Kinross Gold Corporation Stock

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Kinross Gold Second Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions] I'd now like to turn the call over to David Shaver, Executive Vice President. You may begin.

Thank you, and good morning. In the room with us today on the call, we have Paul Rollinson, CEO; and from the Kinross senior leadership team, Andrea Freeborough, Claude Schimper, William Dunford, Geoff Gold; and Bernard Wessels, our incoming Chief Operating Officer.

For a complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties, which may lead to actual results differing from estimates contained in our forward-looking information, please refer to Page 3 of this presentation, our news release dated July 29, 2026, the MD&A for the period ending June 30, 2026, and our most recently filed AIF, all of which are available on our website.

I will now turn the call over to Paul.

Thanks, David, and thank you all for joining us. This morning, I will discuss our second quarter results, provide high-level updates from across our portfolio, comment on sustainability achievements and confirm our outlook. I will then hand the call back over to the team to provide further details.

Before we begin discussing the quarter, I would like to highlight some changes to our senior leadership team. I'm pleased to announce the appointment of Bernard Wessels as Chief Operating Officer, succeeding Claude Schimper, who will be retiring later this year.

Claude has been an integral part of Kinross for more than 16 years, including the past 5 years on our senior leadership team and 4 years as COO. During his tenure, he has led our operations with a steadfast commitment to safety, operational excellence and continuous improvement, helping to deliver meaningful and lasting benefits across the business. To ensure a seamless transition, Claude will remain with the company for a period of time, working closely with Bernard. On behalf of the Board and the entire Kinross team, I would like to thank Claude for his outstanding leadership and many contributions to the company and wish him all the best in his retirement.

Bernard brings more than 25 years of mining experience, having held increasing senior operational and leadership roles at Sibanye-Stillwater, Harmony Gold, Anglo American Platinum JV and most recently, Newmont. We are excited to welcome Bernard to Kinross and look forward to leveraging his extensive operational leadership.

Turning now to our second quarter results. Following a strong Q1, we delivered a strong Q2, establishing an excellent first half and positioning us well to achieve our full year guidance. We continued to hold the line on costs and delivered strong operating margins. As a result, we delivered free cash flow of over $727 million in Q2 and over $1.5 billion in the first half of this year. Our business is in excellent shape and our pipeline of growth projects, including Great Bear and Lobo-Marte continue to advance well. Our financial position and cash flow outlook remains excellent. And in Q2, we continued to return additional capital to our shareholders through both buybacks and our quarterly dividend, in keeping with our target to return 40% of our free cash flow.

In terms of operations, Q2 was another strong quarter with production of 492,000 ounces. Both Tasiast and Paracatu were key contributors, together accounting for more than half of our production, driving significant free cash flow. With regards to our projects, we continue to make strong progress across the portfolio. In the U.S., the team continues to advance our 3 new high-quality projects at Phase X, Redbird and Curlew. At Great Bear, both the advanced exploration and the main project are progressing well. In terms of AEX, with the remaining permits in place, we recently completed the first blast of the exploration decline.

And with respect to the main project, both detailed engineering and permitting are advancing well. We continue to work with the authorities as they progress their review of the impact statement. We also continue to engage with local stakeholders and indigenous partners through regular community meetings, ongoing collaboration and transparent communication.

Moving across to Chile. As a reminder, we submitted the Lobo-Marte Environmental Impact Assessment in March, marking an all-important milestone and formally launching the permitting process. Subsequently, in May, we welcomed the newly elected President of Chile, President Kast to our local offices in Copiapó. During his visit, he acknowledged Kinross' long-standing commitment to the Atacama region and declared his support for our development plans in the region, including our world-class project Lobo-Marte. We appreciate President Kast's support for the responsible operation and the development of our assets in the region. And last night, we announced an update on Lobo-Marte, an excellent high-quality asset in our portfolio, with a strong production profile, low cost structure and excellent economics. Will is going to elaborate on this later in the call.

Turning now to sustainability. We published our annual sustainability report in the second quarter. This report provides a comprehensive update on our achievements and plans going forward. A key highlight for me was in Mauritania. In June, we delivered humanitarian support to remote farming communities facing food insecurity due to drought and rising transportation costs.

Turning now to our outlook. Following a strong first half, we remain on track to meet our full year production, cost and capital guidance. As we highlighted last quarter, we continue to benefit from an attractive relative cost position, supported by our disciplined approach to managing cost pressures through input cost hedging, productivity initiatives and our grade enhancement strategy. Looking ahead, we remain focused on continued operational execution, cost management and capital allocation and continued advancement of our high-quality resource base. Our focus is to continue to generate strong margins, robust free cash flow and long-term value for all our shareholders.

With that, I will now turn the call over to Andrea.

Thanks, Paul. This morning, I'll review our financial highlights from the second quarter, provide an overview of our balance sheet and return of capital and comment on our outlook. As Paul noted, Q2 was another strong quarter for us. We produced 492,000 gold equivalent ounces as planned. Q2 cost of sales of $1,336 per ounce and all-in sustaining costs of $1,821 per ounce were also on plan. Margins were robust at over $3,100 per ounce. Our adjusted earnings were $0.71 per share, and our adjusted operating cash flow was again over $1.1 billion. Attributable free cash flow was $727 million after $406 million in capital expenditures and $327 million in tax payments.

Turning now to our balance sheet. In the second quarter, we continued to strengthen our financial position, adding over $470 million in cash after returning $275 million to shareholders. We ended the quarter with new records of $2.7 billion in cash and $1.9 billion in net cash. With respect to our return of capital, as a reminder, we're targeting a 40% return of free cash flow through a combination of dividends and share buybacks.

Our shares continue to remain a strong return on invested capital, considering our attractive valuation and free cash flow yield. In Q2, we repurchased a total of 7.9 million shares for $230 million and continued to pay our quarterly dividend of approximately $50 million. Combined, our total return of capital in the first half represented approximately 37% of our attributable free cash flow, and we remain on track to achieve our 2026 target of 40%. Subsequent to quarter end, we repurchased an additional $40 million of shares.

I'm also pleased to report that since resuming our share buybacks in Q2 2025, we've repurchased over $1.1 billion in shares, representing approximately 4% of our outstanding share count. And including our quarterly dividends, we have returned approximately $615 million to date in 2026 and approximately $1.4 billion since the start of 2025. These results reflect the strength of our cash flow generation and our ongoing commitment to delivering meaningful returns to shareholders while further strengthening our balance sheet.

Turning now to our guidance. Following a strong first half, we remain solidly on track to deliver approximately 2 million ounces and a cost of sales of $1,360 per ounce and an all-in sustaining cost of $1,730 per ounce. And we're also on track with our capital guidance in the range of $1.5 billion. On production, we'd expect the third quarter to be in line with the first 2 quarters as we continue to transition to Phase S at Round Mountain, and we expect the fourth quarter to be higher.

In terms of our operating costs, as we look to the second half of the year, we expect costs to be modestly higher, reflecting a greater contribution from our U.S. operations. For the full year, we'd expect to be in line with our cost guidance. As Paul noted earlier, through our disciplined cost management, we're starting from a competitive cost position relative to our peers. We remain focused on managing costs in order to maintain strong margins and free cash flow generation. In the near to medium term, our fuel hedging program continues to provide meaningful protection against higher oil prices with significant hedges in place through both 2026 and 2027.

I would also reiterate that the fuel cost sensitivities we outlined with our first quarter results remain unchanged and the impact on our overall cost structure remains manageable and within our guidance ranges. As a reminder, our guidance was based on $70 oil. For every $10 per barrel change in oil price, we expect an impact of approximately $10 per ounce, with a potential additional $4 per ounce from secondary impacts such as freight and other consumables as oil markets continue to be volatile. For added context, if the recent oil prices persist through the remainder of the year, the impact on all-in sustaining costs would be less than 2%.

On the supply side, we continue to receive regular deliveries of fuel and other key consumables, and we've not experienced any supply disruptions across our operations. Looking forward, our grade enhancement strategy is expected to provide organic offsets to inflationary pressures and contribute a stronger cost profile over time. For example, both Phase X and Curlew are expected to begin contributing higher grade ounces to our production profile starting in 2028. And our 2 world-class development projects, Great Bear and Lobo-Marte, are expected to be contributing a total of approximately 850,000 ounces per year of high-grade, low-cost ounces to our future production profile.

With that, I'll now turn the call over to Claude.

Thank you, Andrea. I'd like to start with our safety culture. This quarter, we continue to invest in protecting our people through proactive training initiatives, which promote our Safeground brand. Our critical risk management program continues to mature across our operations with leaders engaging effectively with the workforce and verifying critical controls for high-risk tasks.

Turning now to our operations. Starting with Paracatu, the mine had an outstanding quarter with strong production driving significant free cash flow. Production of 158,000 ounces and a cost of sales of $1,108 per ounce were in line with the prior quarter. Paracatu remains on track to meet its guidance of 600,000 ounces at a target cost of sales of $1,240 per ounce. Tasiast had another strong quarter. Production of 133,000 ounces increased over the prior quarter due to higher throughput with a cost of sales of $990 per ounce, in line with the prior quarter. Tasiast remains on track to meet its guidance of 505,000 ounces at a target cost of sales of $1,050 per ounce.

At La Coipa, we produced 59,000 ounces at a cost of sales of $1,395 per ounce. Production increased over the prior quarter due to planned higher grades and throughput. Cost of sales decreased over the prior quarter due to higher production. Before I move on, I'd like to acknowledge the recent severe winter storm in Northern Chile. Our thoughts are with the local communities and our employees who were affected by this event. While we experienced some impact, La Coipa remains on track to achieve its annual guidance of 210,000 ounces at a target cost of sales of $1,320 per ounce.

Moving to our U.S. operations. Production was lower quarter-over-quarter as we ramp up ore mining at Round Mountain Phase S in the second half of the year. Combined, the U.S. sites delivered production of 142,000 ounces, cost of sales of $1,871 per ounce. At Fort Knox, production of 95,000 ounces was in line with the prior quarter, cost of sales of $1,596 per ounce was lower compared to the prior quarter due to the timing of ounces processed through the mine. At Bald Mountain, production of 27,000 ounces was in line with the prior quarter, cost of sales of $1,770 per ounce was lower due to the ramp-up of capital stripping at Redbird in Q2 and higher ounces placed on the heap leach pads. At Round Mountain, we are currently in a stage of higher waste mining and lower grade, lower volume ore supply as we are stripping Phase S. Higher grade, higher recovery ore is expected from Phase S in the second half of the year.

Turning to a spotlight on our overall performance. At Kinross, we have a strong culture of continuous improvement and innovation embedded throughout the business, with each site having a dedicated team in place to evaluate, implement and sustain increased efficiencies and cost management practices. I would like to list a few highlights of these projects to demonstrate how they help offset inflationary and cost pressures. Starting with Paracatu, the recovery improvement projects, which have been in the works for the last couple of years, are now delivering tangible results. We have made enhancements to the CIL circuit, implemented new gravity concentrators, improved process controls and carbon management practices as well as targeted improvements in the Acacia reactor performance, all of which are contributing to higher recoveries and improved operating performance.

At Tasiast, we are focused on mining and mill throughput improvements and our solar power. On the mining front, we are focused on loading productivities, targeted training and commissioning of larger equipment. In parallel, we've improved the effective utilization of our rolling fleet through an improved roster balance, shift change management and dispatch optimization. These increases together have contributed to a record month in May with Tasiast delivering the highest tons mined and moved in its history.

At the mill, the team's attention is focused on continued improvement reliability, and some examples include implementing procedures, which have reduced the time to change out a rip belt by 50%, redesigning the SAG panels with lighter weight and adding oxygenation to make recoveries more consistent. In terms of power, the solar facility continues to provide approximately 23% of site power requirements, resulting in lower energy consumption and reducing impacts of the recent elevated oil prices.

At Bald Mountain, the shovel optimization program has delivered improvements in loading efficiency, outputting lower mining costs while improving equipment productivity. We have also introduced a relief operator program, which has contributed approximately 2.1 million productive tons during break coverage since the beginning of the year. At both Round Mountain and Fort Knox, we have optimized haul routes and truck dispatching practices, reducing unnecessary engine hours and fuel consumption. These efforts have resulted in fuel savings of approximately 6.4 million liters while reducing haul cycle times at Fort Knox by approximately 7 minutes.

At all of our sites, we are embracing the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve our predictive maintenance, optimize schedules and mine planning and fire response management. Overall, our continuous improvement and innovation initiatives continue to generate measurable benefits across the portfolio, supporting safety, productivity gains, enhancing efficiency and helping offset inflationary cost pressures.

Before I hand the call over to William, I'd like to say what an incredibly rewarding journey it has been with Kinross. It has been both a privilege and an honor to work alongside such a talented and dedicated team. As I transition my responsibilities over to Bernard, I do so with great confidence, and his extensive operational experience, combined with the strength of our team, positions Kinross well for continued success.

Thank you to everyone with whom I've had the opportunity to work alongside over the years. And Bernard, welcome to Kinross.

With that, I will now pass the call over to William.

Thanks, Claude, and it's been a pleasure working alongside you. Bernard, welcome to Kinross. I look forward to working closely together as we continue to advance our operating and growth initiatives across the portfolio. Turning to our resource base and project pipeline. Our portfolio remains underpinned by a substantial gold resource inventory of more than 27 million ounces of M&I and an additional 17 million ounces of inferred.

In addition to our near-term growth projects, our technical services teams continue to advance a number of medium-term attractive mine life extension opportunities from across this resource base, including Phase 11 at Fort Knox, top pit at Bald Mountain, resource pit extensions at Paracatu, open pit and underground extensions at Tasiast and the La Coipa oxide extensions in Chile. These projects have the potential to further strengthen our production profile, extend mine lives and create value for shareholders well into the next decade. The 3 high-quality projects in the U.S. that we announced earlier this year are excellent examples of how we are leveraging our extensive resource base to create long-term value. I'm pleased to report that our teams are making strong progress across all 3 projects and continue to advance them on plan.

At Phase X at Round Mountain, underground development is progressing slightly ahead of schedule with over 8,400 meters completed to date, derisking our path to first production in 2028. Engineering work for both surface and underground infrastructure is advancing well, including the start of detailed engineering for our paste backfill plant. Procurement is also advancing well with packages awarded for many critical items such as the mobile equipment, ventilation fans and the CRF plant. We've also had a strong focus on operations readiness, with 21 Kinross miners gaining experience, working underground with our contractor and onboarding of a highly experienced underground mine manager.

At Bald Mountain, mining of Redbird is advancing well, benefiting from the increases in efficiency, and we expect Redbird production to continue ramping up through the rest of this year. Construction of heap leach pad extensions to support Redbird advanced significantly over the first half of the year, benefiting from a milder winter with earthworks for the first leach pad extension now complete and lining well underway. Engineering for the SART plant and other process infrastructure has also advanced, and long lead procurement is underway for some of the key infrastructure.

Turning to our Curlew project in Washington. We made significant progress on the tailings dewatering plant in Q2 with the building now complete and installation of mechanical equipment commencing. Mill refurbishment activities are starting to ramp up with the contractor onboarded and starting initial demolition. Underground mine development and infrastructure are also advancing well, with the raise collar construction completed for the main ventilation and escape raises, and underground development ahead of schedule. We are pleased with the progress across this portfolio of opportunities, and we'll continue to provide updates as the projects advance towards production.

Turning now to Lobo-Marte, our next high-margin cornerstone development project beyond Great Bear. We completed a high-level refresh of our feasibility study economics to account for inflation since 2021 and further enhancements of the execution strategy. For context, the historically operated project is located in Northern Chile in the Atacama region, approximately 50 kilometers from both of our assets, La Coipa and Maricunga. Project's key attributes include its forecasted long mine life, high heap leach grade and low strip ratio, positioning Lobo-Marte at the lower end of the industry cost curve and reinforcing its potential to become a significant contributor to long-term shareholder value.

In terms of production, based only on the initial mine plan and current reserve, Lobo-Marte is expected to produce approximately 4.6 million ounces over an initial 15-year operating life. Annual production is expected to average approximately 350,000 ounces a year during steady-state operations, providing a meaningful and long-duration source of low-cost production for our portfolio. These attributes and the substantial production scale deliver excellent returns on the $1.8 billion initial capital with an all-in sustaining cost of $1,000 per ounce and NPV of $4.3 billion and IRR of 26% and a payback period of approximately 2 years, all set at a gold price of $4,100 per ounce. And the project remains resilient at lower gold prices.

With a high grade, low strip ratio and low cost structure, Lobo-Marte is expected to play an important role in our grade enhancement strategy alongside Great Bear, with potential to become a cornerstone asset, adding higher-margin production and strong free cash flow in the 2030s and into the 2040s. The project is also an excellent strategic fit for Kinross, extending our mine life in Chile, where we have a 20-plus year history of production and strong government support for responsible mine development through large-scale open pit mining and heap leach processing, areas where we have extensive experience, both in Chile and in the U.S.

The layout and scale of the 2 open pit mines at Lobo-Marte is one key driver of that low-cost structure and high margin. Size of the pits and the broad mineralization allow for use of a large-scale fleet plan to deliver mining rates of up to 50 million tons per annum in the current mine plan. Forecasted mining costs over the life of mine of $3.25 per ton also benefits from the construction of conveyors to transport ore from the open pits to the crushing facilities, driving down material movement operating costs.

Most importantly, on the mining side, the overall cost structure and all-in sustaining costs are expected to benefit significantly from the low strip ratio of 2:1, driven by the broad nature of the mineralization on these porphyry deposits. Plan and the current economics from the 2021 FS contemplates the sequential development of the 2 open pits, beginning with Marte, which has been mined previously, reducing the strip ratio and initial CapEx. As we progress the project, we will continue to study the optionality around the sequencing of the 2 open pits.

Moving to processing. Project is designed around a nominal throughput rate of approximately 35,000 tons per day with ore processed through a conventional 3-stage crushing circuit prior to heap leaching. The amenability of the ore to heap leaching with a strong forecasted heap leach recovery of 69% is also central to the strong margin and low expected cost of production at Lobo-Marte as heap leach processing at an estimated $12.30 per ton would be significantly cheaper than a conventional mill and CIL circuit.

The 1.3 gram per ton average grade of the reserve at Lobo is significantly higher than most heap leaches operating today and is the largest contributor to the strong margins, economics and returns of this project with an estimated all-in sustaining cost of $1,000 an ounce. It is this grade that enables Lobo to potentially produce 300,000 to 400,000 ounces per year from a relatively straightforward 35,000 ton per day 3-stage crush and heap leach facility.

Moving to capital and site infrastructure. The refresh of the 2021 FS indicates initial project capital of approximately $1.8 billion, largely driven by processing facilities and site infrastructure, including approximately $1.1 billion of direct capital and $700 million for indirects and contingency. Key infrastructure required to support the project beyond the processing facilities includes a 75-kilometer access road, 60-kilometer power line and a 40-kilometer water pipeline, which is expected to bring water in from our existing operating wells that are currently supplying water to La Coipa.

We also included significant investment in the capital estimate to ensure best-in-class environmental controls and initiatives, including options such as covering all of our conveyors to minimize dust and using regenerative braking on the conveyors to save energy. This high-level refresh was provided to account for inflation since 2021 and to reflect the current execution strategy, which has advanced over the prior years to improve constructability and reduce development and execution risk. We are progressing to detailed engineering and will provide a fulsome capital update once detailed engineering is substantially completed.

Given the manageable estimated initial capital of $1.8 billion, plan funded from operating cash flow, in line with our disciplined capital allocation strategy. The combination of the low mining cost, low processing cost, high heap leach grade and the resource size are what make this project a central focus in our grade enhancement strategy. Importantly, the impressive economics in this update reflect only a starting point for Lobo-Marte.

The project has significant upside potential beyond the current mine plan and captures just a portion of the broader mineral endowment identified across the property. The current open pit mine designs in this update remain unchanged from the 2021 feasibility study and include only the reserve from 2021, which was done at a $1,200 gold price. The 2021 mine plan was maintained as the base case for the EIA submission as baseline studies have advanced on this plan, helping to facilitate an earlier submission of the EIA and the plan already provides production well into the 2040s. However, significant potential remains at higher prices to further unlock value at Lobo-Marte through mine life extensions from the 2.8 million ounces of indicated resource and approximately 700,000 ounces of inferred.

As you can see on the slide, this inventory has the potential to be captured through a further layback of each pit, which could meaningfully extend mine life. You can also see the mineralization remains open at depth, continuing beyond the resource pits and is ultimately limited only by a lack of drilling at depth. And beyond this optionality at the Lobo and Marte pits, we also see potential on our broader land package to identify additional open pit deposits through exploration, which could further enhance the mine life and production profile. This is a highly prospective land package, which sits on the prolific Maricunga trend with 2 porphyry deposits and a substantial resource inventory already identified. We know these types of deposits occur in clusters along structural corridors, and we will focus exploration on finding additional deposits once we bring Lobo-Marte into operation.

To conclude on the Lobo-Marte economic update, we are excited by the quality of this project and the potential to bring it online to further our grade enhancement strategy in the early 30s, driving high-grade, low-cost heap leach production in Chile well into the 2040s with significant value creation potential for our shareholders.

With that, I will now hand it over to Geoff for an update on permitting at Lobo-Marte and Great Bear.

Thanks, Will. In terms of permitting at Lobo-Marte, the project's Environmental Impact Assessment was accepted by Chile's Environmental Assessment Service in April 2026, marking an important milestone for Lobo-Marte and the team. Permitting remains a critical path, and we have taken a rigorous approach to integrating environmental and community considerations into the project design and capital estimate from the outset. This includes leveraging the best available technologies and measures intended to protect water resources, reduce dust generation and optimize infrastructure placement to reduce the project footprint. We continue to work closely with the Chilean regulatory authorities to advance the permitting process with a view to targeting first gold production in the early 2030s.

Turning now to advanced exploration at Great Bear. As previously noted, we received all remaining AEX permits and construction is progressing well, which William will speak to later. Turning to the main project. We continue to advance permitting with both federal and provincial authorities. Federally, and following the submission of the third and final phase of the impact statement to the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, who we call IAAC, in April, we moved into the information request phase of the impact assessment process. IAAC is in the process of collecting and consolidating all third-party input comments on our impact statement, which we will respond to on a timely basis.

