually saw quite a significant improvement as they began to get into some of that more ornate-rich ore. and there was quite an uptick actually in Q3 on that and we expect that to continue into Q4 here with really kind of strong production into Q4. There is a fair bit of that material that's in and around that old in-pit crusher that they're starting to take out and that is what we're starting to see come out and that carries into certainly well into next year and into the early part of 28 as well.
Daniel Major
Analyst, UBS
Okay so directionally on 100 like adjusting for the All right thanks. Yeah, that's it for me.
Julianne
Conference Call Operator
Our next question comes from Derek Maugh from TD Catlin. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Derek Macpherson
Analyst, TD Cowen
Yeah, I just want to add on a couple questions I've already been asked. On Solobo, are we expecting higher grades from Q4 to flow into 2027 as well? Or how should we be thinking about the grades?
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
In Q4, we're certainly expecting those higher grades.
Wes Carson
Vice President, Mining Operations, Wheaton Precious Metals
For 2027, it's a reasonably similar year. So, I mean, we'll put that in kind of as we look into the budget for next year. It is a reasonably similar year next year to what we saw this year overall.
Derek Macpherson
Analyst, TD Cowen
Similar to 2026 overall, not Q4.
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
Yes.
Derek Macpherson
Analyst, TD Cowen
Yes. Similar to 2026. Yeah. And then in terms of the approximate timing lag between production and sales, what does that look like specifically at Solobo and Penasquito?
Wes Carson
Vice President, Mining Operations, Wheaton Precious Metals
Both are about two months. That's generally your lag, and that's fairly consistent with most assets.
Julianne
Conference Call Operator
Our next question comes from Harrison Reynolds from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Harrison Reynolds
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets
Hi, good morning Wheaton team and thanks for taking my questions and appreciate the detail provided so far. Good to see a number of operator updates across the portfolio. I wanted to follow up on the long-term guide of 1.2 million ounce geos and setting aside the commodity price ratios and and just get a reminder of what's currently embedded in that guidance from an ops standpoint. You know, I look at the Salobo course particle flotation and some of these other aggregate upsides between Constantia Mill expansions and Tarah Paru advancing to a construction decision. You know, what other, you know, op items lay outside the guidance?
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
I mean, just to highlight what's in the guidance, I mean, we've talked a lot about that, whether it's, you know, the ramp-ups at Platte Reef, Phoenix, Mineral Park, Kone, Kermuk, El Domo, Copper World, the now made FID decisions, small amount of production from Spring Valley and Santa Domingo. What we haven't really factored in is, you know, significant contributions from some of the other development projects, such as the Ken Granos, True Voice, that hasn't been factored into our analysis yet. and Marathon, which just recently announced a FID decision as well. And that's just to mention a few. There's probably about three others or four others that I can continue to get into, but probably best if you want a little bit more color on that, maybe just give Emma a call after. She can go through the numbers with you.
Harrison Reynolds
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets
Thanks. And just as a follow-up, as you work through the remaining committed payments here and be leveraging, at what point does the balance sheet open up for the next large-scale transaction from where you sit today?
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
Sure. I'll let Vincent answer that, but I will say one thing. We do have currently $3 billion in capacity, so the balance sheet's always open for us. But I'll let Vincent talk a little bit more about our debt.
Vincent Lau
Chief Financial Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
Yeah, we don't feel at all constrained currently, given the opportunity set. As Haytham has laid out, we have a lot of liquidity. Our revolver is almost fully repaid at the end of Q3, so $2.5 billion is immediately available, and then we have a $500 million accordion on top of that. And as we continue to generate significant cash flow, we do expect to be back in the net cash position towards the end of next year, early 2028. So lots of capacity and growing going forward.
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
So by the end of next year, we'll have over $4 billion in capacity and growing every month. So I'm very excited about the way things are going and we're a growth company. So we're going to continue to try and deploy a lot of the capital we generate back into high quality, creative street transactions.
Unidentified participant
Conference call participant
Great. Sounds good. Thanks for taking my questions.
