SSR Mining Inc Stock

Hello, everyone, and welcome to SSR Mining's Second Quarter 2026 Conference Call. This call is being recorded. At this time, for opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to Alex Hunchak from SSR Mining. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and hello, everyone. Thank you for joining today's conference call to discuss SSR Mining's second quarter 2026 financial results. Our consolidated financial statements have been presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP. These financial statements have been filed on EDGAR and SEDAR, and they are also available on our website. There is an online webcast accompanying this call, and you will find the information to access the webcast on our corporate website.

Please note that all figures discussed during the call are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise indicated. Today's discussion will include forward-looking statements, so please read the disclosures in the relevant documents. Additionally, we refer to non-GAAP financial measures during our discussion and in the accompanying slides. Please see our press release for information about the comparable GAAP measures. Rod Antal, Executive Chairman, will be joined by Michael Sparks, Chief Financial Officer; and Bill MacNevin, EVP, Operations and Sustainability, on today's call. I will now turn the line over to Rod.

Great. Thanks, Alex, and good afternoon to you all. We entered the second half with momentum, having delivered operating results in line with expectations. And most importantly, we completed a meaningful strategic repositioning of SSR through our exit from Turkiye. We are well positioned to achieve full year guidance targets through higher production in the second half that will drive significant free cash flow generation through the remainder of the year. We expect all-in sustaining costs to trend to the upper end of our full year guidance ranges due to a number of factors that we'll speak to later in the call. We continue to work hard on business improvement initiatives to help mitigate pressures on costs across the company.

Strategically, over the last few months, we have delivered a number of significant milestones, including the successful divestment of both 현pler and Hod Maden. The approximately $1.5 billion in cash proceeds from 현pler sale was received before the end of the second quarter, bringing our total cash position to nearly $1.8 billion with no debt.

With the exit from Turkiye, SSR is now a free cash flow-focused Americas gold and silver producer anchored by our position as the third largest gold producer in the United States. Our U.S. platform alone has considerable growth potential that we look forward to showcasing moving forward. Separately, we have now reestablished our position as the capital return leader amongst our peer group, returning more than $400 million to shareholders year-to-date. This implies a nearly 8% yield before the forthcoming dividend payments and ongoing share buyback over the remainder of 2026. Our organic growth initiatives continue to advance across the portfolio as we seek to meaningfully extend mine lives at each one of our assets.

As a result, and capitalizing on our significant liquidity position, we made a conscious decision to increase our growth capital expenditure for the remainder of '26. It is the right time for us to begin investment in future growth right across the business after years spent identifying and studying the opportunities. The anticipated publication of the Marigold Technical Report by year-end will begin to provide insight into some of these tangible opportunities.

As you can see, our business is in an excellent position as we head into the second half. We have the best-in-class balance sheet, peer-leading capital returns program, expectations for a very strong second half of production and free cash flow and a track record of disciplined capital allocation. These traits are key differentiators for SSR amongst its peer group.

Before moving on to the next slide, I want to summarize some of the catalysts ahead. First, we expect to publish an updated technical report for Marigold with the objective of capturing growth opportunities like Buffalo Valley, DG80 and New Millennium, with the purpose of extending mine life. Next, we are continuing to advance a number of exciting brownfield opportunities at both Puna and Seabee and Bill will speak to more about these in the coming slides.

And third, we'll continue to execute against our capital allocation framework as announced in June, where we will maintain balance sheet strength, invest in the business and return capital to shareholders in the form of buybacks and dividends. These catalysts are just a few of the potential avenues for value creation in the years ahead.

So with that in mind, let's talk more about the track record of creating value on Slide #4. With our strategy clearly defined, it is worth highlighting how we got to this point. We have clearly demonstrated a track record of meaningful value creation with growth in per-share metrics, capital returns and disciplined M&A. I've already spoken about our commitment to capital returns and particularly share buybacks, but it's also worth noting that once factoring in our reinstated dividend program and projections for ongoing share buybacks, we are tracking towards a sector-leading capital returns yield in 2026.

We have a track record of value-accretive M&A, and this was most recently illustrated by the phenomenal returns generated from our acquisition of Cripple Creek and Victor. Across the portfolio, we have consistently demonstrated our ability to add value through mine life extensions and optimizations, and we expect this to continue in the future.

At the same time, the numerous organic growth initiatives across all 4 of our assets create an environment where we can evaluate strategic additions to the portfolio purely on an opportunistic value-accretive basis, similar to our approach at Cripple Creek and Victor. If attractive M&A opportunities in our core jurisdictions are not present, we are confident that focusing solely on our organic portfolio will continue to evolve our multi-decade production profile.

As you can see, these figures on the slide illustrate a powerful picture of discipline and value creation in how we run our business. We have seen our consensus NAV increase nearly 300% over the last 2 years, and our cash flow per share improve by 440% over that time. We intend to continue building on this impressive track record for the years to come. So now I'm going to turn it over to Michael on Slide 5 to discuss the quarterly results.

Thank you, Rod, and good afternoon, everyone. In the second quarter, we produced 102,000 gold equivalent ounces at an all-in sustaining cost of $2,622 per ounce. These results were consistent with our expectations and reflected the intentional increase in sustaining capital spend that Rod discussed. Our strong first half operating performance positions us well to achieve our full year production guidance.

We do currently expect costs to be towards the upper end of our guidance range, and this reflects both higher realized fuel prices during the second quarter and a deliberate decision to advance sustaining and growth investments across the portfolio. Given the strength of our balance sheet and cash flow generation, we are taking a disciplined approach to accelerating capital where we see the potential to extend mine lives, improve operating resilience and create attractive long-term returns. These investments are not simply incremental spending. They are intended to enhance the quality, durability and value of our Americas-focused asset base. We expect sustaining capital expenditures to remain elevated in the third quarter. Production is expected to strengthen as the year progresses with approximately 55% to 60% of second half production weighted towards the fourth quarter.

Turning to fuel costs. Our diesel hedging programs at Marigold and CC&V have mitigated the impact of recent price increases. However, we remain exposed to market prices for unhedged diesel purchases across the portfolio. Based on our current operating portfolio, a $10 per barrel increase in oil prices results in an estimated increase of approximately $10 per ounce in consolidated AISC in 2026.

We're closely monitoring the potential secondary effects of higher fuel prices on transportation, reagents and other consumables. Our contractual arrangements and ongoing engagement with key suppliers provide visibility into emerging cost pressures and help us proactively manage potential disruptions or inflationary impacts. For context, consumables represent approximately 15% of our total cost base, while fuel generally represents between 10% to 15%. Royalties represent a further approximate 15% and naturally increase in stronger metal price environments.

Bill will discuss individual operations in greater detail, but at the portfolio level, our focus remains clear: maintaining operating discipline, actively managing inflationary pressures and directing capital toward investments that strengthen margins, extending asset lives, and supporting a sustainable free cash flow generation.

Now let's move to Slide 6 for a brief review of our financial results. Second quarter revenue was $443 million based on sales of 98,000 gold equivalent ounces. Average realized prices were $4,301 per gold ounce and $74.24 per silver ounce. Net income and adjusted net income were both $0.66 per diluted share. Our realized gold price was approximately 5% below the quarterly average, and this primarily reflects the timing of sales during the quarter, with a greater proportion of our second quarter ounces sold in June when gold prices were lower.

Free cash flow from continuing operations was $50 million in the quarter, bringing year-to-date free cash flow to nearly $300 million, inclusive of working capital. Free cash flow before changes in working capital was $123 million in the second quarter. These amounts reflect the reclassification of H1 spend at Hod Maden into discontinued operations.

As a reminder, 현pler and Hod Maden were included as discontinued operations in our financial reporting for the second quarter. The second quarter also included more than $120 million in cash tax payments. This is consistent with our normal annual payment cycle, under which approximately half of our full year cash taxes are generally paid in the second quarter, with the balance largely distributed evenly between the third and fourth quarters. Our strong cash position allowed us to continue returning meaningful capital to shareholders while preserving substantial strategic flexibility.

During the quarter, we returned $338 million through the repurchase of 10.4 million shares, and we announced the reinstatement of our quarterly dividend. Share repurchases continued into the third quarter as we execute against the $500 million buyback program approved in mid-June. As of July 31, we retain capacity to repurchase approximately 8.6 million additional shares under our current normal course issuer bid, which extends through March of next year. At current valuation levels, we continue to believe that repurchasing our shares represents an attractive and accretive use of capital.

During the quarter, we also received the cash proceeds from the 현pler transaction, and as a result, we ended the quarter with nearly $1.8 billion in cash, even after the significant level of share repurchase completed during the period. Earlier today, we announced the completion of an amendment and extension of our revolving credit facility. This facility was increased from $400 million to $600 million with a renewed 4-year term and included a 25 basis point improvement in borrowing rates as compared to the prior facility.

Overall, the second quarter demonstrated the strength of the business, solid operating execution, substantial free cash flow generation, disciplined investment in our assets and significant capital returns to shareholders. With a strong balance sheet, a more focused portfolio and several opportunities to enhance long-term asset value, we are well positioned for the remainder of the year and beyond.

Now over to Bill on Slide 7 to talk about the operations.

Thanks, Michael. I'll first start with the HSS. Working with all of our stakeholders is foundational for our business. This is highlighted through one of SSR Mining's 3 core values: being better together. Today, I would like to share a methodology we have implemented to improve how we work with our host communities.

At each of our operations, we have established community development committees. These committees have members from local communities who participate in both the build and selection of which support and local business enabling projects are implemented. Through the committee members' contributions and efforts, we are improving the quality of both where and how we support our local communities.

Now on to Slide 8 to start with Marigold. In the second quarter, Marigold produced 31,000 ounces, bringing year-to-date production to 69,000 ounces and reflecting our original forecast for a strong H2-weighted profile in 2026. We expect second half production will be approximately 65% weighted to the fourth quarter. Marigold remains on track for its full year production guidance of 170,000 to 200,000 ounces.

AISC in the second quarter reflected higher sustaining capital spend as previously guided. Sustaining CapEx will remain elevated in the third quarter due to the timing of spend on fleet replacements and upgrades. We have also increased our growth capital guidance at Marigold from $48 million to $65 million as we accelerate spend to facilitate longer-term growth initiatives at the site. We expect full year AISC at the top end of guidance, reflecting the increased sustaining capital as well as the impact of higher fuel prices on the unhedged portion of our diesel usage.

As noted, we plan to have an updated technical report and life of mine plan for Marigold out later this year. This new life of mine plan has potential to demonstrate a meaningful extension against 2024 TRS while incorporating the increased blending requirements as noted earlier this year. As previously guided, while this will result in changes to the annual production profile at Marigold, we continue to expect total ounces produced over the next 5 years to be comparable to the 2024 TRS and then include meaningful life extension thereafter. A lot of hard work has gone into this updated life of mine plan, and we look forward to updating the market later this year.

Additionally, we have continued to advance exploration and analysis of numerous other targets across the broader Marigold property to support additional mine life extension and growth opportunities in the future. Marigold has been in operation for more than 38 years, and we are confident there is a very long future still ahead for the operation.

Now on to Slide 9 for an update on CC&V. In the second quarter, CC&V produced 28,000 ounces at an AISC of $1,995 per ounce, bringing first half production to 66,000 ounces and well on track for our full year guidance for 125,000 to 150,000 ounces. Second half production is expected to be 50% to 55% weighted to the fourth quarter. AISC is trending towards the top end of full year range due to fuel costs and a modest increase in sustaining capital on equipment components and general site improvement initiatives.

Growth capital has also been modestly increased as we accelerate the timing of spend on the expansion of VLF2. Overall, CC&V continues to perform very well against expectations and has clearly established itself as a cornerstone asset in our portfolio. The currently in-progress Amendment 14 is advancing as we continue to expect final approvals before the end of 2027. Work to evaluate opportunities to improve the longer-term production profile, including the potential for future mineral reserve conversion, remains ongoing.

Now on to Slide 10 to discuss operations at Seabee. Seabee produced nearly 17,000 ounces in the second quarter at an AISC of $2,358 per ounce. Year-to-date production is 23,000 ounces as we focus on underground development in the first half of the year. For the full year, Seabee continues to track to the lower end of full year guidance, and we expect higher grades will drive the strongest production in the fourth quarter. Full year AISC at Seabee is also expected at the top end of guidance and our 2026 growth capital forecast has been increased from $15 million to $35 million as we advance the Porky West project in the second half of the year. Porky has the potential to extend the mine life at Seabee well into the next decade, and we're also progressing near-mine drilling at Santoy as we seek to extend operations at the deposit.

On to Puna on Slide 11. In the second quarter, Puna produced 1.7 million ounces of silver at an AISC of $29.52 per ounce. Over the first 6 months of the year, Puna has produced 3.4 million ounces. Second half production at Puna is expected to be relatively evenly split between the third and fourth quarters, while full year AISC are trending to the higher end of guidance as a result of inflationary pressures in Argentina. Our teams continue to evaluate the numerous pathways to growth at Puna, including additional laybacks at Chinchillas, evaluation of the Melina open pit target adjacent to Chinchillas and continued advancement of the Cortaderas project.

Now on to Slide 12 for a review of the growth pipeline. As I've noted through this call, all 4 of our operations have a clear growth trajectory with the potential to meaningfully extend current mine lives and sustain our current production profile for many years to come. We're in an enviable position on this front and as noted, our significant liquidity position has enabled us to advance growth capital spend at each project to support timely delivery of each project's development.

With respect to the rest of our organic growth portfolio, we're advancing early-stage opportunities across each of our core jurisdictions. This includes continued evaluation of the Amisk project in Saskatchewan, where we are progressing internal economic studies to better understand the project's long-term potential. Regional exploration is also continuing across the province. In the U.S., early-stage field programs are underway at multiple exploration targets in Nevada. In the second quarter, we also finalized a strategic investment in Phenom Resources, who hold the Dobbin project in Nevada.