We will continue to work with IAAC to advance the impact assessment process so that the final impact statement report issued by IAAC aligns with our targeted main project time line. As a reminder, receiving the Final Impact Assessment report from IAAC that is ultimately approved by the Federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change is the critical first step to obtaining the additional federal and provincial permits we require to construct and operate the Great Bear mine.

As previously disclosed, we require this Final Impact Assessment approval, and certain provincial early works and construction permits in the spring of 2027 will allow us to take advantage of the summer construction season to maintain targeted first gold production in late 2029. Provincially, we continue to work with the Ontario authorities to advance the permitting process for the main project under the One Project, One Process, what is called 1P1P, which is overseen by the Ministry of Energy and Mines. We are pleased that the ministry deemed the final 1P1P project definition complete in early May and subsequently issued the integrated authorization and permitting plan for the main project. Submission of individual Ontario permit applications have proceeded in accordance with this plan. Next steps include finalizing the integrated indigenous consultation plan also submitted under 1P1P.

Briefly turning to the indigenous community front, we continue to progress the negotiation of impact benefits agreements. We are pleased to report that we recently signed a community benefits agreement with the Northwestern Ontario Métis Community that captures the key economic elements, including financial accommodations. In relation to Lac Seul and Wasauksing First Nations, on whose traditional territory the project resides, negotiations on the impact and benefits agreement continue to advance off the back of the memorandum of understanding we signed at the end of last year.

With that, I will now turn it back to Will for a technical project update on Great Bear.

Thanks, Geoff. At Great Bear, work on the AEX program and the main project is progressing well. Following the receipt of the final AEX permits in April, AEX surface construction is 93% complete, and we recently completed the first blast of the exploration decline. As a reminder, the decline will provide drilling access for exploration and extension of the underground resource as well as delineation work. In terms of the main project, we continue to make meaningful progress on procurement, contracts awarded, request for proposal issued and selection of open pit mining fleet nearing completion.

And in terms of detailed engineering, we are well advanced with approximately 50% complete. Upon completion of detailed engineering, we will provide an update on the initial capital in the first half of 2027, which will include impacts from inflation since the 2024 PEA and the impacts of any scope changes and enhancements we make as we move through detailed engineering. As we progress detailed engineering, we are working to ensure we are building a robust, reliable, world-class operation given the multi-decade high-margin production potential we see in this asset.

Turning now to exploration. We are continuing with our 2026 55-kilometer planned drill program. In Q2, drilling continued at the Strider Zone, a recently identified zone of mineralization, 2.4 kilometers along strike from the southeast edge of the LP resource, and we will provide further drill results later this year.

With that, I will now turn it back to Paul for closing remarks.

Thanks, Will. After a strong first half, we are well positioned to meet our targets in 2026. And we have a strong set of upcoming milestones this year, which include: continued strong operational performance and cash flow generation, ongoing return of capital through our dividend and share repurchases, further strengthening of our balance sheet, advancing our projects pipeline and continued exploration and studies of our resource inventory intended to bring in new projects to extend mine lives.

Looking forward, we are excited about our future. We have a strong production profile. We have an attractive relative cost position, and we are holding the line on costs. We are generating significant free cash flow. We have an excellent balance sheet. We have an attractive return of capital. We have an exciting pipeline of both exploration and development opportunities. We are growing our net asset value and our per share metrics, and we are very proud of our commitment to responsible mining that continues to make us a leader in sustainability. In closing, we believe that our shares offer attractive relative value across a number of metrics.

And with that, operator, I'd like to open up the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Fahad Tariq from Jefferies.

On Lobo-Marte, can you just talk about maybe next steps and how we should be thinking about a potential pit redesign at prevailing gold prices, when the CapEx spend would come in, how it would compare to the timing of Great Bear? Just trying to think through next steps over the next few years.

Yes. I think as we mentioned, we've just submitted the EIA. So that's the key critical path and the key next step. So we're focused on that, and that's 2 to 3 years roughly for that process. And then after that, we go into construction. So construction is really end of the decade. So the peak in spend there will kind of be behind the peak in spend at Great Bear. And in terms of the redesign, as you can see in what we've released, there is significant potential not only in M&I, but also cutoff grades, that type of thing. But it's really something, given that we already have a 15-year mine life established that's quite high quality, that we're going to focus on once we get into operations.

Okay. Great. And then maybe just switching gears to overall just cost environment. Kinross has obviously done a really good job containing costs. Just are there any areas where you are seeing cost pressures? It doesn't sound like diesel is necessarily a big impact so far, but are you seeing anything on the consumable side or even any upcoming, like, labor negotiations we should be aware of that could result in some inflation?

Sure. It's Andrea. I'll take that. I guess just as a reminder, we did include a 5% inflation factor in our guidance for the year. So we're still feeling pretty good about that. That was prior to higher oil prices. But as you noted, the impact of those has been relatively muted, and we expect it to continue to not have a significant impact. It's sort of below 2%, is the all-in expected impact if we continue with higher fuel prices.

In terms of other areas of inflation, as I said, this is all within our -- within what we contemplated in our guidance. But just to give you some specific examples, we're seeing higher power costs in Alaska. And then on the labor side, Nevada is always kind of a tight labor market, not really more significant than we've seen recently, just sort of ongoing labor in Nevada. That's really the focus and sort of where we've been -- what we've been seeing sort of on the ground. But again, we're expecting to be well within our guidance rates near the midpoint for the year as we sit here today.

Your next question comes from the line of Josh Wolfson from RBC Capital Markets.

Just back to Lobo-Marte. I understand, obviously, it's an inflationary environment there. But is there any additional insights to maybe what drove inflation beyond just kind of industry trends?

Yes. I think, obviously, the change from the 2021 FS was primarily inflation. So that really -- we were around $1.1 billion in 2021. So that took us to over $1.5 billion. The extra kind of $250 million beyond inflation. Part of it is, in 2021, obviously, a different gold price environment. We were planning to reuse some equipment from Maricunga. Now with the gold price environment, we want to make sure we keep that around for Maricunga, and we thought it makes sense given the mine life to buy new equipment. So that's around $100 million of the additional increase beyond that just to make it a higher quality life of mine plan.

And then there was also some advancement of the execution strategy as the team has really gotten into the details and gotten into the planning stage. The indirect costs are the other component that take us up to the $1.8 billion. We've also moved the contingency from about 14% up to 19%, just given we're quite far away from when we had the detailed estimates in 2021.

Got it. And then just on Great Bear and some of the AEX disclosures. When you think about the main permit, is there any way to minimize some of the uncertainty there and just what sort of -- maybe what the risk profile could be?

Yes. I mean we're looking at -- I'll let Geoff speak to it. But the question that was around minimizing uncertainty around the main project, our position, Josh, is we've got these 2 parallel tracks: AEX, obviously, to get us underground to make for more efficient, cost-effective drilling extensions at depth; and then the main project. I'll let Geoff speak to it. But the main project is really launched, if you will, under this 1P1P. And I have to say things are going really well from the government side of things under the 1P1P. They're certainly hitting deadlines and moving things through the system. So pretty straightforward.

Geoff, on the main project?

Yes. I guess -- and Josh, I think you're already aware of this. But again, we've never characterized AEX as being sort of critical path. And they are -- as Paul has alluded to, there are 2 different processes. AEX is strictly a provincial process, whereas the main project is both federal and provincial. And we're making excellent progress on both the federal and provincial fronts. And yes, in terms of efficiencies, we're already seeing the benefits of 1P1P provincially.

And we're a long way down the path with the federal agency that kind of looks after the key permit that we require in the late spring of 2029, which is the final impact statement -- approval report. And we've been working closely with both the federal and provincial authorities. They're well aware of our time lines. And at this juncture -- and again, I'll remind you, we're targeting first production at the end of 2029. And certainly, at this juncture, what we're seeing with some of the stuff on the AEX side of the fence is not interfering with that time line.

Your next question comes from the line of Anita Soni from CIBC World Markets.

And firstly, congratulations, Claude, on your retirement. Your tenure was certainly exemplary in terms of operating track record. Best of luck in your retirement. And then I think my questions on Lobo-Marte were mostly asked just on the timing. I just wanted to get an idea about on Round Mountain, how we could see the back half of the year evolve?

I think we look back to some -- when you were -- there was an update, I think, a couple of years ago about the Phase X, and I thought production was going to be somewhat in the like 150,000 to 200,000 ounces per year range this year, and it's kind of tracking a little bit behind. So are we looking for really strong grades in the back half of the year? Or was that kind of production profile shifted from -- understandably, from like 2 years ago from that chart?

Yes. I think for Round Mountain, the 150,000 forward has always been the target. We're obviously ramping up to that as we now are stripping into Phase S and getting into the ore in the second half of this year. When we add Phase X later, it will contribute as well and take it up to closer to the 200,000 range. So the 150,000 was always an average with a ramp-up period. So we do see increased production in the back end of this year as we now enter the Phase S ore and also getting into high-grade ore feed. So during the first part of this year, we were doing a lot of -- production came from heaps and historical mining. So now we're moving to the ore in the back half of this year. So I do think we're targeting 120,000, 130,000 range for this year, and then it will build up into next year and years following.

Okay. And then -- and sorry, just in terms of the types of grades that we could see from Phase S, is that kind of in the mid-1 grams? Is that what we should be seeing?

Yes. I think the average grade, I think we released it a couple of years ago, it was a little lower than 1 gram on average, I believe. But I think we have quite a bit of -- we're getting into 0.7 gram later in the phase. Deeper down, we get into the 1 gram stuff.

Okay. Yes. Sorry, I was just talking specifically about the deeper stuff rather than the stuff that goes to the heap leach, which is consistently, sort of, 0.2, 0.3...

Yes, we will -- 1 gram [indiscernible].

Your next question comes from the line of Daniel Major from UBS.

Congratulations on a good quarter. I guess first one, just on the balance sheet, capital returns, encouraging to see sustainably returning cash to shareholders. But you're at $2 billion of net cash now. And if you stick to your 40% payout ratio, that cash balance obviously continues to build. Is there a maximum level of cash you're comfortable with before you commit to a higher rate of return? First part of the question.

And then the second part of the question, how is the M&A component of the capital allocation framework looking at the moment? Asset values have come back. Is there any opportunities out there you're working on? That's the first part of my question.

Sure. I'll start on the cash balance. You're right, we're at net cash of just under $2 billion, and we do expect that to continue to grow as we go through the year here. We started the year with the 40% of free cash flow commitment coming back to shareholders. So we're going to progress with that, and we'll see how the year finishes out. We're certainly comfortable with the cash balance. We're comfortable with it continuing to grow. Just strong balance sheet is helpful as we continue to progress our pipeline of projects and additional opportunities through that pipeline.

We're also paying a lot higher taxes. So we paid a lot of tax this year, and that will -- those liabilities will continue going forward. But we do expect to grow the cash balance while also continuing to invest in the business and returning capital. So we're sticking with the 40% for now, but it's something that we'll continue to assess as we progress through the year here and into early next year.

Yes. I'll jump in on the M&A point. Again, I would just say our position remains where it always has been. We're in a really good spot where, as Will alluded to, we've got a significant inventory of resource behind our 2P reserve. As you saw earlier this year, where we converted the U.S. projects out of that resource category and moved them into development. We've got lots of things to keep looking at in our own organic portfolio. So that for us is the main thing. That's what we understand the most, and work continues with our team to do more drilling, to better understand numbers and continue to move things along from the right-hand side of the column resource over to development decisions. So stay tuned on that.

On the external environment, as always, we keep an eye on what's out there, what might be up for sale. But again, we're playing from a position of strength where we don't feel a need. I think our M&A track record, if you look in the rearview mirror, speaks for itself. We've only done a couple of deals, a few deals over the last 10 years. We're very discriminating. We think we can add value at different ends of the scale, whether it's development or improving operations. We can bring a lot of resources to bear. But number 1, it's all about value creation for our shareholders and is there something transactional. And we keep an eye, and we will remain disciplined as we continue to move forward.

Okay. Maybe if I could just ask a couple of follow-ups. Just one on Lobo-Marte. What is the life of mine sustaining CapEx embedded in the $1,000 AISC?

Yes. I'll have to get back to you on that. We can check in on how much of that specifically is sustaining.

Okay. And then just one more, if I could. Given the higher price environment, what is the time line around another pushback at Tasiast? When might you be thinking about that and a decision to extend the profile?

Well, we've got a -- I guess you guys have an updated technical report. So you can see it's really the early 30s where production starts to ramp down, again, after we get through the heart of West Branch 5. So the focus is on making sure we're well prepared in advance of that. So obviously, we're progressing studies now to be able to get to a point where we're comfortable making a decision that continues mining in the 30s and continues higher grade production.

Yes. And just a follow-up that guys have gone back to us. We've got about $1.5 billion of sustaining CapEx life of mine. About half of that is stripping for Lobo.

I think piling on a bit, but it's all about, in a layback, as you can appreciate, Dan, we're just looking at the economies of scale and what we can do with perhaps bigger trucks, bigger shovels, truck optimization, what can we do to bring things forward in terms of waste removal. That's where a lot of the analysis is right now. And in terms of what can we do to compress schedule on the amount of time it takes to do the layback, that's where we're focused.

Your next question comes from the line of Tanya Jakusconek from Scotiabank.

Claude, congratulations on your next adventure. Claude, maybe just starting with you, if I could. Just wanted to come back to the cost side because I'm quite impressed with the cost control that you're having there, given your open pit, low-grade miner -- low-grade relative, obviously. I'm just trying to understand, you've got these productivities that you've mentioned. Andrea also mentioned that with the provided labor and, I think, power and fuel, you're not really seeing anything else that's inflating your costs. So I'm just trying to understand whether your productivity improvements can offset inflation. Do you think you can get 4%, 5% from these productivity improvements to offset inflationary pressures on your costs?

As I said -- Tanya, thank you very much. But as I said, as we do these productivity improvements, we've always felt that without our continuous improvement processes on our sites, it will eventually get away from us. So we're very focused on having these different initiatives at site. The key element being as well is when we are successful at 1 site with an initiative, we transfer that to the other 6 sites, to make sure that they also adopt us. But there's a huge complex strategy, everything from tire management, we've gone from being sort of the bottom of the pile in that area to being leading edge in those things. And those are big dollars that drive your cost down.

The other part is just always grade optimization strategy and how we pick the right spots of moving the production. That helps. Inflation, again, we're in a global environment. We're in different jurisdictions. It's at a different level. And as you're monitoring FX and inflation, do I personally think that you can always outpace inflation? Well, that's the tough challenge. That's what we laid out for the teams. And as you've seen, we have had a lot of success with managing to keep our cost structure in line with our expectations. But you can't do that without a lot of continuous improvement and a culture of innovation within the organization.

Congrats on the cost side. Maybe I can move on to Great Bear. I just got some questions on just some of the items that to look forward to. So the first one, I just wanted to ask on the bulk sample. Do we -- when should we be thinking about this bulk sample for metallurgical testing? When should I be thinking this is coming?

Yes, that's still a little ways out. I don't have the exact date, but it's -- we got to get down to the level where we want to take bulk sample. We're obviously progressing the twin declines, and we're going to start putting in some exploration headings towards the end of this year or early next year. So that's kind of the first focus, to start to drill. So I think the bulk sample will probably be late next year or the following year sometime, but we can get back to you with more specific schedule of it.

Okay. And then just some...

[indiscernible] on levels.

Okay. And I think we've talked a lot about the permitting and hopefully get all the permits in place for spring of next year to start construction thereafter. But maybe someone -- you've done 50% engineering to date. And I think it was mentioned that you're going to update the capital for us next year once you have a better idea and potentially some scoping changes. Can I ask whether you are seeing some here that could -- and what are they at this point?

Yes. Look, I think that's right. I mean there's always going to be an inflation component, Tanya. As you know, I think other areas where when we look at capital in the waterfall, it's a combination of inflation and discretion and is there anywhere where we may have missed it or come up light. I don't think in the latter instance, there's anything that gives us concern that we haven't anticipated. This is pretty straightforward as a 10,000 ton per day mill right off the highway just outside of town. But we always look at optimizations or enhancement that might be more favorable to environmental regulations. That sort of stuff.

So yes, there will be an update. I don't view this as a project that's particularly at all capital sensitive, and just stay tuned for that. It will be sort of normal course adjustment, mostly due to inflation.

Yes. I guess that's what I was getting at, Paul. I was just trying to understand if it was just inflation plus and then it's a scope change and then we'd have to adjust for that. But it seems as though it's just inflation.

It will be a combination. But typically, if -- I'm of the opinion, an increase in capital isn't necessarily always a bad thing. An increase in capital means, hopefully, we're gaining something as well. It's a trade-off decision, whether it's a return or an efficiency or a better standard. So we'll walk you through that when we get it more finalized.

Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Murphy from BMO.

Just a clarification question on Lobo-Marte. So the $1,200 an ounce reserve pit is sort of your base case on this submission? And is it your intention that eventually -- like sooner rather than later, that gets adjusted to an updated gold price? And if so, how should we think about that $1,000 an ounce AISC? Does that belong with the $1,200? Or is that what you're -- where you're aiming to have this thing into production at?

Yes, that's what -- I mean, that's what we're aiming to have this thing in production at any optimization that we provide. First off, you can see that most of that additional resource sits lower. So it will tend to come towards the end of the mine life. The types of things we're going to want to play with as we get into value engineering is the production rate, those types of things. We're designing around a 35,000 ton per day facility because that's what we've done all our baseline work around. But obviously, we'll look if there's opportunity to enhance that.

The cutoff grade will go down, and it will be a question of when you -- ideally, you put more of those tons onto the pad without diluting that AISC. So going to a higher production rate is a good way to do that. So those types of things that we're going to look at in the pit sequencing as well. Right now, we've got Marte sequence first. We're going to also look at the options of moving Lobo around and potentially producing from 2 pits at the same time. So all of those optimizations will be focused around not only extending mine life, but keeping that AISC low and increasing the scale of the asset.

And there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Paul Rollinson for some final closing comments.

Great. Thank you, operator. Thanks, everyone, for joining us this morning. We look forward to catching up with you all in person in the coming weeks and months. Thank you for dialing in. Thanks.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Kelly Osborne, and I am the Chair of your Board of Directors. It's my pleasure to welcome you to the 2026 Annual Meeting of the Shareholders of Kinross Gold Corporation. We thank you for attending our virtual meeting. I would like to note that Kinross is permitted to hold a virtual meeting of its shareholders, both under the Ontario Business Act and our bylaws. Voting on items of business to be considered at the meeting has been open from 9:45 a.m. and polls will remain open until the formal business of the meeting is completed, at which time I will declare the polling closed on all items of business. I will also pause briefly for you to vote as we go through the items of business today.

Shareholders who have voted in advance are not required to vote again during the meeting unless they wish to change their voting instructions. Shareholders may submit questions for the Board or management through the question box on the virtual meeting page. Instructions on how to ask questions and the voting procedure will appear on your screens. The moderator will relay the questions and the CEO will be addressed after the CEO presentation. Joining me electronically this morning are the other director nominees, Rollinson, Paul, CEO of the company; members of the senior leadership team of Kinross; and Michelle Long, the Corporate Secretary of Kinross. Also joining us is Ms. Heather Cheeseman, partner at KPMG, the company's auditor.

A recording of this meeting will be available on Kinross' website and on this meeting portal after the meeting. Pursuant to the bylaws, I, as Chair of the corporation, will chair the meeting, and I appoint Michelle Long, Corporate Secretary of the Corporation, the Secretary of the meeting. I further appoint Computershare Investor Services Inc. through its representative, Daniela Munoz, to act as scrutineers. The notice calling this meeting of shareholders was mailed on March 30, 2026, to all the shareholders of record on March 5, 2026. The Secretary will attach to the minutes of this meeting the declaration of Computershare Investor Services Inc. confirming the mailing of the notice of meeting.

The scrutineers have submitted their preliminary report on attendance, and it shows that holders of more than 939 million common shares representing approximately 78% of the outstanding common shares are represented at today's meeting. As a result, we have a quorum for the meeting. In order to expedite the formal part of the meeting, I have asked Samantha Sheffield and Cassandra Spezza, both shareholders of the corporation, to move and second each motion. Notice having been given in accordance with the bylaws and a quorum being present, I declare that this meeting is duly constituted for the transaction of business.

The minutes of the previous annual meeting of Kinross held on May 7, 2025, may be requested by contacting the Corporate Secretary of the corporation. Prior to commencing our items of business, I would like to report that the consolidated financial statements for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025, including the balance sheet and accompanying statements, together with the auditor's report, are all contained in the annual report previously made available to shareholders. Printed copies of the annual report may be requested by contacting the Corporate Secretary of the corporation. The first item of business is the election of 10 directors to hold office until the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed.

At this time, I would like to take the opportunity to name the other director nominees who are present on this call. We have George Albino, Glenn Ives, Ave Lethbridge, Michael Lewis, Candace MacGibbon, Elizabeth McGregor, Kelly Osborne, George Paspalas, Paul Rollinson and David Scott joining us. I will now request the nomination for the 10 nominees named in the management information circular for today's meeting.

I nominate the 10 nominees named in the management information circular for election to the Board of Directors of the corporation.

I second the director nominations.

If you have not already done so, you may now vote for the election of directors.

[Voting]

As the number of nominees is equal to the number of directors required to be elected, I now declare George Albino, Glenn Ives, Ave Lethbridge, Michael Lewis, Candace MacGibbon, Elizabeth McGregor, Kelly Osborne, Paul Rollinson, and David Scott elected as directors of the corporation to hold office until the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders or until their successors are duly elected or appointed.

The next item of business is the appointment of KPMG -- let me go back to the nominees equal to the number of directors required to be elected. Let me just repeat it. I missed one name, and it's George Paspalas. Sorry, George.

The next item of business is the appointment of KPMG LLP to serve as auditors of the corporation until the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders and authorize the directors to fix the auditor's remuneration. May I have a motion to approve and second such appointment?

[Voting]

I so move.

I second the motion.