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
Thanks, Harris.
Julianne
Conference Call Operator
Our next question comes from Martin Pradier from Veritas Investment Research. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Unidentified participant
Conference call participant
Hi, Martin. Hello. Hi. Hi. Yes, hi, Martin.
Martin Pradier
Analyst, Veritas Investment Research
Go ahead. Yes, sorry. In terms of Vale, could you explain to us how much you expect from that in terms of payments to Wheaton Precious Metal in 2029 and 2030.
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
Are you asking for what the relative level of contribution will be from Solobo?
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
Is that your specific question?
Martin Pradier
Analyst, Veritas Investment Research
Yeah, from the incremental, right? From this new particle flotation. So is that expected to increase 40,000, 45,000 ounces or how many ounces?
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
No, I think what we've stated in the past is we do expect a portion of that's already factored in to the overall numbers. What we would expect to see from Salobo going forward is a number somewhere around 300,000 ounces on a more consistent basis for the next few years.
Martin Pradier
Analyst, Veritas Investment Research
Okay, so it's sort of offsetting the depletion and the lower grade, but not really increasing production.
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
It increases by around 5%, but yeah, it's not a huge number.
Martin Pradier
Analyst, Veritas Investment Research
Okay. And the other question I had is, in Kermuk, what do you expect in terms of payments in 2027 and 2028? And sort of the same for Kone.
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
For Kermuk, we're expecting, you know, probably about...
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
Under 10,000 ounces in Kermuk for 2027 and somewhere probably 50% higher than that in 2028. And that will continue to grow over the next two years after that as well. And that's, keep in mind, that's based on their existing mine plan of 6 million tons per annum. They're already talking about going to 6.4 million tons per annum and that's not factored into those numbers. On Kone, we're expecting, well, this is, that's where, Kone is actually very interesting because They initially, when we first entered into this trust transaction, we thought we were going to get somewhere close to 300,000 ounces a year for five years, then it was going to drop off. With the stream transaction and the financing, we provided them the ability to go out and drill and add additional ounces, and they've found additional higher grade material. Now they're talking about at least 350,000 ounces to their account for... for at least 10 years and could potentially grow even more. So you can back calculate what we would think our production will be out of Kona over the next couple of years as they ramp up.
Martin Pradier
Analyst, Veritas Investment Research
Yeah, I was trying to understand the ramp up 2026, 27, 27, 28.
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
Yeah, I think if you factored in like 50 to 50 plus ounces, 1,000 ounces in 2027 and
Unidentified participant
Conference call participant
Our next question comes from Lawson Winder.
Julianne
Conference Call Operator
Please go ahead, your line is open.
Lawson Winder
Analyst
Thank you very much operator. Good morning Haytham and team. Thank you for today's update and taking the questions. Can I just touch on the deal pipeline? And just one thing I wanted to kind of understand a little bit better. When you look at the potential transactions, how would you describe the urgency of some of those in the current pipeline? And then maybe if you could just touch on some additional color on the depth of the pipeline and then just the range of sizes in the pipeline.
Neil Burns
Vice President, Corporate Development, Wheaton Precious Metals
Professor Neil. Yeah, sure. Thanks for the question. As Haytham mentioned, the team's been extremely busy. As we mentioned in the last call, we had about 20 opportunities in the pipeline at that time. We've narrowed that down to just over a dozen because upon detailed review, many didn't meet our criteria for investment. The weighting currently still towards development projects and gold streams, range in value has increased slightly before where we stated it was roughly two to five type of opportunities.
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
In terms of your question, re-urgency, I mean, everybody's looking for ways to unlock value. I think the transaction we did earlier in this year with BHP, a lot of large diversifieds are looking through their portfolios to see if there's some value they can extract. That being said, that takes time. It took us a while to get BHP across the line, and it takes time for others to understand how the streaming model works and how the actual Thank you very much.