Dobbin is a Carlin-style target with more than 2-kilometer-long gold-in-soil anomaly and limited historical exploration. The first drilling ever undertaken on the property commenced early in the third quarter. We currently own 9.9% of Phenom and hold an option to earn in a minority ownership in the property through $4 million in exploration spend. As you see, there's plenty underway across the portfolio, and we look forward to providing updates on these growth initiatives in due course.

Now I'll turn back to Rod for closing remarks.

Great. Thanks, Michael. Thanks, Bill. The first 6 months have already delivered a transformational inflection point for SSR. We enter the second half in an excellent position where we expect strong production and free cash flow into the year-end. Our capital allocation and returns approach has now been fully implemented through the investment in growth, as well as returning capital to shareholders through both share buybacks and reinstated dividend program. So with that, I'm going to turn the call over to the operator for any questions you may have. Thanks, everyone.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from George Eadie with UBS.

Maybe Bill and Rod, starting at Marigold. If I go back to the original target was around 22 million tonnes stacked at 0.4 gram a tonne. You're at 9.3 and 0.7 gram a tonne now. Can you maybe help us with how many tonnes you need to stack in the second half, or at least what grade to get to the lower end, just to sort of better understand how that's trending?

Sure, George. Hi, how are you? I'm going to hand it over to Bill.

Yes, George, we've resequenced some of our mining in this previous quarter, but we're still on track to reach our projection for the year and be at the lower end of the guidance as suggested.

What's the -- what roughly is the leach time here? Like if you were to throw, just for simplicity's sake, 0.5 gram a tonne on the pads today, when would that be leached out the other side roughly?

Our leaching extends between 90 and 120 days. George, it would mostly fit at that 90-day time frame.

Okay. So stuff you're throwing today, is that a quarter? Okay. That's helpful. Maybe just, sorry, changing to CC&V as well if I can quickly. In the 10-Q, there's a declaratory judgment there at discharge permit at Carlton Tunnel. Can you maybe help me understand that and remind us what the story is with that?

Yes, George, it's Michael. So with regards to Carlton Tunnel, if you remember, when we did the agreement with Newmont, we worked out that we would put together the long-term mine closure plans and then there would be an economic sharing of those costs. That work is ongoing. It was already underway when we purchased the asset, and that continues on throughout that work that's going with the regulators, as well as the guys at the site. Amendment 14, as Bill talked about, which is the next phase of growth that takes us into 2030, that is on track, and we expect to get that sometime by the end of 2027, as he mentioned.

Yes. I was more mentioning the comments on March 9 around the parent co with a federal court lawsuit on the water quality. Like, maybe remind what that is, Michael, or maybe I'm just overreacting to kind of what that is.

Sorry, George, it's Rod. I'll dive in more specifically. I think Michael gave you a good overview. There's multiple parts to the way this was structured with the deal for Newmont. I think that's what Michael was outlining. With respect to that point specifically, it's really a Newmont-driven approach to the legal case with respect to the Carlton Tunnel discharge and the permits around the discharge and what's been required around it. And as Michael mentioned, I think the important part, it was already in train. And while Newmont are controlling that piece of the previous permitting cycle that we're going through, the overall picture for us won't change for any liabilities for SSR in the future, whether that's successful or unsuccessful as we go on. So it's something that Newmont are controlling. We don't have any carriage in that court case.

So in summary though, like from your guys' view, it's not a big issue or risk really for SSR at all, it sounds.

No, look, ultimately I think it'll all help define what the long-term requirements are for mine closure at Cripple Creek, so it's obviously important, but in terms of how the deal has been structured for us, we're protected.

The next question comes from Larry Liu with CIBC.

I guess I'll kick off my first question asking about Phenom Resources. Can you kindly share with us what kind of opportunities you're seeing over there? And should we expect this to be the kind of deal SSR Mining involves in, taking rather a strategic investment approach rather than acquiring companies or assets completely?

Larry, look, it's an interesting option for us as we looked at the opportunity, and we identified this through our guys on the ground in Nevada. But it's very early stage. The fact was that this piece of land was tied up in the forestry land that wasn't available for exploration for the longest time. It became available. Phenom themselves were able to then peg it out and start an exploration program. And what we saw in some of the early stages of that was interesting for us to enter the way we did at both the corporate level and at the asset level itself.

So it's still very early. Drilling's really only getting underway. Phenom themselves will lead the charge on the continuous disclosure and whatever else as time goes on. But clearly an opportunity for us to participate in something that we think is very interesting. Yes, to answer your question from a perspective how we look at other strategic options. We make no secret of this over time, that we look from everything from the types of earning structures that we've got with Phenom to all the way through to asset acquisitions. It's a similar process for SSR. That won't change despite, I think people were speculating or worried that with the cash flow that we currently have on the balance sheet that we felt in a rush or compelled to go-to-market to do something. I think we've got a track record of discipline. We have a track record of taking our time to ensure that anything that gets to market has gone through our disciplined approach to due diligence and that won't change in the future. So we'll look at things like Phenom and other things as well.

That's a very good answer. I guess following up on that kind of topic as well is we -- you mentioned earlier, Rod, as well, it's a very opportunistic time to increase your credit revolving facility. Like, am I reading too much into it or is there a potential big use because you already have $1.8 billion in cash? How should we look at it?

Yes, look, I think it was just, it was the right time to do it. Michael and the team were able to work with our syndicate, the banks, and most importantly, I think it wasn't so much the extension and the increase from $400 million to $600 million, it was more around the terms were more favorable to us to maintain that on our balance sheet. So it's normal course for us.

Perfect. Sounds good. And if I can, I have one last question. Coming back more to the guidance for the operations itself, can you remind us what's the positive impact after your divestment of 현pler? I saw your AISC got reduced compared to previous guidance. Is that the impact from 현pler?

Yes, that's right. It's the impact of not having care and maintenance within the 현pler asset itself.

Our next question comes from Lawson Winder with Bank of America Securities.

Thank you for today's update. Also, congratulations on closing the Turkiye divestments. If I could just get your thoughts on capital allocation. On the buyback, is the roughly $70 million of repurchases in July a reasonable run rate for the balance of the year? And then just carrying that through to the end of the year, if that were the case, that would bring you pretty close to the $500 million approval. Is the expectation that the $500 million will ultimately be used up by year-end?

I'm going to pass that one over to Michael, Lawson.

So if you remember, when we look at our capital allocation, it's really a 4-part view. And number one is balance sheet resiliency, which we've shown. We have a really strong growth portfolio internally, and we want to make sure that we can fund that because that's the best use of our capital from an internal growth standpoint. And Bill outlined some of those key things. Disciplined M&A, as Rod mentioned. And finally, that share capital returns. If you remember, we have everything under an NCIB in Canada, and that limits the amount of shares that we can do under a buyback during a given year to 10% of the float. So we still have about 8 million shares under that plan, and that plan goes through March. And so if you look at the approved amount that was given in June of that $500 million, our expectation was to be consistent with the market as it makes sense to us, which we do believe we're undervalued compared to our intrinsic value still in the market. And we would look through to work through that through March when that NCIB is exhausted. And then looking forward, we'd have the opportunity to put another one in place in March if that one is exhausted.

Okay. Understood. If I could attempt to put a finer point on the sustaining CapEx guidance for 2026. So your official sustaining CapEx guidance is $202 million for the assets that carry on, basically the North American assets. So you're suggesting that it could be slightly higher than that. I mean, how would you recommend we model that? I mean, is $202 plus 3% to 5% a good range? Any specificity on that would be very helpful.

Yes, I'll pass that one again to Michael.

Yes, Lawson, so Bill mentioned a couple of the things we're working on around -- there's a few fleet purchases at Marigold and other places. For purposes of guidance, it's going to be somewhere around that $25 million to $35 million more than what we originally guided is what we're currently looking at for sustaining at this point. So that puts you somewhere in that $230 million, $235 million range.

Yes, 15% [indiscernible].

And then just finally, with the working capital adjustment being a bit of a negative headwind this quarter and some of that relating to the 현pler sale, could you give us an indication of how you expect working capital might trend in Q3 and Q4, all else equal? So assuming no material change in the gold price?

Yes. So ultimately, with the 현pler and Hod Maden both being now turned to discontinued operations, you should see things normalize into continuing operations you see now. We did have an inventory build, which impacts our working capital in Q2. And as Bill mentioned, we'd expect that to work off as we go through the year in that normal lease cycle.

The next question comes from Josh Wolfson with RBC.

Just on the Marigold comments about the new mine plan, the company mentioned 2 factors. I guess, one was an extension of mine life and the other was some impact from ore blending. I'm wondering what the initial impressions will be from that blending impact, if we should think about production growth in the near term or it's going to be more stable. Any commentary there would be helpful.

Hi, Josh. It's Rod. I'll take this one. Firstly, we obviously are still wrapping up the work for Marigold for the new TRS technical report that we'll publish before year-end. So I'm going to be cautious with what I say because it hasn't been completed yet, nor have we published. So I think what Bill mentioned during the remarks at the start of the call was that when we look into the next 5 years with the blending requirements and the new mine plans where we see that the production profile over that period is predominantly the same as what it was in the last TRS, so that's important.

And then when you look into the future of what we see for Marigold and the opportunities from Buffalo Valley for New Millennium and a target called DG80, we see the opportunity for mine life extension. So that's part of the work that we've been going through here for the last 6 to 12 months, call it, reoptimizing the mine plans, looking how they all play off against each other, the stripping requirements for Marigold and material movement requirements for Marigold in the future, and that will play in. So once we get into the publication, obviously, we can talk more on what it means. But it's really about a longer life for Marigold.

And then just on the cost structure side of things a bunch of incremental details provided about sustaining capital, some changes in reagents and energy and so forth. This year there's been a big influence from the energy hedges that have been in place. How should we think about the cost structure for the company going forward? Or is there any unit cost inflation numbers that the company can provide to give us a better impression of what the cost structure is maybe without those hedges?

Yes. So Josh, as you mentioned, the hedges are going to go through the end of this year, give or close, and we'll obviously be looking for opportunities to renew that program depending on the volatility and the prices that make sense. As we mentioned in Q1, throughout the rest of this year, it's a pretty negligible impact, about $10 per $10 a barrel of oil. Without the hedges, because those represent about 70% of our U.S. operations, that number would be somewhere around $20 to $30 per $10 of oil, and that would be above and beyond $70 is what we had used for the oil barrel prices.

For a little bit of context, in relation to some of our other assets, Seabee only has deliveries once a year. So that would happen in the first part of the year as part of the ice road. And then down in Argentina, while we do see some inflationary impacts, including fuel, that is a different regulated market. And we are seeing that lagging some of the other increases that we've seen across the globe. For purposes of maybe the broader context of it, we are closely monitoring, like I said, what that impact may be on other transportation or consumables and we're not seeing a major impact there. But we would expect that inflationary to be somewhere in that 20% to 30% if prices were to stay at that elevated rates.

And one last question, if I can. just with the revolver increase the company talked about M&A being a focus historically. Does the additional flexibility provide anything else beyond that? I'm just trying to understand, just based on the net cash position being so high and the revolver also increased, how we should be thinking about that.

No worries, Josh. Look, I'll just -- I'll say this again. I think it's important that the revolver that we renewed was in ordinary course for us. It was coming to maturity. And as I mentioned, Michael was able and the team were able to extend the facility for a 4-year term as well as improve the economics for us by reducing the interest rate that was available. And then obviously we were able to upsize it as well given our strong liquidity position. So it's really normal course for us, Josh. I wouldn't read too much into it.

The next question comes from Ovais Habib with Scotiabank.

Congrats on a good quarter. Looking forward to a strong performance in the second half. A couple of my questions have already been answered, but just starting off with CC&V and maybe you've already touched that throughout your presentation, but I'm just going to ask it anyways. In terms of the status of Amendment 14 for CC&V, you had mentioned that Newmont has started this process. Are those discussions progressing? And again, in terms of, is there any impact to the current mine life, or this is just more of an extension of the current mine life?

So yes, look, it's Rod. A couple of things. I think the Amendment 14 as itself is separate to what the court action at Newmont are taking over the discharge from Carlton Tunnel. So that's an important point to make. The Amendment 14 process is on track and we're moving along with the regulators to ensure that one, we took ownership of it because we're running that part of the process now as SSR and everything so far is moving according to plan. So we expect that to be available for us then to continue to expand and build the new valley leach fields that we're doing some prework on this year and then obviously that'll be available for the longer term under the current TRS for ore stacking in the future. So that's all Amendment 14 is. It was already in train. It defined the current mine life as you know with the TRS that we published for Cripple Creek. But in terms of the actual permit itself, it's working along through the process according to plan.

Okay. And Rod, just then moving a little bit on to exploration. Just in terms of where the focus is on exploration we obviously -- there's some upside looking like you're going to be adding to your current mine life at Marigold, where you've got Buffalo Valley, Millennium, Marigold North. Is the exploration program that you have in place right now focused at Marigold and extension of Marigold, or are there opportunities at CC&V as well as Seabee and Puna?

Yes, look, it's really a culmination of 3 years of work here over across the portfolio. It's not like something that we're just doing now post 현pler. And as you know these things take time. So some of it has been step-out drilling, new target drilling, new target definition. There's been a lot of infill drilling to ensure that we have the necessary support for any new studies that we want to do. For example, the Marigold Tech report we're about to publish. But I think I've said it a few times at different forums that for the first time when we look inside the portfolio, we see growth at each one of the assets that is quite tangible. So Marigold will be the first cat off the rank in terms of that publication and we'll talk about that once that's published.