The motion has been moved and seconded. If you have not already done so, you may now vote your shares for the election of auditors. The last item of business is an advisory resolution respecting Kinross' approach to executive compensation. Details of Kinross' approach to the compensation of its executives and the text of the proposed advisory resolution are included in the management information circular.

May I have a motion to approve such resolution?

[Voting]

I so move.

I second the motion.

The motion has been moved and seconded. If you have not already done so, you may now vote your shares on the advisory resolution with respect to executive compensation.

I now declare the voting closed on all items of business. The scrutineers have completed their preliminary count of the votes cast and have received the results, and I declare that all motions have passed. A report on all matters voted on at this meeting will be filed at SEDAR+. This concludes the formal business of the meeting.

Before handing it over to Paul Rollinson for the CEO remarks, I'd like to make a few comments. Kinross had an excellent year in 2025. The Board continues to be pleased with the company's performance, achieving the results that generate value for shareholders and ensure a sustainable future for the company. Reliable and consistent performance is one of our defining characteristics, and I'm pleased to see us carrying this momentum into this year. On behalf of the Board, thank you for your continued support and engagement. And to our global team, thank you for all your hard work towards safely delivering on our shared goals.

I would now like to turn the meeting over to Paul, who will provide an overview of the company.

Thank you, Kelly, and thank you, everyone, for taking the time to join us for our Annual General Meeting this morning. Before I begin, let me call your attention to our cautionary statement on forward-looking information. As a reminder, shareholders may submit questions through the messaging icon on the screen, and we will address them at the end of my remarks.

I'd like to begin by noting that all members of our senior leadership team, as shown on the presentation slide are on the call this morning. Today, I will discuss our operational and financial performance in 2025, our development pipeline, highlights from our first quarter results, our ongoing commitment to sustainability and close with the strong outlook for our business.

2025 was another excellent year for our business, underpinned by consistent operational and financial performance. We delivered on our market commitments, once again meeting all key guidance metrics. Importantly, we continue to demonstrate our focus on maintaining rigorous cost discipline. We delivered production of just over 2 million ounces and achieved our full year cost guidance despite the impact from higher royalties due to higher gold prices. This, combined with record gold prices resulted in significant margin expansion, which drove record free cash flow for the year.

These accomplishments were achieved while operating at the highest safety standards across each of our sites and with a strong focus on mining responsibly, a testament to the exceptional performance of our global workforce. With an average gold price of $3,423 per ounce, we generated approximately $3.8 billion in operating cash flow, which led to a record free cash flow of approximately $2.5 billion. With the free cash flow generated, we completed $700 million of debt repayments and returned over $750 million of capital to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases.

In addition, we also continued to strengthen our investment-grade balance sheet, ending the year with net cash of approximately $1 billion and approximately $3.5 billion of total liquidity. Overall, our operations delivered strong results in 2025. Once again, our 2 largest operations, Tasiast and Paracatu, were both standouts, together accounting for more than half of our production with strong margins. At Paracatu, we saw another year of significant production. Full-year production of over 600,000 ounces exceeded the midpoint of guidance with production exceeding 500,000 ounces for the eighth consecutive year.

Similarly, Tasiast also had another excellent year with production of just over 500,000 ounces, and the mine was once again our highest margin operation in the portfolio. At La Coipa, we delivered on full year production guidance and saw a strong performance, particularly in the fourth quarter. In the U.S., our assets delivered another strong year of operations with full-year guidance achieved. In 2025, we made notable progress across our attractive project pipeline, which continues to be underpinned by our significant resource inventory of over 44 million ounces.

In January of this year, we demonstrated an example of leveraging this resource inventory with the announcement to proceed with construction of 3 high-quality organic growth projects, which are expected to extend mine life and benefit the long-term cost of our U.S. portfolio. Together, these projects are expected to add over 3 million ounces of production just based on the initial resource drilled to date. Each project demonstrates compelling economics and a strong case for invested capital and cumulatively represent the addition of more than $4 billion of net asset value at a $4,500 per ounce gold price. We are excited to be moving ahead with these 3 high-quality projects as we continue to execute on our grade enhancement strategy.

We also continue to advance our 2 world-class development projects, Great Bear in Ontario and Lobo-Marte in Chile. At Great Bear, both the AEX program and main project are progressing well, and the project remains on track for first production in 2029. Surface construction for the AEX is well advanced. And having just received the 2 remaining permits, we look forward to starting construction of the exploration decline this summer. For the main project, both detailed engineering and permitting continue to advance well as we work with both the Ontario and federal authorities.

We are pleased to report that the final phase of the main project impact statement was submitted to the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada at the end of the first quarter. At Lobo-Marte, our team continues to advance the project. And early this month, we reached a key milestone with the submission of the project environmental impact assessment, which represents the start of the environmental permitting process. We look forward to providing a project update for Lobo later this year. Together, all of this contributed to our strong relative share price outperformance.

Turning now to our first quarter results, which we announced yesterday. Our operations continued to deliver strong results in Q1. Production of 493,000 ounces was on plan with solid contributions from both Tasiast and Paracatu, which again provided over half our production. Cost of sales of $1,397 per ounce and an all-in sustaining cost of $1,732 per ounce resulted in strong margins and delivered our fourth consecutive quarter of record free cash flow of approximately $840 million. Our cash and liquidity position improved during the quarter to approximately $2.2 billion of cash and approximately $3.9 billion of total liquidity after returning approximately $300 million of capital through dividends and share repurchases.

Turning now to sustainability. Our strong track record of sustainability performance continued in 2025. Our annual sustainability report, which is our 18th year of reporting, will be published later this quarter. The report will provide a comprehensive update on the progress we made in 2025 and what we aim to accomplish in 2026 and beyond. Some notable highlights from the report that we look forward to sharing include under the heading of Environment or E, we completed an energy efficiency program, delivering an estimated 1.5% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions through the implementation of 38 projects across our sites.

Under the heading of Governance G, we were once again named the top scoring mining company in the Globe Mail's Annual Corporate Governance ranking, including maintaining placement in the top 15% of companies overall. And under the heading of Social S, we spent approximately $2.9 billion on goods and services in our host countries and made approximately $19 million of monetary and in-kind contributions. We are particularly proud of the positive impacts our operations generate for host countries and communities.

I'd now like to share a brief video highlighting 2 of the more meaningful initiatives we have advanced specifically at Tasiast, intended towards improving access to health care and supporting sustainable community development projects.

[Presentation]

After a successful 2025 and first quarter of 2026, we are well positioned for another strong year. Our business is in excellent shape and is expected to once again deliver strong shareholder value this year through our strong track record of operational and technical excellence and rigorous cost and capital discipline. Our strong margins, cash flow outlook and leading free cash flow yield, our attractive relative valuation and share trading liquidity complemented by our very strong investment-grade balance sheet, our attractive return of capital through share buybacks and dividends, our strong exploration and attractive project development pipeline and our leadership in sustainability.

We believe that by delivering on our commitments and given our attractive relative valuation, we continue to offer strong upside in our share price. In closing, I'd like to thank our global team for an exceptional year in 2025 and start to 2026. These strong accomplishments are a reflection of our employees' continued focus and dedication.

With that, we'll now open it up for questions from shareholders.

There are no questions from shareholders at this time.

Great. Thank you, Samantha. And thanks, everyone, for joining us at today's meeting. We look forward to catching up with you all in the coming weeks in person. Thank you for joining.

Thank you for standing by. My name is Tina, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Kinross Gold First Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call and Webcast.

I would now like to turn the call over to David Shaver, Executive Vice President.

Thank you, and good morning. In the room with us today on the call, we have Paul Rollinson, CEO; and from the Kinross senior leadership team, Andrea Freeborough, Claude Schimper, Will Dunford and Geoff Gold.

For a complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties, which may lead to actual results differing from estimates contained in our forward-looking information, please refer to Page 3 of this presentation, our news release dated April 29, 2026, the MD&A for the period ended March 31, 2026, and our most recently filed AIF, all of which are available on our website.

I will now turn the call over to Paul.

Thanks, David, and thank you all for joining us. This morning, I will discuss our first quarter results, provide high-level updates from across our portfolio, comment on sustainability and confirm our outlook. I will then hand the call over to the team to provide further details.

Following our outstanding performance in 2025, we continue to deliver strong results in the first quarter. Our culture of technical excellence and financial discipline, combined with the recent gold prices resulted in strong operating margins, which again outpaced the increase in the gold price. As a result, in Q1, we delivered our fourth consecutive quarter of record free cash flow of approximately $840 million.

Our financial position and cash flow outlook remain excellent, and we continue to return meaningful capital to our shareholders through buybacks and our quarterly dividend. We are targeting to return approximately 40% of our free cash flow in 2026. And in Q1, we continued our buyback program.

Turning now to operational highlights. Q1 was a great start to the year with production of 493,000 ounces. Both Tasiast and Paracatu had strong quarters and together accounted for more than half of our production, driving significant free cash flow. Paracatu delivered another excellent quarter on the back of record mill recoveries and Tasiast saw strong output in Q1, supported by higher grades and strong recoveries.

With regards to our projects, we continue to make strong progress in Q1 across our pipeline of mine life extensions and growth projects. In the U.S., the team continues to advance the 3 projects we announced in January. At Great Bear, both the Advanced Exploration program and the Main Project are progressing well with key permitting milestones achieved, which Geoff will comment on later.

At Lobo-Marte in Chile, I'm pleased to report that we submitted the environmental impact assessment earlier this month, marking a significant milestone as we formally initiate the permitting process. And we look forward to providing a Lobo-Marte update in the second half of the year.

Turning now to sustainability. Our annual sustainability report will be published later this quarter. This comprehensive report, which is in its 18th edition, provides an update on all the progress we made in 2025 and what we aim to accomplish this year and beyond.

Turning to our outlook. Following a strong first quarter, we are on track to achieve our production cost and capital guidance again this year. More specifically on costs, given the recent geopolitical events, I would highlight that we continue to benefit from an attractive relative cost position, which is supported by our long-standing approach to mitigating cost pressures. This includes, among other things, our grade enhancement and hedging strategies. Andrea will comment on our hedge book strategy later.

With respect to grade enhancement, we have Phase X, Curlew, Great Bear and Lobo-Marte, all bringing higher grade ore into our future production profile. Looking forward, we will continue to maintain our financial discipline and prioritize cost management to consistently deliver strong margins and free cash flow.

With that, I'll now turn the call over to Andrea.

Thanks, Paul. This morning, I'll review our financial highlights from the first quarter, provide an overview of our balance sheet and returning capital, and comment on our outlook.

As Paul noted, Q1 was a strong start to the year for us. We produced 493,000 gold equivalent ounces as planned. Q1 cost of sales of $1,380 per ounce and all-in sustaining costs of $1,732 per ounce were also on plan. Margins were a record $3,476 per ounce and outpaced the increase in the gold price.

Our adjusted earnings were $0.71 per share, and our adjusted operating cash flow was a record $1.1 billion. Our earnings and adjusted earnings were impacted by the timing of a $65 million withholding tax expense recorded in Q1, but pertaining to tax payable in future quarters. This accounting requirement caused our earnings per share to be lower by $0.05 and skewed our effective tax rate higher in Q1. We expect our effective tax rate to be lower from Q2 to Q4 and our full year effective tax rate to be within our guidance range of 28% to 33%.

Our taxes paid are also expected to be in line with guidance with approximately 70% of our payments expected in the first half of the year. Attributable free cash flow was a record $838 million despite making significant tax payments of approximately $450 million in Q1, largely related to 2025 earnings.

Turning now to our balance sheet. Our financial position continued to strengthen in Q1 as we added $440 million in cash after funding our planned CapEx and returning $300 million to shareholders. We ended the quarter with $2.2 billion in cash, $3.9 billion of total liquidity and $1.4 billion in net cash.

With respect to return of capital, we're targeting to return approximately 40% of our free cash flow back to shareholders through both dividends and share repurchases. Our shares continue to remain a strong return on invested capital, considering our attractive valuation and free cash flow yield.

In Q1, we repurchased a total of $250 million in shares, representing approximately 7.7 million shares or 0.6% of our shares outstanding. Subsequent to Q1, we repurchased an additional $50 million in shares. I'm pleased to report that since we restarted our share repurchases one year ago, we've repurchased approximately $900 million in shares, representing over 3% of our outstanding share count. Including our quarterly dividend, we've returned approximately $350 million to date in 2026 and over $1 billion since the first quarter of 2025.

Turning now to our guidance. Following Q1, we remain solidly on track to produce 2 million ounces at a cost of sales of $1,360 per ounce and all-in sustaining costs of $1,730 per ounce. And we are also on track with our capital guidance of $1.5 billion. As a reminder, our cost guidance was based on a $4,500 gold price and a $70 per barrel oil price.

In terms of production, the second quarter is expected to be in line with our first quarter. As a result, the second half is expected to be slightly higher than the first half to meet our full year production guidance. In terms of operating costs, we expect costs to be relatively stable throughout the year.

Given the current situation of elevated oil prices, we're providing additional information on our oil price sensitivity. To start, I will note that impacts of higher oil prices within the first quarter were minimal. Fuel currently represents approximately 11% of our total cost. And as I noted earlier, our 2026 cost guidance was based on $70 oil.

Our stated sensitivity is for every $10 per barrel change in price, we expect an impact of $3 per ounce on our cost of sales. This captures the direct impact of crude oil prices on refined products that are used in our operations, primarily fuel and including diesel.

However, in the current volatile environment and contemplating other factors that impact the price of refined products such as refining, distribution and taxes, the sensitivity for 2026 is estimated to be $10 per ounce for every $10 per barrel change. This impact is not overly significant. To put it in perspective, if the oil price stays at $100 for the remainder of the year, we would expect an impact of approximately $20 per ounce on our full year all-in sustaining costs, representing approximately 1%.

And if we go one step further and consider potential secondary cost inflation from a prolonged elevated oil price on other consumables and freight, we estimate a further $10 potential impact for a total of $30 per ounce to our full year all-in sustaining cost guidance, representing less than 2%.

Overall, putting cost sensitivities into context, our grade enhancement strategy, which started in 2022 has already put us in an attractive relative cost position. And in the short term, we're not expecting a significant impact on our cost because of higher oil prices.

This is in part a result of our long-standing hedge strategy. We have favorable oil hedge positions in place under this program. For 2026, we've hedged 63% of the oil component of our fuel consumption at our U.S. and Tasiast operations at an average price of $52 per barrel. This accounts for approximately 75% of our company-wide fuel consumption. And in the medium and long term, we have our grade enhancement strategy, bringing higher grade ore into our future production profile and providing organic offsets to inflationary pressure.

Lastly, in terms of supply of fuel and other consumables, we're not currently experiencing any disruptions at our operations, and we continue to receive regular delivery.

I'll now turn the call over to Claude.

Thank you, Andrea. I'd like to start with our safety culture. This quarter, we have continued to focus on our Safeground brand through practical leadership training with a focus on prevention of high potential incidents. Visible leadership activities are engaging the workforce and strengthening our safety excellence program, which is resulting in strong leading indicator.

Starting with Paracatu, the mine had an outstanding quarter with strong production driving significant free cash flow. Production of 161,000 ounces increased over the prior quarter due to record mill recoveries driven by continuous improvement programs across the processing plant.

Key initiatives included enhancements to the CIL circuit, improved operational controls and carbon management practices as well as targeted improvements in the Acacia reactor performance. Cost of sales of $1,119 per ounce increased over the prior quarter and Paracatu remains on track to meet its guidance of 600,000 ounces at a target cost of sales of $1,240 per ounce.

Tasiast had another strong quarter. Production of 130,000 ounces increased over the prior quarter and cost of sales of $990 per ounce decreased over the prior quarter due to strong grades. Continuous improvement efforts at the Tasiast solar facility has led to 15.5 gigawatts of power generation, accounting for 23% of the site power in the first quarter and offsetting 3.5 million liters of hydrocarbons. Tasiast remains on track to meet its guidance of 505,000 ounces at a target cost of $1,050 per ounce.

At La Coipa, we produced 54,000 ounces at a cost of sales of $1,526 per ounce. Production decreased over the prior quarter due to a planned 16-day mill shutdown, which also includes several opportunistic continuous improvement initiatives aimed at increasing reliability and uptime in the plant. Grade and production are expected to increase in the second and third quarters as we mine Phase 7 ore. Coipa remains on track to meet its guidance of 210,000 ounces at a target cost of sales of $1,320 per ounce.

Now moving to our U.S. operations. Production was higher quarter-over-quarter, benefiting from strong contributions from Fort Knox and Manh Choh, Alaska. Combined, the U.S. site delivered production of 148,000 ounces at a cost of sales of $1,982 per ounce. At Fort Knox, first quarter production of 94,000 ounces and cost of sales of $1,761 per ounce was higher than the prior quarter due to timing of the ounces processed through the mill and the heap leach pads.

At Bald Mountain, production of 28,000 ounces was lower than the prior quarter due to the timing of ounces recovered from the heap leach pads. Cost of sales of $1,934 per ounce was higher due to the fewer ounces produced. At Round Mountain, production of 26,000 ounces was lower quarter-over-quarter due to the processing of lower grade, lower recovery stockpile feed as we continue to transition towards higher grade, higher recovery ore from Phase X in the second half of the year. Our cost of sales of $2,776 per ounce was higher due to the fewer ounces produced.

With that, I will now pass the call over to William.

Thanks, Claude. Recall our project pipeline is backed by significant resource inventory with over 27 million ounces of M&I plus an additional 17 million ounces of inferred, all calculated at $2,500 per ounce. This includes several projects across our portfolio that our in-house technical team is advancing while also leveraging ongoing exploration to support future production potential. We continue to see several value-creating investment opportunities emerging across our portfolio to leverage the strong gold price and enhance our production profile in the 2030s and beyond.

The 3 high-return projects in the U.S., which we announced earlier this year are strong examples of the potential to progress ounces from that extensive resource inventory into our production profile, enhancing our asset value. Project and operations teams are making excellent progress across all 3 of these projects. At Phase X at Round Mountain, we are pleased to announce that we have received all major operational permits ahead of schedule, including the federal permit to increase our underground mining rate above 3,000 tonnes per day.

In terms of the project, underground development is well advanced with 7.2 kilometers completed to date. We've already exceeded the planned development rate of 12 meters per day for 2026 and are slightly ahead of schedule, which significantly derisks our path to first production in 2028. Engineering work for both surface and underground infrastructure is advancing well and procurement of long lead items such as the mining equipment is underway.

At Bald Mountain, mining of Redbird is advancing well, fully realizing the anticipated efficiency benefits of mining closer to key sight infrastructure with improved equipment utilization. Construction of processing infrastructure for Redbird extensions and detailed engineering of the SART plant is also progressing well.

Turning to our Curlew project in Washington. With a mild winter, we had a successful construction season, allowing us to make good progress on project infrastructure. Detailed engineering for the mill refurbishment is largely complete and procurement is well underway. We have selected a contractor for the mill refurbishment, mobilization activities commencing in Q2. We also pulled forward some underground mining development into Q1 to derisk our mine plan and first production.

In parallel, we continue to progress exploration at Curlew, strong results both in North Stealth and at the Roadrunner Zone, which provides potential to enhance and extend the mine plan. As you can see on the slide, at North Stealth, we intersected 12.5 meters at 7 grams per tonne, 4.5 meters at 8.5 grams per tonne. And at Roadrunner, we intersected 2.4 meters at 9 grams per tonne. With the U.S. projects advancing well and expected to come online in 2028, our team is also focused on advancing studies on opportunities across our resource base that are value accretive to our production profile in the 2030s. Here, you can see updates on a few of those opportunities.

At Bald Mountain, technical studies are underway for the next layback, the Top Open Pit, which has potential to extend production in the 2030s. The Top Pit would be sequenced after Redbird and is the next potential anchor pit with a current indicated resource of approximately 1 million ounces. Similar to Redbird, the Top Open Pit is a layback of an existing pit, and we will be exploring and studying additional satellite pit optionality to bring in alongside this anchor pit.

At Fort Knox, we are progressing technical studies focused on advancing Phase 11, which is the next layback of the current open pit mine following the same well understood ore body at depth. Phase 11 resource contains approximately 2 million ounces and has potential to start producing in the early 2030s, meaningfully extending mine life at Fort Knox. Additionally, we are setting optionality to mine the Gil satellite deposit alongside the current Phase 10 and future Phase 11 to augment our overall production profile in Alaska.

Moving across to Chile at La Coipa, last year we submitted an environmental impact assessment for the Puren 4 extension, and we remain on track with our permitting time line. Puren 4 is also a layback of a prior pit, which we expect to extend production into the early 30s, at which point we plan to transition to Lobo-Marte.

Lastly, at Lobo-Marte, we submitted our EIA earlier this month, commencing our regulatory review process. Lobo-Marte is expected to be a long-life, low strip, low-cost heap leach operation with the potential to produce 4.7 million ounces over a 16-year mine life.

The strong heap leach grade of 1.3 gram per tonne and significant production potential of 300,000 to 400,000 ounces per year makes this an anchor tenant in our grade enhancement strategy alongside Great Bear in the 2030s, providing significant free cash flow with a low expected AISC. We are in the process of updating and reviewing the 2021 FS towards Lobo while progressing our permitting and we'll provide a more fulsome project update in the second half of the year.

I will now hand it over to Geff for an update on permitting at Great Bear.

Thanks, Will. In terms of our advanced exploration, I am pleased to announce that we have now received the remaining permits from the Ontario Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks. This is a testament to the team at Kinross and the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks under the leadership of Minister McCarthy to continue to advance the permitting process forward.

Turning to the main project. We continue to advance permitting with both federal and provincial authorities. Federally, and as planned, we submitted the third and final phase of the impact statement to the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada in Q1, and we will continue to work with them as they progress their review and obtain public and indigenous input.

As a reminder, receiving the final impact assessment report is the critical first step to obtaining other federal and provincial permits we require to construct and operate the Great Bear mine. We would require this final report in certain provincial early works and construction permits in the spring of 2027 to allow us to take advantage of the summer construction season in order to maintain targeted first production in late 2029.

Provincially, we continue to work with the Ontario authorities to advance the permitting process for the main project under the One Project, One Process which is overseen by the Ministry of Energy and Mines. One Project, One Process is a multiphase process.

