Wheaton Precious Metals (WPM) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending March 31, 2023

May 5, 2023 11:00 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Wheaton Precious Metals 2023 First Quarter Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Thank you.

I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded on Friday, May 5, 2023 at 11:00 AM Eastern Time.

I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Patrick Drouin, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and Sustainability. Please go ahead.

Patrick Drouin

Thank you, operator. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for participating in today's call. I'm joined today by Randy Smallwood, Wheaton Precious Metals' President and Chief Executive Officer; Gary Brown, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Haytham Hodaly, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development; and Wes Carson, Vice President, Mining Operations.

Please note that, for those not currently on the webcast, the slide presentation accompanying this conference call is available in PDF format on the Presentations page of the Wheaton Precious Metals website.

I'd like to bring to your attention that some of the commentary on today's call may contain forward-looking statements and I would direct everyone to review Slide 2 of the presentation, which contains important cautionary notes regarding forward-looking statements. It should be noted, all figures referred to on today's call are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted.

Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Randy Smallwood, our President and Chief Executive Officer.

Randy Smallwood

Thank you, Patrick, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss Wheaton's first quarter results of 2023. I am pleased to announce that our high-quality portfolio of long-life low-cost assets delivered a solid performance to start the year. First quarter production came in ahead of company expectations, positioning us very well to achieve our previously announced annual guidance of 600,000 to 660,000 gold equivalent ounces.

And as we continue to see positive developments and a number of our key assets, including Salobo and Constancia, we expect to see a significant production growth through 2023 culminating in a strong second half of the year.

Notably, implicit in our five-year annual average production guidance is an impressive organic growth profile of over 40%, with two-thirds of that growth coming from assets that are already in operation. While inflationary pressures are still impacting all sectors of the economy, Wheaton has maintained the cash operating margin per ounce of over 75%, highlighting the resiliency of the streaming model in an inflationary world.