Cripple Creek beyond Amendment 14 that we just talked about, clearly there's an opportunity there as well for us to extend the mine life and move into the next phase of Cripple Creek. But first things foremost, we had to get Amendment 14 done and that's really the key focus to us. But the work in the background that the team are doing is obviously definitions and understanding what is available and what that might look like. And then obviously we have Porky up in Seabee and then the other targets that Bill mentioned down at Puna with the pushbacks of the Chinchillas pit and then the Cortaderas target, to name a few. So all of the assets are at different stages through the drill bit that we've been doing and the drilling's been some exploration and some definition drilling. And as time progresses, we'll start to bring those results to market and more tangibly talk about what they might mean for each one of the assets. So we're pretty excited by what we see. And you know, it's obviously an opportune time now that we've repivoted the business to be focused on the Americas platform, that each one of the assets have some inbuilt growth opportunities for them.

The next question comes from Don DeMarco with National Bank Financial.

So Rod we've talked about the brownfield opportunities. I see them fairly well detailed on Slide 12. Which among these projects has the greatest potential to add reserves, production, or NAV over, say, the next 3 to 5 years, just to put it in perspective? And are any of these projects targeting production increases or are they primarily focused on mine life extension?

Look, I think the near-term -- hey, Don. The near-term one for us is really the publication of the Marigold Tech Report, which will bring into focus the New Millennium, Buffalo Valley, DG80, another target we have, et cetera. So I think that's the first and foremost because it's the most mature in that process for us to be able to talk about and publish it, more importantly. We are obviously really busy at Cripple Creek to identify the opportunities beyond Amendment 14, but first things first, finish off Amendment 14 by the end of next year. So that is locked in for the current mine life. That was shown in the last TRS that we published and then more to come beyond it. And then obviously the other smaller assets in terms of their mine lives at the moment, we have some pretty exciting targets that we feel can add mine life extension.

So some of it will be some resequencing of the assets and optimizing where we can so we can smooth the production profile. But I don't see any great leaps in terms of what that might look like for each of the assets. But improving the curve so we don't have these variations, that's really a key for us. And then mine life extension. So trying to push the bigger assets out to be multi-decade, which I think is in itself a fairly exciting outcome in the U.S. And then the other 2 assets, trying to develop a mine life at least for a decade for each one of those again. And if you think about where we've come from to where that might look like if -- all those targets pay off, that'll be a significant improvement in amongst themselves. So lots to come, I think, Don, as we finish off the work.

And my second and final question is shifting over to costs. despite year-to-date production tracking guidance, we saw in Q2 that AISC exceeded annual guidance at Marigold, Seabee and Puna. What gives you confidence in achieving the consolidated AISC guidance through H2?

Yes, so Don, I think part of it's just the normal timing of Q2. Like I mentioned, a good chunk of our tax payments that go through they hit during Q2. And so, that AISC was naturally elevated in this quarter and that'll get back to normalized coupled with the stronger production profile should put us in that higher end of guidance is what we're targeting.

We have a follow-up question from George Eadie with UBS.

Yes, can I just ask about July at Marigold, how it went? Like, what was the average grade thrown on the pads and tonnes stacked? Was it nearly 2 million tonnes? Any color you can help with?

Yes, George, look, we don't disclose on the run for each individual asset, but we wouldn't be talking about being on track for full year unless it was moving according to plan.

Thanks. This concludes the question and answer session and today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.

Hello, and welcome to the Annual Meeting of Shareholders of SSR Mining Inc. Please note that today's meeting is being recorded. If you participate in today's meeting and disclose personal information, you will be deemed to consent to the recording, transfer and use of same. If you disclose personal information of another person in today's meeting, you will be deemed to represent and warrant to Computershare and the corporation that you first obtained all required consents for the disclosure, recording, transfer and use of such personal information from all appropriate persons [Operator Instructions]. It is now my pleasure to turn today's meeting over to the Executive Chair, Mr. Rod Antal. The floor is yours.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am Rod Antal, the Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors of SSR Mining. I would like to welcome you to the company's 2026 Annual Meeting. The Board of Directors of the company has delegated to me the authority to lead the meeting of shareholders today. As the company's meeting is being held virtually, I would like to set out a few rules for the orderly conduct of the meeting. Questions can be submitted today by any registered shareholder or duly appointed proxy holder using the Q&A tab of the virtual meeting interface.

Any questions regarding procedural matters or directly related to the motions before the meeting will be addressed after the presentation of all business items. All other questions will be addressed during the question-and-answer period at the conclusion of the formal part of the meeting. When asking a question, please indicate your name and which entity you represent, if any. For the purpose of the meeting, voting on all matters will be conducted by electronic ballot.

Please note the polls are open for electronic voting now and will remain open until later in the meeting. Only registered shareholders as of the record date as recorded in our stock register at the close of business on March 9, 2026, and duly appointed proxy holders who have not voted in advance of the meeting may vote during the meeting. Importantly, if you are a registered shareholder or a duly appointed proxy holder and have already voted by submitting your proxy form or voting instructions form in advance of the meeting, it is not necessary for you to vote again today.

With those guidelines in mind, we will now proceed to the formal portion of today's meeting. I now ask that the company's 2026 Annual meeting come to order. For the purposes of this meeting, I appoint Eric Gunning, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of the company, to act as Secretary. The company's registrar and transfer agent is Computershare Investor Services Inc. For the purposes of this meeting, I appoint Computershare through its representatives to act as scrutineer of the meeting to compute the votes of the polls taken at this meeting and to report the results to me as Chairman.

The purpose of today's meeting are set out in the company's proxy statement dated March 25, 2026. Unless there are any objections, I will forgo the reading of the notice of the meeting. The scrutineer has provided confirmation that the meeting materials were mailed to all holders of common shares on or about March 27, 2026 and that proper notice of the meeting has been given.

Please note that copies of the meeting materials, including the proxy statement, are available on the company's website and the company's profile on EDGAR and on SEDAR. I have before me and meeting a preliminary scrutineers report indicating that there is a sufficient number of shareholders and proxy holders present to constitute a quorum. I therefore declare that a quorum of shareholders as required under the company's articles, is present and that the meeting is regularly called and properly constituted for the transaction of the business. I will now deal with the business of the meeting. The company's articles provided that as Executive Chairman, I may propose a motion and that no motions need to be seconded. In the interest of expediting the business of the meeting, I will move all motions to be proposed.

As the first item of business on the agenda for today's meeting, I now present the company's audited financial statements for the financial year ending December 31, 2025, together with the auditor's report to the shareholders thereon. Copies of these documents have been mailed to shareholders who requested them and are available on the company's website and on the company's profile on EDGAR and on SEDAR plus. It is not proposed that they be read at this meeting.

Any questions relating to or discussions of the company's audited financial statements and auditor's report will be heard until the question-and-answer period at the conclusion of the formal part of today's meeting.

The next item of business is the election of directors. The directors be elected by shareholders of the company shareholder office until the close of business of the first Annual Meeting of Shareholders of the company following election or until their successors are elected or appointed. The following individuals have been nominated as directors for the ensuing year or until their successors are elected or appointed and are prepared to stand for election as directors as set out in the company's proxy statement. The individuals standing for election as directors are myself, Rod Antal, Thomas R. Bates, Jr., Brian R. Booth, Alan P. Krusi, Daniel Malchuk, Laura Mullen, Kay Priestly and Karen Swager.

I move to elect all the nominees as directors of the company. The next item of business is the shareholder's advisory nonbinding vote on executive compensation. The company endorses a pay-for-performance approach for executive compensation in order to reinforce the linkages between compensation and the company's strategic objectives and risk management processes. A detailed discussion of the company's executive compensation program is provided in the Compensation Discussion and Analysis section of the company's proxy statement.

The company has conducted a say-on-pay advisory vote since and 2016. The purpose of the say-on-pay advisory vote is to give shareholders a formal opportunity to provide views on the disclosed objectives of the executive compensation plans. As this is an advisory vote, the results will not be binding upon the Board. As in past years, the company will disclose the results of the shareholder advisory vote as part of its reporting on voting results for this meeting.

I move to approve on a nonbinding advisory basis, the company's approach to executive compensation as set out in the company's proxy statement.

The next item of business is the appointment of the company's independent registered public accounting firm. The company's current independent registered public accounting firm is PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, also known as PwC. The Audit Committee has approved the reappointment of PwC for the ensuing year. I move to ratify the appointment of PwC as the independent registered public accounting firm for the company the fiscal year ending December 31, 2026 and until the next annual meeting.

Unless there are any questions on any of the motions before the meeting we'll now pause, finalize and submit all electronic ballots. As mentioned, the polls are open for voting by electronic ballot.

As a reminder, if you are a duly appointed proxy holder who has already voted in advance of the meeting, it is not necessary for you to vote again today. All registered shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders who have properly logged in with your control number or user name and wish to vote, please register your votes at this time. Once the electronic balloting closes, your votes will automatically be submitted.

The polls are now closed. I ask that the scrutineer compile the report regarding the results of voting on all business matters. Note, the results will be published by the company on EDGAR, on SEDAR Plus and by press release. Based on provisional results from the ballots and proxies deposited for the meeting, I declare that all resolutions have passed.

I direct that the results of the poll be included with the minutes of this meeting. Thank you.

This completes the matters of business to be conducted as set out in the notice of meeting. I therefore move that the meeting be terminated.

As there is no further business to come before the meeting, I declare the formal part of the meeting to be concluded.

I will now open the meeting for any questions. [Operator Instructions] We will now give attendees a moment to submit any questions.

There being no further business or questions, we will now conclude the meeting. Thank you for your attendance today.

This concludes the meeting. You may now disconnect.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to SSR Mining's First Quarter 2026 Conference Call. This call is being recorded. At this time, for opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to Alex Hunchak from SSR Mining. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and hello, everyone. Thank you for joining today's conference call to discuss SSR Mining's first quarter 2026 financial results. Our consolidated financial statements have been presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP. These financial statements have been filed on EDGAR and SEDAR, and they are also available on our website. There is an online webcast accompanying this call, and you will find the information to access the webcast in this afternoon's news release and on our corporate website. Please note that all figures discussed during the call are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise indicated.

Today's discussion will include forward-looking statements, so please read the disclosures in the relevant documents. Additionally, we refer to non-GAAP financial measures during our discussion and in the accompanying slides. Please see our press release for information about the comparable GAAP measures.

Rod Antal, Executive Chairman, will be joined by Michael Sparks, Chief Financial Officer; and Bill MacNevin, EVP, Operations and Sustainability on today's call.

I will now turn the line over to Rod.

Great. Thank you, Alex, and good afternoon to you all. It's been a strong and productive start to the year, and I'm proud of the outstanding work delivered across the company in the recent months.

Most notably, in March, we announced in advance a definitive agreement to sell our interest in the Copler mine for $1.5 billion in cash. This transaction is progressing well, and we expect it to close before the end of the third quarter of 2026. The divestment of Copler provides a strategic repositioning for SSR Mining as a focused Americas-based gold and silver producer with a clear emphasis on free cash flow generation.

Our portfolio is now anchored by the Marigold and Cripple Creek and Victor operations, 2 high-quality, long-lived assets that together form the third largest gold production platform in the United States. Both operations offer meaningful runway for future growth and mine life extensions. Operationally, it was a solid quarter with our results tracking well against our internal plans and full-year guidance.

Financially, the business generated an impressive free cash flow of more than $210 million in the first quarter of the year. As a result, and following the settlement of our convertible notes at the end of March, we finished the quarter with more than $630 million in cash and 0 debt.

Our substantial cash position provides us with a robust balance sheet and flexibility to continue to invest in the organic growth opportunities across the portfolio and consideration for further capital returns to shareholders in the future. On that note, we completed the $300 million in share repurchases, acquiring more than 9 million shares subsequent to the quarter in April just passed.

Since 2021, we have repurchased over 29 million shares at an average price of $21 per share, underscoring our disciplined capital allocation strategy and delivering meaningful per share value accretion to our shareholders.

I'm sure you will agree that after a busy and successful first quarter, we have created a very strong position for SSR moving forward. We expect our low-risk Americas-focused platform and track record of disciplined capital allocation will position SSR Mining as an attractive vehicle for investors seeking exposure both to gold and silver in the Americas.

Before I move on to the next slide, I want to highlight some of the catalysts ahead for our business. First, we expect to provide an updated Life of Mine plan for Marigold in the coming 12 months, incorporating growth opportunities like Buffalo Valley as we push to optimize and extend mine life at Marigold.

Next, we are continuing to advance various brownfield growth opportunities across the business, including both Puna and Seabee and Bill is going to speak more on these in the coming slides. Further, we anticipate providing an update on our strategic review of Hot Maden in the coming months.

Lastly, as noted, we expect the Copler transaction to close before the end of the third quarter, which will add a further $1.5 billion in cash to our balance sheet. These catalysts in and of themselves present an opportunity to create additional value for our shareholders and will be further bolstered by the ongoing free cash flow from our Americas operations.

Let's move on to Slide 4 and talk more about our track record of value creation. The figures on this slide illustrate a powerful picture of discipline and value creation. Over the past few years, we have clearly demonstrated a track record of value creation in per share metrics, capital returns and M&A. I've spoken to our commitment to capital returns and particularly share buybacks, but separately, we also have a clear track record of value-accretive M&A. This was most recently illustrated by the remarkable returns being generated from the acquisition of Cripple Creek and Victor in 2025. This is further supported across the portfolio where we have consistently demonstrated our ability to add value through mine life extensions and optimizations.

These successes, combined with a supportive gold price environment have driven a more than 300% increase in our consolidated consensus net asset value per share since 2024 and a better than 400% increase in consensus cash flow per share over the same period, a fantastic outcome that differentiates SSR amongst its peers.

I'm going to turn over to Michael on Slide 5 to discuss the quarterly results.

Thank you, Rod, and good afternoon, everyone. In the first quarter, we produced 110,000 gold equivalent ounces at all-in sustaining costs of $2,433 per ounce, well aligned with our expectations. As highlighted in our guidance release, we continue to expect 55% to 60% of full-year production in the second half with higher sustaining capital spend in the second and third quarters. Bill will speak in more depth about each operation in the coming slides, but I wanted to call out 2 notable milestones from the Q1 results.

