NYSE:AGI Alamos Gold Q3 2025 Earnings Report $35.23 -0.49 (-1.37%) As of 03:58 PM Eastern ProfileEarnings HistoryForecast Alamos Gold EPS ResultsActual EPS$0.37Consensus EPS $0.37Beat/MissMet ExpectationsOne Year Ago EPS$0.19Alamos Gold Revenue ResultsActual Revenue$462.30 millionExpected Revenue$490.96 millionBeat/MissMissed by -$28.66 millionYoY Revenue Growth+28.10%Alamos Gold Announcement DetailsQuarterQ3 2025Date10/29/2025TimeAfter Market ClosesConference Call DateThursday, October 30, 2025Conference Call Time10:00AM ETUpcoming EarningsAlamos Gold's Q3 2026 earnings is estimated for Wednesday, October 28, 2026, based on past reporting schedules, with a conference call scheduled on Thursday, October 29, 2026 at 10:00 AM ET. Check back for transcripts, audio, and key financial metrics as they become available.Conference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptSlide DeckPress ReleaseInterim ReportEarnings HistoryCompany ProfileSlide DeckFull Screen Slide DeckPowered by Alamos Gold Q3 2025 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrOctober 30, 2025ShareShareShare This ReportLink copied to clipboard.Key Takeaways Negative Sentiment: The company lowered 2025 production guidance by ~6% to 560,000–580,000 ounces after a one-week Magino Mill outage (capacitor/drive failure) and an October seismic event at Island Gold that delayed access to higher‑grade stopes. Positive Sentiment: Third-quarter results were strong — $462M revenue, record operating cash flow before working capital of $275M and record free cash flow of $130M, selling ~136,500 oz at an average realized price of $3,359/oz. Positive Sentiment: Balance sheet and capital actions — proceeds from the sale of Turkish projects raised cash to >$600M (liquidity >$1.1B), and management plans to pay down the $250M debt, be active on share buybacks, and consider repurchasing legacy hedges. Positive Sentiment: Operational recovery and Q4 outlook — management expects an 18% production increase in Q4 driven by higher milling rates (Magino averaging >10k tpd, targeting ~11.2k tpd by year‑end), running both mills to add ~3,000 oz/quarter, and further cost declines to boost free cash flow. Neutral Sentiment: Growth projects update — the Island Gold Phase 3+ expansion is progressing (shaft ~98% complete; H2 2026 target) and the expansion study was moved to Q1 2026 to consider up to 20k tpd, while Lynn Lake construction was delayed by wildfires with initial production pushed to 2029 and an estimated ~15% capex inflation impact. AI Generated. May Contain Errors.Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallAlamos Gold Q3 202500:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2xTranscript SectionsPresentationParticipantsPresentationSkip to Participants Operator00:00:03All participants please stand by. Your conference is ready to begin. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Scott Parsons, Alamos Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:00:17Thank you, operator, and thanks to everybody for attending. Alamos Gold Inc. third quarter 2025 conference call. In addition to myself, we have on the line today John McCluskey, President and Chief Executive Officer, Greg Fisher, Chief Financial Officer, and Luc Guimond, Chief Operating Officer. We will be referring to a presentation. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:00:37During the conference call that is available. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:00:38Through the webcast and on our website, I would also like to remind everyone that our presentation will be followed by a Q and A session as we. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:00:47Will be making forward-looking statements during the call. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:00:49Please refer to the cautionary notes included in the presentation, news release, and MD&A as well as the risk factors set out in our annual information form. Technical information in this presentation has been reviewed and approved by Chris Bostwick, our Senior Vice President, Technical Services and a qualified person. Also, please bear in mind that all of the dollar amounts mentioned in this conference call are in U.S. Dollars unless otherwise noted. Now I'll turn it over to John to provide you with an overview. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:01:17Thank you, Scott. Starting with slide three. Before we go into the report for the quarter, I want to acknowledge that this has been far from a typical production year for Alamos Gold Inc. We experienced production downtime and lower production the first half of the year, which we're on pace to make up in the second half. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:01:39Unfortunately, in recent weeks, downtime at the Magino Mill and a seismic event at Island Gold will not give us the time to do so. As a result of these recent events, we've taken the prudent course and lowered guidance for the year by 6% from the midpoint of our original guidance. We have a reputation for taking a conservative approach to guiding the market and we pride ourselves on providing consistently accurate guidance. Suffice to say, we will continue to make operational improvements to raise the accuracy of our forecasting, recognizing that occasionally mining can be unpredictable. It remains to be said that while these recent events have a short-term impact, they in no way take away from the quality of our mines and what is without question one of the strongest outlooks in the gold sector. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:02:29We are already seeing significant improvements this month with better grades at Young-Davidson and throughput from the mines. This will ultimately support lower costs and an 18% production increase leading to record production in the fourth quarter. Production in the third quarter totaled 141,700 oz, a 3% increase from the second quarter driven by stronger performances from Mulatos and the Island Gold District. This was slightly below the low end of quarterly guidance reflecting one week of unplanned downtime within the Magino Mill during the last week of September reflecting lower costs from the Mulatos District. Total cash costs decreased 9% from the second quarter and all-in sustaining costs decreased 7%, both consistent with guidance. With higher production, a record gold price, and lower costs, we delivered record revenue, cash flow from operations, and record free cash flow of $130 million in the quarter. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:03:34We expect a significant improvement in both our fourth quarter production and costs to drive new financial records at current gold prices. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:03:45Turning to slide 4. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:03:48The majority of the third quarter we were on track to achieve our full year production guidance. Given the unplanned downtime of the Magino Mill in the last week of September and the seismic event at our Island Gold District operation in October, we're decreasing our 2025 production guidance to between 560,000 and 580,000 oz. This represents a 6% decrease from our original guidance released in January. Late in September, a capacitor failure within the Magino Mill impacted the electrical drive for the SAG and ball mills. This led to one week of downtime and lower third quarter production than originally expected. The mill was restarted by the end of September and continues to demonstrate improvement in October due to the unplanned downtime. Island Gold's mill was restarted in late September to focus on processing higher grade underground ore. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:04:41Given the record gold price environment, we will continue running both mills through the remainder of the year with the increased combined milling capacity supporting additional gold production, higher cash flow, and increased profitability. In mid-October, Young-Davidson mine experienced a seismic event which is a normal part of operating an underground mine. No personnel or equipment were impacted and mining rates are expected to continue within budgeted levels. However, this has delayed access to higher grades within one of our mining fronts. As a result, mine grades are expected to be lower than budgeted for the fourth quarter. Even with the lower than planned underground grades in the fourth quarter, we expect a substantial increase in production from Island Gold District driven by higher combined milling rates. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:05:31We expect similar increases at Young-Davidson driven by higher mining rates and grades and at Mulatos, with the recovery of higher grade ore stacked over the previous two quarters. All three operations are expected to contribute to an 18% increase in the fourth quarter production at lower costs, driving a further increase in free cash flow at current gold prices. Turning to slide 5, short term challenges we experienced this year have no impact on our strong long term outlook which remains firmly intact. The Phase 3+ Expansion at Island Gold will be a key driver of our growing production and declining costs over the next several years. The expansion is progressing well and with expected completion in the second half of 2026. The Lynn Lake project is another important part of our organic growth. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:06:27Forest fires in Northern Manitoba limited our progress on this project this year, but we expect to ramp construction activities in the spring of next year and initial production is now expected in 2029. This puts us on track to reach 900,000 oz of lower cost annual production by the end of this decade. The Island Gold District Expansion study currently underway is expected to outline further upside with the potential to increase consolidated production to 1 million ounces per year within a similar time frame. We generated year to date free cash flow of nearly $200 million in 2024 and expect to generate growing free cash flow as we execute on this growth. Following the startup of Lynn Lake, we expect to generate more than $1 billion of free cash flow annually at current gold prices. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:07:24Now looking at Slide 6, in addition to delivering on our organic growth plans, we continue to surface value from our portfolio of assets. This included announcing the sale of our Turkish development project for a total cash consideration of $470 million. The transaction closed earlier this week and marks a positive outcome. Realizing significant value for assets we had written off in 2021, we received $160 million on closing and the remainder $310 million will be received over the next two years. With our strong free cash flow during the third quarter and initial proceeds from the sale of our Turkish assets, our current cash balance has increased to over $600 million. We will be using the proceeds from the transaction and growing cash position to reduce our small debt position and we expect to be active on our share buyback. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:08:23We were also recognized for the second consecutive year as a TSX 30 winner by the Toronto Stock Exchange for our strong share price performance of 310% over the trailing three years. The award is a testament to our long term track record of outperformance, something we expect to continue to build upon as we deliver on our upcoming catalysts and organic growth plans. I'll now turn the call over to our CFO Greg Fisher to review our financial performance. Greg FisherCFO at Alamos Gold Inc00:08:56Thank you, John. On to Slide 7. We sold approximately 136,500 oz of gold in the third quarter at an average realized price of $3,359 per ounce for record revenues of $462 million. The average realized price was below the London PM fixed for the quarter, primarily due to the delivery of over 12,300 ounces into the gold prepaid facility at a fixed price of $2,524 per ounce. Greg FisherCFO at Alamos Gold Inc00:09:24We will deliver the same number of. Greg FisherCFO at Alamos Gold Inc00:09:26Ounces in the fourth quarter, after which the prepay obligation will be completed. As a reminder, the prepay facility was executed in July 2024 with the proceeds utilized to retire 180,000 oz of forward sale contracts inherited from Argonaut Gold across 2024 and 2025 with an average price of $1,840 per ounce. Based on an average gold price of almost $3,000 per ounce since July 2024, the company increased cash flow by approximately $40 million over that period. Given the decision to buy out the 180,000 oz of hedges 15 months ago through the execution of that prepay facility, quarter over quarter total cash cost and all-in sustaining costs decreased 9% and 7% respectively, and both were in line with quarterly guidance. We expect total cash costs and all-in sustaining costs to decrease a further 5% in the fourth quarter driven by higher production across all operations. Greg FisherCFO at Alamos Gold Inc00:10:25We remain on track to achieve full year cost guidance which was revised earlier in the year. We are now reporting total cash costs and all-in sustaining costs excluding the impact of mark-to-market adjustments for the revaluation of previously issued share-based instruments. This methodology provides a better representation of our total costs associated with producing an ounce of gold and eliminates volatility associated with mark-to-market adjustments. These mark-to-market adjustments to long-term instruments impact both total cash costs and all-in sustaining costs, given the company allocates these costs to mining and processing costs and share-based compensation expense on the income statement. Our reported net earnings were $276 million in the third quarter or $0.66 per share. This included a $193 million reversal of previously recognized impairment related to the Turkish projects as well as unrealized losses on hedge derivatives, foreign exchange impacts, and other adjustments totaling $72 million. Greg FisherCFO at Alamos Gold Inc00:11:28Excluding these items, adjusted net earnings were $157 million or $0.37 per share. Operating cash flow before changes in non-cash working capital was a record $275 million in the third quarter or $0.65 per share. Capital spending totaled $135 million and included $35 million of sustaining capital, $83 million of growth capital, and $17 million of capitalized exploration. Our consolidated 2025 capital guidance has been updated to between $539 million and $599 million, a 10% decrease from previous guidance, primarily reflecting lower spending at Lynn Lake. With the ramp up of construction activities shifting to 2026, free cash flow for the quarter totals a record $130 million, a 54% increase from the second quarter driven by record contributions from all three operations. This includes $73 million from the Mulatos District, $72 million from the Island Gold District, and $62 million from Young-Davidson. Greg FisherCFO at Alamos Gold Inc00:12:31Our cash balance grew 34% from the end of the second quarter to $463 million. Subsequent to quarter end, we received initial cash payments totaling $163 million from the sale of both our non-core Turkish development projects and the Quartz Mountain project, bringing our total cash position to over $600 million. Currently, combined with the undrawn balance on the credit facility, our total liquidity is over $1.1 billion. We expect growing production and declining costs to drive increasing free cash flow over the next several years while continuing to fund our organic growth plans. With a growing cash position, we expect to reduce our $250 million of debt currently outstanding while also evaluating opportunities to buy back shares and eliminate a portion of the remaining legacy Argonaut hedges. I will now turn the call over to our Chief Operating Officer, Luc Guimond, to provide an overview of our operations. Luke. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:13:30Thank you, Greg. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:13:31Over to slide 8. Third quarter production from the Island Gold District totaled 66,800 oz, a 4% increase from the previous quarter. A more substantial increase is expected in the fourth quarter driven by an increase in combined milling rates from the Island Gold and Magino mills. Magino's milling rates continued to increase through the third quarter until the last week of September, when a capacitor failure within the electrical house impacted the electrical drive for the SAG and ball mills. This resulted in one week of unplanned downtime. The capacitor and electrical drive module were replaced by the end of the quarter, following which milling rates have increased to average a new high in October. Quarter over quarter, underground mining rates increased 7% to 1,325 tons per day. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:14:20Open pit mining rates increased 4% to 59,000 tons per day, including a 28% increase in ore mined to 17,600 tons per day. Grades mined from underground and the open pit were consistent with annual guidance. In mid-October, a seismic event occurred within the underground operation of Island Gold that has delayed access to higher grade stopes within one mining front. Seismic events are not uncommon for underground operations, and mining rates are expected to remain within guided levels. However, grades mined in the fourth quarter are now expected to be lower than previously planned. We continue to expect a significant increase in production and decrease in costs in the fourth quarter. However, given the lower expected underground grades and unplanned downtime at the end of the third quarter, production guidance for the full year has been revised lower to between 260,000 and 270,000 oz. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:15:21Moving to slide 9, a number of optimization initiatives have been implemented within the Magino Mill over the past year that continue to drive improvements quarter over quarter. This included the installation of a redesigned liner and bolt configuration within the SAG Mill in July, such that following a liner change and excluding the one week of unplanned downtime at the end of September, milling rates increased nearly 10%. With the mill up and running by the end of the third quarter, milling rates have continued to improve in October, approaching 10,000 tons per day, a new monthly high for the operation. This will minimize potential unplanned downtime in the future and ensure increasing consistency of the operation. A further review of electrical components was completed to ensure all critical spares have been identified and are on site. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:16:10Moving to slide 10, given the unplanned downtime at the Magino Mill, the decision was made to restart the Island Gold Mill the last week of September to focus on processing higher grade underground ore. Operating the two mills will provide additional operational flexibility with increased milling capacity and allow us to capitalize on the higher gold price environment with stronger gold production. The restart of the Island Gold Mill provides an additional 1,200 tons per day of milling capacity. This is expected to support approximately 3,000 oz of additional gold production on a quarterly basis, driving increased cash flow and profitability at current gold prices. This represents nearly $50 million of additional annualized revenue with significantly higher gold prices, more than offsetting the higher processing costs associated with operating the Island Gold Mill. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:17:00We will operate the two mills through the end of this year and will evaluate its ongoing operation into 2026 as part of the expansion study. Over to slide 11. The Phase 3+ Expansion at Island Gold continues to progress with the shaft sink now at the 1,350 m level, 98% of the ultimate depth of 1,379 m. Work also commenced on the 1,350 level shaft station. The Magino Mill expansion to 12,400 tons per day is progressing well and is on track for completion in the second half of 2026. Base plant construction is advancing and expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2026. Mechanical and electrical outfitting for the water handling facility and shaft bin houses are ongoing, and concrete foundation work for the new administrative complex is underway. Over to slide 12. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:17:56As of quarter end, we have spent and committed 84% of the total Phase 3+ capital of $835 million. The photos on the right highlight the progress on the shaft sink and 1,350 level shaft station. We expect to be skipping ore from this station in the latter part of next year with the expansion on track for completion in the second half of 2026. Over to slide 13. We continue to advance the expansion study for the Island Gold District, which includes the evaluation of a larger mill expansion of up to 20,000 tons per day. The study is expected to include a larger mineral reserve through ongoing mineral resource conversion with encouraging results from our delineation drilling program supporting a strong rate of control conversion and reserve growth. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:18:43Work currently underway as part of the Phase 3+ Expansion at Island Gold to 12,400 tons per day is being completed with a larger expansion in mind. This includes sizing the footprint of the new mill building to accommodate additional equipment for a further expansion of up to 20,000 tons per day. To ensure all the assays from the recently completed delineation drilling program are incorporated into the expansion study, we have shifted the completion of the expansion study from late this year to the first quarter of 2026. With a larger mineral reserve and higher combined mining and milling rates, we expect the expansion study will demonstrate significant upside to the base case plan released earlier this year. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:19:25Over to Slide 14, Young-Davidson mine produced 37,900 oz in the quarter, similar to the second quarter, reflecting the planned shutdown of the Northgate shaft the first week of July to change the head ropes reflecting the downtime. Mining rates averaged 7,300 tons per day in the quarter. Given the lower mining rates earlier in the quarter, excess mill capacity, and higher gold prices, the low grade stockpile ore was processed. Mill throughput rates averaged 7,800 tons per day in the quarter, a 12% increase over the previous quarter, reflecting the contribution of lower grade stockpile ore. Process grades of 1.79 g per ton were 7% lower than mine grades, reflecting lower mining and milling rates for the first nine months of the year. Production guidance has been revised lower to between 160,000 and 165,000 oz. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:20:22Mining rates have returned to targeted levels, averaging 8,000 tons per day in September and October, and are expected to remain at similar levels the remainder of the year. Grades mined also increased towards the upper end of guidance in October at 2.25 g per ton and are expected to remain at similar levels the rest of the quarter. With higher mining rates and grades, Young-Davidson mine is expected to have a much stronger fourth quarter with higher production and lower costs. Mine site all-in sustaining costs decreased in the third quarter with a further decrease expected in the fourth quarter. The operation remains on track to achieve the full year cost guidance that was revised earlier in the year. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:21:05Young-Davidson continues delivering strong mine site free cash flow with $62 million generated in the quarter and $160 million in the first nine months of the year, already surpassing the previous full year record of $141 million in 2024. With strong ongoing free cash flow, the operation is on track to deliver well over $200 million for the full year at current gold prices. Over to Slide 15. Production from the Mulatos District totaled 37,000 oz in the third quarter, a 9% increase quarter over quarter with the operation benefiting from strong ongoing stacking rates and grades and the recovery of previously stacked ounces. This trend is expected to continue with a further increase in production in the fourth quarter as the operation benefits from the recovery of higher grade ore stacked in the previous two quarters. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:21:59With higher production expected in the fourth quarter, we are increasing full year production guidance to between 140,000 and 145,000 oz reflecting the stronger production cost decline in the third quarter and with a further decrease expected in the fourth quarter, the operation is well positioned to meet its full year cost guidance. The PDA project continued advancing during the quarter with the focus on procurement of long lead items and detailed engineering. Expenditures are expected to increase in the fourth quarter and more significantly into 2026 with the ramp up of construction activities. COJEK remains on budget and on track to achieve initial production mid 2027. The Mulatos District generated mine site free cash flow of $73 million in the quarter and $129 million in the first nine months of the year. It remains well positioned to continue generating strong free cash flow while fully funding construction of PDA. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:23:01With that I will turn the call back to John. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:23:05Thank you, Luc. I want to reiterate that this has not been a typical year for Alamos Gold Inc. and is not reflective of our long-term record of meeting or exceeding expectations. Our near-term and long-term outlook remain bright, with one of the strongest growth problems in the sector. We remain confident in our ability to deliver. On our guidance, we expect to demonstrate this strong outlook starting with a significant increase in price production and decreasing costs. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:23:34In the fourth quarter. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:23:35I'll now turn the call back to the operator, who will open it for your questions. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:23:49Hi, Mode, we'd like to open up. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:23:51The call for Q&A now, please. Operator00:23:53Certainly. Thank you. We will now take questions from the telephone lines. If you have a question, please press *1. You may cancel your questions at any time by pressing *2. Please press *1 at this time. If you have a question, there will be a brief pause while participants register for their questions. We thank you for your patience. Our first question is from Cosmos Chiu from CIBC. Please go ahead. Cosmos ChiuDirector of Precious Metals Equity Research at CIBC World Markets00:24:21Great. Cosmos ChiuDirector of Precious Metals Equity Research at CIBC World Markets00:24:22Thanks, John and team. Maybe my first question is on Q4. John, as you mentioned, you know, we're expecting increases to production in Q4. You've given us a range, 157,000 oz-177,000 oz, fairly sizable range, especially for quarterly production. Could you maybe just touch on, you know, some of the factors that could lead you to the higher end of that guidance versus, say, the lower end? Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:24:57Yep. Cosmos. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:24:58Hi, Luc here. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:24:59I mean, just across the operations as we've touched on, we're consistently delivering on the higher mining rates with Young-Davidson at 8,000 tons per day. The big driver really for the higher gold production also coming out of Young-Davidson in the fourth quarter is related to grade. You know, based on the mine plan that we have put forward for the fourth quarter, we're expecting to be at the high end of our guided grades of 2.05-2.25. So we're at the higher end of that 2.25 area. With regards to Mulatos, it's really a function of, you know, we've stacked a lot of gold in the first couple of quarters, Q1, Q2, and certainly Q3. We'll start to see more of that gold production coming off the leach pad in the fourth quarter, which will drive higher production for Mulatos. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:25:43Island Gold, we continue with similar guided levels of mining rates and certainly great performance as well through the fourth quarter as expected from Island. When you combine those three catalysts from those operations, that's what's really driving the higher gold production in the fourth quarter. Cosmos ChiuDirector of Precious Metals Equity Research at CIBC World Markets00:26:04Luc, since I have you here, could you maybe elaborate a little bit on that seismic activity that happened at Island Gold in mid October? It sounds like it's not a permanent issue. It doesn't seem like it has longer term impacts. Could you give us a bit more granularity in terms of what happened? Was it in a higher risk area? Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:26:29Yep, I can touch on that a bit. Just to emphasize, seismicity is just a natural aspect of a crisis that occurs with underground mining operations. As we extract the ore body through development and production blasting, we're changing the stress regime within the mining environment. In this case, the one mining front that was affected with this seismic event, really the reason that we've had to stop production from that one area is due to the fact that from a legislative perspective, we need to have two means of egress out of the mine. One being the ramp system, and in Island's case, the second one is an escape way between the levels. With this seismic event that happened within this one area, the escape way was compromised, meaning it needed some rehabilitation in order to bring it back online. We're just in the process of doing that. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:27:18It's not a long-term delay. We would expect to be back in that mining front area early December to continue production in there. It's not a long-term residual effect as a result of the seismic, but it is normal course of business. We always have seismic events. Some can be lower levels and some can be higher levels. In this case, it just resulted in some damage to the escape way, which we're addressing. Cosmos ChiuDirector of Precious Metals Equity Research at CIBC World Markets00:27:41Luc, you know, these escape ways, more permanent infrastructures, I would have thought that they are built to a standard that can certainly withstand some of these stress regimes. There are other factors as well. I guess my question is, was that unexpected? Has this happened before? What do you now have in place in terms of, you know, I understand that these types of activity happen, but what do you have in place now to hopefully mitigate some of the risk on a go forward basis? Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:28:13Yeah, look, I mean, I referenced with regards to our ground control management plan and in our seismic management plan that we have in place for all of our underground operations. In this case, the ground support continues to develop and change as we get into different mining areas and maybe different elevations of stress that are being seen within the mining operation. We adjust accordingly with that. We do have a lot of dynamic support in place to mitigate these sort of environments that happen when we do have an elevated stress. In this case, for the most part, I'd say the ground support actually worked as per expected. Just keep in mind, rehabilitation is also a natural function of an underground operation. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:28:57Residually, the scaling activities that occur and some additional ground support requirements as a result of some of these openings being open for longer term, and in this case, the escapeway being one of those. It's not uncommon to actually have to go back in and do some rehabilitation. In this case, again, because of the fact that the escapeway was being compromised, we've just had to go in and repair that escapeway to resume mining activities within that mining front. Great. Cosmos ChiuDirector of Precious Metals Equity Research at CIBC World Markets00:29:26Maybe one last question. As you mentioned, the expansion study for Island Gold is now expected in Q1 2026 versus Q4 2025, in part to incorporate potentially including the Island Gold mill in terms of running it into 2026. I guess in the end, maybe bigger picture, you know, gold prices are certainly much higher now compared to when you put out the Island Gold, the first base case study. Is there a bit of a shift in terms of thinking here in terms of lower grade material can actually now be profitable? Maybe running Island Gold for longer could increase the overall throughput, and you know, in the end, some of that lower grade ore could still generate cash and overall cash flow is higher. Cosmos ChiuDirector of Precious Metals Equity Research at CIBC World Markets00:30:20Is there that kind of thinking going on right now, John, in terms of how you're looking at Island Gold and maybe even broader picture as well, the other operations? How would that be incorporated into the year-end sort of reserve resource statement that's coming out? Cosmos ChiuDirector of Precious Metals Equity Research at CIBC World Markets00:30:38What kind of gold price would you look at? John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:30:41That's got to go down as one of the longest questions in history, Cosmo. Just looking at Island Gold, we envisioned at the time we acquired Argonaut with the idea of integrating both mines. We envisioned that that would ultimately evolve into something like a 20,000 ton per day operation. We're doing the work right now in order to bring that in front of the market, probably January, early February of next year. That's the time we're aiming for. That's just the optimal rate that mine ought to run at. It means it gets to part of your question. For example, right now we're milling about 1 gram material coming out of the open pit and we're stockpiling lower grade material. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:31:41It's an absolute fact that with the lower cost and the higher throughput rate of not putting anything in stockpile, just putting it all through the mill, that's a much more profitable way to go about it. We'll be able to demonstrate that with the numbers that we'll provide early next year. You're not double handling ore on a combined grade. In other words, mixing in that lower grade material. It's basically running around half a gram. Mixing that in with the 1 gram material, we're still running a pretty decent head grade. You're just doing it all at a greater scale. You're benefiting from the economies of scale and absolutely doing it at a lower cost because there's no double handling anymore. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:32:29From the point of view of this bigger mine that we envision at Island Gold, it also envisions roughly 3,000 tons of underground throughput from the Island mine itself. That takes production up over half a million ounces a year, brings costs down closer to that $1,100, $1,200 ASIC, somewhere in that range. The study will define it more precisely, but you can see we're sitting on roughly somewhere between 11 and 12 million ounces of reserves and resources. That's a really sensible approach to take for the development of that mine. We can get there with relatively. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:33:23How. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:33:23Should I put it, bite sized capital costs. It's not a real stretch for us to get it there and you know, it's sort of the next step in our evolution at that project site. We're not thinking about that at either Young-Davidson or Mulatos. Young-Davidson, it's not really that sensitive to the gold price to be honest. It's just the way that ore body is. We're mining it in a very profitable way. Obviously we're generating, you know, phenomenal cash flows and now we've got that mill running very, very well, consistently hitting 8,000 tons a day. You know, you're going to see Young-Davidson have a great year next year. Long term at Mulatos, you know, the game changer is going to be going underground and mining high grade underground sulfide material and processing it through the mill that we're going to build. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:34:30That really is the future for Mulatos. I mean it's not like we've run out of targets for finding additional oxide material. It's a big district and we're still poking around doing greenfields exploration in various areas and actually getting some interesting results. The main thrust of what we're doing at Mulatos is to transition from heap leach, low grade heap leach production to higher grade underground production. In the grand scheme of things that's where we're going. It's not like we're taking this one concept driven by a higher gold price and trying to apply it across every operation. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:35:14The only other thing there, Cosmo, is just, you know, with regards to the 20,000 ton per day plan for the Island Gold District. That hasn't changed. I mean, we're still looking to put that obviously out. We've changed the guidance on that to put it out early in Q1. You know, it'll outline a plan of running 17,000 tons per day coming from open pit operation, 3,000 tons per day coming from underground operations. That still is the plan as far as the Island mill that we're still continuing to run at this point, which we restarted in September. We'll evaluate that as part of our business plans for 2026. You know, given this high gold price environment, giving us more gold production certainly and more cash flow, it may make sense to continue to run that in 2026. We're still evaluating that. Great. Thanks. Cosmos ChiuDirector of Precious Metals Equity Research at CIBC World Markets00:36:07Sorry for my extra long question. I still haven't thanked Scott Parsons for putting out earnings during game five of the World Series. It certainly has not impacted my performance. Thanks again, John and Gui. Operator00:36:21Thank you. A following question is from Ovais Habib from Scotiabank. Please go ahead. Ovais HabibPrecious Metals Analyst at Scotiabank00:36:29Hi, John, Alamos team. A couple of questions for me as well. Cosmos asked a couple of questions that I had. Just a follow up to Cosmos' questions on the seismic activity at Island Gold. Really glad to hear no personnel or equipment were impacted by this event. That was really good to hear. In terms of, and maybe this question is for Luke, in terms of active mining fronts, how many active mining fronts do you have access to at Island Gold? As well as, how does this impact mine sequencing going into 2026? Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:37:08We typically carry about three to four mining fronts with the mining rates that we're currently running at right now. Obviously, with the ramp up as we continue to head towards 2,400 tons a day through the course of next year, our development will put us into a place where we'll be developing more mining fronts. As I mentioned, in this case, we've just basically shifted our focus from this one mining front that's been put on hold until we get that escape way in place and look to generate production from some of the other areas of the mine in the interim. As I mentioned, it's a short term issue with regards to the seismic event that happened there. We're looking to resume the mining in that specific mining front early in December. Ovais HabibPrecious Metals Analyst at Scotiabank00:37:52Thanks for the color on that, Luc. Also, in terms of when you do get access to additional money funds, I mean, isn't that a mitigating factor on itself? You know, going into 2026, then. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:38:05Sorry, can you repeat that question, Ovais? I didn't quite get it. Ovais HabibPrecious Metals Analyst at Scotiabank00:38:08I'm basically trying to figure out, is when you do start increasing the number of mining funds as you go into 2026 and into the expansion, isn't that a mitigating factor on itself. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:38:21With regards to the production profile? It certainly gives us more flexibility, I think is what you're getting at. Yes, it will give us more flexibility as far as maintaining the mining rates that we're looking at. Again, in this case, we haven't changed our guided levels for Q4 for mining rates. It's just that we've had to refocus some of the activity as far as our production for the fourth quarter because of the fact that we got about a six week interruption from this one mining front until we get the escapeway re-established. Ovais HabibPrecious Metals Analyst at Scotiabank00:38:48Perfect. Thanks for that. Just moving on to Magino. With the unplanned downtime at Magino Mill that was, I believe, late September, were you also able to take advantage of this downtime to do any sort of additional maintenance on the mill as well? Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:39:03We did. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:39:06Through the quarter, I think we spoke about this with the last quarter release that there was a liner bolt configuration redesign that we actioned in the quarter. We did that in July. We also had some scheduled maintenance in August for the ball mill. Certainly, with that one week interruption with regards to the capacitor failing, which led to the drive module also failing, that we had to get replaced, we did take the opportunity to do some other plant maintenance within the Magino Mill facility as well. Ovais HabibPrecious Metals Analyst at Scotiabank00:39:34Okay, thanks for that. Just moving towards exploration. I don't know if the other Scott is online. Hey Scott, can you give us a brief. Ovais HabibPrecious Metals Analyst at Scotiabank00:39:49Kind of overview of where you are. Ovais HabibPrecious Metals Analyst at Scotiabank00:39:50Currently focused on the exposure side and especially if you continue to have success on Island Gold west as well as in close proximate. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:40:01Yeah, you can provide an overview year to date. If you look at Island Gold, we really did shift our strategy from the start of the year from exploration into delineation. That delineation program now has been completed successfully in the third quarter, both at Magino and at Island Gold. That really was focusing on converting that inferred mineral base that remains at our June update for the expansion study, converting that into reserves. That process now of the reserve calculation is underway with the delineation results coming in or have been received at Island as well. We continue now shifting in the fourth quarter to exploration. We're drilling Island down plunge. We're drilling the upper portions of Island to the west between Island and Magino within that main Island belt structure. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:40:56That is ongoing. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:40:57We've also started Phase Two drill program at Klein and Edwards, which is building off the success of the first part of the year. That's the past producing mines that are 7 km from the Magino Mill, and we're excited about the results that we put out in the first half of the year. Exploration is ongoing at Young-Davidson. That hanging wall exploration drift at 9620 has been developed, and we're drilling from that now. That's focused on defining that high grade zone in the conglomerate. We've drilled 15 holes there. Our assays are just starting to come in. Drilling is ongoing, and we'll continue stepping out from that zone that we've defined, looking to expand on that mineralization. We're also starting a regional program. That fourth quarter at Young-Davidson focused on ROT's target, which is only 3 km from the Young-Davidson mill. