OceanaGold Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Strong quarterly performance: OceanaGold produced approximately 139,000 ounces of gold and generated $130 million in free cash flow, while adjusted EBITDA margin reached a record 61%. The company remains debt-free with $655 million in cash.
  • Positive Sentiment: The company returned $78 million to shareholders in Q2 and $174 million in the first half through dividends and buybacks; $134 million of its authorized $350 million 2026 buyback program has been completed.
  • Positive Sentiment: Production and growth projects remain on track: Management maintained full-year guidance and expects gold production to rise in Q4, while Waihi North decline development advanced nearly 200 meters and remains on plan for continued growth investment.
  • Negative Sentiment: Full-year all-in sustaining costs are expected to approach the upper end of guidance, reflecting labor inflation, increased maintenance spending, higher unhedged diesel costs, and lower silver by-product credits. Growth capital spending is also expected to increase in the second half.
  • Positive Sentiment: Haile, Macraes, Waihi, and Didipio all showed operational progress, including record mill throughput at Haile and Waihi, stronger expected second-half production at Haile and Didipio, and exploration and mine-life extension opportunities at several sites.
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Earnings Conference Call
OceanaGold Q2 2026
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Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the OceanaGold Corporation Q2 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Thursday, August 7th, 2026. I would now like to turn the conference over to Valerie Burns. Please go ahead.

Valerie Burns
Valerie Burns
Director of Investor Relations at OceanaGold

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to OceanaGold's second quarter 2026 operating and financial results webcast and conference call. I'm Valerie Burns, Director of Investor Relations. Joining me today are Gerard Bond, President and Chief Executive Officer, Marius van Niekerk, Chief Financial Officer, and Bhuvanesh Malhotra, Chief Operating Officer. The presentation that we will be referencing during the conference call is available through the webcast and on our website. As we will be making forward-looking statements during the call, please refer to the cautionary notes included in the MD&A and annual information form. All dollar amounts discussed in this conference call are in U.S. dollars. I will now turn the call over to Gerard for opening remarks.

Gerard Bond
Gerard Bond
President and CEO at OceanaGold

Thank you, Val, and good morning, everyone. We had a really good second quarter. We safely and responsibly delivered 7% more gold than we did in the first quarter. We continued to generate strong free cash flow. We made great progress with our organic growth projects. We returned meaningful amounts of capital to shareholders, and we still added cash to the balance sheet. Our gold production of around 139,000 oz and copper production of 2,700 tons was in line with plan, keeping us on track to deliver on our full-year guidance. Our margins remained strong. Even with the pullback from the record-high gold prices of the first quarter, the second quarter delivered a record quarterly adjusted EBITDA margin of 61%.

Gerard Bond
Gerard Bond
President and CEO at OceanaGold

After investing in our growth projects, which include the Waihi North Project and the Palomino Underground mine, we generated $130 million of free cash flow, taking us to $385 million of free cash flow year to date. In line with our capital allocation framework, we continue to actively provide capital returns to shareholders, returning $78 million through dividends and buybacks in the quarter. And we strengthened the balance sheet with cash up 6% to $655 million, and we remain debt-free. We made great progress at our flagship Waihi North Project, with the tunnel towards the high-grade Wharekirauponga ore body is well underway, and we have advanced numerous other aspects of this exciting project. Finally, we released more high-grade drill results for multiple targets at Haile. These demonstrate our ability to add value through exploration and highlight the significant upside potential that we have in our portfolio.

Gerard Bond
Gerard Bond
President and CEO at OceanaGold

We are on track to deliver on our 2026 guidance. At the halfway mark of the year, we're around halfway towards the midpoint of full-year guidance for both gold production and capital spend, and we expect stronger copper production in the second half that will achieve our copper production guidance. In terms of the shape of the rest of the year, we expect the company's third quarter gold production to be similar to the second quarter, and we expect fourth quarter gold production to be the highest of the year. This increase is driven by expected stronger production at Haile in the third quarter and again in the fourth. This higher gold production in the second half, together with a lower rate of sustaining capital, is expected to drive our all-in sustaining costs lower in the third quarter and again in the fourth.