First, Puna delivered more than $120 million in site level free cash flow in the quarter, an excellent result that reinforces Puna's position as one of the highest margin primary silver mines globally. We are excited about the opportunities for meaningful mine life extensions in Argentina and are advancing these programs through 2026.

Second, following another strong quarter from CC&V, the operation has now generated approximately $325 million in mine site free cash flow since its acquisition in 2025. This is a phenomenal result given the $275 million acquisition cost and the long mine life ahead for the operation. Overall, a strong and solid start to the year operationally, and we look forward to building on this momentum through the rest of the year.

Now let's move to Slide 6 for a brief review of our financial results. Our solid operational results translated into strong first quarter financials, including nearly $600 million in revenue from 113,000 ounces of gold equivalent sales. With the sale of our ownership in Copler announced in March, the asset is now classified as a discontinued operation in our financial reporting. The results from discontinued operations largely reflect a onetime non-cash adjustment to fair book value on the announcement of the sale of Copler.

Looking at the rest of the business, net income from continuing operations in the first quarter of 2026 was $1.16 per diluted share, while adjusted net income per diluted share was $1.15. Free cash flow from continuing operations in the quarter was $211 million. This strong free cash flow increased our cash position to $634 million at the end of Q1, inclusive of the $87.5 million contingent payment made to Newmont during the quarter as part of the CC&V transaction.

Also during the quarter, we fully redeemed our outstanding convertible notes, leaving the balance sheet debt-free at the end of March and with total liquidity of $1.1 billion. As Rod mentioned, subsequent to quarter end, we completed $300 million of share repurchases under our buyback program, reflecting our continued commitment to shareholder returns.

Looking ahead, we expect our ongoing free cash flow, combined with proceeds from the sale of Copler before the end of the third quarter of 2026, will further strengthen the balance sheet and enhance our ability to continue to allocate capital with discipline while prioritizing high-return growth opportunities and long-term value creation.

Before turning the call over to Bill, I'll briefly touch on global cost pressures with a focus on fuel. At Marigold and CC&V, nearly 70% of our diesel exposure is currently mitigated through 0 cost collars executed in late 2025, which extends through the end of 2026. At Seabee, diesel is secured through annual winter road deliveries and at Puna, we are not currently seeing meaningful impact given domestic supply conditions.

As a guide for the remainder of 2026, for every $10 per barrel increase in oil prices, it translates to approximately $7 to $10 per ounce increase in our consolidated AISC. We will continue to monitor fuel markets closely as we continue to maintain a disciplined focus on cost control and operation efficiency across the portfolio.

Now over to Bill on Slide 7.

Thanks, Michael. I'll first start with EHSS. Getting our people home safe and healthy each and every day is foundational for our business. This is highlighted in one of SSR Mining's 3 core values being safety first always. This year, as part of our ongoing improvement focus, we're commencing implementation of I Care, We Care across SSR.

This is a safety leadership and culture program, prioritizing people and how we each own and take responsibility for ourselves, our workplace and our teams. I'm very encouraged by the energy and input coming through from this early work and look forward to this making a difference on both people safety and overall business performance.

Now on to Slide 8 to start with Marigold. Marigold had a solid start to the year with production results well aligned with expectations. We continue to expect full-year production at Marigold will be 55% to 60% weighted to the second half of the year, driven largely by higher grades stacked midyear. AISC at Marigold are expected to peak in the second quarter of 2026, driven by timing of spend on fleet replacements and upgrades.

Full-year AISC remains on track against the original guidance range, though we are seeing cost pressures stemming largely from higher royalty costs driven by gold prices. Nearly 3/4 of our diesel fuel usage at Marigold and CCV is hedged for this year, which has helped to insulate us against the current elevated fuel prices globally. Our focus remains on equipment productivities, maintenance quality and efficiency with consumables to manage current and potential future inflationary pressures.

Work continues on growth initiatives across Marigold, particularly at Buffalo Valley as we work to include the project into an updated Life of Mine plan at Marigold within the next 12 months. We've also had some great results from near-mine drilling across the property, including some high-grade intercepts to DG80 target to the southwest of the current Mackay pit.

Our teams are also continuing to evaluate longer-term open pit expansions at New Millennium. These initiatives, combined with additional near-mine drilling campaigns and project evaluation work point to significant potential for mine life extensions at Marigold in the future. We're excited by what's ahead and look forward to providing more details in the new technical report.

Now on to Slide 9 for an update on CC&V. CC&V had another great quarter with better-than-expected recoveries driving strong production and delivering more than $120 million in mine site free cash flow. Since acquisition at the end of last February, CC&V has now generated $325 million in free cash flow, an excellent result that now exceeds the total transaction consideration in just 12 months.

CC&V remains well on track against its full-year production and cost guidance targets with higher sustaining capital expected in the second and third quarters. We are continuing to evaluate opportunities to improve the longer-term production cost profile of CC&V through trade-off studies and potential for future mineral reserve conversion. CC&V has an exciting future ahead, and we look forward to continuing to deliver value at that operation going forward.

On to Slide 10 to discuss operations at Seabee. First quarter at Seabee saw our continued focus on underground development as we aim to deliver stronger grades and production in the second half of the year. Production was also impacted by extreme cold in the quarter, which caused some temporary downtime in the processing plant. ASIC reflected costs incurred with the winter road season and overall, Seabee remains on track for its full-year guidance ranges.

Exploration and resource development activities at both Santoy and Porky continued in the quarter with both programs targeting potential mineral reserve growth. At Santoy, near-mine drilling is focused on higher grades at depth, while our teams continue to evaluate Porky as a potential new mining front to support future mine life extension.

Now on to Puna on Slide 11. Puna continued its recent run of excellent operating results with a strong first quarter. Average daily processing plant throughput set another record. The fifth consecutive quarter Puna has delivered improvements in process plant efficiency. As planned, mining was focused on waste stripping in the quarter, and Puna remains well on track for full-year production and cost guidance.

Average realized silver prices in the first quarter of 2026 exceeded $90 per ounce, enabling Puna to deliver more than $120 million in mine site free cash flow in Q1. Puna has been an excellent contributor for the business over the last few years and continues to clearly demonstrate its exceptional margins and free cash flow in the current silver price environment.

We're advancing a number of opportunities to extend the current life at Puna, including additional laybacks at the existing Chinchillas pit, evaluation of the Melina target adjacent to Chinchillas for open pit potential in the medium term and continued advancement of the Cortaderas underground project. With multiple avenues for growth at Puna, we're very excited for the future of this operation and see potential to meaningfully extend the mine life well beyond our initial current reserve base.

On to growth on Slide 12. I've touched on the majority of these projects and targets worked through each asset, but it's still worth highlighting the wealth of potentially meaningful growth opportunities that currently exist across our portfolio. These projects that we have identified through successful exploration and development work completed at each asset in recent years, in my view, there is no better way to serve value for our shareholders than through the advancement of organic growth opportunities.

It's also important to note these projects are compelling at current mineral reserve prices of $1,700 per ounce of gold and $20.50 per ounce silver. We do certainly see future upside on each of these assets when spot prices are considered, but we will be diligent in ensuring we advance the highest returning growth opportunities. I'm excited about the growth potential of this portfolio and look forward to executing on the opportunity to deliver value for our shareholders.

Now I'll turn it back to Rod for closing remarks.

Great. Thanks, everyone. With such an important and transformational quarter behind us, our focus is now building on this momentum during the remainder of the year. We are in excellent position and have a number of meaningful catalysts ahead of us, as I mentioned in the introduction to this call. With the low-risk Americas-based business, continued delivery of strong operating results, organic growth initiatives and the potential for further capital returns, we are well positioned to benefit from the ongoing rerate of SSR Mining.

With that, I'm going to turn the call over to the operator for any questions. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions]. Our first question is from George Eadie with UBS.

Nice update today. On the Hod Maden strategic review, can you just remind me what are the goals and what does it look like? I guess my question is, if the sale is concluded as the outcome, do we have to wait another 2 or so quarters for that process to run and then another couple of quarters to close? I guess, could we be 12 months away from that deal closing if a sale is the decided outcome?

George, look, we haven't really given much guidance on the process that we're going through other than to obviously announce it with the sale of Copler back in March. I think the objective of the review was to consider all of the options from actually building the project all the way through to sale. Then within sale or other strategic options to remove ourselves from Hod Maden, what does that mean because there are sort of multiple ways that that can be achieved.

Other than we're still in the process of doing that and going through those different trade-offs. There's really not much else to update you on. I think some of the details that you're looking for here will come once we set a clear picture for the direction.

Then just 2 payment questions. Can you remind me what the Carlton Tunnel payment is at CC&V? Then secondly, just with the buyback, $300 million bought back 9.2 million shares. That says USD 32.6 a share average, but the shares were only really in that range for sort of 5 days at the start of April. Is that right? Or am I missing anything there? Or you just bought sort of at that little peak in early April?

Yes, George, this is Michael. I'll take the second one first and then circle back to the Carlton Tunnel. With the share buyback program that we announced towards in the middle of the quarter, we did put an NCIB in place, which allows us to give directions to the banks to exercise that outside of us having material information. That process did move very quickly, and it ranged anywhere from $21 up to $32, but with the volatility of the price during that, it did come in around that $32 a share average as we go through.

Then circling back to Carlton Tunnel. The $87.5 million that we paid for Newmont during the quarter was for the Carlton Tunnel. That leaves one more payment, $87.5 million additional payment, which would come in connection with amendment 14 and the updated closure plans at that site as we look at that deal structure.

If amendment 14 closes, say, 12 months, whenever it is, that payment is straight after you get that approval. Is that right?

Yes, it's right. Amendment 14 remains on track anywhere from 12 to 18 months is kind of what we're penciling in. Then that payment will be due once that work is completed and that permit is issued.

I'll just chime in here a little bit, George. It's all going to plan. We're leading that work now. Bill and the team have taken that over and the work that we've done to want to establish our presence with -- in the community in Colorado and also locally down at Cripple Creek has gone really well. That's all tracking to plan.

The next question is from Lawson Winder with BoA Merrill Lynch.

Could I ask about the buyback and just thinking about your situation today, the balance sheet is very strong. The outlook for free cash flow generation is quite robust. I mean you mentioned an intention to look at the buyback again. Now the buyback authorization is totally exhausted. I mean, why not go to the Board prior -- along with the results and ask for the renewal then? When is your thinking on timing around a renewal?

Yes. I think it's important to take a step back to take a step forward. Obviously, the -- and Michael can talk more around the work that's going on, but the share buyback that we just executed for us was particularly on the announcement of the Copler sale made a lot of sense to do, and it was executed very quickly given the parameters that we had put in place to the prior questions.

The step back that I'm talking about now is now to post the -- remember when we suspended our capital allocation strategy with the Copler incident a few years ago, when we said once we have clarity on the outcome of -- post that, that we would then go back and have a look at our capital allocations and reimplementing and reinstituting it. That's what we're doing at the moment, the work around more holistically, how do we manage our capital allocation and then looking at the requirements, obviously, for the business in the future with all the various growth opportunities we have in front of us the balance sheet and other things before we go and make our mind up on the actual mechanisms we use for returns to shareholders. That work is underway with Michael and the team.

Part of it is just a discussion between whether it's going to be increased dividend or increased buyback rather than just whether you're going to do it.

I wouldn't say increase because we haven't got a dividend in place at the moment because we suspended it, and that's the point. It is a question of whether we reinstitute our yields that we had in place before it became a vote more recently in the market. We actually had that way back in 2021 and as well as supplementing that through the share buyback program. That was really how we had managed it before with the 3 pillars, balance sheet strength, growth and returns. It's really just pulling all that work together with the emerging growth opportunities we have as well to ensure that we're making sound decisions.

Fully acknowledging those growth opportunities, I think it would be interesting to hear your views on M&A, particularly in light of your strong free cash flow and balance sheet position. I mean that must compete with options within the portfolio, I assume, but what is SSR's appetite right now for growth through M&A?

Look, I think that's why in the intro slides, if you go back to the start of the call, Lawson, the reason we go to the pains of setting out our track record around M&A is to actually highlight we've been really good stewards of capital for a long time. All of the deals that we have brought to market, and we look at a lot of stuff, and we've never made a secret of the fact that we're active always looking at different trade-offs and different opportunities around the market.

When we do bring deals to the table and to our shareholders, there is usually a multiple of upside, and that's what we've been able to achieve and the results speak for themselves, I think. That is part of who we are. I think we're particularly good at it. We have a number of filters that we look at for M&A through any cycle. It doesn't matter what cycle we're in, but it has to align to our business strategy. It has to compete for capital, and it has to be -- make sense for us in terms of what we want to build. We've actually got a particular focus now, obviously, with the reset of the business on the Americas. That is a bit of a nuance to what we had before, but beyond that, we are staying active in that space.

The next question is from Joshua Wolfson with RBC.

Following up Lawson's question, just on the buyback and capital allocation. I mean, I can appreciate the company's desire to be measured here, but pro forma net cash over $2 billion, $200 million generated in free cash flow this quarter. Why not continue a little bit of the buyback in the interim before closing of Copler? Or is there another way that we should be thinking about this in terms of maybe capital needs being higher for some of the development projects?

Josh, look, I think it's pretty simple. I think the first thing first is we want to close the deal, and get the cash into the bank. That's really important through any transaction. As we said, that will take place and achieve that within the third quarter. I think that's really the most important catalyst. It doesn't mean we can't do share buybacks or do more share buybacks. I think as we noodle through the various options and have the discussions with the Board, the work that Michael and the team are doing really does need to be as holistic as possible and predictable as possible, and that's really the work that we're doing. It's not because we have an a version of doing any more share buybacks. I think it's really around just let's get the deal closed, let's get the cash in the bank and then the rest will come.

