Mining Conference 2025 Key Takeaways

Overview:

• Producers of precious metals see the market as welcoming towards mergers and acquisitions (M&As)
• Base metals producers are more focused on ramping up and executing new projects
• Fewer large opportunities for streaming deals, but it will likely still be another strong year overall.

We recently hosted the 16th annual TD Mining Conference. The conference was well attended, particularly for the exploration and development focused session. In our view, several themes emerged from the event.

Gold Producers Refocus on Growth

With balance sheets largely cashed up and strong free cash flows expected, many producers talked about investing in their growth pipelines.

M&A Activity Expected to Heat Up in Precious Metals

Several gold producers indicated they were open to M&A and believe the market is accepting of bolt-on type transactions that fit strategically and/or bring operating synergies. Companies were also stressing the use of partial or all-cash bids to grow production accretively given their strong balance sheets. For the silvers, the focus has centred on two successive deals placing an emphasis on scarcity of high quality primary silver deposits, with investors now looking at other single asset/junior silvers that could be consolidated.

Copper In 2025 Is All About Execution

While 2024 was by large a year of growth for our copper coverage universe with several companies starting up new projects, others such as Teck were focused on ramp-ups. This year is expected to be much of the same and execution and sustainability will be key in 2025 as several ramp-ups did not progress as planned last year.

Unlike the golds, we do not expect M&A to be a major focus for the base metal names. The companies are largely focused on either completing builds or bringing on new production.

On The Topic of Inflation

Management teams expect very modest cost increases this year over last, with several companies noting a flattening of input costs (diesel, chemicals etc.). Labour costs have been somewhat offset by weaker domestic currencies (Chile, Brazil and Canada) relative to the U.S. dollar. Gold producers in general are talking about cost inflation in the 3-5% range. Several copper companies expect C1 costs to actually fall year-over-year driven by the ramp-up of lower-cost assets and higher grades.

Improved Public Opinion of Mining

Panamanian perception on mining is improving, but more work is needed. The public perception and opinion on mining in the country has substantially improved since November 2023. This attitude is partly due to the social outreach efforts conducted by First Quantum but also the economic realities in the country.

Another Strong Year for Streaming Deals

Management teams noted that the deal pipeline in 2025 is comparable to 2024. One key difference is that there are currently fewer large opportunities (US $500 million+) compared to 2024, and the large opportunities are 'earlier stage and not immediately executable .' The ongoing market trend of transactions being heavily weighted towards development stage projects with single asset companies is expected to continue.