Compania De Minas Reports Q1 2026 Results: Full Earnings Call Transcript

Compania De Minas (NYSE:BVN) reported first-quarter financial results on Thursday. The transcript from the company's first-quarter earnings call has been provided below. Benzinga APIs provide real-time access to earnings call transcripts and financial data. Visit https://www.benzinga.com/apis/ to learn more. View the webcast at https://event.choruscall.com/mediaframe/webcast.html?webcastid=S7Sz3J6P Summary Compania De Minas reported a significant increase in gold and silver production, with gold production up 80% year over year and silver production up 6%. Total revenues for the first quarter reached $625 million, more than doubling year over year, driven by strong operating performance. The company's EBITDA from direct operations was $386 million, with margins improving from 41% to 62%. Net income increased 42% year over year to $355 million, and the company ended the quarter with a net cash positive position. Compania De Minas received several key permits, including operating and water use licenses for San Gabriel, supporting future production increases. Management highlighted ongoing challenges with clay content in the ore at San Gabriel but expects to resolve these as operations continue. The company is cautious about market volatility but expects strong cash flow, especially from its stake in Cerro Verde, with potential for substantial dividend distributions. Overall, the company maintains a strong balance sheet with a cash position of $760 million and total debt of $708 million. Full Transcript OPERATOR Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Compania De Minas Buenaventura First Quarter 2026 Earnings Results Conference call. At this time all participants are in a listen only mode and please note that this call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's call, Mr. Sebastian Valencia, Head of Investor Relations. Mr. Valencia, you may begin. Sebastian Valencia (Head of Investor Relations) Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us today to discuss our first quarter 2026 results. Today's discussion will be led by Mr. Leandro Garcia, Chief Executive Officer. Also joining our call today and available for Your questions are Mr. Daniel Dominguez, Chief Financial Officer Mr. Juan Carlos Ortiz, Vice President of Operations Mr. Aldo Masa, Vice President of Business Development and Commercial Mr. Alejandro Hermosa, Vice President of Sustainability Mr. Enzo Maher, Vice President of Projects Mr. Juan Carlos Salazar, Vice President of Geology and Explorations, Mr. Rogenavides, Chairman and Mr. Raul Benavilles, Director. Before I hand the call over, let me first touch on a few items. On Buenaventura's website you will find our press release that was posted yesterday after market close. Please note that today's remarks include forward looking statements that are based on management's current views and assumptions. While management believes these assumptions, expectations and projections are reasonable in view of the current available information, we are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward looking statements. I encourage you to read the full disclosure concerning forward looking statements within the earnings results Press Release issued on April 29, 2026. Let me now turn the call over to Mr. Alejandro Garcia. Alejandro Garcia Thank you Sebastian. Good morning and thank you for joining us today to discuss the quarterly results of the company. On slide two is our cautionary statement important information that I encourage you to read. Today we will talk about our first quarter 2026 performance, our main achievements and our priorities for the future. After the presentation we will be available for Q and A session where our team will be happy to answer your questions. Next slide please. I will start with a summary of our operational results for the quarter followed by an update on our permitting status. Gold production was 30,000 ounces up 80% year over year mainly due to the ramp up operations at San Gabriel. As production volumes continue to ramp up, the company expects to begin recording sales in the second quarter of 2026. Silver production reached 3.9 million ounces up 6% year over year compared to 3.7 million ounces in the same period last year. This increase was mainly driven by higher production at El Borgal. The result is in line with the mine plan for the quarter with focus on processing ore that had been previously classified as low grade silver ore. Hochschild and Tambo Mayo also contributed to this result. At Uchacua, production increased due to higher throughput and higher silver content. At Tambo Mayo, production improved as we prioritize higher grade ore from the upper sections of the mine. Copper production in this first quarter reached 10.9 thousand tonnes, down 11% year over year. This decrease was mainly driven by lower production at El Rocal as we focus on processing silver ore. Turning now to permitting, I will briefly review the permits received. During the first quarter of 2026 we received stage one of the operating permit for San Gabriel. This approval authorizes us the start of operations to process and commercialize the mine ore. Also at San Gabriel, in April 2026 we received the water use license. This permit allows the storage and use of water at the Agani Dam at Jumpac. The second permits received in the second quarter of 2026 allows us to increase ore extraction to 12,000 tons per day. In addition, we expect to receive the mine plan modification in the third quarter of 2026 as planned, which is required to achieve this level of production. At el Borcal, the first permits approved in the first quarter of 2026 increases mine extraction