Then on Hod Maden, you had signaled minimal costs. You did spend $31 million in the first quarter. How should we think about what minimal costs are going forward?

Yes, Josh. A lot of the work, as you remember, under Hod Maden right now is around early site works. A lot of that was advanced during that first part of the Q1, and that's where you're seeing that majority of that $31 million coming in. We anticipate that as we go through the strategic review in the coming months that, that will be much lower. It won't be 0, but it will be towards the lower end of that range.

Then there was some commentary earlier on the call about fuel price sensitivity, I think, of $7 to $10. Just clarifying what does that number incorporate? Does it reflect the hedging program as well that's in place? Then does that include secondary impacts and other items that may not be just direct fuel usage?

Yes, you bet. The hedge program goes through the end of this year. That $10 increase in the $10 AISC is really tied to this year with the hedge programs in place. Just to give you a guide that without the hedge programs, if we don't have anything in place going into '27, that goes up to about double that, which is $20, so we only have about 10% of our fuel costs that our operating costs, only about 10% of that is fuel. As Bill mentioned, we really are focused on operational efficiency and controlling those costs. It's a bit early to look at what the knock-on effects would be. We are monitoring it, but we're not seeing anything that's tangible at this point, but it is something that we are continuing to monitor and we'll continue to update on in this quarter as progress in the year.

The next question is from Ovais Habib with Deutsche Bank.

Congrats on the Q1 beat and great to see CC&V outperforming. I mean, the amount of free cash flow this operation is generating is really impressive. Just a couple of questions from me. Again, sticking with the CC&V, just a follow-up question from George regarding the Carlton Tunnel payment. Is there a read-through or a positive read-through on the fact that you've made this payment on the fact that you are looking for this amendment 14 permit? Is that kind of a read-through that is coming imminently?

No, I think they're mutually exclusive, think of it the other way. Amendment 14 was, as you recall, when we put out the technical report for Cripple Creek as the first update from SSR, it was constrained around the already in process Amendment 14. It's an expansion permit that Newmont had already begun when we acquired the asset.

The Carlton Tunnel discussions and considerations was another unique piece of work that was going on with the regulators around the long-term management of the water discharge. It's entirely separate from the amendment 14.

Just moving on to the new mine plan expected at Marigold, That's, I believe, including Buffalo Valley. Are you expecting any significant improvement in the production profile? Or you're looking at more like an increase in mine life? Any color on that?

Look, I think the first thing first, it was to include some of the growth options that we have to understand the requirements for those growth options. What I mean by that is the permitting requirements, where we might need more infrastructure, where we might need to develop a new area, where we might need to do more technical work to ensure that we're in good shape for that growth profile.

Some of those growth options will more feature sort of later in the life of Marigold, not so much initially because of those reasons, permitting or whatever it happens to be. Some of it was to do the trade-offs that we can look at for various parts of the property, the southern part of the property around New Millennium, Buffalo Valley and some of the extensions that we've got down there to see whether we could share an infrastructure down there rather than having long haulage. There's those optimization opportunities as we're going through the mine plans as well.

Then in the initial years, the key focus is to show and demonstrate that we actually have a production profile that now accounts for the blending requirements that we talked about last year that I think folks were getting a little bit concerned about. The importance of having to have different faces open, so we're allowing for the blending requirement of those final rules up on the heap leach pad. The next 5 years, as we sort of said at the end of last year, will probably stay about the same overall, but it's really then the growth options beyond it to bring in ounces where we can along the way and extend, obviously, the Life of Mine at Marigold with a substantial amount of resources that we have.

The next question is from Cosmos Chiu with CIBC.

My question is on the contingent payment. Sorry for going back to the Carlton Tunnel, $87.5 million. If I go back to your original agreement, it was due when there is regulatory relief relating to flow-related permitting requirements, achieving highest feasibility allocation or alternative to water flow. I guess you've achieved that point. After saying all that, could you maybe explain to me what that means and where we are today in terms of that water flow?

I was surprised, Cos, you weren't calling #1, but look, on the Carlton Tunnel discharge, this is -- remember, this is a Newmont -- remains a Newmont led piece of work. I'll say that. They did achieve some of the permitting requirements from the regulators in Colorado that necessitated us having a requirement to pay them that milestone of the $87.5 million. In layman terms, they achieved what they set out to achieve, but there will also -- there will always -- there is ongoing dialogue for -- on Newmont's behalf with the regulators to consider again the overall requirements for what is going to be ultimately the plan for the Carlton Tunnel discharge.

Whether it needs intervention through some sort of water treatment facility in the long term, etc. Remember, the way that we carved that out through the deal was that was always going to be on Newmont's account. It's important that they take the lead on that, and they continue with that dialogue. Obviously, we're a stakeholder, but not a stakeholder who is leading the discussions on this.

Maybe a question on Copler as you had mentioned in your guidance, there was about $80 million to $100 million in care and maintenance costs budgeted for the full-year. If I were to take the difference of your free cash flow in Q1, $210 million and $175 million, difference is about $35.6 million. Is that the part that's kind of related to care and maintenance for the quarter, which seems a bit high because you had guided to about $20 million to $25 million. I guess what I'm trying to get to is, is that the number related to care maintenance? What should we expect in Q2? When would it stop? Would it stop? Is it only going to stop when you, I guess, close the deal?

I'll pass that one to Michael.

Just a couple of points on that. In the Q1, you'll remember, there are a number of taxes and license renewals. Our Q1 costs, care and maintenance and otherwise are always a little bit higher than Q1. That original guidance that we had of $20 million to $25 million would be what I would use for Q2.

The answer to your second part is we will maintain that care and maintenance and ongoing support through the closing with the transaction. As you're doing your modeling, you can use that $20 million to $25 million rough estimate, and then that would continue on until we announce the close of the deal.

I guess my last question is, what else needs to be completed for closing of the deal? As you mentioned, due diligence period was -- has now been completed. What else needs to happen in terms of closing of the deal?

Yes. Look, the work going on the ground there has actually been excellent with the discussions around the transition requirements, etc., with Genus Holdings. All of the cooperation you would expect through a transaction like this has been very good. We're very pleased with that. The only thing that is required, I think we actually set it out with the announcement is the regulatory approvals, and so we'll wait on those that we -- that Genus actually require when we require through the Ministry of Mining and Energy in particular. Then once they're achieved, we can close the deal. We expect that by the end of quarter 3.

The next question is from Don DeMarco with National Bank Financial.

First on Seabee. Rod, I heard that guidance is on track, and so can you provide any incremental color on the costs on Q1 beyond what you already mentioned about the cold weather? Should we model -- if we take it face value, should we then model a step change lower cost in Q2?

No. Look, I think the feature for this, Don, let me take a step back and then I'll try to play it forward for you, so you can try to model it out. At the end of last year, and we said early into this year and through pretty much the first half, the real focus there is on development at Seabee, which is ongoing, and that will continue through this quarter as well. We'll start to see incrementally better production profile coming out of Seabee, but it's really fourth quarter heavy in terms of the production coming out of that through the development work that we began in the second half of last year and will continue in the first half of this year. That's how to think about it.

It will progressively start to get better, but the real big quarter will be fourth quarter this year. Really the cost or the all-in sustaining costs will average themselves out over the year as we get the ounces production back into that sort of guidance range. It's just because we're still incurring costs while we're doing the development, but obviously, the ounce production is much lower in Q1, Q2, moving up into Q3 and then obviously, a great quarter 4.

In other words, like Q1, Q2, you might be above the top end of the guidance range and then Q3, Q4, you could be below the lower end of the guidance range. Is that fair to say?

Yes, I think that's right, Don. Just remember, a good chunk of our costs for Seabee come across on that ice road. Q1 is always going to be a little higher for us, but as we increase the production, as Rod said, throughout the year and as we get out of that Q1, early Q2, which is the ice road spend, that will normalize.

Then on Hod Madden, I look forward to your update in the strategic review, but can you remind us what your book value is for this asset?

I actually don't have that on my head.

I'll get that for you. I don't have it. I'd like here with this. We'll get back to you, Don, on that one.

Then finally, on M&A, you had mentioned the Americas and some, but I'm just wondering, do you have a bias and preference in terms of stage or jurisdiction? I mean, given your cash balance, would you then have a favor toward development projects? With the Americas that you mentioned, does that imply North and South America and you equally weigh all the jurisdictions -- all the countries within those jurisdictions?

I think we look at the full life cycle of assets, everything from greenfields type of opportunities, which we do over time, quietly acquire, particularly around our current assets. We're fairly active in that space anyway, all the way through brownfield development and then producing assets. We don't have a strong preference either way. I think the most important thing for us is, is it fit on strategy? Does it fit and align with our long-term vision of building from the platforms we have and then obviously, the value-add that we can add to them. Each one of those will be unique in their own circumstances for various reasons. It really just depends, Don, but remember, I think we've got a reputation of being good discoverers all the way through to mine builders and operators. I think there really isn't anything that we wouldn't look at would tackle. It's more around is it on strategy.

Do I have a bias from North to South America? I certainly think right now, our focus is on North for sure to continue to build out the lower risk ounce base that we now enjoy with Marigold, Cripple Creek and Seabee, that would be a preference, not forgetting the fact that we have a platform in Argentina. More recently, over the last few years, we've seen a much better environment down there for foreign investors. That's another thing that we'll keep on looking at given it's fairly underexplored because we've already got a presence there. It's not like marching into a brand-new jurisdiction. Yes, look, I think our focus at the moment is really North America and then trying to build around the platform we've got down in Argentina.

This concludes the question-and-answer session and today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to SSR Mining's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. This call is being recorded.

At this time, for opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to Alex Hunchak from SSR Mining. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and hello, everyone. Thank you for joining today's conference call to discuss SSR Mining's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 financial results. Our consolidated financial statements have been presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP. These financial statements have been filed on EDGAR and SEDAR and they are also available on our website. There is an online webcast accompanying this call, and you will find the information to access the webcast in this afternoon's news release and on our corporate website.

Please note that all figures discussed during the call are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise indicated. Today's discussion will include forward-looking statements. So please read the disclosures in the relevant documents. Additionally, we refer to non-GAAP financial measures during our discussion and in the accompanying slides. Please see our press release for information about the comparable GAAP measures.

Rod Antal, Executive Chairman; will be joined by Michael Sparks, Chief Financial Officer; and Bill MacNevin, EVP Operations and Sustainability on today's call.

I will now hand the line over to Rod.

Great. Thank you, Alex, and good afternoon to you all. We closed 2025 on a high note, delivering full year production above the midpoint of our guidance range and generated more than $100 million in free cash flow in the fourth quarter. As a result, we finished the year with $535 million in cash and more than $1 billion in liquidity. Based on the operating guidance provided with today's financial results, we expect this material free cash flow generation to continue in 2026.

Accordingly, and coupled with our view that our share price does not reflect the full value of our portfolio. We are pleased to announce that our Board has approved a share buyback of up to $300 million. If you remember, share buybacks have been a key component of our capital allocation framework in the past, and we are pleased to reestablish a program again.

Before moving on to the next slide, I want to take a moment to highlight a number of key catalysts and milestones that we delivered since our third quarter results and also speak to some of the opportunities ahead. First, I want to note particularly strong fourth quarter results from our Cripple Creek and Victor mine and Puna operations which saw both assets exceed their full year guidance ranges and deliver exceptional free cash flow. At Puna in particular, the mine theaters production guidance for the third consecutive year and set records for tonnes processed in both the fourth quarter and over the full year, which was a terrific result.

Second, we delivered 2 technical report summaries, both demonstrating long-term free cash flow generative assets that will bolster our portfolio. The Cripple Creek and Victor TRS, released in November, highlighted an initial 12-year life of mine plan with an $824 million NPV at consensus metal prices, with nearly 7 million ounces of resources in addition to the reserves there is significant optionality here for meaningful mine life extension into the future. In January, we released a TRS for the Hod Maden development project which highlighted a $1.7 billion NPV and a 39% internal rate of return at consensus metal prices. I will talk more on this in a moment. And thirdly, we continue to advance a compelling brownfield growth projects across the portfolio, which I'm also going to speak to in a moment.

As you can see, 2025 was a very successful year, and we're well positioned to continue building on this momentum in 2026. So let's move on to Slide 4. We have a number of highly prospective growth targets across the business. These prospects represent potentially low-cost, high-return growth opportunities that can deliver significant value to our shareholders. In 2026, we have committed a substantial amount of capital investment across the business and a large portion of that CapEx will be allocated to advancing these growth opportunities through the development pipeline. We look forward to sharing additional details on the projects, including both Marigold and Puna over the coming years.

Now let's turn to Slide 5 to focus on Hod Maden. In January, we published a technical report summary for the Hod Maden development project. The TRS clearly reaffirmed Hod Maden as one of the better undeveloped copper gold project in the sector, and we are thrilled to have a development asset of this quality in our portfolio. As a reminder, Hod Maden is an underground copper gold project in the northeastern of Türkiye. The mine will be accessed through a single surface portal at all will be extracted through a combination of long-haul stoping and cut and fill mining methods.

The process plant is designed with a nameplate capacity of approximately 2,200 tonnes per day with life of mine average head grade of 7.6 grams of gold and 1.3% of copper. The plant will produce a single high-quality concentrate with life of mine gold and copper recoveries averaging 87% and 97%, respectively.

Moving on to the next slide for a few of the TRS highlights. On Maden is a unique project with significant scale, best-in-class grades and first quartile all-in sustaining costs that position the asset to deliver compelling free cash flow in the future. On a 100% basis, production is expected to average 240,000 gold equivalent ounces over the first 3 years and 220,000 gold equivalent ounces over the first 5 years. Our consensus metal prices, Hod Maden is expected to generate average annual free cash flow of $328 million, while $4,900 gold price, that free cash flow would jump to approximately $500 million annually.

