Pan American Silver Corp. (NYSE:PAAS) Q3 2022 Earnings Conference Call November 10, 2022 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Siren Fisekci - Vice President, Investor Relations

Michael Steinmann - President and Chief Executive Officer

Steve Busby - Chief Operating Officer

Ignacio Couturier - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Cosmos Chiu - CIBC

Lawson Winder - Bank of America Securities

Craig Hutchison - TD Securities

Operator

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Pan American Silver Third Quarter 2022 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Siren Fisekci, VP, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Siren Fisekci

Thank you for joining us today to discuss Pan American Silver’s Q3 2022 results and our agreement with Agnico Eagle Mines Limited to acquire Yamana Gold. This call includes forward-looking statements and information and makes reference to non-GAAP measures. Please see the cautionary statements in our Q3 2022 MD&A and news release and the presentation slides for our call today. All of which are available on our website.

I will now turn the call over to Michael Steinmann, Pan American’s President and CEO.

Michael Steinmann

Thank you, Siren and thank you for joining our call today. We have been looking forward to this call and being able to finally discuss our agreement with Agnico to acquire Yamana.

But before we get into the discussion, let me first provide a brief recap of our Q3 results. The underlying performance of our gold segment operations was in line with our expectations, although production came in below our quarterly guidance range because of an in-heap inventory buildup of 28,900 ounces of gold naturally at Shahuindo and La Arena. At Shahuindo, the buildup was partially related to lower rainfall rates, which reduced irrigation flow rates and recovered ounces during the quarter despite stacked ounces, exceeding the plan by 18%. At La Arena, gold production not only modestly exceeded plan in the quarter, but ounces stacked also surpassed expectations by 25% with greater pounds placed at higher grades.

Our plan contained ounces placed on the heaps at Shahuindo and La Arena during Q3 positions us to reaffirm our annual gold production guidance towards the lower end of 550,000 to 605,000 ounces. We are also reaffirming our estimate for Gold segment all-in sustaining costs of between $1,450 and $1,550 that we provided with our Q2 results. We are revising the estimate for full year 2022 silver production to be between 18 million to 18.5 million ounces from the 19 million to 20.5 million ounces we provided in our original operating outlook. The revision is largely due to lower production from lower grade ores in Phase 9B open pit at Dolores and revising our mine sequencing into lower grade silver ores at La Colorada during the second half of 2022.