Gerard Bond
Gerard Bond
President and CEO at OceanaGold

Our all-in sustaining costs for the year is anticipated to near the upper end of our 2026 guidance range. This reflects labor cost inflation, more investment in maintenance and reliability improvements that have really high payback, the impacts of higher diesel prices where we are unhedged, and lower silver by-product credits due to a lower silver price than we expected. Total capital expenditure is expected to be in line with guidance. In the coming half, we expect an increase in growth capital for the Waihi North project and Leadbetter Underground and more waste stripping at Haile, partially offset by lower sustaining CapEx across the company. Overall, we're very pleased with our performance in the first half of 2026 and remain focused on safely and responsibly delivering on our full-year guidance in the second half.

Gerard Bond
Gerard Bond
President and CEO at OceanaGold

Our capital allocation framework allocates our operating cash flow in a very balanced way, and you can see how in the first half of this year, we're almost evenly distributing it to sustaining the business, growing the business, returning capital, and adding cash to the balance sheet. By component. The $165 million of sustaining capital include investments in site infrastructure, improving the integrity of plants and equipment, mobile fleet improvements, as well as deferred stripping and capitalized mining. Our growth capital of $118 million was mainly investment in the Waihi North project and the Leadbetter Underground at Haile. The $25 million of exploration expenditures reflects that big step up in drilling across the portfolio, where we think we can add enormous value to exploration.

Gerard Bond
Gerard Bond
President and CEO at OceanaGold

We remain very focused on shareholder returns and are pleased to have returned a total of $174 million of shareholders' money back to them in the first half of the year through our high dividend and share buyback program. A reminder that we have an approved program of up to $350 million of buybacks for 2026, of which $134 million has been bought back to date. After all that, we were still able to add $178 million of cash to the balance sheet in the first half of the year, which is a 37% increase in cash from the year-end. In summary, our capital allocation framework is working as intended, funding the business, investing in growth, strengthening the balance sheet, and delivering attractive returns to shareholders. I'll now turn the call over to Marius to discuss our financial results in more detail.

Marius van Niekerk
Marius van Niekerk
CFO at OceanaGold

Thank you, Gerard, and good morning, everyone. Q2 delivered another strong set of financial results. Notably, we achieved a record-adjusted EBITDA margin of 61%, driven by the lower cost of sales and a lower additional government share at Didipio, also reflecting our ability to translate strong operational performance and disciplined cost management bottom line. We place strong emphasis on our per share metrics, which pleasingly reflects step-ups across the board. On screen, we compare second quarter against the same period last year, all financial metrics improved. EBITDA was up 84%, operating cash flow was up 38%, and earnings per share increased by 102% to $0.99. We generated free cash flow of $130 million, resulting in a free cash flow per share of $0.58.

Marius van Niekerk
Marius van Niekerk
CFO at OceanaGold

After the investment in organic growth and shareholder returns that Gerard spoke about, and after higher annual tax and government cash payments made this quarter, we were able to still add $35 million in cash to the balance sheet. We generated revenue in the quarter of $647 million at an average realized gold price of just over $4,400/oz, reflecting the timing of our gold sales. These are solid financial results, importantly, with increasing production and unit costs expected to come down, we remain well-positioned to continue to generate significant free cash flow for the remainder of the year. As it relates to the Iran conflict, to date, there's been no disruption to our operations related to fuel or the supply network. We hedge approximately 80% of our diesel requirements at both Haile and Macraes.

Marius van Niekerk
Marius van Niekerk
CFO at OceanaGold

With those hedges in place, should oil prices of around $100/bbl prevail for the remainder of 2026, we continue to estimate an AISC impact of around $25/oz. We've extended 80% diesel hedges across all our operations from Q1 2027. I will now pass the call over to Bhuvanesh to discuss our operating performance.