We have submitted our final project description and are awaiting final approval from the Ministry of Mines and Energy so that we can proceed to the next phase, which is the integrated authorization and permitting plan. Submission of individual Ontario permits will proceed in accordance with this plan once approved by the Ministry of Mines and Energy.

On the indigenous community front, we continue to progress the negotiation of benefits agreements. We are pleased to report that in relation to Lac Seul and Wabauskang First Nations on whose traditional territory the main project resides, negotiations on the impact and benefits agreement continue to advance based on a recently signed and confidential memorandum of understanding that captures the key economic compensatory and procurement elements.

With that, I will now turn it back to Will for a technical project update on Great Bear.

Thanks, Geoff. At Great Bear, work on the AEX program and the main project is progressing well. With the final AEX permits in place, we expect to commence construction of the AEX decline this summer. The AEX decline will provide drilling access for exploration and extension of the underground resource as well as the delineation work.

In terms of the main project, with the impact assessment now submitted, we have already started to make meaningful progress on procurement with early packages awarded and request for proposal issued across several work streams, including key mill equipment. Detailed engineering is also advancing well and is approximately 45% complete.

Upon completion of detailed engineering in early 2027, we will provide an update on the initial capital. This update will include both the impact from inflation since the 2024 PEA estimate and the impact of any scope changes and enhancements we make as we move through detailed engineering.

As an example, we've been progressing detailed engineering alongside permitting. And through that work, we have chosen to enhance the scope in select areas, including water management. These enhancements go beyond standard practices and reflect a proactive approach to environmental protection given the long expected mine life of the asset. Through detailed engineering, we are working to ensure we are building a robust, reliable, world-class operation given the multi-decade potential high-margin production we see at this asset.

Turning now to exploration. We continue to see positive results that are validating that view of potential for multi-decade high-grade operation at Great Bear. 2026 exploration is focused on our 18-kilometer LP structural corridor, as you can see on the slide.

Drilling identified a new zone of mineralization 2.4 kilometers on strike from the southeast edge of the LP resource called the Strider zone, where drilling intercepted encouraging widths around 2 meters at double-digit grades. Drilling is continuing in this area following the structure on strike and down dip to define the extent of mineralization.

With that, I will now turn it back to Paul for closing remarks.

Thanks, Will. After a strong start to the year, we are well positioned to meet our targets in 2026, and we have a strong set of upcoming milestones this year, which include ongoing return of capital through our dividend and share repurchases, continued strengthening of our balance sheet, supported by strong operational performance and cash flow generation, advancing our projects pipeline, including the U.S. projects we discussed in January as well as Great Bear and Lobo-Marte, and continued exploration and studies of our resource inventory to bring in new projects to extend mine lives.

Looking forward, we are excited about our future. We have a strong production profile. We have an attractive relative cost position. We are generating significant free cash flow. We have an excellent balance sheet. We have an attractive return of capital. We have an exciting pipeline of both exploration and development opportunities. We are growing our net asset value and our per share metrics, and we are very proud of our commitment to responsible mining that continues to make us a leader in sustainability. In closing, we believe that our shares offer attractive relative value across a number of metrics.

And with that, operator, I'd like to open up the lines for questions.

[Operator Instructions] And your first question comes from the line of John Wolfson with RBC Capital Markets.

First question is on Great Bear. With the AEX permit now in place, what is the pathway to be able to start some of that deeper exploration? Basically, what time frame would you be at the levels that you need to be at to start some of that deeper exploration?

I mean the time frame now on the key path, there's more work we just need to do over the summer once we saw on water management to get ready for underground decline. So we expect August or September to actually be blasting and getting underground. And following that, obviously it's -- we're going to focus in a few different areas at the beginning.

We'll do infill and extensional drilling in the main part of the LP ore body. There's also Hinge and Limb, which wasn't in our PEA, which we'll hopefully explore over the next couple of years. And so I think it's progressive really. It's -- we won't be deep at the very bottom of the ore body for a number of years. We'll kind of follow ahead of the mining.

And then back to sort of the conversation on inflation. The company has some very good protections in place with the hedges. I guess sort of 2 parts to this question. One is when you're looking at the nonenergy-related items, reagents, labor and so forth, I'm curious to know where is inflation tracking into next year? And then also when you're thinking about these capital updates for Lobo-Marte as well as Great Bear, what's the sort of thought process there in terms of CapEx inflation trends?

Josh, it's Andrea. On inflation more broadly, I'd say we included a 5% inflation factor in our cost guidance back in February. So we're still on track for that. It's early in the year, and we'll see where things go with oil price and fuel costs and energy-related costs given the sensitivities. But as we sit here today, we're still feeling good about the 5% overall inflation factor.

And then maybe just to jump in there as well as it relates to capital for both Lobo-Marte and Great Bear, look, I think, yes, it's there. I don't think inflation is going away. Our PEA, which we put out in '24 at some point in the future here, we're expecting to update, but there will definitely be an inflation component as between where we started with the numbers in '24 and where we're likely to end up. I think you'll see that on both projects. And then really just a macro effect, really something we're going to be priced receivers on. We'll continue to look to sharpen our pencils where we can, but we're working in that overall macro inflation environment.

Your next question comes from the line of Fahad Tariq with Jefferies.

Maybe first on Tasiast grades, they were really high, I think the highest since the third quarter of 2024. Just the outlook for grades for the rest of this year, that would be really helpful.

Fahad, thanks for the question. Tasiast, we're working through different areas. We're finishing off on West Branch 4, and that's why the grades were higher. We still have some of that stockpile inventory, and we pushed that through in the first quarter. We expect it to taper off for the rest of the year, slightly lower, but we are constantly looking at opportunities to obviously enhance what we're putting out from Tasiast.

Okay. And then maybe just staying in Mauritania. Can you just remind us -- so diesel prices are regulated, I believe, by the government. So that probably factors into the sensitivity you provided, if you could confirm that. And then also anything you've heard in terms of security of supply specifically in Mauritania?

So I'll hit -- so first of all, the diesel prices are regulated by the government for the country, but not necessarily for us. We have long-term contracts with the suppliers coming to our system. So both for HF and fuel.

And then the second part of it from a supply point of view, it's very similar to Brazil and these other countries. We don't get our product from the Middle East. It comes from the other side of the track. So we don't have an issue with supply. The impact will be on the unhedged fuel that -- from a cost point of view, but we don't have an issue with supply.

Your next question comes from the line of Ralph Profiti with Stifel Financial.

The Lobo-Marte EIA submission would have had to, as a baseline, include some type of water usage strategy. Just wondering what that baseline is? And what can you tell us about the strategy around that?

Sure. Maybe I'll start and Will can jump in. I mean, it's a good question, Ralph. I mean our whole Chile strategy is really around what is our water strategy. And as you may recall, whilst we have many thousands of liters of water rights, what really matters is permitted pumping capability. And we have permitted pumping wells that have been running for many years. And that's a good thing because with pumping comes monitoring.

So as we've been pumping, we have monitoring wells, and we've got a very strong history of monitoring. There's absolutely no detrimental impact to our draw. So our strategy, really we call it our base case because there are upsides, but the base case is that we -- the water wells that we're currently using supply La Coipa. They're actually physically closer to Lobo-Marte. And we've spoken with the regulators. There's no guarantee with regulators, but the concept is we take that existing permitted pumping water, and we just move it in a different direction closer to Lobo. That would be our base case.

Using the water we already have, we've got many years of history and monitoring. The upsides from there really relate to if we could get more water, and we've got a few initiatives underway, we could actually do more. But as it relates to Lobo, the linear factor is that permanent pumping capability.

Sorry, Will, did you want to add? Yes.

No. I mean I think that's exactly right. That's what we submitted in the EIA. Lobo is the exact same water consumption that we have at La Coipa. So it's been designed that way for the EIA so that, as you said, we just continue to use the same water with well-proven history. So all of that water modeling and data has already gone into the EIA submission, providing that strong base case.

And then we're working on all that other -- you mentioned the water rights. We're working on all of those water rights to identify other water -- potential water sources for Coipa longer term or other optionality in Chile.

Great. Yes, that's very helpful. And just as a sort of a minor follow-up. I'm looking at the Round Mountain recoveries for the quarter. I'm just wondering, is that sort of the normal grade and recovery relationship there? Was that expected? And is there any change in the metallurgical assumptions around sort of that Phase X underground transition when I think about those recoveries?

Yes, multiple parts to that. So first of all, when we feed from those stockpiles relative to where we are in the pit at the time, and this was -- the first quarter was really a lot of stockpile material. That grade is significantly lower and then the grade recovery curve, as you know, changes. So we anticipated that sort of recovery. We're doing a whole bunch of things to continue to optimize that.

And then Phase X is a different grade and completely different piece, very similar to what we had in Phase W or higher up in Phase W. So we do see that recovery changing as we put different types of material through for the year. And yes, it remains our focus point.

Your next question comes from the line of Carey MacRury with Canaccord Genuity.

Congrats on the strong start. Just following up on the second half guidance being slightly higher than the first half. Just wondering what assets in particular we should be thinking about as stronger in the second half?

Sure. I'll start and someone else may want to jump in. I think the U.S., in particular, we've pointed to as expected to be higher in the second half. Some of that is Round Mountain as we expect higher production as we get into the heart of Phase X.

So we continue to be on plan at this point.

Okay. And then just a follow-up on the oil hedges. I think, Andrea, you mentioned you're 75% hedged for 2026. Is that the number in terms of exposure?

So we're 63% hedged for the exposures in the U.S. and at Tasiast. That on the total portfolio is somewhere around 50%. We don't hedge in Brazil because there is price controls in Brazil. So we -- the prices don't move necessarily directly with spot in Brazil. For example, so far since early March, we've seen prices increase everywhere else, except they've been pretty flat in Brazil.

Okay. And then for 2027, if you can guide us through...

I think the 75% comment was the U.S. and Tasiast make up 75% of our fuel usage.

Okay. Got it. And then for 2027, I guess if you could just prorate based on the numbers on Slide 11 there?

Yes, sorry, we're 42% hedged for those -- for U.S. and Tasiast for 2027. That's about 30% company-wide.

We'll look at opportunities to chip away at.

Yes.

And your next question comes from the line of Anita Soni with CIBC World Markets.

Congrats on the strong start. I just wanted to ask a lot of the questions I wanted to ask were have been asked already about Tasiast grades and Phase X grades. But just could you give us a little bit more guidance? Or is it the same as it was at the beginning of the year on the cadence of sustaining capital and growth capital spend over the next few quarters?

Sure. I mean we were slower to start, which is typical for us. Q1 is always a bit of a lower CapEx quarter. So we're still on track for the full year with, in particular, the growth capital spending kind of ramping up on the U.S. projects as we go through the year.

And your next question comes from the line of Tanya Jakusconek with Scotiabank.

Andrea, can I just come back and you mentioned that you're seeing no issues in terms of getting supply back in supply to mine sites, et cetera. Is there anything with your suppliers that you talk to that they are monitoring? Just things are moving now, but is there anything tight that they're watching?

Tanya, it's Claude. I'll take that. From a supply point of view, globally, as our teams work and these things change because it's quite dynamic, we do follow up with the suppliers on a consistent basis. Obviously, for us, it's about what's the high priority items, explosives, cyanide, these kind of things. And we haven't seen any tension from any of them yet.

You'll recall that a couple of years ago with the issue in Ukraine, we shifted a lot of where our supply comes from, along working with our suppliers of explosives, cyanide and all those types of things. So we feel like we're in pretty good shape relative to the current situation as well.

Okay. So they're not seeing anything. So that would imply, Andrea, I shouldn't see any increase in working capital inventories at mine sites, you're not accumulating anything there.

We are targeting more fuel in country for Tasiast. So there was already a little bit of a buildup of supplies inventory starting in March, but nothing overly significant.

So not going back sort of the COVID period?

No.

No. Okay. And my second question is still on the costing side. We talked about fuel a lot, and thank you for that information. That's very helpful. But I wanted to come back and focus on labor as well. I mean, you mentioned -- number one, I wanted to understand whether you are seeing any tightness in the labor market and any contracts that you are seeing that are renewed for this year you have to renew and that in line with your 5% inflation estimate.

No, Tanya, as we mentioned in the previous quarter, we have now signed the major sites that have collective labor agreements, Tasiast, Brazil and Chile. We have signed all of those agreements with the teams for the longer term. Chile is a 2-year, Tasiast is a 5-year and Brazil is a 3-year. So we're in pretty good shape this year when it comes to that.

From a labor supply point of view, there is always tension in the system, but we're seeing a lot less turnover in Nevada than we're used to. So we're in reasonable shape. So from a supply point of view, it's fine. And then from an agreement point of view, it's relative to the -- other than the inflation, as Andrea mentioned, we don't see any pressures at this point.

Okay. Because on your opening slide, I think you mentioned that you have a strategy for your hedging, so your fuel, your currencies and then your grade optimization as we get better grades. I'm just wondering if your productivity and your turnover is where you want it to be as well.

Like I said, certainly with the big 3 labor groups, we continue to focus on being the employer of choice. And certainly, those areas, we believe will be quite successful, but it doesn't take us off the focal point. And then just from a point of view of cost, as I said, there's no pressure.

And our final question is from the line of Lawson Winder with Bank of America Securities.

You submitted the Lobo-Marte environmental impact assessment in April. So that formally starts the permitting process, and you are expecting to provide an additional update in the second half. What are you anticipating in terms of time lines at this point? And what I'm also getting at is when do we expect a full fund decision? And then when should we be thinking about penciling in first production just conceptually even if we're not going to put it in our models yet?

Yes. Maybe I'll start and then turn it over to others. But with the EIA, you're sort of looking at a couple of years to kind of complete that process.

Yes. And then again -- so again, cadence following that couple of standard, I would say, prestandard a couple of years of work to finalize the impact statement, then you're into the sort of the approvals, the yearly works and then construction, which would at a minimum be another couple of years. I think when you take all of that, and we've always anticipated Lobo to come in behind Great Bear in the early '30s. So that's kind of what we've got in our time line. We always look at opportunities for schedule compression, but I think we're comfortable saying early '30s in behind Great Bear.

Okay. And then if I could ask on the solar power at Tasiast. I mean, it appears there's been a clear cost benefit to that. Are you able to quantify the cost benefit from the solar? So for example, I mean, if there were no solar in Q1 versus full exposure to self-generate with heavy fuel or diesel, I mean, do you have a sense of what that benefit would be? And then like taking that to the next conclusion, to what extent could you expand solar capacity at Tasiast, particularly considering the stability of the overall electrical supply?

Yes. So I mean, the calculation is pretty simple. It's about 14 million liters of fuel that is additionally transported and then used at the fuel cost. So for us, right now, it's representing 22% to 24% of our electricity supply to the whole site. So it is significant.

To your point on expansion, the challenge is the system, 25% is 1/4 of the day. So it works through daylight hours. The real issue is battery capacity. So there's no adding additional -- solar panels will not influence it in any way because we reached the peak supply of power for the site. So you're just going to create power that you won't be able to use.

Storage is the bottleneck.

So storage is the bottleneck for those very large capacity plants.

But I think to add, I mean, solar plant was really kind of the first beachhead without the direct savings on fuel. But now we're established with the beachhead. We've got buses, light vehicles, more and more use of battery-powered light vehicles at site, and I could see that trend continuing.

Yes. So -- and as we look at the larger mining fleet as well, we're starting to look at how do we capitalize on using that solar fleet. And then the other part now is looking at the opportunity for wind and we're currently doing a wind study as well in the area. So looking at a lot of different alternatives to heavy fuel.

Okay. That's very helpful. And if I could just ask just one quick clarification question on Fort Knox. The conveyor belt repairs during the quarter, I guess they were unexpected, and that's why they were backed out of earnings for adjusted earnings. But just any additional costs or shutdowns expected with that for the balance of the year?

No. The incident didn't have any impact on our actual production and process. It's given us the opportunity to refurbish a 50-year-old installation, and we're right on track. And right at this point, we're busy doing commissioning and testing of the new system, and we've replaced nearly a kilometer of belt. And so we're on track, and we expect the operation to just continue as normal.

And with no further questions in queue, I will now hand the call back over to Kinross Gold for closing remarks.

Great. Thank you, operator, and thanks, everyone, for joining us this morning. We look forward to catching up with you in person in the coming weeks. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you again for joining us today. This does conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect.

Thank you for standing by. My name is Kate, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Kinross Gold Fourth Quarter and Year-End 2025 Results Conference Call and webcast. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the call over to David Shaver, Senior Vice President. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning. With us today, we have Paul Rollinson, CEO; and from the Kinross senior leadership team; Andrea Freeborough, Claude Schimper, Will Dunford and Geoff Gold. For a complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties, which may lead to actual results differing from estimates contained in our forward-looking information, please refer to Page 3 of this presentation. Our news release dated February 18, 2026, the MD&A for the period ended December 31, 2025, and our most recently filed AIF, all of which are available on our website.

I will now turn the call over to Paul.

Thanks, David, and thank you all for joining us. This morning, I will provide an overview of our fourth quarter and full year results, highlight our operations and projects and discuss our outlook for the business going forward and review our achievements in sustainability. I will then hand the call over to the team to provide more detail.

Looking back, 2025 was another strong year for our business, underpinned by consistent operational and financial performance. We produced just over 2 million ounces and achieved our cost guidance, demonstrating a rigorous focus on cost control. As a result, our margins increased by 66% compared to a 43% increase in the gold price. This margin expansion resulted in a record free cash flow generation for our business with $769 million generated in Q4 and $2.5 billion for the full year. This free cash flow strengthened our balance sheet, and allowed us to return significant capital in 2025. In addition to returning approximately $1.5 billion of capital to debt and equity holders, we also ended the year with approximately $1 billion of net cash.

With respect to operations, Tasiast and Paracatu continue to anchor the portfolio in 2025. Together, they accounted for approximately 1.1 million ounces for the full year or more than half of our production at strong margins. At Paracatu, full year production of over 600,000 ounces exceeded the midpoint of guidance with production exceeding 500,000 ounces for the eighth consecutive year. At Tasiast, full year production also exceeded the midpoint of guidance and the mine was once again our highest margin operation in the portfolio. At La Coipa, we delivered on full year production guidance and saw a strong performance in the fourth quarter. In the U.S., our assets delivered another solid year of operations with full year guidance achieved.

Turning now to our projects. In 2025, we continue to make excellent progress across our attractive pipeline. In mid-January, we announced that we are proceeding with the construction of 3 high-quality organic growth projects which will extend mine life and benefit the long-term cost of our U.S. portfolio. Each of these projects demonstrate compelling economics at a range of gold prices and represent a strong case to invest capital to grow the overall value of the business. We also saw notable progress across our broader resource base with resource additions at several assets enhancing our strong resource optionality and long-term production outlook. We also continue to advance our 2 world-class development projects, Great Bear and Lobo-Marte. At Great Bear, surface construction for the AEX is well advanced, and we look forward to starting construction of the exploration decline later this year. I'm very pleased to report that we were just designated under the Ontario 1P1P process, which Geoff will elaborate more on.

For the main project, detailed engineering and permitting continues to advance as we work with the Ontario and federal authorities, including the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada. The third and final phase of the impact statement submission remains on schedule to be filed at the end of this quarter. At Lobo-Marte, we are progressing baseline studies and plan to submit an EIA by Q2, and we look forward to providing a project update later this year.

With respect to our outlook, we are reaffirming our stable multiyear production profile. Production of 2 million ounces for '26 and '27 remains consistent with our previous guidance and we are introducing a new year of production of 2 million ounces for 2028. At which time, our new higher-grade U.S. projects are expected to come online coinciding with higher-grade mining at Tasiast. Together, we expect this will provide an organic offset to cost inflation through great enhancement within the mine plan.

Looking further ahead, we expect production to remain around the 2 million-ounce level through the end of the decade, supported by the higher grade mining at Tasiast, the U.S. projects, open pit extensions at La Coipa and the start-up of Great Bear. As with everyone in the industry, costs are expected to increase compared to 2025, primarily on higher royalties and inflation. However, I want to stress that we are holding the line on what we can control through continued cost discipline. With respect to future capital allocation plans, we will continue to remain disciplined to ensure that we are investing in our operations to maintain a reliable low-risk business, growing net asset value through continued pipeline development and strengthening our balance sheet while also returning meaningful capital to shareholders. The outlook for our business remains very robust, and Andrea will speak more on our plans to return capital to shareholders later.

Turning to sustainability. In 2025, we continue to advance several priorities across this important area. In Q2, we will publish our annual sustainability report which will provide a detailed review on our sustainability performance and initiatives throughout 2025. Some highlights from the past year include, under the heading of Environment, we completed an energy efficiency program, delivering an estimated 1.5% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions through the implementation of more than 30 projects across our sites. Under the heading of Social, in Mauritania, we donated medical supplies through our long-standing partnership with Project C.U.R.E. and Mauritania's Ministry of Health. To date, the program has supported more than 70 health clinics. And under the heading of Governance, we were once again named the top scoring mining company in the Global Mail's Annual Corporate Governance ranking including maintaining placement in the top 15% of companies overall.

With that, I will now turn the call over to Andrea.

Thanks, Paul. This morning, I will review our financial highlights from the quarter and full year, provide an overview of our balance sheet and our capital allocation plans and discuss our outlook and guidance.

We finished the year producing just over 2 million ounces, in line with guidance, with 484,000 ounces produced in the fourth quarter. Cost of sales of $1,289 per ounce and all-in sustaining costs of $1,825 per ounce in the fourth quarter were higher compared to the prior quarter as expected due to higher gold prices and lower planned production related to mine sequencing. Full year cost of sales of $1,135 per ounce and full year all-in sustaining cost of $1,571 per ounce were in line with guidance despite the impact from higher royalties. Margins were strong at $2,847 per ounce sold in Q4 and $2,283 per ounce for the full year. Our adjusted earnings were $0.67 per share in Q4 and $1.84 per share for the full year.

Adjusted operating cash flow was a record $1.1 billion in Q4 and a record $3.6 billion for the full year. Attributable CapEx was $362 million in Q4 and $1.18 billion for the full year, in line with our full year guidance. Attributable free cash flow was a record $769 million in Q4 and a record $2.5 billion for the full year.