Hod Maden's execution has been meaningfully derisked as a result of the significant engineering and the work completed since our initial investment in the project as well as the benefit of early site works that are taking place. Inclusive of earn-in and milestone payments SSR's remaining investment is expected to total $470 million, which we expect to fund from our liquidity position and free cash flow outlook. We anticipate a 2.5- to 3-year construction period once the project decision is made. We are very excited about Hod Maden and look forward to providing further updates in due course.

Turn over to Slide 7, and I'll hand the call over to Michael.

Thank you, Rod, and good afternoon, everyone. In 2026, we expect to produce between 450,000 and 535,000 gold equivalent ounces from our Marigold, CC&V, Seabee and Puna operations. All-in sustaining costs are expected to range between $2,360 and $2,440 per ounce or $2,180 to $2,260 per ounce, excluding the impact of care and maintenance costs at Çöpler.

While Çöpler isn't an operation, we continue to guide to cash care and maintenance costs of $20 million to $25 million incurred per quarter. Total gross spend is expected to total $150 million in 2026 driven mainly by capital investments in leach pad expansions at both Marigold and CC&V as well as continued exploration and resource development spend globally. Capital expenditures at Hod Maden are expected to total up to $15 million per month as engineering access road development and site establishment activities continue ahead of a formal construction decision. Upon a positive construction decision by the joint venture, we will provide an update to our growth CapEx outlook at the project.

Now let's move to our Q4 results, starting on Slide 8. In the fourth quarter, we produced 120,000 gold equivalent ounces at AISC of $22.50 per ounce or $202 per ounce, excluding costs incurred at Çöpler in the quarter. Fourth quarter sales were 117,000 gold equivalent ounces at an average realized gold price of $4,142 per ounce. Net income attributable to SSR Mining shareholders in Q4 was $181 million or $0.84 per diluted share, while adjusted net income was $190 million or $0.88 per diluted share.

For the full year production of 447,000 gold equivalent ounces exceeded the midpoint of our full year guidance. As we discussed with our third quarter results, higher-than-forecasted royalty costs tied to higher gold prices and share-based compensation brought our full year AISC to the top end of our consolidated guidance range. Full year AISC, excluding costs incurred Çöpler was $1,923 per ounce comfortably within our guidance.

Now let's move to Slide 9. As highlighted in the table on this slide, free cash flow totaled $106 million in the quarter, and $252 million for the full year. Excluding the impact of changes in working capital, full year free cash flow was more than $400 million in 2025. These are excellent results considering our investment in growth projects across the portfolio. We ended the quarter in a strong financial position with $535 million in cash and total liquidity of over $1 billion. This cash and liquidity position combined with our free cash flow outlook in 2026 supports our continued investment in growth initiatives across the portfolio while also giving us the confidence to initiate a share buyback of up to $300 million.

Share buybacks have historically been a key component of our capital allocation and shareholder return approach. Between 2021 and 2024, we repurchased 20 million shares at an average price of $15.76 per share, with convertible notes issued in 2019 with a conversion price of $17.61 and these share buybacks provided significant value to our shareholders.

Our historical share buybacks, combined with the -- as announcement of a new share buyback program, reiterate our commitment to ensuring our shareholders realized growth on the key per share metrics going forward.

Now over to Bill for an update on the Q4 results and 2026 guidance for the operations, starting on Slide 10.

Thanks, Michael. I'll first start with EHS&S, 2025 as a successful year of strengthening our programs and application in all areas of EHS&S. [ Areas ] advanced were in critical controls and risk management for safety. The integration of closure work into life of mine plans to bring forward the work as well as to reduce costs and the upgrading of our community engagement and development application.

As I will outline today, we are currently working on growing our business through both greenfield projects and brownfield growth opportunities at all the operations. Safe production and quality implementation of EHS&S standards is our focus ahead to enable an increase in activity to successfully advance all of these opportunities.

Now on to Slide 11 for our year-end M&I. We closed 2025 with 11 million ounces of gold equivalent mineral reserves, a testament to the scale and longevity of our diversified operating platform. Reserves were up nearly 40% year-over-year, driven largely by the incorporation of CC&V and Hod Maden into our consolidated totals as well as other minor impacts from drilling additions and model changes.

Mineral reserve price assumptions in 2025 remain very conservative at $1,700 per ounce gold and $20.50 per ounce silver. We hold another nearly 15 million measured indicated and inferred gold equivalent ounces that can support mineral reserve growth across our portfolio in the future. More impressively, we have consistently delivered on our track record of replacing mine depletion.

Since 2020, as shown on the right side of this slide, we have more than replaced depletion before incorporating any of the benefits of our accretive M&A transactions over the period. Inclusive of M&A, our mineral reserves are up approximately 40% since 2020. And an impressive outcome that ensures our portfolio is poised to benefit from constructive gold and silver markets for years to come.

Now on to Slide 12 for a discussion on Marigold. In the fourth quarter, Marigold produced 43,000 ounces of gold and all-in sustaining cost of $2,089 per ounce. As expected, this is Marigold's strongest period of production in 2025. Technical work around ore body knowledge and processing planning at Marigold has now matured to where this is being integrated into the planning process. As a result of previously highlighted ore blending requirements and to ensure pad recovery performance, the Marigold mining schedule has been updated to account for the blending of durable and nondurable ore.

In addition, increased gold prices have resulted in pit expansions and the relocation of a planned waste dump to avoid sterilizing ounces. While this work has changed the production schedule, the total ounces produced at Marigold at the 5-year period is materially the same as reflected in the 2024 TRS. In 2026, Marigold is expected to produce between 170,000 to 200,000 ounces of gold and an all-in sustaining of $2,320 and $2,390 per ounce. Production is expected to be 55% to 60% weighted to the second half of the year.

ASC will be highest in the first half due to both production profile and sustaining capital, which is expected by 70% weighted to the first half. Sustaining capital in 2026 is expected to total $108 million as we made significant investment in fleet and component placements and process planned improvements. These investments will help to ensure Marigold is well positioned for both additional near-term haulage requirements and to enable development of potentially significant mine life extension opportunities ahead. To that end, Buffalo Valley and New Millennium projects continue to advance and SSR Mining anticipates potentially integrating both deposits into an updated Marigold TRS over the next 18 months.

Now on to Slide 13 for an update onCC&V. CC&V had another excellent quarter, producing 39,000 ounces of gold and all-in sustaining cost of $1,596 per ounce. Quarterly production benefited from better-than-expected gold recoveries and drove full year SSR Mining attributable production of 125,000 ounces well exceeding the 110,000 ounce top end guidance.

It is also important to highlight that CC&V generated more than $200 million in mine site free cash flow to our count in 2025, an exceptional outcome when compared to the $100 million upfront transaction outlay we paid to acquire the mine last year. In November, we released a technical report summary for CC&V showcasing an initial 12-year life of mine with an NPV of $824 million at consensus metal prices. The mine plan was based on 2.8 million ounces of reserves and CC&V has an additional nearly 7 million ounces of measured indicated and deferred resources to support potential mine life extensions over the long term.

Combined with our long-term production platform at Marigold, this TRS reiterated our position as the third largest gold mine producer in the United States. SSR now holds more than 6 million ounces of mineral reserves in U.S. along with an additional 7 million ounces of M&I resources and 2 million ounces of inferred resources, all calculated at conservative metal price assumptions well below the current spot market.

In 2026, we expect CC&V's production and costs will be well aligned with figures outlined in the TRS, Full year production of 125,000 to 150,000 ounces between [ $780 ] and [ $1,850 ] per ounce should position the asset well for another year of strong free cash flow. Production will be 50% to 55% and weighted to the second half of the year, with costs trending above full year guidance in the full first half.

Now over to Slide 14 to discuss Seabee. As highlighted in our Q3 results, Seabee's fourth quarter reflected a continued focus on underground development in the second half and saw increased oil contributions from the lower-grade gap hanging wall. Accordingly, the production totaled approximately 9,000 ounces at an ASIC of $3,433 per ounce in the fourth quarter. In the first half of 2026, underground development will remain the focus as we look to improve stope availability going forward. Full year production of 60,000 to 70,000 ounces gold is expected to be approximately 60% weighted to the second half with the strongest results in the fourth quarter.

ASIC guidance of $2,170 to $2,240 per ounce will be higher than the first half, reflecting the aforementioned production profile and the typical cadence of spend given the winter road season to start the year. Work at Porky continues to advance and we were able to declare a maiden 200,000 ounce mineral reserve at Porky with the year-end update. We are also excited about some of the recent drilling results at Santoy and we'll continue advancing both near-term drilling and development at Santoy targeting high grades. Regional exploration is also expected to continue across the property in 2026.

Now on to Puna to Slide 15. Puna delivered another excellent year, exceeding its production guidance for the third consecutive year. Record tonnes in both the fourth quarter and over the full year for a major factor in Puna strong results with Q4 production of 2.1 million ounces of silver and ASIC of $18.39 per ounce. Full year ASIC of $14.24 per ounce was slightly better than the guidance and drove mine site free cash flow of more than $250 million in 2025.

Puna has been an exceptional contributor to our portfolio, and we see potential to extend operations of Puna well beyond 2028 through growth opportunities both at Chinchillas and Cortaderas going forward. In 2026, we expect Puna will produce 6.25 million to 7 million ounces of silver and all in sustaining costs of $20 to $22 per ounce. As noted, we are pursuing opportunities for additional pit laybacks at and chairs as well as further evaluation of the leaner target to the northeast of the current Chinchillas pit. Drilling has also been very successful at Cortaderas, an underground brownfield deposit on the [ Pirquitas ] property, and we are advancing engineering work to delineate its potential contribution to put Puna's longer-term profile.

Now I'll turn back to Rod for closing remarks.

Great. Thanks, everyone. We had an excellent finish to 2025. delivered solid operating results that are well aligned with expectations and now went to 2026 in a strong financial position with a number of key catalysts on the horizon. We're well positioned to deliver year-on-year production growth and strong free cash flow and are also well advanced on a number of growth initiatives across the portfolio that we look forward to sharing over the next 12 to 18 months.

So with that, I'm going to turn the call over to the operator for questions. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from George Eadie with UBS.

Can I start with Marigold, please? Just looking at the 21 million to 23 million tonnes stacked at 0.4 gram a ton and the 0.35 in Q4. My math that gets me to the top end of guidance. So maybe just a little bit more color here. Like is there a bit of conservatism baked into the guidance range of 170 to 200.

I'm going hand it to Bill.

As we talked, we've been doing a lot of work, particularly on the technical front, and we baked that now into our updated forward schedule. And that considers how we actually have to complete our blending. So that blending and the updated plan for that is actually well outlined in the plan forward. So we believe that guidance is a good indication of what we'll deliver this year. A different stacking plan comes with that.

Okay. But looking at the tech report, like I know it's old now, but the next 2 years, it had 0.3 gram a tonne. But given commentary before, like should we expect next year's grade incrementally higher versus this year? And then 2027 to 2028. Just clarifying like should we be looking at a stacking grade of high 0.4 to low 5s potentially, given the commentary before about keeping the sort of medium-term outlook unchanged.

So as always, as noted, right, across 5 years, we're basically in line. In terms of what's happening is with these metal prices, which is very exciting. We've got growth in pet sizes. We've got additional haulage. So there is a complete reschedule of the mine. So we're still delivering the same goal across the period and particularly like the mine as well, but the timing of it will be different.

And that's why there's reference there. We've also got Buffalo Valley coming in. We've also got further upgrades. So the reference to completing an updated TRS port report comes in there as well. So there's a lot of work going on in terms of those changes ahead.

Okay. But that referenced 5 years, what is that exactly, sorry? Like if I look at the tech report average 5 years, from today, it's 235,000 ounces per annum. Like what is that reference 5 years you're speaking to?

Yes. I think what he's saying -- let me answer it, Bill. George, it's Rod. . Thanks for the question.

Look, I think what Bill is outlining is with all the work that we have completed, I mean that's been the blending requirements that we've got for durable and nondurable law we'd actually been doing work over the last 2 years to upgrade some of the ore body knowledge. So it wasn't something that we just did in 1 quarter. It was actually in conclusion of a lot of work over a period. So that's been now built in, and that's what Bill was sort of talking about with the blending requirements in the short term and near term as well as some of these other opportunities where we've identified some shifts in the mine plan because it would have sterilized some other opportunities in the future.

So we're actually wrapping all that work up. And then if you wait in Buffalo Valley and New Millennium, I think what it needs is a new tech report. And then within that new tech report, we're going to outline the new profiles, not only in the 5 years, but obviously, over the life of mine as well with some of those growth opportunities. So if you just be a little bit patient with us, we'll set it out all at once for you here over the next 12 months.

Yes. Okay. No, that's clear. And maybe just 1 more if I can, for Puna, what silver prices, do you sort of needed a minimum to go beyond 2028? Like it's 70 ounces or higher? Could we be talking well into the 2030s potential? Or is it a bit too early and dependent still on Cortaderas success?

We're excited about what we have in front of us. Cortaderas is, be it, in the underground opportunity there's a lot of work there to do, but it's very positive. But moving back to Chinchillas itself. We do see opportunity for it to go a lot longer with work going on both in the Chinchillas pit or potentially additional step backs as well as the Molina pit, which is right within that area being added on as well. So let's just say that works underway at the moment, and this the silver prices more than support that. So we're doing that work as we speak now, and we see it extending into the future.

Yes. I'll just -- what Bill said, George, to look at the opportunity set that at Puna has really come through a lot of hard work by the guys over a sort of extended period here. And if you sort of wanted to prioritize it as sort of Chinchillas, Molina, Cortaderas and that's how we sort of see it sequencing out. Silver price obviously is very helpful in that regard as we look forward and look at those opportunities. But all in all, I think the future is pretty bright for Puna. We've just got to finish some of the work, particularly around Molina and Cortaderas.

Next question comes from Cosmos Chiu with CIBC.