capacity to 17,000 tonnes per day in line with the company's medium term strategy. Finally, at Rapiche, the environmental impact assessment was approved in the first quarter of 2026. This permit provides environmental support certification for the construction and operation of the project. Overall, these permitting milestones help and low capacity support ramp up and increase operational certainty across our portfolio. Moving on the next slide, I would like to summarize our first quarter results starting with revenues. Total revenues reached $625 million in the first quarter, more than doubling year over year, reflecting stronger operating performance and a more favorable market environment. Looking at EBITDA from direct operations we achieved $386 million, more than three times higher year over year with margins improving from 41% to 62%. Stronger operations resulted in a net income of 355 million dol 42% year over year increase on the capital allocation side, CAPEX for this quarter totaled $81 million, mainly focused on San Gabriel alongside sustaining investment and trapeze aligned with our growth priorities after the quarter end. On April 2026, Buenaventura received $59 million in dividends from permits stake in Soro Verde. Total dividends received year to date 2026 amounted to $157 million. Finally, all of this is reflected in our balance sheet strength. The quarter ended with a cash position of $760 million and a total debt of 708 million, resulting in a net cash positive position. Moving on, the cost applicable to sales, starting with the corporate cash changes are mainly explained by developments at El Rocal where we see higher personnel costs. These are mainly driven by increased workers profit sharing provisions reflecting improved profitability. In addition, higher cement consumption of foreign exchange impact affected cost. These effects were partially offset by improved commercial terms. Silver cash increased due to higher personal costs together with higher commercial deductions related to escalators mainly at Uchuchaqua and Jump Gold. Cash increased versus the same period last year due to higher personnel cost, lower throughput reducing scale efficiencies and higher exploration costs at Urcopampa and Tambo Maya. On the next slide, we highlight our strong free cash flow generation in the first quarter of 2026. Solid operating performance supported by dividends received allow us to close the quarter with a cash position of $760 million. To conclude the presentation, I would like to share a few final thoughts. First, San Gabriel entered the ramp up phase during the first quarter of 2026 and began contributing to Buenaventura results in line with expectations. Number two, we continue to make progress on permitting and regulatory approvals across the portfolio, supporting the disciplined execution of the company's long term strategy. Third, execution across the portfolio remained consistent, delivering predictable results and reinforcing balance sheet strengths and financial flexibility. Finally, cash generation remained robust and well diversified across direct operations and affiliate companies, supported by continued inflows from Cerro Velve. Thank you for your attention. I will hand the call back to the operator to open the line for questions. Operator, please go ahead. OPERATOR Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, dial in by phone and press Star then one on your telephone keypad. Make sure your mute function is turned off and if you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press Star then two. The first question today comes from Carlos de Alba with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now live. Please ask your question. Carlos de Alba Thank you. Good afternoon everyone. So, I have three questions, if I may. The first one can you provide more color and details on how San Gabriel ramp up is going? What are the challenges, maybe bottlenecks that you are facing at this stage? And what is the expected output for the second quarter at San Gabriel? The second question is on El Trapiche strategy. Clearly you got now the environmental approval. You have a very strong balance sheet. Have you Decided if you are going to pursue this project and build it on your own or doing it together with a partner is more likely. And then finally, on dividends, what are the expectations for further dividends from Cerro Verde in addition to the ones that you have received today, including the 59 million in April? Leandro Garcia (Chief Executive Officer) Thank you. Thank you Carlos, for your questions. Well, in beginning for the first question about San Gabriel, as you know, we are in the first stage of the ramp up. We have some challenges, but up to now we are in line with expectations. Maybe Juan Carlos Ortiz can give you more details about how we are going with San Gabriel, please? Juan Carlos Sure, Leandro. Juan Carlos Ortiz (Vice President of Operations) Thank you Carlos, for your question. The products that we have in the first quarter in San Gabriel were related to the conclusion of the commissioning, the training of our team and starting to run all the machines as a sequence, as a system. Right. It's crushing, milling, sanitation, filtration of the tailings. So we have some progress on that regard. We are almost finishing with all the commissioning part, the mechanical assurance that everything is in place. Now we are training our people and start doing the fine tuning of every single circuit. For instance, we have some challenge with the high moisture of the ore getting stick in the conveyor belt for the crushing circuit. This is going to be solved in the coming weeks. First, because we're entering the dry season and two, because we're changing the