Bhuvanesh Malhotra
Bhuvanesh Malhotra
COO at OceanaGold

Thank you, Marius, good morning, everyone. At Haile, we had a strong quarter, producing 60,000 oz of gold, which was in line with our guidance, driven by increased access to open pit ore in Leadbetter 3 and higher-grade ore from the Horseshoe Underground. We expect this trend to continue in the second half of the year, with production to increase in the third quarter and then again in the fourth quarter, all-in sustaining cost is expected to decrease each quarter. Our continued mill optimization initiatives and the hard work of the team resulted in the outstanding achievement in June of record monthly mill throughput, the highest since the mill was commissioned in 2017. Development of the decline towards Palomino Underground progressed in the quarter, remaining in line with the plan to achieve first ore in 2028.

Bhuvanesh Malhotra
Bhuvanesh Malhotra
COO at OceanaGold

We continue to drill targets at Horseshoe, Leadbetter Underground, Pisces, and Clydesdale in the second half of the year. Haile is performing to plan and is well-positioned to continue delivering for the remainder of the year. Macraes had an exceptional first half of the year, producing 64% of the midpoint of its guidance already, driven by higher grades mined and processed from the Innes Mills open pit. In line with plan, production is expected to step down in the second half of the year, with full-year production and cost still expected to be within the guidance. At Coronation North, waste stripping continued to progress during the quarter in preparation for ore access later this year.

Bhuvanesh Malhotra
Bhuvanesh Malhotra
COO at OceanaGold

We accelerated exploration programs across several areas at Macraes during the quarter, with focus on resource conversion and expansion. We are expecting to submit the Macraes Phase IV Fast Track application for our ongoing mine life extension plans in the third quarter of this year. We are continuing to evaluate further extension opportunities that could potentially extend mine life into the 2040s, given the leverage of this asset to the gold price and the inherent optionality at the site. We look forward to sharing more about these developments later this year. A real highlight in July, Macraes produced its 6 millionth oz of gold, a tremendous milestone that demonstrates how innovation, resilience, and disciplined operational execution can drive real value creation and is a great credit to the team there, past and present.

Bhuvanesh Malhotra
Bhuvanesh Malhotra
COO at OceanaGold

At Waihi, we maintained consistent production with just under 17,000 oz of gold produced in the second quarter, remaining on track to deliver its full-year production guidance. All-in sustaining cost in the quarter was impacted by the processing of lower-grade stockpile material. With access to higher-grade underground stopes now available, we expect all-in sustaining cost to decrease in the second half of the year. Pleasingly, Waihi achieved a record quarterly mill throughput since becoming an underground-only operation in 2016. A great result for the team there. I'd like to spend a moment on the Waihi North project, where we reached a significant milestone this quarter with the opening of the portal and the commencement of decline development towards the Wharekirauponga underground in May. Since then, the decline development has progressed in line with the plan, nearing 200 m as we speak.

Bhuvanesh Malhotra
Bhuvanesh Malhotra
COO at OceanaGold

Additionally, the service trench was completed in July, and the commissioning of the expanded water treatment plant is expected by the end of the third quarter. The next key milestone for the project will be the addition of the second jumbo underground to begin the twin tunnels towards the Wharekirauponga ore body. We expect growth capital to continue to increase in the second half of the year as development activities across the project ramps up. On exploration at Wharekirauponga, drilling is set to accelerate in the second half of the year. We have now added two new drill rigs, bringing the total number of active drill rigs to five. We look forward to increased drilling as it continues to grow and define this exciting ore body that will anchor what we believe will be a flagship asset for many years to come.

