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Agnico Eagle Targets Up to 1.5M Ounces of New Production | Ammar Al-Joundi · Kitco MINING

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Kitco Mining on-site coverage of Mining Forum Americas is presented by Metalla Royalty and streaming.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: The best is getting better.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: Hello and welcome to Kitco Mining with me, Paul Harris, here with the 2026 Mining Forum Americas in Colorado Springs.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: Joining me now is Amar Aljundi, president and CEO of Agniko Eagle Mines.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: Amar, welcome back to Kitco.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: Paul, always a pleasure.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: The pleasure is mine, believe me.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: Let's start on our sort of big picture stuff.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: Gold prices off$150 per ounce as we this morning as we get uh into the conference.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, not a great way to start a conference.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh what's going on?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, uh US interest rates are going up, uh, treasuries are hitting the highest uh yields in in decades, and that's having an impact on gold.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: But what is interesting, Paul, is when the Fed raised rates, uh gold moved down a little bit, then stabilized quickly.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I am of the view, and I'm certainly hopeful, uh, that uh this is a temporary thing and then gold will start to recover.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, well, let's hope so.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's a very busy event.
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  SPEAKER_02: It's uh noticeably, I think, busier than last year.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot more interest coming into the mining sector, the gold sector particularly, and uh a lot of the chit chat today has been or this morning has been around a potential 27 billion US dollar transaction consolidation in the gold space.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: Your Agniko Eagle's name has been thrown into that as well.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um I don't suppose you're gonna mention comment on that, but is the timing right for another big consolidation in the gold space?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think I think it all depends on the individual companies, and you know, goldfields and northern star uh are doing their thing.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: From Agniko's perspective, Paul, our business is running very, very well, and we have really the strongest pipeline uh that we've ever had.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: We will be bringing into production uh between 1.3 and 1.5 million ounces of additional production over the next five to ten years.
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  SPEAKER_01: Now, to put that into perspective, you know, a world-class mine, a world-class mine is 500,000 ounces a year.
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  SPEAKER_01: So this is one company bringing on the equivalent of three of these giant mines, uh, uh, and we're building them as we speak.
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  SPEAKER_02: Now, your full year 2026 production guidance is 3.3 to 3.5.
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  SPEAKER_02: So with that additional 20 to 30 percent, that gets you up towards uh let's say very approximately 5 million ounces.
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  SPEAKER_02: Uh talk us through some of the sort of key projects there to achieve that and how they're advancing.
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  SPEAKER_02: What are some of the recent milestones from those?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna go through the projects, but Paul, the interesting thing is uh these are projects we already own in places we've been operating for decades, and most of these are just expansions of existing opportunities.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: So let's start with Detour.
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  SPEAKER_01: Detour Mine, the biggest mine in Canada.
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  SPEAKER_01: Uh we will be increasing that mine by about 350,000 ounces to over a million ounces a year.
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  SPEAKER_01: This is a mine that's been around from the 80s.
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  SPEAKER_01: We own it, we operate it, uh, we're just expanding it.
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  SPEAKER_01: Then you add onto that the Millardic mine.
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  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is a mine that's been around for over a hundred years.
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  SPEAKER_01: Uh this mine we're going to be adding between 450 uh to between 400 and 450,000 ounces a year, bringing that to over a million ounces a year.
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  SPEAKER_01: Uh that's the second biggest mine in Canada.
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  SPEAKER_01: It'll also be over a million ounces a year.
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  SPEAKER_01: To put things into perspective, Paul, there's only three or four mines in the world producing a million ounces a year.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna have two.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then we're building uh we've announced Hope A, uh, that'll be between 400 and 450,000 ounces a year.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Upper Beaver, about 225,000 ounces a year.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: Again, all mines in jurisdictions we operate, we know well.
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  SPEAKER_01: So these are a very good return and very good uh risk-adjusted return.
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  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
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  SPEAKER_02: Now, with the you mentioned some of the the investments there, the your your 2026 CapEx guidance, you raised that recently to 2.6 to 2.8 billion dollars.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, part of that was to fund the construction at Hope Bay.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: What is the updated sort of cost estimate for Hope Bay and how does that compare to what it was previously?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: So Hope Bay is in line, uh the updated numbers in line with what we had guided previously, which is about$2.4 billion.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh again, uh we are well underway on that.
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  SPEAKER_01: I was up there two weeks ago.
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  SPEAKER_01: Uh the you know, the camps in place, uh the barges are coming in, uh, we're working on the foundation for the for the new power plant.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's well underway.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you not everything has gone smoothly, of course, because um you had a a rock slide at Canadian Melatic, and as a result of that, you've had to redesign the the Baronet open pit.
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  SPEAKER_02: Um, how is that process advancing?
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  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's advancing well.
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  SPEAKER_01: We are now back in the pit.
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  SPEAKER_01: So, Paul, what happens is um you want to build the pit walls as steeply as you can so you minimize the waste, and by definition, you have the most stress towards at the bottom of the wall, uh towards the end of the mine life when it's when it's the highest.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: And we had a we had a slide.
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  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we've now completed the berm to control uh any potential uh rocks that might come down, and we are now back in the pit.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: It did have an impact on production this year, uh, but we uh even with that we still expect to be within our original production guidance, which I think is pretty impressive when you can have something like that and still be within your original guidance.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: I think it yes, it certainly um speaks to the sort of quality of the management when something like that can happen and to a greater or lesser extent you sort of take it in your stride and repair the damage and move on.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: Now, um in addition to sort of Hope Bay and the construction there, in in the the Arctic in Nunavut, you earlier this year you signed an agreement with B2 Gold.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um what was the scope and nature of that agreement?