system to remove the clays in the screening of the crushing circuit. Then in the milling circuit we have some malfunction of electronic device. We already found the trouble and we switch the that piece, that part with a new one. So we are running okay right now with the grinding milling circuit cyanidation. From the mechanical point of view, we have a small challenge like the speed of the pumps and the some resizing of some small boxes. So to avoid any potential. To avoid any potential spilling of the slurry. And in the filtration part, we are pretty much a 50% delivery from the vendor. We finished all the commissioning part and now we are putting the filter presses to filter the tailings with a 50% product. We are running with eight bars of pressure and we are moving step by step up to reach the 14 bars that is considered in the design. So that's from the products in the processing plant in the tailing dam. We are starting right now in second half of May, we will start putting the tailings out of the temporary reservoir, start to dry the tailings and probably in June we will start placing the tailings in the tailing dam. So that's going to be the first time we do that in San Gabriel. We need to speed up. We anticipate some training process to be transferred to the team from the team of Tambo Mayo to the team of San Gabriel to do exactly what we learned to do in Tambo Mayo. How to dry the tailings, how to reduce the moisture, how to place the tailings in the tailing reservoir and how to compact those tailings. So that's exactly the agenda of the second quarter that we have. We expect to solve most of the or the majority of the most sensitive issues from the throughput and from the mechanical availability of the processing plant in the second quarter. And as we anticipated earlier in the previous conference call, the main constraint will be the area that we have available in the tailing dam. It's a narrow valley and we are starting working at the bottom of the valley. So we don't have that much area available. Every single leaf that we compacted we gained additional area. So gradually we increased tonnage. As an average, we expect to finish 2000 tonnes per day by the end of December 2026 and reach full capacity 3000 tonnes per day by the end of 2027. So that's pretty much what we're doing right now. Carloss. Thank you, Juan Carloss. Yes. Leandro Garcia (Chief Executive Officer) Going back to your second question about Trapiche. We are far from that decision. If we go a call for a partner to construct and to develop that project. We are in a stage of investigating all the geotechnical more drillings we need. Maybe Renzo can help us in what we are facing this year and the following two years until we reach the feasibility study. Please, Lorenzo, go ahead. Renzo Sure, Carlos. We're going to be continuously risking the project in regards to acid consumption, asset pricing and acid logistics. That's going to be one of our main goals. We continue exploration of the primaries and we're going to be starting as we finish the environmental impact assessment study. We're going to be starting with the next permit or the next social permit, which is the previous consultation permit in this case. Daniel Thank you. Going back to Carlos, going back to your question about dividends from Cerro Verde. Well, we foresee an excellent year for Cerro Verde. The operations are going as as planning and you know, we don't have a dividend payment policy. But I think this year in cash generation will be extremely good. But we have some expectations. Daniel, please. Thank you, Leandro. Thank you Carlos, for your question. Yes, as Leandro was saying, Cerro Verde will generate a lot of cash this quarter or this year. Considering that the price of copper is over $12,000 per ton. We expect Cerro Verde to generate in excess of $2.5 billion of EBITDA. They have small capex 350 to $400 million in taxes. They should be paying around $1 billion. They don't have any debt. So the free cash flow for this year in Cerro Verde, considering the current prices for copper should be in the order of 1.2 to $1.3 billion. They already have cash in their balance, the minimum cash required for the operations. So they should be distributing around 200 to $200 million to Buenaventura, from which they have already distributed $160 million from January to April. OPERATOR Thank you, Anil. The next question comes from Tana Jaku Skonik with Schochip Inc. Please go ahead. Tana Jaku Skonik Oh, great. Thank you so much for taking my questions. Good afternoon everybody. I wanted to follow back on San Gabriel. I appreciate all of the hard work you're doing on getting the ramp up. And there's always something going on mechanically and otherwise. But I must say I am surprised about the clay in the ore. I didn't realize that there was clay in the ore. Can you just remind me what exactly what mineral do you have and how are you removing this? And are you surprised you have clay in new ore? Juan Carlos Ortiz (Vice President of Operations) Yeah, we have two types of clay. I don't know how to pronounce it properly, but this is montmorillonite. That's a kind of expansive clay that we have in the deposit. It varies from 1% to 8% in different place of the deposit when we transfer the ore from the mine. So when we extract the ore from the mine, we usually have between 4 to 5% moisture, no more than that. But when we put the ore in the stockpiling surface during the rainy season, the moisture can go up to 14% only for the raining coming down into the stockpile. And this clay, because it's an expansive or swelling clay, I think that's a technical term, generate a lot of troubles in the crushing circuit because it's very sticky and it starts getting into the