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:41:51We see that as potential for future open pits, ore that could come into the mill at some point in the future. At Mulatos, as John touched on, really focused this year on sulfide exploration across the district and having success in several targets. Building on in the first half of the year, drilling at PDA, continuing to expand mineralization at Cerro Pelon, testing a number of other sulfide targets in that district that the team has worked up. We're excited by some of the results that we're seeing at Mulatos. I think that really points to the transition, as John said, from shifting from local looking for oxide, which we're still doing. There are still targets, but really focusing in on building out the sulfide inventory, the high grade underground components of what could be the future of that district. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:42:44I guess the last point I'll shift. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:42:46This is Kykavik, which was the greenfield project in Nunavik in Northern Quebec that we acquired with Orford Mining. That exploration on Kykavik was executed in the third quarter. We planned on doing 7,000 m. We did 9,000 m, and really the objective there was trying to find the source of these high-grade boulders that have been defined across that belt. We drilled in five target areas. Assays are just coming in. Certainly happy that we accomplished more drilling there than what we anticipated based on the execution of the program and what we're seeing in some of that core. Ovais HabibPrecious Metals Analyst at Scotiabank00:43:31Thanks, Scott, for that. That was a great overview of exploration. Appreciate that. That's it for me, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Operator00:43:41Thank you. Our following question is from Parel Turek from Jefferies, please go ahead. Operator00:43:48Hi. Operator00:43:48Thanks for taking my question. Just on the Magino Mill, can you maybe provide some more color on how you're thinking about the targeted throughput maybe by the end of this year? I believe it was previously 11,200 tons per day and then 12,400 tons per day next year. How should we be thinking about that given some of the ramp up issues so far? Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:44:10Yeah, Luc here. Similar line of sight as I mentioned, through the third quarter there certainly we had some changes to make to the SAG mill with regards to the liner bolt configuration, which we did schedule ball mill liner change. Obviously, the failure with the capacitor in September put us back a bit. Really starting in mid July, up until that capacitor issue that we had at the end of September, the mill was on a path that was consistently delivering above 10,000 tons per day through that period. Since we've repaired the capacitor failure that we had at the end of September and resumed milling activities through the month of October, we've been consistently averaging just above 10,000 tons per day as well. Our goal to hitting that 11.2 by the end of the year still is intact. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:45:01Just some more fine tuning that we need to do between now and the end of the quarter to be able to consistently deliver that. The 12.4 scenario, longer term, we're obviously working on some of that expansion already. We need more additional equipment at the back end of the mill with regards to the CIP, the leach circuit, the refinery, and elution in order to be able to handle a higher gold content coming into the plant. We're working through that. The other aspect of it is also up front, the crushing capacity is there. We're still evaluating on the grinding capacity requirements with potentially a third grinding circuit in that circuit to be able to support the 12.4. We're still evaluating that as part of the overall mill expansion, to be honest with you. That's part of what will come out early in the new year. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:45:48Okay, that's helpful. Maybe just as a follow up, if the Magino Mill is able to get to 11.2 thousand tons per day by the end of this year, things are improving. Would that be reason enough not to keep running the Island Gold? Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:46:02I think at these gold prices, Fahad, it's probably. I mean we're evaluating this, but I would think we want to put as much throughput as we can through, and running those two mills at these gold prices probably makes sense. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:46:17Got it. Thank you very much. Operator00:46:20Thank you. Our following question is from Satish Kasinathan from Bank of America. Sorry. Please go ahead. Sathish KasinathanVP and Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America00:46:31Yeah, hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Most of my questions have been asked and answered, maybe a question for Greg. With over $600 million cash balance, you indicated that you will be more active in buybacks. How should we think about the cadence of buybacks on a quarterly or an annual basis? Do you have a target run rate in mind? Also, given your growth projects, how should we think about, like, a minimum cash balance? Greg FisherCFO at Alamos Gold Inc00:47:01Thank you. Greg FisherCFO at Alamos Gold Inc00:47:02I mean, from a share buyback perspective, we've never put targets in place. What we always want to do is be opportunistic with respect to that. We also look at our other needs of capital, whether it's growing the business or paying down debt. We're looking at all of those. I don't want to point to a specific target in terms of the buybacks, but based on the pullback in the share price, in the gold price that we've seen over the last week to two weeks, plus the reaction today, we expect to be active on the share buyback. In terms of a minimum cash balance, again, we have lots of liquidity. We have $1.1 billion of liquidity currently in terms of the current cash balance of $600 million. Greg FisherCFO at Alamos Gold Inc00:47:51We want to be active on the share buyback, we want to pay down some debt, we want to evaluate whether we're going to buy back some of the legacy Argonaut Gold hedges. All of those will be sources of capital, but we are ultimately growing the business from 600,000 oz to upwards of a million ounces by the end of the year. We do need to make sure that we have sufficient capital, but we do have free cash flow as we speak right now. From minimum cash balance, I'd say we probably want to always have at least $300 million, $250 million to $300 million on the balance sheet. Sathish KasinathanVP and Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America00:48:29Okay, thank you. Maybe a question on Young-Davidson. It seems the mill has been operating at 8,000 tonnes per day for a couple of months now. Do you think the mill's performance has reached a level that it can continue to consistently operate at this level? Given the current gold prices, is there potential for maybe pushing the mill to a higher end rate? Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:48:53The mill has been performing quite well at Young-Davidson. Obviously, the overall lower production that's come out through Q3 and some of the previous quarters has been more related to giving all of the feed that we can from the mining operations. Certainly in Q3, it was related to the hoist rope change that we had to make with regards to the head ropes. The mill has been performing quite well, no issues there. On the aspect of actually looking to see if it can do more, that's something that we've been looking at and seeing with other opportunities to be able to increase the overall throughput through that mill complex. It would not necessarily come from more underground ore. You know, the mine's designed and the infrastructure is designed to support 8,000 tons per day. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:49:36There are other opportunities with some of the smaller satellite open pit deposits within the region of Young-Davidson that we could look to bring into a mine plan and provide additional mill feed to the YD mill complex with some minor capital requirements to be. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:49:53Able to do that. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:49:55The potential would be to probably get it up to probably 9,000 tons per day consistently. Sathish KasinathanVP and Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America00:50:01Okay, thank you. Operator00:50:04Thank you. Once again, please press*1 at this time for any questions or comments. The following question is from Don DeMarco from National Bank. Please go ahead. Don DeMarcoDirector and Equity Research Analyst of Metals and Mining at National Bank Financial00:50:18Thank you, operator, and good morning, Don and team. Maybe just a quick question on the capacitor incident. What were the root causes of that, and is there a risk of a repeat? Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:50:31The capacitor failure? We're still actually having that analyzed. I don't have a firm answer on that. It's not something that you would typically see, to be honest with you. There could have been a defect within that part itself. We've been running our Island Gold mill complex and our Young-Davidson mill complex for years, and I've never experienced that sort of failure with a capacitor. It wasn't just the capacitor. The capacitor failing was part of it, but that led to some residual damage within the drive unit of the power modules that operate the SAG mill and the ball mill. We had some other component failure there like resistors and a bus bar and some other electrical components that resulted in some additional repairs. This is not normal course of business. We've never seen this with any of our other operations. I'd say it's at this point. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:51:20It's a one-off. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:51:21We still need to do further diagnosis to understand exactly what happened with that capacitor. Don DeMarcoDirector and Equity Research Analyst of Metals and Mining at National Bank Financial00:51:27Okay. I look forward to that. It sounds like the timing of mining. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:51:32The other thing I would add to that is that, you know, from an inventory aspect and just making sure that we have all of the product, we have done another further thorough review of our electrical components for running that plant to make sure that we have all of the critical spares that we need just to prevent any sort of significant downtime moving forward. Don DeMarcoDirector and Equity Research Analyst of Metals and Mining at National Bank Financial00:51:54Okay, then just to my next question. With regard to the Magino Mill and combining the two ore streams back into that mill, it sounds like it's potentially 2026, maybe later. Seems like there's good reason at this gold price to keep the 1,200 ton per day Island mill running. Since you've done it before, you've done it once already in July. Would the second time around be somewhat routine, just with a quicker ramp up? Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:52:21Yeah, it's pretty seamless to be honest with you, to put both ore streams into the one plant. I think I've mentioned before, we did a couple of batch tests just to confirm the metallurgy back in Q2, Q3, and you know, that all was validated. Frankly, you know, running that combined ore stream into the Magino Mill from really mid-July until we did have that capacitor failure at the end of September, metallurgically, everything was performing quite well, both from a gravity recovery point of view as well as overall recovery. The expectations were as per what we were expecting as far as what we modeled to what we were seeing in the plants. It's a pretty easy, simple transition. Just provide that ore feed back into the stream and combine the two streams into one feeding into the one mill complex. Don DeMarcoDirector and Equity Research Analyst of Metals and Mining at National Bank Financial00:53:06Okay. Just as a final question, turning to Lynn Lake development, we see that the timeline has been impacted by the wildfires. How about CapEx? Can you give any more granularity on the implications to the CapEx estimate to develop that project? Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:53:28I mean, capex wise, I guess, you know, you'll have the inflation component there over the next because of the fact that it's been delayed a bit. I think what we've, you know, we basically lost all of the construction season this summer, which is the most productive period that you can have, certainly in northern Manitoba or northern Ontario, depending on where we're building these up. As a result of that, our original timeline was mid-2028. Now we're moving that out to early 2029. You're going to have a bit of an inflation factor that gets factored into that. Greg FisherCFO at Alamos Gold Inc00:53:59Yeah, I mean, just adding to that, we put out the study a couple years ago. You have three years of inflation since we put out that study with this additional year that Luke just introduced, commented on moving it out to 2029. Inflation on capital projects has run around 5 to 6%. You can expect a 15% increase in our capital that we put out in the feasibility study for Lynn Lake. Don DeMarcoDirector and Equity Research Analyst of Metals and Mining at National Bank Financial00:54:31Okay, thank you. Thank you for taking my questions. That's all for me. Good luck with the rest of the quarter. Operator00:54:38Thank you. There are no further questions registered at this time. This concludes this morning. Call if you have any further questions that have not been answered. Please feel free to contact Mr. Scott Parsons at 416-368-9932, extension 5439.Read moreParticipantsExecutivesGreg FisherCFOJohn McCluskeyPresident and CEOLuc GuimondCOOScott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor RelationsAnalystsAnalyst at JefferiesCosmos ChiuDirector of Precious Metals Equity Research at CIBC World MarketsSathish KasinathanVP and Equity Research Analyst at Bank of AmericaOvais HabibPrecious Metals Analyst at ScotiabankDon DeMarcoDirector and Equity Research Analyst of Metals and Mining at National Bank FinancialPowered by Earnings DocumentsSlide DeckEarnings ReleaseInterim Report Alamos Gold Earnings HeadlinesFinancial Analysis: Algoma Steel Group (NASDAQ:ASTL) vs. Alamos Gold (NYSE:AGI)September 20 at 5:44 AM | americanbankingnews.comDeepMind co-founder warns AI capabilities must not outrun safety controls, FT reportsSeptember 16, 2026 | reuters.comLouis