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  SPEAKER_02: What are you looking to do there?
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  SPEAKER_01: Well, we know the guys at B2.
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  SPEAKER_01: I know I know uh Kelvin, he's a good guy.
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  SPEAKER_01: We've worked together for a long time.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's really just an information sharing.
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  SPEAKER_01: We do a lot of that in our business.
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  SPEAKER_01: We want them to be successful, they want us to be successful.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna take a look at how they're doing things, they're gonna take a look at how we're doing things, and it's really, Paul, uh an information sharing exercise.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: Now, um, if we can talk, we've we've spoken about some of the increases to your capital programs.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but let's talk more broadly about the balance sheet.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you've returned almost a billion US dollars to shareholders so far this year.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: With the records of gold prices and the cash flow generation, what other things are you potentially looking to do with your balance sheet?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: Having a lot of cash, we're in a situation where you you're generating a lot of cash, you're building cash on your balance sheet.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: Is there a danger of being in a situation where you perhaps have too much cash and a lazy balance sheet?
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, over the last 18 months we've strengthened the balance sheet by about four and a half to five billion dollars.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: So we've gone from about a billion and a half of uh debt to about three and a half billion dollars of cash.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we have paid, as you mentioned, we've returned a billion dollars to our uh uh shareholders in the first six months of the year.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: We'll probably do a similar amount, uh assuming gold prices stay strong in the second half of the year.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: And uh going forward, now that we have a strong balance sheet, we've paid off uh uh the debt, uh I suspect we're going to be actually returning more cash, uh potentially considerably more cash uh to our owners going forward.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: We are at an investment conference, of course, uh Amar.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: What in the meetings you're having with shareholders and investors, what are they asking for?
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody made a comment to me last week that uh investors are never happy, shareholders are never happy, they always want something more, something different.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh how are their demands evolving?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh, you know, shareholders want us to make the money.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: And fair enough, they invest with us uh with the view that we're gonna give them a good return.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: And we've been doing that.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: We've been doing that, Paul, by delivering the production we say, by controlling costs better than any of our peers.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: We're we're two to three hundred dollars lower all in sustaining costs than most of our peers.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: But most importantly, Paul, uh, we are increasing production per share.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's easy to buy companies, it's it's not hard to go out and spend money to buy production.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: The hard part is to do it to increase production per share.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: Over the last 20 years, uh we've increased uh our production by about a factor of uh 17, but more importantly, we've increased production per share uh by about a factor of three, which is uh roughly six times uh what our what our peers have done.
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  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
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  SPEAKER_02: Uh Emma, I want to ask you more about uh your strategic investment program.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: Agnico makes uh many investments in smaller companies, juniors.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um you've made a couple of big ones recently with Radison Mining, for example, and more recently with Scout Discoveries.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: Scout was uh it seems to be doing something slightly different because um there was an extensive uh you you took a 14.9% equity stake.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: You've also got earning agreements on several targets, and the company will be making quite substantial investments in exploration in some of those targets.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: Is this a sort of supersizing of your strategic investment uh strategy?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: No, this is something we've done before, and uh we tend to do this a lot on exploration, and what we're trying to do, Paul, is have uh optionality.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll make an initial investment and then we'll work with the company uh on the exploration program, and to the extent we have continued success and we'll and certain milestones, then we'll invest more and more and more.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's a structure that makes sense that keeps you, gives you the optionality to invest more to the extent you have success along the way.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: How do you manage the let's say the overall portfolio of strategic investments?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: Because as mentioned, you have recently bought in two new ones.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: Does that see you take a portfolio management approach and okay, if two are coming in, two have got to go out, or what's the decision making?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: We um so to be clear, we don't invest as a portfolio.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: What we do is if there's uh a company we like that has interesting potential, we'll make an initial investment to learn more about it.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it's all part of our capital allocation process.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: But what we want to know is uh if we like a company, we want to get to know the people, we want to get to know the assets, we want to get to know the block model.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: So we we invest and we help them out, and sometimes we'll be in a position for years.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and uh it has worked very well for us.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh a lot of the acquisitions that we've made over the years have started out that way, but we've also made some investments that we've made a lot of money on for our shareholders, and so uh at some point we will step out if we think look, it's not something that makes sense for AgNico, but we've done well by it.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: And how how do you seek to sort of finance this?
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: Is that part of your overall global exploration budget?
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: Is it a separate budget specifically for strategic investments?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's more the latter, it's a separate budget that we look in our corporate development group uh for opportunities to make early investments.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, thank you, Ramar.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: Now you've got a lot going on, so maybe we can end up um with a summary of what some of the key catalysts that our viewers can watch out for from AgNICO Eagle Mines over the next 12 months or so.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: The most important thing uh is this uh 1.3 to 1.5 million ounces of additional production.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: This is uh remarkable, this is uh quite substantial, and uh we're having quite a bit of success moving these projects forward.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: This is what's going to deliver the additional 20 to 30 percent production that we talked about.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, this is all you know ideally production per share, so uh we're confident of where we are, and it's it's really gonna create a lot of value for our owners.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I know you generate a lot of excitement in the space through knocking it out of the park basically for quarter after quarter.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Amar Al-Junde, thank you very much for joining me today.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's my pleasure, Paul.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: Always good.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: And we have a lot more to come from the 2026 Mining Forum Americas from Colorado Springs.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: So stay tuned and hit that subscribe button.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Paul Harris, and this is Kitco Mining.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: KitCo Mining on site coverage of Mining Forum Americas is presented by Metalla Royalty and streaming.