boxes in between the transfer point of the crusher into the conveyor belt or at the end of the conveyor belt into the stockpile, or into the stockpile into the feeders to the mill. The solution to that, there are two things that we are analyzing. Using a screen that you use water, so we can spray water on top of the ore while it's passing through the surface of the screen to remove the flying fraction. That's one option and it's not going to take that much time. And the other is using what we use in El Brocal or what we use also in Huarcani. That's a drum where we have like a screen around the surface of the the drum so we can wash the ore as it travels through the to the drum. That is something that we use in El Brocal for many, many years when we process the ore from the open pit. And also we use that in Kulkani because the ore and the ground also has, depending on the area, they might have a high content of clay and complicated crushing circuit. So that's going to be the solution for, for dealing for the clay areas underground for the next rainy season that start in December, January next year. Tana Jaku Skonik Is this clay consistent throughout the ore body or is it just in patches? And have you seen like once you get it through the crushing circuit and through the conveyor, does it negatively impact your recoveries? Juan Carlos Ortiz (Vice President of Operations) No, it's not impacting negative recovery. We need to make a little adjustments in the density of the slurry in order to reduce the viscosity. If we go to 1400 grams per liter, the viscosity goes too high. So we need to go down to 13, 20, 1320 grams per liter. So in order to have fluid slurry that have all the rheological properties as of being designed. And then the interaction between the cyanide, the gold and the activated carbon works as planets. So it's not a sensitive issue. It's also something that we need to find a way how operatively treat this material whenever we are bringing that into the processing plant. Tana Jaku Skonik Okay, and sorry, did you answer if it's all over the ore body or that it specific areas? Juan Carlos Ortiz (Vice President of Operations) We're studying that because we have a detailed distribution of the clay, we have information, but we have not developed a model of clay distribution in deposit. We have a distribution of gold, silver, carbon, organic carbon, but we don't have a distribution of clay. So we're working on that because we have information in the logging record. So we are building that model in order to make probably a blending and try to avoid being over let's say 6% total clays into the feeding of the processing plant. Right now we have certain days in which we are 8 and maybe sometimes 9% clays. That's when we start getting problems along with the rainy season. Today the dry season is. This is not going to be a problem. Tana Jaku Skonik Okay, thank you, thank you for the explanation on that. The second item, maybe someone can answer for me as you're Aware with, with the volatility of oil prices and other things going on around the world. I just wanted to understand how you in Peru are managing, you know, supplies coming in country and I just want to understand whether you are seeing any constraints in getting supplies into country and, or to your mine sites, you know, like we did in Covid times. Are you having to increase your working capital or stockpile selective consumables? So maybe just where are you seeing any pressures on the supply chain front for your company, if any? Daniel Thank you, Tanja. Daniel thank you, Landro Tania we have not seen any major disturbance or problems in the supply chain. Diesel has increased price rather than being difficult to get more, more diesel, the price has increased 50%. And also this, this, this component, the Diesel is around 5% of the total OPEC that we have. So the percentage of increase in our costs is around 2 to 2.5%. We think that it will, this will be the case for the entire year. Regarding the other supplies like cyanide or sulfuric acid, we don't see any problems in the, in the supply of these, of these reagents or supplies. We have in our minds one month of stock for the continuous operation. And also in Lima, in the port of Callao, we have an additional three months for our critical supplies. So we don't foresee any problems with any supplies. So Daniel, it's not a supply issue getting to site, it's more a cost issue of, you know, it's just going to cost you more. Yes, exactly. Tana Jaku Skonik Okay, and then my final question, if I can, and someone in the team wants to take this, maybe for us sitting in North America, just a flavor of, you know, with elections going on. What is happening in Peru from both, you know, fiscal regime and maybe social as well with, you know, new, you know, leader in place. Can someone give us some insights into the politics of Peru? Leandro Garcia (Chief Executive Officer) Thank you, Tania. Well, finally the two candidates that will pass for the ballot for the ballotage are not finally defined. Keiko Fu Mori is for sure there, but still counting the votes for Rafael Lopez Aliaga and Roberto Sanchez. But the important thing here is the new composition of the Senate and the deputy chamber. If you see those results, you will appreciate the situation that is more center and center right. We do not foresee any changes in legislation. Of course there will be some demands, but I think we feel comfortable with how this new Congress has been elected that will guarantee some kind of peace in terms of new ideas or new. Things that normally the social unrest can ask. And the campaign has Been quite easy, has not been much with much problems in the regions. So we are confident that business area and