Bhuvanesh Malhotra
Bhuvanesh Malhotra
COO at OceanaGold

At the DPO, we produced over 21,000 oz of gold and around 2,700 tons of copper in the second quarter, an improvement in gold production from the prior quarter despite some mill downtime. Underground mining rates improved, and excitingly, during the quarter, the decline development resumed as well. With underground mining rates planned to continue ramping up, we expect production to increase in the second half of the year. All-in sustaining cost is expected to decrease as a result of a higher gold and copper production and lower sustaining capital expenditures in the second half of the year. Exploration at the DPO is accelerating. We now have three drills operating underground and have an additional rig testing the extents of the DPO mineralization at depth.

Bhuvanesh Malhotra
Bhuvanesh Malhotra
COO at OceanaGold

At True Blue, an area of known mineralization 800 m northeast of the DPO, we continue to drill, targeting the addition of new mineral resources by year-end. I'll now turn the call back to Gerard.

Gerard Bond
Gerard Bond
President and CEO at OceanaGold

Thank you, Bhuvanesh. In summary, this was another strong quarter in what we expect to be another strong year for OceanaGold. To wrap it all up, we achieved record mill throughput rates at Haile and Waihi. Mine performance was very good at the DPO, where we're also back into decline development. Macraes delivered strongly and is creating attractive options for its future, whilst recently celebrating production of its 6 millionth oz. Tremendous progress has been made at the Waihi North project and driving towards the new Wharekirauponga underground mine. We had some stellar exploration results at Haile. We safely and responsibly delivered to plan, remaining on track to meet guidance while generating record adjusted EBITDA margins and strong free cash flow. We also strengthened the balance sheet and returned meaningful capital to shareholders. We had some excellent drill results.

Gerard Bond
Gerard Bond
President and CEO at OceanaGold

I'm excited about continuing to share some of these drill results over the year as we deploy our record investment in exploration. In closing, I want to recognize the OceanaGold team. This quarter's strong results reflects their hard work and operating discipline, and I'd like to extend my thanks to everyone throughout OceanaGold for their efforts. I'll now return the call to the operator and open up the line to take any questions.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you just simply press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw a question, please press star then the number two. Your first question comes from Ovais Habib from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Ovais Habib
Ovais Habib
Analyst at Scotiabank

Thanks, operator. Hi, Gerard and OceanaGold team. Congrats on a good quarter. I've been bouncing between two conference calls, so apologize if you've already touched on the questions I may ask. Starting off with Haile, the accelerated stripping at the Snake Pit that we're doing at the beginning of the year, I think you may be continuing that right now as well. Can you please remind us why you pulled that stripping forward? Should this translate into any sort of lower stripping costs going into 2027?

Gerard Bond
Gerard Bond
President and CEO at OceanaGold

Hi, Ovais. I don't think we pulled it forward so much, we just changed the sequence. I'll hand that one over to Marius.

Marius van Niekerk
Marius van Niekerk
CFO at OceanaGold

Hi, Ovais. We had that winter storm in Q1, so we took the opportunity to review the mine sequence with a focus on staying productive and efficient for that long-term plan. In the first half, we did about 1.6 million tons of stripping, which we reported as growth, given consideration to its growth potential and value, and we intend to strip another 2 million tons in the second half. Probably another $8 million of spend from a stripping perspective.

Ovais Habib
Ovais Habib
Analyst at Scotiabank

Got it. Sounds good. Thanks for the color on that. Just staying at Haile, looks like the Palomino decline is progressing well. Are you planning to set up drill stations along the way to test the area between Horseshoe and underground and Palomino? Is that in the plan? Any color on that would be appreciated.

Gerard Bond
Gerard Bond
President and CEO at OceanaGold

Yeah, absolutely. That's the intention, Ovais. We can get much better access, different angles, shorter drill lengths, increase the density into Pisces from there, also getting good angles back into the Horseshoe Underground. That is absolutely the intention.

Ovais Habib
Ovais Habib
Analyst at Scotiabank

Has that been happening already, or are you going to be setting up the drill stations in the second half?

Gerard Bond
Gerard Bond
President and CEO at OceanaGold

We put some drill holes into Pisces from there. Again, as we get greater length, or closer to Palomino, we're going to have greater access points to get into Pisces from there as well. We're on the way.