Great to see the new TRS at Hod Maden. Maybe, Rod, can I ask, is there any kind of time line that we can expect in terms of SSR Mining coming to a construction decision? And if you can't give us a time line, could you maybe talk about the different factors that you will consider before making such a decision?

Cosmos, it is a great tech report. It certainly outlined a terrific project for all the joint venture partners that are involved. So what's going on at side right now, the work on the ground still continues. So it's not like we've got pens down and we're waiting for approvals. It's the efforts on the ground for the early earthworks some of the creek diversions the civil works, the road access tunnels and others is underway and ongoing.

So that work hasn't stopped post the publication of the tech report, we're now just going through the sort of review processes with our partners and once that come will have a project decision. So I'm not going to set out a time line on behalf of everyone. But clearly, we're maintaining some progress on the ground there as well. So don't think of it as like a pins down, then we'll pick them back up. We are maintaining some of that momentum.

Understood. Maybe going to Puna a little bit here. I noticed that the guidance to 6.25 million to 7 million ounces, slightly lower than 7 million to 8 million ounces that you highlighted back in the August 2025 study for 2026. Could you maybe talk a little bit about that?

Yes, I'll pass that one on to Bill.

Just -- the permanent time line for the work that we're completing was it?

[ 2 5 versus ] late that we had talked about.

Yes. So the 6.25 to 7 as we're talking is our guidance range. You wanted an update against that, sorry, because I missed...

So the August 2025, your Q3 2020 update you at 2026 silver production at Puna will be between 7 million and 8 million ounces.

Yes. All right. Yes. No, I see. All right. quarter. Yes. So obviously, with the work we're doing at the moment, and we're continuing to do -- there's more phasing work happening with additional mining happening at Chinchillas. The timing of ounces has changed in saying that we have -- we're looking at a further depth of the production levels staying at a higher level for longer.

So in other words, we saw it dropping off quicker it's come down, as you know, but we're looking at it going, maintaining a higher level for longer. We look forward to updating that as we complete some of this work going forward in future -- has stepped down for the year ahead, but it's going to continue for longer. That would be the best way of terming it.

Okay. So it's a timing thing. We should take those ounces that are not produced in 2026, put into 2027 or 2028?

It will be, yes. It will be better.

Perfect. And at Marigold -- sorry, going back to Marigold here. Could you maybe explain to me durable versus nondurable ore and blending. I'm not fully appreciating the sort of the technical aspects behind it.

So to put it into a simple manner, depending on the fines content and how -- and then the height of the heat, it creates compression on the material. So the effectiveness of the solution transfer can be impacted. So if we go back in time for those that have a long history with Marigold, we've had -- we were challenged in late '22, early '23, where we had a -- where we ended up with our heat became bound up -- so in other words, a lot of good work has happened to understand that ore body better.

And so with that, we now have implemented different land requirements of what can be mixed with what -- and then that changes the schedule of how we bring different parts of the ore body together to ensure optimum blending and optimum recovery from the -- does that make -- does that answer that sort of in simple terms?

Yes. I think I got it now. When you mentioned fine, I think I remember that now. So Great. And maybe 1 last question. I see that you're still using fairly conservative numbers. for your MR estimate $1,700 an ounce for reserves at Marigold.

So I guess my question is, I don't know how much you can answer about, but what would a higher gold price assumption due to what you can do at the ore body. It sounds like you're considering it because you're talking about not sterilizing some of the certain parts in the ore bodies or you're leaving that optionality open. And so to the point that you can share with us what is the higher gold price assumption mean. And could that be incorporated into this new sort of technical report that could come out in 12 to 18 months' time. And you talked about Buffalo Valley and also New Millennium. Could those be part of that new study coming out as you well?

Yes, that's why Cosmos -- look, I think across the portfolio, we took a view for this year at least that given the profile that we already presented ourselves and some of these other growth opportunities that we have, we'll park any decisions on increasing the gold price kind of lowering the cutoff grade, et cetera, and maintain the margins. So -- but we really didn't see anything necessary to do that work. We do have a lot of growth studies, exclusive of gold price that are in front of us that we're looking at.

And that's really the key focus at the moment to complete that technical work. So ultimately, we can start to include those into the technical reports for the future. And then obviously, we can come back to the gold price question about looking at where how sensitive some of the operations are for gold price increases as well. So that really was this year. We just got so much other work going on. We just wanted to complete that and then come back to come back to later on.

And then would that coincide with your time line, say at Marigold because as you say, you're going to come up with a new technical study in Marigold in 12 to 18 months, could this sort of reevaluation of the gold price coincide with that time line as well?

Correct. Yes, good. And particularly New Millennium and some of those other targets as well.

The next question comes from Ovais Habib with Scotia Bank.

Congrats on a good quarter, especially at [indiscernible]. A couple of questions from me. And just again, going back to Marigold following up on the previous caller's questions, the fine that Marigold looks like blending is working. And I mean, is this issue now behind us? Or are we still expecting to see this issue linger into Q1?

No. In terms of the look forward -- I got this one, Bill. In terms of the look forward for the surveys, it's pretty simple. We're going to have areas where we will encounter finds in the future. It's throughout the ore body. And as Bill said, since '22, we did a lot of work drilling et cetera, to understand at a greater level of detail, some of those pockets where the final existed.

And so that's all been incorporated to the future mine plans to allow for that blending of what we call in durable and nondurable. You'll hear us say that as well. in the future. So it informs the scheduling to ensure that we have the appropriate blend. So we get the right outcomes on the heap leach pads in the future. So it hasn't -- it's not a one-off. It's going to be a future feature for Marigold and all of the work we've been doing is really just in preparation to handle that. which has been terrific work actually.

And as I said to -- I think George was asking about we'll have a new tech report, which will outline all of those requirements in the future as well as some of these other growth opportunities.

Got it. And just again, I think there's a follow-up question on Puna as well. I mean drilling has been pretty successful at Cortaderas. Don't believe this deposit has been included in Puna's mine life extension. Rod, are you looking to release any sort of a new mine plan for Puna in the near term, including Cortaderas as well as Chinchillas?

Look, I think what we'll probably see at Puna basin don't hold me to it because it depends on the work. But I think we'll see some additions to the mine life just through some of the extensions that we're going to go into encounter Chinchillas and potentially in Molina.

As they start to -- the drilling programs there and also upper quarter -- continuing some of the technical work behind those that drill program concludes, then we may consider doing a new tech report into the future. But I think at the moment, -- the guys have done a terrifically good job at already establishing a longer life at Puna. We see the potential for more of that.

And then hopefully, in the longer-dated near term having -- sorry, in the near term for the longer-dated future some of these other larger opportunities playing our feature into Puna well into the future. So it's a pretty exciting where we've come from -- if you think back, it wasn't that long ago that folks were thinking about Puna as a depleting asset that was coming towards the end of his life. And I think what we're finding there through the efforts is quite contrary to.

Excellent. And then just moving on to CC&V, which has been a real success for SSR. Currently, I mean, the project has around 4.8 million ounces in M&I now you already have a 12-year mine life at CC&V, but what's the plan there to accelerate these ounces into the mine plan and improve the production profile of CC&V? Is this just the permits? Is it more infrastructure that needs to be allocated? Any sort of color there?

It's pretty linear from what we can tell at the moment. Avast the mine extension is obviously predicated on the success of the amendment for approval. That amendment for that approval allows us to continue with the pad expansions. That is already well sequenced out over sort of the next 5 to 10 years. So that's really the first sort of stage of growth, if you like, on the current reserves as you point out.

Is there opportunities to optimize and do things. I mean that's our job is to try to trying to do that. But I wouldn't -- similar to Marigold, Cripple Creek has durable, nondurable or as well, and it's really important to stay in sequence with that asset base not to put a risk the future.

So we'll try. But look, I think it's fairly well set out. And then beyond it, obviously, we'll look at the opportunities for conversion of the 7-odd million ounces of resources that we also have available, which would require then another expansion permit for that regards as well.

So look, I think the asset itself has done remarkably well. since we acquired it. We're very proud of the efforts that have gone on down there and proud of the team, and they're now part of SSR and they deserve a standing ovation because I think it's been a terrific integration into the portfolio. Now our job is to optimize and to extend that asset well into the future and really demonstrate its strength in the portfolio. So we're pretty excited to have it.

And just my last question then on Çöpler, Rod. I mean, any sort of progress there that we can kind of put our finger on or any sort of updates that you're looking to provide in the term future on Çöpler? Any sort of discussions going ongoing that you can talk about?

Yes. Look, I think that's right, be -- so discussions are ongoing. So in terms of like activities, there really was nothing to note since the last quarter. I mean the activities at the site, as Michael sort of mentioned in his financial discussions had sort of wound down in terms of material movements and site rehabilitation what we're waiting for the final approvals for the e-storage facility and pad closure.

The guys are obviously still very busy in that in regards of care and maintenance of the activities around the plant, in particular, to maintain integrity for a start-up, but that's really been the sort of key focus on the ground at site. And then obviously, as you note, we continue to progress the various discussions with different parts of the government and government authorities. So it's just ongoing at this stage.

Next question comes from Don DeMarco with National Bank.

A lot of my questions have already been answered. But Rod, I'll start off with this. had and can just continue on as we're looking forward to this formal construction decision. And I see that in the interim, you're looking at maybe spend on the order of about $15 million per month. Should we pencil that into our model like beginning as of January 1, I think? Or should we wait until a construction decision? In other words, are you kind of getting ahead of yourselves a little bit here with some of that spending before the formal decision is made.

No. Look, a lot of that spending was already committed, Don. On the early site works that I mentioned before, the tunneling is ongoing. We actually just had John shared actually before this meeting, the first blast of the tunnel, which is terrific for that site access tunnels, a lot of the civil works around that Creek diversion, et cetera, are all ongoing.

So that was work already in progress, and that's what I was sort of saying before. I think while we're waiting for the decision, we're still very busy at side. The team is very busy on side in getting the site prepare and then we know, obviously, once a construction decision gets going. We're well prepared to execute contracts and get moving on the bigger build as well. So it's -- I think that's fair to use that sort of number. And then obviously, we'll do a -- we'll update the guidance once we tally up what the actual cash out the door will be for the capital for the construction during 2026.

Okay. Okay. That's helpful. And just my final question then, shifting to Marigold. So I see that there has been a sizable increase in sustaining CapEx in '26. And of course, the print details that there's some fleet replacements. Of course, there's the plant upgrades. So is this sort of this spend to be onetime in '26? Or should we also be modeling maybe a little bit higher CapEx going forward in the next '27, '28 years.

Yes. Look, I'll answer and then Bill can jump in, if you like, as well.

I think we do what we always do when we look at our fleet and our mine plans in the long-term exercises around total cost of ownership. Fleets obviously have a useful life arm and particularly parts and maintenance and major component rebuilds. We completed that work for Marigold last year and what I determined was, in some cases, that it was wise for us from a value perspective to do that work in 2026. So that's really what you're seeing there.

So it's normal course. In some cases, some of them might have been accelerated by a year or 2 and some of that fleet replacement might have changed as well, but it's really just sort of an exercise in value for the fleet of understanding the optimized approach to that replacement. But nothing out of the ordinary, Bill?

That's correct, Rod. And a lot of work looking at what the optimum timing is for value. So some things are a little bit earlier than they originally planned, but that's because it gives very positive financial return to the business. That's why we're doing it.

This concludes the question-and-answer session and today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to SSR Mining's Third Quarter 2025 Conference Call. This call is being recorded. At this time, for opening remarks and introduction, I would like to turn the call over to Alex Hunchak from SSR Mining. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and hello, everyone. Thank you for joining today's conference call to discuss SSR Mining's Third Quarter Financial Results. Our consolidated financial statements have been presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP. These financial statements have been filed on EDGAR and SEDAR, and they are also available on our website. There is an online webcast accompanying this call, and you will find the information to access the webcast in this afternoon's news release and on our corporate website.

Please note that all figures discussed during the call are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise indicated. Today's discussion will include forward-looking statements, so please read the disclosures in the relevant documents.

Additionally, we will refer to non-GAAP financial measures during our discussion and in the accompanying slides. Please see our press release for information about the comparable GAAP measures.

Rod Antal, Executive Chairman, will be joined by Michael Sparks, Chief Financial Officer; and Bill MacNevin, EVP, Operations and Sustainability on today's call. I will now turn the line over to Rod.

Great. Thanks, Alex, and good afternoon to you all. Our third quarter results have us tracking to close out the year in the lower half of our production guidance, where we continue to expect a stronger fourth quarter.

Our full year all-in sustaining costs are trending towards the high end of annual guidance, and this is largely due to the impacts of higher gold prices on royalties as well as the share price performance over the year-to-date impacting share-based compensation calculations.

Generally, the third quarter results were in line with our expectations. Before working capital adjustments, we generated $72 million of free cash flow, and we maintain a very healthy cash and liquidity profile to support the continued investment in growth opportunities across the business.

We also made great progress on a number of other initiatives in the quarter. The Cripple Creek & Victor technical report should be ready for publication in the coming weeks. This will provide our initial view of the potential at Cripple Creek, where the technical report will feature mineral reserves that are aligned with the already in progress Amendment 14 expansion permit.

At Hod Maden, we have now spent $44 million advancing the project this year and remain on track for our full year growth capital guidance of $60 million to $100 million. A key milestone of the work this year will be the comprehensive update included with the new technical report. This will form the basis of the project and construction decision in the coming months.

To this end, Hod Maden remains one of the most compelling undeveloped copper-gold projects in the entire sector and work completed to date reinforces our view of extremely attractive asset returns.

Across the rest of the portfolio, we have continued to make great progress in advancing organic development projects, including Buffalo Valley at Marigold, Porky at Seabee and Cortaderas at Puna.

We're seeing some very encouraging results from the summer drill campaigns across all of these targets, where we hope to emulate the initial success of adding the initial 3 years of mine life extension at Puna.

Bill will speak more of this later in the call. And lastly, we continue to make good progress at Çöpler and remain fully committed to a restart.