Navellier: My #1 AI stock for 2026 (name & ticker inside)Louis Navellier's Stock Grader system helped him flag Nvidia before its 82,000% run and has identified the top S&P 500 stock for 12 years running—and today, he's giving away his #1 AI stock pick for 2026, free. This company's sales are up 28% year over year, it holds over 30,000 patents in wireless and video technology, and it just earned an A-rating in his proprietary Stock Grader system that has cost him $9 million to build and maintain.September 21 at 1:00 AM | InvestorPlace (Ad)Wall Street Lunch: Nvidia's Huang Declares 'AGI Has Arrived' After OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra LaunchSeptember 8, 2026 | seekingalpha.comNvidia's Jensen Huang says 'AGI has arrived' and congratulates OpenAISeptember 6, 2026 | businessinsider.comOpenAI does a victory lap for its new AI model: 'Welcome to the AGI era'September 3, 2026 | businessinsider.comSee More Alamos Gold Headlines Get Earnings Announcements in your inboxWant to stay updated on the latest earnings announcements and upcoming reports for companies like Alamos Gold? Sign up for Earnings360's daily newsletter to receive timely earnings updates on Alamos Gold and other key companies, straight to your email. Email Address About Alamos GoldAlamos Gold (NYSE:AGI) is a Canadian-based gold producer engaged in the acquisition, exploration, development and operation of gold mines. The company produces gold doré and related by-products from its wholly owned mining operations in Canada and Mexico, and also maintains a portfolio of exploration and development projects. Alamos Gold’s principal Canadian assets are the Island Gold and Young-Davidson mines in Ontario, along with the Magino mine near Dubreuilville, Ontario. In Mexico, the company operates the Mulatos mining district in Sonora, which includes the La Yaqui Grande mine. Its development portfolio has included the Lynn Lake project in Manitoba, Canada, as well as other exploration properties in regions with established gold-mining potential. Founded in 2003, Alamos Gold began commercial production at the Mulatos mine in 2005 and has since expanded its operating base through acquisitions, mine development and exploration. John A. McCluskey has served as president and chief executive officer and has been associated with the company’s growth since its early years. The company’s shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol AGI.View Alamos Gold ProfileRead more More Earnings Resources from MarketBeat Earnings Tools Today's Earnings Tomorrow's Earnings Next Week's Earnings Upcoming Earnings Calls Earnings Newsletter Earnings Call Transcripts Earnings Beats & Misses Corporate Guidance Earnings Screener Latest Articles 5 Dividend Stocks That Combine Income, Earnings Growth, and Wall Street SupportCoach’s Momentum Powers Tapestry Despite the Stock’s Sharp Pullback3 Retail Stocks Getting Crushed and the Long-Dated Options Trade on Each One3 Surging Stocks That Don’t Need the AI Boom to Keep WinningJ.B. 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PresentationSkip to Participants Operator00:00:03All participants please stand by. Your conference is ready to begin. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Scott Parsons, Alamos Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:00:17Thank you, operator, and thanks to everybody for attending. Alamos Gold Inc. third quarter 2025 conference call. In addition to myself, we have on the line today John McCluskey, President and Chief Executive Officer, Greg Fisher, Chief Financial Officer, and Luc Guimond, Chief Operating Officer. We will be referring to a presentation. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:00:37During the conference call that is available. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:00:38Through the webcast and on our website, I would also like to remind everyone that our presentation will be followed by a Q and A session as we. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:00:47Will be making forward-looking statements during the call. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:00:49Please refer to the cautionary notes included in the presentation, news release, and MD&A as well as the risk factors set out in our annual information form. Technical information in this presentation has been reviewed and approved by Chris Bostwick, our Senior Vice President, Technical Services and a qualified person. Also, please bear in mind that all of the dollar amounts mentioned in this conference call are in U.S. Dollars unless otherwise noted. Now I'll turn it over to John to provide you with an overview. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:01:17Thank you, Scott. Starting with slide three. Before we go into the report for the quarter, I want to acknowledge that this has been far from a typical production year for Alamos Gold Inc. We experienced production downtime and lower production the first half of the year, which we're on pace to make up in the second half. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:01:39Unfortunately, in recent weeks, downtime at the Magino Mill and a seismic event at Island Gold will not give us the time to do so. As a result of these recent events, we've taken the prudent course and lowered guidance for the year by 6% from the midpoint of our original guidance. We have a reputation for taking a conservative approach to guiding the market and we pride ourselves on providing consistently accurate guidance. Suffice to say, we will continue to make operational improvements to raise the accuracy of our forecasting, recognizing that occasionally mining can be unpredictable. It remains to be said that while these recent events have a short-term impact, they in no way take away from the quality of our mines and what is without question one of the strongest outlooks in the gold sector. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:02:29We are already seeing significant improvements this month with better grades at Young-Davidson and throughput from the mines. This will ultimately support lower costs and an 18% production increase leading to record production in the fourth quarter. Production in the third quarter totaled 141,700 oz, a 3% increase from the second quarter driven by stronger performances from Mulatos and the Island Gold District. This was slightly below the low end of quarterly guidance reflecting one week of unplanned downtime within the Magino Mill during the last week of September reflecting lower costs from the Mulatos District. Total cash costs decreased 9% from the second quarter and all-in sustaining costs decreased 7%, both consistent with guidance. With higher production, a record gold price, and lower costs, we delivered record revenue, cash flow from operations, and record free cash flow of $130 million in the quarter. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:03:34We expect a significant improvement in both our fourth quarter production and costs to drive new financial records at current gold prices. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:03:45Turning to slide 4. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:03:48The majority of the third quarter we were on track to achieve our full year production guidance. Given the unplanned downtime of the Magino Mill in the last week of September and the seismic event at our Island Gold District operation in October, we're decreasing our 2025 production guidance to between 560,000 and 580,000 oz. This represents a 6% decrease from our original guidance released in January. Late in September, a capacitor failure within the Magino Mill impacted the electrical drive for the SAG and ball mills. This led to one week of downtime and lower third quarter production than originally expected. The mill was restarted by the end of September and continues to demonstrate improvement in October due to the unplanned downtime. Island Gold's mill was restarted in late September to focus on processing higher grade underground ore. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:04:41Given the record gold price environment, we will continue running both mills through the remainder of the year with the increased combined milling capacity supporting additional gold production, higher cash flow, and increased profitability. In mid-October, Young-Davidson mine experienced a seismic event which is a normal part of operating an underground mine. No personnel or equipment were impacted and mining rates are expected to continue within budgeted levels. However, this has delayed access to higher grades within one of our mining fronts. As a result, mine grades are expected to be lower than budgeted for the fourth quarter. Even with the lower than planned underground grades in the fourth quarter, we expect a substantial increase in production from Island Gold District driven by higher combined milling rates. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:05:31We expect similar increases at Young-Davidson driven by higher mining rates and grades and at Mulatos, with the recovery of higher grade ore stacked over the previous two quarters. All three operations are expected to contribute to an 18% increase in the fourth quarter production at lower costs, driving a further increase in free cash flow at current gold prices. Turning to slide 5, short term challenges we experienced this year have no impact on our strong long term outlook which remains firmly intact. The Phase 3+ Expansion at Island Gold will be a key driver of our growing production and declining costs over the next several years. The expansion is progressing well and with expected completion in the second half of 2026. The Lynn Lake project is another important part of our organic growth. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:06:27Forest fires in Northern Manitoba limited our progress on this project this year, but we expect to ramp construction activities in the spring of next year and initial production is now expected in 2029. This puts us on track to reach 900,000 oz of lower cost annual production by the end of this decade. The Island Gold District Expansion study currently underway is expected to outline further upside with the potential to increase consolidated production to 1 million ounces per year within a similar time frame. We generated year to date free cash flow of nearly $200 million in 2024 and expect to generate growing free cash flow as we execute on this growth. Following the startup of Lynn Lake, we expect to generate more than $1 billion of free cash flow annually at current gold prices. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:07:24Now looking at Slide 6, in addition to delivering on our organic growth plans, we continue to surface value from our portfolio of assets. This included announcing the sale of our Turkish development project for a total cash consideration of $470 million. The transaction closed earlier this week and marks a positive outcome. Realizing significant value for assets we had written off in 2021, we received $160 million on closing and the remainder $310 million will be received over the next two years. With our strong free cash flow during the third quarter and initial proceeds from the sale of our Turkish assets, our current cash balance has increased to over $600 million. We will be using the proceeds from the transaction and growing cash position to reduce our small debt position and we expect to be active on our share buyback. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:08:23We were also recognized for the second consecutive year as a TSX 30 winner by the Toronto Stock Exchange for our strong share price performance of 310% over the trailing three years. The award is a testament to our long term track record of outperformance, something we expect to continue to build upon as we deliver on our upcoming catalysts and organic growth plans. I'll now turn the call over to our CFO Greg Fisher to review our financial performance. Greg FisherCFO at Alamos Gold Inc00:08:56Thank you, John. On to Slide 7. We sold approximately 136,500 oz of gold in the third quarter at an average realized price of $3,359 per ounce for record revenues of $462 million. The average realized price was below the London PM fixed for the quarter, primarily due to the delivery of over 12,300 ounces into the gold prepaid facility at a fixed price of $2,524 per ounce. Greg FisherCFO at Alamos Gold Inc00:09:24We will deliver the same number of. Greg FisherCFO at Alamos Gold Inc00:09:26Ounces in the fourth quarter, after which the prepay obligation will be completed. As a reminder, the prepay facility was executed in July 2024 with the proceeds utilized to retire 180,000 oz of forward sale contracts inherited from Argonaut Gold across 2024 and 2025 with an average price of $1,840 per ounce. Based on an average gold price of almost $3,000 per ounce since July 2024, the company increased cash flow by approximately $40 million over that period. Given the decision to buy out the 180,000 oz of hedges 15 months ago through the execution of that prepay facility, quarter over quarter total cash cost and all-in sustaining costs decreased 9% and 7% respectively, and both were in line with quarterly guidance. We expect total cash costs and all-in sustaining costs to decrease a further 5% in the fourth quarter driven by higher production across all operations. Greg FisherCFO at Alamos Gold Inc00:10:25We remain on track to achieve full year cost guidance which was revised earlier in the year. We are now reporting total cash costs and all-in sustaining costs excluding the impact of mark-to-market adjustments for the revaluation of previously issued share-based instruments. This methodology provides a better representation of our total costs associated with producing an ounce of gold and eliminates volatility associated with mark-to-market adjustments. These mark-to-market adjustments to long-term instruments impact both total cash costs and all-in sustaining costs, given the company allocates these costs to mining and processing costs and share-based compensation expense on the income statement. Our reported net earnings were $276 million in the third quarter or $0.66 per share. This included a $193 million reversal of previously recognized impairment related to the Turkish projects as well as unrealized losses on hedge derivatives, foreign exchange impacts, and other adjustments totaling $72 million. Greg FisherCFO at Alamos Gold Inc00:11:28Excluding these items, adjusted net earnings were $157 million or $0.37 per share. Operating cash flow before changes in non-cash working capital was a record $275 million in the third quarter or $0.65 per share. Capital spending totaled $135 million and included $35 million of sustaining capital, $83 million of growth capital, and $17 million of capitalized exploration. Our consolidated 2025 capital guidance has been updated to between $539 million and $599 million, a 10% decrease from previous guidance, primarily reflecting lower spending at Lynn Lake. With the ramp up of construction activities shifting to 2026, free cash flow for the quarter totals a record $130 million, a 54% increase from the second quarter driven by record contributions from all three operations. This includes $73 million from the Mulatos District, $72 million from the Island Gold District, and $62 million from Young-Davidson. Greg FisherCFO at Alamos Gold Inc00:12:31Our cash balance grew 34% from the end of the second quarter to $463 million. Subsequent to quarter end, we received initial cash payments totaling $163 million from the sale of both our non-core Turkish development projects and the Quartz Mountain project, bringing our total cash position to over $600 million. Currently, combined with the undrawn balance on the credit facility, our total liquidity is over $1.1 billion. We expect growing production and declining costs to drive increasing free cash flow over the next several years while continuing to fund our organic growth plans. With a growing cash position, we expect to reduce our $250 million of debt currently outstanding while also evaluating opportunities to buy back shares and eliminate a portion of the remaining legacy Argonaut hedges. I will now turn the call over to our Chief Operating Officer, Luc Guimond, to provide an overview of our operations. Luke. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:13:30Thank you, Greg. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:13:31Over to slide 8. Third quarter production from the Island Gold District totaled 66,800 oz, a 4% increase from the previous quarter. A more substantial increase is expected in the fourth quarter driven by an increase in combined milling rates from the Island Gold and Magino mills. Magino's milling rates continued to increase through the third quarter until the last week of September, when a capacitor failure within the electrical house impacted the electrical drive for the SAG and ball mills. This resulted in one week of unplanned downtime. The capacitor and electrical drive module were replaced by the end of the quarter, following which milling rates have increased to average a new high in October. Quarter over quarter, underground mining rates increased 7% to 1,325 tons per day. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:14:20Open pit mining rates increased 4% to 59,000 tons per day, including a 28% increase in ore mined to 17,600 tons per day. Grades mined from underground and the open pit were consistent with annual guidance. In mid-October, a seismic event occurred within the underground operation of Island Gold that has delayed access to higher grade stopes within one mining front. Seismic events are not uncommon for underground operations, and mining rates are expected to remain within guided levels. However, grades mined in the fourth quarter are now expected to be lower than previously planned. We continue to expect a significant increase in production and decrease in costs in the fourth quarter. However, given the lower expected underground grades and unplanned downtime at the end of the third quarter, production guidance for the full year has been revised lower to between 260,000 and 270,000 oz. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:15:21Moving to slide 9, a number of optimization initiatives have been implemented within the Magino Mill over the past year that continue to drive improvements quarter over quarter. This included the installation of a redesigned liner and bolt configuration within the SAG Mill in July, such that following a liner change and excluding the one week of unplanned downtime at the end of September, milling rates increased nearly 10%. With the mill up and running by the end of the third quarter, milling rates have continued to improve in October, approaching 10,000 tons per day, a new monthly high for the operation. This will minimize potential unplanned downtime in the future and ensure increasing consistency of the operation. A further review of electrical components was completed to ensure all critical spares have been identified and are on site. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:16:10Moving to slide 10, given the unplanned downtime at the Magino Mill, the decision was made to restart the Island Gold Mill the last week of September to focus on processing higher grade underground ore. Operating the two mills will provide additional operational flexibility with increased milling capacity and allow us to capitalize on the higher gold price environment with stronger gold production. The restart of the Island Gold Mill provides an additional 1,200 tons per day of milling capacity. This is expected to support approximately 3,000 oz of additional gold production on a quarterly basis, driving increased cash flow and profitability at current gold prices. This represents nearly $50 million of additional annualized revenue with significantly higher gold prices, more than offsetting the higher processing costs associated with operating the Island Gold Mill. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:17:00We will operate the two mills through the end of this year and will evaluate its ongoing operation into 2026 as part of the expansion study. Over to slide 11. The Phase 3+ Expansion at Island Gold continues to progress with the shaft sink now at the 1,350 m level, 98% of the ultimate depth of 1,379 m. Work also commenced on the 1,350 level shaft station. The Magino Mill expansion to 12,400 tons per day is progressing well and is on track for completion in the second half of 2026. Base plant construction is advancing and expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2026. Mechanical and electrical outfitting for the water handling facility and shaft bin houses are ongoing, and concrete foundation work for the new administrative complex is underway. Over to slide 12. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:17:56As of quarter end, we have spent and committed 84% of the total Phase 3+ capital of $835 million. The photos on the right highlight the progress on the shaft sink and 1,350 level shaft station. We expect to be skipping ore from this station in the latter part of next year with the expansion on track for completion in the second half of 2026. Over to slide 13. We continue to advance the expansion study for the Island Gold District, which includes the evaluation of a larger mill expansion of up to 20,000 tons per day. The study is expected to include a larger mineral reserve through ongoing mineral resource conversion with encouraging results from our delineation drilling program supporting a strong rate of control conversion and reserve growth. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:18:43Work currently underway as part of the Phase 3+ Expansion at Island Gold to 12,400 tons per day is being completed with a larger expansion in mind. This includes sizing the footprint of the new mill building to accommodate additional equipment for a further expansion of up to 20,000 tons per day. To ensure all the assays from the recently completed delineation drilling program are incorporated into the expansion study, we have shifted the completion of the expansion study from late this year to the first quarter of 2026. With a larger mineral reserve and higher combined mining and milling rates, we expect the expansion study will demonstrate significant upside to the base case plan released earlier this year. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:19:25Over to Slide 14, Young-Davidson mine produced 37,900 oz in the quarter, similar to the second quarter, reflecting the planned shutdown of the Northgate shaft the first week of July to change the head ropes reflecting the downtime. Mining rates averaged 7,300 tons per day in the quarter. Given the lower mining rates earlier in the quarter, excess mill capacity, and higher gold prices, the low grade stockpile ore was processed. Mill throughput rates averaged 7,800 tons per day in the quarter, a 12% increase over the previous quarter, reflecting the contribution of lower grade stockpile ore. Process grades of 1.79 g per ton were 7% lower than mine grades, reflecting lower mining and milling rates for the first nine months of the year. Production guidance has been revised lower to between 160,000 and 165,000 oz. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:20:22Mining rates have returned to targeted levels, averaging 8,000 tons per day in September and October, and are expected to remain at similar levels the remainder of the year. Grades mined also increased towards the upper end of guidance in October at 2.25 g per ton and are expected to remain at similar levels the rest of the quarter. With higher mining rates and grades, Young-Davidson mine is expected to have a much stronger fourth quarter with higher production and lower costs. Mine site all-in sustaining costs decreased in the third quarter with a further decrease expected in the fourth quarter. The operation remains on track to achieve the full year cost guidance that was revised earlier in the year. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:21:05Young-Davidson continues delivering strong mine site free cash flow with $62 million generated in the quarter and $160 million in the first nine months of the year, already surpassing the previous full year record of $141 million in 2024. With strong ongoing free cash flow, the operation is on track to deliver well over $200 million for the full year at current gold prices. Over to Slide 15. Production from the Mulatos District totaled 37,000 oz in the third quarter, a 9% increase quarter over quarter with the operation benefiting from strong ongoing stacking rates and grades and the recovery of previously stacked ounces. This trend is expected to continue with a further increase in production in the fourth quarter as the operation benefits from the recovery of higher grade ore stacked in the previous two quarters. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:21:59With higher production expected in the fourth quarter, we are increasing full year production guidance to between 140,000 and 145,000 oz reflecting the stronger production cost decline in the third quarter and with a further decrease expected in the fourth quarter, the operation is well positioned to meet its full year cost guidance. The PDA project continued advancing during the quarter with the focus on procurement of long lead items and detailed engineering. Expenditures are expected to increase in the fourth quarter and more significantly into 2026 with the ramp up of construction activities. COJEK remains on budget and on track to achieve initial production mid 2027. The Mulatos District generated mine site free cash flow of $73 million in the quarter and $129 million in the first nine months of the year. It remains well positioned to continue generating strong free cash flow while fully funding construction of PDA. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:23:01With that I will turn the call back to John. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:23:05Thank you, Luc. I want to reiterate that this has not been a typical year for Alamos Gold Inc. and is not reflective of our long-term record of meeting or exceeding expectations. Our near-term and long-term outlook remain bright, with one of the strongest growth problems in the sector. We remain confident in our ability to deliver. On our guidance, we expect to demonstrate this strong outlook starting with a significant increase in price production and decreasing costs. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:23:34In the fourth quarter. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:23:35I'll now turn the call back to the operator, who will open it for your questions. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:23:49Hi, Mode, we'd like to open up. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:23:51The call for Q&A now, please. Operator00:23:53Certainly. Thank you. We will now take questions from the telephone lines. If you have a question, please press *1. You may cancel your questions at any time by pressing *2. Please press *1 at this time. If you have a question, there will be a brief pause while participants register for their questions. We thank you for your patience. Our first question is from Cosmos Chiu from CIBC. Please go ahead. Cosmos ChiuDirector of Precious Metals Equity Research at CIBC World Markets00:24:21Great. Cosmos ChiuDirector of Precious Metals Equity Research at CIBC World Markets00:24:22Thanks, John and team. Maybe my first question is on Q4. John, as you mentioned, you know, we're expecting increases to production in Q4. You've given us a range, 157,000 oz-177,000 oz, fairly sizable range, especially for quarterly production. Could you maybe just touch on, you know, some of the factors that could lead you to the higher end of that guidance versus, say, the lower end? Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:24:57Yep. Cosmos. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:24:58Hi, Luc here. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:24:59I mean, just across the operations as we've touched on, we're consistently delivering on the higher mining rates with Young-Davidson at 8,000 tons per day. The big driver really for the higher gold production also coming out of Young-Davidson in the fourth quarter is related to grade. You know, based on the mine plan that we have put forward for the fourth quarter, we're expecting to be at the high end of our guided grades of 2.05-2.25. So we're at the higher end of that 2.25 area. With regards to Mulatos, it's really a function of, you know, we've stacked a lot of gold in the first couple of quarters, Q1, Q2, and certainly Q3. We'll start to see more of that gold production coming off the leach pad in the fourth quarter, which will drive higher production for Mulatos. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:25:43Island Gold, we continue with similar guided levels of mining rates and certainly great performance as well through the fourth quarter as expected from Island. When you combine those three catalysts from those operations, that's what's really driving the higher gold production in the fourth quarter. Cosmos ChiuDirector of Precious Metals Equity Research at CIBC World Markets00:26:04Luc, since I have you here, could you maybe elaborate a little bit on that seismic activity that happened at Island Gold in mid October? It sounds like it's not a permanent issue. It doesn't seem like it has longer term impacts. Could you give us a bit more granularity in terms of what happened? Was it in a higher risk area? Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:26:29Yep, I can touch on that a bit. Just to emphasize, seismicity is just a natural aspect of a crisis that occurs with underground mining operations. As we extract the ore body through development and production blasting, we're changing the stress regime within the mining environment. In this case, the one mining front that was affected with this seismic event, really the reason that we've had to stop production from that one area is due to the fact that from a legislative perspective, we need to have two means of egress out of the mine. One being the ramp system, and in Island's case, the second one is an escape way between the levels. With this seismic event that happened within this one area, the escape way was compromised, meaning it needed some rehabilitation in order to bring it back online. We're just in the process of doing that. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:27:18It's not a long-term delay. We would expect to be back in that mining front area early December to continue production in there. It's not a long-term residual effect as a result of the seismic, but it is normal course of business. We always have seismic events. Some can be lower levels and some can be higher levels. In this case, it just resulted in some damage to the escape way, which we're addressing. Cosmos ChiuDirector of Precious Metals Equity Research at CIBC World Markets00:27:41Luc, you know, these escape ways, more permanent infrastructures, I would have thought that they are built to a standard that can certainly withstand some of these stress regimes. There are other factors as well. I guess my question is, was that unexpected? Has this happened before? What do you now have in place in terms of, you know, I understand that these types of activity happen, but what do you have in place now to hopefully mitigate some of the risk on a go forward basis? Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:28:13Yeah, look, I mean, I referenced with regards to our ground control management plan and in our seismic management plan that we have in place for all of our underground operations. In this case, the ground support continues to develop and change as we get into different mining areas and maybe different elevations of stress that are being seen within the mining operation. We adjust accordingly with that. We do have a lot of dynamic support in place to mitigate these sort of environments that happen when we do have an elevated stress. In this case, for the most part, I'd say the ground support actually worked as per expected. Just keep in mind, rehabilitation is also a natural function of an underground operation. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:28:57Residually, the scaling activities that occur and some additional ground support requirements as a result of some of these openings being open for longer term, and in this case, the escapeway being one of those. It's not uncommon to actually have to go back in and do some rehabilitation. In this case, again, because of the fact that the escapeway was being compromised, we've just had to go in and repair that escapeway to resume mining activities within that mining front. Great. Cosmos ChiuDirector of Precious Metals Equity Research at CIBC World Markets00:29:26Maybe one last question. As you mentioned, the expansion study for Island Gold is now expected in Q1 2026 versus Q4 2025, in part to incorporate potentially including the Island Gold mill in terms of running it into 2026. I guess in the end, maybe bigger picture, you know, gold prices are certainly much higher now compared to when you put out the Island Gold, the first base case study. Is there a bit of a shift in terms of thinking here in terms of lower grade material can actually now be profitable? Maybe running Island Gold for longer could increase the overall throughput, and you know, in the end, some of that lower grade ore could still generate cash and overall cash flow is higher. Cosmos ChiuDirector of Precious Metals Equity Research at CIBC World Markets00:30:20Is there that kind of thinking going on right now, John, in terms of how you're looking at Island Gold and maybe even broader picture as well, the other operations? How would that be incorporated into the year-end sort of reserve resource statement that's coming out? Cosmos ChiuDirector of Precious Metals Equity Research at CIBC World Markets00:30:38What kind of gold price would you look at? John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:30:41That's got to go down as one of the longest questions in history, Cosmo. Just looking at Island Gold, we envisioned at the time we acquired Argonaut with the idea of integrating both mines. We envisioned that that would ultimately evolve into something like a 20,000 ton per day operation. We're doing the work right now in order to bring that in front of the market, probably January, early February of next year. That's the time we're aiming for. That's just the optimal rate that mine ought to run at. It means it gets to part of your question. For example, right now we're milling about 1 gram material coming out of the open pit and we're stockpiling lower grade material. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:31:41It's an absolute fact that with the lower cost and the higher throughput rate of not putting anything in stockpile, just putting it all through the mill, that's a much more profitable way to go about it. We'll be able to demonstrate that with the numbers that we'll provide early next year. You're not double handling ore on a combined grade. In other words, mixing in that lower grade material. It's basically running around half a gram. Mixing that in with the 1 gram material, we're still running a pretty decent head grade. You're just doing it all at a greater scale. You're benefiting from the economies of scale and absolutely doing it at a lower cost because there's no double handling anymore. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:32:29From the point of view of this bigger mine that we envision at Island Gold, it also envisions roughly 3,000 tons of underground throughput from the Island mine itself. That takes production up over half a million ounces a year, brings costs down closer to that $1,100, $1,200 ASIC, somewhere in that range. The study will define it more precisely, but you can see we're sitting on roughly somewhere between 11 and 12 million ounces of reserves and resources. That's a really sensible approach to take for the development of that mine. We can get there with relatively. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:33:23How. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:33:23Should I put it, bite sized capital costs. It's not a real stretch for us to get it there and you know, it's sort of the next step in our evolution at that project site. We're not thinking about that at either Young-Davidson or Mulatos. Young-Davidson, it's not really that sensitive to the gold price to be honest. It's just the way that ore body is. We're mining it in a very profitable way. Obviously we're generating, you know, phenomenal cash flows and now we've got that mill running very, very well, consistently hitting 8,000 tons a day. You know, you're going to see Young-Davidson have a great year next year. Long term at Mulatos, you know, the game changer is going to be going underground and mining high grade underground sulfide material and processing it through the mill that we're going to build. John McCluskeyPresident and CEO at Alamos Gold Inc00:34:30That really is the future for Mulatos. I mean it's not like we've run out of targets for finding additional oxide material. It's a big district and we're still poking around doing greenfields exploration in various areas and actually getting some interesting results. The main thrust of what we're doing at Mulatos is to transition from heap leach, low grade heap leach production to higher grade underground production. In the grand scheme of things that's where we're going. It's not like we're taking this one concept driven by a higher gold price and trying to apply it across every operation. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:35:14The only other thing there, Cosmo, is just, you know, with regards to the 20,000 ton per day plan for the Island Gold District. That hasn't changed. I mean, we're still looking to put that obviously out. We've changed the guidance on that to put it out early in Q1. You know, it'll outline a plan of running 17,000 tons per day coming from open pit operation, 3,000 tons per day coming from underground operations. That still is the plan as far as the Island mill that we're still continuing to run at this point, which we restarted in September. We'll evaluate that as part of our business plans for 2026. You know, given this high gold price environment, giving us more gold production certainly and more cash flow, it may make sense to continue to run that in 2026. We're still evaluating that. Great. Thanks. Cosmos ChiuDirector of Precious Metals Equity Research at CIBC World Markets00:36:07Sorry for my extra long question. I still haven't thanked Scott Parsons for putting out earnings during game five of the World Series. It certainly has not impacted my performance. Thanks again, John and Gui. Operator00:36:21Thank you. A following question is from Ovais Habib from Scotiabank. Please go ahead. Ovais HabibPrecious Metals Analyst at Scotiabank00:36:29Hi, John, Alamos team. A couple of questions for me as well. Cosmos asked a couple of questions that I had. Just a follow up to Cosmos' questions on the seismic activity at Island Gold. Really glad to hear no personnel or equipment were impacted by this event. That was really good to hear. In terms of, and maybe this question is for Luke, in terms of active mining fronts, how many active mining fronts do you have access to at Island Gold? As well as, how does this impact mine sequencing going into 2026? Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:37:08We typically carry about three to four mining fronts with the mining rates that we're currently running at right now. Obviously, with the ramp up as we continue to head towards 2,400 tons a day through the course of next year, our development will put us into a place where we'll be developing more mining fronts. As I mentioned, in this case, we've just basically shifted our focus from this one mining front that's been put on hold until we get that escape way in place and look to generate production from some of the other areas of the mine in the interim. As I mentioned, it's a short term issue with regards to the seismic event that happened there. We're looking to resume the mining in that specific mining front early in December. Ovais HabibPrecious Metals Analyst at Scotiabank00:37:52Thanks for the color on that, Luc. Also, in terms of when you do get access to additional money funds, I mean, isn't that a mitigating factor on itself? You know, going into 2026, then. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:38:05Sorry, can you repeat that question, Ovais? I didn't quite get it. Ovais HabibPrecious Metals Analyst at Scotiabank00:38:08I'm basically trying to figure out, is when you do start increasing the number of mining funds as you go into 2026 and into the expansion, isn't that a mitigating factor on itself. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:38:21With regards to the production profile? It certainly gives us more flexibility, I think is what you're getting at. Yes, it will give us more flexibility as far as maintaining the mining rates that we're looking at. Again, in this case, we haven't changed our guided levels for Q4 for mining rates. It's just that we've had to refocus some of the activity as far as our production for the fourth quarter because of the fact that we got about a six week interruption from this one mining front until we get the escapeway re-established. Ovais HabibPrecious Metals Analyst at Scotiabank00:38:48Perfect. Thanks for that. Just moving on to Magino. With the unplanned downtime at Magino Mill that was, I believe, late September, were you also able to take advantage of this downtime to do any sort of additional maintenance on the mill as well? Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:39:03We did. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:39:06Through the quarter, I think we spoke about this with the last quarter release that there was a liner bolt configuration redesign that we actioned in the quarter. We did that in July. We also had some scheduled maintenance in August for the ball mill. Certainly, with that one week interruption with regards to the capacitor failing, which led to the drive module also failing, that we had to get replaced, we did take the opportunity to do some other plant maintenance within the Magino Mill facility as well. Ovais HabibPrecious Metals Analyst at Scotiabank00:39:34Okay, thanks for that. Just moving towards exploration. I don't know if the other Scott is online. Hey Scott, can you give us a brief. Ovais HabibPrecious Metals Analyst at Scotiabank00:39:49Kind of overview of where you are. Ovais HabibPrecious Metals Analyst at Scotiabank00:39:50Currently focused on the exposure side and especially if you continue to have success on Island Gold west as well as in close proximate. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:40:01Yeah, you can provide an overview year to date. If you look at Island Gold, we really did shift our strategy from the start of the year from exploration into delineation. That delineation program now has been completed successfully in the third quarter, both at Magino and at Island Gold. That really was focusing on converting that inferred mineral base that remains at our June update for the expansion study, converting that into reserves. That process now of the reserve calculation is underway with the delineation results coming in or have been received at Island as well. We continue now shifting in the fourth quarter to exploration. We're drilling Island down plunge. We're drilling the upper portions of Island to the west between Island and Magino within that main Island belt structure. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:40:56That is ongoing. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:40:57We've also started Phase Two drill program at Klein and Edwards, which is building off the success of the first part of the year. That's the past producing mines that are 7 km from the Magino Mill, and we're excited about the results that we put out in the first half of the year. Exploration is ongoing at Young-Davidson. That hanging wall exploration drift at 9620 has been developed, and we're drilling from that now. That's focused on defining that high grade zone in the conglomerate. We've drilled 15 holes there. Our assays are just starting to come in. Drilling is ongoing, and we'll continue stepping out from that zone that we've defined, looking to expand on that mineralization. We're also starting a regional program. That fourth quarter at Young-Davidson focused on ROT's target, which is only 3 km from the Young-Davidson mill. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:41:51We see that as potential for future open pits, ore that could come into the mill at some point in the future. At Mulatos, as John touched on, really focused this year on sulfide exploration across the district and having success in several targets. Building on in the first half of the year, drilling at PDA, continuing to expand mineralization at Cerro Pelon, testing a number of other sulfide targets in that district that the team has worked up. We're excited by some of the results that we're seeing at Mulatos. I think that really points to the transition, as John said, from shifting from local looking for oxide, which we're still doing. There are still targets, but really focusing in on building out the sulfide inventory, the high grade underground components of what could be the future of that district. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:42:44I guess the last point I'll shift. Scott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Alamos Gold Inc00:42:46This is Kykavik, which was the greenfield project in Nunavik in Northern Quebec that we acquired with Orford Mining. That exploration on Kykavik was executed in the third quarter. We planned on doing 7,000 m. We did 9,000 m, and really the objective there was trying to find the source of these high-grade boulders that have been defined across that belt. We drilled in five target areas. Assays are just coming in. Certainly happy that we accomplished more drilling there than what we anticipated based on the execution of the program and what we're seeing in some of that core. Ovais HabibPrecious Metals Analyst at Scotiabank00:43:31Thanks, Scott, for that. That was a great overview of exploration. Appreciate that. That's it for me, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Operator00:43:41Thank you. Our following question is from Parel Turek from Jefferies, please go ahead. Operator00:43:48Hi. Operator00:43:48Thanks for taking my question. Just on the Magino Mill, can you maybe provide some more color on how you're thinking about the targeted throughput maybe by the end of this year? I believe it was previously 11,200 tons per day and then 12,400 tons per day next year. How should we be thinking about that given some of the ramp up issues so far? Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:44:10Yeah, Luc here. Similar line of sight as I mentioned, through the third quarter there certainly we had some changes to make to the SAG mill with regards to the liner bolt configuration, which we did schedule ball mill liner change. Obviously, the failure with the capacitor in September put us back a bit. Really starting in mid July, up until that capacitor issue that we had at the end of September, the mill was on a path that was consistently delivering above 10,000 tons per day through that period. Since we've repaired the capacitor failure that we had at the end of September and resumed milling activities through the month of October, we've been consistently averaging just above 10,000 tons per day as well. Our goal to hitting that 11.2 by the end of the year still is intact. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:45:01Just some more fine tuning that we need to do between now and the end of the quarter to be able to consistently deliver that. The 12.4 scenario, longer term, we're obviously working on some of that expansion already. We need more additional equipment at the back end of the mill with regards to the CIP, the leach circuit, the refinery, and elution in order to be able to handle a higher gold content coming into the plant. We're working through that. The other aspect of it is also up front, the crushing capacity is there. We're still evaluating on the grinding capacity requirements with potentially a third grinding circuit in that circuit to be able to support the 12.4. We're still evaluating that as part of the overall mill expansion, to be honest with you. That's part of what will come out early in the new year. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:45:48Okay, that's helpful. Maybe just as a follow up, if the Magino Mill is able to get to 11.2 thousand tons per day by the end of this year, things are improving. Would that be reason enough not to keep running the Island Gold? Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:46:02I think at these gold prices, Fahad, it's probably. I mean we're evaluating this, but I would think we want to put as much throughput as we can through, and running those two mills at these gold prices probably makes sense. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:46:17Got it. Thank you very much. Operator00:46:20Thank you. Our following question is from Satish Kasinathan from Bank of America. Sorry. Please go ahead. Sathish KasinathanVP and Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America00:46:31Yeah, hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Most of my questions have been asked and answered, maybe a question for Greg. With over $600 million cash balance, you indicated that you will be more active in buybacks. How should we think about the cadence of buybacks on a quarterly or an annual basis? Do you have a target run rate in mind? Also, given your growth projects, how should we think about, like, a minimum cash balance? Greg FisherCFO at Alamos Gold Inc00:47:01Thank you. Greg FisherCFO at Alamos Gold Inc00:47:02I mean, from a share buyback perspective, we've never put targets in place. What we always want to do is be opportunistic with respect to that. We also look at our other needs of capital, whether it's growing the business or paying down debt. We're looking at all of those. I don't want to point to a specific target in terms of the buybacks, but based on the pullback in the share price, in the gold price that we've seen over the last week to two weeks, plus the reaction today, we expect to be active on the share buyback. In terms of a minimum cash balance, again, we have lots of liquidity. We have $1.1 billion of liquidity currently in terms of the current cash balance of $600 million. Greg FisherCFO at Alamos Gold Inc00:47:51We want to be active on the share buyback, we want to pay down some debt, we want to evaluate whether we're going to buy back some of the legacy Argonaut Gold hedges. All of those will be sources of capital, but we are ultimately growing the business from 600,000 oz to upwards of a million ounces by the end of the year. We do need to make sure that we have sufficient capital, but we do have free cash flow as we speak right now. From minimum cash balance, I'd say we probably want to always have at least $300 million, $250 million to $300 million on the balance sheet. Sathish KasinathanVP and Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America00:48:29Okay, thank you. Maybe a question on Young-Davidson. It seems the mill has been operating at 8,000 tonnes per day for a couple of months now. Do you think the mill's performance has reached a level that it can continue to consistently operate at this level? Given the current gold prices, is there potential for maybe pushing the mill to a higher end rate? Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:48:53The mill has been performing quite well at Young-Davidson. Obviously, the overall lower production that's come out through Q3 and some of the previous quarters has been more related to giving all of the feed that we can from the mining operations. Certainly in Q3, it was related to the hoist rope change that we had to make with regards to the head ropes. The mill has been performing quite well, no issues there. On the aspect of actually looking to see if it can do more, that's something that we've been looking at and seeing with other opportunities to be able to increase the overall throughput through that mill complex. It would not necessarily come from more underground ore. You know, the mine's designed and the infrastructure is designed to support 8,000 tons per day. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:49:36There are other opportunities with some of the smaller satellite open pit deposits within the region of Young-Davidson that we could look to bring into a mine plan and provide additional mill feed to the YD mill complex with some minor capital requirements to be. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:49:53Able to do that. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:49:55The potential would be to probably get it up to probably 9,000 tons per day consistently. Sathish KasinathanVP and Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America00:50:01Okay, thank you. Operator00:50:04Thank you. Once again, please press*1 at this time for any questions or comments. The following question is from Don DeMarco from National Bank. Please go ahead. Don DeMarcoDirector and Equity Research Analyst of Metals and Mining at National Bank Financial00:50:18Thank you, operator, and good morning, Don and team. Maybe just a quick question on the capacitor incident. What were the root causes of that, and is there a risk of a repeat? Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:50:31The capacitor failure? We're still actually having that analyzed. I don't have a firm answer on that. It's not something that you would typically see, to be honest with you. There could have been a defect within that part itself. We've been running our Island Gold mill complex and our Young-Davidson mill complex for years, and I've never experienced that sort of failure with a capacitor. It wasn't just the capacitor. The capacitor failing was part of it, but that led to some residual damage within the drive unit of the power modules that operate the SAG mill and the ball mill. We had some other component failure there like resistors and a bus bar and some other electrical components that resulted in some additional repairs. This is not normal course of business. We've never seen this with any of our other operations. I'd say it's at this point. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:51:20It's a one-off. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:51:21We still need to do further diagnosis to understand exactly what happened with that capacitor. Don DeMarcoDirector and Equity Research Analyst of Metals and Mining at National Bank Financial00:51:27Okay. I look forward to that. It sounds like the timing of mining. Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:51:32The other thing I would add to that is that, you know, from an inventory aspect and just making sure that we have all of the product, we have done another further thorough review of our electrical components for running that plant to make sure that we have all of the critical spares that we need just to prevent any sort of significant downtime moving forward. Don DeMarcoDirector and Equity Research Analyst of Metals and Mining at National Bank Financial00:51:54Okay, then just to my next question. With regard to the Magino Mill and combining the two ore streams back into that mill, it sounds like it's potentially 2026, maybe later. Seems like there's good reason at this gold price to keep the 1,200 ton per day Island mill running. Since you've done it before, you've done it once already in July. Would the second time around be somewhat routine, just with a quicker ramp up? Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:52:21Yeah, it's pretty seamless to be honest with you, to put both ore streams into the one plant. I think I've mentioned before, we did a couple of batch tests just to confirm the metallurgy back in Q2, Q3, and you know, that all was validated. Frankly, you know, running that combined ore stream into the Magino Mill from really mid-July until we did have that capacitor failure at the end of September, metallurgically, everything was performing quite well, both from a gravity recovery point of view as well as overall recovery. The expectations were as per what we were expecting as far as what we modeled to what we were seeing in the plants. It's a pretty easy, simple transition. Just provide that ore feed back into the stream and combine the two streams into one feeding into the one mill complex. Don DeMarcoDirector and Equity Research Analyst of Metals and Mining at National Bank Financial00:53:06Okay. Just as a final question, turning to Lynn Lake development, we see that the timeline has been impacted by the wildfires. How about CapEx? Can you give any more granularity on the implications to the CapEx estimate to develop that project? Luc GuimondCOO at Alamos Gold Inc00:53:28I mean, capex wise, I guess, you know, you'll have the inflation component there over the next because of the fact that it's been delayed a bit. I think what we've, you know, we basically lost all of the construction season this summer, which is the most productive period that you can have, certainly in northern Manitoba or northern Ontario, depending on where we're building these up. As a result of that, our original timeline was mid-2028. Now we're moving that out to early 2029. You're going to have a bit of an inflation factor that gets factored into that. Greg FisherCFO at Alamos Gold Inc00:53:59Yeah, I mean, just adding to that, we put out the study a couple years ago. You have three years of inflation since we put out that study with this additional year that Luke just introduced, commented on moving it out to 2029. Inflation on capital projects has run around 5 to 6%. You can expect a 15% increase in our capital that we put out in the feasibility study for Lynn Lake. Don DeMarcoDirector and Equity Research Analyst of Metals and Mining at National Bank Financial00:54:31Okay, thank you. Thank you for taking my questions. That's all for me. Good luck with the rest of the quarter. Operator00:54:38Thank you. There are no further questions registered at this time. This concludes this morning. Call if you have any further questions that have not been answered. Please feel free to contact Mr. Scott Parsons at 416-368-9932, extension 5439.Read moreParticipantsExecutivesGreg FisherCFOJohn McCluskeyPresident and CEOLuc GuimondCOOScott ParsonsSVP of Corporate Development and Investor RelationsAnalystsAnalyst at JefferiesCosmos ChiuDirector of Precious Metals Equity Research at CIBC World MarketsSathish KasinathanVP and Equity Research Analyst at Bank of AmericaOvais HabibPrecious Metals Analyst at ScotiabankDon DeMarcoDirector and Equity Research Analyst of Metals and Mining at National Bank FinancialPowered by