Ovais Habib
Ovais Habib
Analyst at Scotiabank

Moving on to Waihi North, similar kind of question there as well. The decline development seems to be progressing well. Is there a target you have in mind, in terms of meters to reach by the end of the year? Also, have you started to drill test any sort of areas between Waihi and Upper Karangahake?

Gerard Bond
Gerard Bond
President and CEO at OceanaGold

Well, we certainly have a target to drill every month, actually. Yes, we're definitely on plan as it stands at the moment. We're still heading down, we've got to get to the point where we start the twin decline. It's about 200 m into that, which we expect will be in at around this time next year, that we are going past some known mineralization where we're certainly going to be having the rigs off to the side drilling, looking for gold. We're still heading down. Absolutely, along that 4.5 km of twin decline, we're going to have numerous exploration cuttings off to the left and right, looking for mineralization. The first time we expect to be able to do that, having regard to where we see, or have known mineralization, is around this time next year.

Gerard Bond
Gerard Bond
President and CEO at OceanaGold

You have to hold your breath, Ovais.

Ovais Habib
Ovais Habib
Analyst at Scotiabank

Sounds good. Just maybe a question for Bhuvanesh. In terms of the ground conditions experienced so far after the portal and the decline, that's all according to plan, looks all good on that end?

Bhuvanesh Malhotra
Bhuvanesh Malhotra
COO at OceanaGold

Yes, Ovais. It has been actually a very pleasing results from that aspect. So far, in 200 m, we had, as we have anticipated, close to 80 m of pressure that we compensated through, just in the last few weeks as well, and it was exactly as per the plan as well. Remember, last year, we had drilled two long horizontal holes of almost 600+ m and 800 m plus holes as well. That has given us excellent information and understanding of the geotech conditions. It's gone all to plan so far.

Ovais Habib
Ovais Habib
Analyst at Scotiabank

Okay, excellent. That's it for me, guys. Thanks for taking my questions.

Gerard Bond
Gerard Bond
President and CEO at OceanaGold

Thank you, Ovais.

Operator

Your next question comes from Fahad Tariq from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Fahad Tariq
Fahad Tariq
Analyst at Jefferies

Hi, thanks for taking the question. I wanted to ask about Waihi costs in the second half of the year. There was a comment that AISC is expected to decline, I think there was another comment in the MD&A and press release saying that production is expected to be flat or relatively consistent. I just want to understand where the lower costs are coming from, whether it's a grade uplift or something else.

Gerard Bond
Gerard Bond
President and CEO at OceanaGold

Thanks, Fahad. It definitely is a grade uplift, right? We were more reliant on stockpiles in the quarter just gone. We're back into fresh ore. We made that comment in the MD&A, that we're back into good ore. All other things being equal, when you have higher grade, your costs are a little lower.

Fahad Tariq
Fahad Tariq
Analyst at Jefferies

Okay, great. Just taking a step back, the comment about labor cost inflation, can you just provide more detail on whether that's at a specific mine or region and just what you're seeing and where that's coming from? It sounds like it's not really diesel that's the big impact right now. Correct me if I'm wrong. It's more labor cost inflation. I just want to understand where that's coming from.

Gerard Bond
Gerard Bond
President and CEO at OceanaGold

Well, we covered all the drivers of it, diesel was a factor because we weren't hedged at all at Waihi or Didipio. In the other sites, we were hedged 80%, which has been extraordinarily beneficial. You still had an unhedged portion. Diesel cost was a factor, labor inflation was the largest factor. The number one place where we experience that the most is at Haile, because we don't have any currency protection there. Sometimes labor rate inflation, it manifests itself in two forms.

Gerard Bond
Gerard Bond
President and CEO at OceanaGold

It's what it takes to pay employees or attract new employees into the business, but also as and when you rely on contractors, and particularly maintenance contractors, the rate of inflation in their costs, particularly if you rely more on them, and we did a lot more maintenance in the quarter, you tend to have a higher exposure to that mark into market of labor rates in the U.S.