We are in close communication with the relevant government authorities as we seek approvals to bring the mine back online. Overall, it was a solid quarter and as expected with good progress made on a number of initiatives across the portfolio. So now I'm going to call -- turn the call over to Michael to bring you through the quarter 3 financials, starting on Slide #4.

Thank you, Rod, and good afternoon, everyone. In the third quarter, we produced 103,000 gold equivalent ounces at an all-in sustaining cost of $2,359 per ounce or $2,114 per ounce, excluding costs incurred at Çöpler during the quarter.

For the full year, production of 327,000 gold equivalent ounces is in line with plan, and we are on track to finish within our full year guidance of 410,000 to 480,000 gold equivalent ounces, albeit in the lower half of that range.

As Rod noted, higher-than-forecasted royalty costs and share-based compensation, coupled with production in the lower half of guidance is pushing our AISC towards the top end of our full year cost guidance range.

We ended the quarter in a strong financial position with $409 million in cash and total liquidity of over $900 million. Our strong balance sheet ensures capacity to fund our numerous growth initiatives across the portfolio, which includes Hod Maden, where we incurred another $17 million in capital during the quarter.

We are very excited about the progress of Hod Maden and look forward to sharing an updated life of mine plan and construction decision for the project in the coming months.

Let's move on to our quarterly financial results on Slide 5. In the third quarter, we sold 105,000 gold equivalent ounces at an average realized gold price above $3,500 per ounce. Net income attributable to SSR Mining shareholders was $65.4 million or $0.31 per diluted share, while adjusted net income was $68.4 million or $0.32 per diluted share.

As highlighted in the table, free cash flow in this quarter was impacted by working capital movements, particularly inventory movements at Marigold and CC&V as well as prepayments associated with development activities at Hod Maden.

Accordingly, free cash flow before changes in working capital was $72 million, highlighting our strong margins despite continued investment in growth initiatives across the portfolio.

Now over to Bill for an update on the operations, starting on Slide 6.

Thanks, Michael. I'll first start with EHSS. We continue to advance initiatives aimed at ensuring our purpose and values are reflected in everything we do. I'll share some examples of this.

We've seen improvements in how we're applying risk review and mitigation in both our planning and field execution. There's also been great progress on integrating progressive closure into our life of mine plans, which has the potential to reduce overall cost to the business.

Now on to Slide 7 for Marigold. In the third quarter, Marigold produced 36,000 ounces of gold at an AISC of $1,840 per ounce. These results were in line with plan, and we continue to expect a strong fourth quarter, albeit slightly below our initial expectations for the period. As we have advanced mining at Red Dot Phase 2, we have encountered a consistent grade profile aligned with our internal models.

However, the ore has had more fines than expected, resulting in the need for additional blending to ensure pad recovery performance.

Our technical teams at both Marigold and CC&V have been working collaboratively this year to improve ore body knowledge, focusing on processing planning.

Through these efforts, we're improving our approach to ore blending at Marigold to ensure that we appropriately deal with the final ore we are encountered.

With respect to growth, we're advancing work on Buffalo Valley deposit with the goal of fully integrating the project into the Marigold life of mine plan. This work is progressing positively so far, and we expect Buffalo Valley will provide a meaningful mine life extension opportunity for Marigold and potentially complement our Mineral Reserve growth at New Millennium.

Now on to Slide 8 for CC&V. CC&V had a solid quarter, producing another 30,000 ounces of gold with an AISC of $1,756 per ounce. Key to highlight is the mine has now generated nearly $115 million in asset level free cash flow since acquisition, an incredible result given the $100 million in upfront consideration we paid to the asset earlier this year.

The CC&V technical report is well on track for completion within the fourth quarter, and we're excited to showcase the initial mineral reserve life of mine plan. for which CC&V has clearly established itself as a core operation in our portfolio.

We expect this technical report will showcase a 10-plus year life of mine and also highlight significant mineral resource upside to further extend the mine life.

The key bottleneck to converting these mineral resources to reserves is the advancement of permitting for additional heap leach capacity. And our teams are working hard to set up -- set us on the right path for success for decades to come.

Now on to Seabee. Seabee had a challenging quarter, producing 9,000 ounces at an AISC of $3,003 per ounce. These results reflected our continued focus on underground development as we noted in quarter 2 as well as some lower grade-than-expected grades. We expect production to improve incrementally in the fourth quarter, but we remain focused on prioritizing underground development into year-end as we aim to improve available stope inventory moving forward.

Work at Porky targets continues, and we had some good success with the drill this summer as we aim to improve confidence in the existing mineral resources at the project and also test further opportunities for growth.

We're excited about the potential here and look forward to providing updates to the market next year.

On to Puna on Slide 10. Puna continued its track record of solid performance in the third quarter, producing 2.4 million ounces of silver, an AISC of just $1,354 per ounce. With the initial extension to Chinchillas operations announced in the third quarter, we are working to advance other opportunities to extend mining at Chinchillas while also continuing to evaluate the Cortaderas target. We're excited about the potential here, and we'll provide further updates as warranted.

On to Slide 11. Lastly, at Hod Maden, we spent $17 million on engineering and site establishment work in the quarter. Year-to-date, we have spent $44 million advancing preconstruction activities of the project and remain on track for our full year guidance range of $60 million to $100 million in growth capital.

Our technical teams have continued to advance an updated technical report for the project as we move towards a construction decision in the coming months.

And the results continue to demonstrate an incredibly compelling project that could represent one of the highest margin projects in the sector once in production.

We look forward to providing more detail on these initiatives to the market in the coming months. Now I'll turn back to Rod for closing remarks.

Great. Thanks, Michael. Thanks, Bill. Progress in the quarter was solid on a number of fronts, and we're well positioned for a strong close to the year with consolidated production aligned to our full year guidance.

We're making great progress at key projects across the portfolio and with updated technical reports for Cripple Creek & Victor and Hod Maden on the horizon, where we are keen to showcase a bright future for each of those assets and their upside potential.

And of course, with continued efforts towards a restart of Çöpler, we firmly believe SSR Mining still represents a compelling value proposition moving forward.

So with that, I'll turn the call over to the operator for any questions.

[Operator Instructions]

The first question comes from Ovais Habib with Scotiabank.

Congrats on a pretty good quarter. A couple of questions from me. Just first one, starting off with your expectations of Q4. As you guys said, Q4 is expected to be a strong quarter. Is this basically strength coming from Marigold and CC&V. And then just a follow-up question to that, in terms of Marigold and the fines you are encountering at Red Dot, based on how much you can blend, could some of that production expected in Q4 spill into Q1 of next year?

Thanks, Ovais. Look, I'll answer some of the questions and Bill and Michael can go ahead and add any other color if they feel.

The answer to your first question around the quarter 4, yes, that was right. Predominantly, it was coming from Marigold. As we've talked about before, a stronger fourth quarter was always sort of set up that way to be the primary difference to quarter 3.

And I think Cripple Creek itself will be more of what you've seen. And then from the answer to your question around the fines, yes, it certainly presents us with the necessity to handle them differently in terms of their placement and having available more durable material to be able to blend. So that is what we're working through at the moment on how we get the best result for Marigold for the last quarter by managing through the ore placement.

In some regards, where we don't have durable ore available, we'll stack that ore on the higher portions of the leach pad. But where we do, we're obviously stacking on the new leach cell that Bill mentioned last quarter that we completed. So that's the -- that will be the key to finishing strongly at Marigold for quarter 4.

And then just at Seabee, obviously, grade came in lower than expected. Again, was this a negative reconciliation issue? Or were you not able to access the stope or stopes that you were expecting to mine from in Q3? I was a little bit -- I didn't really understand the justification of the lower grade.

I'll hand that one over to Bill.

Yes, Ovais, Seabee in the quarter had a good quarter increasing the amount of development we were doing, which is our focus. So we do have more available stope material.

At the same time, we did have some of the material -- we had an increased proportion of material from the Gap Hanging Wall and some of that material came in at lower grade than we had expected. So that was -- that happens at some times, but they were the drivers.

And based on the development that you've done, obviously, you're expecting a better kind of Q4 and better understanding of the stopes that you have in hand kind of going into 2026?

Yes. We still have some more -- a lot of development focus ahead of us for Q4 as well. And we will continue to work diligently in both Gap Hanging Wall and Santoy to get the best out of the ore body that we can. There was no surprises in what we found, so to speak.

And then just my last question, I guess, on Çöpler. Rod, you mentioned you guys are having discussions with the regulatory bodies and things seem to be progressing. Any kind of -- again, is it more on the remediation side or on the restart side that the focus has been -- and obviously, I'm guessing you guys are pushing pretty hard on the restart side.

But what I'm trying to understand is also, is there any community support that you guys are getting right now that is, let's say, pushing the regulators to make some sort of a decision moving into 2026?

Yes. It's less about the last point of your question, Ovais. I think if you sort of take a step back since the incident itself, the early work was on -- and I'll say it again because it's important on securing the site, returning the -- our lost folks back to the families.

We moved into remediation, which really focused on the clearing out of the Sabirli Valley, which was done and completed.

And then remember, in the last sort of 6 months, the efforts have been around providing the -- all of the technical aspects to the regulators for approval of the storage facility and the closure of the -- the final closure of the heap leach pad.

So it's sort of been a normal sequence of events that you would expect to go through. And we've been in constant dialogue with regulators. It's not a new occurrence. This has been going on since day 1 of the incident itself.

But we're closing off some of those technical aspects for the regulators to approve it. And that will be the key to getting the approval to start the operations. But as it happens, more recently, and particularly you've seen it in the press, so it's nothing that is not public.

There has been definitely a higher level of public support for a reopening, very, very marches, a lot of senior local folks supporting a reopening in the press and on TV and within the media more generally.

So that actual uptick is actually more naturally occurred because of the fact that the community, the local community, in particular, are hurting around economic activity with the mine shut.

So it's probably a coincidence in timing, but it really doesn't have a bearing on the -- it helps, but it certainly -- it's not the driver of getting the government to give us the approval.

The next question comes from Don DeMarco with National Bank Financial.

First off, yes, encouraging to hear what you just mentioned about the high level of public support for the reopening. But to my first question, I think I'll turn to Hod Maden.

Of course, as you mentioned, there's a go-forward decision that's pending in the coming months. Looking at the guidance, you've reiterated guidance, but it seems like you might be tracking the low end of the range.

Is there any items that may have been in the scope this year that's going to be carried into 2026?

You're talking in particular in terms of the spend of Hod Maden.

Yes, that's right. You're at $44 million year-to-date. I think guidance is $60 million to $100 million. So it seems that you're on a pace to kind of hit the lower end of that range.

Look, I think -- sorry, Michael is going to say something, but I'll jump in. He pause for a second. We'll actually probably be more towards the midpoint of that guidance range. It's sort of a ramp-up, a normal type of -- as you would expect, there's a ramp-up of spend.

But the committed spend that we have for the work that we wanted to get through this year is well advanced. So we're on track to spend what we had allocated to the project. It just happens to be the timing of the cash out the door.

Was there anything else on that?

The work has actually gone along very well. The effort that we put in this year was all predicated on using that information for the comprehensive update to the tech report, which is all coming together.

And that is really the basis of what we'd be using to make a project approval decision to move forward. So everything is moving along on track in those regards and very pleased with the work that's been done at the site.

So we'll look forward to that go-forward decision. Will there be a mine plan that's published at around the same time? And is the go-forward decision tied into Çöpler in any way?

Like do you first want to see the Çöpler mine restarted before you commit to building another mine in the country? So just 2 parts to that question asking about the report and the potential connection with Çöpler.

Yes. Well, look, it will be a comprehensive refresh of the technical report, Don, which will publish. And we haven't -- remember, when we acquired the asset, there was a tech report available at the time that we said that we wanted to do the work to ensure that what was contained therein is a project that we could actually deliver to.

So the effort around the time since we acquired it has been going through all of the technical components around flow sheets, process flow sheets, all the met models, the geomet models, the geotechnical work around the site. It's a complex site from that perspective.

And then moving forward with the early stage, some of the earthworks and civil works that are going on right now to ensure when we look at the critical path tasks to get the project underway and on schedule once we finally release the new schedule, we've got a head start on it.

So as I mentioned, all of that goes into the update as well as then the sort of market work around going out to market and getting new pricing in today's dollars for the project itself.

So all going very well, as I mentioned. In terms of the dependency, I guess, around the project decision itself on Çöpler, I've said all along, we're treating them as mutually exclusive from that point.

It's an entirely different project in an entirely different region of Turkey. It has a completely different set of stakeholder groups. If you remember, the project is fully permitted, and that's really important.

So we're not waiting on any permits. And the efforts on the ground around ensuring we have good community relations and good social support have been going along with the project development itself because they're a completely different group.

So we're not attaching a dependency on Çöpler to the Hod Maden decision.

And then just as a final question, if we just take a step back, a question about your strategy. I mean, certainly, you've got a lot of organic opportunities within the portfolio and then there's potential other growth levers with respect to M&A.

Can you share any bias whether for potential growth or how your strategy looks ahead over the next, say, 5 or so years?

Really no change, Don. I think we've always been fairly transparent around the criteria that we look at from an M&A perspective. And M&A can be everything from strategic to bolt-on acquisitions like we had with Cripple Creek & Victor.

There is a number of criteria that we look for, and it needs to fit within those criteria for it to be a strategic fit, and we've always been very true to that. And we'll continue to follow that because I think it does provide a discipline to the way we look at the business.

So no change at all, building on the core jurisdictions we have, building on the platforms that we've got in Canada, U.S., Argentina and Turkey is sort of a first order of priority for us, and then looking for those value-accretive opportunities that might be available from time to time.

So look, we'll stay true to that. I think it's good practice. And it means that when we bring something to market that we like, you know that it has gone through a fairly rigorous due diligence process, and it fits on strategy.

This concludes the question-and-answer session and today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.