Turning to the balance sheet. We continue to strengthen our financial position with significant cash flow generation in 2025, $700 million of debt repayment and significant growth in our cash position. In Q1, we repaid the remaining $200 million on the term loan we used to fund the acquisition of Great Bear and after redeeming our $500 million 2027 senior notes in December, we ended the year with $1.7 billion in cash, approximately $3.5 billion of total liquidity and net cash of approximately $1 billion. We now have no near-term debt maturities with $500 million due in 2033 and $250 million due in 2041. In December, we received a credit rating upgrade from Moody's Investor Services, upgrading our rating to Baa2 from Baa3. Also in December, we renewed our $1.5 billion revolving credit facility restoring the 5-year term.

Turning to our guidance and outlook. We're forecasting production in the range of 2 million ounces for 2026 remaining consistent with previous guidance. Production is expected to be relatively evenly split across the year at approximately 490,000 to 510,000 ounces each quarter. With respect to cost this year, we are guiding $1,360 per ounce for cost of sales and $1,730 per ounce for all-in sustaining costs at a gold price of $4,500 per ounce. The expected increase of 10% for all-in sustaining costs compared to 2025 is driven by 3 factors. First, higher royalty costs due to higher gold prices, resulting in an approximate impact of 4% or $55 per ounce.

Second, overall cost inflation of approximately 5% or $75 per ounce and the remaining 1% is primarily related to mine plan sequencing across the portfolio. With the increase in costs largely related to noncontrollable factors, our cost guidance continues to demonstrate our effective cost management strategy. Our capital expenditure guidance of $1.5 billion for 2026 reflects annual inflation and planned higher capital investment as we reinvest more in our business to extend my life and increase production in the late 2020 and 2030. Approximately $1.05 billion of our total CapEx is expected to be nonsustaining with the remaining $450 million expected to be sustaining capital.

Looking ahead, our production guidance of 2 million ounces remains unchanged for 2027. And we have now added another year 2028 to our stable 2 million-ounce profile. Capital expenditures for 2027 and 2028 are expected to be approximately in line with 2026 subject to ongoing inflation and potential other project opportunities for the 2030s that are currently under study. As Paul noted, we will maintain our disciplined capital allocation strategy which includes reinvesting in our business, where we have chosen to increase capital expenditures by $350 million this year, continuing to strengthen our investment-grade balance sheet, and returning meaningful capital to shareholders. This year, we are targeting to return approximately 40% of our free cash flow back to shareholders through both dividends and share repurchases. Our shares remain a strong return on invested capital, considering our attractive valuation and free cash flow yield.

With respect to dividends, we are further increasing our dividend by $0.02 per share annually or 14%, following a 17% increase we announced in Q4 for a total increase of 33%. Also, as a reminder, as typical for us, we expect Q1 to be a higher cash outflow quarter due to annual tax payments in Brazil and Mauritania and semiannual interest payments on the remaining senior notes. We expect to start executing our share buyback program next week.

I'll now turn the call over to Claude to discuss our operations.

Thank you, Andrea. I'd like to start with our safety culture. In the fourth quarter, our risk management practices continue to be strengthened across all the assets, ensuring that our highest risk activities are consistently and effectively controlled in the field. Building on our safety excellence programs, we continue to enhance capability at the frontline by investing in our field supervisors, equipping them with practical tools targeted training and visible leadership expectations to improve the quality of our critical control verifications.

In December, we signed a 5-year collective labor agreement at Tasiast and a 2-year CLA at La Coipa, reflecting our ongoing partnership with our employees and ensuring stability for both the local workforce and our businesses in Mauritania and Chile. Our culture of operational excellence, which is backed by dedicated site teams continues to drive strong performance from our operations. Beginning with Paracatu, the mine delivered another strong year of production, exceeding 600,000 ounces, resulting in significant cash flow. Full year production of 601,000 ounces exceeded the midpoint of guidance and cost of sales of $978 per ounce was below the midpoint of guidance. Production of 155,000 ounces in the fourth quarter increased over the prior quarter due to timing of ounces processed through the mill partially offsetting lower planned throughput. Paracatu is expected to produce 600,000 ounces at a cost of sales of $1,240 per ounce in 2026.

Tasiast delivered another strong year of operations with full year production of 503,000 ounces at a cost of sales of $884 per ounce, both meeting guidance. Tasiast was once again our lowest cost operation in 2025, delivering a robust cash flow. In the fourth quarter, the site delivered 126,000 ounces at a cost of sales of $1,002 per ounce. Production was higher over the prior quarter due to higher grades and strongest throughput. Production is expected to be slightly higher in 2026 and 2027 compared to the technical report due to ongoing mine plan optimization. The site is expected to maintain production at around 500,000 ounce level until we are back into higher grades in 2028.

In 2026, Tasiast is expected to deliver 505,000 ounces with a target cost of sales of $1,050 per ounce and is expected to be our lowest cost operation once again this year. La Coipa delivered a strong final quarter with production of 67,000 ounces, improving over the prior quarter on higher mill throughput. Full year production of 232,000 ounces was in line with guidance. In 2026, mining at La Coipa will continue to take place at the 2 open pits, Phase 7 and Puren and blend ore feed into the process plant. La Coipa is anticipated to produce 210,000 ounces at a cost of sales of $1,320 per ounce in 2026. Our U.S. assets collectively delivered full year production of 676,000 ounces at a cost of sales of $1,426 per ounce, in line with guidance. Production of 136,000 ounces in the final quarter was on plan. In Alaska, fourth quarter production of 65,000 ounces was lower compared to the prior quarter and cost of sales of $1,673 per ounce was higher as a result of planned mine sequencing, including lower contributions from Manh Choh.

At Bald Mountain, we produced 38,000 ounces at a cost of sales of $1,492 per ounce, and production was lower over the prior quarter, while costs were higher due to planned mining of lower-grade areas at the Galaxy and Royale pits. At Round Mountain, production of 32,000 ounces was lower compared to the prior quarter as Phase S continue to transition into initial ore while processing from lower grade stockpiles, resulting in a higher cost per ounce sold.

With that, I'll now pass the call over to William to discuss our resource update and projects.

Thanks, Claude. I will start by providing an update on our year-end reserve and resource. For this year, we have updated our reserve price to $2,000 per ounce and our resource price to $2,500 per ounce. The intention was to be more reflective of the recent gold price environment while still maintaining discipline and a focus on strong margins.

Starting with reserves, I'm pleased to report that we added approximately 1.2 million ounces of reserve before depletion. At Paracatu, we saw a 700,000 ounce addition, largely offsetting depletion through mine design optimization and successful near-mine exploration. At Bald Mountain, we added 200,000 ounces before depletion, primarily through conversion of resources to reserves and the 5 satellite pits that were approved as part of the Redbird 2 project. At Tasiast, we added 200,000 ounces before depletion, with additions, both at West Branch and the existing pit design and at the Fennec satellite pit. At Round Mountain, the transition to underground replaced just over 1 million ounces of lower margin, lower grade open pit reserves with approximately 1.2 million ounces of higher grade, higher-margin underground reserves, fully offsetting our depletion. We are pleased to continue to see this type of progress in our reserve base, extending mine life as we advance exploration, optimizations and project studies across the portfolio.

We have also grown our resource base by 1.6 million ounces of M&I and 3.4 million ounces of inferred. These resource additions were spread across our portfolio and were reflective of both exploration success and the impact of higher gold prices as we continue to hold the line on costs, increasing the size of potential future open pit laybacks at some assets. Just as we are holding the line on costs, we are also holding the line on our cutoff grades to ensure we maintain the margin and quality of our resource and only saw a small resource addition from additional mill feed at the end of mine life at the higher gold price. We are pleased to see these strong additions to enhance our long-term resource optionality.

You can see on this slide a summary of that significant resource optionality which now includes 27 million ounces of M&I and approximately 17 million ounces of inferred. These resources, which include a number of projects across our operating and development sites form the pipeline of potential opportunities that we are progressing to support our production profile through the end of the decade and into the 2030s. Our January announcement of progression to construction across 3 high-return projects in the U.S. is a great example, demonstrating the depth and quality of the significant resource base and how we are progressing these projects into our business plan. Phase X at Round Mountain is a low-cost bulk tonnage underground opportunity that it extends operations through 2038 with average annual production of approximately 140,000 ounces. Curlew is a high-grade underground opportunity that leverages existing infrastructure at the Kettle River mill and at a historic Curlew mine bring online an additional high-margin line produces up to 100,000 ounces per year.

And the Redbird 2 project is a highly efficient extension of mining at Bald Mountain, providing the next anchor pits alongside 5 satellite pits that combines to deliver 640,000 ounces. We have progressed the construction across these 3 projects on the back of strong margins with an average ASIC of $1,660 per ounce, quick paybacks of less than 2 years, combined NPV of $4.3 billion and combined IRR of 59% at $4,500 gold. Together, they are expected to add over 3 million ounces of production just based on the initial resource and mine plan inventory we have drilled to date. We are excited to be moving ahead with 3 high-quality projects as we continue to execute our portfolio of grade enhancement strategy.

Beyond our initial life of mines at Phase X and Curlew, which go out to 2038 both projects have significant potential for mine life extension down dip to further enhance our return on asset value. At Phase X, we have recently completed drilling 220 meters down dip, which has demonstrated that mineralization continues with similar strong width of grade, providing further confirmation of our hypothesis that this system extends significantly down dip. This mineralization provides potential for both mine life extensions and for mining rate increase through opening of more mining horizons, potentially increasing the production rates. At Curlew, Stealth and Roadrunner exploration development completed last year has provided drilling access to target wide, high-grade resource extensions in these areas to augment our production profile in the mid-30s and drilling is now underway.

As you can see on the slide, we have seen strong intercepts outside of the current resource and mine plan inventory in both of these zones with good widths and grades that have potential to extend the mine life and enhance the margins of the asset. Exploration will continue to be a priority for these 2 sites, and we look forward to providing further drilling updates through 2026. With these 3 projects now progressing to construction expected to come online in 2028. Our focus is now shifting to adding value-accretive production in the 2030s. This slide shows a summary of some of the longer-term projects in that extensive resource base that are our next focus to progress. I'll come back to an update on Great Bear, which is next in line shortly.

Moving across to Chile. At Lobo-Marte project team continues to advance technical work as well as baseline studies to support our upcoming EIA submission and we look forward to providing a project update later this year. At Tasiast, we continue to see positive results down dip at West Branch and are setting both open pit and underground optionality there for mine life extensions in the '30s. At the same time, we are continuing to progress exploration on satellite opportunities similar to Fennec, which we added to the production profile last year and where we saw further reserve growth this year.

At Maricunga, this year, we will be progressing technical and baseline studies and refreshing the mine plan to refine our view given the incentive resource base. Beyond these projects, we are continuing to progress exploration and studies for open pit layback opportunities that you can see in our resource base across our portfolio with a strong focus on Paracatu, Fort Knox and La Coipa extension.

Now moving to Great Bear. Both the AEX program and Main Project are progressing well, with the Main Project on schedule for first production later in 2029, subject to permitting. Starting with updates on AEX, we made strong progress on site construction. Surface construction for AEX is 80% complete. As Paul noted, we look forward to construction of the exploration decline later this year pending receipt of provincial permits, which Geoff will comment on shortly.

With respect to the Main Project, which remains on track detailed engineering and technical work continues to advance well, with detailed engineering now approximately 35% in fleet. Initial major equipment procurement for process plant and surface infrastructure is already underway with contract awards in progress. Manufacturing and selected long lead items is anticipated to commence later this year. With respect to exploration at Great Bear, in 2025, our efforts shifted to focus on regional exploration on the 120 square kilometer land package. Step-out drilling completed up to 1.8 kilometers along strike of the main LP zone returned encouraging results, indicating high-grade mineralization beyond the current resource base. Drilling on the broader land package outside of the main LP trend, also returned encouraging results. We will progress additional drilling to follow up on these results along trend and on the broader land package this year.

I'll now hand it over to Geoff to discuss the permitting progress at Great Bear.

Thanks, Will. Permitting of the AEX program and the Main Project continue to advance as we work hand-in-hand with the Ontario and federal authorities. Focusing on AEX, we continue to work with the Ontario Ministry of Environment Conservation and parks to finalize the 2 remaining AEX permits. We anticipate receiving these permits and to commence construction of the decline by Q2 of this year.

Turning to the Main Project, which remains on schedule work has commenced on both federal and provincial permits. Federally, we continue to work with the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, IAC, to advance the project impact statement. The first 2 of 3 phase submissions for the project's impact statement were filed on time in September and December, respectively. The third and final phase is scheduled to be submitted at the end of Q1 of this year as previously noted. As a reminder, finalizing the impact statement and receiving the final impact assessment report from IAC is the critical first step to obtaining the other federal and provincial permits we require to construct and operate to Great Bear mine. Work has also commenced another main project federal permits with technical documents submitted to Fisheries and Oceans Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada during the quarter.

Provincially, we were pleased that the main project was recently designated for the 1 project, 1 process permitting framework by the Ontario Minister of Energy and Mines Stephen Lecce. This helpful initiative aims to better coordinate, integrate and streamline Ontario mining project authorizations, permitting and indigenous community consultation, which we support. We expect this more coordinated framework will facilitate the Ontario component of Great Bear permitting and targeted first gold production later in 2029. Respecting indigenous communities, we continue to advance the negotiation of benefits agreements in a constructive and positive manner.

I will now turn it back to Will to discuss our exploration portfolio.

Thanks, Geoff. Beyond the significant portfolio of projects under study, permitting and construction that already sit in our resource base, we are also actively progressing brownfield and greenfield exploration across the portfolio with a total $185 million budget in 2026. We had a strong year of brownfields exploration, driving both the significant reserve additions we spoke about earlier and identification of additional resource potential across a number of projects, a few of which I will now highlight.

First, at Tasiast, we have continued to see positive results at West Branch with 2025 deep drilling demonstrating that mineralization continues at least 1.8 kilometers down plunge of our existing underground resource. Next, in Alaska, the team spent 2025 building on our knowledge of the Gil satellite deposit at Fort Knox. alongside opportunity drilling near the Fort Knox pit to enhance the optionality of our next playback. Results at Gil were encouraging with a few highlight intercepts shown on the slide, strong grades and widths, including a 15.2 gram per tonne intercept over more than 4 meters. Gil is a satellite opportunity with potential to augment production for future phases of the Fort Knox main pit.

And as the last highlight, at Bald Mountain, efforts have continued to explore our large land package at the site, and we're successful in bringing in the 200,000-ounce reserve add I mentioned earlier, primarily through satellite pit extensions. We have also seen strong results outside of those satellite pits that were added to reserves as part of the Redbird 2 project. One highlight was the drilling of the Rat satellite pit, saw intercepts with significant grades and widths including 10 grams per tonne over 16 meters. Rat is 1 of more than 40 historic mining areas on the property and will be a focus to explore and study for potential to complement our next anticipated anchor pit at Bald Mountain, the top pit. You can find more details on the strong results from our 2025 brownfields program and our plans for 2026 in our press release.

Moving to our greenfields program. We completed approximately 40 kilometers of drilling across targets in Canada, in the U.S. and Finland. In Canada, exploration was primarily focused in Manitoba, New Brunswick and Ontario. At Snow Lake in Manitoba, we saw exciting new results both from our first drill program on a McCafferty property, including an intercept of 4 meters at 34 grams per tonne and from grab sampling on the SLG property which returned to a number of results of strong gold grades. These properties further complement the high-grade vein system we have outlined at Laguna North, providing critical mass for further exploration work in the area.

In New Brunswick work consisted of mapping and drilling in the Williams Brook JV property, where Gold rich course veins were identified at the Lynx Zone. At Red Lake North in Ontario, field work also identified several high-grade quartz veins and rock grab samples returned numerous strong grades with the highest assay returning to 65 grams per ton. In Nevada, we completed 2 drill holes at PWC JV project to test for lower placed Carlin-type host drops. Program returned 149-meter mineralized intercept, confirming the presence of Carlin-type disseminated gold, work this year will focus on following up on this exciting result. We continue to be encouraged by our success identifying earlier-stage brownfields and greenfields opportunities to progress into our resource base and project pipeline and plan to build on this success in 2026.

I will now turn it back to Paul for closing remarks.

Thanks, Will. After delivering on our commitments in 2025, we are well positioned for a strong 2026. Our business is in great shape, both operationally and financially, with a number of upcoming catalysts for the year ahead, including ongoing return of capital through our dividend and share repurchases, continued strengthening of our balance sheet, supported by strong operational performance and cash flow generation, advancing our project pipeline, including the U.S. projects discussed in January, as well as Great Bear and Lobo-Marte, which we intend to provide a project update later on this year and continued exploration intended to bring in new projects and mine life extensions.

Looking forward, we are excited about our future. We have a strong production profile. We are generating significant free cash flow. We have an excellent balance sheet. We have an attractive return of capital. We have an exciting pipeline of both exploration and development opportunities, and we are very proud of our commitment to responsible mining that continues to make us a leader in sustainability.

With that, operator, I'd like to open up the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Fahad Tariq with Jefferies.

On Great Bear, the 1 project, 1 process designation. I believe Kinross is the first major mining company to receive that. Can you maybe talk about the relationship with the provincial government and whether this could help get Great Bear into the major projects office designation at the federal level?

Yes, sure. It's Geoff. I'll take that question. Look, let me start by saying that we were pleased by the Interior Minister of Energy's and Mines decision to designate the Great Bear project for inclusion in the 1P1P process. And we believe this designation represents an important milestone. I was -- I'm going to talk about both processes. But at the 1P1P level, the main benefit of the designation is a more streamlined and integrated approach for the provincial component of main project permitting. And it gives us a single point of contact at the Ontario Ministry of Energy and Mines to coordinate all required provincial authorizations permitting and First Nations consultation. And so as a result, we expect that will help facilitate the provincial piece of main project permitting and targeted first gold production in late 2029.

And we've worked hand-in-hand through this process with the Ministry of Mines and other provincial permitting agencies, and we're pleased with the relationship. It's a strong relationship as we continue to work together to develop the project. On your federal piece of the question, I can tell you that we've been in touch with the federal Major Projects office. And they, along with other federal agencies are aware of the Great Bear project and its potential significant economic and sustainable benefits for not only Ontario, but Canada and indigenous communities. And it's absolutely possible to obtain designations under both the 1P1P permitting framework that I talked about previously and the federal national project of interest framework.

But we've elected at this juncture to not apply for that federal designation. We believe that with the benefit of the 1P1P designation that we currently have, along with the fact as Paul noted, that we're far enough along with the federal impact assessment process overseen by IAC. As we've told the markets, we'll be filing the third and final phase of our impact statements at the end of Q1. So we believe we are well positioned for our targeted first gold production in late 2029.

Great. I appreciate the detailed response. That's very clear. And then maybe just switching gears to 2026 cost guidance. Can you just break out the impact of the royalties, the higher royalties because of the higher gold price and underlying cost inflation?

Sure, I can take that. It's Andrea. I'll start with talking about all-in sustaining costs. So our total all-in sustaining cost guidance is up about 10% over 2025. And most of that is related to those 2 items. So inflation and higher royalties on gold price. So of the 10% increase, 5% is inflation and 4% is royalties from using the $4,500 gold price versus where we were for 2025. And then there's about a 1% increase that's left, and that's just really puts and takes across the portfolio on mine plan sequencing. When we look at cash costs, there's a bigger increase, so the increase looks like 20% year-over-year. So half of that 20% is the inflation in royalties and the other half is sequencing as well. There's a bit of a different impact there. It's kind of accounting characterization of our stripping costs. We started to see this -- starting kind of second half of last year where stripping costs move from being characterized as sustaining capital at some of our assets into operating costs.

So we see the increase in cash costs, but the offset of that is in sustaining capital. So that's why there's no impact or very small impact on the all-in sustaining cost guidance. I'd say overall, we're moving the same time. it's just a characterization of cost shows up differently.

Your next question comes from the line of Daniel Major with UBS.

First question, just on the capital allocation and cash returns going forward. I mean I think it's great that you're anchoring a capital return to free cash flow going forward. But I suppose 2 parts to the question. Is there a preference? Or can you comment on the split between ongoing buybacks and potential special dividends to get to the 40% of free cash capital return? And then 40% of free cash flow with $1 billion net cash position implies you're going to continue to build net cash? What are you going to use that for? And is there a maximum limit above which you'd pay it all out to shareholders?

Why don't I start on -- and Andrea can jump in. To the first part of the question, we have a baseline dividend, which is meant to be there forever. And the bulk of the return of capital really comes in the form of buyback. We like the buyback. We think a lot of our investors prefer the buyback. And one of the things we like about buyback is it does come with that benefit of reducing our share count and therefore improving our per share metric. We reduced our share count last year, and our intention is to do that again this year. So in terms of the preference between dividend and buyback, we'll do both. But the greater volume or total of cash will be returned through the form of the buyback.

Looking forward, I think our focus is to get the appropriate return of capital. And that's why, as you acknowledge, we focused on the percentage of free cash flow, that is the focal point. We do realize that in the context of current prices that will be more cash flow and therefore, more returns than we had last year. So we are increasing. But at the same time, we're reinvesting in our business. We do expect in the context of spot that our balance sheet will continue to strengthen. But I guess the point there is we also have to look at the other side of it with these higher gold prices, as we've already seen, we expect higher royalties, higher taxes.

We just demonstrated with the announcement on the U.S. projects, we've got lots of optionality in our pipeline. And we'll take a sort of a steady as she goes with the balance sheet while reinvesting in our business with the appropriate return of capital expecting that we may have higher taxes, royalties and opportunities to reinvest in our business.

Okay. And then well, I guess, maybe a follow-on to that in terms of the inorganic options. Are you kind of optically looking at many opportunities at this point?

I would say we get the question reasonably frequently. We do have -- we have a very strong internal technical team. We do look at opportunities, particularly if there's a process but I would say we're hard markers. We're not under any pressure. When you look at our reserve resource really more of our resource optionality. We've got a lot of depth in our organic portfolio. We've given good visibility on our guidance for 3 years and beyond. So we don't feel under any pressure and what that means is if we saw the right thing and we felt it created value, we'd have a look at it. But we certainly don't feel under any pressure and we're quite happy with the organic profile as it looks today. As I said, we'll our objective really with the free cash flow is to continue to grow our per share metrics.