Fahad Tariq
Fahad Tariq
Analyst at Jefferies

Okay, great. That's it for me. Thank you.

Gerard Bond
Gerard Bond
President and CEO at OceanaGold

Thank you, Fahad. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from Don DeMarco from National Bank. Please go ahead.

Don DeMarco
Don DeMarco
Analyst at National Bank

Oh, hi, Gerard and team. I heard earlier in the call that at Haile, the throughput hit a record in June. Just wondering if you expect that to continue into July and Q3 in general, maybe setting up for a record in Q3. Are there some mitigating factors, maintenance and so on?

Gerard Bond
Gerard Bond
President and CEO at OceanaGold

Thanks, Don. I'll let Bhuvanesh make his promises on that one. Bhuvanesh?

Bhuvanesh Malhotra
Bhuvanesh Malhotra
COO at OceanaGold

I think we will continue to see those rates probably improve. This is all because of the spend that we have actually made in improving the asset reliability of that plant, and it has been a long eight, nine months worth of process we have undertaken as well. We do have some shuts coming up that'll probably have to be factored as a part of the mill throughput, as you would imagine. We are very confident of ensuring that these grades continue to basically be delivered through the second half of the year, too.

Don DeMarco
Don DeMarco
Analyst at National Bank

Great. Thanks. That's all for me. Thank you for taking my question.

Gerard Bond
Gerard Bond
President and CEO at OceanaGold

Thank you, Don.

Operator

Your next question comes from Harrison Reynolds from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Harrison Reynolds
Harrison Reynolds
Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

Hi. Good morning, OceanaGold team. Good to see another solid quarter. One question on Haile. Notice you approved the paste plant. I remember this being under study when we were on site a couple of months ago. Could you walk us through the benefit of this, cycle times, lower costs, and what you saw as a result of this study?

Gerard Bond
Gerard Bond
President and CEO at OceanaGold

Bhuvanesh?

Bhuvanesh Malhotra
Bhuvanesh Malhotra
COO at OceanaGold

Sure. Harrison, there are two key aspects of the paste plant that helps us invest in that particular project, hence was approved by board. The first aspect, obviously, is the cycle time of the stope sequencing as well. We do basically see some of that accelerate as we start to see the paste coming through as well, especially because the curing time is going to basically be 14 days. That means that the stope cycle can move faster. Then the second bit, which is probably the primary driver moving forward of all of this, basically, is it helps us to really slow down the rate of the tailings dam rise that we need to do as well.

Bhuvanesh Malhotra
Bhuvanesh Malhotra
COO at OceanaGold

There's a huge impact to the cost and the cycle times that we would like to improve, especially in the open pit, because those waste runs are quite extremely longer as well. Thirdly, I should say this, another factor to it, which is about ensuring that the tailings capacity can be elongated of as much as we can as we continue to find Pisces and Clydesdale and all of those other things as well. Those can all be accommodated in the Stage 6 raise, which is what we would like to achieve.

Harrison Reynolds
Harrison Reynolds
Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

Great. Yeah. Sounds like a good project. That's it for me. Thanks for taking my questions.

Gerard Bond
Gerard Bond
President and CEO at OceanaGold

Thanks, Harrison.

Operator

If there are no further questions, I'll turn the call back over to Gerard.

Gerard Bond
Gerard Bond
President and CEO at OceanaGold

Thanks, Operator. That concludes our webcast and conference call. A replay will be available on our website later today. On behalf of the management team and everyone at OceanaGold, I appreciate you joining us and wish you a very pleasant rest of day. Bye for now.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Valerie Burns
      Valerie Burns
      Director of Investor Relations
    • Gerard Bond
      Gerard Bond
      President and CEO
    • Marius van Niekerk
      Marius van Niekerk
      CFO
    • Bhuvanesh Malhotra
      Bhuvanesh Malhotra
      COO
Analysts