business performance will go ahead well in the following years. Tana Jaku Skonik So can we assume that there's no changes to taxes and or royalties? Leandro Garcia (Chief Executive Officer) There should be some voices I would ask, but I don't think that the composition of the new congresses will pass that goal. Tana Jaku Skonik Okay, and what about on the permitting front? You know, is there the potential for this new government to make permitting and getting permits a lot easier? Leandro Garcia (Chief Executive Officer) Well, if depends on who is finally the winner. We try always to communicate the difficulty and the bureaucracy and the length that it takes to be granted of a permit. So it's a common ask from the mining sectors and from the investor sector to facilitate the granted on permitting. Tana Jaku Skonik Right. We all hope. Right. Thank you for taking my questions. OPERATOR Thank you, Tanya. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star then one to join the question queue. The next question comes from Cesar Perez Novoa with btig. Please go ahead. Cesar Perez Novoa Yeah, going back to the San Gabriel contained clay. If I heard correctly, when you insert the screen mesh panel, which I think it's what you're going to use, will that have an impact over OPEX at the mine? And will this have any additional CAPEX spend? I guess not, but I want to confirm if this is technically feasible or not. Well, Juan Carlos Ortiz (Vice President of Operations) in the stage of developing the options, as I mentioned, we have two options to have what we call banana screen. That's something that has a shape with a high lobe at the beginning and then you wash that machine cost in the order of $300,000 probably as a rule of thumbs, 3 to 1. The total CapEx for that piece of machinery being working on site is around 1 million $. That wouldn't be the additional capital we need to incur to be sure that clay is not going to be a problem in the crushing and grinding circuit in the future. From the operating point of view, maybe, I don't know, 10 cents per ton is a very, very small additional cost that we expect to run this additional circuit. So it's more on the capex of the year. Additional million dollars to add this component to the flow sheet of the processing plant. Cesar Perez Novoa Okay. No, that's very clear. Thank you very much. It's essentially an irrelevant cost for the incremental spend. Thank you. Thank you, OPERATOR Ladies and gentlemen. With that, we will be concluding today's audio question and answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Sebastian Valencia, head of investor relations for any webcast questions. Jordan Rossano Thank you, operator. The fourth question comes from Jordan Rossano from CalPASAB. We have seen some cost pressures related to personal expenses. Is this something you expect to continue through the year? And could you provide more color on the main drivers behind this increase and whether it's related to wage adjustments, higher headcount, contractor cost or the ramp up of San Gabriel? Daniel Sorry. The increase in the costs related to personnel is coming from the higher workers profit sharing. As we are having higher profits in Buenaventura and in Brocal, we have to pay more for workers profit sharing. So it has increased from 2.5 million last year to almost 19 million this year. Most of this goes to the cost of sales in for each mine and also it goes to the administrative expenses. In terms of wages, there have been no major increases. We have increased only with the inflation rate. And in terms of headcount in the mines, specifically El Brocal and Uchucchacua, we had additional operators for new equipment, but these have not made a big difference compared to last year. So basically the difference is because of the higher workers profit sharing. Jaime Elde Thank you, Daniel. And the final question comes from Jaime Elde from Sinoar Capital is when Antura corporate policy is still to remain unhedged in copper, gold and silver. Alo Yes, Sebastian, yes. Our policy right now, really. We can hedge, but we prefer not to hedge. We will go with the market. As probably everybody is aware, we have a lot of problems with SUNAT in the past for some hedgings and as far as I know, any audit from SUNAT of the mining companies is positive and we prefer not to hedge for a time being. OPERATOR Thank you Alo. At this time there are no further questions. I would like to turn the call over to the operator. That concludes the question and answer session of today's conference call. I would like to turn it back over to management for closing remarks. Leandro Garcia (Chief Executive Officer) Thank you. And after, before we finish, I want to thank Alejandro Hermosa, our Vice President of Sustainability that this is his last conference call with us. He has been with us almost 25 years. He has been an important pilot of this team and of course we foresee. Continue, Alex. To be continued. Part of our family and the doors always are open and we will miss a couple of coffees with you. Thank you Alex, for all your effort and the best for you in this new stage and for all our. So for all that you are with us today, I would like to thank for your time and effort. Dedicated to joining us. Your participation and input are greatly appreciated. Thank you again and have a wonderful day. OPERATOR Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes Buenaventura's first quarter 2026 earnings results conference call. We would like to thank you again for your participation. You may now disconnect. Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company's SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants' and analysts' statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.