Great. And then last one for me. First, I guess you slowly changed the way of the accounting for the tax payables. But just on that, in terms of the Q1, now we're past the year-end, what we should be expecting in terms of the cash outflow. I know you've obviously given the guidance of cash tax for the full year.

And then with respect to the run rate of capital returns, free cash flow will be lower in Q1 because of the tax payments, would you -- should we read that you'll slow the buyback? Or will you just look to distribute that at a similar rate through the year?

Yes. We're -- as I noted in my remarks, we haven't started the buyback yet just because of more significant cash outflows in Q1, largely related to tax, and I'll come back to that. But we are planning to get on the buyback next week. So on the whole Q1 may be lower than the rest of the year. But given we're targeting the 40% of free cash flow for total return on capital, it will be a bit of a -- we'll have to calibrate it as we go throughout the year, and then we'll report back each quarter. Like last year, we do expect to be in the market systematically sort of daily throughout the year, repurchasing our shares.

In terms of the tax payments, in Q1, we expect to be paying over $400 million, and that's largely related to 2025. And then we gave the guidance for the full year, but I think $500 million of that is related to 2025. Sorry, probably closer to $600 million.

Okay. So $400 million in the first...

In the first quarter.

$400 million in the first quarter and then the remainder of the $1.25 billion -- so $1.25 billion over the year.

Q4 typically had sort of the lowest payments, Q1 the highest then Q2. So more weighted to the first half and Q1 being the highest.

Your next question comes from the line of Carey MacRury with Canaccord Genuity.

Congrats on the strong year. Just going back to the 40% target. That's just to clarify, that's for 2026, and that's a number that you'll revisit, I guess, in 2027.

That's right.

Okay. And then just in terms of the 2 million ounces, is there a quarterly progression we should be expecting or pretty flat quarter-to-quarter like last year?

Pretty flat quarter-to-quarter.

MacRury, as Andrea noted, and she gave her comment. We'd like to range sort of consistency, but obviously, at 2 million divided by 4 million, that's 500, but you have ups and downs. So we think anything 485 to 515 or 490 to 510 , that's kind of the average.

Your next question comes from the line of Tanya Jakusconek with Scotiabank.

Yes. Okay. Perfect. Great. Some have been asked, but I just wanted to follow back on just the contract renewals. Are there any other ones that are coming up for renewal this year for your labor contracts that we should be aware of?

Yes, Tanya, there is. We're busy -- we're currently busy working through the Brazil Paracatu contract negotiations. Those are pretty standard. We do them almost annually or 18 months. It's slightly different to the other side.

A bit more legislative.

Yes, a bit more legislative as well. So it's just a bit more of a process and that's why it's taken on into this year. But for the rest of the sites, as our U.S. sites, we don't have them, and then it's just Tasiast, Mauritania. Chile, we completed. So we're...

Okay. And I should be thinking about labor, the inflation and wage inflation in that 4% to 5%, would that be fair?

Yes, it's really relative to the country. Our inflation in Mauritania is like 10%. Brazil, it's about 8%. So relative to each country. And then overall, for us as a portfolio, it's in the 4% to 5% range.

Okay. So it's not out of one. Okay. My second question is on Great Bear and thank you for the information on the permitting side. Hopefully, we get that permit in Q2. That would be good to see. But I read that you're going to give us an update later in the year on Great Bear. What exactly are we getting in terms of an update? Is it a new technical study? Maybe just some clarity on what's coming.

Yes, just for kind of -- that may have come out a little bit on the script. The update we're going to provide is on Lobo-Marte. And we were talking about Great Bear and Lobo at the same time. I don't know that there's a specific update that we're planning. It's just continued milestones in the case of Great Bear getting those 2 remaining permits, starting to decline filing the third and final impact assessment filing. So there's not a specific deliverable that I think we're thinking about with Great Bear, in the case of Lobo, we will be filing the EIA, and we plan to give a project update on economics.

Okay. Now that makes more sense because I was just like what's coming on Great Bear that needs an update. But okay. And then my final question is there is a slide that we talked about -- you talked about on some mine life extensions and Paracatu was there. And I'm just wondering, many years ago, there was a potential to do a layback that would add quite a bit of ounces on Paracatu. Is that what you're still thinking about? Is that something -- that make sense?

Yes, you can see that I mean, there's a variety of layback optionality, both in reserve and resource at Paracatu. You can see that we put about 700,000 ounces into the reserve this year as it converts that's material that is now in our strategic business plan, and that's a further redesign of layback. So that full reserve is now approved in part of our business case. So it's an easy way to think about the direct business case is the laybacks that sit in the reserve. And then there's also a significant multimillion ounce resource that we're looking at for the next stage of optionality there.

I will turn the call back over to Paul Rollinson for closing remarks.

Thank you, operator, and thanks, everyone, for joining us this morning. We look forward to catching up with you all in person in the coming weeks. Thanks for dialing in.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone.

Good morning. My name is Jenny, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Kinross Gold First Quarter 2026 U.S. Projects Update Virtual Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. David Shaver, Senior Vice President of Kinross Gold. David, you may begin.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Before we begin, I'd like to state that we will be making forward-looking statements during this presentation. For a complete discussion of the risks and assumptions, which may affect actual results differing from estimates contained in our forward-looking information, please refer to Page 2 of this presentation and our news release published this morning.

In terms of our plans for this morning, we'll have an introduction first by Paul Rollinson, CEO, and then we'll pass it over to Will Dunford, Senior Vice President and Chief Technical Officer, and the technical team to go through each of our individual project updates, including Round Mountain Phase X, Kettle River, Curlew, Bald Mountain Redbird 2, and then have Andrea Freeborough, CFO, comment on project funding and capital expenditures. From the technical team today, we have with us Nicos Pfeiffer, Vice President of Geology and Technical Evaluations; and Yves Breau, Vice President of Metallurgy and Engineering. I will now turn the call over to Paul Rollinson.

Thanks, David. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Today, we are announcing plans to reinvest in our business to generate additional value from internal projects that are underpinned by a low-cost structure and demonstrate excellent economics at a range of gold prices. We are excited to provide you with an update on our 3 new growth projects in the U.S. that we are now progressing to construction. Our decision comes on the back of positive exploration results and robust project studies with all projects demonstrating attractive all-in sustaining costs.

As can be seen on this time line, our portfolio and grade enhancement journey intended to provide an organic offset to inflation pressures began with the completion of the Tasiast 21K and 24K mill expansions and the restart of La Coipa back in 2022. Following these projects, we continue to focus on grade enhancement opportunities in the U.S., which began with Manh Choh contributing high-grade ore to the Fort Knox mill in 2024.

Today's update reflects the next phase of that journey, and we are pleased to advance 2 additional grade enhancement initiatives through higher-grade underground at Round Mountain Phase X in Nevada and Curlew in Washington State. Together with low-cost open pit mining at Bald Mountain Redbird 2, these are expected to benefit our long-term costs in the U.S. As we look forward, these new projects are well timed and are expected to start contributing in 2028. This coincides with our mine plan at Tasiast, which has us back to higher-grade mining also in 2028.

Looking further out, we are targeting production at very low cost from Great Bear in 2029, followed by Lobo-Marte, which is also very low cost in the early 2030s. All of these projects where we will be mining higher grades continue to provide organic offsets to inflationary pressures. This slide highlights the projects that we have approved, which the team will be discussing in more detail. Together, they are contributors to maintaining our 2 million ounce production profile through the end of the decade and are expected to deliver up to 400,000 ounces per year.

I also want to highlight that we see significant exploration potential to extend production beyond what's shown today at all 3 projects. Today's results demonstrate the strength of our extensive resource base, the success of our internal exploration programs and the strategic advantage of our strong in-house technical team. At today's gold prices, our substantial resource base provides excellent optionality. And beyond these projects, our technical team continues to study many other opportunities within the portfolio.

We intend to fund this development with cash flow from our existing operations, which Andrea will speak more on later. We are delivering on all fronts through consistent operational execution and strong financial performance. The outlook for our overall business and our North American portfolio has never been stronger. So with that, I'll turn it over to Will and the technical team.

Thanks, Paul. I'd like to start off by providing a high-level summary of the projects before myself and the team dive into details on each. Phase X at Round Mountain is a low-cost bulk tonnage underground opportunity that extends operations through 2038 with average annual production of approximately 140,000 ounces. Curlew is a high-grade underground opportunity that leverages existing infrastructure at the Kettle River mill and historic Curlew mine to bring online an additional high-margin mine in the U.S. that produces up to 100,000 ounces per year. The Redbird 2 project is a highly efficient extension of mining at Bald Mountain, providing both the next anchor pit alongside 5 satellite pits that combined to deliver 640,000 ounces.

As Paul noted, we are progressing to construction across 3 of these projects on the back of strong margins with an average AISC of $1,650 per ounce, quick paybacks of less than 2 years combined NPV of $4.1 billion and IRR of 55% at $4,300 gold. The projects are also resilient at lower gold prices, aligned with our focus on capital discipline with a combined NPV of $2 billion and IRR of 32% at $3,200 gold. Together, they are expected to add over 3 million ounces of production just based on the initial resource and mine plan inventory drilled to date.

Beyond that, they all have significant potential for mine life extension to further enhance our return and asset value through continued exploration success at Curlew and Phase X and through both exploration and the existing large resource base at Bald Mountain. Phase X and Curlew are the next steps in our grade enhancement strategy with grades of approximately 3 and 6 grams per tonne, respectively, bringing on 2 new underground mines in the U.S. that significantly increase our average grade, provide consistent production and long mine lives, lower our future cost profile and help to offset inflationary pressures.

The addition of 2 higher-grade underground mines also has other benefits, including providing more mine plan flexibility, lowering our initial capital investment per ounce and reducing the incremental capital cost of further mine life extensions. Given the better-than-expected exploration results, initial resources and initial mine lives, which now go to 2038 at both Phase X and Curlew, we have increased our initial capital investments through the study phases to provide reliable long-term infrastructure. These capital investments are expected to derisk our projects and provide robust returns and enhanced asset values, and we are pleased to be proceeding to construction.

Starting with Phase X, as a reminder, our Round Mountain mine in Nevada has a long production history of primarily large-scale open pit mining. The site has the benefit of strong infrastructure and an existing 10,000 tonne per day mill. In 2023, we established a dual decline from the bottom of the pit to progress underground exploration, following higher grade mineralization at depth below the Phase W pit. In 2023, we also announced the decision to proceed with mining of Phase S, where we are now getting into the heart of the ore body, providing open pit production for the next few years and long-term stockpiles to blend with the underground. And in 2025, we completed mining of the current layback at Phase W, which sits above the underground at Phase X.

Since starting the exploration decline in 2023, we have progressed 6 kilometers of underground development and nearly 35 kilometers of exploration drilling. We now have sufficient drilling to define an impressive initial underground reserve of 1.2 million ounces at 3.2 grams per tonne with a further 200,000 ounces of M&I and 500,000 ounces of inferred. On the back of this initial underground resource, we have completed internal studies to support a construction decision with the results indicating robust economics and strong margins.

The project delivers excellent returns on the $400 million initial capital with an AISC of $1,680 an ounce, an NPV of $1.9 billion and an IRR of 67% at $4,300 gold. And as Nicos will speak to later, there is significant potential for further mine life extension, which could amplify these returns. On this slide, you can see some of the key mine planning details that drive these strong margins and returns. Phase X has been designed as a bulk tonnage underground operation with a gradual ramp-up to nearly 5,000 tonnes per day. The primary mining method is transverse longhole open stoping with the mining cost and AISC benefiting from the wide consistent nature of the deposit with an average width of 120 meters driving an efficient underground design.

The initial stope size is designed to be 12 meters by 25 meters high, which we see potential to optimize over time to improve mining costs. The mine plan includes early development of both the upper and lower zones to allow concurrent mining, improving the production rate, efficiency and cost of the mine. The efficiencies and costs of the mine will also benefit from a third portal access, short haul distances, pace backfill and a large-scale underground equipment, including 60-ton haul trucks and 17-tonne loaders.

The resulting underground mining cost in our initial studies comes in at $72 per tonne, and we will be focused on optimizing this cost as we get into operations, expand the ore body down dip and open up more mining zones. I will now pass across to Yves to take you through the processing and capital investment plans.

Thanks, Will. On the milling side, the Phase X project benefits from strong economies of scale, blending the underground inventory with Phase S inventory and lower grade stockpiles to fill the 10,000 tonne per day facility, driving an estimated processing cost of $14 per tonne processed. The underground inventory at Phase X has the same geometallurgical properties as the open pit material that we have historically processed through our mill. The mill includes a gravity circuit, sulfide flotation followed by leaching in the flotation concentrate.

Recoveries are estimated at 88% over the life of mine, following a robust test work program, which complemented many years of actual milling data. Although we have a strong history of processing this ore, we performed a 7,000 tonne bulk sample mill test in 2025, which confirmed the 88% recovery assumption. The bulk sample also showed a positive grade reconciliation from mill to short-term model of approximately 115%, which is something we have a long history of seeing at Round Mountain, given the nuggetty nature of the deposit.

The total initial capital required for Phase X is estimated to be $400 million. You can see that the largest component of the CapEx is the underground mine development and infrastructure. The initial capital includes additional investment to drive higher production rates, improving the value of the mine, including optimization such as the development of both the upper and lower zones concurrently and the addition of a third portal.

We have also included additional capital to use a mining contractor to complete 12 kilometers of development between 2026 and 2028, derisking our development CapEx and our critical path to first production. Given the mining contractor will be on place until 2028, we will have ample time to build up our internal underground operations team, further derisking execution. The cost and productivity for the critical path mining development that are included in our capital estimates are well understood since we have had the contractor on site for the last 3 years.

The other meaningful component of our CapEx are the mining equipment and the construction of the cemented rock fill and paste backfill facilities, which are under design today with the CRF facility expected to be commissioned in 2027 and the paste backfill facility at the end of 2028. All infrastructure is now being designed with the longer life and bulk nature of the underground in mine, and we see the capital estimates as relatively low risk given the large portion of well-understood development mining and mining equipment costs.

With federal permits for mining 3,000 tonnes per day at Phase X already in place, state permits expected this quarter, contract to perform capital development and a balanced ramp-up assumption for the underground, we consider the development time line for Phase X to be robust.

Thanks, Yves. As you can see in the profile at the top of the page, incremental production from Phase X is expected to extend the mine life to 2038 just based on the initial mine plan inventory with an expected average incremental production of 140,000 ounces per year once we are ramped up.

Furthermore, Phase X should reduce Round Mountain's AISC from today's levels and improve the future cost profile, providing stable production and costs with strong margin given the economies of scale of the bulk underground mining. And this is before taking into account potential mine life extensions from continuation of the mineralization down dip. That extension of mineralization down dip and the potential to leverage our underground infrastructure to continue mining was a key strategic rationale for converting to underground mining at Round Mountain.

Most of our mines are open at depth, and we routinely evaluate the option of transitioning to underground versus continuing with open pit laybacks where there is a higher-grade core of mineralization within the resource, there is usually a breakover point where even though you are dropping some lower-grade ounces from the open pit inventory, you increase value by converting to higher-grade underground mining. With these study results, we have confirmed that we have reached that point where we are maximizing value by transitioning to underground on the western portion of the pit at Round Mountain.

As you can see in the figure on the right, a significant portion of this underground inventory was previously included in the open pit resource at Phase W. There was also a large inventory of lower grade, more marginal ounces within the open pit that we have chosen to remove through the conversion to higher-value underground mining, focusing on quality and value over quantity, resulting in a 1.9 million ounce change to the overall resource at Round Mountain and a significant increase in the grade.

Accessing that lower-grade Phase W inventory from the open pit would have required mining approximately 1.4 billion tonnes of waste rock, and that would have been done in multiple laybacks with the strip ratio increasing with each phase, deteriorating economics and increasing costs over time. In converting to higher-grade underground mining, we see significantly higher IRR and NPV and a lower, more consistent cost structure. There are still remaining open pit resources at Round Mountain outside of Phase W that we will be studying to pull into the mine plan after Phase S, further benefiting economies of scale, increasing overall production and providing mill feed to blend with the underground beyond 2038.

Importantly, we will have developed our primary underground infrastructure with a $400 million investment, and we will be well positioned to continue following the ore body down dip after 2038 with the only significant incremental CapEx to exploit this opportunity being extension of underground ramps and access levels. We see significant potential for this type of continuation of mining at Phase X, as Nicos will now outline.

Thanks, Will. Stepping back to the geology of the asset, the mineralization at Round Mountain is hosted in a large ring-shaped collapsed Caldera margin. And geologically, this mineralization is part of the same system we've been mining for over 47 years in the open pit, where over 17 million ounces have been extracted from a portion of the deposit. We see potential both for proximal and down-dip growth of the resource, including some intercepts already seen with similar grade and width outside of the initial resource, as shown here, intersecting 67 meters of 3.2 gram per tonne and 88 meters of 2.7 gram per tonne.

In Q4 of 2025, we drilled a hole from surface to test the extension potential over 220 meters from our mine plan inventory and just received the results, which are in line with our resource grade, encountering 68 meters at 3.1 gram per tonne. The strike length of our current mine plan inventory is 610 meters, which gives an idea of the scale of the opportunity that remains wide open to further extension. As Will said, given the nature of the mineralization and the results outside the resource seen to date, we see significant potential to extend our mineralization through exploration as well as the potential to increase the scale of the operation by opening up additional mining zones.

Thanks, Nicos. So to close out on Phase X, you can see that we have robust initial incremental economics for the underground. Phase X improves the long-term cost profile at Round Mountain and provides a stable long-term base of operations, taking the mine life out to 2038. We view this initial resource as only the beginning of the story of underground mining at Round Mountain and see significant potential extending the mine plan beyond 2038 and improving the returns on the investment.

Moving across to Curlew and Washington State, we have another exciting high-grade underground story as we look to restart operations at the Kettle River mill and the Curlew underground mine. As a reminder, the Kettle River mill and Curlew mine are located in the Eastern District of Washington State, and the Curlew mine is located approximately 40 kilometers from the mill. Kinross has a long successful history of production in this region as well as significant infrastructure in place.

Kettle River mill has produced 2.8 million ounces historically, and we were in production until 2017 when we put the mill into care and maintenance while exploring for the next sizable deposit. Over the last few years, we have successfully drilled off that sizable deposit at the Curlew underground mine, which is an extension of the historic K2 mine utilizing the same portal with about 400,000 ounces of indicated and 800,000 ounces of inferred, giving us the quality and scale we were looking for to enable a restart of operations.

For context, we stopped producing at the Curlew mine in 2005 when the gold price was approximately $450 an ounce. While expanding the Curlew resource over the last few years, we have also been progressing permitting and study work for a restart of the mill. The combination of our active presence, successful history and significant existing infrastructure in this region has positioned us well for restart of operations, adding a quality mine to our U.S. portfolio. We have now completed internal studies for the restart of mining at Curlew and are pleased to report that we will be progressing to construction.

Given the strong grade and width of the underground resource and the ability to leverage the existing infrastructure, the project demonstrates excellent economics at strong margins. It delivers significant returns on the $485 million investment, driving a $1.2 billion NPV and 44% IRR at a gold price of $4,300. And just as at Phase X, we see significant potential down dip to extend resources, production and mine life at Curlew with low incremental CapEx.

The mine plan for Curlew includes a combination of longitudinal and transverse long-hole open stoping using 45-tonne trucks and 14-tonne loaders, ramping up to a peak of 1,800 tonnes per day. Although it's a small underground mine relative to Phase X, the AISC benefits from a strong average grade of almost 6 grams per tonne and good mining widths with an average of 6 meters for the first 5 years and 4 meters over the life of mine.

The underground leverages the existing portal and underground development from the historic K2 mine, providing access to multiple mining zones that will be mined concurrently to achieve the 1,800 tonnes per day. You can also see on the slide that the current mine plan is mining rate constrained in the latter years. So there is an opportunity to enhance the production profile versus what's shown today by drilling off extensions to the resource, allowing for a higher mining rate. The mine plan results in an expected average production of 100,000 ounces per year for the first 5 years, generating robust cash flow of approximately $250 million per year at $4,300 gold.

Based on the current mine plan inventory, the mine is expected to produce approximately 940,000 ounces over an initial 11-year mine life. Initial production will target the widest, highest grade mineralization first. As Nicos will talk to later, our exploration results have already shown potential to extend the resource in areas with wide and high-grade intercepts. If successful, this mineralization will be prioritized over the lowest grade material in the latter half of the mine plan, providing potential to maintain the 100,000 ounces per year beyond 2034 and ultimately extend the mine life. I will now pass it across to Yves to speak about the plans for the Kettle River mill refurbishment.

Thanks, Will. The mill has a capacity of 1,800 tonnes per day, consisting of a conventional crushing, grinding and carbon and leach gold recovery circuit. The average recovery in the mill for the Curlew resource is anticipated to be 80% and that the operating cost is expecting to be $47 per tonne processed. We have decided to add a tailings dewatering plant to convert from conventional to dry stack tailings as part of the project. The mill and tailings facility ran well into 2017 when we decommissioned it and put it into active and care and maintenance.

The initial project capital costs are expected to be approximately $485 million, primarily related to underground mine development, equipment procurement, refurbishment of the mill and addition of the tailings dewatering plant. Total direct capital comprises of approximately $360 million with $125 million of capital budget for indirects and contingencies. Although the mill has been well maintained, given the strong exploration results and the initial 11 years mine life that we already see and the overall age of the mill, we decided to do a fulsome review and refurbishment of the mill prior to the restart of the operation in 2028 to ensure reliable performance through the mine life.

In addition to the long mine life, we have incorporated learnings from prior mill restarts and additional capital has been added through the recent study phases to replace significant quantity of processing equipment, including crushers, mills, pumps, cyclones and feeders. Similar to Round Mountain Phase X, the initial capital also includes additional costs for the use of mining contractor for the initial capital development to derisk the critical path to first production and provide more time to ramp up our internal resources.