Lawson Winder
Analyst
Your capacity to add $3 billion of additional debt to effectively consummate larger transactions. It's definitely helpful, but I mean, it still strikes me as exceedingly conservative. So like rough numbers, that's still below one and a half times trailing net leverage on today's numbers, on today's trailing EBITDA. So think about it another way. From a net leverage point of view, how would you think about the capacity of your business to take additional debt?
Vincent Lau
Chief Financial Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
Yeah, we very much view our business as a utility almost. You know, we have good certainty on what the production is. The unknown is what the gold and silver price is. But what we do know, it is a very high margin, high quality cash flowing business. So on that basis, we can support some debt. We're only going to be at one and a half times leverage, and that's a level that we're comfortable with. Beyond that, we haven't really need to look. There isn't a pipeline that's larger than that, but it just gives you a sense of the capacity we do have and the ability to fund deals internally with our own cash flows.
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
We're also adding a couple hundred plus dollars a month in free cash flow. So as Vincent said, We feel very comfortable at the levels that we've mentioned there.
Lawson Winder
Analyst
Yeah, yeah, no, no, absolutely. You bring up a good point about the volatility of the underlying metal. I think it's an important consideration. So are you saying like one and a half is the maximum you think you would go? Or I mean, personally, I think the business could take a much higher sort of like moment in time leverage ratio, given that it would be paid down over a quick period of time. But I mean, is that what you're saying? Like one and a half is kind of the max that you'd be comfortable with?
Vincent Lau
Chief Financial Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
I think it's dependent on the environment and the situation we're in. So there's no hard number that we look at. It's a variety of factors. But I would just say one and a half at current spot price is something we're very comfortable with.
Lawson Winder
Analyst
Okay. Okay. That's very clear. And then, you know, similar question on like capital allocation. Your indicated dividend yield is something like 60 basis points right now. It's relatively low, and that is a clear reflection of your success. On the other hand, your success would suggest an ability to very substantially increase the dividend from the current levels. Any thoughts on that, particularly going into early 2027 when the board will be meeting to consider the next dividend increase?
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
I know it's a great question, and we have increased the dividend three times in the last three years. It is a progressive dividend. The most recent increase was over 18%, and you're right, we do have the capacity to increase it, and we'll leave that to our discussions with the board in the early New Year. I will say that we are a growth company, and the number one thing for us to do is to continue to redeploy capital into accretive transactions to maintain that longer-term growth. But you're not wrong in that, you know, the streamers in general don't pay out huge dividends because there's so many opportunities. But, you know, we are going to be generating strong cash flows as something we'll have to take into consideration.
Lawson Winder
Analyst
Okay, and then just finally, if I could ask on 2027, and thinking about the growth, I mean, across your portfolio, you have Kone, Kermode, Platte Reef, they're now producing and then Blackwater, Mermato's ramping up. I mean, dare I say, Goose is, you know, that ramp up is looking to get sorted out in 2027. So everything points to a lot of growth potential, but are there any assets that you'd highlight where you'd expect some sort of substantial decline that maybe we're not thinking about that could offset what otherwise might be quite strong growth into 2027?
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
I would say looking at our existing production profile, if there's any drops like we were expecting to see, as Wes mentioned earlier on Penosquito, that will drop a little bit. But all that is already built into our profile. Antamina as well, potentially maybe a slight drop there. But, you know, I think if you're looking at what we're guiding to, all those drops are built into our profile. We do get five-year production profiles from all our existing partners, sometimes 10 years. and we factor those in with our own, obviously, adjustments based on what we think is actually going to happen there. So we're pretty, pretty comfortable with the guidance that we've given you guys in terms of our.
Lawson Winder
Analyst
OK, sure. Thank you guys very much. Good quarter.
Haytham Hodaly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Wheaton Precious Metals
Thank you, Lawson. Appreciate it. And thank you, everyone, for your time today. Our record performance through the first nine months of 2026 reinforces Wheaton's position as a premier low risk option for exposure to gold and silver. This concludes this conference call for today.
Julianne
Conference Call Operator
Thank you for participating. Please disconnect your line.