With respect to the project schedule and permitting, Curlew is on track for first production in 2028. With several early work items already completed in 2025, we have established a strong starting point for the project's execution and construction this year. All permits for the restart of the mine have been received. We are currently progressing an additional permit for the increase of the height of the dry stack tailings to accommodate the entire mine plan inventory, which is expected to be received later this year. I'll now pass it over to Nicos to discuss the resource and exploration at Curlew.

Thanks, Yves. As can be seen on the slide, Curlew has demonstrated clear exploration success over the past 4 years with strong additions to the resource inventory each year, establishing the scale we wanted to see to motivate a restart of operations. Drilling to date has successfully delineated a substantial 1.2 million ounce high-grade mining inventory, supporting an average life of mine mill grade of 5.8 gram per tonne, driving a low-cost, high-margin operation.

Beyond the established resource, we continue to see significant upside potential at Curlew as we advance development along the basin-shaped productive horizon shown here in blue between the historic K1 and K2 mines. Drilling campaigns have consistently grown the resource at depth with more recent intercepts confirming higher grades and improved mineability in the lower zones. As you can see on the image, in Q4, we intersected 10.4 meters of 11.7 gram per tonne and 12.5 meters of 10.9 gram per tonne at the North Stealth Zone.

Ongoing exploration continues at priority targets, Roadrunner and the Stealth Zone with the goal of adding higher grade, higher productivity material to 2034 through '38 and extending the production profile past 2038. To conclude on Curlew, we are excited to advance this project to construction and add a high-grade underground mine in a great mining jurisdiction, continuing our grade enhancement journey and adding consistent long-life, strong margin production. Curlew demonstrates robust economics and an attractive AISC profile with significant upside driven by the strong exploration potential.

Now moving back to Nevada, as can be seen on this slide, the Redbird 2 project includes the second phase of the existing large-scale Redbird pit, along with 5 additional smaller quick payback satellite pits to be mined concurrently, offsetting some of the initial stripping costs. The strategy of mining both an anchor pit and concurrent satellite pits is aligned with the historic mining strategy at Bald Mountain and provides significant economies of scale to support high-margin production.

Redbird is optimally located with short hauls to the heap leach and waste dump while also being very close to the maintenance and admin facilities. This is expected to lead to high productivity and low-cost mining. Processing for Redbird 2 will take place on the expanded Bald heap leach pad and processing for the satellite pits will take place on the expanded Mooney heap leach pad.

The Redbird 2 project builds off Redbird Phase 1, which we approved in Q4 of 2024, extending high productivity mining through to 2032. The project leverages existing infrastructure, equipment and the workforce at Bald Mountain, continuing the long history of successful open pit heap leach operations on the prolific Bald Mountain land package.

Based on current gold prices, the project demonstrates excellent economics with an NPV of approximately $1 billion and a 58% IRR at $4,300 gold. Production is planned to start in 2028 and add a combined 640,000 ounces with approximately 155,000 ounces per year between 2028 and 2031. The high productivity, low-cost mining is expected to drive an attractive life of mine AISC of $1,465. I'll hand it to Yves to discuss capital for the project.

The Redbird 2 project continues operations at Bald Mountain, with most of the capital being mining and heap leach pad expansions, which is core business for us in Nevada. Initial project capital costs are expected to be $490 million, primarily related to pre-stripping and procurement of additional mining equipment, expansion of leach pads and associated infrastructure in addition of a SART plant to process high copper mineralization at Redbird.

The CapEx has been increased through the last year of studies to add additional fleet and pre-stripping for the satellite pits, which increases production and leverages economies of scale at the site. An addition of the SART plant, which adds greater optionality for processing higher copper mineralization across the entire Bald property. Permitting for the project is well advanced with the Redbird pit, 3 of the 5 satellites and 2 heap leach permits already in hand, allowing for the start of the project ramp-up this year. I will now pass it to Nicos to talk about the longer-term upside potential at Bald Mountain.

Thanks, Yves. With the production at Bald now established into the next decade, the team will continue to evaluate the exploration potential across the large prolific land package, which hosts more than 40 pits. Exploration over the past 2 years was successful in defining the satellite pit inventories to complement the Redbird 2 mining profile. And going forward, exploration will continue to focus on both satellite pit additions and finding new anchor pits at the operation.

As of today, Bald still has a substantial resource with 2.5 million ounces of measured and indicated and 800,000 ounces of inferred. The next expected anchor pit, Top, with more than 1 million ounces is already contained within the existing resource. Top is already permitted for production and will be the next focus of project study to extend operations beyond 2032 at Bald Mountain.

Thanks, Nicos. So in summary, we continue to see a strong future at Bald Mountain and are excited to proceed with the next phase of mining at Redbird 2, which demonstrates compelling economics through a strong incremental NPV and IRR, supported by a low AISC profile. As indicated, we see further upside potential at Bald Mountain, given the current significant resource and exploration targets across the prolific land package, which we will continue to evaluate as we execute the next phase of Redbird. With that, I will now pass it over to Andrea to discuss project funding and capital expenditures.

Thanks, Will. The decision to advance the 3 projects presented today aligns with our disciplined capital allocation framework, as shown on the right of the slide. In particular, we are reinvesting back into our business, allocating capital to projects that are expected to generate very attractive returns and grow value for shareholders. As outlined by the team, these 3 projects all demonstrate a strong case for invested capital, underpinned by excellent economics and the ability to leverage existing infrastructure, regional experience and technical expertise.

We plan to fund the capital required to advance these projects from our robust operating cash flows, while also continuing to strengthen our balance sheet and return capital to shareholders. As we develop these projects, we continue to follow a balanced approach on all of our capital allocation priorities. Looking back to 2025, after funding our capital expenditures for the year, we returned over $750 million to shareholders, including repurchasing $600 million in shares and increasing our dividend. And we repaid $700 million in debt, all while increasing our cash position.

As we look ahead to capital expenditures for 2026, we are forecasting total capital to be approximately $1.5 billion. Capital expenditures for 2027 and 2028 are expected to be approximately in line with 2026, subject to ongoing inflation and potential other project opportunities for the 2030s currently under study. We will provide further information on our capital and other guidance with our year-end results release next month. I'll now hand it over to Paul for closing remarks.

Thanks, Andrea, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. We are excited to be moving ahead with 3 high-quality projects as we continue to execute our portfolio and grade enhancement strategy. As the team has highlighted, these projects are expected to benefit long-term costs in the U.S., deliver strong returns, extend our mine life within attractive regions and enhance the overall value of our business. We look forward to sharing future updates on our progress with respect to these projects as well as our broader portfolio as we continue to unlock value. With that, operator, we are now ready to take questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question is from Anita Soni from CIBC World Markets.

Really good results with this exploration and development project update. Just a question on the capital. I think you've given us a good breakout of pretty much every other parameter on a time scale basis. But could you give us a breakout of the CapEx spend for these 3 projects over the next 3 years? I know you gave it for 2026, but I was just looking for pretty much just $100 million a year for Redbird or whatever, just to try to understand the -- what CapEx we should be modeling annually for each project.

Sure. Anita, it's Andrea. So we noted the $425 million for 2026, which is part of that $1.5 billion total CapEx. You should think about 2027 as being maybe a couple of hundred million higher than that and then most of the rest of it in 2028, and maybe a little bit of a tail in 2029.

Okay. And I think the total capital is about $1.4 billion, right, between the 3 projects?

Yes, close to that.

And just to equal 1/3 as we're breaking them out for each asset or, like each...

Given the total for each.

Your next question is from [indiscernible] from Canaccord Genuity.

Thanks for the detailed presentation, a lot to digest there. But just wondering if you could give us the life of mine cash costs you're assuming for the 3 projects. I know you gave us AISC, but if you can help us in the modeling.

Yes. I think for Phase X, it's around $1,600, $1,575 for the life of mine there. And then for Curlew, I think it's in the range of about $1,400 -- sorry, that's for Redbird. And then for Curlew, for that, a little bit higher. I think life of mine, it's about $1,500 depending on gold price, a little bit under.

Okay. Great. And then I see for the Phase X reserve, you're using $2,000 reserve price, $2,500 resource. Is that what we should be expecting for the broader portfolio when that comes out later?

Yes, that will be -- we'll use consistent. That's the resource pricing we'll be using this year, resource and reserve.

Okay. And then maybe one last one. Obviously, capital going to $1.5 billion. Still by my numbers, you generate a lot of free cash flow. And I know you're done with the share buyback program, but are share buybacks going to be part of 2026 still? Or how are you thinking about buybacks now?

We'll give you an update, it's Paul here, with the year-end. But our consistent message is all things being equal, we'd like to continue in the same -- with the same approach, which is looking at the buyback, looking at the dividend, strengthening the balance sheet and, of course, reinvesting in our business. So that certainly would be our intention.

[Operator Instructions] And your next question is from Daniel Major from UBS.

Just maybe a follow-up on the CapEx profile for the whole business after the inclusion of the additional projects that you detailed in the presentation. Would it be fair to assume, yes, including the ramp-up of the spend, I guess, at other projects, including Great Bear, would it be fair to assume sort of medium-term CapEx 2027 to 2028 would be in the kind of north of 1.5 billion range, yes, $1.5 billion to $1.8 billion, that sort of level? Where would you see that '27, '28 numbers, including these projects?

We'll provide some more detail next month. But I would think about as we sit here today as $1.5 billion as sort of the new flat CapEx guidance for the next 3 years, of course, subject to inflation along the way. And then also subject to other project advancement if we see opportunities to add for production for the 2030s. But that $1.5 billion includes our estimates for what we'll spend on Great Bear and on Lobo-Marte through the next couple of years based on today's estimates. So we don't have a significant spike for those projects.

So that kind of implies the capital spend at Great Bear and Lobo-Marte is probably more ramping in 2029, '30 to prevent you going materially over the $1.5 billion. Is that the right way of thinking about it with a 3-year spend of the existing projects?

We do have CapEx for Great Bear. It actually ramps up in '28. But while that comes on, there's other capital that comes off. So 2028, we're into a lower stripping year at Tasiast, for example. So there's kind of puts and takes that allow us to stay around that $1.5 billion level.

And then maybe a follow-up on the previous question around the buyback versus dividend and how you're going to sort of frame that? Is there a balance sheet target that you have in mind above which you'd commit to returning the bulk of the free cash flow? And should we expect a combination of a kind of bump to the regular dividend as well as the buyback commitment?

Yes. Look, as I said, we're looking at all of the above. I would remind, though, as we say every year, Q1 is our seasonal cash out quarter. We pay taxes in Brazil. We pay taxes in Mauritania and other parts of the world. So we like to think about our return of capital from a position of strength. So again, as we go, and I think we've got a pretty good track record of sort of guiding what we think we will do under certain scenarios and then following through on it.

Recall, we chose to increase the dividend late last year. We chose to increase the buyback. So I think if the conditions are right with the gold price, yes, we would want to continue with all of the above. I don't -- we don't have a magic sort of line, if you will, on the balance sheet, but we would like to continue to strengthen our balance sheet while providing returns to shareholders. But we're going to kind of -- we don't want to get into a formula, and we're going to just kind of see how we go here. And as I said, if everything continues, I expect we will do all of the above, strengthen the balance sheet, return capital with both buybacks and dividends.

That's clear. And then just one more, and you touched on it on the cash flow statement with respect to tax, but maybe you could give us a little bit of firming of guidance now the year end. I would assume you're going to continue to accrue an increase in tax payables in Q4 and then that will reverse in Q1. I think you guided sort of $300 million to $400 million kind of catch-up tax payment in Q1. Is that still the right kind of number to be thinking about? And what would you expect to be the positive working capital adjustment in Q4?

That is all true. So yes, taxes payable continue to accrue in Q4. And then the Q1 cash out, you're right, around $400 million. In terms of the buildup, we can take that offline. But your numbers are pretty accurate in terms of continuing to build that payable and then paying out around $400 million in the first quarter.

Your next question is from Matthew Murphy from BMO.

Just some questions around execution risks. So it feels like you're in pretty good shape on permitting. Are there any permits we should be focused on that are trickier to get at this point?

No. I think we kind of outlined it in the release a fair bit. There's only 2 of the smaller satellite pits at Redbird that still require further permitting, and we're anticipating getting that this year. So we don't see it as a risk. We're not going to be mining those 2 particular satellite pits until later in 2028. So we've got lots of buffer on that permitting initiative.

In Round Mountain, we're in a really good spot just given the federal permitting. There is that minor action that we mentioned, which is just taking federal permit from 3,000 tonnes per day. We're taking it up to a much higher number, higher than the 5,000 tonnes per day just because it's a minor action, and we don't expect an issue there. So longer term, as we open up more mining horizons, we want the flexibility to be able to go above the 5,000 tonnes per day, but we expect that imminently.

And then as we said in the release, the state permitting there, we expect imminently as well. And lastly, on Curlew, really the only remaining major permit, of course, there's always operational permits, as you know. But the major permit action is just for the increase in the height of the tailings stack, and we don't actually need that right away. We've got flexibility. But certainly, our goal is to get that this year as well.

Okay. And then how about workforce?

Yes. Look, I think we tried to allude to it in the release a bit as well, but we've made that part of where we've taken our CapEx up a bit for these projects, just given the quality that we're seeing in them, we really wanted to derisk our initial ramp-up plans at both Curlew and Phase X, just given we're transitioning to the underground workforce. So one of the things we've done, as an example, to derisk that ramp-up is we're using a contractor for the next 2.5 years well into 2028 to do all the development and really the critical path development to ensure we have enough stopes open to hit the ground running in 2028 with our production plans.

So we see that as money we've spent to derisk the project rather than trying to ramp up right away. That gives us quite a bit of time, and we are also making the investment during those projects to start to ramp up the internal labor force in parallel with those contractors, but we're not assuming work output from them. So it's a little bit of conservativeness in the project plans. So for example, at Round Mountain today, we've got a variety of our open pit people who've been interested in going underground. They're just shadowing our contractors' employees to get up the curve on underground transition.

And then at the same time, we're recruiting experienced operators to join our in-house team. So it gives us a lot of time for that overlap. That would probably be the biggest risk, and that's what we've done to really mitigate that risk in terms of that transition. The other thing that we've done to try and make sure that we're in a good position to get the best miners in the region. At Phase X, we're going to go to a week on, week off schedule for the operations teams. We think that's going to be really attractive relative to other underground mines in the region, and it's a good way for us to make sure we get the best workforce that we can.

And I would just going to jump in and add. You asked about the workforce, but -- which is a good question. But I'd just remind that while we're not currently underground mining, we've got lots of underground expertise in our company. Will worked underground. Our COO worked underground. We've operated several underground mines. So we're actually looking forward to getting back underground.

Fair point. That all makes sense. Okay. And then last thing I was going to ask about just at the firm production level, the goal of extending the duration of 2 million ounces a year, does any of this expansion plan allow you to exceed 2 million ounces any of the years out in your view?

Look, again, when you look out further, it's sort of pick your gold price and other things may come on or continue. But for today, in terms of managing expectations, we're sticking with the 2 million.

And I would say one positive of these projects, you can see the long mine lives at Curlew and Phase X. That extension of mine life out to 2038 in the U.S. is very helpful. I mean they're not massive mines. But when you look at them in aggregate, the combination of those things and if you just keep doing what we've been doing at Bald Mountain, that really puts a pretty sizable chunk well into the 30s in your production profile to help support that 2 million ounces for the longer term.

Your next question is from [indiscernible] from Canaccord Genuity.

Just a couple of follow-ups. Just wondering if you have any sort of material and maintenance spending at Curlew right now? Or is it pretty negligible?

Yes. I mean we've had care and maintenance spending. We've actually -- I would say we've been on the more conservative end with that mill over the years in terms of making sure like it's been heated since it went into care and maintenance in 2017. We've had maintenance teams there who are taking care of things. We start the motors routinely. So we've put a lot of work into making sure that, that is in a good condition. So yes, we are spending today. We have been spending. All of that has been with a view that we believe we were going to start -- restart operations here one day when we got the resource inventory ready for it, and we're there today.

And then maybe just a high-level question. With these 3 projects in Great Bear, and I know you're working on Lobo-Marte, like from a technical bandwidth perspective, are you pretty full now for the next couple of years? Or if there was an opportunity to do something else, you'd have some room to do it?

Yes. Look, in terms of technical bandwidth, look, we're really just adding one new site with Curlew as it relates to the projects we're talking about today. And we've got a great team already in place there. So we feel very good about that. The greenfield projects, which is further out, Lobo-Marte and Great Bear, again, we're well ahead of that in terms of our thinking about the ramp-up and staffing. And so again, I don't -- we're not concerned about technical bandwidth in terms of execution on what we have in front of us.

No, I think it's -- Paul has alluded to the strength of our technical teams in some of our discussions. I mean we've got more than 70 people here in Toronto in our core technical disciplines between mine engineering, geology, metallurgy. And we've got a good setup in terms of how we interact between those teams and site and project teams to make sure we get the right skills on the ground. It's a pretty fungible barrier, as I call it. So we're routinely sending our guys out and dedicating them to projects or operations. And then we're having people come back in the other way to supplement the Toronto team.

So it's a really well set up organizational structure to support all these projects and make sure we've got the same key leads, guys like Yves and Nicos, who we have on the call today, overseeing all of this and ensuring the quality and discipline in all of these project studies.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. Please proceed with the closing remarks.

Great. Thank you, operator. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today. We'll be back on the call mid-February with the year-end results, and we look forward to maybe seeing you in person between now and then. Thanks, everyone, for joining.

Gentlemen. The conference has now ended. Thank you all for joining. You may all disconnect your lines.

Hello, and thank you for standing by. My name is Mark, and I will be your conference operator today. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Kinross Gold Third Quarter 2025 Results Conference Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions] Now I would like to turn the call over to David Shaver, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning. In the room with us today on the call, we have Paul Rollinson, CEO; and from the Kinross senior leadership team, Andrea Freeborough, Claude Schimper, Will Dunford and Geoff Gold. For a complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties, which may lead to actual results differing from estimates contained in our forward-looking information, please refer to Page 3 of this presentation, our news release dated November 4, 2025, the MD&A for the period ended September 30, 2025, and our most recently filed AIF, all of which are available on our website.

I will now turn the call over to Paul.

Thanks, David, and thank you all for joining us. This morning, I will discuss our third quarter results, provide high-level updates across our portfolio, comment on sustainability and confirm our outlook. I will then hand the call over to the team to provide more detail. Following an excellent first half, our portfolio of mines continued to perform well in Q3. Production in the quarter was on plan, delivering 504,000 ounces at a cost of sales of $1,145 per ounce. The strength of our operating portfolio, combined with good cost management and favorable gold prices resulted in another quarter of strong operating margins.

As a result, in Q3, we delivered another quarter of record free cash flow of nearly $700 million and over $1.7 billion year-to-date. Our business is in excellent shape, underpinned by a very strong balance sheet, robust operational outlook and significant cash flow generation. In accordance with our disciplined capital allocation framework, we are committed to further strengthening our balance sheet through additional debt repayment and enhancing returns for shareholders. We have returned significant capital through our dividend and share repurchases. Given our strong position, we are now planning to increase our return of capital to shareholders beyond the minimum of $650 million we committed for this year.

Andrea will provide further details on our capital allocation plans later. Turning to our operational highlights. In Q3, Paracatu and Tasiast delivered substantial production at good costs, generating robust free cash flow. Paracatu was once again the highest producer in the portfolio and remains well on track to deliver close to 600,000 ounces. At Tasiast, both the mine and mill continued to perform well with production in the third quarter delivering as planned and operations remain on track to beat guidance. At La Coipa, performance improved in the third quarter and the site remains on track to meet its full year production guidance.

At our U.S. assets, production and costs were on budget in Q3 and also remain well positioned to meet guidance. In Alaska, we saw consistent production with strong contributions from both Fort Knox and Manh Choh. In Nevada, production from Bald Mountain and Round Mountain were as planned. At Bald Mountain, mining of Redbird 1 continued to ramp up and study work for Redbird 2, along with numerous additional satellite opportunities is ongoing. At Round Mountain, initial production from Phase S continued to ramp up following the completion of mining at Phase W.

At Phase X, underground development is progressing well with over 5 kilometers advanced to date and infill drilling continues to return excellent grades and widths. With respect to our broader project pipeline, we continue to make steady progress at Curlew, Great Bear and Lobo-Marte in the third quarter. These projects, along with other organic opportunities, continue to be backed by an extensive resource base with excellent long-term optionality. Our strong in-house technical team continues to evaluate these value-generating investment opportunities that we may choose to invest in to continue to grow shareholder value.

Turning now to a few remarks on sustainability. In Q3, we continued to provide meaningful impact in our host countries. For example, in Mauritania, we contributed to local educational infrastructure by developing new school facilities in the Inchiri region. In Brazil, Paracatu's tailings facilities recently received the top level AA classification from the engineer of record. This is a strong endorsement of the site's safety practices, reflecting industry-leading standards in monitoring, maintenance and risk control. And in Nevada, Bald Mountain earned the Nevada Excellence in Mine Reclamation and Earthworks Award.

Turning now to our outlook. Through the first 9 months, we have produced over 1.5 million ounces at a cost of sales in line with our annual guidance. Operations remain on track in the fourth quarter, and we are firmly positioned to achieve our full year targets. Looking forward, we will remain focused on rigorous operational and financial discipline to deliver strong margins and cash flow to support strong returns for our shareholders.

With that, I will now turn the call over to Andrea.

Thanks, Paul. This morning, I will review our financial highlights from the quarter, provide an update on our balance sheet and return of capital program and comment on our guidance and outlook. In Q3, we produced and sold 504,000 gold equivalent ounces. Cost of sales was $1,145 per ounce and with an average realized gold price of $3,458 per ounce, we delivered margins of over $2,300 per ounce. Cost of sales increased quarter-over-quarter due to planned mine sequencing and the impact of higher gold prices on royalties.

All-in sustaining costs also increased as compared to Q2 for the same reasons as well as timing of sustaining capital expenditures. In Q3, our adjusted earnings were $0.44 per share and adjusted operating cash flow was $845 million. Attributable CapEx was $308 million with slightly more sustaining capital versus growth. Attributable free cash flow was a record $687 million or $538 million, excluding changes in working capital. And we received an additional $136 million of cash in Q3 from the prior divestiture of Chirano mine.

Turning to our balance sheet. Our strong financial position continued to improve in Q3. We ended the quarter with approximately $1.7 billion in cash and approximately $3.4 billion of total liquidity, increasing by over $600 million over the prior quarter. As of Q3, our balance sheet is in a net cash position of almost $500 million. Our financial strength was recognized by S&P, who updated our credit outlook from stable to positive during the quarter.

With respect to the Chirano proceeds, we received $136 million in the third quarter and subsequent to the quarter, an additional $96 million or a total of $232 million since the beginning of Q3. Since the closing of the Chirano transaction in 2022, we have realized approximately $314 million in cash proceeds compared with the original sale price of $225 million. As Paul noted, as part of our disciplined capital allocation strategy, we are further strengthening our balance sheet through additional debt repayments. Yesterday, we issued a notice to redeem our $500 million 2027 senior notes. The notes will be redeemed prior to year-end, resulting in approximate interest savings of $35 million over 2026 and 2027. Following the redemption, we will have $750 million of senior notes outstanding maturing in 2033 and 2041.

With respect to ongoing return of capital to shareholders, in the third quarter, we continue to make regular share repurchases, canceling approximately $165 million in shares. Year-to-date, we have repurchased $405 million of our shares. Including our quarterly dividend, we have returned more than $500 million to shareholders to date in 2025, marking strong progress against our initial commitment of $650 million. As Paul noted, given our robust financial position and strong free cash flow, we are increasing our return of capital in 2025. We increased our long-standing dividend by 17%, and we intend to increase share repurchases by $100 million for a total of $600 million this year.

In total, this represents more than $750 million in returns to shareholders. And when considering the $700 million of debt repayment, we will have returned a total of almost $1.5 billion in capital in 2025. This is an increase of more than 50% compared to 2024 and a total of nearly $3 billion over the last 3 years.

Turning to our guidance. Full year production is on track to be slightly above the midpoint of our guidance with fourth quarter production expected to be slightly lower than 500,000 ounces. Operating costs at AISC remain on track to meet our full year guidance despite higher royalty costs from higher gold prices. All-in sustaining cost is expected to be within the upper range of our guidance as a result of a higher proportion of sustaining capital with Q4 all-in sustaining costs expected to be above Q3.

Total capital expenditures remain on track to meet guidance of $1.15 billion. With respect to our cash flow outlook next year, as typical for us, we will have seasonal tax payments due in the first half. Given the higher gold price, we expect these payments to be higher as they relate largely to income realized in 2025.

I'll now turn the call over to Claude to discuss our operations.

Thank you, Andrea. This quarter, we continue to expand our Safeground brand by completing additional critical risk management training, and we have had an enthusiastic response from our workforce on this initiative, and we will continue to innovate in how we approach safety at each of our operations. Our focus remains on reinforcing a collective effort to manage costs and capture margin in this strong gold price environment. Going beyond our focus on operational performance, we have put emphasis on getting the best value available out of our contracts, increasing labor efficiencies, improving maintenance and rightsizing consumables as part of our broader cost management strategy.

Moving to the summary of our operations. Starting with Paracatu, production of 150,000 ounces was in line with the prior quarter, while cost of sales of $933 per ounce decreased quarter-over-quarter. Paracatu saw strong mining rates, mill recoveries and higher grades in the third quarter. And Paracatu remains firmly on track to meet its guidance range. At Tasiast, we delivered budgeted production of 121,000 ounces at a cost of sales of $889 per ounce, with production in line over the prior quarter. Production was supported by strong mill performance, including high recoveries following the recent mill optimization initiatives.

Capital development of the Fennec satellite pit also ramped up in the third quarter and remains on plan. Tasiast remains on track to meet its production guidance of 500,000 ounces at a target cost of sales of $860 per ounce for the year. At La Coipa, we produced 58,000 ounces at a cost of sales of $1,199 per ounce, which improved over the prior quarter as planned. Production and costs improved as mining transitioned into the higher-grade ore from Phase 7. Production is expected to be stronger in the final quarter as mining continues through this higher-grade ore.

La Coipa remains on track to meet its full year guidance of 230,000 ounces. Collectively, the U.S. sites delivered production of 175,000 ounces at a cost of sales of $1,469 per ounce in the third quarter. Production in the U.S. operations was as planned and collectively remain on track to meet full year guidance of 685,000 ounces at a cost of sales of $1,420 per ounce.

In Alaska, third quarter production from Fort Knox of 96,000 ounces was in line with the prior quarter. Cost of sales of $1,372 per ounce was higher over the prior quarter due to more operating waste tonnes. At Bald Mountain, we produced 42,000 ounces at a cost of sales of $1,148 per ounce. Production decreased over the prior quarter due to the lower grades as planned, resulting in a higher cost of sales. At Round Mountain, production of 37,000 ounces was in line with the prior quarter. Cost of sales of $2,095 per ounce were increased compared to the prior quarter, primarily due to more operating waste tonnes as Phase S transitions from capital waste into operating waste.

With that, I will now pass the call over to William to discuss our projects.

Thanks, Claude. As Paul noted, our project pipeline is backed by a significant resource base of 26 million ounces of M&I and an additional 13 million ounces of inferred, calculated at $2,000 per ounce. Our in-house technical team continues to focus on advancing these opportunities into our near- and longer-term production profile, while also leveraging ongoing exploration to augment our broader resource base and support future production.

With the significant and current resource base, the strong exploration results and the long-term optionality enhanced by current gold prices, we see a number of value-creating investment opportunities emerging across the portfolio to leverage the strong gold price and enhance our production profile in the 2030s and beyond. We continue to focus on extensive technical study, disciplined investment and competition for capital to ensure the projects we approve have significant margin, return and resilience.

We will provide further information on these investment opportunities and decisions in Q1 2026. Regarding the near-term project pipeline, you can see we are already well advanced and making significant progress with our projects in the U.S. and Canada. At Bald Mountain, recent exploration and technical work has been progressing well to support an investment decision for Redbird 2 and has also confirmed opportunity to augment the production profile through concurrent satellite pit mining, leveraging economies of scale and shared infrastructure at the site.

At Round Mountain, Phase X underground project is well advanced with underground development, engineering, technical study work and permitting progressing to support a project decision in 2026. It's a similar story at Curlew, where engineering and technical studies on the high-grade resource that has been developed over the last few years are on track to support a project decision in 2026. We will provide a separate update for Great Bear, where AEX and main project engineering are progressing rapidly. These are the projects alongside continuation of our existing operations that support our potential to remain at 2 million ounces through the end of the decade.

Turning to our longer-term project pipeline for the 30s. Our resource base has significant optionality both for new projects with large resources such as Lobo-Marte and Maricunga come online and for further extensions of mine life at our existing operating assets. We will be progressing a number of technical studies and permitting efforts across the high-quality portfolio over the next couple of years to advance the significant production potential for the 2030s we see at these assets. To provide some more detail on exploration at Curlew in Washington.

This year, we have been focused on infill drilling to support the early years of the mine plan. The results of that work have been positive, confirming the strong widths and grades that we expected to see, which are supportive of high-margin underground mining potential. A few notable intersections from this last quarter included 2 meters true width at 22 grams per tonne at the EVP zone and multiple intercepts of approximately 6 meters width and 8 grams per tonne in the K5 zone. We also completed the initial development of the Roadrunner decline and further extensions of the North Stealth development this quarter. This will provide drill positions to explore for extensions of the high-grade resource at North Stealth and to follow up on high-grade intercepts at Roadrunner, which is not currently in the resource or mine plan.

We will be focused on this resource extension drilling in Q4 2025 and 2026. Turning to Round Mountain Phase X exploration. You can see in Q3, we focused on further infill of the Lower Zone with results continuing to intersect strong grades and widths, proving out our exploration thesis of a bulk tonnage underground mining opportunity. The extensive infill drilling is now sufficient to support an initial underground resource estimate.

Overall, our infill drilling results have been positive at Phase X, supporting potential for a larger initial resource than we anticipated when we made the decision in 2023 to advance this target. We expect to release the initial resource estimate alongside the projects and economics update in Q1 2026. At Great Bear, both the AEX program and the main project are progressing well, and the main project remains on schedule for first production in 2029, subject to permitting.

Starting with updates on the AEX, earthworks activities are well advanced as can be seen on this slide. The natural gas pipeline is now complete and commissioned and the AEX camp is now operational. The water treatment plant building is enclosed with equipment installation currently ongoing. The initial development of the portal box cut is progressing well with the initiation of the exploration decline now forecast to commence in the summer of 2026, pending receipt of provincial permits. Geoff will comment further on permitting shortly.

As a reminder, AEX is not on the critical path for first production in 2029, but rather is focused on providing underground drill access for infill drilling of the underground resource and exploration drilling to further delineate extensions of the mineralization at depth. With respect to the main project, which remains on track, detailed engineering for key items such as the mill, tailings management facility and other site infrastructure continues to progress well with a 30% design review for the mill completed in Q3. Initial procurement activities for major process and water treatment equipment have commenced with contract awards planned to start prior to year-end. Manufacturing of selected long lead items is expected to begin next year.

I will now hand it over to Geoff to provide a brief update on the Great Bear permitting and time lines.

Thanks, Will. Permitting of the AEX program and the main project continue to advance as we work with the provincial and federal authorities. For AEX, we have 3 of the 5 permits required, including our closure forestry and wildlife permits, which has enabled us to carry on significant AEX activity. We continue to work with the Ontario Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks, MECP, to finalize the 2 remaining AEX water permits that are required to manage contact water for exploration purposes. And in the interim, permitted activities continue as planned.

For those who are not familiar, contact water is primarily rainwater that comes into contact with their site and naturally occurring underground water. Our First Nation partners, Lac Seul and Wabauskang, on whose traditional lands the project resides continue to support the project and permitting. These 2 outstanding permits are taking more time than anticipated as MECP consults with other First Nations. As Will noted, AEX is not on the critical path for the main project time line. Construction activities at the AEX site will continue uninterrupted throughout the winter months as current activities and conditions do not require the use of water-related permits.

In terms of the main project, which remains on schedule, we continue to work with the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada to advance the project impact statement. The first of 3 phase submissions for the project's impact statement was filed in September with the second submission on track for filing in December. The final phase is targeted to be submitted at the end of Q1 of next year. We also continue to advance our IVA negotiations with Lac Seul and Wabauskang Nations of the Northwest Metis community.

I will now turn it back to Paul for closing remarks.

Thanks, Geoff. After another strong quarter, we are well positioned to meet our market commitments again this year. Looking forward, we're excited about our future. We have a strong production profile. We are generating significant free cash flow. We have an excellent balance sheet. We have an attractive return of capital through both the dividend and share buybacks. We have an exciting organic pipeline, and we are very proud of our commitment to responsible mining that continues to make us a leader in sustainability.

With that, operator, I'd like to open up the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] And your first question comes from the line of Fahad Tariq with Jefferies.

On the cost side, some of your peers, Agnico Eagle and Newmont, in particular, are focusing a lot on cost reduction efforts. Is that something you're working on? And if so, can you provide some examples of maybe productivity improvements across the portfolio?

Yes. Thanks for the question, Tariq. It's Claude here. No, as I said in my remarks, we have a number of different initiatives globally, different projects to focus on, different cost elements, significant focus on working with our contractors and turning them into true business partners where the relationship works for both of us.

At the same time, labor improvements and productivity improvements around that. We're doing a significant amount of training across all sites to sort of standardize some of our performance and then also a big focus on maintenance spares and parts and things that have been traditionally pressed by inflation.

Okay. And then maybe just switching gears to Bald Mountain. Can you just remind us, does the Redbird pit displace [ feed ] from other pits? Or is it incremental tonnes and ounces?

No, it's incremental tonnes and ounces. It's a heap leach facility there. So we stack on top, and we're expanding our heap leaches as we speak to suit Redbird.

Okay. And then just lastly, just on the expansion of the heap leach, I know Redbird 2 is still -- we're waiting for the study update. But would it make sense to do the heap leach expansion even if there aren't new satellite pits identified? In other words, is the Redbird pit sufficient to justify the larger heap leach operation.

Yes, absolutely. Like we do heap leach expansions at Bald fairly frequently. So it's -- we'll continue to do so for Redbird. Some of the satellites are in different areas of the operation. We have a variety of heap leach pads throughout the operation, and we expand those as needed to suit the satellites or the anchor pits such as Redbird.

And your next question comes from the line of Daniel Major with UBS.

A few questions. So the first one, just on the capital returns and the balance sheet. I think it's very encouraging. You pushed up the dividend and committing to an accelerating buyback in the fourth quarter. If we look at the current gold price, consensus or estimates have you generated maybe $2 billion of free cash flow at spot commodity prices and you've got a run rate of about $750 million of capital returns. But when we think about what you'd be committing to next year, can you give us any indication on a balance sheet position that you'd want to get to before you would kind of commit to returning all of your excess cash to shareholders?

Yes, sure. I'll maybe take a lead on that one, Daniel. It's a good question. Look, I think, number one, we've done what we said we would. We guided last year that it would be our intention to return back on our share buyback. We actually did that ahead of schedule. I would like to say in the same theme, as the year has progressed, we've had more cash than we were budgeting. And so as a result, as we've -- as we're coming into the fourth quarter, we've done more.

So from my perspective, I think we've demonstrated that we want to do the right thing as it relates to return on capital as well as paying down debt and improving our balance sheet. So I think that the track record speaks for itself. As we look into next year, frankly speaking, we're right in the middle of our budget cycle. We do give our guidance, as you know, with the year-end in mid-February. That's typically when we give an update. Last year, when we gave our guidance, we were in a sort of a $2,500 gold price environment.

To your point, we're in a different gold price environment today. But with that comes higher taxes, higher royalties. We do see opportunities to invest in our portfolio. So look, I think directionally, we want to keep going. But let us just get through year-end budget cycle, and we'll come out with an update in the new year.

Okay. Yes, I look forward to that. The second question is sort of a specific one on the tax payable accrual. If we look at current prices persisting through to the end of the year, for example, what would the working capital reversal be for the tax catch-up in Q1 of next year?

So I mentioned in my opening remarks that we have significant tax payments in 2026 related to 2025. The first one that we typically talk about is Brazil. So we're expecting more than $300 million in January related to Brazil. And then for Q1 in total, it's close to $400 million. And that's just the tax payments that we're accruing throughout this year. And there will be installments on top of that for the 2026 year.

Great. It's clear it's about $400 million in Q1. Okay. That's good. And then a last question just on the permitting time line at Great Bear. You mentioned there's no impact on the project, the fact that the final 2 permits at AEX taking a bit longer. At what stage would those 2 specific permits start to impact the time line of the overall project.

Yes. Look, the main project itself is building a mill and open pit mines and an underground, which is what AEX is focused on is the early drilling for that underground. So the whole purpose of AEX is to get ahead and do the definition drilling and do the expansion drilling for the underground. The main project itself and first production is really all about getting the mills built. And if you look at our PEA, we've got significant ore coming out of the open pit at the beginning of the mine to support that mill. So that's why it's not really a critical path right now in terms of those permits.

I would also just add to Will's comments that there's really no direct link between the AEX permits and the main project permits. And at this time, we don't really believe we will experience a similar delay for the main project.

And your next question comes from the line of Tanya Jakusconek with Scotiabank.

Three questions. Maybe over to Paul. I'm just thinking about you're in your budgeting phase and you're thinking about your life of mine plans and your reserve and your resource base. We've had some companies put out some initial targets for what they're running their pits at gold prices on reserves and resources. I'm just wondering how you're approaching that. I know you have your reserve pricing. I think it was $1,600 in resources at $2,000. How are you balancing that with your life of mine plans and your cutoff grades and inflation?

Sure. Well, I think I would expect -- I mean, everyone is kind of thinking about what the new reserve resource price will be going forward. I think we're all in a good way, lagging where we are in spot. So I do think -- I expect there'll be generally an increase in the industry in our peer group in both reserve and resource pricing.

But I think we'll all probably still be well below spot, which is the right side of the line to be on, of course. As it relates to our planning, as we've said, our mills are full. We're not planning to do anything with our cutoff grades. We're really goal seeking margin and cash flow. To the extent we're thinking about cutoff grades, it's low-grade stockpiles, end of mine life, where we might put different material for end of mine life. But as it relates to the near-term production, we're holding the line and still seeking margin and cash flow.

Should I be then, Paul, thinking that as I look at 2026, should I be thinking that if inflation is running and some companies will go anywhere between 5%, 10%, should I be thinking that if I kind of think about your reserve pricing and think about inflation and cost in that sort of level, that would be something that would be reasonable to adjust our gold price to for reserve calculations?

Yes. I think to be frank, Tanya, I mean, it's a bit of art versus science. But I think we generally -- we look at it like we do with many things from a different -- from a number of different perspectives. But I think it's not a rule of thumb, and I wouldn't say we do this exactly, but we also take into account sort of a 3-year rolling average as well. And that would be a safe place to be if you were thinking about what we were going to do.

Okay. All right. I look forward to your approach in the new year. Maybe just on the some of the optionality that you have and you talked about the...

I'm not sure what that noise is.

Yes, I don't know either. I don't have anything happening on my end either. So hopefully, we can get through just the last 2 I have. Maybe just on the optionality in the short term on the projects that come in, in that '27 to 2030 time frame, just specifically Curlew and some of the satellites at Bald. Would it be fair to say that they could add incrementally 100,000 to 200,000 ounces in that time frame?

You mean between the 3 of them. I think between the 3 of them, there's potential that if they can add more than that. I think it depends on what year you look at.

Yes, I'm just kind of between '28 onwards, right? I was just thinking the Bald and also just Curlew, would that be like fair in the 100,000 to 200,000 and then if we Round Mountain, that's a bit different.

Yes. I mean, Curlew itself, ultimately, we'll provide more guidance early next year, but it might get up to the 100,000 ounce per year as we ramp it up or close to that number. Redbird itself, Redbird 2 and the satellites, depending on the year, will be in that range of 100,000, maybe a little bit higher in some years as you mine through different zones.

And then Phase X, we're also targeting to try and get over the 100,000 ounce per annum target, and we'll still be processing remaining stockpiles from Phase S, particularly with these gold prices in combination with the underground at Phase X. So I think our disclosure in Q1 will help you build the profile better, but certainly between the 3 of them, they can add more than 200,000 ounces once they're all up and running. That's coming on -- as other things move in the portfolio, all of that is to try and maintain that 2 million ounces, which we believe we can with those projects.

Okay. So that could be supplemental to the 2.

Sorry, it's not supplemental to the 2 million ounce base. These are the projects that keep us at 2.

And then my final question for Andrea. Can you -- you're looking at buying back the $500 million in Q4 of the notes and you've got the 2033s and the 2041 notes. Should I be thinking that on the $500 million that for 2026, either one of those would be something you'd be targeting as well?

Look, I mean, we're happy to continue to grow our net cash, and that's sort of how we're looking at it. Those longer-dated notes, they're just not economic to take out ahead of time, but we'll continue to watch that. And if it did become accretive, then we would think about that.

Okay. And so I should be thinking that maybe the pause on the debt reduction after the Q4 and then maybe the cash flow, as Paul mentioned, would be looking on a positive bias for capital returns. Maybe just to ask, what's the minimum cash that you would need to run your business, I should think about keeping on the balance sheet.

Sure. We typically say the minimum is about $500 million, and then it fluctuates a little bit above that. We just got to net cash as we reported this quarter. So we're certainly happy with that, and we're happy to continue to grow that net cash. So I think it will be a balance between CapEx, continuing to grow cash on the balance sheet and returning capital to shareholders.

Yes, bearing any changes in those 2033 and 2041 notes.

Right.

[Operator Instructions] And your next question comes from the line of Anita Soni with CIBC World Markets.

Tanya asked a few of them. I just wanted to circle back on, I guess, capital allocation just in broad strokes as you think about it going into next year. Is there kind of a formula that you're using in terms of how you're going to allocate the free cash flow, like obviously, the debt repayment is kind of on pause, but capital return to shareholders as a certain percentage, reinvestment in the business as a certain percentage and anything else as a certain percentage. Could you give me an idea of that? And really, what I'm trying to figure out is, obviously, there's inflation, but that you were talking about in the order of, I think it was 5% to 10%. But what should we be thinking about in terms of capital for next year?

Yes. A couple of questions in there, Anita. I'll start and Andrea chime in, if you like. Again, number one, we're right in the budget cycle. So again, I'll say what I said a little bit earlier. Directionally, all things being equal, we want to continue with a healthy return of capital. We don't typically think about it on a formula basis. We do believe the majority of our shareholders prefer buybacks. That's where we're really focused.

And on our internal metrics, when we look at our valuation, we still believe that, that's the right thing to do with our free cash flow. I would say, though, as I go back to the budget, there's moving parts. We do expect, as Andrea said, higher taxes, higher royalties, inflation is always there. And as we've alluded to, we do see a lot of optionality to reinvest in our business for the future. Things are getting better. Phase X is looking better. Curlew was looking better. That might drive decisions to increase capital spending for longer-term mine lives. So I think I don't really want to get pinned down on a specific. I think as we go into the new year, it's -- we're in a good place where, as you say, we've paid down the debt. We've got lots of free cash flow, lots of organic opportunities. And I think we can do all of the above.

Okay. And then where would inorganic opportunities fit in all that -- the M&A pipeline?

Look, again, we -- as I've said many times, we're in a fortunate position that given the strength of the organic portfolio, we don't feel under any pressure. We've got a great team here technically. We do look at external opportunities. But as I know you're aware, we've probably only done 3 deals externally in the last 10 years. So we're very careful. We do look at opportunities. If we saw another Great Bear, we do it again in the heartbeat. But we're very careful, and we are not under pressure, and we'll continue to look.

Okay. And congratulations on very solid quarter.

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Paul for closing remarks. Paul?

Thank you, operator, and thanks, everyone, for dialing in today. We look forward to catching up with you in person in the coming weeks. Thanks for joining.

This concludes today's call. You may now disconnect.

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